by Molly Harper
“This is my emotional support animal.” Tootie’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t mess with me on this, junior.”
It had been Tootie who brought Margot back into the McCready fold a few months before, tracking their long-lost cousin down after a very public firing involving flamingos and society matrons. She’d offered Margot a job, a place to live, and a connection to the family Margot had never known. In return, Margot had turned Tootie’s penchant for animal hoarding into the county’s only no-kill animal shelter. That appeared to be where the bond of familial gratitude ended.
Frankie gently nudged Tootie aside, stepping into the line of fire. “Tootie, stop believing things you read on the Internet. And stop bringin’ your animals into the office. She’s right. It makes us look like a bunch of yahoos. Margot, dial it back a notch. The vent is open.”
Margot grimaced up at the air-conditioning vent in her office ceiling. While the central air provided much-appreciated defense against the Georgia heat, it also served as a funnel for noise from Margot’s office to the chapel upstairs.
“The last dog she brought by my office chewed my Jimmy Choos!” Margot protested, eyeing the German shepherd warily.
“Shoes shouldn’t have names anyway,” Tootie scoffed. “Besides, Hercules here is so well trained, you don’t have to worry about your shoes. He used to work at the Atlanta airport as a bomb-sniffing dog.”
“Well, good for you, Hercules,” Margot deadpanned. Hercules harrumphed lightly.
“Well, he’s a cute little guy,” Frankie cooed, slowly reaching her hand out for Hercules to sniff. In response, he folded in on himself, flopping his head down on his paws and letting out a sad little whuff. “And by that, I mean an extremely manly dog who knows no equal.”
“Don’t mind him. He’s been a little depressed since his handler died,” Tootie said, stooping down and scratching behind his ears.
“Poor buddy.” Frankie bent to give his head a pat.
Even Margot softened a little bit, but she did not coo.
“Did you just come by to threaten me with frivolous lawsuits or is there a point to this visit, Tootie?” Margot asked.
“Marianne told me I should drop these with you,” Tootie told her. “Something about puttin’ up the animal shelter as the designated charity for the community Trunk-R-Treat. The county commission has to approve. And since you’re now the designated muckety-muck around here, I’m handin’ them over to you.”
Frankie burst out laughing, bending at the waist and propping her hands on her knees to keep from falling over.
Margot frowned at her. “What?”
Frankie straightened and cleared her throat so she could answer, only to collapse on herself laughing again.
Margot groaned. “Did I step in Lake Sackett politics again?”
The Trunk-R-Treat was a Sackett County tradition. Because the residents’ houses were spread so far across the county, the local Baptist church offered use of its parking lot on Halloween night. Volunteers parked their cars in a huge semicircle and filled their trunks with candy, so instead of going from door to door over dangerous, curvy country roads, the kids went from trunk to trunk. It was safer, the kids walked away with buckets of candy, and some of the pushier church ladies wrapped the treats in little strips of paper printed with Bible verses so they didn’t feel like they were supporting a pagan festival.
It felt like a win-win, except Sackett Countians being who they were, it was a total pain in the ass to organize. People argued over whether the kids should have to earn their treats by playing carnival games. They argued over what sorts of games the kids should play. They argued over how much of Leslie’s chili to prepare for the chili dogs. They argued over which brand of hot dog buns to buy. And then they argued over whether chili dogs were really necessary when all the kids wanted was candy.
The Lake Sackett Elementary PTA was usually designated as the recipient of Trunk-R-Treat’s dollar-per-kid cover charge. Sara Lee Bolton had organized the Trunk-R-Treat as part of her duties as the PTA president . . . but after a spot of embezzlement during the Founders’ Festival a couple of weeks ago, Sara Lee had other problems to contend with at the moment. So apparently the Trunk-R-Treat had fallen to Margot.
“Just when you thought you were out of the fryin’ pan, you get tossed right back in the grease fire.” Frankie laughed so hard, she bent over at the waist and had to prop herself up against her knees. Margot made a very rude gesture with her carefully manicured middle finger. Tootie clutched imaginary pearls at her throat and gasped, “In the presence of the paint-by-number Jesuses!”
Frankie jerked her head toward the door. “I don’t think it counts. They’re out in the hall.”
“This is what I get for being a competent event planner,” Margot muttered.
“People are still talkin’ about how much they enjoyed the Founders’ Festival,” Tootie told her, patting her shoulder. “Everywhere Stan goes, folks tell him what a good job his girl did puttin’ it together. Biggest festival in forty years.”
“They mean they enjoyed the money they made,” Margot said archly, though her lips quirked into a soft smile.
“Well, that’s just the same as enjoying it,” Tootie insisted. “The Marcums and the Courseys, they made enough in a week that they were able to catch up with their mortgages. They tossed out their plans to move. People are going to remember that.”
“Good. I’ll need it when I’m looking for volunteers for the Trunk-R-Treat,” Margot muttered, making Tootie grin.
Frankie cleared her throat. “So, um, did Sheriff Linden come by and give you those nonexistent incident reports?”
Now it was Margot’s turn to smirk. “Why do you ask?”
Frankie shrugged and tried to look as nonchalant as possible. “Oh, I just wanted to give him some test results for Bobby Wayne’s case.”
“Test results. On top of the test results you already gave him a few hours ago,” Margot said, doubt and smugness coloring her tone. “You’re a miracle worker.”
Down the hall, Frankie could hear the harsh whisper of an adult over the giggles and thumping footsteps of children. She heard a man say, “Girls, please, there’s a funeral going on right now. Be respectful or other people will know I’m raising a pair of adorable hooligans.”
Frankie blew out a breath. Saved by the hooligans.
A blur of green tulle and yellow sequins rushed through the door. Hercules chuffed and sat up on his haunches, but made no move toward Kyle Archer’s younger daughter, June, as she threw herself around Margot’s leg. Kyle and his older daughter, Hazel, appeared in the doorway. Hazel, whose fairer complexion and darker hair favored her late mother, wore a bemused expression that was far too mature for an eight-year-old.
“Margot!” June shrieked, hugging Margot tightly. “I took a spelling test today! And I fed Marco Polo, the class fish. And I drew a picture!”
The little girl flung open a folded poster-size piece of construction paper, on which she’d drawn herself and Charlie, the family’s newly adopted dachshund, and an orange pony with a purple tail.
“Well, that sounds like a very full day,” Margot said, hesitantly brushing June’s thick hair back from her little elfin face. Frankie knew it took considerable internal struggle for Margot not to peel June’s grubby hands off her designer suit. Single up until her thirties and the only daughter of a mother who wasn’t exactly child-friendly, Margot didn’t fall naturally into the role of nurturing the Archer girls. In fact, her near-clinical fear of not being able to nurture them had nearly kept her from a relationship with Kyle in the first place. But she was trying, and for the Archers that mattered a lot.
Frankie was pleased for Margot. She knew how hard it had been for her cousin to go from living in one of the biggest cities in the world with practically no family to living in tiny Lake Sackett surrounded by a biblical legion of relatives. But Frankie suffered a second jealous twinge toward her cousin for the day and felt even worse for it. Margot’s “career
first, children no-thank-you” stance was something they had in common. Frankie had never thought she’d live long enough to have kids, so marriage and babies and a white picket fence had never fit into her childhood dreams. At first, Frankie’d thought she and Margot could be the last two old maid aunties at the holidays, handing out rock-hard homemade fudge and scaring the kids with their dentures. But now Margot had a ready-made family and Frankie was going to be alone in the rocking chair, flipping her dentures upside down in her mouth as a solo act. She’d been left behind again, and the burn was just a little more bitter than it had been when Marianne married and started her family with Carl the magical redneck unicorn.
Once again, Frankie was the sole McCready chick in the nest, which bothered her a lot less than the “pathetic” factor. The guys she dated weren’t very choosy, but they did make slightly judgy faces when she mentioned they couldn’t go back to her place because her parents lived there. Not that she brought many of her partners anywhere near her home, because her parents didn’t need to know that much about her sex life—or anything about her sex life, at all. Ever.
Even Duffy had managed to get married and move out on his own. He’d moved out to what turned out to be a toxic, awful mess of a marriage to a sociopath, but at least he wasn’t sharing a roof with his mom. He’d divorced the sociopath, built his own cabin on the McCready property, and gotten on with his life.
Frankie was twenty-eight years old. She was employed and had a healthy savings account. There was no reason for her to still be sleeping in her childhood bedroom. Honestly, she’d wanted to move into Marianne’s old cabin years before, but her parents always got so agitated when she talked about moving—even though she would be only a few doors down. If she wasn’t under their roof, they would worry about how she was eating, whether she was sleeping enough, whether she was working too hard. It was like they thought she couldn’t get cancer again if they worried enough. So instead of moving out and forcing them to work through their anxieties, she stayed. It was an unhealthy cycle fueled by love and worry, and Frankie didn’t really know how to pull out of it.
And none of this internal turmoil mattered to June, who was trying to find a space on Margot’s wall for her classroom masterpiece.
“You’re going to put it where everybody can see it, right?” June demanded, hopping up and down and making her green tulle square-dancing-style skirt flounce.
“Sure. You and Hazel pick the best place.” Margot handed June her tape dispenser. While June threw herself across the room to find a blank wall space among Bob’s civil service awards, Hazel slowly sidled up to Margot. Margot offered her fist and the pair of them did some sort of secret handshake that Frankie could barely follow. Margot nodded toward the wall and Hazel joined her sister.
While Hazel was more conservatively dressed in jeans and a T-shirt that read MERMAID HAIR, DON’T CARE, June had paired her John Deere–themed puffy princess skirt with neon purple Keds and a yellow cardigan covered in iridescent sequins.
“That’s a very pretty outfit you have there, June. I see you’re wearing the shoes we picked out,” Frankie said. Kyle narrowed his dark eyes at her. Kyle had almost gotten June through her “eclectic sense of fashion” phase before he and the girls started spending time with the McCreadys. But when June saw Frankie’s outfits, she not only continued her mix-and-match approach to dressing, she began demanding “rainbow streaks” in her hair, just like Frankie.
“I will find a way to get you,” Kyle murmured, in that New York Yankee accent of his that instantly marked him as different from any other man in Lake Sackett. Frankie suspected the accent was half the draw for Margot. The soulful brown eyes and Ryan Gosling ass probably didn’t hurt, though.
Kyle added, “I realize working with small children all day doesn’t make me that intimidating, but Margot is way meaner than I could ever dream of being. She’ll help me.”
“Hey, I think that hurts me. I’m delightful,” Margot grumped as Kyle gave her a quick kiss. Frankie noticed that neither of the girls snickered or yelled “Ewwwww” like they might have a few weeks ago.
“It shouldn’t. Your terrifying nature is what drew me to you in the first place. I like to live on the edge,” Kyle said, slipping an arm around Margot’s waist as she rolled her eyes. Kyle nodded toward the German shepherd, who was perfectly still at Tootie’s side. “Miss Tootie. New pack member?”
June slapped enough tape on the drawing to secure it to the wall through a direct nuclear blast and turned, noticing the dog for the first time.
“PUPPY!” she cried. In all caps.
Hercules took a step back behind Tootie, clearly conveying the canine version of NOPE NOPE NOPE. Kyle caught June around the waist before she could launch herself at the poor dog.
“Honey, we talked about this, remember?” he said, effortlessly shifting her onto his hip for a face-to-face talk. “We don’t touch dogs we don’t know. Not all dogs are nice like Arlo and Charlie. And they don’t know that we’re not going to hurt them or scare them, and that makes them nervous and they can bite. So we wait until we’re invited, right?”
June nodded, mumbling, “Sorry, Daddy. Sorry, Miss Tootie.”
“It’s all right. But Hercules is a bit shy yet, honeybun. He’s got good trainin’, but we need to give him more time to get used to little people,” Tootie told her. “But tell me all about Charlie. How’s my favorite wiener dog doin’?”
June and Hazel both launched into tales of their latest canine adventures, assuring Tootie that Charlie was the most amazing, intelligent, and brave dog to ever live.
Frankie stepped out of the room, watching from the doorway as her cousin was surrounded and absorbed by Kyle’s little family. An odd, fluttering pain squeezed at her chest. Was it loneliness? The desire for a relationship that lasted more than a date or two? Or could it be something else?
The alien sensation sent a ripple of panic through Frankie. Could her heart be out of rhythm? Was it her blood pressure? A tumor pressing into her chest cavity? Frankie swallowed thickly, wondering at the sudden catch in her throat. Her last checkup was three months ago and her doctor had assured her that she was perfectly healthy. For someone who’d spent a good bit of her childhood in a cancer ward, she was in remarkable shape.
Dr. Langdon had suggested that she might want to consider medications to help her cope with these little spikes of anxiety over her health. And the much larger waves of angst that kept her up at night, unable to fall asleep for fear that she might not wake up. She refused the meds in favor of repeatedly reminding herself to stop being such a self-involved worrywart.
Frankie was fine. She’d already lost the health probability lottery once. There was no reason to believe her body would turn on her again. She was an adult, surrounded by people who loved her. She needed to breathe and get over herself.
Frankie felt a strong, warm hand close over her shoulder, and instantly her disquiet eased. Her uncle Stan, whose big brown eyes were a little less hangdog these days, smiled down at her and pressed her into his side. She leaned into the hug and took deep breaths as her heart rate settled.
“Doin’ okay, kiddo?” he asked, a wry smile deepening the furrows around his eyes.
Frankie nodded.
The corner of Stan’s mouth lifted as he watched his daughter through the office door. Toddler Margot had been the apple of his eye, at least when that eye hadn’t been focused on a bottle. And then his ex-wife had decided to move Margot away from Stan’s drinking, to no one’s surprise. What had shocked the McCready clan was Linda’s total break from Lake Sackett and anyone who lived there. Even after Stan sobered up, there was no communication between him and his daughter. None of the McCreadys knew what had become of Linda or Margot until a few months ago, when a hilariously bad video from an event Margot had organized went viral and Tootie tracked her down. Stan still looked at her like he was afraid she would evaporate if his eyes strayed away for too long.
“So, what did I do to deserv
e this spontaneous side hug from my favorite uncle?” Frankie bumped him with her hip, and to her surprise, he responded with a frown. Stan never frowned at her—90 percent of the general population, yes, but not her.
“We need to talk,” he said quietly, jerking his head toward the back exit.
Frankie chuckled. “Well, that wasn’t at all cryptic.”
Stan led her through the parking lot, still muggy despite the autumn cool, to the back bay of the funeral home. The door under the awning, where caskets were loaded into the hearse to be transported to the grave, showed scratches, as if someone had tried to use a screwdriver to force the lock open.
Frankie hissed out an annoyed breath. Previous attempts to break into the funeral home had usually concentrated on the front door and the side entrance. Oddly enough, most people ignored the direct basement entrance to the morgue, assuming it was connected to the marina. But not her nemesis. He knew the layout to the funeral home all too well from years of trying to breach the walls.
Stan grumbled, “They tried the chapel window, too, I guess, before the numb-nuts figured out that stained-glass windows don’t open.”
Frankie glanced up at the camera mounted on the eave, pointed at the door. The lens was covered with a heavy coating of what looked like black spray paint.
“Sonofabitch!” Frankie drew a long breath through her nose. She was going to have to buy and install another set of security cameras, and most likely route the feed through her computer in the morgue. “I wish I’d seen this before the sheriff left. I could have talked to him about it.”
“Sorry, I just noticed it a little bit ago, and then I got wrapped up in transporting Heck Porter,” he said. “I checked the security feeds in E.J.J.’s office and all you see is a hand comin’ up in the camera view and painting over the lens, then nothing.”
Frankie frowned. Despite his advancing age, her uncle E.J.J. was sharp as a tack. “E.J.J. didn’t notice that one of the security feeds was completely blacked out?”
“Well, Gray Tolar passed yesterday, and his kids are raisin’ seven kinds of hell over whether he would want a full military funeral or a full Masonic funeral. All four of them think they were the favorite and they know ‘exactly what Daddy wanted,’ so E.J.J.’s distracted by grown-ass adults having tantrums in his office. Plus, when he saw the blacked-out feed, he thought that the camera had broken or something. He’s not exactly a techno wizard.”