Most Likely to Murder

Prologue

To Edwin Stephens, summer was a tricky gift.

It gave with one hand—no students to manage, no parents to deal with, and no early mornings.

And it took with the other—he still had to work.

High school counselors weren’t exactly swimming in money Scrooge McDuck–style, especially at a public high school with funding problems. When he was younger, that had seemed like such a great thing, to have a job with summers off.

But he never really had summers off. Not on his salary.

He had to pick up extra work to pay the bills.

Summer meant he wasn’t constantly checking in on grades and attendance or acting as a buffer between students and teachers who clashed. No angry emails from parents about…everything. Instead he worked for his cousin, painting houses in the drowsy summer heat. Earbuds in, mind blissfully blank.

After the last year, he was heavily considering painting houses full-time.

His job weighed on him until his shoulders ached.

He was pretty sure he was developing an ulcer.

Things just kept stacking up, adding to the ever-present weight.

Students he’d failed to help. Unhinged parents actively making his life—and their kids’ lives—harder.

He spent every school year feeling like a man in a leaky boat with only a thimble to bail the water out.

But he knew he’d go back. He always did.

Edwin tromped into his cramped kitchen to wash his hands.

He still had some summer left, and he wasn’t going to dwell on the coming fall semester.

He scrubbed at the dirt under his nails from weeding, the water flowing down the sink a silty brown.

There was a splinter in his finger, a large one.

He should have worn gloves. Edwin kept scrubbing as he stared out his small kitchen window, which needed to be cleaned, not noticing the creeping darkness at all.

He was looking at his face and wondering when, exactly, he’d gotten so old.

He turned off the water in disgust, grabbing for a hand towel that wasn’t there.

Laundry day should have been two days ago, but he couldn’t be bothered, and now he had no towels.

He was considering wiping his hands on his shorts, though they were equally filthy and would have negated the last thirty seconds of work, when his phone buzzed.

He dug into his pocket, the fabric clinging to his damp hand, and took his phone out.

The name Amy Macnamara scrolled across the screen.

He grimaced and put his phone away, letting the call go to voice mail.

Edwin opened his fridge, pushing aside a take-out container and a large tub of yogurt to get to one of the beers that had somehow ended up in the back. He popped off the top and had just taken his first sip when someone knocked at the door.

Scowling, Edwin glanced at the glowing numbers on his microwave’s clock.

It was on the late side for a visitor. He certainly wasn’t expecting anyone.

Edwin lived in his grandma’s old house, nestled at the end of a dead-end street.

The street itself was dead as well, having no sidewalks or streetlights to speak of, and wasn’t the kind of place people tended to walk their dogs or anything like that, even in summer.

People on his street had dogs, they just didn’t seem to walk them.

If he saw one of them, it tended to be a jailbreak situation, the canine vying for freedom.

Then Edwin would get a knock asking if he’d seen their dog, and there was always a part of him that felt like lying and saying no, because it was the same people every time and if they couldn’t take care of their fence, they shouldn’t have a dog.

The knock sounded again, more insistent, and Edwin sighed.

The Jensens’ dog had probably gotten out again.

The yappy little shit had a way of sneaking through Edwin’s fence.

He usually liked dogs, but Mr. Jingles was all bark and no brains, and anything set him off.

Edwin kept hoping the thing would be carried off by an owl or a coyote, but so far, even they had steered clear.

He opened the door, ready to tell whoever was on the other side that he hadn’t seen Mr. Jingles, but he’d keep an eye out.

Only, it wasn’t the Jensens at all. Edwin blinked in surprise.

“Oh,” he said, momentarily stunned. “It’s you.

” Edwin’s mood quickly shifted from surprised to wary.

He shouldn’t be shocked that his visitor had found him—it was a small town.

A two-minute phone call, and you could track down anyone in Meadowvale.

For once in his life, Edwin wished he lived in a bigger city, the kind of place where you had a little anonymity.

Where maybe you didn’t know the name of everyone on your block, and you hadn’t dated your neighbor’s daughter when you were in sixth grade.

The kind of place where someone like this wouldn’t be knocking on your door late at night when you were off for the summer, because they wouldn’t have been able to find your stupid door in the first place.

Edwin sighed again, hand gripping the cold neck of his beer bottle, preparing himself for what he knew was going to be a long discussion.

He wanted to keep them on his doorstep out of sheer stubbornness, unwilling to have them in his private home.

He tried to set boundaries. At school, that might mean making sure he kept copies of angry emails from parents or that his door was open if he was alone with a student.

Home, the boundaries looked different, but they were still important.

“I’m off the clock. Please contact me through professional channels. Don’t show up at my home again.”

They didn’t listen. He’d known they wouldn’t. Edwin leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, as they cajoled him for just a few minutes of his time—his signature on a couple of lines, and they’d go away. Promise. He owed them that much.

He didn’t owe his visitor shit. He knew that. But he wanted a quiet night. He wanted to sit on his couch and watch a UFC match and zone out. If he didn’t sign the forms, he might as well kiss his precious peace goodbye.

Edwin stepped back, shaking his head. “I’ll get a pen, but I’m reading the papers first.” He frowned. “Stay on the porch.”

They thanked him—of course they did, since they were getting what they wanted—but he didn’t respond. He turned his back on his guest instead, searching for a pen, his mind already moving on to plans of a hot shower, a meal, and his couch.

It was the first of many mistakes on what would turn out to be the last night of his life.