“Larissa, I think your idea is absolutely insane. Especially in this weather. Didn't you hear what Joe said? And besides, there's a killer out there!”

“You haven't even listened to my idea yet.”

“It's enough for me to know that it has something to do with the DeLoughreys and their mansion.”

Bayla sounded annoyed.

Had I overdone it with the party?

“Why are you suddenly so obsessed with this family? Ever since that guy had spoken to you, something's been different.”

I remained silent.

If she only knew it was about Adrian DeLoughrey… At least that had been the case until I'd googled them on the internet and my breath had been taken away.

“Let me show you something,” I said, pulling the slim laptop out of my backpack without wrecking my camera.

“This family basically owns half the city...”

Bayla listened and looked at my screen as I turned the laptop toward her and slid to her side.

“There's the DeLoughrey Science Center, both towers; the bank, and office building too.” I showed her the two skyscrapers that jutted out of Blairville as if they didn't belong, and then the two other smaller buildings. “But also, the entire mall. Or here...” I pointed to a big part of the island, Fogs Forest, which stretched out far and wide on the map. “There are supposed to be old nineteenth-century mansions there that they want to renovate and restore.”

Bay took a closer look at the map.

“Okay, they're rich and have a lot of influence over the city...” she confirmed, nodding.

“I did some more research and came across lots of articles about businesses in Blairville.”

I opened the internet. The benefit of getting free Wi-Fi in a diner.

“The DeLoughreys seem to have a huge wine empire.”

“Wine...” Bayla said, unimpressed.

I opened another tab.

“But what's much more interesting is this.”

Bayla looked intently at the screen.

“The DeLoughreys are said to be in a nearly twenty-year business dispute with the Copelands and the Blairs, not really over individual buildings, but over the territories of the whole island.” I lowered my voice as Grace cleared the table two tables away. “Maybe that's why Julie and Grace have something against the Copelands and why they don't like the DeLoughreys.”

I looked at Bay, who was focusing on my laptop.

She seemed much more interested than a few minutes ago.

“I have a feeling there's more to it than just a business dispute,” Bay whispered conspiratorially, looking at me.

“I feel the same way. Because this dispute has been going on for quite a long time. And also, that they've divided the whole island into three territories...”

I took the laptop and opened a map of the city that I had created myself and edited with markers.

“Look, here. According to what I found; these are the territories. Here we have the entire center of the city up to the abandoned amusement park, the harbor and a small part of the forest near the sea. This area belongs to the Blairs.”

I circled the orange outline without touching my laptop.

“When did you do all this?” Bay interrupted me.

“Wednesday night. I was interested, okay?” I continued. “Look, here... All these woods around the university, this housing project by this lake, and the whole coastline here are Copeland territory.”

I had marked the area in green.

“What's left is this huge forest with the smaller lake. Just a forest. That's the funny thing. No settlement, no industry, just a forest.”

Bayla zoomed in and did the same thing I'd been trying to do, which was to find a house, but there wasn't one. At least not on the satellite map.

“You can look for ages. But I had the same thought. If they own an area and go to university here, then they must live somewhere in town.”

Bayla kept looking anyway.

“I don't think the drug thing is true either, but it could also be that Grace is right. So, the DeLoughreys would make their money from investments and wine, and the Copelands from illegal things.”

“The only question is how the Blairs finance their territory...” Bay finished my thought. She seemed puzzled, but I had reacted the same way when I had found all this out.

“And besides, look, the DeLoughreys have been buying up all this woodland from the Blairs for the last ten months. Just forest. There's something weird going on.”

“Maybe they're running a timber mill?”

Bay grinned.

I sighed in frustration because the DeLoughreys didn't look like they were into the logging business. Plus, there was this weird gut feeling.

“I don't know if this business dispute is any of our business, Larissa.”

Bay pushed the laptop back toward me.

“We both know the answer to that. But it's not about that. I have a feeling there's something going on.”

She had to feel the same way. Bay had always been the first to notice such strange things.

“I don't have a good feeling about this at all. We shouldn't do this because I think it's out of our league.”

I didn't know her like that at all. It felt like something had changed in her, but there was no reason for it. Was she really scared of the Blairville Killer?

“And I don't think it's a good idea for us to go into DeLoughrey territory and look for a house that might not even exist.”

God, had she eaten a sloth for breakfast?