I also can’t help but notice that May gave us exactly what we needed—a new suspect with motive, means, and a thirty-year connection to the land Nolan wanted to destroy.
CHAPTER 11
Apparently, my approach to undercover investigation involves getting trapped by holiday decorations in hundred-degree heat, which explains why I’m not employed by actual detective agencies and probably why my guidance counselor suggested hospitality management instead of law enforcement.
Also, we decided to put off our visit to the community gardens for a bit once we realized it was an outdoor event that required spending more time in the relenting heat and away from an actual beach.
Not that I’m at the beach now.
It’s later that afternoon, the heat has reached biblical proportions, and I’m crawling through the resort’s attic space looking for any clues about our mysterious owner, Mr. X—the man who signs my paychecks but doesn’t exist in any searchable database or have a physical form that anyone’s ever seen.
The air up here is thick enough to swim through, heavywith the scent of old wood, dust that’s probably older than I am, and what might be decades of accumulated gecko droppings, which is honestly the least concerning thing I’ve encountered today. Sweat drips into my eyes with persistence as if it’s trying to make a point, and I navigate around boxes labeled things likePool Filters(Broken),Towels(Condemned), and my personal favorite,Hope(Abandoned).
“Come on, Mr. X,” I mutter, wiping my forehead with the back of my hand and leaving what I’m sure is an attractive streak of grime across my face. “You’ve got to have left something up here that tells us who you actually are. Tax returns, love letters, a conveniently detailed confession—I’m not picky.”
I spot a promising box in the corner labeledOffice Filesin handwriting that looks like it was done during the Reagan administration, and I army-crawl toward it with the determination of a women who’s definitely making interesting life choices. This is when my luck decides to take its usual vacation to somewhere far away from me.
My knee goes through a rotted floorboard with a crack that sounds expensive. I lurch forward to catch myself because falling through the ceiling would be hard to explain to Detective Hale, and somehow—through what I can only assume is a conspiracy between physics and the universe’s sense of humor—I manage to fall directly into the world’s largest box of twinkle lights.
Because when it’s not Christmas, this is where holiday decorations come to die, and they’ve been waiting for me.
The lights explode around me like confetti made of wire and tiny bulbs and decades of tangled frustration, and withinseconds, I’m wrapped up tighter than a burrito made of bad decisions and regret.
My wrist gets caught behind my back at an angle that definitely isn’t natural, my ankle is twisted in what feels like seventeen different directions, including some I didn’t know existed, and I’m pretty sure there’s a string of lights trying to strangle me while another one is attempting to saw off my circulation.
“Perfect,” I say to the universe at large. “This is exactly how I wanted to spend my afternoon.”
“Ms. Julep?”
That voice.
That low, gravelly, annoyinglyperfectvoice that makes my knees forget how to work properly, and my brain forget how to form coherent sentences.
I freeze, which is unfortunate since freezing just makes the lights tighten around me like a festive boa constrictor that’s really committed to the holiday spirit—and constricting.
“I heard a noise and decided to investigate,” Detective Koa Hale’s voice continues from somewhere below me, and he sounds concerned, which somehow makes this worse. “What are you doing up there?”
“Oh, this?” I try to sound casual, which is challenging when you’re wrapped in Christmas lights and probably turning purple. “Just some light afternoon yoga. Very advanced poses. You probably wouldn’t understand unless you’ve achieved enlightenment and also lost your mind.” Which, evidently, I have.
I hear footsteps on the ladder leading up to the attic—confident, measured steps that suggest he’s climbed many ladders and never once fallen through a ceiling—and then his headappears through the access opening. He takes one look at me—trapped in a nest of twinkle lights like the world’s least successful Christmas ornament, possibly the worst one on the tree that gets hidden in the back—and his eyebrows rise toward his hairline in what I can only interpret as a mixture of concern and bewilderment.
“Let me guess,” he says, climbing into the attic with considerably more grace than I managed. “You were looking for evidence.”
“I was looking for... air conditioning repair manuals?” I say because I’ve decided lying while trapped is a good strategy.
“In a box labeledChristmas Decorations?”
“You never know where people keep important documents. I once found my birth certificate in a box of Girl Scout cookies. Different situation, but same principle.”
He moves closer, and even in the stifling heat of the attic, I catch that scent—ocean salt, soap, and something indefinably masculine that makes my brain short-circuit. His uniform shirt has given up the fight against the humidity, clinging to his chest in ways that should be illegal in seventeen states.
“How exactly did you manage this?” he asks, crouching down beside my prison of Christmas lights with an expression that tells me he’s genuinely curious about human stupidity.
“Talent,” I say, trying to maintain some dignity while wrapped in festive wire. “Years of practice at making simple tasks unnecessarily complicated. It’s a gift, really. Some people have perfect pitch—I have perfect disaster.”
There is no greater truth.
He reaches out and starts working at the knot near my wrist, his fingers brushing against my skin. The contact sendselectricity through me that has nothing to do with the string lights.
