Page 56 of Juniper Bean Resorts to Murder
“We can,” Juniper says, surprising me. She picks up her phone. “I want to ask my friend Matilda for help. The one who set me up on the blind date,” she adds, her nose wrinkling.
“Gross.” Against my will, a mental image pops into my head of me getting set up with Caroline. I fight against my gag reflex to keep my most recent meal from coming back up.
“Yes,” Juniper says, gesturing to my face. “That feeling exactly. Like you’re going to throw up. That’s how it felt. I had a breath mint in my mouth. I was considering kissing him. My friend said he was hot. And then he showed up, and—and—” She breaks off, shuddering. “Anyway, it’s that friend.”
“If it were me, I might just set her loose. It feels like a bad omen for a friendship if she sets you up with your brother.”
Juniper sighs, looking sad. “We get along better virtually than in person. And now whenever we text, I just feel irritated. I always knew we were different, but somehow that experience seems to have solidified it. Anyway,” she adds, shaking her head as though to dispel all her negative thoughts. “All that aside, we’ve been friends for years, and she’s a paralegal in California. I thought she might be able to help me find more information about Thomas Freese, but I wanted to ask you first. Can I talk to her?”
“Yes,” I say immediately. Why would I not want to dig deeper into the disappearance of a man possibly connected to the dead body that still haunts my dreams? Especially when we seem to be hitting so many other dead ends?
I don’t bring it up, but also running through my mind is what Juniper said yesterday—that if she were writing this mystery, the culprit would be the one who appeared to have an impenetrable alibi.
Nothing more impenetrable than death as far as alibis go. Of course, a dead man can’t be walking around causing problems today. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to know more about him. “Absolutely,” I say. “Ask her.”
Juniper nods, looking relieved. “Good. Okay. I’ll call her.”
“None of this even feels real,” I say, my eyes dawdling absently over the countertop while my mind whirs.
“I know,” Juniper says with a grimace. “Things like this don’t happen in Autumn Grove, and they don’t happen to me.”
“Exactly.”
“Except…”
“Except apparently they do,” I say. “Yeah.” And now I understand why she has a pile of bobby pins in front of her—because when the world is going topsy-turvy around you, you want to dosomethingproductive. For her that must be figuring out how to write about picking locks.
“Let’s do it,” I say, pointing at the pins. I’m feeling just on-edge enough to explain away this desire to get involved in something I would normally leave alone. “Let’s pick a lock.”
Juniper blinks at me, her big blue eyes surprised. “You want to help me?”
I shrug. “Sure. Yeah.”
“But…” She trails off, her gaze sweeping over me. “I need to call Matilda. And don’t you need to go get cleaned up?”
She’s right, I realize with a start. I’m still covered in food from the food fight one idiotic sophomore started in the cafeteria today.
But for the first time since lunch, I forgot. Juniper made me forget everything.
My frustration, my anger, my burning desire to make these kids understand that food is a precious commodity—my pink-haired roommate made me forget all of those things that were drowning me when I walked through our front door.
“Yeah,” I say faintly, looking down at my clothes. “This shirt is ruined.”
“Of course it isn’t,” Juniper says with a snort. “What’s on there—is that ketchup?”
My eyes narrow as I glare at the big red splotch. “Yes.”
She waves one hand. “That will come out. Take your shirt off. We’ll put some stain stick on, soak it in cold water—it will be fine.”
“What’s stain stick?” I say with a frown.
Juniper rolls her eyes and turns away, sauntering toward the laundry closet. Maybe it’s because I’m still feeling a little warm after she licked me, but my attention is pulled to the hypnotic swing of her hips as she moves, every curve showcased in her leggings.
“I know I’m devastatingly good-looking, but please stop staring at me,” she calls over her shoulder, and I jump, startled to hear her repeating the same thing I said not that long ago. I yank my eyes away from her hips, only to find my gaze clashing with hers. I ignore the little smirk I see, turning around altogether. Staring is going to send the wrong message anyway.
I listen as she rummages around in the closet, only letting myself look at her again when she plops a bottle down on the counter next to me.
“Here,” she says. “Stain stick. Put it on the stain and let it soak in cold water, then wash it.” She pokes lightly at the ketchup stain on my shirt. “That will come out, no problem.”
