Margot was by his side in an instant, gently rubbing his back. “Let’s get you to bed, Dad,” she said soothingly. She glanced at Sydney. “It looks like you’re going to have to come back, Sarah,” she said apologetically. “Maybe tomorrow?” She grabbed a glass of water off the table as she spoke and pressed it gently to Gerry’s lips. “Coughing fits like these come out of nowhere, and it takes my dad a while to recover.”
Sydney nodded politely, but inside, she was reeling. That coughing fit hadn’t come out of nowhere. It had been the mention of the missing photo; it had agitated him—she’d seen it. She couldn’t leave now.
“Could I use your bathroom first?” The request burst right out of her. “It’s a long drive back to Echo Bay.”
“Sure, of course.” Margot waved Sydney down the hallway as she began rolling her dad in the other direction. “Third door on the right. And sorry again about this, Sarah.”
Sydney gave Margot a weak smile. She waited for her to disappear around a corner with Gerry, then took off down the hall. She moved as quietly as she could, flinging open every door she saw. A guest bedroom, a linen closet, the aforementioned bathroom. And then, finally, what she was looking for: an office. She’d hoped it would be down here, since Gerry had no way of getting up to the second floor.
Guilt swelled in her as she sneaked into the room. This wasn’t some file in a firehouse; this was snooping around in someone’s home. But she had no choice. She needed answers. She took a quick glance around. There was a desk, along with a bookshelf piled high with novels and a fancy leather reading chair. Her eyes skimmed over the rest, going straight to the back corner of the room. There it was, exactly what she’d hoped for: a stack of boxes.
She glanced nervously over her shoulder as she squatted down in front of them. She could hear the faint sound of Gerry’s coughing drifting down the long hallway. She still had a minute. She rifled quickly through the boxes. The first was filled with personal mementos: a certificate of honor signed by the mayor, a Rotary Club plaque memorializing Hackensack’s years of service, and a whole stack of thank-you cards. She moved on to the next one. It was packed with files, all lined up in date order.
Sydney looked at their labels as she flipped through them. 118 KNOX RD. 22 WILLOW LANE. 7 ECHO BOULEVARD. She recognized that one as Pat-a-Pancake’s address. A memory danced in her mind, making her pulse quicken: blue flames tearing through Pat-a-Pancake’s awning, melting it to ash. It had taken the restaurant a whole year to rebuild after that fire. She flipped to the next file, banishing the tantalizing image from her mind. YACHT CLUB KITCHEN. 83 HERSHAW LANE. 4 DUNE WAY. WINSLOW SCIENCE LAB. And, finally, the very last file in the box. KYLA KERN. “Jackpot,” she whispered.
She glanced over her shoulder again, listening for footsteps. Instead she heard another bout of coughing, this one louder than the last. Her heart was thudding as she turned back to the file. It looked identical to the one in the firehouse: the same report, the same “before” shot, the same stack of photos. She thumbed furiously to the second-to-last image. There, at the bottom, was a number. 22. Sydney’s breath came out in a long rush. It was the missing photo.
She drew the photo close, studying it. Unlike the others, which photographed the entire boat float, this one was a close-up. It focused on a crater in the floor of the float, right in the center. It was deep, with a web of cracks spreading out of it. The crater had been easy to miss in the other photos, but zoomed in like this, there was no doubt that it was the largest hole on the ruined float. In fact, it looked as if that was where the explosion had taken place.
Sydney bunched up her forehead, turning back to Hackensack’s report. In it, he clearly stated that the large, gold star had been hanging in the back of the float when it exploded, not the center. She shuffled through the rest of the photos. Now that she was looking for it, it seemed glaringly obvious in every one: the worst damage was in the center of the float. Something had definitely landed there.
Sydney leaned against the box, thinking. The wind must have turned the star into a giant fireball after it exploded, propelling it to the middle of the float. Her stomach lurched at the thought of Kyla caught beneath it. She knew from experience what wind could do, how it could take a gentle flame and turn it into a ruthless hunter. It must have been horrible to be out there that night, with sparks tossing wildly on the wind, hounding their victims.
Except—there was no wind that night.
That was what Guinness had said. He and his friends never left the marina because the wind was dead. She’d looked it up later that night, too, curious to see if his story matched up. It had. She’d seen it in several news articles: how still a night it had been, windless and dry.
With no wind, the star should have landed right where it had exploded—in the back of the float. She stared down at the image in her hand. The crater in the center stared back at her, splintering outward. She’d seen many fires before. They ate through whole structures and turned wood to ash, but they didn’t make craters like that. No, something had definitely landed there. But if not the star… then what?
She could only think of one possible explanation. Something else had caused the fire—something that had been thrown at the boat. The weight of what that meant thudded through her.
Tenley was right; the Kyla accident hadn’t been an accident at all.
And someone had hidden the only photo that proved that.
Sydney’s head was swimming as she slipped the photo into her purse and hurried out of the Hackensacks’ house. Facts danced through her head, falling into place one after another. Gerry Hackensack had retired right after Kyla’s case closed. A photo was now missing from Kyla’s file—the only photo that seemed to prove that her death wasn’t an accident. And here Hackensack was, living in a house you could never in a million years buy on a fireman’s salary. If it didn’t sound so crazy, she might just think that someone had paid Hackensack to take that photo and run.
It was a chilling thought, but she couldn’t shake it. What if someone had bribed him to retire and stay quiet—the same someone who had caused the explosion? It might help explain the stroke Hackensack had six months after retiring; the stress of deceit could have sent his health spiraling downward.
That would make this a lot more than just a boat float gone wrong, another Lost Girls tragedy. That would make this a homicide… and a cover-up.
Sydney felt sick as she jogged to her car. She kept envisioning Kyla’s bright smile. She’d been so friendly, so full of life. Who would have wanted to take that away? Now that she’d seen the missing photo, Sydney couldn’t just let it drop. She had to do something. But what?
She couldn’t go to the cops. Not with the darer breathing down their necks. Maybe she could go back to the firehouse instead. Tell them there was another photo that should be included in the case file—an important one. Let them go to the cops. But even as she was planning out her course of action, she couldn’t help thinking about whom that might implicate.
Who had not only known Kyla but was now hiding the fact that he’d known her? Who had the obvious means—and family influence—to pull off a bribery scam like this? The answer slammed into her like a concrete block: Guinness.
She’d gone to the Hackensacks’ hoping to prove Guinness’s innocence, but even she couldn’t ignore the facts. Every finger pointed directly at him. The ring. The note on his bed. And now this.
She wobbled on her feet. What if Tenley was right? What if Guinness was the darer?
The question reared wildly in her head, but when she saw what was on the windshield of her car, it fled instantly, stamped out by fear. A square of paper was tucked under one of her wipers: too white to be a ticket, too small to be a takeout menu.
She looked around the quiet street. A ways down, a little girl was riding her bicycle as her babysitter watched. Next door, the smell of lasagna wafted through an open window, along with the theme song for Friends. There was no one suspicious, nothing amiss. It’s probably just a coupon, she told herself. Still, panic slithered its way up her throat as she unfolded it. There it was: the typewriter font.
She let out a choked cry. First her locker at Winslow, now her car forty minutes away in Pippsy. It didn’t matter where she went, or what name she used. The darer would find her.
Sydney was quaking all over as she began to read.
I spy with my little eye… a Curious George. Go to the Vault Friday at 10 pm if you want to dig deeper. But careful: When you play with fire, there’s always a chance you’ll get burned.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Thursday, 4:45 PM
Emerson turned the silver key over in her palm. Matt had lent it to her once, and she’d never gotten around to giving it back. When she’d searched through the junk drawer in her desk this morning, there it had been, as if it were waiting for her. At the time, she’d been flooded with relief. But now, as she stood outside the weathered beach house where Matt rented the top floor, her relief was replaced by a cold sense of dread. She’d tried so hard to forget the whole Matt Morgan part of her life. Now, she was walking right back into it.