Pip was thirteen chapters in, reading by the harsh flashlight on her phone, when she finally noticed a lone figure crossing under a street lamp. She was in her car, parked down at the far end of the darkened parking lot, every half hour marked with the screech and growl of inbound and outbound trains.
The streetlights had flickered on about an hour ago, that buzzy yellow color giving the area an unsettling industrial glow.
Pip squinted through the window. It was a man in a dark green coat with a furred hood and bright orange lining. His hood was up and his face hidden by shadows, only his downward lit nose visible.
She switched off her phone’s flashlight and put down her book. She shifted her seat back so she could crouch on the car floor by the door, hidden from sight, the top of her head and her eyes pressed up against the window.
The man walked over to the very outer boundary of the lot and leaned against the fence there, in a gloomy space just between two lamps. Pip watched him closely, holding her breath because it fogged the window and blocked her view.
The man pulled out a phone. When the screen lit up, Pip could see his face for the first time: a bony face full of sharp lines and edges and neatly kept dark stubble. Pip wasn’t the best with ages, but at a guess, the man was in his late twenties or early thirties.
True, this wasn’t the first time tonight she thought she’d found Howie Bowers. But those other two men had been dressed in work suits and smart coats, clearly dawdlers of a trainload from the city. This man was different, and there was no doubt he was waiting for something. Or someone.
His thumbs were working away on his phone screen. Probably texting a client. Or she was just getting ahead of herself, in typical Pip fashion. Luckily she had one sure way to confirm that this man was Howie. She pulled out her phone, holding it low to hide its illumination, scrolled down through her contacts to Howie’s name, and called him.
Her eyes back to the window, thumb hovering over the end call button, she waited. Her nerves spiking with every half second.
Then she heard it.
Much louder than the outgoing call tone from her own phone. A mechanical quacking sound from the man’s hands. Pip watched as he answered and raised his phone to his ear.
“Hello?” came the voice from outside, muffled by her window. Fractionally later the same voice spoke through the speakers of her phone. Howie’s voice, confirmed.
Pip pressed hang-up and watched as he lowered his phone and stared at it, his thick brows bunching and eclipsing his eyes in shadows. He tapped the phone and raised it to his ear again.
“Crap,” Pip whispered, snatching up her phone and clicking it on to silent. Less than a second later, the screen lit up with an incoming call from Howie Bowers. Pip let the call silently ring out, her heart drumming painfully against her ribs. That was close, too close. Stupid not to withhold her number.
Howie put his phone away and stood, head down, hands back in pockets. Even though she now knew who he was, she didn’t have confirmation that he’d been the man who supplied Andie with drugs. The only fact was that Howie Bowers was now currently dealing to kids at school, the same crowd Andie had introduced her dealer to. It could be a coincidence. Though Pip didn’t trust coincidences.
Just then, Howie raised his head and nodded pointedly. Sharp clicking footsteps drew closer and louder. Pip didn’t dare move. Someone crossed into view: a tall man wearing a long beige coat and polished black shoes, clearly new. His hair was dark and cut close to his head. As he arrived at Howie’s side, he spun to lean against the fence beside him. Pip strained her eyes and gasped.
She knew this man. Knew his face from the staff pictures on the Fairview Mail website. Knew his voice from their one very fraught phone interview. It was Stanley Forbes.
Stanley Forbes, an outsider to Pip’s investigation, who had now cropped up twice. Becca Bell said she was kind of seeing him, and now, here he was, meeting with the man who had possibly supplied Becca’s sister with drugs.
Neither of the men had spoken yet. Stanley scratched his nose and then pulled out a thick envelope. He shoved the packet into Howie’s chest, and only then did she notice that his face was flushed and his hands shaking. Pip raised her phone and, checking the flash was off, took a few pictures of the meeting.
“This is the last time, do you hear me?” Stanley spat, making no effort to keep his voice down. Pip could just hear the edges of his words through the car window. “You can’t keep asking for more; I don’t have it.”
Howie spoke far too quietly in response, and Pip only heard the mumbled start and end of his sentence: “But…tell.”
Stanley rounded on him. “I don’t think you would dare.”
They stared into each other’s faces for a tense moment, then Stanley turned on his heels and walked quickly away, his coat fanning out behind him.
When he was gone, Howie looked through the envelope and stuffed it into his coat. But he wasn’t going anywhere yet. He resumed standing against the fence, tapping away at his phone. Like he was still waiting for someone.
Minutes later, Pip saw someone else approach. Huddling back in her hiding spot, she watched the boy stride toward Howie, raising his hand in a wave. She recognized him, too: a boy in the grade below her at school, a boy who played soccer with Ant. Robin something.
Their meeting was just as brief. Robin pulled out some cash and handed it over. Howie counted the money and then produced a rolled-up paper bag from his coat pocket. Pip took a few pictures as Howie handed it to Robin and pocketed the cash.
Pip could see their mouths moving, but she couldn’t hear the words they exchanged. Howie smiled and clapped the boy on the back. Robin, stuffing the bag into his backpack, wandered up the parking lot, calling a low “See you later” as he passed behind Pip’s car, so close it made her jump.
Ducking below the car window frame, Pip scrolled through the pictures she’d taken; Howie’s face was clearly visible in at least three of them. And Pip knew the name of the boy she’d caught him selling to. It was textbook leverage, if anyone had ever written a textbook on how to blackmail a drug dealer.
Pip froze. Someone was walking just behind her car, moving with shuffling footsteps, whistling. She waited twenty seconds and looked up. Howie was gone now, heading back toward the station.
And here was the moment of indecision. Howie was on foot; Pip couldn’t follow him in her car. But she really, really did not want to leave it.
Fear started to uncurl in her stomach, driven by one thought: Andie Bell went out in the dark on her own, and she never came back. Pip stifled the voice in her head and climbed out of the car, shutting the door as carefully as she could. She needed to learn as much as she could about this man. He could be the one who supplied Andie, the one who really killed her.
Howie was about forty paces ahead of her. His hood was down now, and its orange lining was easy to spot in the dark. Pip kept the distance between them, her heart getting in four beats between each of her steps.
She drew back and increased the gap as they passed through the well-lit roundabout outside the station. She couldn’t get too close. She followed Howie to the right, down the hill, past the grocery store, across the road, and to the left along Main Street.
She trailed behind him all the way up Weevil Road and over the bridge that crossed the rail tracks. Beyond it Howie turned down a small path away from the street, through a yellowing hedge.
Pip waited for Howie to get a little farther ahead before she followed him, emerging on a dimly lit residential road. She kept going, her eyes on the orange-furred hood fifty feet ahead of her. Darkness was the easiest of disguises; it made the familiar unknown and strange. It was only when Pip passed a street sign that she realized what road they were on.
Monroe.
Her heart reacted instantly, now getting in six beats between her footsteps. Monroe, the very road where Andie Bell’s car was found abandoned after her disappearance.
Pip saw Howie turning up ahead, and she darted to hide behind a tree, watching as he headed toward a small bungalow, pulled out his keys, and let himself in. As the door clicked shut, Pip emerged from her hiding place and approached Howie’s house.
It was a squat semidetached home, with tan brick walls and a mossy slate roof. Both windows at the front were covered by thick blinds, the left one now glowing with streaks of yellow as Howie turned the lights on inside. There was a small gravel plot outside the front door with a faded maroon car.
Pip stared. There was no delay in her recognition this time. Her mouth fell open and her stomach jumped to her throat, filling her mouth with bile.
“Oh my god,” she whispered.
She stepped back from the house, pulled out her phone, and dialed Ravi’s number.
“Please tell me you’re off your shift,” she said when he picked up.
“I just got home. Why?”
“I need you to come to Monroe right now.”