by Misty Simon
“It’s over, Annie. Give up,” Burton said.
“You bastard!” Annie screamed.
Max, Burton, and I all looked at each other since I wasn’t sure who she was talking to.
“Your brother couldn’t do the right thing, and look where all this got me. Drowning in a river and looking at a life’s sentence for a child I wanted that he wouldn’t step up for!”
Oh. Now we all looked at Burton. His face was a blank slate as he kept his gun trained on her. He stepped into the creek to the crying woman. Since she’d lost the stick in the current, I stepped closer in an effort to help him.
She came up with a rock in each hand. She threw one at me and tried to nail Burton in the head with the other one. He was faster, though, and not as wet. He tackled her, crying out as he used his injured shoulder to take her down.
And that’s how Rhoda found us.
* * *
Rhoda took Annie into her room to get her a change of clothes. Burton stood in the doorway with his back turned but not willing to leave her alone.
After that he took her to the station and Max took me home. Gina followed in my car.
Without talking about it we all decided to meet at the Bean.
I wanted caffeine and sugar, but first dry clothes. I said hi to Peanut and Mr. Fleefers, changed, and then ran back outside. Marianne caught me on the sidewalk.
“You’re out.” I wasn’t sure what else to say. She hadn’t been without some blame in this whole thing, but I had no idea what Burton would charge her with, if any.
“Yeah, just for a little while. There was a quick hearing and I’m on probation for the moment. If I slip up again I have to go to jail.” Her blond hair was so much more her and I wondered how I had missed that in the first place.
“So, don’t screw up.” I shrugged and realized that she was probably here for Peanut. My heart clenched. While I hadn’t wanted her in the beginning, I didn’t want to let her go now. But it was probably for the best because I really didn’t have the room to keep a Saint Bernard. It still made me sad, though, and Mr. Fleefers was probably going to be a pain in the butt with the crying when the big dog left.
“I’m not going to. Mick and I are going to move to another state to start over again, just to get out of here. This place is quite the secret keeper.”
“We’re not that bad, just like any other group of people.”
“Except for the murderers.”
“Oh, um, well I guess there is that, but maybe this is the last one.”
“Yeah, well I won’t be here to watch. But that leads me to my precious Peanut.”
She was going to ask for the adorable dog back. Who knew I would feel this attached to her when I’d only had her for a handful of days and hadn’t wanted her in the first place?
“I can go get her and all her stuff. She’s just right upstairs.” I gulped.
“No,” she said softly. “No.” She swiped a hand under her eye. “I’m sorry I never asked about her while I was in the hospital, but I just couldn’t. It hurt too much to think about her, so I didn’t. But I knew in my heart she’d be safe with you. And now, I want to ask you to keep her. I don’t know where we’re going to end up, and I can’t have my Peanut living in a car. She’s too lovely to be dragged all over the country. And who knows what our finances are going to be now.” She grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Will you take care of her? I can give you my roaming vacuum cleaner to deal with the shedding.”
“I . . . um . . . of course.” Not that the roaming vacuum cleaner was the deal clincher. I did not like those things.
“Oh, bless you and your heart. Maybe she can be your new hobby to keep you out of trouble. She’ll need to be walked and groomed and pampered and between that and your two jobs, you won’t have time to get involved. Or at least that’s what Burton told me when he suggested I ask you to keep her.”
I would have laughed, but I was too tired to do more than smile. “She’s in good hands. If you’re in the area and want to visit her, give me a call. You have my number.”
“Thank you, Tallie. I’ll let you go. I see your man over there waving at you, and I don’t want to keep you. A good life to you.” She waved and I followed the line of her gaze.
“And a good new start to you, Marianne.”
She hugged me and kept walking, eyeing the cake in the front window of the Bean before turning down a side street and getting into her maroon car.
I stepped into the café and was immediately caught in a huge hug. One that I wasn’t sure who was giving it.
“Thank you,” the man said and I recognized the voice from the recording on Eli’s voicemail. The guy who was dying. “Thank you so much for finding out who my birth mother was.”
“Okay.” What else was I supposed to say?
Mama Shirley came around the corner and hugged me, too. I looked over her shoulder at Max, who just smiled at me.
“You brought a sheep into the fold, Tallie. I promise not to mention any old snafus anymore. We have one of our own back and now we can help him. Robbie is going to make it through this with the help of his family, aren’t you, my love?”
Robbie smiled, and it clicked. If Burton’s brother had fathered him, and Burton was Shirley’s cousin, then Robbie had just stepped into a huge mess of family. He might survive the disease, but maybe not the overwhelming number of relatives who were going to come crashing down on his head. But he looked happy enough to deal with it, and Mama Shirley was beaming.
Okay then.
I finally got to Max. He hugged me hard. “I thought I asked you to wait for me.”
“And I thought I had it all figured out.” I snuggled in then looked up at him. “How’d you find me anyway?”
“When Annie carried you down to the creek your phone dropped in the grass. I used that GPS thing you find so amusing when Burton called to tell me he couldn’t get ahold of you and your phone had cut out.”
“The People Finder.” I laughed and it was good. Maybe I’d have to write a glowing review for the thing.
“That’s the one. Want to tell me about that talk across the street?” he raised an eyebrow and I figured Mama Shirley had been filling him in and so had Gina.
“I have a new dog.”
Shirley snickered and so did Gina.
I was surprised to see her since my brother had become super-overprotective guy again. We won’t go into how he’d reacted to her being knocked out. Let’s just say that Jeremy was taking coddling to a whole new level.
Whatever they did was fine with me, though. They could dog sit when I went down to visit Max unless I could finally get him to consider moving up here. Maybe this would be my ace in the hole. I’d find out later after I enjoyed getting to know Robbie and finishing my coffee and my sticky bun.
Another case closed and this one had hit close to home, but it was all good. Maybe I would get a hobby. Convincing Max to move up here might be a good one.
Rhoda came running into the Bean. “Oh, Tallie, I was hoping I’d find you! I need your help! Can you and your young man fill in for the tour this afternoon? I’m sure I have a period costume that fits you. Paul is about Max’s size. The couples don’t want to cancel and take their money back. They want someone to lead them around town and show them all the wonders of our small community. I immediately thought of you.”
Then again, I might want to move down to DC to escape all the people who thought of me first when it came time to solve problems that cropped up.
I agreed, of course I did, and only had to cajole Max a little bit to get him to put on the hose and buckle shoes that afternoon. He made a mighty fine colonist, if I did say so myself.
So, we’d stay. And I’d convince him to move up here with me and my cat and now my dog. And it would be good. I would avoid my dad’s offer, move out of the apartment above the dead, and start working on my dreams. Whatever those were. At the moment, though, my one dream I was sure of stood in a brown wig with a ponytail, looking absolutely
wonderful.
Time to get this show on the road. And I was all too happy that Max was on the road with me.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many, many, many thanks to all the fabulous people at Kensington for taking a chance on me. Esi, I had no idea what this journey would be like when you asked me to send you a hundred pages, but even with my imagination I would never have thought it would be this fantastic! Thank you.
And I have to give a shout-out to Funeral Bob at Myers-Buhrig Funeral Home—I would never have been able to do all this without you and your thoughtfulness, and your time. Thanks!
Don’t miss the other books in
THE TALLIE GRAVER SERIES
by Misty Simon
Available now from
Kensington Books,
wherever books are sold.
Photo by Whitney Hart
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MISTY SIMON is the author of Cremains of the Day and Grounds for Remorse in the Tallie Graver Mystery series. She loves a good story and decided one day that she would try her hand at it. Eventually she got it right. There’s nothing better in the world than making someone laugh, and she hopes everyone at least snickers in the right places when reading her books. She lives with her husband, daughter, and three insane dogs in central Pennsylvania, where she is hard at work on her next novel or three. She loves to hear from readers, so drop her a line at [email protected].