Her phone buzzed loudly against the hard plastic of the kayak’s bottom with an incoming text, and she fumbled for it.
Dylan: Hey, I’m thinking we should check in with the police station at some point in the next few days and see what evidence they still have.
She sighed. Of course it was Dylan. She couldn’t even get a minute break from her thoughts about him, why shouldn’t he text her too?
Kelsi: Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll go tomorrow afternoon after the morning docket.
She put the phone away again, trying to reach a peaceful state. After a frustrating few minutes of drifting with the current and actively losing the fight to keep her mind clear, she finally caved.
In the past twenty-four hours, she’d seen her ex–best friend, the boy who shattered her heart entirely, for the first time in four years.
She’d been assigned a case alongside said ex–best friend, one which at first glance appeared to be impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
She had to have the case ready to prove to a jury in under a month. Not only that, she would have to see her ex-fiancé and his new girlfriend at the same time.
Dylan had been back in town formonthsand everybody had actively hidden it from her. He’d been in a severe accident, he could havedied, and would she have even known? Did he have someone else that worried about him other than his mom? That had been by his side in the hospital?
Her chest tightened painfully thinking about Dylan having somebody to go home to. She hadn’t seen him in four years, and a lot could happen in that amount of time. Hell,she’dbeen engaged—who knew about Dylan?
Being back in the town where they grew up, where they’d dreamed of settling together, where all their best memories had taken place, hurt her more than she expected. He’d been her best friend, and, at one point, she’d thought he could be more.
In the years sincethe incident, she’d tried not to think of him or look him up on social media. Not that it worked—the two-in-the-morning drunk social media stalks were her routine after she came home from a night out with Abby.
In the beginning, whenever she saw either of their moms, they tried to get her to share what happened or tell her what he was doing or something funny he’d said, but after enough times of Kelsi changing the subject whenever possible, they gave up.
She had purposely tried to push him from her thoughts for the last four years, and now that he was back, she couldn’t get him out of her mind.
What had happened to him in the past few years? He was a different man now. When they were friends, he was always the guy with the easy smile and laugh, jokes for everyone, and slightly shy demeanor. Now she thought back to how distant and professional he had been with her and wondered if that was because of her or something else.
Kelsi sighed and picked up her paddle. She turned the kayak around, heading back in the same direction of the waves and the wind this time, cutting through the water quickly.
The case she had was a mystery, but unraveling Dylan might be the greatest mystery of all.
CHAPTER 11
Dylan
26 Days to Trial
Dylan took ahealthy gulp of the weak break room coffee, grimacing at the bitter taste. It had gone cold in the time he’d been sitting there nursing it. He drained it and slammed the mug back on his desk out of the way of the papers he had strewn across it.
He’d heard some rumors around the office about this case before Banksy had presented it to him and Kelsi, despite her apparently warning the others to keep quiet. From the interoffice gossip, he knew this case was rumored to be cursed, and, after reviewing the file, he was inclined to agree with that theory.
He really had no idea how they were going to convince a jury that McGuinness murdered his friend in cold blood.
Dylan recalled the look on Kelsi’s face the day before, when they’d first reviewed the file together. She remembered the man as well as he did. If he was asked who from town could have been capable of murder? Charles McGuinness would’ve been the first name across his lips.
Kelsi was determined to win this case—and so help him he was going to do whatever he could to make that possible. If itrequired him sitting there, at that desk, every minute of the next few weeks, he would do it. Maybe not with a smile on his face, but he’d get her that conviction.
He’d thought about her constantly during his tour. Without much else to look at aside from sand and a bunch of other sweaty, dusty men, he’d turned inward, lost in thoughts and memories of the girl who had gotten away.
For one second he’d had her, and his world fell into place. Then she was gone. At first he’d hated her for making him feel like that before snatching it away. Eventually, though, he was left with a deep pit of sorrow. She’d been his best friend since before they could even walk. Nearly twenty-five years of friendship ended in a single night. The worst part of it was that he wasn’t even sure what exactly had happened between them. He had thought they were good, finally in a place to progress their relationship past friendship, but then she was gone.
Whatever he’d done, he now had a chance to fix it, to try to get back to where they had been. Starting with figuring out this mess of a case.
Frustrated, he scrubbed a hand over his jaw and tried once more to focus on the pages in front of him. All he could do was hope something stood out to him, something that had been overlooked by those who’d taken a crack at it before. He kept reading until the pages blurred together and the words became indistinguishable as he fought to keep his eyes open.
He glanced at the clock on the wall over his desk, noticing that it was past three and he’d missed lunch. Resigned, he started to put the papers back in order before his eyes fixed on the transcript of the police interview with Scarlett Frazier, the victim’s girlfriend and McGuinness’s friend, who had been staying at the McGuinnesses’ vacation house that night.
