“Idragged him in, not you. And anyway, this isn’t either of our fault.” Griffin checked his watch. “I don’t want to leave him here alone. His sister won’t get in for hours yet.”
“I can sit with him? I was thinking of trying Walter again—not springing him, this time, but I could text him. I could suggest he meet me in here.”
Griffin weighed it up. She’d be safe, protected by hospital security. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Call if you need me.”
“I don’t have your number.”
“You don’t?” She was right. They hadn’t been apart since Friday. “Okay, let’s swap numbers.”
She gave a one-shoulder shrug. “You can always knock me off next time you swap phones.”
She was giving him an out. He wasn’t sure he wanted to take it. But wasn’t that what he’d done, when he’d warned her off?It’s not you, it’s my stupid life.She’d agreed without hesitation.
“Yeah,” he said with a deliberately casual tone.
The corners of her mouth tightened for a split second. She was hurt, but that was how it had to be—right? They’d effectively broken up.
Griffin was followed from the hospital by a couple of cars, but no one hassled him as he parked outside Darnell’s and opened the gate. The house looked the same as it had the previous evening. He let himself in and wandered from room to room. Hewasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he wasn’t seeing it. No pile of documents. No whiteboard. No laptop—not that he’d be able to get into it.
Griffin stood in the middle of the kitchen. The laptop had to be somewhere, if Darnell had been surfing. He started searching. It wasn’t in the kitchen, the study, the living room. Not in Darnell’s bedroom or the spare room. He went out to the garage and checked the car. Nothing. Darnell did have a safe, but it wouldn’t fit a laptop. Griffin did find a large, curved shard of glass under the sofa—from a lamp that must have broken since he was here a couple of weeks ago.
He wandered back into the kitchen. Some dishes sat on the kitchen table, with the remains of a meal. A stack of surfing and car magazines, some mailers. All normal stuff.
How had it happened? Darnell was an early riser, so he would have woken, checked the surf conditions, had a quick breakfast, put on his wetsuit, grabbed his board, walked down the private staircase to the beach, paddled out… Griffin walked to Darnell’s bedroom and followed the potential route. In the garage, he bumped a hand along Darnell’s collection of surfboards. Four shortboards, a high-performance longboard, a classic noserider, a couple of fish, a twin fin, and the rest funboards. He pulled out his phone and checked the morning’s surf conditions. An onshore westerly, small swell. Would’ve made for messy, mushy waves, but Darnell might have gone out on a longboard or fish. None was missing. In fact, no boards at all were missing—Griffin had ridden them all, and Darnell hadn’t bought a new one in years. He was loyal to his favorites like they were pets. For all his big talk about Speedos, he would have worn a full wetsuit, but both his full suits were hanging from their hooks, along with his spring suits.
Griffin jogged back to the kitchen, his chest tightening. The food stuck to the plate wasn’t the usual oats and chia Darnell hadfor breakfast. It was half a salad. Darnell had been on a health kick ever since his heart scare. He ate a salad for lunch every day—and he never left food on his plate.
Don’t look at what’s there; look at what’s not.
The thing that was missing? Mess.
When Darnell had an obsession on the go—a parking battle with the council, a charity fundraising campaign—there was paper everywhere. Notes, to-do lists, ideas, documents he’d printed and highlighted and notated.
He would have opened a file on Vivien. An actual file, in a folder. He would have printed things—the guy printed everything.I think better if I can hold a sheet of paper. Griffin returned to the study. The desk was clear, the trash empty. A red light flashed on the printer—the paper was out. He located a fresh ream and loaded it. It whirred for a while. Griffin tapped his fingers on the side of it. Eventually, it spat out a single sheet. A printout of a still from a security camera—a car entering a parking lot. Thehospitalparking lot—the main one, not the VIP entrance. You could just make out the woman’s face. Vivien.
On the passenger seat sat what looked like a binder. The date and time was stamped on the top of the image—a little over four weeks ago. The day after she ditched her phone. Walter Shepherd had sworn to Lana he hadn’t seen Vivien for six weeks, but here she was at the hospital four weeks ago.
A revised sequence of events presented itself. The half-finished salad, the broken lamp… Darnell was disturbed yesterday while having lunch? Hit over the head, his body planted on the beach before dawn? And meanwhile they took whatever documents they could find and cleaned up the evidence—failing to notice the printer light.
Darnell had security cameras, but without his login details, Griffin couldn’t access the footage. Darnell’s phone was in hispocket, but he had no hope of getting into that—the cops had already tried and got locked out. Shit.
Griffin called Lana. She answered immediately.
“Have you talked to Walter yet?” he said.
“He’s on his way—I suggested he come to Darnell’s room on the pretense of visiting him.”
As Griffin locked up, he explained about the photo.
“So, this is our last-known sighting!” Lana said. “Which means either Walter is confused about the dates or he’s…”
“Lying.” Griffin closed the gate and walked to his car. A young guy was kneeling by the fence, laying out shells in the shape of Darnell’s name. “Lana, I’ll be there as soon as I can. Find the security button, and stay next to it.”
“You think Walter might…?”
The guy with the shells stood. “Oh man, Griffin Hart! I saw your car here yesterday, and wondered if it was you. Sweet ride!”
“Just a sec, Lana?” To the fan, he said, “You see anyone else here yesterday?”
