Page 53 of Nothing Ever Happens Here

Shelby sits there with the papers still in hand and a look of utter confusion on her face.

“This is why we are going under. Why there’s never enough to make the books balance?”

“I mean, yeah. I would think so. I imagine there is a way to stop it continuing,but if they don’t find him it’s not like the money can be recovered.” She doesn’t respond, just pages through the papers in awe.

“I only found out a few days ago. I was trying to see if I could track him down with this information, but it’s all been a dead end, so I think I’m just giving up.”

“What do you mean? What does that mean?” she asks, putting her hand on my arm and tossing the papers on the counter.

“I’ll give all this to the cops, of course. I mean, I was gonna anyway. I just wanted a day or two. And if the house gets sold from underneath me, maybe it’s time for me to go. The whole town…it’s hard to be here.”

“I know,” she says, hugging me. And we stay in that glorious hug for a minute before I pull away to wipe a falling tear and apologize.

“It’s not your fucking fault,” she says.

“I just think maybe it’s time to sell the cafe and go to get a little place near Rowan’s school. Find a job out there. I just don’t know anymore. But the main reason I’m telling you all this is because…what ifthisis why someone is after you?”

Shelby sits on the bar stool at the counter and looks at me. “Because Leo is stealing money?”

“Yeah. Because they think you’re in on it. What if they think you have to know since you run the place? What if someone else knows about the fraud and what if that someone else was fucked over—stolen from by Leo—and they think you two are partners in this laundering? I mean, fuck, it’s just a theory because why else would anyone be after you? Why not be after me? Maybe they know enough about it all to know he hid everything from me, but they assume you see the finances. I might be grasping at straws here, but it’s something, maybe.”

Shelby considers this. “Well, who? There isn’t one person I can think of that would be capable of this kind of stuff. Unless it’s him.”

“You think it’s Leo.”

“Well, fuck, Mack. I mean, you’re telling me he’s still out there somewhere stealing money from us. Maybe he wants us both dead so nobody else finds out, and he can get away with it all. And he must be alive, because he’s still making withdrawals,” she says.

I look down at the papers on the countertop and close my eyes. What can I say. She’s not wrong, as much as I want her to be. It’s just hard hearing another person say it out loud—that he’s awful. That he’s a criminal. That he’s alive, and is letting this all happen to me.

We both jolt when we hear tires coming up the drive, crunching over ice patches and rolling to a stop. The dogs start going crazy and we both stand and look out the front bay window to see Detective Riley and Detective Jones emerging from a police car and walking up the drive to the front door.

“Holy shit,” Shelby says. “I just pushed his shoulder and he was off duty. You don’t think they’re here about last night, do you?”

“I don’t know,” I mumble as I pick up Linus and shush Nugget. We stand looking at one another, and even though we are expecting the knock, it makes us both jump—the invasive sound reverberating in the silent house.

We both stand in the front hall and open the door to see Riley and Jones, their faces crumpled and grief-stricken as they take their hats off and hold them to their chests upon seeing me. Shelby gasps and holds her hand over her mouth, but somehow it takes me a minute to absorb what’s happening.

Somewhere between them asking if they can come in for a moment and the dizziness and someone pulling a chair up for me to sit and my heart in my throat I make out the words—and they try to tell me in a graceful way, but the truth has been uncovered and there is no way to unhear it. There are no threads of hope to hold on to.

The remains of Leo Connolly have been found. Leo is dead. Leo has been dead a long time.

22

SHELBY

The officers are sitting with Mack in the living room and I’m putting a pot of tea on because I don’t know how else to be of help. My mind is spinning—all this time I’ve been convinced that Leo must be behind whatever madness has been happening, and he’s been dead this whole time. Riley said that the condition of the remains, at first glance from the coroner, are consistent with him being dead over a year. It’s probable that he died close to the time he went missing, but they won’t know for sure until after the autopsy.

He was found under the ice in a lake, he said—caught on a hook by ice fishers who called the police. They identified him by his clothes and wallet still in his pocket. My God. All these horrible things I blamed him for in my mind, and none of it could have been him. I look through the doorway to see them all sitting there. Mack is as white as a sheet, although she has been preparing herself for this.She’s not sobbing. She’s just still and shocked.

I carry in a tray with mugs and place the teapot on the coffee table, and I sit. Riley is giving some spiel about how sorry he is to tell her this again, and that they don’t know too much just yet, then he looks to me.

“We would like it if you would accompany us to the station so we can ask some more questions, Shelby, if you’re able.”

I blink at him. “About last night? Don’t you think that’s a little insignificant right now?” I say, and he clears his throat, giving me a thin, impatient smile.

“No, not about last night. We’d like to ask you some general questions related to Leo.” I look to Mack and back to him, confused.

“What are you talking about? What the hell do I know about Leo that I haven’t told you six thousand times?”

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