I STOOD IN my bathroom, palms pressed flat on the countertop, leaning over the envelope, staring at it. Fuzzy tangerine name, ringed with yellow, the whole envelope shading over into smooth slate, then rippling into asphalt gray and black. So many emotions. So many fears.
Did I really want to do this?
He had raised me. Alone. He had taken good care of me, even if he was a little more of a semi-interested roommate than a dad for most of my life. He’d tried. Until I’d found that box, and those photos with Bill Hollis in them—the ones that disappeared—I never would have even considered that my dad would be capable of hurting anyone. No way would I have considered he could hurt the love of his life. I couldn’t believe I was considering it now.
My mind swirled around so many possibilities. It was an accident. It was revenge. It was rage. He’d found out about Hollywood Dreams. About Bill Hollis. About Peyton. He’d tried to be calm and rational. But his love for her was so fierce. A love that fierce could turn into rage without meaning to, right?
I couldn’t open the envelope. My hands shook every time I touched it. My heart pounded so hard I felt breathless. Opening this envelope could change everything.
Wasn’t that the point, though? Opening this envelope could change everything. It could solve everything. Every question I had. Gone. Finally.
I took a deep breath, made sure the bathroom door was locked, sat on the floor with the envelope, opened it, and pulled out the file.
Dad had been a suspect all right. There was his name, our address, a mug shot, Dad’s eyes looking bloodshot and saggy, the tip of his nose red, his hair dirty-looking and mussed. I flipped through the pages, swimming through words and passages that looked important but I couldn’t quite absorb.
No alibi.
Murder weapon in kitchen.
Disputes.
The words opened up a world I’d left behind long ago—a world with my mother newly gone, and questions and images and suspicions and grief. I felt like I’d stepped onto a stage, and the set was my life, circa ten years ago. And it was all colored over in crimson.
I saw the word recordings, maroon and royal blue. There were recordings of Dad’s interviews. I laid the papers down and opened the envelope again, holding it up so I could peer inside. Sure enough, there were two tapes. I tipped the envelope over and dumped them into my lap. One slid off my thigh and landed with a rattle on the tile floor. I stared at it.
Dad’s voice would be on that tape. Fresh after his wife was murdered. How would he sound? Devastated? Bewildered?
Guilty?
I picked up the cassette and turned it over in my hands. I didn’t know what I expected—for it to feel strange, to feel telling? It felt like plastic. Plastic that I couldn’t listen to because who owned a cassette player anymore?
Dad did.
As far as I knew, he still owned one. The question wasn’t whether I could find anything to listen to them on; the question was whether I could force myself to listen at all. I felt light-headed and sweaty and a little bit gutted and oh so confused.
I stood, gathered up the file and cassettes, and took them out to my desk drawer, cramming them in with the black notebook where I’d kept Peyton’s letter. I didn’t want to listen when I knew I had to leave soon. What if it completely shattered me and I couldn’t leave at all? I would want to be alone if I was a hot mess of tears and snot and bitterness, not at the community center with an audience. I would wait until I had some extended alone time, swipe Dad’s cassette player, and listen until I had the answers I wanted.
I BEAT CHRIS to the Waller Recreational Center by ten minutes. He pulled up eating a sandwich.
I waited for him on a bench outside the center. I’d been watching the comings and goings, but because I had no idea who I was looking for, it was a pretty fruitless endeavor. Everyone could have been Heriberto Abana. Or no one could have been him, for all I knew.
Chris plopped onto the bench next to me, finishing up the final corner of his sandwich. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. He uncapped a bottle of soda, swigged it, and stifled a belch. “You been here long?”
I shook my head. “Not really.”
“What kind of trouble have you been into since I last saw you? Do I even want to know?”
I chewed the inside of my lip. “No trouble. Just hanging at home like a good girl. Aren’t you proud?”
“Surprised is more like it. You go through that file yet?”
I shook my head again. He didn’t press. I noticed the hair on his legs rubbing against mine. He was wearing a pair of orange-and-blue Hawaiian-style swim trunks. I’d never really gotten a look at his legs before. They were warm and brown and muscular. And now they were scarred, too, but the scars didn’t make them look bad. He had a towel draped over his shoulders and was wearing his sunglasses.
“You ready to go in?”
I stood, picking up my bag, which had a beach towel and some sunscreen jammed into it. The towel was old—pink and frilly. It had been a while since I’d last gone swimming. My swimsuit was just as pink and frilly . . . and small. Or maybe it just felt small because I was in public. With Chris Martinez. And a lot of exposed skin.
I followed him into the center and waited while he paid our admission. I could smell the chlorine on the air, and for a minute it was almost as if we were on vacation, or maybe just relaxing for a day. God, I could use a day of relaxation. It felt like it had been forever since I’d had one. Would my life ever have another relaxing day? Had it ever had one? Mom was murdered when I was so young—how do you relax after that? The thought made me unreasonably tired.
“Let’s go out to the pool,” Chris said, “but keep your eyes open.”
I quickened my pace to catch up with him. “What am I looking for?”
“Someone familiar, I guess.”
I pulled his shirt until he stopped. “I never saw the guy.”
He let that sink in for a moment. “Right. Look for him anyway.” We kept walking, peering into every party room and locker area and weaving through the gym slowly, pointedly. A group of guys were playing basketball on the inside court, and Chris stopped and studied them for a while, absently rubbing the back of his head. Thinking. Trying to remember.
I stared at the guys, unable to decide if any of them looked like a Heriberto to me. It was hopeless.
A few minutes passed; then Chris shook his head and continued walking. After poking our heads into a custodian closet and a restroom, we finally found ourselves outside.
School was in session, so there was hardly anyone in the pool. A few little kids splashed around in the shallow end, their mothers sprawled out on towels nearby. A bored-looking lifeguard stared off into space. I elbowed Chris and pointed up to the guard, raising my eyebrows in a silent question.
He gazed at the guard and then shook his head. “Nothing.”
We found two lounges in the corner, away from everyone else, but still with a view of the whole pool, and the entrance to the center beyond it. I spread my towel out on the chair and took off my cover-up, getting nervous goose bumps across my belly. I could feel Chris staring at me before I even got the cover-up over my head.
“What?” I asked, sharp, unfriendly.
“Nothing,” he said. “Nice suit. I didn’t really take you as a ruffle type of person.”
“It’s old, okay?” I snapped. I wished I had taken the time to go shopping this afternoon. Gotten a one-piece. A plain black one-piece. Ugly and boxy. With a skirt.
Chris stretched back on the lounge, then took off his shirt and draped it over his head to shield himself from the sun.
“You’re going to get a stupid-looking tan line doing that,” I warned.
“I’m not here to tan,” he said.
“Fine. Look ridiculous. See if I care.”
“Says the girl in a thirteen-year-old’s bikini.”
I felt myself blush and crossed my arms defensively. “I was fifteen, thank you.”
He gestured toward my chest. “You’re going to get a stupid-looking tan line doing that.” I glared at him; he chuckled.
Slowly, I uncrossed my arms. “Whatever.”
“Seriously, you look great. I’m just giving you trouble,” he said. “Not that I’m looking. I know how you are about that. Especially when you’re half-dressed in front of a camera.”
“Funny how selective your memory loss is.” I made air quotes around memory loss.
“I’m starting to remember a lot of things.” He leaned back in his chair again and crossed his arms behind his head. “Now I’m just hoping to remember why I was at this place. And what it has to do with that guy whose name you saw on my computer. If it has anything to do with him.”
I sat back, too, and was silent. Several employees came and went, relieving the lifeguard, chatting with one another; there was a shift switch at the snack bar. Every time I saw a new person, I flicked a glance at Chris, who was watching, nearly motionless. Either that, or he was sleeping. Impossible to tell behind those glasses. The late afternoon sun warmed us, then baked us, and suddenly he stood up and tossed his shirt onto the lounge next to him.
“Hot,” he said. He kicked off his flip-flops and headed toward the pool. I got a full view of the scars—surgery scars and some slick, pink spots where the road had ripped off his skin. I glanced away before he could notice I was looking. “Come on. I know you’re hot. I can see you sweating.”
Sure enough, beads of sweat stood out on my stomach. I was probably getting burnt, too. It was hot. But the idea of standing up and moving around in this ridiculous bikini made my nerves jump.
“I’m good. I’m watching. Which you should be doing, too.”
“I can watch from inside the pool.” He dipped a foot into the water and kicked a splash at me. It felt like ice, and I gasped when it hit my skin. “Come on.”
“Stop.” I sat up and pulled my knees into my chest.
He splashed me again, bigger this time. “You know you want to.”
“Stop.”
He didn’t stop. He splashed me again and laughed when I squealed and splashed again until I jumped up—completely forgetting about how naked I felt—and rushed him, shoving him into the pool, which was easy, given his recent injuries. Of course, shoving him into the pool was a terrible idea if I wanted him to stop splashing me. It only got more intense, and soon we were both laughing and it was almost like we were just two people having fun at a pool instead of who we really were—an awkward love/hate couple brought together by murder.
The water did feel good, though. I jumped in and swam to the far side and back again in one breath.
“Look at you, mermaid,” he said when I surfaced.
“Hardly,” I said. “I used to swim a lot after my mom died, that’s all.” Truth. Some of my best memories of Mom were together in the pool or at the beach. Mom loved to swim, and she passed that love down to me. After she died, I came to the pool to feel closer to her. I loved the way the water blocked out the noise and let me think. For those few minutes underwater, I could hear her talk to me. It was like she wasn’t gone; she was just in the water that we both loved. I tugged at my bikini bottom self-consciously.
“Never did much swimming in our neighborhood,” he said. “And my mom couldn’t afford to take us to someplace like this. Maybe that’s why I was hanging out here. Maybe I was just swimming. Or running on a treadmill. Hell, I don’t know. Who says I was chasing someone?”
“It was on your work computer.”
He bent his legs and propped himself against the wall, letting the water come up to his neck. “There’s a lot of things on my work computer. I looked up a restaurant menu today—does that mean I’m casing the restaurant? No.”
“Okay. Jeez.” I felt defensive. Like I had led him down a false path. Like if we didn’t find the guy who hit him, it would be my fault. “Haven’t you told me in the past that a bad lead is better than no lead at all?”
He thought it over. “Sounds like something I would say.”
“Uh-huh.” I sank down in the water next to him, aware of his shoulder brushing against mine. I drifted sideways a bit to break the connection. “So this was a dead end. What’s next? I guess we could go back to—”
He stood up suddenly, tipping his sunglasses so he could see over the top of them.
“What?” I asked, following his gaze. A man pushing a cart full of basketballs had stopped and was talking through the fence to some middle-school-aged boys standing in a recessed corner of the building. “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” he said, but his voice said otherwise. “I think I know that guy.”
“That guy?” I pointed, but Chris pushed my hand down into the water. I stood so I was shoulder to shoulder with him again. Ignore the rainbow, Nikki. It is not a good time for the rainbow. “That guy?” I repeated, in a softer voice.
He chewed his lip, still watching. The man opened his cart, handed something through the fence, closed the cart again, and moved on. Chris sighed, resigned. “I don’t know. I thought maybe I knew him, but I guess not.” He pressed his palm to his temple and rubbed in circles, a scowl forming on his face. “I’m so sick of this. The ringing ears, the headaches. Trying to recall something impossible.” He gestured toward where the guy had been. “It’s like it’s all right in front of me, but I can’t grab it. Every time I think I’m back to my old self, I’m reminded that I’m not.”
I watched as the man with the cart came back into view. This time he was carrying an armload of foam kickboards, which he hauled to the shallow end and dropped onto the deck, scattering them about with his foot. As he started back inside, another kid—about the same age as the last ones—walked out onto the pool deck. The man stopped and talked to him.
“Wait, I definitely know that kid, though,” Chris said. The guy shook the kid’s hand, clapped him on the back, and they went into the shadows. A few seconds later, the kid came out, hopped on a bike, and sped away.
Chris pulled himself out of the water and stood on the deck, watching the boy go. I scrambled up the ladder and stood next to him, shading my eyes from the sun. “Who is it?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I know him, though. I want to say his name is Sam.”
We watched until the kid rode out of sight, then got our towels and dried off. “So maybe you do know that guy, then. Maybe he’s Sam’s dad. Or cousin. Or brother or . . . or uncle?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Something in the back of my mind is telling me they’re not related.”
“Maybe he’s a mentor.” I pulled on my wrap and felt so much better covered up.
“Or maybe he’s not,” he said.
He slipped his shoes on, draped his towel over his neck again, and hustled back inside the center. The man was straightening the free weights on their shelves. Chris examined him, a pained look on his face.
“This is dumb,” I mumbled.
I walked over to the check-in desk, where a bored-looking woman was doodling on a piece of notebook paper, her phone trapped between her ear and her shoulder.
“Excuse me,” I said. She looked up. I tried pasting on my best fake Nice Nikki smile. “I’m wondering if you can tell me who that guy is over there.” I pointed toward the man while trying to remain inconspicuous. “I think he’s someone who used to live on my street. I want to say hi if he is, but it would be really embarrassing if he isn’t. You know?” I let out a breathy laugh.
“Hang on,” the woman said into her phone. She held it facedown on her shoulder. “What now?”
I fought the urge to snarl at her. “That guy,” I said, pointing again. Chris had noticed I’d gone missing and was watching me, a look of horror on his face. “I think I know him, but I want to be sure before I’m all, ‘Heeeey, how ya doing?’”
“Oh.” She glanced at the man, who had moved on to refilling the disinfectant spray station. “That’s our equipment manager. Heri.”
I felt my stomach drop. “Heriberto?” I asked, though I was positive my faked persona had faded away.
She nodded. “Yeah, that’s him. Heriberto. I haven’t been working here very long, but I want to say his last name starts with an A.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Wrong guy.” She went back to her phone call.
I turned to Chris. We had matching expressions on our faces.
I felt one side of my mouth pull up into a smile. “We found him.”