Chapter 19 Rad
RAD
Rad was still unnerved by the message that had jolted him awake that morning.
Even now, sitting around Margo’s table with a cup of coffee in his hand and a house full of people who should have made him feel steadier than this, he could still hear the sharp little ping that had sounded in his ear and dragged him out of sleep.
It hadn't even been the words of the message that had stayed with him so much as the urgency in it and the thought that Margo had sent for him like that had hit him somewhere deep and primitive.
He hadn't stopped to think.
Rad had rolled out of bed, dragged on the first item of clothing he could find, shoved his feet into sneakers, run his fingers through his hair once, and bolted.
He hadn't brushed his teeth, hadn't washed his face, hadn't even thought to put on deodorant.
Judging by the stale taste in his mouth and the way his T-shirt still smelled faintly like sleep and the tail end of yesterday, he was fairly sure he shouldn't get too close to anyone if he could help it.
Rad took another sip of coffee and kept himself angled slightly away from anyone, hoping that if he didn't breathe directly at anyone, he might get away with it.
Across the room, Willa was helping Margo set another place at the table.
She looked as thrown together as he felt, except she had somehow managed to make disheveled look less alarming and more irritated.
Her hair was scraped into a knot, her sweatshirt was twisted slightly off one shoulder, and on her feet were a pair of bright yellow, fluffy duck slippers that he suspected she hadn't even realized she’d put on.
Despite himself, Rad’s gaze dipped to them again.
He tried not to smile but failed. They were so cute, and the thought of how wonderful it would’ve been to have her as his sister hit him again, but he shook it off. No time for those thoughts right now. Instead, he glanced at his own feet. At least he was wearing sneakers.
Ace wasn't much better put together than the rest of them.
He had on board shorts and an old T-shirt that had clearly seen better days, and his hair looked as though he had shoved both hands through it on the way out the door and decided that was good enough.
The difference between them and the older two at the table, however, was impossible to miss.
His father and June still looked as though they hadn't been home.
They were both in the same clothes they had worn the day before, though June somehow still managed to look composed, and his father looked so controlled that it only made the truth more obvious.
They had been up all night. Investigating.
Talking. Thinking. Pulling at threads that had unravelled a truth that had led them to set a trap that the four of them had fallen into.
And now, as they sat at the table waiting for everyone to settle, it was clear they knew a great deal more than they had known yesterday. He looked at his father again.
To anyone who didn't know him, Holt Dillinger looked calm. Relaxed, even. He sat with his arms resting on the table and his expression unreadable; his voice when he spoke had been measured and low.
But Rad knew better.
He’d seen his father angry plenty of times growing up, though never often and never without cause.
As a child, Rad had learned quickly that his father’s quiet anger was far worse than being shouted at.
A shout was heat. A flare. Something to get through.
This, however, this controlled tension humming beneath the surface of his father, this careful stillness in the way he held himself, was something else entirely.
It was far more frightening because it meant his father had already thought through exactly what had happened, exactly how he felt about it, and exactly how he intended to deal with it.
Rad had been on the receiving end of that tone a good few times as a boy. Not often, and never unfairly, but enough that he had never repeated the same mistake twice.
Now, watching his father hold the room without raising his voice, Rad knew he wasn't the only one feeling it. The others sensed Holt’s command, certainly.
They were not missing that. But what they were missing was the fine edge beneath it, the tightly leashed anger that sat inside his father like a banked fire.
Rad knew that look.
Oh yes, there was no doubt about it, his father was seething.
His eyes shifted toward Margo again, almost of their own accord, and his heart gave that same ridiculous little jolt that had become far too common around her.
Even with everything hanging over the room, even with his grandmother walking in, even with the trap his father and June had sprung on all of them, Margo still had the ability to make his pulse kick and his chest tighten, and his thoughts go in entirely the wrong direction.
He closed his eyes for a second and drew in a breath.
It wasn’t just the investigation or the YouTube show; their entire game was up.
Rad had known it from the minute he heard his grandmother’s voice in the hall.
Whatever careful story they might have tried to assemble if given time, whatever way they might have softened the truth or staggered out the revelations or managed the sequence of what got told and when, all of that was gone now.
His father and June didn't just know that the four of them had manipulated them into helping solve this bizarre case and contain the danger they had kicked up in Sandpiper Shores.
They also knew there had been another motive under it.
Not just danger.
Not just the case.
They knew the four of them had basically pushed Holt and June into each other’s path and then quietly braced the door shut behind them.
Rad let out a quick breath as Mina walked into the room, her eyes moving across the table with the composed curiosity of a woman who was never nearly as surprised as anyone hoped she would be.
“Hello, Grandmother.” Rad stood and leaned down to kiss her cheek. “We’ve set you a place at our side of the table.”
“Mmm.” Mina kissed his cheek in return, then gave the table another long look. “I take it we’ve been caught out?”
“I’m assuming because you’re here that is the case,” Rad said softly. “But it’s not just us trying to set them up that’s the reason we’re here.”
“Oh?” Mina’s brows rose. “Then what is it?”
“You’re about to find out.” He pulled out the chair for her. “I’m sorry we got you involved in this.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Mina said, settling with her usual elegance into the chair he held for her, “your father and June getting together again was inevitable. Fate had them on a collision course already.” She smiled up at him. “We just gave them a little extra nudge in the right direction.”
“Yes, but…” Rad sighed as he nudged the chair in. “I’m afraid there’s a lot more to it now.”
“Oh, you mean they know about your show?” Mina asked, and the grin she gave him when his head whipped around toward her made something in his gut sink. “Come now, honey. I’ve known about that for quite some time.”
She glanced toward the end of the table, where June and Holt were once again talking quietly between themselves as if the rest of the room were simply waiting for them to finish.
“Ah,” Mina said softly. “So that’s what this is all really about.”
“Yes,” Rad admitted. “And Dad did that dramatic bait-and-trap thing he does to get us all here.”
“Ah.” Mina nodded, clearly pleased with her own assessment of the situation.
Margo stepped toward the chair beside Rad. “Would you like to sit here, Mina?”
“Oh no, dear.” Mina shook her head. “I’m better off right here out of the blast radius.” She smiled toward Margo, then flicked her eyes to Rad. “Especially as Rad has just told me that my son got you all here in a way that ensured none of you had time to get your story straight.”
“That’s why they did this?” Margo’s eyes widened, and she glanced immediately at Willa, Ace, and Harvey, who had the grace to look a little embarrassed. “They didn’t want us to have time to…”
“Get another cover story together.” Holt cut in smoothly. “That’s correct.”
He leaned back in his chair in a way that looked almost comfortable, which only made Rad more aware that his father was, in fact, in complete control of this room.
“I wanted to get each of you one by one,” Holt continued, his eyes moving from Margo to Rad, then to Ace, and finally Willa. “You can thank June that you’re not each sitting in an interrogation room at the FBI.”
“You wouldn’t.” Willa’s eyes went as wide as Margo’s.
“He would,” June said, with a single nod. “I talked him down, reminding him that we didn’t have a suspect yet, only speculation about who we thought it could be, and that if you were all suddenly dragged in for questioning…” She glanced toward Holt.
“It would raise suspicion and put you in more danger than you are already in,” Holt finished.
His eyes flashed with contained anger, and Rad shifted in his seat despite himself. He had never seen his father quite this furious, not even when he was a teenager and had once nearly gotten himself arrested on a stupid dare. This was colder. Deeper.
“So,” Holt said, “here we are.”
“Yesterday,” June began after everyone was seated, “we sat all of you around a conference table and asked for absolute transparency in this case, or cases, as it may turn out to be.”
Rad could picture her in court then with startling clarity and felt a sudden wash of sympathy for any opposing attorney who had ever mistaken her calm for softness. She gave nothing away when she didn't want to.
“Each one of you looked us in the eyes,” she went on, “and said nothing.”
“Even after knowing what happened to Lacey and Judy, the four of you still decided not to give us key information,” Holt continued. “I’m going to give you all an opportunity to tell us the truth.”