by Tess Rothery
She didn’t stop to think about where Clay would live. He was a grown man. He could figure it out.
Her mom’s radiant face glowed from the screen. “My eldest daughter has been with her boyfriend forever.” The voice she missed the most in the world sounded wistful. “And every year I think ‘this is the year they will get married.’ Not that I want to rush them, but I’m a mother, aren’t I? So today, since Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and this Valentine’s Day might be ‘the one,’ I’m going to show you a way to make a wedding-ring like quilt block. Beautiful and traditional, but much easier.”
Taylor paused the video. She’d seen this one before. Her mother’s last Valentine’s Day, spent wishing Taylor and Clay would get married. It seemed sincere, at least. But maybe it had been just for the show.
She knew why she had selected it this morning. To punish herself.
For what, she wasn’t sure exactly. Probably for being so happy to have a morning all to herself without anyone else to care for. Certainly no one deserved that kind of peace, right? She hit play again, ready to feel lots and lots of guilt for never giving her mom a wedding.
Before she could really begin to wallow, the back door opened with a creak. She was well awake at this point and realized it was just Clay coming back from wherever he had been, so she didn’t move from her spot. She turned off the video of her mom dreaming about her wedding and opened her email.
Before she could open a message and pretend to be absorbed in it, a girlish laugh flickered through the room.
She sat up.
Clay and Joey walked around the corner to the classroom space Taylor was hiding in. “Morning.” Clay held out a concha from Café Olé.
“Morning.” She accepted it, one eyebrow lifted.
“Hey, Taylor.” Joey looked down at her feet, then up, making eye contact, but looking shy.
“Tay, my dear old friend, you will never believe who I ran into at the coffee shop.”
“I’m going to guess…Joey Burke?”
“Sure, that’s what some people call her, but I call her exactly the woman we need right now.”
Taylor waved to the coffeepot. “Pardon my manners, help yourself.”
“No, no. I had some at the café, but, um, listen, Clay and I were talking over coffee, and he got me thinking about those people on the list that you have.”
“The visitors who also had criminal records?”
“Yeah. So, I’m pretty familiar with the residents and their families. Lots of people come eat with their grandparents. And he was saying that, um…Rob Packard and Jerrod Brickell were both there, right?”
“Yeah, those were the two guys we found criminal records for from the guest list who were also visiting people at the casino. The people who were in on Leon’s investment thing.”
“Okay. So Rob, he’s always seemed okay, but I know his record was for some kind of fraud. He tried to get a volunteer gig at the care home, but the boss wouldn’t take him on. Didn’t trust him.”
“Whoa. That’s good to know.” Taylor smiled at Joey, trying to make the nervous woman feel more comfortable. As far as she was concerned, Clay was right. Joey was the right person at the right time.
“But, on the other hand, he’s like six feet tall, and Clay was saying your potential killer was sort of smaller, right?”
“Yeah.” Taylor didn’t let that get her down. There was no reason to think Dayton’s description was super-accurate, especially since Dayton, herself, was around six feet tall.
“So, Jerrod, his crime was possession—pot. No big deal, and I think he gets to have it expunged now that pot’s legal. But he’s smaller, shorter anyway. But he’s a really mellow, soft-spoken guy, so I don’t know.”
“You never know with the soft-spoken ones…” Taylor nodded as she spoke, hoping to get Joey to say more.
“Maybe so. Especially because, now that I think about it, I think I saw him in the dining room around the time I was heading out to do the cake and all that. I’m not sure, but I think maybe.”
“Is there something about him that stands out? Something that makes it hard to mistake him for someone else?”
“Not really, no, but he’s cute. So, I do notice him sometimes.”
Clay winked.
Taylor didn’t know why, and she didn’t wink back. “Thanks, Joey, I really appreciate it.” She pocketed her phone and stood.
“Leon was my friend.” Joey looked at her feet again. “He wasn’t a perfect guy, but in this world, you take the friends you’re given, you know?”
“Yeah…” Taylor paused. She’d been living in this town for over a year now and hadn’t once reached out to Joey, even though they were around the same age, both single, and both needing friends. Instead she’d spent all her time replacing Clay while pretending it wasn’t about him.
But that was silly. Joey hadn’t been forced to be friends with a sleezy hypocrite just because Taylor was dealing with stuff. Anyway, Joey hadn’t reached out to her, either. Taylor smiled, but wouldn’t let herself feel guilty.
“What I mean…” Joey cleared her throat. “Jerrod is a cute guy. And I did notice him, I’m sure of it. Because he was with Cricket when I saw him. And that was the last time I saw Cricket alive.”
After going home to change, Taylor went straight to Bible Creek Care Home.
Karina stared at her from the other side of her desk. “Don’t you have, like, a fabric store to run?” Her lip curled not at all subtly.
“Just wanted to pop in and have a chat with, um…” Taylor consulted the note on her phone. “Jenny-Sue Meyer.”
“Old friend of the family, huh?”
“You know small towns.” Taylor gave an apologetic shrug.
“You could always call, you know.”
“Oh, folks like a visit.”
“At eight-thirty in the morning? You know they have set dining room hours, don’t you?”
“I mean, I just want to sign in and go say hi. It’s not illegal or anything.” Taylor’s friendly façade was cracking.
“I bet ten dollars if I call Mrs. Meyer, she has no idea who you are.”
“For heaven’s sake, what’s your problem?”
“Oh, me? Just trying to keep my residents safe in light of two recent tragic murders.”
“But that’s all I want.” Taylor bit her words off before she started yelling. “Karina, you got a date with Hudson for giving us that list, what do you want so I can visit? His kid?”
“How about a whole night—a whole night with him,” Karina whispered, her lips curled up in a cat-like smile.
Taylor just shook her head. Then she laughed. “Because I’m what, his, like, his pimp? Please. You know how hot he is. I could make real money, not these little favors.” She laughed again, but it was forced.
Karina shrugged. “Let me call her and see if she wants a morning visitor. She’s one of our older residents. Karina dialed a number. Taylor didn’t know if it was actually Jenny-Sue Meyer’s number or not.
Karina hung up. “So sorry. She’s probably off at breakfast. You’ll have to come back another time.” She dared to flutter her eyelashes sweetly as she said it.
“No problem. I can swing by after work. We close up nice and early.” Taylor kept her cool leaving. There was more than one way to skin a horse. After all, she had his name and a computer. She could look him up and call him herself. She didn’t need to talk to the elderly lady he had been visiting.
“That isn’t a great idea.” Hudson was referring to calling the potential killer to see if he remembered anything in particular about the tea party. He passed a hamburger to Taylor. He’d been up in Kaiser earlier in the day and brought them back burgers from the northernmost In-N-Out burger. They were cold.
“I don’t think it’s smart to call while I’m working, so I do have time to talk myself out of it.”
“Good.”
“You could always call.” Taylor thought about batting her eyelashes at him a la Ka
rina, but refrained.
“I could.”
“Really?”
“I really could. I’m not saying I will.” He finished off his burger before she’d even unwrapped hers. “The Joneses called.”
“Bethany and Clark?” She nibbled a French fry.
“I hadn’t heard those voices in years. I used to call them Nana and Pop.”
“That’s adorable.”
“They were adorable.” He grinned. “It’s funny, I never forgot them, but I do have two sets of my own grandparents, so I didn’t really think of them.”
“They are lovely people.”
“So, you won’t mind having dinner with them, oh, say, tonight?”
“It would keep me from calling a killer…” She paused and looked at his face. Handsome, sure; rugged, yes. But a little vulnerable, the way both eyebrows were lifted and his cheeks slightly pink as though he were embarrassed to ask. “I would love to, honestly.”
“But?”
“Grandpa Ernie. I made Belle stay the night with him last night while I did some research on this guy. I ended up sleeping in the apartment.” This time she felt her own face turn red.
Hudson cleared his throat.
“Clay had the couch. I was beat, and I swear, after all that, I didn’t want to walk home alone in the dark.”
“He’d have made you walk home, huh?”
She inhaled sharply. “I don’t expect much of him.”
Hudson crumpled his bag. “Some other time, then.” He tossed it into a garbage can across the room with a thump and stood.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” She took a quick drink from her Coke and followed him out the back door.
“I thought things were getting more serious than you thought they were, I guess.”
“I did not sleep with Clay last night.”
“No, but did you want to?” He stared at her, his eyes still vulnerable.
“Absolutely not.”
“Okay.” He shrugged and left.
She wanted to follow him, but she couldn’t. It wasn’t that kind of day at the shop. Just her and Roxy, and they’d been busy. She wondered if Boggy had already told him about the date he was going to have with Karina. She wondered what exactly had upset him. She hadn’t been remotely interested in sleeping with Clay. He needed to know that, to really know that. She glanced back in the shop. Roxy was doing fine. Roxy could handle things for a minute anyway.
She bolted down the steps and around the corner. Hudson’s truck was gone. She held her hand over her eyes and squinted, but it was too far down the road. He hadn’t said where he was going next, but she doubted it was back to Kaiser. She ran back to her car. She’d try his house real quick. It wasn’t that far outside of town.
Hudson’s modern hand-built A-frame was bathed in afternoon sun. It’s wall of windows glowed, and the redwood- stained siding seemed to radiate warmth. The house felt like a warm embrace waiting for you on the hill.
Hudson was out front, in a slightly damp t-shirt, working his frustration out by washing his muddy truck.
Taylor came up behind him and put her hand on his back. “Hey.”
He wiped the windshield, his long, strong arm reaching halfway across.
“I wasn’t there to sleep with him.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” She turned and leaned on the front of the truck so she could face him.
“Yeah, I do.” He dropped his rag and gave her a rueful smile. “I don’t like feeling jealous, and I don’t like acting stupid when I feel jealous. We haven’t slept together, and it’s been a long time. I don’t know that you want to sleep with anyone. But you do want to solve problems and help people.”
She nodded, tears smarting in her eyes. It felt magical to be understood.
“You wanted help or company doing it, and you didn’t turn to me. You turned to him, even though it was basically my stepmom who got killed.”
“But, Hud, it was only because he’s good at…”
“At giving you what you need.” He looked past her, quiet for a while. “You’re different around him.”
“Probably so.”
“Comfortable.”
“Before we lived together, we were friends, good friends, for like a year. Of course I’m different around him.”
He raked his hand through his hair. “Sorry. I was disappointed. I shouldn’t have stormed out.”
“You are amazing. Kind of unbelievable, really.” Her voice was gentle and the words, though they could have been so negative, were loving and kind. “What kind of man talks the way you talk? Opens up about his feelings the way you do?”
He chuckled softly. “I’m the product of modern public-school education, aren’t I? We’re real good with our feelings, but we can’t write in cursive.”
She laughed. “Clay is good with data. Finding stuff online. Come inside and I’ll show you everything we’ve got, and you can help me figure out what we’re supposed to do.”
He looked at his watch. “I have to go bid on a job. I have an appointment. How about I come over after dinner? I can tell you all about the family reunion.”
“You know…The Joneses are fond of Grandpa Ernie….”
He shook his head. “I’m fond of him, too, but…”
“He can be a lot at the dinner hour. Don’t worry, I get it.”
She leaned up and kissed his cheek.
He pulled her in and kissed her with passion, the kind of passion you can only share outside when you know you are all alone on a private piece of land far from prying eyes.
When he let her go, he had a twinkle in his eye. “And later tonight you can tell me what on earth Grandpa Boggy was thinking when he sold me out for that info you needed so bad.”
Chapter Twenty
I’m no third wheel.” Grandpa Ernie glowered at Hudson from under his bushy eyebrows. Some days he loved the young grandson of his best friend. Some days he seemed to resent the flannel shirts and Carhart jackets. Grandpa Ernie, when the night fell, was a young fit tailor creating bespoke suits for the elite of the state. And whoever Taylor was to him at that hour, she deserved a man in a nice suit. He shuffled into his bedroom with the aid of a rolling walker and shut the door behind him. Soon the sounds of evening news at a volume that would damage the hearing of healthy ears vibrated against the solid wood door.
“How are your Nana and Pops?” Taylor held out a bottle of beer.
He waved it away. “Amazing. Man, we laughed and laughed together. They were a big part of my childhood, but I’ve always figured that since it was only maybe five years of their life, that they didn’t have the same attachment. Especially since I never did hear from them again.”
“I’m sorry.” She put the beer back and shut the fridge. “Water? Coffee?”
“No, nothing. I’m good.” He sat on the edge of the couch. “They didn’t throw my dad under the bus. Didn’t even hint at him keeping them away, but once or twice Nana started to say something and Pop quietly touched her elbow, causing her to stop. I suspect they had tried to stay in touch, but Dad wasn’t for it.”
“Divorce is crap.”
Hudson seemed on edge, his muscles flexed, ready for some kind of action. He leaned forward; his elbows pressed into his knees.
She took Grandpa Ernie’s recliner to give him the space he seemed to need.
“I remember Cricket as being fun and young. When my parents were married, they made a lot of money, so they hired Cricket to watch me. I was so young I don’t remember her not being there. When my folks broke up, it made sense to my kid mind—I was about five—that Cricket was still there. And then it made sense for her parents to be there. I hated going between houses and splitting my time, but Cricket didn’t seem like the problem.”
Taylor had a mug of tea and sipped it, letting him talk uninterrupted.
“But around the time desserts came, Nana and Pop’s mood changed. I know with their daughter murdered it is going to be a long time before they have any unt
ainted happiness. But they were apologetic, not grieving, you know? They kept saying how sorry they were for me.” He seemed to caress Taylor’s face with his eyes. “Dad’s drinking is the official reason my parents broke up, but I guess he didn’t drink before Cricket came along. And apparently he really did leave Mom for her.”
“Oh….” Taylor made some other sounds of sympathy, but his look was heated, intense. And her heart was beating too loud for her to speak.
“I stayed with Karina far longer than was healthy for me, because breakups are brutal, and I didn’t want to do that to anyone.”
She nodded.
He shook his head and broke his gaze. “But then they apologized for something really specific, and I’m still trying to figure out exactly what it means—for you.”
“For me?” Being released from his intense gaze was both a relief and a disappointment. She didn’t care about anything at this moment except those eyes and that face and how badly she wanted him to stop talking so she could kiss him. She inhaled deeply, but it didn’t help.
“Nana started to say how sorry she was about the house—Dad moved right after he and Cricket broke up. I was about ten. Pop touched Nana’s elbow, but Nana shook her head and kept going. She said, ‘It was a terrible loss for you all, and she never did accept responsibility.’”
“Cricket did something that made your dad lose his house?”
“That’s what it sounded like. I didn’t press for details. Dad stayed in the house in town for a few years, then bought the property he’s on. It’s got a doublewide on it. He’s happy. I guess the house in town was a rental. He never explained any of it to me, and I didn’t ask.”
“We need to call your Dad.”
He exhaled through tight lips. “You’re right. If Leon was killed for being a crook, maybe she wasn’t just killed because she was dating him. Maybe she was part of the problem.” He took out his phone and called—but when his father answered, he took the call outside.