“And there she was.” Guy smiled at his wife, his face glowing. “I knew instantly that she was my person, my family for the rest of my life. It did take a while for the divorce to finalize, but from the day I first laid eyes on Gracie, I never stopped loving her.”
“Awe.” It came out on accident, and Taylor blushed. Guy just loved Gracie so much that Taylor’s awe was a literal involuntary reaction to the emotion pouring out of him.
“And Art?” Sissy hadn’t softened to the man who had not had nice things to say about Fawn.
“He’s always wondered if he was really Una’s father, but I have been perfectly happy to get him a DNA test, so he just goes along with it now.”
“Does Jason have much of a relationship with Una?”
“God no,” Guy said. “I keep that one away from my family as much as possible.”
“Is he dangerous?” Taylor asked, quivering. She could feel it in her bones that Jason couldn’t be trusted, and Guy was confirming it.
“He’s a racist reactionary jerk. If you ever see him, ask him about his area of study. He’s practically a Nazi apologist.”
“He’s not that bad.” Gracie’s voice sounded weary like she was tired of this same argument. “But his focus of study is colonization with an emphasis on worldwide growth and development.”
“So not literally Nazis.” Taylor echoed.
“No, not literally.”
Taylor drummed her fingers on the wire edge of a basket full of sunglasses, not sure what else she should ask. She was personally ready to pin the whole mess on Jason. She took a deep breath and gave it one more try. “Gracie, I’ve been told Reynette was like a second mother to you…Are you sure you’re doing okay?”
“Fawn and I have been friends for a long time, but I wouldn’t say Reynette was a second mother to me, not really, but I did care for her.”
“Sissy is sure her aunt never took any kind of pain pills. What do you think?”
“She must have, right? Because how else would she have taken too many? It’s not like aspirin is something you could hide in someone’s food. You’d be able to taste that bitterness. I mean, if it was enough to kill you, you would.”
“It builds up over time,” Guy said. “I’m with Reynette on pain pills. Keep that stuff away from me.”
Something about that made Gracie blush and look down with a little smile. Maybe it was the overt manliness of the statement.
With his muscly broad shoulders and square jaw, Taylor’s heart fluttered a little too.
“If someone tried to kill her, they’d have had to have access to her normal food, so they could add it in small enough doses that she couldn’t notice for a long, long time.”
“So, Art then,” Sissy said. “The creepy old man you’ve left alone with your daughter.” Sissy framed that sentence as one last jab at Guy.
His eyes narrowed and jaw flexed. He looked at Gracie.
She looked up at him and shook her head. “He’s not a creepy old man, and I was truly in love with him. This is an argument we have all the time. Guy thinks there was a power imbalance in my relationship that invalidates my decision making. But I loved him. I chose him as much as he chose me. I wasn’t groomed by him. I was an adult.” She recited it like a mantra that she’d learned to make sense of her life. Maybe it was because Guy had undermined Gracie’s own memories with his doubts.
“Listen, Art wants to get out of here as badly as Guy wants him gone,” Taylor said. “In fact, we’re headed over to your place next to collect him and bring him back to Comfort. Una has school, right? You should know that when she gets back, he won’t be there.”
Gracie huffed in annoyance. “How like him, to disappear on her. I guess I’ll have to be there to explain it.”
“Let me,” Guy offered.
They locked eyes, another moment fraught with love, passion, emotion, all the stuff of the soap operas their life together seemed to mirror. “Okay. But don’t let her have candy for snack.”
That moment of motherly common sense broke the tension and Sissy laughed out loud. “Dads will do what dads do. Come on, let’s get the creepy old man and bring him home.”
“Thanks.” Guy held out a hand to Sissy. She gave him a firm handshake and they left.
Chapter Thirteen
When they got to her car, Taylor didn’t immediately drive away. “What do you think? Did he do it?”
Sissy sat stiff shouldered and furrow browed. “Seems likely. He had access to her food. They make a strong case for him being a real jerk. Even Gracie’s vow that he’s not so bad feels like she’s crying for help.”
Taylor mulled this thought. “They’ve almost overplayed it, haven’t they? Did Gracie and Guy kill Reynette and plan to pin it on Jason?”
“But why would any of those three kill her?” Sissy sighed heavily, the weight of her grief showing through her anger.
“Can we follow the money to a logical motive? Gracie claims she has money, but what if that’s to divert our suspicions. Art inheriting his wife’s riches could conceivably increase Gracie’s child support check, right?”
“I paid close attention in that surf shop.” Sissy’s nostril curled like the shop smelled bad. “Everything there was expensive. And new. Nothing dusty, no old stock sitting around. They seem to have plenty.”
“They could be up to their eyebrows in debt,” Taylor offered.
“Art wouldn’t have wanted her dead. A steady high income is better than inheriting some cash and a business you don’t want to run. I don’t think it was him.” Her words grew in anger as she spoke.
Taylor knew the anger, knew it well. The anger at losing someone you love sometimes flew out, injuring an innocent bystander. Taylor took a deep breath to calm her defensive instincts. She was just an innocent bystander. “Maybe it wasn’t the money. Maybe Gracie wanted to hurt him for the way he treats their daughter.” Taylor wrapped her hands around the steering wheel, gripping it for security.
Sissy nodded slowly, her face shifting from stiff with anger to soft sadness. The family motive seemed to hit home with her in a way money hadn’t. “And maybe Guy wanted Art out of Una’s life?”
“But would killing Reynette have kept Art away from Una? Having a new wife might have distracted him better.”
Sissy inhaled sharply, but didn’t disagree.
“When we pick him up, let’s ask him what his plans are. That will fill in a lot of the blanks for us, I suspect.”
Sissy grunted an agreement and Taylor headed out.
Gracie and Guy lived in a tidy two-story cedar beach house. It had a rope fence with faded red and white buoys set at the end of the driveway. The yard was green and lush and the landscaping an almost magazine-worthy example of what grows well in the sandy coastal soil. In a different season it could have been the cover of Sunset Magazine.
“Why don’t you collect him?” Taylor said as she parked.
Sissy marched to the door, determined.
The stubborn insistence of everyone who knew Reynette that she just wouldn’t have taken aspirin, combined with the discomfort Taylor got from considering the Woods family structure too closely made the whole thing feel like murder, even without any strong evidence. Taylor had plenty of time to think about it as Sissy waited in the driving rain for someone to answer the door.
Sissy stood under a pergola at the front door for five full minutes. When Taylor couldn’t take the waiting any longer, she texted her to get back in the car.
Sissy came, her anger on the surface again. “I knocked. I rang the doorbell. I texted him. No answer.”
“He’s old. Call him instead of texting.” Taylor said it with a laugh, but a shiver traced her arms.
Where was Art?
Sissy called him.
No answer.
“I don’t like this. What if he didn’t make it home?” Taylor rubbed the tip of her finger and thumb together anxiously. This was not a day for anyone to be lost, much less an older, grief-stricken man.
“Drive the path from the coffee shop to the house. Any way he could have walked, lets visit it.”
Taylor did. There weren’t many different roads to and from, but she drove each one. There was no sign of him. “Maybe he went out to the beach for a minute?”
“And what, got swept away? We should be so lucky.”
“No, don’t say that. Even if he did kill her, we don’t want him dead. Not yet anyway. Justice first, right?”
Sissy huffed but didn’t argue.
“Let’s have Gracie call him. Maybe he just didn’t recognize your number.”
They returned to Savage Surf.
Gracie was on a ladder dusting the decorative surfboards.
“Gracie, get down from there. We need to talk.” Sissy stood, feet apart, arms crossed. She looked like she was ready to take a rebellious teenager to task.
Gracie looked down. “Hold on a second. Is something wrong?”
“We can’t get a hold of Art. He’s not answering the door or his phone.”
Gracie climbed down the ladder and dusted her hands off on her knees. “What do you want me to do? Drive around and look for him?” She rolled her eyes. “I know I took him home like a hurt puppy, but he is a grown man.”
“We were just hoping you’d call him for us. I thought maybe he didn’t recognize our number.” Taylor used a friendlier tone than Sissy, it seemed to help.
“Fine.” Gracie seemed put off, a strange switch for someone who had acted so strongly concerned not so long ago.
“Where’s Guy?” Taylor asked.
“He had to run back to the cabin for some files.”
Gracie had her phone out and was tapping at it. She didn’t seem pleased that Guy was gone, which may have explained her change in mood.
“That is weird.” She stared at the screen. “He’s not answering texts and he always does. He’s text obsessed.”
“We wanted you to call him,” Sissy demanded.
Taylor put a hand on Sissy’s elbow hoping it would calm her, but Sissy only flexed her arm slightly.
“Okay. Relax. I will.” Gracie dialed and held the phone to her ear. After a moment, she shook her head. “Not there. Let me call Guy.”
They didn’t argue.
“Guy…” Gracie’s voice was strained. “Guy, the ladies can’t find Art. I want to run out with them and make sure he’s okay. Umm hmm…” She paused for a while, first her face reddened, but then her brow smoothed out and she smiled a little. “Peyton can close up if neither of us are back in time.” Another pause. A giggle. “You, too.” She ended the call and pocketed her phone. “Peyton!”
The indifferent employee popped out from behind the corner. “What?”
“I’ve got to run an errand. Close up if I’m not here in time.”
“Cool.”
They went straight back to Gracie’s house. She let them in the front door. “Art! Are you sleeping?” They followed Gracie upstairs. She stopped at a door and knocked. “Art? You in there?” She pressed it open, but the room was empty. “Maybe he’s down in the game room…”
Gracie went down the stairs slowly, listening as she went. She poked her head into the kitchen and the hall bath, but the main floor was empty. They continued down to a basement that was mostly unfinished. It, too, was empty.
“Sorry about this goose chase.” Taylor was a little embarrassed, not sure what she had expected to find in the house. His body maybe?
“I guess he just forgot you were coming.” Gracie stood in the middle of what looked like a rather fun kid hangout. An old sofa, a beanbag chair, and a big fluffy rug brought some comfort to the concrete floored space. A huge TV hung on one wall with a game system of some kind under it. It didn’t look like the kind of room Art would have wanted to spend time in, young daughter or not.
“I’ll call some of our friends and see if he’s just out. Maybe hit up the library. But he probably just forgot.” She shrugged. “He’s certainly not here, anyway.” She walked them to the door and ushered them out, then shut the door on them. A very final end to her short hunt for Art.
The rain was beginning to let up. “That’s that?” Sissy’s eyebrows were pulled tightly together. “I thought she was going to hunt the town with us.”
“Apparently not.” Taylor huddled under the awning over the front door. “But the rain is starting to let up. Why don’t we check the beach?”
They drove to the nearest beach access, parked, and walked toward the wintery ocean. The sky was a blanket of heavy, wet wool that created a seamless cold horizon, sky and ocean blending together.
“Great view. Thanks.” Sissy kicked the sand with her booted foot. “What a waste this drive was.”
Taylor didn’t respond. There wasn’t much to say.
“I swear to you, someone killed my aunt and they are out there right now, thinking they can get away with it.”
“It sure does look like that.” The tide was coming in, inching its way up the sand as the waves lashed out over and over again. It was the Pacific Ocean, calm, soothing. But frigid and remorseless all the same. “Let’s go home. The secret doesn’t lie at the coast. Just text Art and tell him we were sorry to miss him.”
Those freezing ocean waves, promising nothing good as they overtook the sandy beach made Taylor want nothing more than a cozy fire, a warm quilt, and a killer locked up in jail, far from the people she loved.
After dropping Sissy off, Taylor went straight back to Flour Sax. Technically, she had the day off, but she wanted some alone time upstairs in the newly repaired apartment. If she was going to figure out what had happened to Reynette Woods, she needed time to think. It was noon, and they’d only been open an hour, but Roxy was cutting yardage for customers. It was the kind of positive sign Taylor needed after a rough start to the day.
Hannah was ringing folks up like she had been in the quilt biz her whole life. A great contrast to the not-so-wonder-child the Sauvage family had working at their surf shop.
Taylor slipped past both of them and ran upstairs.
The apartment was a homey place. For a brief time, when she was little and finances were tight, she had lived in it. And before that, her grandparents had lived there. Since those long-ago days it had become a sort of lumber room and shop storage. The trouble with the raccoons had been sorted by the very helpful Hudson East, and the apartment was useful again.
The stock for the shop was organized in the largest bedroom, and the random detritus of life none of them had been able to part with was stored in the other. The main room was empty, except for a surplus of large wall mirrors Taylor had picked up on sale, plus some excess chicken wire baskets, and a large assortment of pastel polo shirts Taylor had scored online. One day she’d have them embroidered with the Flour Sax logo, she just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
The floors had been stripped of the old carpet to reveal the seventy-year-old parquet floor and the walls were freshly painted. The space was a good pallet cleanser and a handy place to think.
The 1950s folding table her Grandma Delma used to piece quilts on was set in a corner of the main room with the matching chair. Taylor had recovered it in light-blue gingham oilcloth last summer. She grabbed a notebook from the kitchen, sat at the table, took a deep breath, and opened Google on her phone.
Roxy popped her head in the door with an apologetic smile. “Taylor, sorry to bother you. I know you’re not on the clock.”
“What’s up?” Taylor set the phone down.
“I went over the YouTube schedule with Belle last night.”
“You talked to Belle? I’m jealous. I can’t get her to return a call.”
“Didn’t really talk to her. It was all via Instagram message.”
Taylor just shook her head. She didn’t get the way teens communicated and maybe she never would. Her only hope lay in that Belle would grow out of it. “What do I need to know?”
“We announced the compilation of your mom’s advice quite a while ago, but we’re pr
etty far behind scheduling it.”
Taylor flipped her phone over, so she wasn’t looking at the screen anymore. Or so it wasn’t looking at her. “Yeah…”
“The clips have to be chosen by you. They just have to be. You know that.”
“I do.”
“But Jonah is more than happy to edit it into one video.”
Jonah, Roxy’s son, was their film editing genius. With every episode they uploaded, Taylor got more excited about his future life after high school.
“So…”
“How much longer do we have?”
“You promised your viewers it would be ready by Christmas.”
“Ah.”
Roxy nodded.
“So I have a month?”
Roxy shook her head.
“Jonah has finals. And a band concert. He needs the list of clips ASAP so he can compile them and make it awesome in time. You don’t have a month.”
Taylor sighed. “I’ll work on it now.”
“Thank you. And sorry. I know you’re the boss, but Belle is the boss of the schedule and she kind of let me have it last night.”
Taylor laughed. “Via Instagram messages?”
Roxy laughed too. “Yes. Not a single emoji in any of them. She was serious and firm.”
“Okay…I’ll finalize the list. You tell her I’ll send it to Jonah as soon as she calls me.”
“No way. I’m not messing with her. She’s one too many for me.” Roxy disappeared behind the door.
Taylor had to agree with her though. The genius sister who landed at Oregon State University after only two years of high school, and with a full two years of college under her belt already, could out talk any of them on anything, so long as she was in the mood to talk. Which, Taylor was happy to report, was becoming more common. Though she didn’t hear from Belle often, when she did, the kid seemed willing to make eye contact and answer people with full sentences. Taylor couldn’t wait for Thanksgiving.
Like a punch in the gut, Taylor realized that was just three days away. But that was one crisis too many. She penciled a list just to make her head stop spinning.
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