Connor propped the mop against the wall and grinned at them, happy to be interrupted. “Is it time to put up the Halloween stuff, Fiji? Doing it at night would be awesome! Want me to go get the Reeds?”
“No,” said Fiji.
“Then what’s up?” He looked from face to face, but there was an awareness, just below his smile, that something more important than seasonal decorations was up for discussion.
“The sheriff just came to tell us that Aubrey died from being hit by a truck,” Fiji said. Though her voice was neutral, every word felt like a stone thrown at the Lovells.
“Oh, I hope they’re not going to arrest Bobo?” Shawn said. He looked genuinely upset.
“No,” Fiji said curtly. She took a deep breath. “So here’s what I think happened. I think the truck chased Aubrey down and hit her on purpose. I think whoever drove the truck loaded up her body and dumped it over the bluff by the Roca Fría. Or maybe the truck pursued her across the open ground to the river and knocked her over the edge.”
“Not in front of the kids,” Shawn said with what seemed like genuine indignation.
“The kids,” Fiji said.
“What?” Shawn demanded. He’d gotten up, come down from the platform on which the counter was built. He faced Fiji directly. “You mean . . . what?” But there was a terrible awareness in the way he stood, as if he were bracing himself to take a blow.
“I’m saying that she disappeared the day the kids took Creek’s puppy to the pet cemetery.”
“So?”
“How’d they get the dog’s body there?”
“They . . .” Shawn’s face froze. Manfred could see the man’s throat move as he swallowed. “They drove it over there,” Shawn said quietly. “I couldn’t leave the store, so Connor drove the old truck with the dog in the back wrapped up in plastic.”
“And then?”
“Creek came back by herself. She said she’d been for a walk, because she was so sad. It was only a stray, but it was a nice dog. We’d never had one.”
“And why hadn’t you had one?” Fiji asked.
“Because . . .” Shawn said hoarsely, and then could not finish the sentence.
“Because of Connor,” Creek said.
She threw her brother’s name out like a stone into a pond, and the ripples spread and spread. Connor himself still stood by the mop, and he was still smiling, but it was like his face had frozen in that position and he didn’t know how to change it.
“Because he’s killed things in the past,” Fiji said with certainty. “And you knew he would in the future. That’s why you’re here, why you don’t want anyone to take pictures of you and your kids, why you try to limit their exposure to the world. But you had to let Connor go to school in Davy. You couldn’t homeschool him, not and work full-time here at the gas station.”
“He promised,” Shawn said. The man’s shoulders slumped. “He promised. We took him to therapy. We . . .” He looked at his son. “Connor?”
Creek’s mouth was partly open, and her eyes shone with unshed tears. She was so young, but Manfred didn’t think any life experience could have prepared her for this moment. She’d been facing the cluster of Midnighters, but now she turned to her right to face her brother. “You killed my dog?” she said. It sounded almost conversational.
Connor’s smile became genuine. This smile was the worst thing of all. It was broad and white and delighted, with no hint of shame or remorse or feeling.
“Well, I gotta say, you caught me fair and square,” the boy said. “Creek, sorry . . . but it had been so long.” His expression morphed into a strange mixture of rueful regret—he’d been caught misbehaving—and an honest appeal for understanding. “It was only a stray. You can get another one, right?”
“You promised,” Creek said, in an eerie echo of her father. She looked ten years older.
“Well . . . yeah, I know I did. But the urge comes on me, and I gotta do something. It was better killing the dog than a person, right?” He said that, but Fiji could tell he didn’t feel it. He was making an effort to seem like a boy with genuine human responses.
“But you killed a person, too,” Bobo said, and there was only silence.
Until Connor bolted for the back door. But that was where Lemuel had stationed himself.
There was no breaking Lemuel’s grip.
In the end, Connor enjoyed telling them about Aubrey.
The streets had been empty, as they so often were. He’d even seen Fiji drive off toward Davy, though she’d seemed preoccupied and hadn’t appeared to notice him.
“I didn’t,” she said quietly. “I don’t know what I was thinking of, but I didn’t notice him at all. Just so used to seeing the old truck.”
“But you said you saw Aubrey that day.” Bobo looked at her quizzically. “The sheriff told me.”
“I thought I was lying. But apparently, I did see her, after all.”
Connor grew impatient at Fiji’s interruption. “So I pulled up beside her and asked her if she wanted to go for a ride. She laughed, said she was tempted since it was a cute guy like me asking. She said she was going to hike to the river and back, so she could surprise Bobo when he came home. She was going to tie a scarf on a tree out there to prove she’d done it.”
Bobo’s head fell on his chest and his face twisted. He was squeezing back tears, and it was painful to watch.
Joe and Chuy slipped through the door and stood to either side of it, like sentinels. No one remarked on their coming or explained to them what was happening. The tingling of the electronic chime sounded weirdly commonplace in the pervading tension.
“What happened then?” Fiji asked Connor.
“So, she always flirted with me. Like that ‘ordinarily I’d love to take a ride with a cute guy like you,’” Connor said, his voice high in imitation of the dead woman. “Bobo, I want you to know that I just wasn’t interested in her that way.” Bobo did not acknowledge his words, but Connor went on, “I’m not one of these guys who kills women for sex.” His voice was laden with contempt. “But it was like she wanted my attention, she had to feel like I was interested in her,” Connor said. “I didn’t get it. But she said, ‘Don’t you dare follow me, now!’ in this chirpy voice, and she switched her butt as she walked, like she was saying, ‘Yes, follow me,’ so I drove after her in the truck.”