Page 5 of Code Violation

Nero was mildly embarrassed that he hadn’t made the connection himself. It seemed everyone was related to everyone in this town one way or another; he supposed this shouldn’t have come as a surprise to him.

Fernsby continued to pin Nero with his gaze for several long, uncomfortable moments. Nero automatically straightened his posture, as if that would somehow make him more trustworthy to this guardian to the portal of knowledge. He resisted running his fingers through his hair to flatten it. His hair had a mind of its own.

“What was Kaylee like?” Nero finally asked.

“I babysat her when she was a child. She was a typical teenager for the most part, testing her parents at every turn. My uncle, Bruce”—Fernsby eyed Nero again—“he had traditional ideas about how girls should be. Conservative ideas. Kaylee wanted to experience the world. She was smart, wanted to be an engineer Would have been good at it too.”

“Did she have a boyfriend?”

Fernsby glanced down at the counter and back up at Nero. “I don’t think she did, but by the time she was in high school, Kaylee didn’t want to hang out with me much, even if I wasn’t that much older.”

Nero cocked his head, trying to figure out what Fernsby wanted to tell him. The tiny rainbow sticker on the corner of his name badge caught his eye again.

“Was Kaylee seeing someone not a boy?” Nero guessed.

Fernsby nodded. “I was the only one who knew. As far as I knew, the only one she ever told.”

If Kaylee’s conservative father had learned she was gay, would he have been angry enough to resort to violence?

“Do you think?—”

“No,” Fernsby said emphatically. “I don’t. Bruce was devastated, a changed man after Kaylee… was found. I suppose he could have been responsible, maybe in a rage. But he was her father.”

Nero didn’t point out that stranger abduction was very rare. More often than not, women were killed by male family members. Fernsby was probably fully aware of the statistics—he was a librarian, after all.

“Thank you for telling me. I’d like to talk to you again, learn more about Kaylee, so that when I do the show, I can present her three-dimensionally. That is, if you don’t mind.”

“I’m here two days a week, easy enough to track down.” His tone returned to crisp and unemotional. The conversation about his cousin was over for the day.

* * *

“Ugh,” Nero said to the gray clouds.

The weather hadn’t changed while Nero’d been inside the library. It was still drizzling heavily. He paused on the steps of the tiny wooden building that had once been someone’s home and re-buttoned his peacoat, flipping up the collar so water didn’t drip down his neck. The Cooper Mansion was one block down while The Steam Donkey, the town’s pub, and a warm lunch were the other direction.

Obviously, he wouldn’t be able to get inside the mansion yet, but curiosity tugged at him as it always did. Promising himself a warm meal afterward, he turned toward the historic building.

Wrought iron fencing that surrounded the structure was the first thing Nero noticed as he approached. Nero paused on the sidewalk and took in what had once been a magnificent building. Cooper Mansion was one of those Victorian/Edwardian mashups from the 1880s that looked like the architect hadn’t wanted to commit to one style. During his travels, Nero had seen a handful of these spread across the Olympic Peninsula, all built by timber money. The mansion desperately needed a new roof and gutters and every windowpane in the front was cracked. Based on the general air of disrepair, he wasn’t sure how anything stored in there was safe from the elements.

Disheartened, Nero decided not to move his truck from where it was parked and turned around on the sidewalk to head toward the pub.

He’d walked a block when he felt his cell phone vibrate in his jeans pocket. Most of the time, the thing served as an expensive paperweight in this town, to the extent that he didn’t know why he carried it around with him. The stars and a satellite must have aligned perfectly today because a text from his mother had made its way through.

Mom: I’ve been thinking about you. I hope you’re doing okay.

Nero drew air in through his nose and held it for a minute, along with a healthy dose of well-earned guilt. He should’ve stopped by for a visit when he sped along I-5 through Olympia on his way to Cooper Springs last month, but he hadn’t told her he was coming back to Washington State. He also hadn’t told her that he and Austin were finished.

Just another failure on his part.

His mom meant well, and he knew how much she loved him. Which was better than one would probably expect from, say, a devout Christian his mother’s age. Nero had been anxious for days and unable to sleep when he’d decided to come out to her. Lili Vik had just smiled and hugged him tightly and then they’d gone and had espresso and croissants together at the French bakery. It was still a favorite memory.

But she didn’t understand him.

Visiting with his mom would be stilted, peppered with questions that led to the same answers: Yes, he was still actively looking for Cousin Donny. Yes, he was aware Donny had been missing for over twenty years. And now he’d added Kaylee and the two missing teens to his list. And the missing girl from last fall, Blair Cruz. He re-pocketed his phone. He’d connect with her later. At some point.

Ten minutes later, thoroughly wet in a way that only drizzling rain could achieve and sporting the frizzy hair to go along with it, Nero stepped inside the Steam Donkey.

* * *

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