by Quinn, Lucy
Leo’s dad slapped the table so hard, I could hear it through the door. He pointed aggressively in Jenna’s direction. His wife grabbed his finger, about to speak, when she saw me.
I nodded and came through the door, wincing as the bell jingled in the silence. I made my way over to the bake case and the corner table. Jenna Van Andel latched onto her husband’s hand like they’d been in the middle of a romantic gesture.
“Miss Vee,” Leo said with a big smile. “You’re back early.”
“I wanted to close up before I did any more errands.” I walked around the table to stand between him and his dad. “I figured you would have better things to do than hang around here, babysitting freshmen.”
“Nyah, I don’t mind.” He settled his hand down on top of his parents’ clasped ones. “My parents stopped by to carb-load before they went to the gym. They were just leaving.”
I wanted to laugh, but I held it back. The quote-unquote-gym in Saint Agnes was the high school training room. The football coach opened it up after the team’s open lift hours were over.
“Actually, we came here to see you, Miss Vee.” Jenna’s words were just a little too saccharine for my taste.
“You really can call me Vangie.” I smiled at her, trying to relieve whatever pressure she felt.
“Leo needs to stop working here,” Mike said, turning his head up so he could look me directly in the eyes. But the glance didn’t last long. He felt bad about this.
“He…what?”
“Dad, I told you, I’m not going to quit.” Leo’s tone was firm, very adult-like.
“I don’t care what you say, son. You’re neglecting your studies. That was our agreement. Your grades suffer, you’re done.”
Leo bounced up, chest out like a caveman. “I’m eighteen. You can’t tell me what to do.”
“I’m your father, I’ll do whatever I want.”
“Hold on, here. There’s a simple way to fix this,” I said, putting my hands out to calm everyone down. I wasn’t about to cause any more problems in this town. “Leo, you’re fired.”
“What?” His brows came together so hard, there was almost a snapping sound. “Vangie, you can’t do that.”
“That’s Miss Vee to you, and I just did.” I put a hand on his shoulder, trying to calm him down. “Look, your parents have your best interests at heart. If they think you shouldn’t be working here, then I think you need to listen to them.”
“But I want to be a baker. This is the only bakery in town.” He lowered his voice, leaning in. “You know I need the hours to be ready for Escoffier.”
That sent a little pang through me. Leo’s dream was to get accepted at a great pastry school. I knew that firing him would put a damper on his ability to be ready for the application process.
I glanced from Mike to Jenna and back.
“Leo’s classwork is suffering,” Mike said, but his nervous body language said there was something else going on.
“That’s so not true,” his son shot back. “One A-minus, Dad. One. All I do is homework and school. This is the only time I have to work on what’s really important to me.”
Both parents seemed a little skewered by that comment, and they squirmed in their seats. I walked back to flip the open sign to closed. I wanted Leo to stay, but I needed his parents to approve of the decision. I wasn’t going to allow my shop to come between him and his parents. I made my way back toward the table of awkward body language.
“Look,” I said, crossing my arms. “I can tell there’s something else going on here. Leo has good grades, he wants to keep his job, and I’d like him to stay, but there’s obviously a reason the two of you don’t want him to work here. I’d like to know what it is, so all our cards are on the table.”
The two parents exchanged tense glances. They had one of those silent conversations people can only have after years of being together, and it ended when Jenna’s shoulders drooped and she gave him a short nod.
“We don’t want Leo being involved with the kind of person who would stand up for Henry Savage,” Mike said, releasing Jenna and leaning back again, crossing his arms.
My vision narrowed and my palms itched. I could feel frustration rising up inside me. They thought I was some sort of bad influence on their son? This was ridiculous. I wanted to lash out, defend my actions, put Mike Van Andel in his place.
But if I allowed my response to be influenced by the adrenaline rush currently flooding my body, I would say something I really regretted. I slowed my breathing, trying to focus on what I really wanted out of this situation. I wanted to protect myself, of course. Who wouldn’t, when they felt attacked? But I also wanted to know why they thought it was wrong of me to protect Henry.
I finally opened my mouth, dry tongue sticking to the roof for a second. “What is wrong with Henry Savage?” I asked, tripping over the words a bit.
“He’s a murderer.” Jenna said the words a little too quickly, looking at Mike instead of me. “Malcolm arrested him for murder.”
“But he didn’t do it,” I argued. And he still hadn’t actually arrested him, but arguing that was moot.
“If the sheriff thinks he did it, then he did it.” Mike’s tone was hard, but something else crawled beneath it, like fish under the cap of ice on Hebgen Lake.
There was no convincing them. They wouldn’t trust my intuition. They trusted Malcolm’s. New tactics.
“What would it take for you to let Leo continue to work here?” I asked, resigning myself to the situation.
“You need to stop asking questions about this murder, like you think Malcolm isn’t doing his job,” Mike said. “Leave Austin alone. He’s had enough death in his life. The less he thinks about Claire Barnett, the better.”
The request made me pause. It seemed so much like none of their business.
Could I really leave an innocent man to suffer the consequences of someone else’s misappropriations? Of course, it was possible I was wrong about Henry. I just didn’t buy that the stalking would have been motivation enough for murder. Especially not in broad daylight. And if he had killed her, why on Earth had he stayed in town?
It didn’t make any sense.
Part of me wanted to share these thoughts with Malcolm, just to see what he had to say about them. Maybe, if I could be assured the sheriff had considered all of that, I would be able to leave it alone.
That didn’t really count as continuing the investigation.
So I nodded at Mike and Jenna Van Andel. I agreed to stop asking questions about Claire’s murder. I agreed to stop defending Henry Savage.
Okay, okay. I lied.
Chapter 16
A text from my sister was waiting on my phone when I finally got back to my purse in the back office of the bakery. You’re in luck. No calls to the bishop, she had texted me. And then, the next one, Try to stay out of trouble, V.
Even the Love you she ended with didn’t quite ease the tension churning in my gut. I was desperate to talk to someone about Claire’s murder and my fears about not being able to extricate myself from the situation. But she would be at the gym. Unreachable.
I sincerely hoped that talking to Malcolm would help put these things to rest.
It was just after five, and the sheriff’s office was dead when I got there. There was one car in the parking lot—a white Taurus that I thought I recognized but couldn’t quite place. Irma was still at the desk, writing something on a piece of paper that lay on top of a manila folder. She buzzed me into the office and placed the paperwork on the lower counter, folding her hands over the Formica and smiling.
“I have those little comment cards, if you’d like them,” she said.
“Thanks, Irma, but I’m here to see Malcolm. Is he around?”
“Oh, honey, you just missed him. He’s gone home for the night. But there are two deputies here, if you need to report something.”
Home. Malcolm was at his house, which happened to be next door to my house. I could easily stop by to chat
—and drop some of my thoughts about the investigation into the conversation.
Y’know. Casual-like.
“I can probably catch him at home.” I glanced into the back of the office, toward the interrogation rooms and the hallway that led to the holding cell.
“Do you want to see Henry instead?” she asked, a compassionate drop to her voice.
My mouth hung open in surprise. I hadn’t even considered the possibility. We had been strangers thirty-six hours ago, but he and this murder case had sucked up so much of my focus. It would be strange to let go of Henry without seeing this through until the end.
Looking around, I didn’t see any of the deputies. No one else was around. No one to tell the Van Andels that I’d been in to see him. No one to tell Malcolm. I shrugged my shoulders. “Why not.”
“Let me take you back there,” she said, scooting out from behind the counter. “You’ll have to talk to him through the bars of the holding cell.”
I followed her past the interrogation rooms and through a big door that took her a solid minute and two keys to open. It was quite the setup for such a small jail, but I felt comforted by the knowledge that at least this was secure. If we did ever get real criminals in Saint Agnes, they would be handled.
Behind the bars, Henry sat on a cot, still wearing the same suit he’d had on the previous day, head in his hands, looking defeated. My insides melted a little. I hated seeing people like this. I hated seeing him like this.
“Stay back here, honey,” Irma pointed to a yellow line that ran along the back of the room, parallel to the holding cell. Henry looked up when she spoke, and his brows curled together when he saw me. He stood, walking to the bars and gripping them.
“When you’re done, buzz me on the intercom and I’ll come back and get you,” Irma finished, then used her keys to get through the door again.
“What are you doing here, Vangie?” Henry asked in his normal, American accent. It caught me off-guard and I stepped forward, over the yellow line.
I wanted to comfort him, but that wasn’t a great idea. I stepped back. “I just wanted to see how you were doing. Whether there’s been any news.”
“My lawyer advised me not to talk about it.” He sighed, long and slow, closing his eyes. “But I’m going crazy in here. Have you seen Scarlet?”
“I took her home after they released her.”
“Did she say anything?”
“Mostly, she tried to convince me how insignificant I was, which…go figure. She also told me about your wife.”
“Ex-wife,” he said, turning back into the cell. “We may not be officially divorced yet, but that’s the next step.”
I felt some hesitancy rising in my stomach. “How many times have you been married?”
Henry gripped the bars on the left side of his cage, not turning to face me. He shook his head. “Scarlet told you I’d been married before?”
“She may have mentioned it.”
“She likes to tell women that so I don’t have anyone to rely on except her.” He pushed off the bars and came back toward me. “What if I told you it was a lot? More than once? Would that scare you off?”
I shrugged. “Henry, I’m only worried about getting you out of this jail cell.”
“Because it’s been more than once.”
“Fine.”
“More than twice, even.”
“Okay.”
“More than three times.”
“Got it.”
He finally cracked a smile, and everything inside me relaxed. I looked to my left, checking to see if anyone would notice if I crossed the line again. There was a camera over the door, and I didn’t want to push my luck, even though there was no red dot, the telltale sign it was recording.
“Like I said, I just want to make sure you’re okay,” I said. “I can’t shake the feeling this is all my fault.”
“It’s not your fault, Vangie.” He lowered his head. Apparently, the Vic nickname was part of his British persona. “Claire must have been following me. It’s not like she hangs out at that gas station. She doesn’t even live around here.”
I opened my mouth to correct that statement, but decided against it. “How do you know where she lives?” I asked instead.
Discomfort radiated off him. He gripped the bars. “I can’t answer that question.”
“Why not?”
“My lawyer told me not to answer anyone’s questions about the incident.”
The incident. He said those words like Claire hadn’t been brutally murdered. Maybe he hadn’t killed her, but he’d lied about plenty of things—seeing her at the gas station, knowing her at all. What else was he lying about?
I wanted to ask more questions, but if I got lawyered one more time, I was going to stop being so charitable with him. There was no reason for him not to tell me what was going on. I was on his side. He had to know that.
“Where is your lawyer staying?”
“Scarlet’s giving her statement to one of the deputies. He’s in the interrogation room with her.” Henry shrugged. “I don’t know where he’s staying. Probably at that B&B.”
“Scarlet is here, giving her statement?”
“Yeah. She just came in to see me, with the sheriff looking on, of course.”
“What did you decide to do? Tell the truth?”
Henry’s face lined with concern. “I’ve been telling you the truth.”
I crossed my arms. That was blatantly untrue. “But, tell the truth to Malcolm? To the sheriff? About the real events of your morning yesterday?”
“Yes. My lawyer advised me to tell the sheriff what really happened. Why we switched our stories.”
“Good. If you’re innocent, you should act innocent with the police. Tell them the truth.”
He looked around the holding cell area, studiously avoiding me. I didn’t like the nervous look on his face. Even if he hadn’t killed Claire, there were plenty of things he could have done that were still criminal. I got that feeling again that there was something big he was holding back.
“I’m not that innocent,” he said, staring at the floor in front of my feet.
“What does that mean?”
Henry shook his head. “You’re going to find things out about me that you’re not going to like, Vangie.” He finally raised his eyes to look into mine. They were so red and bloodshot, I knew he was on the verge of tears. “I’m afraid of the look on your face when you do.”
I pressed my lips together, feeling an onslaught of emotion. This exchange had a goodbye feeling to it, like he was about to tell me to stop coming to see him. Probably the only thing he and the Van Andels had in common.
“You could tell me yourself,” I said. “I promise, I’ll handle it better coming from you.”
“I don’t think I could bear watching you hear it.” He pushed on the bars, like he was Sampson. Or maybe Superman. But they didn’t move. “I’d rather be holding you.”
A shiver ran through me, standing all my fine hairs on end. Not with attraction, but with fear. Who said something like that to a near-stranger?
In my discomfort, I turned away just enough that I saw one of the interrogation room doors open through the cross-hatched security window in the big jail room door. The deputy who emerged stood with his back to me, ushering someone out of the room. I expected Scarlet and the infamous lawyer.
Instead, I recognized the elegant neck and up-do and profile of Nikki Krantz. My breath caught in my throat.
What was she doing here?
“What’s wrong?” Henry asked, pressing closer to the bars. “Is that Scarlet?”
“No. It’s Claire’s sister.” I walked to the intercom and depressed the button, calling for Irma. I looked back at him, and the tension rolling through him was palpable.
“Don’t leave me, Vangie,” he whispered. “Please. Don’t go yet. I can’t be in here alone.”
There was an urgency underlying his words that I couldn’t quite read. Henry reached one of his
hands through the bars, as though he would physically stop me from leaving if he could. He had clearly formed an attachment to me that I didn’t return. I felt for him. Sadness. Sorrow. Pity. Not desire.
I squeezed his hand, quickly, waiting for Irma, who came trundling down the hallway toward me.
“I’ll be back in the morning,” I said to Henry. “I’ll stop by the bed and breakfast and get you a clean suit. A toothbrush, maybe, and deodorant. Just so you can be more comfortable.”
He gave me that million-dollar smile, looking up with hooded eyes. “I’ll bet you make a great vicar,” he said, his British accent returning. I could almost see him take on the character again. It was eerie.
“I bet you make a great actor,” I said, returning the smile.
Irma came through the door and escorted me out toward the front. Nikki Krantz was standing with her back to me, the deputy’s hand still lingering there. They were clearly friends.
“You don’t have to do this, Nikki,” he was saying. “I promise, we’ll get this guy without you.”
“Malcolm said you needed me,” she said, her voice low.
“He shouldn’t have done this.” The deputy stepped back, shaking his head and taking his hands off Nikki.
Irma pushed past me and toward the two of them, hustling Nikki to the front of the counter. When she turned around and saw me, her whole body tightened. Her smile was a few seconds too late.
“Miss Vee,” she said, her hand clutching her purse to her stomach. “What are you doing here?”
“I just dropped by to visit with Irma,” I said, regretting the lie only a little. “I like to bring my new pastries over to get feedback for the tourist season.”
“Oh, yeah,” the deputy said. “Those little cookies you brought were killer.” He offered a big smile as I walked around to stand near Nikki, on the civilian side of the intake counter. His shirt had the words Van Andel stitched into the brown fabric.
He was too young to be Mike’s brother. He couldn’t have been much older than Leo, although I knew Leo didn’t have any older siblings. Still, the sight of the name made my stomach churn a little. If he knew I’d been back visiting Henry…