Page 56 of Nothing Ever Happens Here

“See!” Herb says.

“But it’s not Shelby,” she continues, getting up to dump her Lean Pocket in the trash and pour herself a paper cup of chardonnay from the box of wine in the fridge. “I’d know if she were nuts. I have a sixth sense about that kind of stuff.”

“That’s helpful,” Herb says, flailing his arms and rolling his eyes.

“We know she wasn’t here when the power went out that night,” I say, as if that’s definitive proof of something, but I know it’s not. I’m just trying to tick through all the boxes and see what the hell I’m missing.

“And if we tell them that when they ask us, they’ll say she could have come back anytime unseen, it’s a big enough building to sneak into,” Mort adds.

“Well, the one thing she would never do in this whole world is put her girls in danger, so the holes in the ice, that wasn’t her. End of subject.”

We all stare around the room, no ideas left. The crackling of the fire and the wind howling outside fill the silence. After a few minutes, Millie says she’s going to her room to watchMagnum, P.I., and a little while after that, Mort and Herb retreat to their rooms as well, and I sit by myself and watch the snow fly sideways under the glow of the streetlamp in the front lot and think about Bernie some more.

After some time, I realize I have started to doze off, so I get up and make a cup of tea to bring to my room for the evening. It’s only just after eight, but everyone is tired and defeated and very sad. I walk down the hall dunking my tea bag mindlessly into my mug of hot water and my mind is very far away until I’m jolted back to the present moment when I pass Herb’s room and see something I recognize.

There is something blinking on his television screen. He’s fallen asleep in the recliner in his room with his remote in one hand, video game controller on his chest, and a near empty beer in the other hand. I stare at the television, then I push on his shoulder to wake him up.

“Herb. Herb, get up,” I say, and he opens his eyes and scowls.

“What the hell, Flor?” he says, wiping crumbs from his neck and putting the beer on the side table,rolling to his side. “I’m sleepin’ here,” he says.

“What is that?” I point to the TV screen.

“What’s what?” he says, opening only one eye and squinting at what I’m pointing to.

“That! What does that mean?” I demand, pushing on his back. He pulls the wool blanket bunched up at his feet over his shoulders and remains turned away from me as he mutters an answer to my question, telling me to close the door when I leave.

My heart almost stops when he explains what I’m looking at, and how he hasn’t put it together is beyond me, but I know what it means. And now I also think I know who’s behind all of this—everything that has been happening. I don’t knowwhy, but I do knowwho. And I can’t quite believe it myself, but it’s the thread I needed to pull. The culprit got lazy, and just gave me the clue I needed to blow this thing apart.

I’m suddenly very glad Herb is asleep, and I close the door as quietly as possible and go to my room to gather my things. Time is of the essence. If it is who I think it is, they’re not at home, and I only have so much time to go and find what I need. I don’t know exactly what that is yet, but someone who has wreaked this much havoc and been this destructive—something will be there. The proof I need will be there, even if I don’t know what it looks like.

If I tell the gang they will try and stop me and tell me that it’s dangerous, but I know that nobody will believe me and nobody else will search this house if I don’t. There is no real proof for the police to go on, and I promised Winny, and I owe Bernie as much. I have to go without being stopped. And I need to go right now.

I bundle up in my biggest parka and wooly hat and decide I will call a taxicab to take me to the main bus station because you can wait indoors and there is a coffee vending machine and I can wait for the bus there—the one that stops at Willow Circle,and then walk the two blocks to the house and let myself in while nobody is home.

First I flick through my dresser drawer for the small ladybug box I keep my hairpins in. I pluck two pins out, in case I break the first, and then I sneak down the hall to the main rec room where only Sylvia Waters sits. She’s on the sofa with her head bent back and her mouth open and I hear a soft snore, so I work quickly, jimmying the office door unlocked with a well-placed hairpin, and when it opens, I move as quietly as I can, although my heart is still thumping and I can feel a cold sweat forming down my back. There is a nightstick and a Taser and a small handgun locked up for security, and the key is in Shelby’s desk. I’m much too afraid to take the gun, but I do help myself to the Taser—just in case. I slip it down inside my big purse and replace the lockbox key in the desk drawer and then I wait for my taxi by the front sliding doors in quite a nervous state, hoping nobody decides to come out to the rec room for a glass of water or something and asks what I’m doing.

What will I say? The reason I’m not taking the cab all the way to the house is because everyone knows everyone and I can’t be seen getting dropped off there in case this all ends the way I think it will. So I go over reasons I can tell one of the gang if I get caught standing here. But before I need an excuse the taxi pulls up, and I see that the driver is Lenny Miller as I rush outside. I hop in and tell him to step on it. I’m not usually so bossy, but this is a forgivable exception. I lie and tell him I’m taking the bus to the casino like a lot of the old-timers in town do because they give a free voucher for bus fare, and I leave it at that. He doesn’t ask any more questions, thank goodness.

When I get to the bus station it’s nearly empty, which is to be expected because a storm is pushing in. Nothing scary, just the usual high winds and blowing snow, but I think I can get there and back to the Oleander’s before it hits. Inside the station there is old wood paneling on one wall, and the carpet is royal blue and burgundy with a paisley pattern that looks like it belongs in the hotel fromThe Shining. I look at the schedule on my phone again to make sure there are no delays, and it looks like the bus I need comes in fourteen minutes, so I buy myself a cup of translucent coffee from the machine and a Milky Way candy bar and sit fussing with the wrapper for some time while I think about my strategy.

Where Leo is involved, money is involved, and there is a paper trail here. There must be. Drawers, files, a laptop. I have my big purse ready and my heated electric socks Herb got for me last Christmas, so I won’t get too terribly cold on the two-block walk back to the bus station where another bus leaving forty-five minutes after this one will drop me off, and that should be enough time.

The bus is almost empty, and it’s chilly and dark inside. The driver maneuvers over lumpy snow and the whole structure rocks side to side, making me nauseated. I could be in my warm bed right now watchingMurder, She Wroteand could have called the police about my epiphany, but we all know they don’t care what we have to say about anything. This is the right thing to do, I remind myself, and then it’s only a few minutes before the bus hydraulics hiss and it comes to a stop and I walk off into the icy wind holding my parka closed as I walk against it until I reach the house.

It’s a house I know well. I know that the side door leading into the kitchen hasn’t had a lock on it in decades, but also, with all of the fear and crime lately, most have started locking their doors.Notlocking your doors has been a point of pride for most people in the area. In fact, it’s a bragging right, and a reason to live here. We haven’t needed to, even when the rest of the world seems to be under dead bolts and security bars.

When I walk to the side and turn the knob I don’t know what to expect, but it clicks open. Maybe that confirms that I am in the right place—the only person in town who isn’t afraid,because they are the one to be afraid of. There isn’t even a lock on the door if you wanted to lock it, so I let myself into the small kitchen and stay still a moment to listen—to make sure there is nobody here. And when I don’t hear a sound, as I expected, I begin.

I start by rifling through kitchen drawers and cabinets. If I were a killer, would I keep trophies, the way Millie mentioned? When I move into the living room, I stand frozen for a moment, flustered, because this could take forever, and what was I thinking, and I don’t know where to look next. I see the door that used to be the guest room is ajar and there’s a warm light inside, so I decide that’s where I’ll go next, and when I push the door open, I gasp. I step back, hand to chest, trying to steady my breath and make sense of what I’m looking at.

It’s Shelby.

Photos upon photos, like wallpaper all around the room, of Shelby. A candle flickers on what looks like a shrine, with clippings of hair and small items I recognize as hers—a gold earring, a cotton candy lip balm she loves, a pair of reading glasses; and then I see fingernail clippings in a small jar, and my stomach lurches. The photos around the room are mostly candid shots—pictures taken when she didn’t know they were being taken. Some are blurry, like they were clipped from video footage. Most are everyday shots—Shelby eating a scone at Mack’s, Shelby crossing the street on Main holding a newspaper over her head, Shelby laughing at the Christmas party with a cup of punch and a Santa hat.

Some are more than that. Some were moments stolen from her: she’s undressing, or crying, or mostly nude, sleeping in bed. How were these taken? The whole room is a terrifying shrine that I’m standing in, and I suddenly feel faint—it’s more than I was prepared for. I don’t even know where to begin. Then I see something in a small bowl next to the burning candle. It’s an ID.I pick it up to see that it’s Leo’s driver’s license. My stomach drops and I know all of my suspicions are true. This isn’t just about an obsession with stalking Shelby. It all ties together.

I think to take my phone out and start snapping photos as evidence, because I can’t take the whole room with me. It needs to stay in context anyway. My hands shake, and then I realize…I’m not alone.

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