She refused to close her eyes when she crossed her arms over her chest and slung herself down into the slide. The vibrant orange tube glowed with sunlight and echoed with the movement of the water and her own gasping breaths. She watched every instant, refusing to close her eyes or completely relinquish control.
There was only one slide she wouldn't ride that day. As much as she didn't want to admit it, the dizzying, almost vertical slide at the very end of the complex seemed insurmountable. People stepped into a small clear chamber on a floor that acted as a trapdoor. With little more warning than the flash of a light, the person operating the slide released a lever, and the floor went out from under the rider. In an instant, they were gone, dropping into a black tube that finally ended in a large rectangular pool. It made her heart beat in her temples, and her throat run dry. As much as she tried to cross to it and step up onto the narrow, steep steps leading up to the top, she couldn't make herself.
She went to the concession stand instead.
In other areas of the country, in the town they just left, people were still cowering beneath hooded sweatshirts and jackets. It was that time of year when the weather was untrustworthy. The sunlight could seem bright and intense, promising warmth, but the air felt thin and fragile. A hint of a breeze or a wayward cloud would tip the temperature over into chilly territory again. So people hid themselves in layers and didn't tempt fate.
Not here. Here the breeze was soft and warm, and the sunlight evaporated droplets of water from her skin almost as soon as she got out of the water. She craved sno-cones and salt-coated French fries so hot the oil burned the tips of her fingers. She took cash from the waterproof container hanging from a bungee on her wrist and carried the food back to the chairs she and her parents claimed when they first came in early that morning.
It wasn't too hard to get seats at that time. As soon as the summer months officially rolled in and more tourists flocked the parks, claiming a spot beneath an umbrella became survival of the fittest. Her father tossed himself down onto the chair beside her moments after she sat and immediately dipped his hand into her fries. He laughed at her protest, and she smiled at him. She liked how he looked in the sunlight. She preferred the touch of gold that showed up on his skin when they were in Florida. Her mother never got that glow. Her milk-white skin was a gift of her Russian bloodline, and it stayed that way no matter where they traveled. It was consistent. Reliable. She thought her mother was the most beautiful woman in the world.
The rainbow slush froze her lips and tingled on her tongue. She chased it with the heat of the fries. Her father lay back against the chair and rested his head on a rolled-up blue and white striped towel. Round black lenses covered his eyes, but she could see his head move when he looked across the small pool at the edge of the collection of chairs. She turned her eyes like his. Looked past the white rubber lounges and multi-colored scatter of pool bags and towels. Saw beyond the sun-drunk adults and water-hyper children.
Found the man staring back at them. A tall man with dark hair and sunglasses that reflected the people staring back. Dark jeans and a light-colored button-up shirt with rolled up sleeves didn't fit in with the rest of the park. But as out of place as he looked, he seemed completely at ease.
In the back of her mind, he looked familiar. Not in a way she could really put her finger on. Not in a way that she was even fully sure about. But it sparked something small that made her fingers twitch like she wanted to wave. She didn't.
The next day her father left before the sun came up and didn't come back until tourist season. But her mother wasn't afraid. So she wasn't afraid. At least, not when anyone was looking. When he came back, the gold was gone from his skin.
Chapter Twelve
Now
The basket of fresh French fries the cook brings into the office is a clear ploy to find out why the police came to talk to Jake. He doesn't get anything out of it. Jake's intense eyes chase him out of the room before the officers say anything. But I can't resist the salt glistening on the sheen of oil and the way the smell reminds me I haven't had anything to eat since before the sun was fully in the sky. I eat one of the fries and offer another to Jake, but he turns his head away.
“What are you doing here?” he asks Nicolas. “You've got me back here. What is it you came to tell me?”
“What can you tell me about your father's death?” Nicolas asks.
Jake's shoulders square off, and his hand clenches around mine. The fries are forgotten. Heat stretches across my chest. I know what that question means. I've heard it asked so many times before. I've asked it even more times. It's never really what it sounds like. Jake's father didn't die recently, and that only makes the question even more ominous.
“What the hell kind of question is that?” Jake demands. “Do you think that's funny?”
He starts forward, and I press my hand against his chest to hold him back.
“Jake,” I murmur under my breath. “He doesn't mean anything by it.”
“I'm not trying to start anything, Jake. We're just trying to get to the bottom of what happened, and that means starting from the beginning.”
“There is no beginning,” Jake says through gritted teeth. “This was all over with a long time ago. Why are you bringing it up again?”
My attention piques. A secret simmers just beneath the surface of this conversation, and I'm aching to hear it. It's something everyone else in the room knows, and I feel on the outside, separated by years and space.
“We're just trying to figure things out. This isn't anything official. Just us talking.”
I tilt my head at him; my eyes narrowed as I silently send back what he just said. The officer avoids looking at me. He knows he's being a hypocrite, talking out of his ass to try to get Jake to come down from the angry, roiling place he's quickly climbing into and talk with him.
“If it isn't anything official, maybe you could stop talking in circles and just tell him why you came,” I say.
“My father died from natural causes,” Jake bites off. “At least, that's what his file says.”
“Has there been any sign of vandalism or interference with his grave before now?” Nicolas asks, sounding relieved Jake is talking.
“No.”
“And have you experienced any threats recently? Anything that might indicate someone was planning this?”
“No.” A breath snorts through his flaring nostrils.
“How about the date? Is there anything significant about the date?”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
Nicolas looks at me like he shoved acknowledging my existence out of his thoughts and isn't happy to have to bring it back to the forefront.
“Sometimes, in situations like this, the date is not chosen randomly. A person will pick a certain day because it has something to do with the person or their death.”
I bite down on my tongue to stop the retort that quickly forms there. I scrape the words back down my throat and take a breath to clear them away.
“I understand the concept. I meant, why would you ask him that?”
Jake shifts with built-up energy. “You think this is personal. It's not just something random.”
The second officer looks at Nicolas with a heavy expression in his eyes. “What are you doing?”
Nicolas doesn't take his eyes away from Jake.
“No,” Jake says, his voice becoming low and gravelly.
“And is there any reason to believe there's someone who might want to hurt you? Or to upset you like this?” Nicolas asks.