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that of a fan who’d been
told he wasn’t allowed to take photographs or ask for an autograph. “You don’t
remember anything? Not what they look like? No experiments? Not even—” He
wagged a hand at his lower body. “You know?”
    “No,”
Nicholas said firmly, clenching his buttocks. “Nothing.”
    Dennis
cocked his head. “Then how do you know you were abducted in the first place?”
    As
blandly as he could, Nicholas said, “Because of the scars.”
    “Whoa.”
Dennis appeared incapable of further speech. Nicholas took advantage of the
moment to bite into a second scone.
    “That’s
just amazing.” Dennis shook his head, then paused and nibbled on his lower lip.
His eyes roamed over Nicholas’s chest. “I don’t suppose I could—”
    “No.”
    The
younger man blushed. “Heh, okay, yeah, that’s kinda personal. I had to ask,
though, you know?”
    Nicholas
wished he were still in bed, dreaming. Even a nightmare might be preferable to
this conversation.
    Dennis
absently brought a scone to his mouth and took a bite. “Man, these are good.
Kevin makes a mean lasagna—did you know that? Kinda funny for a dude to be such
a good cook, but I guess without a wife you do what you gotta do. I tell ya, I
love that family. Kevin’s really cool and lil’ Toby’s awesome. I’m glad I’m
staying with them. Beats being at the Gingerbread place, though I missed out on
seeing Rocky before he went belly up.” Dennis shrugged and took another bite. “Just
as well, I guess. We never got on all that well, anyway. He’s not like you,
man.”
    A
tendril of interest wrapped itself around Nicholas. “You knew him?”
    “Yep.
Ran into him a couple of times. I’ve been following the lights, you know?”
    Assuming
Dennis meant UFO sightings, Nicholas said, “So you knew him in Roswell.”
    “Yeah.
He’s—oops, was —the president of a UFO club there. They hyped up the
Roswell crash, you know, so it’s always in the news. He kept saying they’d
managed to get new information about the crash from a former Air Force
lieutenant colonel, but so far no one’s seen the paperwork, if it even exists.”
Dennis shrugged. “I don’t think anyone actually liked Rocky. A lot of people
thought he was stringing them along with all his so-called witnesses that never
materialized.” Dennis grinned conspiratorially. “They’re probably gonna throw a
party when they hear what you did to him.”
    “Rocky
Johnson drowned,” Nicholas said clearly. “And if he didn’t, then it’s a mystery
to me who murdered him because I definitely didn’t. I was at the party the
entire night.”
    “Huh.
I thought Kevin was saying he couldn’t pinpoint when Rocky bit the dust. So,
like, he could have been killed before the party started and been floating in
the lake all that time until he was found.”
    Nicholas
gave him a level look. “I’m not the only person in this place who disliked him.”
    “Too
true. I bet pretty much everyone who owns a business here woulda wanted him
dead. Sounded like he was going to write an article that would’ve really
screwed with your tourism. Which would’ve sucked, because then I’d be camping
out here by myself, you know?”
    “If
only.”
    “Not
pointing fingers or anything, Mr. Trilby.” Dennis raised his hands, palms up. “You
can say I’m a suspect too since I didn’t dig the guy all that much. But hey, I
don’t mind being eyed by the cops if it means we got rid of him, right? I’d buy
whoever did it a beer if I could.”
    Nicholas
tried to appear calm as he raised his cup to his lips, but the porcelain
chattered against his bottom teeth. “Be careful what you say.”
    Dennis
grinned around a mouthful of scone.
    Nicholas
stood. “As interesting as this has been—” it hadn’t been, not at all, “—I need to
open my shop.”
    “Oh,
yeah, no problem, Mr. Trilby.” Dennis jumped to his feet and dropped the
half-eaten scone back into the basket with the others, helpfully