Chapter 27
Piper
Present Day
I’m staring at Josh like he just told him he’s secretly moonlighting as an astronaut and has walked on the moon.
How the hell did I manage not to ask myself the most glaringly obvious question of all?
Hercule Poirot would never be so stupid.
Not even Blue would have overlooked that.
Even the freaking preschool kids who watch that show would have thought to ask that question.
And me, Piper Day, who has absorbed mystery novels all her life, did not even think to ask the most obvious question of all.
I’m feeling like the most stupid person on Earth right now.
Josh pats my shoulder awkwardly. “I’m sure you’ve been in shock ever since your parents died, and you haven’t been thinking clearly.
Anyway, I never thought about it till now either.
I guess that’s why detectives don’t usually take on cases so close to them.
You’re my best friend, and I haven’t been thinking straight either. ”
I look up at him quickly, surprised to hear I’m anyone’s best friend. Even in my state of shock, that means a lot to me.
Josh misreads my reaction, though. He coughs uncomfortably. “I mean, I know we just met. But, well… I guess now that it’s out, there’s no taking it back. Oops.”
“You’re my best friend too,” I say, trying to hide my emotions behind my cup of frappuccino before realizing it’s annoyingly see-through. “My only friend, in fact.”
“Same.” Josh laughs out an awkward breath of relief.
And I’m feeling just as awkward as him, as if we’re two second-graders at recess pinky-swearing we’re friends forever, instead of adults solving my parents’ murder. Or trying to, at least.
I give myself a shake, and instead think back to Dad’s last words to me before he died. The memory of that phone call on the Greyhound bus is back in full force, now that I’m no longer shoving it aside for being too painful.
“So, uhm,” I begin. “I just thought of something else I kind of forgot to tell you.”
Josh leans in. “Yeah?”
“My dad said he was getting a promotion.”
He raises a confused eyebrow. “And?”
“He worked at Devil Tower. As a janitor.” Crap.
Yet another piece of information I should have shared, but the bullies have beaten into me over the years that having a janitor dad is pretty much the most embarrassing thing on Earth.
So I wrinkle my nose, expecting some sort of reaction from Josh, but he doesn’t appear to be judging me at all. Huh. “His boss was Bob Nelson,” I add.
Josh raises another eyebrow, and it’s clear he sees the significance of this. “Nelson, as in… related to Quill?”
“His dad.” I take another sip of my mocha, fighting the jitters. “So, he got a promotion, but he said it wasn’t entirely related to being good at what he was doing. In fact, he was pretty insistent on the fact that he wasn’t snooping around…”
Josh’s eyes widen. “Which means he was.”
“No,” I huff out.
“I mean, he found something,” explains Josh hastily, “as if he was snooping around. Though he wasn’t.”
“Exactly.” I don’t know why I feel the need to defend my dad even though he’s dead. But he wouldn’t snoop. It was obviously an accident.
“What did he find?”
“No idea.” I swallow the rest of my frap as the jitters definitely kick in, and they mix uncomfortably with my stomach lurching as I remember the other part of what he told me.
“But he did say he couldn’t possibly not look when he saw what was written on a piece of paper that was lying on Bob Nelson’s desk. ”
“Did he say what was written on the piece of paper?”
“Uhm. Not really. Well… he might have mentioned that there were block letters on the top of the paper. Block letters that… uh… spelled out my name.”
Josh leans back, actually shocked into silence. Then he says, “Is that why you’ve been so intent on getting into Devil Tower? I thought it was because of the soldiers. But you wanted to find that paper?”
Oops. In retrospect, that’s definitely what I should have been doing. But the truth is, between discovering my parents’ dead bodies and Quill reappearing in my life, I had forgotten all about it.
“Actually, I had kind of fixated on something else Dad said,” I explain awkwardly. “The main reason I wanted to go to Devil Tower was because he had mentioned its founders. He asked me if I knew about them.”
Josh looks more confused than ever. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“I think he meant it more, in a, like, ‘hey, so, you know him? Well, get this...’ kind of way.”
“Him? You mean them, no? The founders?”
“We-e-ell...” I cough, realizing that I’ve definitely been overlooking some important clues. “Actually, now that I think of it, he really only mentioned Logan Colt.”
There’s a long pause, broken only by the coffee machine whirring at the counter.
“Which means we should probably be going back to Devil Tower,” I add in a squeaky little voice, “so we can figure out just what Logan Colt and a piece of paper with my name on it have to do with my parents’ death.”
My face blotchy red, I loudly suck the bottom of my empty frappucino with my straw. I can’t believe I’ve been so focused this whole time on what Quill did or didn’t do that I never even thought through Dad’s last words. I’ve been sitting on the biggest clues to this mystery from the very beginning.
Josh stares at me for a beat, shaking his head slowly in disbelief.
Then he says, “You’re my best friend, Piper, so I hope you’ll forgive me for saying this, but wow. You are definitely not Nancy Drew.”
I can’t help but agree.