Page 23 of Killer Kiss

It had been his pride and joy once upon a time, back when he’d been a little blond-haired grommet who could barely swim, let alone ride a wave. I couldn’t help but smile at the memory. I’d taught him though. I’d dragged him out there every morning until he was riding barrels with the rest of us.

I wondered if he still did that.

If he did, he wasn’t surfing at the Saint View end of the beach.

And I wasn’t welcome at the Providence end.

I yanked his bedroom door closed and took the stairs, two at a time, my board tucked tight beneath my arm, my wetsuit clutched in my fingers. The sun was barely up when I made it outside, but I didn’t bother turning on the porch light. There was no need. I’d done this dance hundreds of other mornings and remembered it well, even if I hadn’t been surfing recently.

Trying to keep quiet so I didn’t wake Willa next door, I jogged across the yard and let myself out of the gate. But the car outside Willa’s house stopped me in my tracks.

“Shit,” I mumbled, staring at the expensive Cadillac Escalade still mostly shrouded in the gradually lightening shadows. The tire was as flat as a fucking pancake. Nobody was driving anywhere on that thing anytime soon.

I put my board and suit down on the cracked pavement and grabbed a jack and a lug wrench from the trunk of my car. It only took a few minutes for me to get the sleek SUV raised and the wheel nuts off.

The door to Willa’s house opened and closed, and a quiet gasp came from the older woman on her porch. “Jesus H Christ, Augie Mitchell. You scared the shit out of me. I thought you were some street thug stealing tires. Again.”

I wiped some grease off on my hoodie. “Sorry. Tire is flat. Didn’t want Lacey to be late dropping Luna off at daycare…or whatever she has on today.” I shuffled the tire around, not wanting to look Willa in the eye.

Willa came to stand beside me and stared down at my handiwork. “You really don’t need to do that with me, you know,” she said softly. “I know you memorize everything I tell you about your brother and his family. You don’t have to pretend like you don’t know they stay here on Sunday nights because I insist on having some time with my son and my granddaughter.”

Heat crept up the back of my neck. I was hoping she hadn’t noticed. It was fucking pathetic the way I hung on her every word, just so I had an idea of what was going on in Banjo’s life. Colt, Willa’s son, was one of Banjo’s three partners, so she had all the insider knowledge I craved.

“The invitation is always open, Augie. You’re family, too, you know.”

But we both knew that wasn’t really true. Even if I had showed up at her place in a suit with an expensive bottle of wine in my hand, she would have been the only one pleased to see me.

Banjo, Lacey, Colt, and Rafe would have simply packed up their daughter and walked out.

Which was why I’d never taken Willa up on her offer. And why she’d never truly meant it.

She sighed into the cold morning air. “He’s gotta talk to you sometime, Aug.”

But he didn’t. Banjo could easily go the rest of his life without forgiving me for what I’d done, and I wouldn’t blame him one bit. The fact Willa still talked to me only said Banjo had never told her the full extent of everything that had happened between us. I pulled the tire off the axle with a hard tug. “I’ll get this fixed up for them before they wake up. They’re going to need to go to the shop and get that tire fixed.”

“Thank you. I’ll let them know it was you who changed it for them.”

I shook my head sharply. “Please don’t.”

Willa sighed again but turned a blind eye when I easily picked the lock on the trunk of the car in order to get the spare out. She clicked her fingers in the air. “Oh! I was going to come over and see you later today actually. I have something for you.”

I wiggled the new tire into place and glanced over my shoulder at her. “Oh yeah? What?”

She rummaged around in the pocket of her scrubs and produced a small white business card. “I got to talking to the brother of one of my patients last night. Turns out he’s a private investigator. His office is in the city, but he lives out this way, in Providence.”

She passed the card over to me, and I took it, smudging grease onto the corners of the pristine card.

“Bert Leddith, Private Investigator,” I read from it, then passed it back to Willa. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

She pushed it back in my direction. “I thought maybe he could help you with looking for your friend, Fawn. She hasn’t been found yet, has she? I still see your missing posters all around town…”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “No. She hasn’t been found.”

“Talk to this guy then. I told him what I knew, and he thinks he can help you.”

I hated the tiny spark of hope that lit up inside me again. I’d had too many of those, only for them all to be viciously stamped out.

“What have you got to lose, Aug?” Willa asked.

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