To Catch a Killer(34)

As we leave the asphalt parking area, Journey slows and drives us onto a flat area lined with old, wooden planks. It’s a bumpy ride. He flashes me one of his megawatt smiles. “Won’t be long now,” he promises, completing the drive around the building to the front, which faces the water. All I can think is Holy wow.

The front of the old cannery building is still a mess and a half. But angled off to one side is a small cottage, shaded by a giant redwood and set in a tiny patch of grass and flowers. It’s quaint and charming and looks like something out of Snow White. Nestled here, in this setting, it’s breathtakingly beautiful.

The cottage sits up on a slight slope, no more than twenty feet from the water’s edge. It’s a simple, two-story, Cape Cod design, white with deep red shutters and a rolled roof. The building looks stoic and strong. But the most amazing thing is its spectacular view of a lighthouse way in the distance. “Is that…?”

“Yep, Cape Disappointment. It’s one of our most romantic landmarks. Our house was the guard shack for the cannery before my parents got ahold of it.”

“I can’t believe you live here,” I say.

“I call it Cape Disappointment, but my mother calls it Cape Can-do. Guess which one of us is the optimist?”

“It’s lovely.” My fear melts away. “How could you be disappointed here?”

“It beats calling it the Cape of Broken Dreams.” A hollow bitterness creeps into his voice. “Because that’s what this place is really: a pit for my family’s broken dreams. Miss P’s DNA experiment was my last shot to help my father. Not only did it not help him at all, but now I’m in almost the same trouble and I’ve lost Miss P. Like I said, just a giant heap of broken dreams.”

All this time I’ve been wallowing in my own self-pity without giving a single thought to anyone else. Suddenly, I get it. This is why my Uncle Victor does what he does, because nothing soothes a grieving family member like information and facts.

I turn sideways in my seat and lay my hand over his on the gearshift. It’s a bold move but I want him to feel the fierceness of my determination. The warmth of his skin surprises me, though, and I pull my hand back, folding it into my lap.

“I promise you we will get through this. We will completely clear both of our names. And then I will help you find the evidence you need for your dad.”

Journey takes my hand from my lap, cradling it in both of his. He leans toward me. I lean toward him, too. It’s like a magnet is pulling us together. I’m powerless to resist—not that I want to. It’s crazy, but the more he leans toward me, the more I want to melt into him.

My vision turns bright, microscopic, illuminating things I’ve never noticed before, like the sprinkling of freckles over the bridge of his nose. His thick, strong eyebrows. When I see the tip of his tongue dart out and wet his upper lip, my eyes flutter closed. I’m almost certain that Journey Michaels—the boy I thought would never even know my name—is about to kiss me.





18

A latent fingerprint occurs when the body’s natural oils and sweat are deposited onto another surface … which could even include another body.





—VICTOR FLEMMING


It’s not that I’ve never kissed a boy before.

I have. Many times.

Well, okay, not many.

Maybe a few.

What I’ve never done is kiss the boy who puts my heart into a drum solo with just his smile; the boy who makes my knees tremble and my hands shake. Sure, I’ve fantasized about kissing Journey Michaels, but I never thought it would really happen. I definitely never pictured it here … like this. And yet, here we are. I swallow hard.

My eyes flutter closed and my exposed heart dangles perilously. Then, just as there is the lightest brush of lips—before I can fully sink into the feeling—there’s a sudden loud splat. We jerk apart. I shriek. Journey cracks his elbow on the dash, cursing under his breath.

I blink at the windshield.

Why is there a large fish sliding down the glass? Its cold, round eye is frozen in a disapproving stare.

“Holy— What the—?”

“Damn bald eagles,” Journey says. “If you’re going to catch the stupid thing, eat it.” Journey opens his door and stands on the running board. He grabs the fish by the tail and flings it toward the water. Then he sniffs his hands and wrinkles his nose. “Ew.”

I can imagine.

He looks back at me from the doorway of the van, soft and a little wistful. We both know the moment has passed.

“I have to wash the fish smell off of my hands.” There’s a tightness to his voice that wasn’t there before. “But first I’ll park down by all that crap in front of the cannery. The light’s better down there and we can use those pallets to stand on if we need to.”

As he rumbles the van over the rough terrain, I take in the full spectacle of this location. A low stone wall and a ring of trees separates the two properties. The beauty of the cottage is a direct contrast to the decay of the cannery, which sprawls even farther down this finger of land to a rickety boat dock littered with pallets and rusted machinery.

Journey eases the van between piles of junk into the spot with the best light.

We both get out and I wait while he removes Vespy and sets her on the ground. As he walks back to his house to wash the fish yuck off his hands, I roll Vespy over to the wall and park her in the shade.