Paranoid(52)

Mercedes, who was hell-bent to write her series about his death and was pissed that Rachel hadn’t agreed to an interview?

Nate, his best friend, who had seemed so untethered after Luke’s death?

Her own mother?

No, no. Not Melinda!

His father then? Out of prison recently.

What about a half dozen others . . . friends who were close to him?

But why wait all these years and then suddenly now try to freak her out?

Who hated her that much?

She passed by the cannery, didn’t stop, just circled back and ran directly home. She smiled as Reno trotted the familiar path to the side gate and back door. Sliding the lock closed, she pushed off her sneakers, let Reno off his leash, then reached for a mug.

After coffee, a shower, and a cup of yogurt, she sat at her computer for a while, going over responses to her resumes. Two. One that, should she get the job, would require relocation to Seattle.

No thanks. Not until Dylan had graduated. If then.

The other with a note that the position she’d inquired about had been filled.

“Two strikes,” she said. Lapsing back to her former worries, she wondered about telling Cade about the text message. As a cop he could make inquiries.

It wasn’t a threat.

Just forget it.

She had work to do. The kids were gone. Wouldn’t be home until after school, so despite all of her lectures about privacy, she braced herself for the invasion of her kids’ rooms. Determined to get to the bottom of whatever her son was hiding, she ignored all the crime scene tape and “Do Not Enter” warnings posted over Dylan’s door and started searching.

She didn’t know what she was looking for.

She hated to think what she might find. A cache of some kind of contraband? Drugs? Weapons?

She felt like a thief slipping into a house that was still occupied.

Ludicrous as it was, her heart was pounding and she was jumpy, though she had every right to search his room. This was her house and, more importantly, he was her son; she was responsible for his health and welfare.

She did worry that he had probably set up cameras in the room and even now could be watching her on his phone.

Tough.

The room was a sty, but that would be something he’d have to do himself once he was home. She was laying down the law.

So she didn’t pick up the cans and plates and trash on the floor. Nor did she change his bed or even straighten the covers, even though she’d checked between the mattress and box springs, then under the bed. Years of dust had gathered there, along with more cans, bottles, and dirty paper plates that had been stashed out of sight. She viewed the bottom side of the box springs.

Nothing.

She opened the vent from the furnace.

All she found was a fork that had slipped through the slatted cover.

His bookcase was cluttered, but hid nothing. His nightstand drawer was stuffed with a box of Band-Aids, a half-finished assignment for a class he took in grade school, a TV remote, lip balm, a pack of tissues, a bag of cough drops, and various game controllers. The area around his computers showed nothing out of the ordinary and, of course, the computers were all password protected so she couldn’t check what he’d been doing online.

His chest of drawers held folded clothes, nothing hidden beneath or behind.

In the closet his hamper was full of dirty, wrinkled clothes, and there were boxes of old toys and treasures that, she assumed, he no longer noticed. Some shirts were draped on hangers. There were a few small, empty boxes. Overall, nothing out of the ordinary.

She saw that his shoes were kicked into a corner and that’s when she noticed a slight bulge in the carpet, just inside the bifold closet door, a little lump no bigger than a mouse. She bent down and ran her hand over the bump.

Thankfully it didn’t move. Didn’t appear to be alive.

With a little more inspecting, she saw that the carpet wasn’t tacked down just inside the door. Instead it was taped, and within? A sock containing a thick roll of money: ones, fives, tens, and twenties. Eight hundred and thirteen dollars. Even though he supposedly owed a hundred dollars to that bully Schmidt for some kind of computer bet and acted as if he couldn’t pay it, the kid was willing to work off a loan with Rachel.

“Not good,” she said aloud, her dread mounting. She tucked the sock and money in the back pocket of her jeans, then continued searching the closet, half expecting to find a stash of weed, pills—God knew what kind of drugs—in the toes of his shoes or pocket of a jacket. She thought of the pills from her own bottle of Xanax, pills that she’d thought had gone missing, and the way Harper had shown her disdain.

We didn’t steal your damned drugs. What do you think we’d do with them? . . . Sell them at school?

Dylan had appeared stunned, as if it had never crossed his mind. Or had she misread his guilt?

She went over his room again, locating nothing more, then wracked her brain for other possible hiding spots.

The back porch where he kept his bike? She quickly made a check, but it turned out to be clean.

The shed next to the carport, where his skis and skateboard and camping gear were tucked away?

Nothing there either.

She stood for a second in the drive, as sunlight pierced the high, slow-moving clouds and a crow cawed from the house’s eave.

Maybe he was hiding something at Cade’s? Would he dare mess with a cop’s instincts and leave anything under his father’s nose?