The television mounted on the wall behind Amy was tuned to an entertainment channel, and there were movie stars on the red carpet.
“Hey, look,” Craig said. “Isn’t that your dad behind the interviewer?”
Fenway looked, and sure enough it was. Her father was in a black-on-black tuxedo, looking pleased with himself, and Charlotte looked nauseatingly gorgeous in a shimmery silver dress with a plunging neckline.
“Stotsky’s going in front of the district attorney on Monday,” Craig said. “Doesn’t look like your dad is too worried about him cutting a plea deal.”
They chatted a little longer. Fenway got the sense that Amy didn’t want her to stay, so she said goodbye and walked out of the coffee shop with most of her dignity.
She got home and took a shower. Just as she finished drying off, it hit her again, like a train, that her mother was gone. She wished she had her mother there the night before to hold her the way Dez had been holding Rachel.
She sat down on the sofa and put her feet up. She knew she should be starting her reading for her final forensics class, but she wanted to let the memory of the last few days wash over her. She hadn’t even gotten her first paycheck yet—that would come the next Friday—but she liked her job. She didn’t like getting shot at, or getting put in a choke hold, but she liked going through those files, seeing the bullet casings, talking theories of the crime with Dez and Dr. Yasuda, researching the gunshot residue—and she especially liked when she found out that Stotsky was Rachel’s father, and seeing all the puzzle pieces fit together almost perfectly in her head.
She sighed. Although this coroner position was temporary, maybe after she finished her forensics program, she’d look into some other options besides nursing; maybe a crime-scene analyst, or even a job in Dr. Yasuda’s office.
Fenway called Rachel, who had just gotten back from seeing Dylan’s mother. She told Fenway that the two of them had cried together and made phone calls and set up the memorial and the cremation.
Rachel didn’t want to be in the apartment she shared with Dylan—she couldn’t bring herself to put anything away yet, she said. His clothes were still in the closet, his toothbrush was still on the bathroom counter, and everything made her both sad for his death and angry at his betrayal.
“I called my friend Jordan to see if she wanted to go to a movie tonight,” Rachel said, “but she was weird. It’s like she didn’t know what to say to me.”
They made plans for Rachel to come over to Fenway’s at eight o’clock that night, watch a stupid romantic comedy, and eat the penne from the night before.
“Is this what my life is going to be like from now on?” Rachel asked.
“I don’t know,” Fenway said. “I really don’t know.”
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The Reluctant Coroner (Fenway Stevenson Mysteries Book 1) Page 32