“Even so”—Regina reached out and touched my arm—“the shops were in our family, and that means something. We feel… obligated to make Lois and Opal’s vision come true.”
“Well, not candy stores.”
Regina glared at her sister before turning back to me. “The point is, we’ve been doing a lot of investigating around town, and it seems like your family owns quite a bit of property. These two shops belong in our family, and it would be so wonderful if we could do our original plan and combine them with yours. Surely with all of your family’s holdings you could find another location.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and I let some of the frustration I was feeling toward Branson, and at myself, edge its way in. “We are at a funeral, surely you realize that.” I gestured toward their clothes. “You came dressed for it, so I’ll assume this isn’t news to you. A funeral is hardly the place or time to discuss any of this, even if I was prone to change my mind, which I’m not.”
Regina blanched but didn’t step back, though she did drop her touch. “Actually, it seems the perfect place. It wasn’t long ago that we had a funeral for Opal, as you well know. You’re the one who found her.”
I hadn’t attended that funeral, but I remembered hearing Lois was the only family member there. “Oh, did you attend?”
Penelope looked away, and Regina swallowed before replying. “We were otherwise committed, unfortunately.” She smiled, a forced one. “It is our hope to pay her our respects as we go about our business plans every single day. And we can only do that if you are willing to do the right thing and relocate.”
This day was getting to be a little too much. “The right thing?”
“Well….” Regina shrugged. “Thanks to you, the other candy store closed down, too.”
“Enough!” I stopped her before she could utter one more word. If she did, I feared I might turn homicidal. “Let me make this clear, and I’m sorry if it’s blunt. I’m not selling. I was already completely sure of that, but after this conversation, let me just add that it will be over my cold, dead body.” Probably a bad choice of words, but I couldn’t bring myself to take them back. “Now, please excuse me. I’m needed elsewhere.”
For the second time that day, there was sputtering, only this time, thankfully, it wasn’t from me. As I got in my Mini Cooper and drove away, I glanced in the rearview mirror; the sisters stood there watching me go.
I probably could’ve handled that better. It would make life a bit of torture operating the Cozy Corgi between them if they decided to open two tiny garbage haven stores as opposed to one warehouse-sized contraption. Another thought flitted through my mind as I noticed the fury on Regina’s face. Katie’s idea that someone had mistaken her for me was ludicrous, but if there was anyone who could do something like that, I was willing to bet it would be the Garble sisters.
Watson was, indeed, unimpressed with being left home by himself. I reminded him that he had it better than most other dogs. He had the entire cabin and a very expensive dog run at his disposal. Even so, he utilized his perfected cold-shoulder routine to let me know exactly how perturbed he was.
The attitude lasted all the way into town as he stared determinedly out the passenger window, which morphed into a repeat performance of moving at a snail’s pace from the Mini Cooper to the shop.
“You’re a complete mess, you know that, your highness?” I held the door open for him.
Watson merely looked the other way as he trotted inside.
All pretense washed away as Leo’s voice drifted down from the bakery. Watson’s ears perked up, and he let out an excited yelp, then tore up the staircase as though he’d opened up his ancestral results and found a one percent strain of greyhound hidden among the purebred corgi fur.
For the first time that day, my heart warmed at the sight of his knob-tailed rump disappearing from view. I wasn’t sure what power Barry and Leo possessed in Watson’s mind, but there was something. I often wished Watson had the power of human speech. Getting his explanation on why those two humans were his version of catnip would be one of the first questions I’d ask.
After making sure to lock the front door behind me, I made my way through the bookshop, leaving the lights off so potential customers wouldn’t knock, and joined the other three in the bakery.
As expected, Leo was on his knees lavishing adoration on Watson, while Katie waited, with Watson’s favorite all-natural dog bone treat in hand, for the lovefest to end.
She smiled over at me. “I don’t know how I managed to ever have a happy moment before Watson came into my life. He really is the cutest thing.”
“Oh, yes, he’s a charmer.” I made my way over to them and took my place leaning on the marble-top counter.
As if detecting my sarcasm, Watson cast a glare over his shoulder once more and then gave an even brighter doggy smile to Leo.
I couldn’t help but chuckle. The pup had attitude in spades—I wouldn’t want it any other way.
“We were thinking we’d order pizza.” Katie thumbed over her shoulder. “While we wait, I’m going to make some more bread. But first, Leo requested red-velvet brownies. Does that work for you?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know me.” I winked. “Carbs covered in cheese and meat, followed by carbs covered in cream-cheese icing, followed by fresh-baked yeasty carbs? I don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
She chuckled, and for the first time in several days, I saw the Katie I knew and loved. It was only a flash, and then her expression clouded over once more. She interrupted Leo and Watson by leaning down and thrusting the dog treat between them. “Great. I’ll get started.”
Watson accepted the offering, but demonstrating just how high Leo ranked on the importance scale, he simply held the dog treat in his mouth and waited until Leo finished rubbing behind his ears before wandering off and choosing a place under one of the antique tables to enjoy his snack.
“I’ll order the pizza.” Leo stood, attempting to brush away the dog hair covering his pants, then intelligently, he abandoned the exercise in futility. “Deluxe supreme work for you ladies?”
I nodded.
Katie looked over from where she was pouring flour into a mixing bowl. “Extra cheese, please.”
“Why in the world would I do anything else?” Leo winked at her.
As we waited for the pizza delivery, the conversation remained light. Almost intentionally silly. It was nice, normal, but by the time Katie slid the red-velvet brownies into the oven, it began to feel forced, and her expression grew ever more strained and her laughter ever thinner.
I could almost hear her inner dialogue, debating if she was going to go through with what I thought she intended.
Once the pizza was delivered and we were chowing down—all gathered around the counter, Leo taking a seat on top of it, instead of sitting at a table—I noticed Katie nod. It was barely noticeable and seemed more for herself than us.
“I know you’re irritated with me that I keep insisting I wasn’t the target of Sammy’s murder or of the gunshots the other night.”
Leo had just taken a bite but spoke while chewing. “We’re not irritated. Not at all, Katie. And they’re just theories. You’re going through a lot.”
Her gaze flicked to me. Not an accusation exactly, just an acknowledgment.
“Sorry.” I couldn’t think of what else to say.
She shook her head. “No, there’s no reason to be sorry. I’d be irritated as well. And it’s not just a theory; it’s the only thing that makes sense.” She took a steadying breath, resting one hand on the countertop as if standing was suddenly a chore. “There’re two things that make this awful. Well, countless things, actually, but two that have made me try to wish this all away, pretend it’s something it’s not. The first is obvious. It means that Sammy died for no other reason than because she looked like me. And the second—” She paused as her gaze darted between Leo’s and mine. “—is that it will change how you look at me.
It will change the way the entire town looks at me. And I thought I’d finally escaped that.”
“Katie.” Leo reached for her with his pizza-free hand and squeezed her elbow. “Nothing will change how we see you.”
Despite the moment, I tried to judge whether that was a friendly gesture of support or something more. I shoved the thought away with irritation.
I didn’t make the same promise as Leo; I couldn’t. “I don’t know what you’re getting ready to say, but I do know that we all have histories, and the person you are now is the Katie I love and will continue to love. Even if there are hard things in the past that have helped make you who you are.” I hoped I could keep that promise. I thought I could.
“We’ll see.” Katie glanced down at the pizza and took a bite as if she needed strength.
Leo and I waited as she chewed, swallowed, took another bite, and repeated the process until the slice was nearly gone.
When Katie finally spoke, she kept her focus on the remaining crust of pizza as if her very life depended on it. “My given name was Michelle Katherine Mercy. When I went to live with my grandmother, we changed my name legally to Katie Michelle, and I took her last name, Pizzolato. She was my mom’s mom.” She glanced at Leo for a heartbeat, then focused on me, staring longer, as if she expected a reaction.
I wasn’t sure what reaction I was supposed to have. “After Garrett and I got divorced, I changed my name back from Griffin.”
Katie let out a tired sigh and looked disappointed. Obviously, I hadn’t said what she’d hoped for. This time when she looked away, she refocused on the pan of red velvet brownies that were cooling a little bit away on the counter.
“My parents were—” Katie went silent abruptly and licked her lips.
She was quiet for so long I decided she’d changed her mind—for so long that Leo looked over at me questioningly, as if asking what we should do. Though, after my display so far, I wondered why in the world he would look to me for guidance.
When Katie spoke again, her words were barely a whisper. “Serial killers. My parents were serial killers.”
I thought I’d heard wrong, and a few seconds of silence followed before Leo laughed awkwardly. “What?”
“I’m not teasing.” Katie looked at him, remorse written over her face. “Sorry.”
Something clicked. Several somethings clicked. Puzzle pieces snapped into place, and I knew it was the right puzzle, yet the picture was still hazy.
Katie moved in with her grandma when she was twelve, so around twenty years ago. I’d have been a freshman in college.
Mercy.
Flickers of TV reports echoed in my memory of that name being spoken on the national news broadcasts.
And then my father’s voice, clear as a bell echoing back all those years. He’d been obsessed with the case, but I hadn’t paid too much attention at the time. Which was rare, as I always dove into whatever cases my father was working on. No wait, he hadn’t been working on it, just following it on the news. I looked up, my eyes meeting Katie’s, and once more I saw her waiting expectation.
“The Mercy Killers.” I followed her lead and whispered.
And with that, she looked a little relieved and nodded. “Yeah.”
I gaped at her. She was the daughter of the Mercy Killers?
Leo looked back and forth between us, expectantly. “Sorry, I’m a little lost. What are the Mercy Killers?”
“My parents.” She spared him a glance but looked back at me. “You remember?”
I nodded. “I do. But not a ton. I remember the country being obsessed with a husband-and-wife serial killer team. They specialized in other couples most of the time, right?”
“Yes. That’s right.” Katie turned to Leo. “Now do you remember?”
“Twenty years ago? I… um… didn’t watch much news back then.” Leo looked uncomfortable. Unless I was reading him wrong, it was due to the fact he wasn’t familiar with the Mercy killings and not at Katie being connected to them.
Letting out another long sigh—clearly she’d hoped that announcement would be all the details needed—she left what remained of her pizza and retrieved the bowl of rising bread dough. As she worked, she spoke and never looked our way.
“There’s not much more to tell. Growing up, I didn’t have contact with anyone else in my family, just Mom and Dad. The first time I saw my grandmother was the day I met her with my social worker. Before that, we moved around. I’d typically be in two or three different schools every year. It wasn’t fun, but it was just life. It was normal for me.” She cut off a piece of parchment paper, placed it on a baking sheet and began to shape the dough into a loaf.
“Every so often they’d leave me with a babysitter and have date nights. That’s what they called them. Although, by the time I was eight, they decided the only babysitter I needed was the TV, so they’d leave me alone. I didn’t know till later that on some of those nights—maybe all of them, I have no idea; I don’t remember how often they actually happened—they would find someone to kill. Most often another couple, like Fred said.”
Katie slid the newly formed loaf into the warmer. She looked around the kitchen as if searching for something else to do with her hands. She settled on a new slice of pizza, though she did more rearranging of the toppings than actual eating.
“My grandma and I had to move around quite a bit the first year. It never took long at a new school for the kids to figure out who I was from my name. Then the harassment would start both at school and at home. People would leave voicemails on our answering machine, promising death threats and explaining all the things they were going to do to my grandma and me. We’d move again, and the same thing would happen. Finally, we changed my name and moved to LA. I was able to get lost in the shuffle in a city that big. We never spoke of it again, not even to each other.” At last she looked up at Leo and me again. “I guess someone knows that I used to be Michelle Katherine Mercy.” Tears fell and she began to shake. “And now I have blood on my hands again, just like them.”
Again?
“No, you don’t. Sammy’s blood is not on your hands.” Leo slid off the counter and wrapped his arms around Katie, and in so doing, put me to shame that it hadn’t been my first reaction to my best friend’s story.
I shoved the word again away; it didn’t mean anything. Katie was just shaken. She needed my friendship, not me analyzing every word. Following Leo’s example, I walked around the counter and joined in Leo’s embrace. After a minute or so, I felt Watson rub against my ankles and then settle in beside us.
Leo and I didn’t release Katie until her sobs finally faded away.
I wasn’t sure how much time the three of us spent in the Cozy Corgi. Long enough that the sourdough was baked, and half a loaf was eaten.
Before we headed out, I made an excuse to use the restroom. I texted the details to Branson and let him know Katie and I were heading to my house. Even more than before, I wanted the police watching as we slept. If either of us were able to sleep. And maybe with Branson having the details in the police database at his back, there might be a chance we’d have some actual suspects by morning.
We were a couple of blocks from downtown, an annoyed Watson glaring at us from the backseat, when Katie dared to break the tense silence between us. “If you’re not comfortable with me, I don’t have to stay at your place. Leo said he wanted to be added into the rotation.” She didn’t look my way. “And of course, once your family finds out, there’s no expectation for them to still be part of this.”
Shame wafted over me. I hadn’t done as good a job as Leo at assuring Katie that nothing had changed. That she was still just Katie to me. Still my best friend. She was. Those weren’t just words. No part of me blamed Katie for what her parents had done. Not even a little. But I wasn’t regrouping quite as quickly as Leo. Maybe because he had no memory of the case. It was all new to him. Or simply he was better at things like this.
I dared a glance away from the road to focus
on Katie, who refused to meet my eyes. “You are always welcome at my house. Always. You are my business partner, my baker, and my best friend. Not one thing you said tonight changes any of that. Not a solitary thing. You understand me?”
Katie looked over then, tears instantly spilling down her cheeks. “Fred, you don’t have to say that.”
“No, I don’t. And that makes it even truer.” I glanced back at the road. We were headed toward a curve, and it was dark, but I couldn’t see any headlights coming toward us or elk or mountain goats in the road, so I looked at Katie once more. “You are not responsible for any of this, and we’re going to find out who is. It’s going to be a lot easier now that we have an idea of what we might be looking for.”
Katie sniffed, wiped her eyes, and seemed to get control of herself. “I just can’t believe this is happening again. Here of all places, after so long. And now to have you—”
The car came out of nowhere and slammed into the passenger side just as we approached the curve. Katie’s airbag exploded, and there was screaming, though I wasn’t sure if it was Katie, me, or Watson, or some combination of the three. The Mini Cooper was thrust toward the edge of the curve, and I tried to compensate, or at least I think I did. Whatever I did to the steering wheel didn’t work, and we plunged over the side of the road and down a steep embankment. The world was nothing more than jarring lurches and scraping of metal. We stopped when the front of the car smashed into a boulder, and my steering wheel was lost as I jerked face-first into the airbag.
Though the force of the impact with the boulder made it perfectly clear we’d come to a stop, I sat there, dazed, the last few moments replaying in my mind. The crunching sound of plastic and metal, the squeal of the tires. The explosion and spray of glass. The blurry rotation of the world outside the windshield as we spun. The plunge off the dark edge of the curve. The moment of being airborne followed by complete lack of control as the Mini Cooper was tossed this way and that, then barreled over the rocky uneven slope.
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