Page 24 of The Game Is Afoot

“He is installing my brand-new security and surveillance system. I bought the whole package, the doorbell thing and the cameras and the panic button—they threw that in for free.” She lets out a long sigh and shakes her head slowly. “You know I had no choice with your little friend next door and her Ring-Ring, Bling-Bling, whatever that nonsense is called.”

It sounds like Ms. Joyce’s system is a lot more intense than Mackenzie’s Ring camera “nonsense,” but I know I can’t say that.

Instead, I remind her, “Mackenzie is not my little friend.” Even though I know there’s no hope in denying it, because I wave hello to Mackenzie when I see her and maintain a neutral, neighborly relationship. In Ms. Joyce’s eyes, that means I’m fraternizing with the enemy.

Not that Mackenzie Skinner, Ms. Joyce’s next-door neighbor, has really evendoneanything to be considered the enemy. Her life seems to consist of jogging around the neighborhood in neon exercise clothes, as far as I can tell. But she’s part of the new crop of people moving into a quickly changing Beachwood, and she once asked Ms. Joyce if there was an HOA for our neighborhood she could join. Then she installed her Ring doorbell and a couple of cameras, and Ms. Joyce took it as a grenade being thrown over the fence.

“I need her to know that I’m watching her,” Ms. Joyce says, throwing a deadly look over her shoulder at Mackenzie’s heavily remodeled black-and-white modern farmhouse.

“You’re really going to encourage this?” I ask Corey, and he shrugs like he has no other choice.

“I mean, I cooooould just do it myself.” Ms. Joyce purses her lips and taps her chin. “The ladderisin the back of the garage, but it shouldn’t take me but an hour to get it out. And I’ll takeit slow because of my hip replacement, but I’m sure if I bust it again, they’ll give me a discount on the next one.”

Corey makes a face like,Case in point, and okay, so maybe he didn’t have a choice.

“Now, Corey,” Ms. Joyce continues, making it clear that the discount hip replacement was never really an option. “I was perusing the manual that came in the box. It says the whole system needs to connect to the Wi-Fi. Do I need the password for that? Because I haven’t known that doggone thing since the man came to set it up. It was—something like…argle-bargle-nine-one-one? But that doesn’t work so I’ve just been hooking up to Mackenzie and Todd’s internet when my phone isn’t moving fast enough on theNew York TimesConnections game. You think we could hook this up to their Wi-Fi, too? Thisistheir fault, after all, and theyreallyshould be a little more careful, anyway. Their wedding anniversary was just too easy for me to guess.”

I can tell from Corey’s tight cheeks that he’s holding in his laughter, but he keeps it locked down. “Let me talk to Mavis real fast, Ms. Joyce, and then I’m ready to get to work.”

She looks like she’s about to protest, but then he holds out the canvas tote. “Oh, I forgot—here. I brought you some greens and key limes from my garden.”

“Okay.” She beams at him again, charmed. “But make it snappy, because Tamron Hall is on at one, and she’s having that Common on. He seems like such a nice boy, doesn’t he?”

She shuffles back to her house, riffling through the tote bag along the way. Corey waits until her door is firmly shut before he asks what he’s been waiting to.

“So…do you want to tell me why you have that picture from your desk at work under your arm?”

“No. Not particularly.”

He raises his eyebrows, clearly prepared to wait me out. Ipress my lips together tightly and raise my eyebrows right back so he knows he’s going to be waiting a long-ass time. There’s no way I’m telling him right now I quit my job; I haven’t even processed it yet myself.

The charged silence is cut through by the squeaking of brakes, and we both turn to see a gray sedan pull up to the curb. A moment later, a woman steps out of the driver side. She looks like she’s in her early forties, maybe older. Her dark hair is pulled back into a severe low bun, and she’s wearing a pin-striped blouse and black slacks, with a slight bulge under her jacket on the left side. I immediately know she’s a cop. My body tenses, and I involuntarily take two steps back.

“Hello, Officer.” Corey flashes her a one-dimpled smile, but I can tell he’s just as nervous as me by the way his left hand is curled, the thumb slowly circling the pinkie.

A guy gets out of the passenger side, and my eyes zero in on the same bulge under his jacket, thinking how easily things could shift…

That’s why it takes me a couple extra beats to place him.

“Hey, I know you.”

“Good morning, Ms. Miller.”

The male officer has close-cropped, shiny black hair and light brown skin. He looks around my age, but his gray suit and tie hang on him awkwardly, like a boy dressing up for eighth-grade promotion. He was wearing a uniform, not a suit, the last time I saw him, when he busted down the bedroom door in the Ackermans’ house and freed me and Pearl. He asked the first questions at the scene, too, before the detectives took over and brought me to the station.

“Officer De La Rosa.”

“Detective De La Rosa now, actually,” he says, and I see a flicker of the proud smile he probably gave his parents,announcing this promotion. But then his eyes jump to the woman next to him, who is clearly not amused, and his voice drops an octave. “This is—”

“Detective Berry,” she cuts him off. “And are you Corey Harding? Pearl Harding’s father?”

Corey nods, his smile still in place while his thumb speeds up its rotation. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Apologies for not calling ahead, but we found this address in your daughter’s soccer registration and thought it would be best to just head over. We have a few questions about Saturday.”

Saturday? Why would they want to talk tousabout Saturday? And why would detectives be involved in the first place, unless something…illegal happened?

But no. That’s just the anxiety taking over. What happened Saturday was tragic, notcriminal. And anyway, there’s definitely no reason for Corey and me to stress. I’m probably just extra jumpy because Officer—excuse me,DetectiveDe La Rosa is here, and it’s bringing up everything that happened with Principal Smith and Corinne. And see,that’swhy I don’t need therapy, because I can recognize all that on my own!

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