“This place is so beautiful it’s unreal,” Jinyoung said, spreading his arms wide as they paused at an overlook on the hiking trail. “Seriously, how can something as incredible as this even exist in the real world?”

Mark was wondering the same thing as he snapped a photo of Jinyoung on his phone. It really did feel almost too good to be true, both the gorgeous scenery of the Rocky Mountains and the fact of sharing it together with Jinyoung. In his heart, it felt like he’d gone back to the university version of himself, the one who had fallen all over himself just for the honor of working on a single school project with Jinyoung and now couldn’t believe they were across the country on a private outing on vacation together. How had he gotten to be so lucky?

Jinyoung turned to him, lifting up his sunglasses. “We should get a shot of both of us with the mountains in the background. I’ll ask that couple coming up the trail to take it for us.” He took Mark’s phone and jogged over to the other hikers, who kindly agreed to take the photo of them. Jinyoung went back to the overlook, wrapping his arm around Mark’s shoulder as they snapped the shot. It was a nice photo, and the majesty of the landscape had been captured in it quite nicely.

“Let’s put this up on Instagram,” Jinyoung suggested. “It can be a little teaser for the Colorado episode to come.”

That, and a convincing ‘couple shot’ for our shippers to feast on, Mark thought. There was no way they weren’t going to make something of Jinyoung’s arm around his shoulders, though Mark knew it just was a natural gesture on Jinyoung’s part, and his touchy-feely tendencies were more of a cultural thing than a come on. Still, he went ahead and posted it on Instagram will a leading caption about being “on location” to get everyone amped for the Spring Townsend episode BamBam was currently in the process of editing.

“Want to head back down and get some lunch?” Mark asked. They’d been on the hiking trail all morning, and he was getting hungry. “There seemed to be a lot of good restaurants in Estes Park.”

“Sounds good. Maybe we can explore some of the local stores while we’re at it. We have the whole day to ourselves, after all.”

Mark nodded, grinning. He was enjoying that fact immensely, especially since it was still early in the day.

The two of them found a good BBQ restaurant for lunch and stretched out their legs after their morning of hiking. While they waited for their order to arrive, Mark flicked through the Instagram comments on the photo he’d uploaded. Just as he’d thought, a lot of them were Markjin related and very enthusiastic about how much like a couple they looked, and the rest were either about the upcoming episode or about Colorado itself. He was just about to close out when one comment in particular caught his eye.

“Hey Jinyoung, check this out,” he said, showing him his phone.

Jinyoung glanced down, reading the comment out loud: “If you guys are near Estes Park, there’s this really creepy neighborhood about twenty minutes away called Buckingham Circuit. About five years ago, one of the houses there burned down with a woman and her two kids inside. It was proven that the fire was intentionally set and there was even a suspect, but no arrests were ever made, and the whole thing seemed really suspicious. Might be worth checking out?” He paused. “Huh. I’ve never heard about this case. Do you know it, Mark?”

Mark shook his head. He typed ‘Buckingham Circuit fire’ into his phone and looked at the case page that came up. “The victim was Magdalena Crosby, 40, and her two children Dora, 14, and Theo, 10. The fire started when they were asleep, and debris from the scene suggest that their front door had been barricaded from the outside to prevent them from escaping. Also, the house had been so doused in chemicals that the fire spread quickly enough to give them very little time to flee, according to police testimony.”

“The main suspect was a husband, ex, or boyfriend, I’m guessing?”

Mark checked. “Actually, no. It was some guy who lived in the neighborhood. Burt Feron. It says here that there really wasn’t much of a connection between him and Magdalena, but that Magdalena, a licensed therapist, had once provided counseling to Burt’s daughter Diana, 17.”

“That’s not a very big connection. Why did they suspect him?”

“Because they found CCTV footage of him buying three canisters of gasoline from a local gas station, the tire tracks from his truck matched ones found outside the remains of the Crosby’s home, and they uncovered a harassing letter he’d sent to Magdalena threatening her about keeping her nose out of his family’s business.”

“Oh…” Jinyoung paused as the waiter arrived and delivered their chicken wings. “So…why didn’t they arrest him?”

“Lack of evidence.”

“What?”

“I don’t know, that’s what it says here.” Mark went back in his browser and looked up more pages about the case. “A few sites suggest there was police corruption involved. Burt Feron was apparently the big man in Buckingham, and was in charge of the local neighborhood watch. Looks like he may have been old high school friends with the police chief, too.”

“Great. The guy kills three people, but the chief can’t arrest him because they used to take algebra together!”

“Looks like the police chief used the line that they couldn’t eliminate potential other suspects, so they weren’t able to make a definitive arrest. The husband, Lucian Crosby, was on a fishing trip at the time of the murders, but couldn’t get anyone to solidify his alibi since he’d gone alone.”

“Still, I doubt it was him if the other guy was spotted buying the gasoline.”

“It could always be argued that the husband hired the other guy to do the dirty work.”

“I still think that threatening letter suggests the Burt guy was the one with the motive. Maybe his daughter revealed something bad to Magdalena during counseling? abuse? Domestic violence?”

“That definitely seems most likely.” Mark looked up. “So…want to go? BamBam’s not around, but maybe we could film some footage in Buckingham with our phones if we decide to do an episode on this later.”

He already knew the answer before Jinyoung opened his mouth—he had that sparkle in his eyes that he got when a mystery had hooked him. “I’m up for it if you are.”

Estes Park had been such a nice area that it was almost off-putting to see Buckingham Circuit in comparison. The houses were dinky and poorly taken care of—the paint was peeling, the untrimmed yards overrun with weeds, the porches all scrapped and sagging. At the entrance was an orange and white sign with the silhouette of a criminal-looking man and the words: “WARNING: NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH. ALL SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITIES ARE REPORTED TO THE POLICE DEPARTMENT.”

“Look,” Jinyoung said in a hushed voice as they drove near what looked like a vacant lot. “That’s where the Crosby house was.”

Sure enough, upon closer study, you could see the foundation of a house—black with scorch marks—still remained in the dead grass. Mark involuntarily shuddered as he parked the car. “Let’s get a shot of that.”

The two got out of Mark’s car and walked up to the burnt out foundation. Jinyoung turned the camera on and began filming around the perimeter. “This is really eerie. Five years have passed…wouldn’t you think they’d tear the rest of it down? Build a new house?”

“I don’t get the feeling this area is hot real estate.”

“Still…I wouldn’t want to be reminded of a triple homicide every time I was in the neighborhood.”

“They don’t call it a homicide in Buckingham, I read. They call it an accident.”

“Even though there was firestarting chemicals involved?”

“Yes. Whatever helps them sleep at night, I guess. A lot of people suspect Burt Feron’s neighborhood watch buddies were involved in subsequent cover ups and intimidating any potential witnesses.”

“Can you explain this ‘neighborhood watch’ concept to me? Like is it official or unofficial?”

“They can be official—and having that traffic sign like the one we saw on the way in here is a good indication that they have support from the police department. Basically, they’re just supposed to keep an eye on the area and report suspicious persons to the police. Generally, all neighborhoods can do that, but neighborhood watch programs tend to educate volunteers a little more on warning signs and gives them the encouragement they might need to feel more confident about reporting suspicions.”

“Do they ever get any vigilante action in? Like Spring Townsend?”

“They’re not supposed to. They’re supposed to report directly to the police and not get involved. That doesn’t always happen, though.”

“And in this case, you’re thinking they did the opposite and kept people from reporting to the police?”

“Possibly. If Burt Feron actually did bring his truck here and douse the house in chemicals, someone may have seen him. Or maybe other people knew about whatever his daughter told Magdalena during therapy.” Mark lowered his voice. “Neighborhood watches might have a do-gooder image, but I don’t think it’s that rare for people who see themselves as ‘enforcers’ to take the intimidation and bully route. They may have seen themselves as watching out for their leader, or something.”

“Disturbing.”

Mark heard a noise in the distance and turned to look over his shoulder. There was a guy across the street standing on his porch and watching them intently. He had his phone out and pressed against his ear, seemingly talking into it in a low undertone. Maybe it was nothing, but Mark suddenly got a bad feeling.

“Jinyoung,” he said in a low voice. “Put the camera away, and let’s get back in the car.”

Jinyoung heard the seriousness in his tone, and immediately shut off his camera. “What’s going on?”

“I think we might be being watched.” He grabbed Jinyoung’s arm, pulling him close. “Just stay by me and let’s get out of here.”

They walked back to the car as if everything was normal and they had been doing nothing more than enjoying a walk around the area, but the guy across the street, who was bald and unsettlingly buff, started walking towards the road towards them and stopped in front of their car, blocking them from it.

“What brings you here?” he said, looking at them coldly.

Mark used the hand he had on Jinyoung’s arm to push him back a little so that Mark was standing in between him and the man. “We’re investigating an insurance claim from a client,” he lied. “Our company asked us to go onsite and take pictures to support the case.”

“An insurance claim,” the guy echoed. “You’re telling me that Lucian Crosby hasn’t filed a claim on the house until now?”

“It was put on hold due to police investigation,” Mark said, pulling any excuse he could think of. He knew in his gut that it wouldn’t be smart to tell this man what they’d actually been doing. “Since the police investigation has yet to draw any definitive conclusions, Mr. Crosby wanted us to move ahead with our investigation of his insurance claim.”

Mark could see more men coming out from the nearby houses to join the bald man. He hoped the panic wasn’t showing on his expression. He didn’t know what these men would do if they suspected him and Jinyoung of sticking their noses in the case. He needed to get Jinyoung out of here, fast.

“You two don’t look like insurance agents,” the man said, eyes narrowing. “You look like hikers.”

“We…um…”

“It was supposed to be our day off, but the agent who was supposed to take care of it called in sick, and they needed backup,” Jinyoung butted in. “Our boss called us in since we were nearby, in the Estes Park area.”

“Right. And you just happened to be hiking together, did you? Two coworkers, on their day off?” The man folded his arms across his broad chest as more of his cronies showed up. “You know what I think? I think you’re bullting me, and you’re more of those ‘social media’ kids trying to go viral by sticking your noses in things that aren’t your concern.”

“I don’t think a few insurance photos of a dirty foundation will help us go viral,” Mark said carefully.

“Let’s see your business cards, then.”

“We were hiking,” Jinyoung said. “Why would we have that on us?”

“Then how do you expect me and the boys to buy into your little story?” He glanced at another one of the men, who looked almost like a textbook lumberjack with his thick beard, flannel, and dirt smudged face. “What do you think, Burt? These kids trying to land you in jail for extra credit?”

Oh god, Mark thought, his stomach sinking. The freaking murder suspect. The guy who most likely killed his daughter’s therapist for ‘sticking her nose’ into his business.

Maybe they were at last out of their depth. With the Daphne Cromwell case, at least they’d never come face to face with the killer, though the whole situation of being at the scene of the crime with no power had been unsettling enough. Now they literally had a murder suspect and his gang of thugs right in front of them, and the knowledge that members of neighborhood watches had gotten away with armed violence in the past due to ‘feeling threatened’ or ‘self-defense’ did not at all comfort him.

I need to get Jinyoung out of here, he thought again. The men weren’t quite surrounding them, and Jinyoung was still behind Mark, meaning that Mark could block the pursuers if Jinyoung ran. Still, how on earth could he wordlessly convince Jinyoung to run and leave him behind? He wasn’t even sure if Jinyoung could run fast enough, either, and ‘fleeing the scene’ might be all the incentive these guys needed to escalate the situation.

“Who knows?” Burt Feron said, staring at Mark with a wolfish expression. “Why don’t you show us your footage, Mr. Insurance Agents?”

Mark’s stomach sank. If they got ahold of the phone, they’d hear all of their discussion about the murder—including Mark’s implications about witness intimidation and Burt being the most likely candidate for who had started the fire. What were they supposed to do now?

He was seconds away from telling Jinyoung to make a break for it and run when his cell phone started ringing loudly in his pocket. Before anyone could make a comment, he whipped it out of his pocket and accepted the call so quickly he couldn’t even read the caller ID before answering. “Hello?”

“Where are you guys off to?” It was BamBam.

“I’m glad you checked in, Mr. Bhuwakul,” Mark said in a forced voice. “We’ve encountered some trouble investigating the claim. The neighborhood watch wants verification that we are, in fact, insurance agents, but Jinyoung and I don’t have any of our paperwork on us since you called us in the middle of a hiking trip. Would you be able to swing by and clear up this misunderstanding?”

“Did you just call me Mr. Bhuwakul?” BamBam said in a baffled voice. “And what’s this about an insurance claim? What are you doing?”

Just play along!, Mark wanted to scream. “Thank you for being accommodating, Mr. Bhuwakul,” he said out loud. “We’re on location at Buckingham Circuit. How soon can you get here?”

“Buckingham Circuit?” BamBam paused. “Are you trying to tell me to come pick you up?”

“That’s exactly right, Mr. Bhuwakul. We need you to bring confirmation to assure these fine citizens who are currently preventing Jinyoung and I from safely completing our duties that we are in fact insurance agents representing…Bhuwakul Insurance.” He looked at Burt Feron. “Unless confirmation over the phone will suit?”

Burt gave a curt nod, and Mark switched the phone to speaker. “Mr. Bhuwakul?”

“Uh? Uh, yeah…they’re insurance agents representing my company. They are supposed to be there, doing what they’re doing.”

“And is this ‘insurance investigation’ reporting in any way to the police investigation?” Burt asked in a threatening voice.

“Police?” BamBam sounded alarmed. “No, we’re not in any way affiliated with the police. Mark…what on e-“

“These fine citizens are concerned that we are involving ourselves in the homicide investigation,” Mark said, quickly switching the phone off speaker. “I’ve already informed them that we are not, and that we are merely establishing the issue of whether the fire was intentional or unintentional.” He took Jinyoung’s arm again. “Do you need us to report back to headquarters, or would you prefer us to e-mail the images from the location to you?”

“Uh…whichever you want?” BamBam said, still struggling to play along.

“We’ll come to headquarters, then.” Still holding the phone, he elbowed past the neighborhood watch, taking Jinyoung with him. “Before we go, though, I wanted to ask you about the issue with our employee IDs…”

He kept BamBam on the phone until he and Jinyoung were both safely inside the car with the doors locked behind them. He tossed the phone over to Jinyoung as he started the engine. “Keep talking to him,” he said. “We need to make sure they don’t follow us.”

Jinyoung nodded, and took over the conversation as Mark pulled out and drove out of the neighborhood.

“Oh my god,” Jinyoung said, once they were a safe distance away. “Oh my god, what the hell?”

“What was that about?” BamBam asked—Jinyoung had put him back on speaker. “Did you guys manage to get yourself into on your day off?”

“That’s exactly what we did,” Mark said, explaining the situation to him.

“God…you were lucky to weasel out of that. If I hadn’t been genius enough to call you at that exact second…” He paused. “Look guys. We may be YouTube famous, but we’re not a major operation, all right? We don’t have any big, scary lawyers to get you guys out of trouble if something ever happens. I suggest deleting your footage and not touching that case again, all right?”

“But three people died-” Jinyoung started to say.

“I know. And I know it’s effed up that the police aren’t doing anything, but at the end of the day, they still have to be the one to take the initiative and do something. You and Mark can’t just make a citizen’s arrest even if you’re sure this guy is guilty. And if you use your platform to broadcast your thoughts about it, you’re just going to piss them off and they’ll do worse to you than what they already did today. You either need to let it go, or contact someone who can actually help.”

Mark was still feeling odd after they hung up with BamBam, his body still in flight-or-fight mode. Jinyoung also looked bowled over beside him, his hands shaking slightly in his lap.

“I’m sorry,” Mark said.

“Why are you sorry?”

“It was my idea to go there.”

“It was one of our fan’s ideas, and we both agreed to it. Besides, you got us out of that mess with your quick thinking.”

“BamBam was the one who got us out.”

“No. You did. You came up with the story that made them back off. If BamBam had called without that cover story, we still probably wouldn’t have been able to get out of it that well. We would have had to stay on the line with BamBam for however long it took him to get help, and who knows what they might have done in the meantime?” He shivered. “Thank god you kept a cool head back there.”

“You played along well, too.”

“Just by following your lead. When they first showed up, I had no idea what to do.”

“Honestly, I was still two seconds away from screaming at you to run.”

“I wouldn’t have left you behind.” Jinyoung swallowed. “You were trying to protect me, but…we’re partners, right? I’m never going to leave you to fend for yourself.”

“You should, when it’s an emergency.”

“But I won’t. If you’re going down fighting, I’m fighting with you.” He sighed, taking a deep breath. “Still…maybe let’s not get into an emergency situation again. I feel like most true crime YouTubers aren’t this adventure prone.”

“Didn’t we just say yesterday that we wanted to go out into the field more?”

“Yes…but maybe let’s do it for cases like Aspen’s where the killer is already behind bars. Still…I hate that we have to leave it at that. The fact that this is an unsolved case is ridiculous.”

“I know. But BamBam has a point. We can’t arrest people. Or declare them guilty on a public platform.”

“I know that, too. Still.” He sighed. “I wish we could be like Spring and deliver justice in this case. It’s not fair to Magdalena and her children that their killer gets to stroll around the neighborhood like he’s the boss of it.”

“Agreed. I hope they’ll all get what’s coming to them one day.” Mark glanced at Jinyoung out of the corner of his eye. “That kind of put a damper on our vacation time, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, I’m certainly not feeling stress-free anymore.”

“Want to head back to the hotel, or…?”

Jinyoung glanced at the clock. It was only mid-afternoon, though their detour in Buckingham had felt like it had lasted hours. “Let’s go back for a few hours. We can calm down a little, and if we’re feeling up to it, we can try to go out shopping or for a little more sightseeing later. I’d hate to have those jerks ruin our memories of Colorado.”

“Same. Maybe a swim in the hotel pool wouldn’t hurt.”

“I didn’t bring a swimsuit.”

“You could skinny dip.”

“Wouldn’t you like that?”

“I sure would,” Mark said before he realized what he was even admitting to. “Joking! Joking!” He felt his cheeks turning red. “Let’s watch some mindless TV or something. Something non-stressful like Spongebob. Or Dora the Explorer.”

“Whatever works, I guess.” Jinyoung shifted in his seat. “Still…something valuable did come of this.”

“Yeah? What?”

“I got to see a pretty cool side of you. You’re a bit dashing, you know? Mark, the White Knight.”

“Don’t tease me about it.”

“I’m not,” Jinyoung said earnestly. “It eased my mind so much, while it was happening. Knowing you wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me.”

Mark nodded. In the end, if someone had whipped out a gun or they’d used their fists to keep them quiet, there probably wouldn’t have been anything he could have done. Unless the same fever of adrenaline that had swept through Spring when facing Aspen’s killer had struck him, but even then, he still probably wouldn’t have been able to fight off all of them. All he knew was that he would have tried. During those tense moments of confrontation, Jinyoung had always been first in his thoughts. If something had happened to him, he would have never forgiven himself.

“It sounds stupid to say it out loud,” Jinyoung said softly, “but I would have tried to kick their asses too, if they’d tried anything on you. There’s nothing I could have done that would have actually hurt that bald guy since he was twice my size, but…”

“I know,” Mark said gently.

“Let’s…let’s just not do that again, OK?”

“I’m 100% all for never meeting another neighborhood watch in my life, trust me.”