Before I could share that memory, though, Deputy Bobby said, “No. I just thought you should know.”
I opened my mouth to ask why he thought I needed to know that, at some point in his life, Damian had been arrested. And then it landed.
“Are you trying to tell me to stay away from him?”
I meant for it to sound light, joking. It didn’t.
Deputy Bobby’s shoulders tightened as he moved to the next photo.
“How did you even find that out?” I asked. My tone was still off, but I couldn’t seem to get it back on track. “You’re on leave.”
“I just thought—”
“How?”
His hands fell to his sides. He stood very still. “Salk.”
“You talked to another deputy about my—my romantic life?” I tried to stop there, but more words burst out of me. “I didn’t even go out with him. He flirted with me. He seems sweet.”
“Yeah, he seems sweet, and he’s got an arrest record. That’s important information, considering—”
He stopped himself, but not fast enough.
“Considering what?” I asked.
“Considering—”
I cut him off. “Considering I have terrible judgment when it comes to men? Considering I’m a complete idiot about relationships? Considering I don’t know how to take care of myself?”
“I just want you to be safe.” He still wasn’t looking at me. I wanted to see his face; his voice sounded like someone trying desperately to stay calm. “And I was only checking—I didn’t say any of those things.”
“But you thought them, didn’t you? I don’t need you to be my chaperone, Bobby. Or my big brother. Or whatever you think this is.”
“I think I’m your friend.”
“Yeah, you’re my friend, but God, Bobby, that is so invasive. How do you not see that?”
Whatever control he’d had must have slipped; the raw edge of his anger surfaced the way it had in the lifeguard tower. He moved to the next photo, his movements jerky and uncoordinated as he reached to take it down. “It was for sexual assault.” He yanked the photo from the wall. “In case it matters.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but then I saw what had been hidden behind the photo: a wall safe.
Deputy Bobby stared at it too. Then, slowly, he set down the photo. He inspected the lock and said, “It takes a key, not a combination.”
I wanted to—well, to my surprise, I wanted to fight some more. But somehow, I managed to make my voice sound semi-sane as I said, “Maybe it’s on Gerry’s keyring. The sheriff could get it from the medical examiner, I guess, but first we’d have to convince her that, you know, Gerry was murdered.”
Deputy Bobby nodded. He still hadn’t looked at me.
“We could try to pick it,” I said. “Do some research on this model and see if it’s pickable, anyway. Or drill it out—I bet we could rent whatever we need. Heck, we could probably cut the door off with a torch.”
After another moment of studying the safe door, Deputy Bobby moved over to the desk. He opened the central drawer and drew out a handful of loose keys. The first one he tried opened the safe, of course.
I couldn’t help it: I said, “You have got to be kidding me.”
Deputy Bobby glanced at me, and there was something so…hurt in his face that I had a hard time recapturing my anger.
I dredged up a small smile. “It was bad enough with the bird.”
After a moment, Deputy Bobby smiled back. A tiny one. Microscopic, even. Maybe not even a smile, not really, but—but a question that was like a smile. My smile got a little bigger in answer, and his shoulders relaxed. And then he had to be perfectly, quintessentially Deputy Bobby, and he shrugged.
Even though that moment seemed to have defused the tension between us, neither of us spoke as Deputy Bobby withdrew a stack of files from the safe. He set them on the desk where we could both see them, and then we began to examine each one. Most of the documents were financial papers—things that you’d expect to find. Gerry’s will (I took pictures of that), brokerage reports, account statements, even a few deeds.
Near the bottom of the stack, though, were folders. Lots of folders. And on each folder, there was a name. I took photos of everything, as quickly as I could,
Then I stopped. Because the name on the next folder was mine.
“Dash—” Deputy Bobby tried.
I flipped open the folder. Inside were photos. Photos of Hemlock House. Photos of me—taken through the open windows, when I’d been inside Hemlock House, unaware that anyone might be photographing me. Photos of Keme, too. Keme, with his long dark hair tucked behind his ears, in nothing but swim trunks. Keme and I on the sofa, sitting close together because we were playing Xbox. Keme and I—for a moment, I didn’t understand the photo. We were on the floor, tangled together. My arms were wrapped around Keme’s bare back.
I took several deep breaths. They didn’t help.
Deputy Bobby was still looking at the photos.
“We went swimming,” I said. “And then we came back and played video games. And I beat him, and he tackled me—it was silly.” I thought back to those search results on Gerry’s computer: truancy, luring a minor, solicitation of a minor. And then these photos of me and Keme, making it look like—I had to put my hand on the desk because I felt like I was starting to tip over. Somehow I managed to say, “We were wrestling.”
Deputy Bobby threw me a quick look, and he must have known the right thing to say because he said, “I know, Dash. I know. It’s okay.”
But it wasn’t okay. Gerry—or someone Gerry had hired—had taken those pictures. Gerry had kept those pictures. Gerry had—
