Past town, the ocean swept into view at the end of a winding suburban street. The houses got bigger the as they neared the water. Newly remodeled balconies and rooftop decks were positioned for the optimal sunset views. The car turned down an alleyway lined with garage doors.
Raven parked the car in front of a guest house with sun-bleached coral-painted wood and a splintering front porch. “I’ll be right back,” she said. “Better if you stay here.” She slammed the door behind her and Devon watched her glide up the stairs in two long steps. Raven and Bodhi lived here? Just as quickly as she had gone in, Raven came bounding out. Devon caught a glance at a man standing near the door.
“Bodhi’s already at Reed’s. Let’s head there,” Raven said starting up the car again.
“Was that your dad?” Devon asked. “This is your place, right?”
Raven rolled a cigarette as she steered with her knee down the alley. “Technically, yeah, that’s my house. My dad is, well, he’s not really going to coach anyone’s Little League team anytime soon.”
Devon nodded. She didn’t understand completely, but she knew enough to let the subject drop there.
THE BLACK RANGE ROVER was sitting in the driveway when Raven pulled in. Bodhi was unloading a duffle bag from the back and for an instant Devon thought with a pang of Hutch taking his bags out of the same car. Raven parked and jumped out. “Hey, missed you at Dad’s. He’s always such a pleasure.”
“Yeah, I got outta there pretty fast,” Bodhi said. They walked inside and Devon followed. “Hey, Devon.”
“Hey,” she said back, quietly. It was awkward to be so close to Bodhi in person. She didn’t want to look back two weeks from now and think, I spent all that time with a murderer. But it was a stretch. For one thing, Raven couldn’t be that blind to that possible side of her own brother. On the other hand, she knew all too well that people saw what they wanted to see, especially in someone they loved.
“You’re okay, right?,” Bodhi asked Raven. She nodded and Bodhi wrapped an arm around her shoulders and drew her close. “We don’t need to go back there. Never again.”
“Never again,” Raven said, nodding at her brother.
The dark wood floors and window frames of Reed’s guest house gave it a classic craftsman house feel. A kaleidoscope of colored glass wrapped around the lighting fixtures in the hallway and dining room. In the living room, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the Athena vineyards. It was breathtaking. Devon felt herself relax instantly. The silence of his living room, the organized rows of vines, the empty blue sky—all of it created a sense of calm.
“Sorry, Dev,” Raven said. “You gotta take your shoes off.”
Devon slipped out of her Toms and padded down the thick carpet. Raven stepped into a bedroom and shoved a pile of clothes off the bed, then plunked herself down. School books and notebooks covered a nearby desk. A tall chest of drawers on the other side of the room had make-up, nail polish, and surf wax scattered on top.
“This is me,” Raven said.
Photos taped to the wall made Devon step closer. Raven and Hutch were smiling at the camera in one, screaming at the camera in another, glaring at the camera in the last. “We took those this summer,” Raven said.
“What were you doing?” Devon’s throat went dry.
“When Reed didn’t need help with his computer or security system, we’d go for walks in the vineyard. Hutch said the vineyard was a horror movie waiting to happen. We were the victims in that one, getting hunted in the other, and then we did the twist ending where we were the killers in the last one.” Raven laughed. “Crazy Hutch, huh?’
“Yeah,” Devon said. It seemed like a very Hutch-ian game. “So, do you basically live here?” Judging from the clothes in the open closet, this didn’t seem like a weekend stopover.
“Really couldn’t live with my dad anymore. It got ugly. I dropped out of school in Monte Vista.”
“Ah. So that’s why you’re a freshman who can drive.”
“Yeah, this is my second attempt at high school. That’s also why Bodhi came home from school. He couldn’t be across the country while everything last year was going down. We got hooked into Reed’s world, hung out with Hutch when he came down this summer. After Hutch died, Reed seemed to like having us around. It’s kind