Page 36 of Juniper Bean Resorts to Murder
But Roland, it seems, is not interested in my opinion. He keeps going. “Imagine your old college buddy tells you to come meet some hot friend of his girlfriend’s, and you get there and discover it’s yoursister—”
“Roland!” I all but shout into the phone. “Focus, please.” I glance at Aiden, who looks horrified; undoubtedly he’s imagining what it would feel like to get set up on a date with Caroline. “I need to talk to Lance about something.”
“You could have just called him directly,” he grumbles.
“I wanted to say hello to you first,” I say, smiling. “My wittle baby brother—”
“Ugh,” Roland says. “Shut it. Here’s Dad.”
I hear a shuffling sound on the other end, and then a familiar voice speaks. “Juniper?”
“Hi, Lance,” I say. “How’s it going?”
“Going just fine. I’m enjoying having Roland home for a bit. What’s up? He said you wanted to talk to me.”
“Yeah,” I say. I take a deep breath, trying to dispel the sudden nerves that are invading my gut—a thousand little needles, prickly and sharp, perforating my innards. “I had a question about my mom, actually.”
The tiniest of hesitations from Lance. Then, “Okay. What do you want to know? I’ll tell you what I can.”
The anxious little needles in my gut move fromprickingtostabbing, and when I press my fingers to my neck, my pulse is racing, my heart working overtime.
“I was actually wondering if she ever mentioned anything about my father.”
Silence.
Then, “What did she tell you about your father?”
“Nope,” I say immediately, shaking my head. “I’m not asking you to tell me the same thing she told me. I’m asking if you know anything more.” I swallow. “Please, Lance. She’s dead. She’s gone. But…I’m not. And I want to know.”
I hear Lance sigh into the phone, a heavy, static sound. “All right,” he says. “All right. Look, I don’t know much, okay? Your mother was not an easy woman to get to know, Juniper.”
“I know,” I say quietly. “Of course I know that.”
“But she got pregnant when she was eighteen, and it happened at a party. It was the summer after her senior year. All she ever told me was that she had a group of friends she hung out with all the time. They gave themselves some ridiculous name—the Elitists? No, the Elites. It was your mom and something like three or four guys. The way she told it, one of those guys is your father.”
The Elites? I never heard her use that name before.
“Okay,” I say. “What else? Anything you remember?”
“No,” he says, his voice full of regret. “I’m sorry. But no. She never said anything else.”
“All right,” I sigh. “Thank you.” I clear my throat. “I appreciate it, Lance. I really do.”
“Just be careful if you’re poking around, Juniper,” he says with a sigh of his own. “Don’t go digging up the past if it seems like it would be better buried. All right?”
“All right,” I say grudgingly. “Thank you. Tell Roland he’s a turd for me.”
Lance laughs, and his voice is lighter when he says, “Will do. Take care.”
“You too,” I say. Then I hang up, still staring at the phone long after the line goes dead.
For a few minutes, Aiden and I sit in silence. I don’t know what’s going on in his head, but mine is a mess—a tangled, thorny bush that’s growing at an alarming rate, painful new possibilities pricking at me with every second that passes.
“There’s nothing here,” Aiden says after a moment. He slams the yearbook shut, looking frustrated. “Or if there is, I can’t find it.”
I worried that would be the case. I just nod. “Do you think anyone has reported her missing yet?”
“I hope so,” he says. “But I don’t know.”
