Rachel sighed. She slumped down at the table. “I’m just depressed, I guess. The killer, me and Scott… nothing makes sense right now.”
“Well, how about we try and untangle it one at a time? What exactly happened with you and Scott?”
“I told him I didn’t want to move in,” Rachel said. “Well… I didn’t exactly say that. I just said I wanted more time, and he got all pouty about it and told me I should just say “No” flat out instead of leading him on and then I got angry.”
“Wait... do you not want to move in with Scott?” Emily was confused. “You two have been dating a year, and you’re still all starry-eyed about each other. It’s really cute. I just assumed you’d be over the moon about this.”
“Well, I’m not.” Rachel sighed. “I don’t want to move in with him.”
“Why?” Emily asked. “You don’t have religious objections to moving in or something, do you? I mean that’s perfectly reasonable, but you’ll have to tell him flat out.”
“It’s not that...” Rachel said.
“Then...” Emily hesitated. “Do you maybe not feel for Scott as much as he does for you? That’s okay too but—”
“It’s not that either!” Rachel exclaimed. Why was this so hard to explain? She took a deep breath, and went for it, “It’s just like when he asked me the question, something froze inside me, and I got incredibly anxious instead of being happy about it. I have to trust my gut, right? I don’t really have a concrete reason… and I guess that’s why I got angry when Scott tried to question me about it. I’m even slightly angry at myself for not knowing why.”
“Well, you should figure out why and tell him,” Emily said. “But take your time and don’t get pressured into doing something you don’t want to, just to please him.”
“Yeah?” Rachel sounded doubtful. “I don’t know. I was thinking last night that I’m being stupid, and I should just move in like he wants.”
“Scott wouldn’t want that,” Emily said. “I know I got excited five minutes ago about marriage and babies and next steps, but neither would I.”
“Really?”
“Obviously,” Emily said. “We love you, and we want what’s best for you first. So if it’s time, take time.” She looked a little embarrassed. “I mean, I don’t even know why I’m saying this. He should be.”
“I guess he’s got a lot on his plate right now,” Rachel said. “He feels responsible for Swaddle, you know. I can tell all of this is upsetting him, even though he never shows it.”
“He’s a professional, and when he’s on the job he can’t show emotion.” Emily sighed. “I love my brother, but I’m really glad he’s found someone. You don’t know how important you are to him, Rachel.”
“I am?”
“Of course, you are. But again, I shouldn’t be saying this. You two better talk, and fast. Life’s too short to hold grudges.”
“I will.” Rachel smiled. “I’ll clear it all up with him as fast as possible. But first, I have a collapsed cake that I want to repurpose. I was thinking of turning it into little cakes, and you’re welcome to take it home since I won’t be able to sell it.”
“No thanks!” Emily patted her stomach. “I’ve got to watch my weight.”
“I guess you probably still have my bundt cake leftover too.” Rachel smiled. “Did Ollie like that? I’ve never tasted Mrs. Bingham’s, so I don’t know if I got the flavors right.”
“Oh, yeah. Sure.” Emily shifted in her seat. “The bundt cake, right.”
Rachel raised an eyebrow at her, but the doorbell rang, driving the conversation out of her mind. Tricia was at the door, her face red and upset.
“Tricia?” Rachel asked. “You’re up early, what—”
“It’s Mia!” Tricia exclaimed. “She said someone left a cake at her door, with a note saying, “Enjoy Your Just Desserts.” Can you imagine? She was right. The town is trying to drive her out! It’s horrible!”
“Oh, my. Is she alright?”
“She tried to put up a tough front, but then she broke down and called me,” Tricia said. “I was with her all night yesterday, trying to console her. She’s really upset.”
“Poor Mia.” Rachel sighed.
“It’s just...” Tricia shook her head. “My heart breaks for her. It was so malicious. Someone baked her a lemon bundt cake, just like the one that killed Gina.”
Rachel’s eyes widened, and she froze. “A—what?”
“A lemon bundt cake. Frosting and all.” Tricia’s voice was shaking with rage. “I asked her to call the sheriff in case it’s poisoned too, but nobody ever showed up. It's in my car, and I’m taking it to the sheriff now.”
“It wasn’t poisoned,” Rachel said, faintly. She looked back at Emily. Emily’s ears were slowly turning red.
“How do you know?” Tricia asked. “We can’t be too careful. The killer is—”
“I know because I’m the one who baked it,” Rachel said, “Right, Em?”
Emily stood up hastily, knocking back her stool.
“You?” Tricia’s eyes widened too.
“Fine. I sent it,” Emily said. “It’s just a prank. Mia acts so tough going around beating up people. So why would she cry over a prank? Unless she has a guilty conscience, that is.”
“I’m going to kill you!” Tricia moved forward, trying to get her hands on Emily, but Rachel blocked her way, holding her by the shoulders.
“See? She’s got you acting crazy too, Tricia! Wake up, will you? Mia is the killer!”
“She is not!”
“Oh, no? What time did she call you last night?” Emily asked.
“Midnight,” Tricia said. “Not that it’s any of your—”
“I left the cake at her door around ten,” Emily said. “She wasn’t home then. The lights weren’t on. So where was she? I’ll tell you. She was in Ethan Wood’s house, murdering him. Then she got home and pretended to be hysterical and called you over, just so she could have an alibi!”
“That’s not true!” Tricia stamped her foot. “Mia’s innocent! She has to be!”
“Why?” Emily asked. “I just don’t understand it. Wake up before she harms your reputation, or worse, harms you! Why are you so keen on defending her?”
“Because I love her, okay!” Tricia yelled. “I love her!”
“You... you love Mia?” Emily stared at her. “Like, like a sister or something?”
“I have to go.” Tricia’s eyes were beginning to fill with tears. “And as for you, Emily, stay away from Mia. If you threaten her again, I don’t even care; I’ll kill you myself!”
*****
Chapter 16
Wait... What?
Emily’s jaw stayed on the floor for about ten minutes after Tricia left. When she finally collected her thoughts enough to say more than, “What?” and “How?” she managed, “Either I’m going mad or Tricia is.”
“I don’t think either of you are,” Rachel said.
“She’s in love with Mia? Like, real romantic love?”
Rachel shifted uncomfortably. “It’s 2018, Emily.”
“Yeah, I know, but it’s just that I’ve known Tricia all my life, and she’s dated guys and—” Emily sighed. “Okay. Okay. I need time to wrap my head around this.”
“I should have noticed,” Rachel said. “She does get a little starstruck when she talks about Mia, and she’s so protective. It’s so obvious, really.”
“Yeah, fine, but you know this isn’t good, right? Mia killed two people. She’s going to break Tricia’s heart into many little pieces. Or worse, she’s going to kill Tricia too. We have to do something. We have to save her!”
“You need to go home and read a book,” Rachel said. “I’m thinking, Jane Austen’s Emma. You might identify right now.”
“What?” Emily looked confused.
“You know how in the end she learns that maybe sometimes she should keep her nose out of other people’s business?”
“Are you implying something?” Emil
y frowned.
“I’m outright saying it!” Rachel exclaimed. “How cruel of you, Emily. To use me the way you did. Aren’t you the least bit ashamed?”
“The bundt cake?” Emily shifted from one foot to another. “Listen, about that—”
“You took advantage of me,” Rachel said.
“I was just… someone had to do something!”
“A meeting!” Rachel exclaimed. “You even organized a meeting with some other people, didn’t you? Annie mentioned it. But you didn’t invite me. What was the agenda there? Were you brainstorming on how to best to bully Mia?”
“It was just a community discussion on safety,” Emily said coldly. “I didn’t invite you because, well, I didn’t think you’d be interested in that kind of thing.”
“Nonsense,” Rachel said. “You were probably conspiring on how best to get Mia to leave town. It’s horrible, Emily, and I won’t stand for it.”
“We’re friends!” Emily exclaimed. “Mia punched you. Remember? I’m doing this for you!”
“No. You’re not,” Rachel said quietly.
“Then there’s nothing more to say.” Emily’s lips pressed together, and though her eyes were a bit misty, her face was dark with anger. Without meeting Rachel’s eyes, she strode to the door and slammed it shut, leaving Rachel alone.
Rachel sighed. What was happening? What was she supposed to do now? Hopefully, Emily would come to her senses, and fast. In fact, Rachel made up her mind to talk to both Jay and Scott about it. Maybe if the three of them ganged up on her, Emily would stop harassing Mia.
The front door jingled, and to Rachel’s surprise, Tilly Wood walked in. Rachel felt a twinge of pity for her. She looked awful. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and her short pixie hair seemed to have turned gray overnight.
“Tilly?” Rachel came out from behind her counter, and held out her hands. She led Tilly to a table away from the picture window, and sat her down.
“I heard about Ethan. I’m so sorry. What a shock!”
Tilly nodded. She tried to say something, then shook her head and turned away. Her shoulders shook a little as she put a handkerchief to her face. Rachel put a hand on her shoulder, wishing she could do more than offer her useless sympathy.
“I need you to help,” Tilly managed to croak out. “Please? I heard... Audra told me about how you solved her fiancé's murder. Help me.”
Rachel wanted to protest, to say that she was just an amateur, and that the police would help Tilly the best they could. But when she opened her mouth, she found herself saying instead, “Anything. I’ll do anything to help.”
“Thank you!” Tilly squeezed Rachel’s hand, still looking away. “He’s gone. Just like that. I can’t believe it.” She took a deep breath. “But I’m not going to break apart. Not right now. I’ve cried all night, and I won’t cry again. Not till we find the killer. I owe him that.”
“Good,” Rachel said. “Because I need you to tell me everything you know.”
“It’s connected to Gina’s death somehow, isn’t it?” Tilly asked. “It has to be. Nobody would want to kill Ethan. He was so… normal. Normal job, normal hobbies...”
“Enemies?”
“None,” Tilly said firmly. “Everyone loved Ethan. Including me.”
“But I saw you two fighting,” Rachel said. “The day Gina died, at Shoreline Park. He was saying something to you, and you looked furious. He looked agitated...”
“That?” Tilly’s eyes filled with tears again. “It’s so stupid when I think of it now. Ethan forgot to pay our internet bill. Just flat out forgot for three months. He found out that morning, and he came to tell me the company had threatened us with collections, and I was angry at him. If only I’d known…”
Rachel waited a few minutes, letting Tilly gather herself. “So, that’s all you were fighting about?”
“That’s all we ever fought about,” Tilly said. “Stupid things like bills, and whose turn it was to do the laundry.”
“Okay. So the morning Gina was killed, do you know what Ethan was doing that day?”
“He and I were together at the park until about one and then Annie asked him and Mia to go check on Gina,” Tilly said. “I was busy with some admin work around then.”
“And he came back right from finding out about Gina’s death to tell you about the internet bill?” Rachel was puzzled. “He didn’t want to talk about Gina at all?”
Tilly shook her head. “He just said he’d been hiding the fact from me all morning and had to clear his conscience. I got angry at him, and he got angry that I got angry. Does that make sense?”
Rachel bit her lip. It didn’t. Not really. Unless, of course, Ethan had a lot more on his conscience. Perhaps he had more to tell Tilly but wanted to start with something relatively inconsequential. When she didn’t react the way he wanted, he decided not to tell her the rest. So, irrational as it was, he got angry at Tilly for not being sympathetic, and maybe even blamed her for his not being able to reveal all. Rachel shook her head. Or maybe she was just making up theories that were utter garbage.
“Never mind the internet bill,” Tilly said. “Ethan was talking to Mia.”
“Mia?”
“Yeah. We need to find out what about,” Tilly said.
“How do you know?”
“I caught him on the phone with her once, but he'd hurriedly hung up,” Tilly said. “Call it a wife’s instinct. He looked panicked that I’d walked in on him.”
“Are you sure? I mean, sure that it was Mia?”
“Yeah. Mia is loud, and I could hear her clearly. All I heard her say was, ‘We have to do something about her,’ and then he hung up because he saw me.”
“Wow.” Rachel whistled. “You’re absolutely a hundred percent sure? Because you need to tell Scott, I mean Sheriff Tanner, at once.”
“I told him already,” Tilly said. “But I don’t know what good it did. But it doesn’t make sense. If Mia killed Gina, why would... unless...” Tilly’s eyes widened. “You don’t think Ethan was her accomplice?”
Rachel bit her lip. She hadn’t wanted to say it outright.
“We had a big fight about that phone call, you know. But Ethan convinced me he and Mia had just been talking about the cake-off, and that he wasn’t...” Tilly hesitated. She began shaking. “It’s so horrible. All of it.”
“Say it,” Rachel said. “Say what you were about to say. Keeping it inside will just make it fester.”
“He wasn’t cheating on me,” Tilly’s voice wobbled a little. “He said he wasn’t. He wasn’t.”
“Oh, Tilly...” Rachel didn’t know what to say.
“I’m an idiot, aren’t I?” Tilly said. “I knew, you know? I just had an instinct that he’d cheated on me. Three years ago, I found an earring in his car… but he insisted that it was a coworker’s, and he’d just been giving her a ride. But things were so much better, especially this last year…” Tilly ran a hand through her hair. “I don’t know. I don’t want to know. Not right now.”
“That’s okay,” Rachel said.
“There’s too much to think about,” Tilly’s voice was almost hoarse, as though she were begging Rachel to understand. “Or maybe I’m just being a coward.”
“You’re not a coward,” Rachel said, hoping her voice was both strong and kind. “I think you’re very brave.”
“But you will help me, won’t you?” Tilly asked. “I need to know who killed Ethan—and why.”
“I will help. I promise,” Rachel said, and she meant it.
*****
Chapter 17
Encouraging Her
It was one thing to promise to help, but another to actually do it. Rachel wracked her brains trying to come up with a way to make the killer reveal themselves. Nothing would come to mind. Sighing, she sat back and scratched Scooter on the back of his ears. Funny: the second person who asked her to help in this case. The first being Mrs. Bingham. Rachel laced her hands behind her head and thought back to the day she and T
ricia had discovered Gina’s body. So much had happened since. Including a rather surprising confession of love from Tricia.
“Speaking of Tricia,” Rachel said out loud. “I have to go apologize.” Even if she hadn’t realized what Emily was going to do, Rachel still felt guilty that her cake had been used to bully Mia. Then again… it’s not like she had known, and Mia had never once apologized for punching Rachel.
No, Rachel had her pride, and she wasn’t going to go apologize to Mia, even if part of her felt guilty about whatever had happened.
“That’s that,” she said to Scooter, raising her chin up. Scooter looked up at her, then back at the floor, whining slightly.
“Oh, don’t you start on me,” Rachel said. “Besides, I have more important things to think about, like who killed Ethan Wood, and why.”
The bell above the door tinkled, and Rachel looked up. Her smile widened briefly, then faltered, as she saw Scott standing there in full uniform. Thoughts of their fight the night before were wiped out when she saw the exhaustion in his eyes, and the way his hair was sticking out in all angles, a clear sign that he’d been running his hand through his hair over and over.
“Rachel.” Scott didn’t smile, nor was his voice very friendly. His normally bright, twinkling eyes, were dull and far away. Rachel had to put her hands by her side, resisting the impulse to rush at him and kiss the exhaustion off his face.
“Scott,” she said, her tone even. “I’m glad you came by.”
“I don’t have much time. Half an hour for lunch,” he said. “I saw your messages and calls. I’m sorry I couldn’t reply. There was a lot going on with Ethan Wood’s death...”
“He was murdered by Gina’s killer, wasn’t he?” Rachel shuddered.
“Can’t comment,” Scott said, his tone still stiff.
“Oh, come on, Scott. Tilly Wood’s been here. She was so broken up about poor Ethan...”
“Was she?” Scott raised an eyebrow. “Huh.”
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