“Then it’s good that I’m not afraid of the truth, and I’m not running anywhere,” Tosh said.
“We’ll see,” Durante replied.
“One of the saddest things about this is that Candy loved chaos, and she doesn’t get to be a part of this. I hope ghosts are real and she’s watching everyone unravel,” Tosh said.
Torie stiffened beneath his arm but didn’t pull away. Durante looked at them both for several moments. He then turned and walked out.
He found Zach sitting on a bench staring at the ocean, his expression unreadable. Durante lit a cigarette, standing there silently for a long moment.
“Do you know who was driving in the hills at two in the morning?” Durante asked.
“Not a clue,” Zach said, his jaw tightening.
“It seems you have a few new cuts.”
Zach laughed. “Murder doesn’t stop work. Old wood and tools don’t stop for grief.”
“You seem to have a lot of patterns, Zach. You get cut daily. You find bodies weekly. What else is a pattern?”
Zach rolled his eyes. “Bad luck seems to be a pattern lately.”
“Bad luck is simply timing we don’t understand yet,” Durante countered.
Zach raked a hand through his hair. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“You’re sure as hell implying it.”
Durante puffed on his cigarette. “Sometimes a person sees things and doesn’t remember until later. The smallest comment can trigger a memory. That’s why we talk over and over again.”
Zach froze. Durante caught it immediately. He put out his cigarette and waited.
“Have you ever been in a situation right before something terrible happened and then wondered if you’d done something just a bit differently, maybe you could’ve changed it?” Zach asked.
“Many times,” Durante said, practically holding his breath.
“I do remember something. Candy walked past me, looking sad. She said,I’m okay, Zach. Some things finish themselves.Then she walked away.”
“What do you think that means?”
“I have no idea,” Zach replied.
Durante didn’t know either.
But it was one more sin.
One more secret Catalina refused to bury.
The problem wasn’t the lack of suspects. It was that there were far too many.
Across the lobby, Ciscel passed by the front windows, pausing for a second too long to scan the room. His gaze skimmed over everyone, but caught on Harmony like it always did, like a hook catching fabric. Then he moved on, but the tug remained.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
What the Dead Remember
Mary sat in her room, candlelight throwing restless shadows across the walls. Warm wax lingered in the air. So did the ghost of her daughter’s voice. Moonlight bled across Avalon like an old bruise while the waves whispered what only the dead understood.
