Banishing the Dark (Arcadia Bell #4)(15)

Lon’s head jerked up, as if he’d remembered something important. “Wait. I need to . . .” He sighed heavily. “Let me grab a few things upstairs.” He grumbled to himself and sidled around me warily. “Just . . .” He held up his hands and made a few awkward gestures, as if we didn’t speak the same language and he couldn’t decide how to get his point across. “Just stay in the living room until I come get you.”

I felt a little sorry for him when he walked away. He seemed so defeated.

I knew one thing. If it was bad sex, it damn sure wasn’t my fault. Maybe he was too old to get it up. I’d remember that the next time he wanted to drink.

* * *

Lon was determined to leave before Jupe got home, and he only relaxed somewhat when he found out that the kid was going to a friend’s house to study for a test. We each packed a change of clothes, and after Lon made arrangements with the Holidays, we finally headed out in his SUV late in the afternoon.

Golden Peak was a straight shot down Pacific Coast Highway. Fog and clouds ringed the mountains and hills, and the gray sky occasionally threw a spatter of rain droplets on the windshield, but it never actually rained. The GPS put us arriving at eight, but Lon figured he’d shave off a half hour by driving like a maniac once we got out of the city limits. The road hugged the coastline, straightaways broken up by a million hairpin and switchback curves, and all of it dotted with RVs chugging in and out of scenic pull-offs.

Neither of us said anything until we crossed Bixby Bridge. Lon was never one for small talk, but I could tell the difference between comfortable and uncomfortable silence. “Can we put last night behind us?” I finally said. “I still don’t remember what happened, but whatever I did, I wasn’t in my right mind.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“How can I not? You’re being all weird.”

It took him several moments to respond. “Nothing happened between us last night, so stop worrying about it. I’m just . . . sad. It’s not your fault.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Yes, but I can’t.”

“Sure you can. We’re friends, aren’t we? You can tell me anything.”

“Yes, we’re friends,” he said softly.

“But . . . ?”

“We’ve got enough on our plate right now. Don’t need to complicate matters. What’s done is done.” I didn’t know what he meant by that, but before I could ask, he said, “When did we meet?”

“Umm, what?”

“Just answer the question.”

“The end of last summer, the day after my parents first showed up on the news.”

“Tell me exactly what you remember.”

“Why?”

“Because.” He exhaled a long, slow breath through flared nostrils. “I need to test your memory.”

“Again, why?”

“Do you feel like you’re having memory problems?”

“I feel like someone beat me over the head with a baseball bat.” I gave him a sidelong glance. “You didn’t drug me like you did when we first met, did you?”

A brow lifted. “You remember that?”

“Distinctly.”

He nodded, a little happier for some reason. “I want you to go back over everything you remember about our interactions together from the first day we met. Tell me everything.”

“Has something happened? Do I have brain damage from the coma?”

He blinked rapidly, eyes on the road, hand slung over the top of the steering wheel. “I’m sure it’s nothing that can’t be repaired.” It almost sounded like he muttered “I hope” after that. “Let’s see what you remember. It’s a long drive.”

And it was. Long and troublesome, because when I went back through all the minutiae of time spent with Lon, I began feeling the same way I felt when I woke up, as if my memories had jagged edges and didn’t quite fit together. Some were like pieces of old furniture covered by sheets: I could make out their general shape, but it was hard to tell what was underneath. But this didn’t seem to bother Lon. He asked a lot of questions, and whenever I struggled for a missing piece of information, it eventually came to me if I tried hard enough to picture it in my mind.

Struggling for memories was a lot of work. And between that, the road’s hidden hairpin curves, and two restroom pit stops (probably all the drinking I did the night before), I was grumpy by the time we rolled into Golden Peak. Grumpy, famished, and tired.

Maybe the PI’s office would be located over a pancake restaurant.

Just off the coast, the resort town was a cozy outpost nestled among redwoods and oaks. I couldn’t see much more than a couple of gas stations near the highway, a handful of restaurants—all closed, and it was only nine o’clock at night—a post office, and a few shops scattered on either side of a block-long Main Street.

“Population: 101 cats and 329 people,” said the road sign when Lon slowed the SUV to a crawl. “Oh, boy. You know how much I love cats.”

“There goes your Valentine’s gift.”

I chuckled, happy that he was in a better mood. Maybe things were normal between us again.

“Just keep an eye out for a private investigator sign,” he said in an even-handed, classic Lon voice, flicking a squinty glance in my direction.