Sassy Blonde: USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR

by Stacey Kennedy

  The detective added to Hayes, “Your truck is the next photo. It’s no better. They were found at a local junkyard.”

  With a shaky hand, Maisie lifted the phone to Hayes for him to look. Hayes handed it back to the detective, not caring about his goddamn truck at the moment. He gathered a trembling Maisie into his arms. His vision tunneled. “Thank you for the update,” Hayes said to the detective. “Can you give us a few minutes?”

  “Of course,” the detective said with a soft, sad smile and then strode away.

  Maisie’s fingers locked onto Hayes’s T-shirt. “That’s it. It’s over. I failed.” Her voice was quiet, too quiet. Her complexion sickly. “All because I decided we needed fun. I fucked this up, like I always do. Clara and Amelia will never forgive me.”

  “They will forgive you,” Hayes countered. “They love you, and this was absolutely not your fault.”

  No, this was his fault. He should have kept them on track for the event. That was his fucking job. Maisie needed his stability. That’s why he was there with her, even if she never outright said it. Hayes understood pure rage. He’d tasted the bitterness of it for years, and that same dark ugliness flickered through him again. “It’s going to be all right.” His chin rested on top of her head, the image of the burnt-out trailer filling his mind. “We’ll figure this out.”

  “There’s nothing to figure out,” she said harshly, and met him with a hard stare. “It’s done. It’s over. Please call Beckett to come get us.” The coldness of her voice hit him before she strode away with heavy steps.

  Hayes reeled from the shadows in her eyes. The lack of life there. The brightness that those criminals stole away.

  Someone would pay.

  9

  The farmhouse had always been Maisie’s favorite place, the one spot where nothing could ever touch her, where everything felt safe. Until tonight. Clara and Amelia sat around the kitchen table in their pajamas, hair up in matching messy buns. For as long as Maisie could remember, she’d always been the outsider, the one different from her sisters. When they shopped together, Maisie painted. When they watched chick flicks, Maisie snuggled up with a good book. After Laurel, she felt that gap between her and her sisters close. But now, she felt a world away from them again. The silent heaviness in the room made each breath that passed through Maisie’s lips feel more and more strangled. The only light came from the hanging fixture above the kitchen table. Upstairs, Mason had been asleep for hours, the steady clicking of the grandfather clock in the hallway a constant tick grating on Maisie’s last nerve.

  After Beckett had picked them up at the police station, the drive home had been equally as silent. The only words exchanged had been when Hayes walked her to her front door, took her in his arms and hugged her tight. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said.

  When Maisie walked through her front door, she met Clara’s frown and Amelia’s sad eyes.

  Both remained looking that way as they sat across from her at the table. When the silence became daunting, Maisie played with the dried, crispy leaves of wilting flowers in the vase. The dead leaves crumbled between her fingers. Her heart felt just like that. “I’m sorry.”

  “This isn’t your fault,” Amelia said softly, taking Maisie’s hand across the table.

  “Then why does it feel like it is?” Maisie stared at the crystal vase, unable to face the disappointment in Clara’s eyes. She reached for another leaf. It fell apart in her fingers. “Hayes and I were doing so well. And, because, on a whim, I wanted some fun, I cost us this last festival.” She slid her fingers over another leaf.

  “Please stop killing the flower,” Clara said. “It did nothing to you.” The softness in Clara’s voice made Maisie lift her gaze. Clara smiled gently at her, making Maisie fight back tears. “You tried your best. We both know that.”

  Amelia agreed with a nod. “We do.”

  Maisie didn’t feel better. If anything, she felt worse. They’d worked so hard. Done everything right. Maisie, no matter what she did, always messed things up.

  Whatever showed on Maisie’s expression made Clara shake her head slowly. “I honestly don’t understand how so many bad things can happen to one person. It’s like you’ve been hexed or something.”

  It had truly begun to feel that way. “You know, maybe that is what’s going on here. Maybe someone hates me and has hexed me into failing. All the time.”

  Amelia said, “Who would hate you, Maisie-Moo?”

  “If you find out, let me know,” Maisie said.

  Amelia snorted a laugh.

  Maisie pulled her hands away and pressed the bottom of her palms into her eyes. “Seriously, though, what are we going to do now? We needed that festival, right?”

  “We did, yes,” Clara answered. “But there’s not much we can do about that. The only thing we can do is wait until the insurance money comes in so we can repurchase what we need for future festivals. There are a few more coming up in a couple of months we could hit. They’re not as big as these last few, but it’s still something.”

  Amelia asked, “How long do you think it will take to get the insurance money?”

  “I don’t know,” Clara said grimly.

  Maisie considered, facing the daunting reality. “But can we still get a distributor without that last festival? Or will another brewery stand out above us?”

  Clara shrugged. “I don’t know that either.”

  That was never a good sign. Clara always had ideas and answers. Maisie’s throat tightened, and she dropped her head against the table, hard enough it hurt. “I hate this fucking curse on me.”

  Silence descended, even heavier than before.

  Until Amelia said, “Do you remember when you broke Nan’s special mug?”

  “Yes,” Maisie said into the table, banging her head once more. How could she forget that horrible memory? Their grandmother drank her tea out of the same fine china glass for as long as Maisie could remember. A year after their grandmother passed away, Maisie had been looking at the mug. It’d slipped from her hand and the mug smashed to pieces. Maisie remembered her tears.

  “Do you remember what Pops said to you?”

  “No,” she grumbled.

  Hands gripped Maisie’s head, forcing her gaze up. Clara’s eyes were untypically soft. “He said that things break, fall apart in ways you may never expect.”

  Amelia nodded, a knowing look on her face. She left the kitchen and returned a moment later with a picture frame. In that frame was a mosaic that Maisie had made of the glass shards. Amelia placed it on the table in front of Maisie and said, “You were really young at the time, so I don’t think you could have understood how happy Pops was that you made this.”

  Maisie slid her fingers over the glass. The work was messy, glue visible, but Pops had framed it.

  Clara asked, “Do you remember what he said to you after you gave him this?”

  “Not exactly,” Maisie said, trying to recall. “I remember his smile.”

  Clara’s eyes went distant, lost in a memory before she blinked, clearing them. “He told you no one was like you. That most people would have thrown the mug out. But you looked at something broken and made it beautiful. That was your gift to the world.”

  Emotion clogged Maisie’s throat and she choked on a sob. “I miss him.”

  Both of her sisters nodded in understanding, tears in their eyes. The world was a better place with Pops. Pops had a special kind of love. Maisie missed that love. Love where she felt wholly understood.

  In the quiet space of the moment, she realized she felt that with Hayes too. He only seemed to see the good, even if the bad was undeniably obvious. But she could feel him holding back, and right to the heart of it, she knew there was a good chance he’d never let his guard down. Not completely anyway. Not enough.

  “I guess what I’m trying to say here,” Amelia said, “is while this seems really bad right now, I’d like to think that Pops was right. Maybe all of this is happening for a reason because so
mething bigger and better will work out. I mean, it has to, right?”

  Always the optimist. That was Amelia. Maisie couldn’t afford that luxury. “No, it doesn’t have to work out. It never does.”

  Amelia frowned.

  Clara drew in a deep breath and rubbed her eyes. Ignoring what Maisie said, she pressed on, “We’ve got to figure out a plan.”

  She meant she had to figure out a plan. Maisie clearly wasn’t going to be the one to fix all this.

  Amelia agreed with a nod and then said to Maisie, “You did really well on those first two festivals. It could be enough. Especially if we get some awards too. We just won’t know until all of that comes in.”

  Maisie felt the ground slowly dropping out from under her. She hadn’t wanted this. She wanted to do her part. Be one of the reasons the brewery became a success. To actually finish something she started. To come out on top.

  Clara rose from her chair, pushing it back under the table. “We’ll just have to take this day by day. Let’s get some sleep. We can talk more in the morning.”

  Maisie stayed put, resting her hand in her chin. “I’ll be right behind you.” First, she needed to wallow with a bag chips.

  “Okay,” Clara said, then gave a soft smile. “Please leave us some of the chips.”

  Maisie snorted. “I wasn’t—”

  Clara lifted her eyebrows.

  “Fine,” Maisie hedged, “I’m totally eating all the chips because I need to eat my emotions. I’ll buy more tomorrow.”

  Clara smiled, moved in close and kissed Maisie’s cheek. “Good night.”

  “Night.”

  Once Clara strode off, Amelia took Maisie into one of her warm hugs. “It’s all going to be okay, Maisie-Moo. Promise. You’ll see.”

  Maisie highly doubted that but kept the thought to herself as Amelia smiled. “Besides, the good thing here—”

  Maisie lifted her brows. “There is a good thing that happened tonight?”

  Amelia gave a crooked smile and an easy shrug. “The worst has already happened. What more could go wrong?”

  A loud thump banged against the window. The sound they’d heard many times over the years in this house. A bird hitting the window hard enough to kill itself. Maisie sighed and gave Amelia a knowing look. “Great. Now I’m killing things.”

  Amelia cringed. “Okay, that is the worst thing. What else—”

  “Don’t say it,” Maisie cut in. “Just don’t. We both know that when I’m involved, anything and everything can go wrong.”

  Amelia didn’t respond to that. She just did what she did best, threw her arms around Maisie tight. “Don’t stay up too late.” She grabbed the bag of ketchup-flavored chips and tossed them at Maisie before she blew her a kiss. “Night, night.”

  Maisie ripped open the bag and shoved a handful into her mouth. “Night.”

  Between the crunching sounds, she heard little footsteps. A quick look behind her had her smiling. “You’re supposed to be in bed,” she told Mason.

  “I’m not sleepy,” he told her. “And you have chips.”

  “Chips for me,” she said firmly. “Your mother will kill me. Get that cute butt back up to bed.”

  He turned and wiggled that cute butt at her then ran toward her, jumping onto her lap. “Please, Auntie Maisie, I won’t tell. I’m so, so hungry.”

  She frowned at all that sweetness coming her way. “You know that I am the expert at giving puppy-dog eyes.”

  “That’s because we’re alike,” he said with a big grin. “That’s what mama always says.”

  Maisie kissed his cheek. “That’s because we’re awesome, and awesome people should eat all the chips.” She turned the open bag to him. “If your mother asks, this never happened.”

  He shoved a hand into the bag and chomped away. “Deal.”

  Across town, Beckett pulled his dark gray Ford F-350 Super Duty to a stop outside the police station after they’d dropped off Maisie at home. The River Rock Police Station had moved into the old courthouse on Main Street long before Hayes had worked there. The skies had opened twenty minutes ago, a downpour settling over the town, bringing sheets of rain from the west. Beckett’s headlights caught the droplets, the windshield wipers set to high, unable to keep up with the hammering of the rain.

  The front door was right there, and Hayes fought against his churning stomach at the thought of walking through the doors.

  Obviously sensing his hesitation, Beckett said, “I can take you home. It’s been a long day. Why don’t you sleep on this?”

  Hayes glanced at his lifelong friend. The only man he’d ever admit his weaknesses to. “I did this to Maisie. I need to fix it.”

  Beckett threw the truck into park. “Oh, yeah, you stole your own truck and set it on fire?”

  Hayes snorted. “I should never have agreed to stop at that damn amusement park.”

  “That’s idiotic,” Beckett spat. “For one, you sounded fucking happy when I called. Second, you had no idea that stopping there would lead to someone stealing your truck and Maisie’s trailer.”

  Hayes thrust his hand in his hair, the truck feeling a little too hot for his liking. A little too small even. “I should have kept us on track. You didn’t see her.” His chest tightened, and he blew out a harsh breath to ease the tension. “She needed this win. To do this for her grandfather. The blow of the failure—”

  Beckett gave a dry laugh.

  Hayes snarled in Beckett’s direction. “This is funny to you?”

  “Funny?” Beckett hummed the word like he was tasting it on his tongue. “No, it’s too fucking sad to be funny. How about we stop playing this game where you’re helping her because of any other reason than you care about her.”

  “I do care about her,” Hayes said in an instant.

  Beckett gave a knowing look. “You want me to say how much you care about her?”

  Hayes’s gaze cut to the rain droplets in the headlights. You love her echoed in the truck between them.

  Beckett added, “For the life of me, I can’t figure out why the hell you’re dancing around that fact.”

  Hayes swallowed the thick lump in his throat. Lost in the rain beating the windshield, he forced the words out. “What if I get this all wrong? Fuck this up and hurt her.”

  Beckett hesitated. “Ah.”

  He knew how broken Hayes was. A few days after the murder, Beckett had pulled Hayes’s drunk ass out of a bar. In his drunken stupor, he’d cried the truth to Beckett, sobbed in a way Hayes didn’t know himself capable of sobbing, that he’d failed to protect his wife and put a bull’s-eye on her back. Hayes listened to the steady rhythmic beating of the rain and admitted something he never thought he would. “I can’t…” Lose her got caught in his throat.

  Beckett drew in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Listen, man, Maisie’s got a big, loving heart. Don’t hide from her. She’s got hard love for you, my friend. Either talk to her, tell her everything, and see how it plays out, or don’t, but dancing around this is going to hurt her more than telling her the truth.” He cupped Hayes’s shoulder. “It’s been a long time, buddy. It’s time to move on from this.”

  Hayes bowed his head and nodded. Unsure what to add beyond that, he said, “Thanks for picking us up.”

  “Of course,” Beckett said.

  Hayes opened the door then and stepped out in the pouring rain.

  “Hayes,” Beckett called. He turned back, the warm rain battering his face. Beckett gave a soft smile. “Tell Maisie you came here tonight to fix this for her.”

  “Why?” The warm water dripped off Hayes’s nose.

  “Just tell her.”

  Beckett slowly drove off as Hayes slammed the door shut. He watched the headlights fade into the darkness before he turned toward the station. His gut twisted. This time, he pushed that weakness aside. He’d come for a reason, and he couldn’t run, not anymore. He’d failed to protect Laurel. He would not fail Maisie. He blew his drenched hair out of his face and tr
otted up the stairs, entering the station quickly, wiping his boots on the mat.

  The space was modernized with the reception desk at the front near the waiting room. A hallway down the left side led to a larger room with beehive desks, some with computers on top.

  The night shift receptionist noticed him, and her eyes widened. “Hayes. This is an unexpected surprise. It’s so good to see you.”

  “Hi, Phillis,” Hayes said with a smile. She was in her sixties, with black dyed hair and bright red nail polish on fake nails, a face full of wrinkles from heavy smoking, and a love of fine whiskey. “You’ve been well?”

  “Same old, same old around here,” she said. “Are you here to see your father?”

  Hayes nodded, giving his hair a shake, removing some of the water. “I am. Is he in his office?”

  “Sure is.” She buzzed the door next to her desk. “Go on back.”

  “Thanks.” He strode through, the door quickly locking behind him. Each step took all of his strength; with each one, he was desperate to turn around and go the other way. He had decided to transfer to Denver to stand on his own two feet, without having his father watching his every move. And in the years since he’d last been here, not much had changed. He passed the water fountain, then the waiting room where a couple of teenagers lingered, and officers sat at their cubicles doing desk work. Filing cabinets opening and closing, police radios squawking, every sound was exactly the same. It felt like no time had passed at all.

  When he finally reached the corner office and saw his father behind his desk, Hayes asked, “Big case?”

  Dad’s head jerked up, his eyes bulging before his expression went into cop mode, completely blank and unreadable. “I see you got home safely, minus a truck.”

  Hayes nodded, entered the office, and sat in the guest chair. “I’ll miss that truck.”

  “I bet,” Dad agreed. Then he gestured at the papers on his desk. “We’re down a couple of officers, I’m trudging through applicants for a handful of positions.” Which explained why his father had pressured Hayes about getting back on the force. His dad tilted his head to the side, laced his fingers together on top of his desk. “Now, let’s get to the reason why you’re here.” Because I never thought you’d step foot in here again, his focused gaze suggested.