by Dana Moss
“I suppose it’s possible, though I’d hate to believe it. He was playing both sides to help us. I think maybe he got too close to the fire and got burned.” Ethan grimaced. “Sorry, bad choice of words.”
“Did the other members of the MBC know about your past?”
“Only Janet. And now only you. Will you promise not to say anything?”
“I guess so. At least until you find Secca.”
“After Secca, my favors will all be called in. And after that, I’d like to put my past behind me. Start over.”
There was a hopeful tone in his voice. A feeling Taffy didn’t quite share yet.
“Do you really think the fire was set on purpose?”
He nodded. “Another scare tactic. Or a ploy to really get you out of the way.”
Would Austin have done such a thing? She couldn’t believe it. He had asked her out on a second date. What would be the point of asking a girl out and then setting fire to her house? It couldn’t have been Austin. It didn’t make sense.
“If you hadn’t come—”
“I only came because I got a call.”
“From who?”
“An unknown number. All I can think of is it was from someone on the inside who doesn’t like how things are unfolding, someone who didn’t want you to get hurt.”
Taffy took a deep breath. She could have died.
She spoke her thoughts out loud. “Someone must have thought Janet’s incriminating information might be in the house. They torched it to get rid of it, and the fire would look like an accident. Even the utilities department knew about the faulty wiring. I would just be a casualty.”
Ethan reached for her hand. “Thank goodness that didn’t happen.” He held her hand tightly. His green eyes held her gaze. The warmth of his palm against hers made all of her tingle. She still had all the same feelings for him—a giddiness, butterflies in her stomach, a yearning to be curled in his embrace—but he’d been on a different mission this whole time.
She needed to know something.
“Is that why you were dating Maria before, to find out if she was part of the scheme?” He dropped his gaze. And admission. So she had to ask the next question.
“And is that why you made friends with me? So you could keep an eye on my crazy attempts to solve a case way beyond my comprehension?”
“Taffy.” He ran his fingers through his messy hair.
“We’re telling the truth now, aren’t we? Don’t hold back, McCoy.”
“I suppose the simple answer is yes. But—”
Taffy didn’t want to hear the excuses and qualifications. It was enough to finally get the truth. She sat up straight and looked out the window.
“Midnight.”
She’d forgotten about Midnight.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Ethan tried to get her to stay put and rest. But Taffy had heard Midnight’s meows before she’d jumped from the roof. Had Midnight jumped, too? Had he gotten away before the porch roof collapsed? The firemen hadn’t said anything, and Ethan and Taffy had left before the firemen had completely finished dampening down all the smoke.
Ethan wouldn’t let her go back to the house alone. She borrowed a pair of his sweats and a hoodie and some old sneakers that were too big. Later, she’d be able to ask Maria if she could borrow some clothes. Even if Taffy’s weren’t all burned, they’d be infused with smoke. Ellie probably would have lent her things if Taffy hadn’t been so quick to write off their friendship. At some point she’d have to sort that out, but right now there were too many other things swimming in Taffy’s mind. And Midnight was the first. Taffy would not forgive herself if Midnight were lost for good. If he’d, gulp, died.
Taffy told herself her throat burned from the smoke she’d inhaled, that the lump rising was from that, and not the thought of losing the cat, whom she’d finally come to rely on, but that’s what happened, right? You relied on someone or something, and they let you down, they go away, they get hurt, they die… And no matter what you did, you couldn’t bring them back. In the weak light of dawn the house looked eerie in its abandonment. A few windows had been smashed, and the remaining ones reflecting the pale sky looked blank and empty.
Taffy called for Midnight, but no meows echoed back. Her throat felt tight and rough, the lump large and getting larger, so that it hurt when she swallowed.
The ground was damp around the house. Puddles had collected like small ponds from all the water used by the firemen. The house smelled like wet soot, but it looked virtually the same, except for some missing window glass and charring on one side. Taffy wouldn’t be able to live there again anytime soon, but it could be fixed. At least she hoped so.
Even though she knew not everything broken could be fixed.
“Midnight?”
Taffy went around one side of the house and Ethan went around the other, but they both came up empty-handed.
Taffy kicked at the cat door, which finally gave way, its edges having melted.
“Could he have gone inside?”
Ethan shook his head. “He probably ran away or—”
The lump in Taffy’s throat was getting thicker, rounder, heavier. Soon she would have trouble speaking and breathing.
Huskily, she muttered, “A cat’s instinct is to run up a tree when it’s in danger.”
Ethan glanced around the yard, at the trees edging the property. “You think Midnight’s up a tree?”
She stared at him. How could he be such a dolt?
“No, Ethan! He was in the house when the fire broke out!”
Ethan flinched. “You don’t have to yell.”
The lump in her throat needed to come out. Like a fireball it wanted to blast through her mouth and burn everything in its path.
“Midnight was in the house, Ethan!” She pounded on his chest. “And, being a cat, with the instinct to run up, he ran higher and higher! Up!” Ethan didn’t stop her as she pounded and then pulled at his hoodie.
“Up as far as he could go, until there wasn’t a roofline or branch left to reach.” Taffy started trembling. “And only flames… flames getting higher, chasing him, trapping him…”
Her throat was closing, her knees buckled, and she was sure it was raining now. She felt Ethan’s arms trying to hold her up, but the ground, the muddy ground, was swallowing her. Swallowing her in great convulsive gulps. Her cheek was in a puddle, and then it wasn’t. The ground pressed into her shoulder, and then it let go. It jumped on her back, soaking her right through, and then it tried to crawl into her mouth and nose with its water and mud and silencing weight, and the earth, in the light of dawn, started screaming at her, no, no, no, no. It isn’t happening, it isn’t true, it isn’t possible, make it go away, make her come back, make her come back…make her not go…
Taffy’s eyes opened onto a clear blue sky. A fringe of treetops made the patch of blue an irregular, circular dome. Morning sun sliced through branches in slanting shafts. Her mind was empty. Clear. She’d forgotten who she was, where she was. She was only eyes seeing the sky, and then she was a body breathing, and then a body in wet clothes, and then a body being held by another body. She tilted her gaze back.
“Ethan?”
“Are you all right now?”
“Am I?” She felt fine. She felt wet and dirty. She tasted dirt on her tongue. Her cheeks were wet, her eyes puffy. “I cried.”
“You cried.”
“I never cry.”
“I’ve never seen anyone cry like that.”
Taffy shifted her gaze and saw the house. Still standing, but charred around the edges, like a burnt cookie.
“That’s my house.”
“Is it?” said Ethan, an amused tone at the edge of his voice.
“The cat’s gone.”
“I’m sorry about that,” he said. No amusement. Only genuine regret.
Quietly, Taffy said, “And my mom’s gone. She’s not coming back.”
Ethan didn’t say anything. He just let her sob quietly
in his arms. She sobbed until she was empty, until the grief washed through completely, clean and clear.
In time, they stood up. Taffy leaned on Ethan as they walked back to his house.
Taffy said, “I need to see Maria.”
“Let’s get you cleaned up, and I’ll drop you off at the station.”
“I can drive myself. I’ll go back for the Aveo after I shower.”
Ethan looked down at her and laughed.
“What? You don’t think I can drive? I can!”
“No, it’s not that. You just—”
“What?”
“You look so different from when I first met you.” He chuckled.
“So you’re laughing at me.” She did look silly wearing his shoes and sweats.
“I guess so. Just a little bit.” He was grinning widely now. Then his smile softened. His green eyes gazed into hers.
Now?
Frantically, she assessed the situation: longtime infatuated house-fire survivor, splotchy with mud, with wet hair plastered to the side of her face and grit in her teeth now being looked at romantically—finally—by soft-eyed, lip-parting source of long-term infatuation.
Ethan leaned in.
“Now?? Now?! Are you serious??”
“What?”
Taffy pushed him away. “No way, McCoy.” She was laughing now, snorting a little, and running, running past the woodshed, and he was chasing her, laughing, too.
And then Taffy stepped on something in the grass. She stopped. Ethan grabbed her waist and stopped beside her.
“What is it?”
Taffy bent down. It was a collar. Midnight’s collar. Taffy swallowed. She was all cried out. She held up the collar with its broken bell and nameless name tag and weird cat-door charm that never worked. What did it matter now?
She and Ethan shared a look. Then Taffy tucked the collar in her hoodie pocket. It was all she had left. She’d treasure it.
She took two more steps, and her over-large sneakered toe kicked at something small and round. Ethan bent down this time.
He held up a nearly flat round metal container. Red.
“Chewing tobacco?”
Ethan nodded. Taffy looked back at the house again.
What had happened to Bill?
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Ethan made more coffee while Taffy showered. He also went back to Taffy’s to get her car because she saw it sitting in his driveway when she came downstairs clad in his thick terry-cloth robe.
“I didn’t smash your coffeemaker by the way. If it is smashed, it was the fire not me.”
He smiled at her. “I can always make another one.”
“Or you could share yours.” Taffy poured herself a cup and turned to him with a grin. “Just sayin’.”
The huge cry, the shower, and the coffee were contriving to make her feel like a new person. She felt as if a great weight had been lifted. A weight that she’d been carrying around for thirteen years, a weight that had grown bigger over time, as she grew older and taller it expanded to fill the spaces in her heart, but now the weight, the heaviness, was gone. There was space now. Not emptiness exactly, but room. Room for more. Room for life. Room for love.
And room to sort out this murder once and for all. She had a new idea she needed to talk to Maria about. She had thought it through in the shower, and she was thinking about it now, while sipping her coffee, until Ethan sidled up to her and slid his arms around her waist, which was buried beneath the bulky robe.
“Think we can we try this again?”
He wanted to kiss her. It didn’t take a sleuth to figure that out. She pushed thoughts of murder and murderers to the back of her mind and nodded. A small crowd of butterflies stirred in her tummy.
He tipped his head toward her.
With near-perfect timing, her phone rang. Taffy jolted. She’d forgotten about her phone, her purse, everything.
Ethan nodded toward the kitchen table. “When I got the car I peeked in the house to see if I could find your purse. It was in the foyer. Everything smelled pretty smoky in there.”
The phone kept ringing. “Let’s ignore it.” It stopped ringing.
Taffy urged the butterflies to take flight once more as she tipped her head toward Ethan. She’d been waiting for this moment for ages. Then the phone started ringing again.
Ethan sighed. “It could be important.”
The moment was broken. Taffy dug into her purse. The call display said “Hell raiser.” She answered.
“Nana?”
“Taffy, you’re going to give me a heart attack. I heard about the fire. There’s a red-eye ticket booked in your name. I expect you to be on it tonight.”
“I’m fine. I’ll be all right.”
There was a stifled sob on the line. Almost imperceptibly, Nana said, “Please, Taffy.” She cleared her throat and said more clearly. “Please, Taffy. I need you to come home. All of this has brought up everything from the past for me. You’re all I have left of your mother. Please come home. For my sake.”
Taffy’s grandmother had never asked her for anything. She had asked Taffy to follow orders, clean up her act, be polite, do well in school, and things like that, but she’d never, ever asked Taffy to do something specifically for her sake. How could she say no?
“Can you give me one more day?”
“Not if you’re staying so you can find that murderer. Please, Taffy. Please come home.”
Home.
Taffy hung up and stared at her phone. “There’s a ticket at the airport for me tonight.”
“Are you going to be on it?”
“I don’t know. I have to see Maria first.”
Ethan nodded. His lips found his way to his coffee cup rather than Taffy. Maybe, given the circumstances, that was for the best.
“I should get dressed.”
Taffy still had her brown suede boots in the backseat of her car, but she had to borrow another pair of jogging pants from Ethan, and this time she paired it with a collared shirt and a v-neck sweater. She still looked ridiculous.
“That’s my only button-down,” he said when she came down the stairs.
“I’m surprised you even own one. Didn’t you have to wear suits and fancy sunglasses when you were a Fed?”
“That was in my other life. I like this one better now.”
Taffy, if she were to admit it, could say the same thing. Except for the clothes. She liked her old clothes.
Ethan handed her a piece of toast smothered with peanut butter.
“Did you tell anyone about what you found in the attic yet?”
“No, but I only got the key back yesterday. Ellie had it, but she said she never went into Janet’s attic.”
Peanut butter stuck to the roof of Taffy’s mouth. She sucked it off.
“What does Ellie have to do with this?”
“She’s been sneaking around in people’s houses, taking things.”
“Ellie?”
“It’s some sort of klepto thing. She snuck into Austin’s once.” Taffy licked the stickiness from her fingers.
“Could he have known about the contents of the attic?”
“I don’t know.”
But she had a plan to find out.
* * *
When Taffy arrived at the station, Maria came straight over to the gate dividing the desks from the public entrance and opened it for her.
“I just heard what happened! Are you okay?” Maria seemed really upset.
“I’m fine.”
“Why didn’t Bill ever fix that wiring?”
Taffy lowered her voice. “I don’t know if it was the wiring.”
She glanced around the station. Zoe was out of earshot across the room making coffee. The door to the chief’s office was closed, so Taffy didn’t know if he was in or not.
“Has anyone even seen or heard from Bill lately?”
Maria shook her head. “But I’ve been asking around.”
“I found this in the grass in fro
nt of the house, but who knows how long it’s been there.”
She placed the tobacco tin on Maria’s desk. Dropping into the chair next to it, she said, “I have a new theory about Janet’s murder.”
Maria leaned back and sighed. “Forget it, Taffy. It’s over. Chief Green has closed the case.”
“What?” Taffy sat up straight, dumbfounded. “Why? How?”
“It’s solved apparently. Swain killed Janet, likely for money, and probably while drunk. A few people at the resort testified that he’d been drinking this past month. His guilt was nagging at him, so he kept drinking, and then jumped off his boat and drowned.”
Taffy felt the wind abandoning her sails.
“What about the murder weapon?”
“It was the bowling ball you told me he dumped in the drink. He left a suicide note.”
“A note?”
“Written in the same way as those threatening letters, the ones cut out of newsprint, like we found at Janet’s, so he probably sent those, too.”
Taffy was bewildered. She stared as Maria tapped her pencil on her desk and said, “Yeah, that’s what happened.”
Taffy narrowed her gaze and leaned forward. “You don’t believe it though, do you?”
“It doesn’t matter what I believe. The chief took me off the case anyway. He says I was getting too personally involved by letting you get too involved.”
“I got you in trouble?”
Maria sighed. “I did it myself. He found out I’d sent the wood to the lab and ordered other reports from the medical examiner. Said it was a waste of funds and I was making busywork. Plus Lionel Davenport complained that you’d bothered him with questions at his office.”
“He didn’t even let me get the question out,” said Taffy defensively, and then she calmed down when she saw how dejected Maria looked.
“A lot of that was my fault. I’m so sorry.”
“Forget it.”
“What about Gravely? What did he say?”
“Once he reviewed all the evidence again, he said he had no choice but to agree with the chief. The note turned up recently, after going through possessions on the boat. Remember, Swain had been out with Janet the night she was killed. No one could confirm he went home when he said he did, and he dumped his bowling ball into the ocean. He’d had it with him that night, so that was likely the killing weapon. When he realized what he’d done, he made up the story about the ball falling off the shelf so he wouldn’t go to jail for murder. In a way, it all makes sense.”