“I’m not so sure that remodeling is something you want me around for.” Joss was joking, but still pretty serious. She was definitely not a Miss Fix-it.
“I don’t mean to do the work, silly. I was just thinking you might know someone from the diner that is reliable. I think I want to redo the whole basement; new floors, new walls.” Rachel walked further into the basement, gesturing for Joss to follow.
“I think that’s a good idea, but did you ever find out what happened?” Joss asked.
“Something to do with a pipe.” Rachel shrugged. “I don’t really know much about it, honestly. Ryan talked to the people for me to make sure that everything was being taken care of properly. I’ve got a plumber coming out today to do some work.”
Joss liked Rachel’s idea of renovating the basement, especially after something like a flood. No one ever wanted something like that to happen, but sometimes it was a way to give people a reason to do something they otherwise wouldn’t have done. However, with more workers coming, and plans to renovate, Joss wasn’t sure what Rachel wanted her help with.
“So, what are you planning on doing today?” Joss asked, getting straight to the point. “You don’t want to bring things back down here yet, do you?”
“I can’t very well live with boxes in my bathtub.” Rachel smiled. “I just want to utilize a few of the shelves down here. We brought everything upstairs because I had no idea what was going to happen. I didn’t want to take the risk of losing everything. Now that I know the plumber is coming to fix things today, I think I can at least get a few things back down here. I called Ryan for help originally, but he had to work, so then I called the next best person.”
“I’ll help. I’d just hate to see you bring everything down here, and then back up again when you start having contractors in and out,” Joss explained.
“I get what you’re saying.” Rachel nodded. “I just had an idea to renovate, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to start tomorrow or anything. After all, I just bought this house. I’m not exactly rolling in the dough.”
“You’re right. I’ll do whatever I can. Ignore me and my bossy ways.” Joss laughed at herself.
“I’m just thankful you’re here. Ryan told me how much you’ve been working lately.”
“It’s no problem at all. After a couple of days of Becky not being able to come in and me working double shifts because I don’t know how to say no, Dina offered to cover for me so I could have a day off.”
Joss turned, heading up the basement stairs.
“Wait. Dina covered for you so you could have a day off, and you came here?” Rachel said a little too loudly. “That doesn’t make any sense. You aren’t supposed to take a day off to go do work somewhere else.”
“Now who’s the bossy one?” Joss continued her ascent, stopping at the top of the stairs, waiting for Rachel to lead the way. “Where do we start?”
“I got some nice totes from the store this morning. I’d like to take some things out of the cardboard boxes and get them in the totes. I don’t want to try to get everything done today, just the stuff that’s really in my way.” Rachel pointed toward her kitchen. “The boxes in my oven and bathroom would be a good place to start.”
“In the oven? Really?”
“Hey, we needed a place to put things. Did Ryan tell you about Lilly? I’m not sure which one of them it was that started putting boxes in odd places, but I do know that it wasn’t me.” Rachel dug two sets of gloves out from a cabinet under her kitchen sink, passing one pair to Joss.
“Gloves?” Joss asked, holding them up.
“There was a lot of water, and I don’t know what’s in every box. I just figured you’d want some extra protection in case anything gets gross,” Rachel explained.
“If you say so,” Joss said, pulling the gloves on over her fingers.
Once Rachel directed Joss to the new totes and the boxes she wanted her to tend to first, Joss got started. There was no sense in waiting for Rachel. She figured she’d work until she had a question, or found something too damaged to keep. As Joss plugged along, she found some blankets and clothing that were wet, so she dropped them off in the laundry room to be washed. Boxes of knick-knacks and things that looked sentimental, Joss repacked them with fresh tissue paper and stored them in the totes to be brought back down to the basement. Once she finished in the bathroom, Joss was going to start lugging the totes downstairs but got distracted by an obscene number of boxes in Rachel’s spare bedroom. It hadn’t taken her very long to go through one room, and she wasn’t bored yet, so Joss kept going. A bit of unpacking and repacking later, Joss found something that intrigued her. An intricately designed wooden box all on its own. Mostly everything that she’d come across was packed away in the cardboard boxes, but not this. It had some water damage on the bottom and sides and was mixed in with the stuff from the basement, so Joss didn’t feel too awkward about opening it up to check out its contents.
“Whoa,” Joss whispered.
She pulled out a handful of letters. When she got to the bottom, one of the letters, addressed to My Dearest A, was folded the wrong way, its words on the outside of the paper. Unable to hold back her curiosity, Joss began to read. Several minutes later, Joss opened the last of the letters just as Rachel entered the room.
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, my gosh. I’m so sorry. These letters are beautiful, I couldn’t help myself,” Joss apologized, looking like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
“What letters?” Rachel asked.
“I found them with your boxes. I know it wasn’t my place to read them. I hope I didn’t overstep. I’m just a romantic.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t know anything about any letters,” Rachel replied, confused.
Joss held up the stack of letters, then the box. “They were in this box. I found them when I started working on things in this room. Are you saying they aren’t yours?”
“I’ve never seen them before in my life.” Rachel shook her head. “Or that box.”
“Darn. I was hoping you had an epic love story to share with me.” Joss grinned. “That doesn’t explain where they came from, though. Are you sure they aren’t from someone in your family or something? Why else would they be here?”
“Beats me. I didn’t even put any boxes in here. I think Ryan did, but I doubt they are his. Unless, of course, they are all made out to you and signed by him.”
Joss turned red. “I don’t think Ryan would be writing me love letters at all, never mind storing them here.”
“My brother has been talking about you for years. I don’t see anything stopping him from writing you a love letter. He’s romantic, too. Me, not so much,” Rachel admitted.
Joss thought it was sweet that Rachel called her brother a romantic. She loved learning little things about him like that. The thing was, though, they weren’t written to her or signed by Ryan. They weren’t written to Rachel or from her, either. Joss felt concern welling inside of her. She even got a little chill when she realized she recognized a name from the letters. Isa. The name wasn’t totally uncommon, she’d definitely heard it once or twice before but what the name was, was the one she’d seen on the photo album from the man at the diner a couple of days before. The name of a dead woman. Why did Rachel have letters addressed to a dead woman in her house, and more importantly, why did she claim to have no idea where they came from?
“That’s good to hear. Thanks for telling me. Aren’t you wondering where they came from?” Joss asked, hoping for an honest answer.
“Nah. I’m sure I just found them at a yard sale or something and forgot about them. I used to make crafts using vintage postcards all the time. I probably just got them in some lot I bought online or something. They look like old letters, right?” Rachel glanced at them quickly and picked up a full tote Joss had filled. “Anyway, let’s tackle this room together, and then we can go for ice cream. We deserve a treat.”
&nb
sp; Unconvinced, Joss reluctantly agreed.
Chapter Four
“After all of that, I only have one thing to say,” Tyla, Joss’ best friend, grinned.
“Oh? I just explained some seriously weird stuff to you, and you only have one thing to say? Somehow I’m not sure I believe that.”
“All I can say is that I’m really glad I’m dating a family of law enforcement officers.” Tyla winced, ready for Joss to throw something at her.
“Very funny. You aren’t dating the whole family by the way, and Austin isn’t in law enforcement,” Joss pointed out.
“Yeah, well. Close enough. His sister is the chief of police, his mom works as a dispatcher, and his dad is a retired detective. At least I don’t have to worry about them breaking the law.”
“So, you think that Rachel broke the law, then?” Joss asked, her interest piqued.
“I didn’t even sort of say that. I do think it sounds like you are looking for trouble, though. You’ve known Ryan for a really long time, don’t you think he’d have shared it with you over the years if his sister was a lying, homicidal maniac?”
“What?! Did you hear something about Rachel?” Joss threw her arms up in the air.
“Settle down.” Tyla shook her head. “The only thing I heard is what you just told me. I don’t know anything about Rachel, the guy from the diner, or his mother that passed away. However, I do think she probably passed away from natural causes. If it was anything more, we’d have heard about it.”
Joss paused, an idea occurring to her. Tyla was probably right. If the woman had died of natural causes, it was likely that it would have gone unheard. Christopher, not that she remembered much about him, seemed to have been a bit older than she was, meaning that his mother was probably up there in age. Either way, deaths were recorded in the newspaper and online, and Joss would be able to find out at least a little more about the woman just by pressing a few buttons on her phone. By the time Joss found the record of the woman’s death, Tyla was shoving her phone in Joss’ face.
“What are you doing?” Joss backed away
“Look. Her name is Isa Ross. She was seventy-two years old. Died of natural causes,” Tyla said matter-of-factly. “I don’t even understand why you think she was killed. You found some random letters with her name on them, but that doesn’t mean they were hers or that someone murdered her. Why are you even worried about this?”
“Seventy-two isn’t that old,” Joss said, tapping away on her own phone. “Here’s the guy from the diner. It’s his social media page.”
“I’ve never seen him before, and you didn’t answer my question.”
Joss scrolled through Christopher’s photos, still ignoring Tyla, coming across something that surprised her.
“Check this out.” She held out her phone. “It’s from Mother’s Day. It’s Christopher posing in a picture with his mother.”
“How do you know it’s her?” Tyla challenged.
“Uhhh. Who else would you post a photo with on Mother’s Day?” Joss rolled her eyes.
“She looks so young.” Tyla stared at the phone.
“And fit. She was in great shape.”
Joss took her phone back and kept scrolling. She was looking to see if Isa had a profile of her own. It took some online detective work, but Joss was able to find what she’d been looking for.
“This woman ran three miles a day, participated in triathlons, and for goodness sakes, she’s won awards for being the best in her age group.”
Joss kept scrolling, ignoring whatever Tyla had been saying. She went back to Christopher’s profile, looking for something else. She found a post from someone in Christopher’s life, offering condolences for the loss of his mother. The person said how much of a shame it was that someone so healthy had suffered such a bad accident. From what Joss gathered, Isa had been found in the woods where she did her trail running on a daily basis. It looked as though the cause of her death was from falling down a hill and hitting her head. It really was a shame, Joss silently agreed.
“Hellllllo.” Tyla waved her hand in front of Joss.
“Sorry,” Joss said, shaking her head. “What did you find?”
“More like, what did you find? I’ve been talking for ten minutes, and you haven’t even looked up from your phone.”
Joss explained everything she’d read, eagerly awaiting a response from Tyla.
“Well, after all of that, I guess what I found doesn’t seem so out of reach.”
“What is it?” Joss asked, eyes wide.
Tyla held out her phone, watching as Joss read. “What do you think?”
Joss scanned the screen, shocked to see a comment under a death announcement on Isa’s profile.
Everything isn’t as it seems. Isa was murdered.
“Not out of reach at all. An extremely healthy woman, who runs the same trail daily, for who knows how many years, falls down a hill she should have been very familiar with. It seems like it could still have been an accident, but when someone else mentions murder, someone that isn’t me, I can’t help but take it seriously. Who do you think this person is? Did you look them up?” Joss asked, suddenly looking frantic.
“I did,” Tyla replied, taking back her phone.
“Annnnddddd….” Joss exaggerated.
Tyla handed Joss the phone once again, this time with a deep sigh.
“There’s nothing here,” Joss said, tapping the phone a few times, only seeing some pictures of tropical islands.
“Exactly. The person who posted the comment about murder was Johnny Smithwick. It’s like a version on John Smith, a pretty obvious way to make yourself invisible, but not too invisible. After some searching, I was able to find the name, but there are no real pictures aside from the island ones. There are no posts on his profile, either. It’s like one of those scam pages where the person doesn’t actually exist. I even looked to check their privacy settings. They are open to the public, so I should be able to see everything they share without being their friend, but I see nothing,” Tyla said slowly.
“Do you think someone else really believes it’s murder? Maybe they posted it so someone would find it and start searching?” Joss asked.
“I don’t know. We may never know.”
“Oh, trust me. We’re gonna know,” Joss said, a familiar twinkle in her eye.
Chapter Five
Dina flipped through the newspaper for the second time in the last fifteen minutes. “Why is it so quiet in here?” she groaned.
“Why are you complaining? We had an amazing breakfast shift, and with all the extra hours we’ve been working, I think it feels great to have some quiet time.”
“Gee, Joss. Do you want a blankey, too?” Dina cackled at her own joke.
“You’re so funny.” Joss snickered. “So, anyway… Are you looking forward to your date tonight?
“You have no idea. I just love spending time with Richie,” Dina admitted.
“I’m so happy for you. Where are you two going, and what are you going to wear?” Joss asked, wondering what crazy outfit Dina had planned.
“You have no idea how glad I am to hear you ask me that,” Dina gushed. “It’s all I’ve been thinking about. I have a collage of options, want to see it?”
“More than anything,” Joss said, instantly regretting her comment.
Dina ran to the back, disappearing long enough for Rachel to enter the diner.
“Hey, Joss. I’ve been calling you,” Rachel said, coming up to her.
“Really? I’ve been having some issues with my phone. I keep meaning to get it looked at, but I’m just so busy,” Joss said, hoping she pulled off the lie.
“Okay, so here it is,” Dina’s voice was muffled.
Joss glanced toward the voice, her jaw dropping.
“What’s going on there?” Rachel asked, gesturing to Dina.
“Rachel? Is that you?” Dina asked from behind the massive poster board she was carrying. “I was just about to show Joss my outfit op
tions for my date tonight. Now, I can have a second opinion. How lucky am I?”
“Dina, I thought you meant a photo collage, like from an app on your phone. I didn’t know you crafted an actual piece of art.” Joss eyed her.
“I like to do things properly, Josslyn.”
“Speaking of dates, and in turn, love… How about those letters, huh Rachel?” Dina rested the board on a table. “I’d love to see them.”
Rachel gave Joss a quick look before focusing on Dina.
“Oh, yeah. I can’t find them anywhere. I’m totally done getting all my stuff out of the boxes and into totes, but I just can’t find them at all. I meant to ask you, Joss, did you put them somewhere?”
Steaks and Suspects Page 2