“We’ll search the grounds tonight. But nothing is back there. There’s no body, Aiden.”
* Little side relationships like this are some of my favorite things to write. Bickering siblings, friends, and so on—people who love each other and are completely themselves with each other. I adore Caroline and her relationship with Aiden, especially because I have a younger brother myself.
* This is the dress Juniper is wearing in the character art featured in this special edition, done by the incomparable Mary Watson.
* This is another random line that I cackled while writing. I can picture Aiden’s exact expression.
* I try to give each of my characters their own signature scent, because the five senses help ground the reader in the story, and I want that immersion.
* Description taken straight from my memory of high school dances.
* Although Rocco’s hair is dark, I picture someone like Kenneth Branagh for him; an easy smile and cheerful countenance.
* Can you even imagine? What an odd sight he would be.
* I struggled with the timeline for this book, and specifically for this genre, because in a murder mystery, characters should generally discover the dead body early on—earlier than eight chapters in. But because this is also a romance, and because the mystery encompasses the past as well, the timeline had to be tweaked a bit.
9
IN WHICH AIDEN REGRETS SAYING YES
Isleep in later than normal the next morning, due to the horror-tinged nightmares that keep me tossing and turning for most of the night. This is my first interaction with a dead body, so I can’t say for certain, but I’d hazard a guess that nightmares are pretty normal in a situation like this; Juniper probably had them too. I was able to keep calm last night—though when I was brushing my teeth before bed, my face was as pale as I’d ever seen it—partly because the reality hadn’t sunk in.
Now, though, in the light of day, the truth seems undeniable: that was a dead body in the woods behind Solomon the Spud. It was a girl. And even though she had vanished by the time Garrity got there, I know what I saw.
I shiver thinking about this; for someone to have moved the body in the fifteen minutes before the sheriff arrived, they must have been there when we found her. That doesn’t sit particularly well with me.
And I think she was a student. Astudent. What was hername? I don’t have keys to the school, but surely I can find out somehow. Right?
I force myself out of bed—and away from these thoughts—and move to the en suite bathroom. I pause partway through brushing my teeth to scrub at a few spots on the mirror with my sleeve; then I continue, splashing an extra bit of cold water on my face when I’m done. Despite the water and the late morning, though, there are still dark circles under my eyes, and my hair looks especially unkempt.
I’m looking a bit more human by the time I get out of the shower, though. I pull on some jeans and a sweater and then head out of my room.
I’m not sure what Juniper is going to be like today, but I’m a little nervous to find out. Everyone reacts to trauma differently. Will she still be in shock like she was last night? Will she be calm? Hysterical? Somewhere in between? I’m not sure I can handle a hysterical Juniper.
I scrub my hand over my scruff as I think about that, my steps slower and warier as I approach the living room and kitchen areas. What would a hysterical Juniper even look like? Similar to how she was when we first saw the girl?
Crying. There would be lots of crying.
By the time I reach the living room, I’m ready for just about anything. She might shout, she might cry, she might be catatonic—I’ve talked myself through all these possibilities, as well as formulated a plan for each one. Most of those plans involve a desperate call to Caroline followed by a swift exit on my part.
When I spot my pink-haired roommate, though, all those plans and possibilities fly out of my head as I try to make sense of what I’m seeing.
Juniper is standing in the middle of the room, her eyes narrowed in concentration. She’s wearing…well. I don’t even knowwhatshe’s wearing. It’s some sort of ode to Halloween—black leggings patterned with white ghosts, an oversized orange sweatshirt, and one of those headbands that has two long springs coming off the top. The springs are attached to little pumpkins, which dance wildly with every little move she makes. There’s a slightly manic gleam in her eyes that has me approaching slowly, my hands outstretched in a placating gesture.I come in peace,those hands say.Don’t bite me.
“Hey,” I say, my voice deceptively calm. “How’s it going?”
“Good,” she says breathlessly. “Good. It’s going good.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, concealing my skepticism as I nod and look around. There are fall decorations strewn everywhere, an explosion of fabric leaves and red-orange garlands and fake pumpkins. There’s also an honest-to-goodnesstwigtangled in Juniper’s hair—how on earth did that even get there?—so that it looks like she’s just tumbled out of a tree. Her shirt, I also notice, is on inside out.
It could not be clearer that nothing is good with this woman right now. I don’t blame her; I’m not feeling good either.
“So,” I say. I try to keep my voice conversational rather than accusing or confrontational. “Where did you get all of this?”
“At the store,” she says distractedly. She’s still got that feverish spark in her eyes as her gaze ping-pongs around the room. She tilts her head, considering something, which makes the little pumpkins on her headband flop sideways.
I look at my watch, frowning. “Already? It’s only nine-forty-five. When did you have time to go to the store?”
