I shook my head. “Or not.”
I had also spent a good portion of the morning at the sheriff’s department. Unfortunately, Grady wasn’t there. After they’d found the kids in Honey Harbor—watching movies in a friend’s basement, not on the water—he had gone to interview the family. I wasn’t sure how much he knew, or if he had expected to find me there. Amos had handled my initial statement, then made me promise to come back for questioning at a later date. I kept trying to track down Grady, but when I was at the hospital, he was at the station, and then vice versa. Not that I would have been able to find him in the station anyway. Freddie may have thought the place came off as a little surreal when it had been deserted, but what it looked like afterward, well, that was straight out of a movie. People in uniforms buzzed all around. I had even caught sight of a man and woman wearing FBI jackets. I guess it made sense. I had spent the evening dodging a paid assassin and the psychopathic millionaire teen who had hired him. Outside the station, news reporters filled the lawn, sidewalk, and street. Otter Lake had been swarmed, and Freddie had now appeared on every major network in the country. As an additional benefit, because he was so accommodating with his interviews, the reporters were somewhat sated and leaving me alone. Which was good because I was too busy to deal with any of that.
In fact, right now I had only one goal …
Find Grady and tell him how I really felt. Maybe over pancakes.
Okay, fine. One goal. With three parts.
I was getting my second chance after all.
Despite everything that had happened between us, I knew in my heart that he would want to see me, and I wasn’t about to waste this opportunity. As luck would have it, I heard one of the officers at the station say on the phone that Grady was taking lunch orders. Apparently, he was wrapping up his interviews at the hospital and was going to pick it up on his way back to the station.
Only one place in Otter Lake to get lunch.
I hurried Freddie along as we cut through a side street from the station toward the Dawg. The storm had done a bit of damage. A few roofs were missing some shingles. Lots of branches littered the streets. A tree had even landed on a car. But, overall, the town wasn’t in bad shape. And despite all the snow that had fallen, it was melting quickly. I was willing to bet last night had been winter’s last blast.
I turned my face up to the warm sun.
Spring. Perfect. The time for new beginnings.
I picked up the pace.
“So, I was thinking,” Freddie said just as a bang sounded behind us. “In terms of publicity—Erica? Where did you go?”
I watched Freddie turn around, concern in his eyes.
Apparently the sound of a car door shutting was enough to throw me into a fighting stance.
I looked at my hands, flattened into boards.
Huh. That was new.
“You know,” Freddie said, eyeing me sideways. “You’re going to have to put some therapy on that.”
I straightened up to a normal posture.
“The karate hands, though? Adorable.”
We resumed our walk.
“As I was saying,” he said, “before you went all twitchy on me, we have to talk about how we are going to manage the publicity of this thing. Did I tell you Amos said they don’t want me using the photo?”
“I’m shocked.”
“Something about it being evidence,” Freddie said, waving his hands out. “That and the suspect is a minor. A minor! Don’t get me started. Anyway, I’m going to have a lawyer look into it because this whole thing could be very big for us.”
I shook my head, shoving my fighting hands into my pockets. “Kyle’s not going to get the money, right?”
“What? Um, no? I think there’s a law saying that you can’t kill someone to get their money in the will,” Freddie said. “Shouldn’t you know this from work?”
“That kind of case doesn’t come up too often.”
“He probably won’t get much time though. He’s what? Fourteen? Fifteen?”
I blinked a few times. Nope, Kyle probably wouldn’t get much time at all. Probably just enough to turn himself into something really scary. That might come after me. “But he killed his father!”
“I know. I know. You don’t have to get all yelly. I’m on your side.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled, walking again. “I feel weird.” I could see the Dawg just up ahead. I scanned the windows for Grady.
“Weird’s good,” Freddie said with a reassuring nod. “If you didn’t feel weird, I’d be worried. It—where did you go now?” Freddie swirled around to find me stopped in the street. “Do we need to get you a prescription?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. My eyes weren’t on Freddie, though. They were still on the windows of the Salty Dawg. Actually, they were on the person on the other side of the window … the person just standing there, talking to someone, with two take-out bags in his hands.
Freddie came to my side. After a moment he said, “You are really having a terrible couple of days.”
I couldn’t help but agree.
It was Grady standing there, of course. Grady and Candace. The same Candace I once may have accused of being a murderer.
So, she was back in town after all.
The two of them were talking. Close talking, in fact. And Candace looked pretty happy. Grady looked completely exhausted … but maybe a little bit happy? At least not unhappy.
Son of a—
“Maybe it’s not what it looks like?” Freddie offered. “Maybe they just ran into each other and—oh, well, maybe not.”
Just then Candace had reached out to touch Grady’s arm. No, wait, not touch. Her hand was resting completely on Grady’s arm.
And he wasn’t pulling away.
“Erica?”
I shook my head slowly side to side. “Freddie. This is…”
“I know it’s bad, but—”
“No, it’s okay,” I said slowly. “Maybe even good.”
“I’m sorry, what now?”
I turned my head to meet Freddie’s concerned gaze. “No, really. It’s great.”
“Okay, what are we doing here?” He cocked his head a little and gave me a sideways look. “Is this another PTSD thing?”
“No,” I said, grabbing his arm and giving it a shake. “Just listen to me. It’s great. Because this settles it.”
Freddie looked down at my hand still gripped on his arm. “Okay, why is Grady dating Candace great?”
“Whoa. Whoa. Slow down there, Mister,” I said, lifting my hand to a stop gesture. “Just because he didn’t move his arm away doesn’t mean they’re dating. But no, not that.”
“Then what?”
“I can move home!”
“You could always move home,” Freddie said, still searching my eyes … for the sanity, I guess. “It’s just like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz said—”
“No. I mean, this pain I’m feeling right now, it’s just showing me once again what happens when I don’t trust myself and dive into something.”
“Um…”
“Listen. Last night. When I thought I was going to die over and over and over again,” I said, rolling my finger in the air. “You know what I was thinking about?”
“What?”
“You!”
“Aww—”
“Shut up. I’m talking,” I said, swatting his shoulder. “You. My mom. The twins. Although I don’t want to be the one to tell them their place burned down. Grady! And everyone else in Otter Lake. Well, maybe not Jake Day. But you know what else? What’s even better?”
“No. I definitely do not.”
“Right now,” I said pointing back to the Dawg, “I just realized I might really have lost Grady, you know, like temporarily. Which is really, really bad.”
Freddie scratched his temple. “But?”
“I still want to move home!”
“Okay, not that I’m not really happy about this,” Freddie said, nodding. “’Cause I am.
But maybe we can talk more about this after some psychological evaluation?”
“No,” I said, sticking my hands back deep into my pockets and rocking on my heels. “I’m moving home.”
“Really?”
I nodded.
“Like really, really?”
“Yes!”
“Well, all right then!” Freddie stuck his hand up in the air, and I smacked it. “Yay!”
“Come on, I don’t want to see any more of … that,” I said, waving a hand back at the Dawg. “I’ll talk to Grady later. There will be lots of time to talk to him now that I’m living here. Let’s go to your place to eat,” I said. “Oh! And we can talk salary and benefits. Does Otter Lake Security have dental yet?”
“What?” Freddie snapped, hurrying to catch up to me. “You females always be wanting my money.”
I stopped dead. “Yeah, no. There will be none of that.”
“Right,” he said before skipping in the air. “I’m so excited. I’ve got to make some calls. We can take on so many more jobs n—Wait, is this one of those times where you’re going to change your mind like two hours from now?”
“No, I don’t think so,” I said, pulling my gloves from my back pocket. “Last night changed me.” It really had. All those hours I spent being afraid, thinking about my own death? They had made things super clear for me. I had known it for months, but I had just been too afraid to take the leap. Now I was more afraid of what my life would be if I didn’t. “Hey, look! There’s Rhonda!” I shouted suddenly, pointing down the street. It looked like she was headed for the Dawg too.
“Uh-oh,” Freddie said. “She’s not in uniform.”
I felt some of my excitement drain away. “You don’t think she really got fired, do you? For saving me?”
“Hmm, let’s see. She left the sheriff’s department unmanned in a massive storm. She used a police boat to get across the lake when she was given a direct order not to, and she turned over her weapon to a civilian. I would say it’s not looking good. Plus, Amos told me.”
“No … it’s all my fault.”
“Well, not just your fault. Let’s not forget the psycho teenager, Mr. The World Revolves Around Me.” Freddie spun a finger around in the air. “But in all seriousness, it really does suck. Amos said, at the very least, that Grady fought to have her turn in her resignation. They’re not going to press charges.”
“I can’t believe this,” I said, feeling the weight of it all drop over me. “Rhonda loves being a cop.”
“I know it is pretty sad—Hey! Why are you hitting me again?”
I was hitting him. In fact, I was frantically slapping his arm with the back of my hand. “Freddie, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
He swatted my hand away. “That maybe the worst damage you suffered might be the kind that can’t be seen?”
“No!” I shouted, now grabbing his arm and shaking it. “Rhonda! Otter Lake Security!”
“What? Oh … you’re not thinking,” Freddie began, “that we should … hmm, I don’t know.”
“What are you talking about? This is perfect.” I then gasped so hard I hurt my lungs. “She can be a private investigator. She qualifies for the license!”
I felt Freddie go still. “You’re right. I’ll have to rework my business model, but—whoa!”
“Let’s go talk to her!” I said yanking him across the street. Just then a man standing near Rhonda dropped the lid to his garbage can, making her spin around and reach for her phantom gun. “Hey!” I chuckled. “She’s got it too!”
“Oh yeah,” Freddie said. “I’m just loving how my employee roster is shaping up.”
I pulled him hard. “Oh, stop it you. Let’s just—”
“Erica!” a voice called out from behind me. “Wait!”
I froze in my tracks.
“You dropped something!”
Both Freddie and I turned.
Grady.
“You…” his voice trailed off as his eyes tracked over a piece of paper. A piece of paper that I had dropped. What could that b—
The freaking good-bye letter! Where I said I love you!
“Grady! No!” I pivoted hard and shot back across the street nearly getting clipped by a car—which in Otter Lake meant it was still a hundred yards away and moving at about ten miles per hour, but the horn was honked, so it would be talked about as a near miss all around town. “Don’t read that!”
He looked up at me quizzically. Probably because it had his name scrawled across the front fold.
“I mean it, Grady! Don’t you—”
He flipped it open.
As I watched his eyes track over the page, it felt like a chipmunk had somehow managed to find a way into my chest to cutely pick and gnaw at my heart.
For just the briefest moment I thought, this might be good. Grady would finally see how I really felt, and maybe …
He carefully re-folded the paper and held it out for me to take.
I walked forward, reaching for it, scanning his face for … anything.
What I saw was him clench his jaw. Actually his whole face tightened.
Wait. Was he mad?
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have read it when you asked me not to.” He turned and walked back into the restaurant.
For a good moment, I couldn’t breathe.
“Erica?” Freddie asked, coming to my side. “What was that all about?” He reached out his hand to take the letter from mine, but I snatched it away.
Suddenly Rhonda was at my other side. “Oh man, Candace? See, Erica? I tried to tell you, you should’ve put a ri—”
“No,” I said sharply. “No.”
“Come with us, Rhonda,” Freddie said, leading me away by the shoulders. “Erica and I want to invite you to lunch. We have a proposition for you.”
“You do?”
“How would you feel about becoming the newest member of Freddie’s Angels?”
“You say that again,” I murmured lowly, “and I will kill you.”
“And so it begins.”
Chapter Fifty-seven
“Hey,” I said with a half-hearted point. “There’s a crocus.”
“Very pretty,” my mother mumbled back, barely glancing at the purple flower poking its head up through a thin patch of snow. “I think maybe they have some yellow ones around the side of the cottage.” I felt her tense. “Or where the side of the cottage used to be.”
A red squirrel chittered at us from a tree.
“Yeah. Yeah. I think I remember seeing them there. With the little uh…” I tried to snap my fingers to jog my memory, but they just couldn’t seem to muster up the enthusiasm to make a sound.
“Stone turtle,” my mother said with a pained nod. “The twins, they love their animals.”
We both looked back to the charcoal cairn covering the general area of where the turtle now rested. Most likely eternally.
A cold breeze rushed through the trees making me shiver. The sun was warm today, almost hot, but it was still cold in the shade of the forest.
Another silent moment passed, before I finally said what we were both thinking, “They are going to freak out, aren’t they?”
My mother sighed again. “Probably.”
“How much do they know?”
“Nothing. Everybody was too afraid to tell them.” She adjusted her crutches. It was amazing how well she was managing on them after only a week.
“They asked me to keep an eye on the place.”
My mother nodded. “Hopefully, we can explain before they kill you.”
I nodded back.
“Besides, we all need to look on the bright side. They have insurance. They can rebuild, and in the meantime, they can stay with me at the lodge. It will be fun.” The sigh she let out told me she wasn’t convinced. “There’s plenty of room. Your bedroom will be empty of course.”
“Oh,” I said, scratching my temple. “Well…”
“What?” she asked, eyes snapping over to me.
“I was kind of hoping that…” I met her eyes, same shade of blue as mine.
Was I really going to do this? Once I said the words out loud to her, there was no turning back.
I took one last steadying breath. “I was hoping I could stay in my room until I found a place of my own.”
My mother didn’t make a sound, but her eyes began blinking at an alarming rate.
“Here,” I said, pointing to the ground. “In Otter Lake.”
Silent. But still blinking.
“Mom?”
“I’m so happy!” Her crutches hit the ground as her arms flew around me.
“Whoa. Careful,” I said, trying to keep us both on our feet.
“I’ve waited so long for this day!”
“I know,” I choked out. Her shoulder was dug deep into my windpipe. “But let’s just maybe—”
“I always knew it would happen, but…”
I lost the trail of her words as the sound of a boat engine tore my attention to the lake.
Uh-oh.
Yup, that looked like Kit Kat and Tweety. I couldn’t tell which one was driving and which one was holding … actually, I couldn’t tell what she was holding either.
“Mom.”
She couldn’t hear me, what with all the laughing and crying she was doing.
“Mom,” I tried again, whapping her lightly on the back. “Incoming.”
We both turned to the water, just as Kit Kat cut the engine, allowing the boat to drift toward the dock. Her jaw was at her chest. Tweety’s was too. Her hands empty. She had dropped the thing she had been holding into the water.
My mother hopped a little to adjust her stance before leaning toward my ear. “Was that a … did Tweety just drop some poor alligator’s head in the water?”
“I think so.”
“But she didn’t shoot it?”
“No, it’s a souvenir. From her cousin’s sh—” I cut myself off with a sigh. “Never mind. It’s a long story.”
She squeezed my waist in an excited hug. “And now we have all the time in the world for you to tell it!”
“Yup,” I said, returning the squeeze. “Goddess help me, I guess we do.”
Catch up on the Otter Lake series!
Snowed In with Murder Page 25