by Tess Rothery
The sheriff’s deputy she’d once casually dated patted her shoulder.
"You okay?"
"Graham. How is Graham?"
He patted again. And made a shushing sound. Then, pushed her away. But not with force. Deputy Maria placed her fingers around Taylor's elbow, and they walked away from where the paramedics were kneeling in the grass. "We'll get him to a hospital Taylor. We have good doctors here and they’re not far."
Taylor's head seemed to swim above her shoulders through something thick and painful. Something that wanted to smother her.
"Why don't you come sit in the truck." Maria led her to the county issued SUV and opened the passenger side door. Taylor climbed in and sat.
"Does Graham have any family in the area?" Maria asked.
"I don’t know."
"That's fine. You come with us to the hospital. It's going to be okay."
But Taylor wasn't family. And there was nothing she could do at the hospital. She'd never met his parents or siblings. Didn't have their numbers in her phone. She was literally of no help as they pulled him into emergency surgery. No one told her it was going to be okay, except for Maria. No doctors or nurses offered her any words of encouragement, because she wasn't family. And this was an emergency.
She stayed in the emergency room all night long, curled in a corner chair with her head resting on the wall. Sometime after six in the morning, her grandmother, the tower of strength that was Ingrid Quinn, joined her.
Grandma Quinny sat next to Taylor. For a while they said nothing. The emergency room was quiet. It was a large hospital for such a small area. The phone rang in the distance, and this seemed to wake Taylor up. She turned to her grandmother and said, "I don't know what to do."
"Let's go home," Grandma Quinny said. "We need to compare notes."
"I can't leave until I find out he’s okay." Taylor sat up and gave her grandma her full attention.
"Then get up to that desk and ask. What exactly are you accomplishing sitting here moping?" Grandma Quinny frowned.
Taylor felt like a robot as she went to the front desk. She'd given up on asking for updates early on when the nurses refused to tell her anything. On TV not being family didn't mean you couldn't learn things, it just meant you couldn't see the person in the ICU. And yet when she'd been in the hospital, all sorts of people who weren’t her family had come to see her. Her brain clicked its way through those details, trying to make sense of them. Her feet moved forward one step at a time. Her arms swung awkwardly by her side. Graham hadn't been a one-night stand, even though they'd only had one night together. And if he didn't make it through this, she didn't know how she'd move forward.
The receptionist was new for the morning. She smiled brightly and sipped through the straw of a to-go cup full of iced coffee. "Sorry,” she said with a little bit of a giggle in her voice. “I just got here. You said you want Graham Dawson?"
"Yes, Graham Dawson. He came in for emergency surgery last night." Her voice was somehow outside of her. It was speaking rather than she was speaking. It was asking questions rather than she was asking questions. Graham. He told her to always know what you want to ask. Don't go to a source without planning in advance. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "I'm his girlfriend. I came in with him, and no one has told me anything."
The receptionist made a clucking sound and shook her head. "That is just awful. I’m so sorry. Let me just look him up okay?"
"Okay," Taylor's voice broke. Sympathy. What a magical thing to have. What a miraculous thing to offer someone.
"Looks like he is still in recovery from surgery. He made it out. He'll be in ICU, I think. Best you can do right now, is go home and take care of yourself a little bit. Then come back." She shook her head. "When you're feeling a little more awake, come back. And I'm sure you'll be able to see him. Okay?"
"Okay." Taylor felt less like a robot as she returned to her grandmother. Graham was in recovery. He wasn't dead.
Chapter Fifteen
Ingrid Quinn settled her granddaughter into her own favorite wingback chair in what she liked to call the library. The little table at Taylor's elbow held a cup of Tetley tea. Smooth but caffeinated, it should comfort her and wake her back up. She didn't like the way Taylor had fallen into herself. She looked exactly like her father Todd had looked when he was on a downward spiral. Ingrid didn't like remembering certain things about her son. To her, he would always be her baby. There had been a time when her baby had been obsessed to the point of heartbreak with Laura Baker. It hadn't been a pleasant time for anyone in the Quinn house. That was how Taylor looked now.
But she had to remember that Taylor hadn't slept last night, and she thought she was in love with the less than promising journalist who’d been shot. But Ingrid was sure it would pass. Someone good and strong and wholesome like Hudson would come around again. Taylor's relationship with that milquetoast Clay Seldon hadn't lasted forever, after all. For now, she'd get Taylor's mind off the man in the hospital by talking about the murder.
"They kept Coco in a cell till midnight. Grandpa Quinny had no trouble getting her out. I want to think Sheriff Rousseau put the fear of God in her, but I highly doubt it. She’s a cold one." Ingrid paced the little room back and forth from one floor-to-ceiling bookshelf to the other. "I’ve had a long talk with Robert Jessup. He's been funding Coco. He claims he's not her sugar daddy, but I think you and I know the truth."
Taylor nodded. “Coco wasn’t shy about their relationship.”
"I believe he and I have come to a sort of understanding.” Ingrid paused in front of her granddaughter. "What have you discovered about Molly?"
"Everything I've learned has turned my world upside down." Taylor had a penchant for dramatic like her mother. Even when Todd had been moody, he hadn’t been absurd.
"Forget whatever happened between Molly and Hudson for now."
"Unless what happened between them is what led us to where we are today." Taylor covered a yawn. "You had Robert alone, and all you learned was that he's been funding Coco? We already knew that."
"Obviously I learned more than that." Ingrid stuffed her feelings of impatience. Taylor was hurting. She had to remember that. "We talked at length about Molly’s regular date, Jack Groening."
"Did you find out why she'd begun to see Charles? That seems an important bit of information we’ve been missing."
"I don't think Robert had any idea she was seeing someone else. He seems to think Jack and Molly were madly in love."
"Did he say what Jack's family thought of her?"
"Robert thought everyone was happy. Jack had two adult sons, twins. In my opinion they may have resented this younger woman's influence on the family, but Robert attempted to lay suspicion on the man who married Jack's ex-wife." Ingrid began to pace again. She'd been frustrated by Robert's attempt to distract her from her idea.
"I'm interested in knowing more about the sons." Taylor was sitting up now and staring at the print of Picasso’s pitcher and fruit bowl that hung over the fireplace.
"I Googled them." Ingrid was beginning to feel defensive. She had intended to draw information out of her granddaughter to fill in her own blanks. "Everything was as Robert had said. One son runs Ponderosa Investments out of Denver, the other runs the Portland branch."
"I suppose you want to find out whether or not Molly told Jack about her son." Taylor nibbled on her bottom lip. The same as she'd done as a little girl when working over a problem.
"You ought to be able to learn that from Kelly, yes?" Ingrid passed that problem to Taylor.
"She doesn't know," Taylor said. "I think I need to lie down. I’m done in.”
"That is a very good idea young lady."
"Grandma, how is Grandpa Ernie?" Taylor's voice had grown wistful. "I feel like I've abandoned him here."
"Go to bed. You have nothing to feel guilty about. We love having him here, and he doesn't need you to give up your whole life to take care of him."
"But it doesn't feel like giving up my life." Taylor yawned again. Her slender hand fluttered in front of her face to hide it. "Taking care of Grandpa Ernie is just part of living." Taylor slipped out of the room.
Ingrid listened to her footsteps on the staircase above. Taking care of someone was living, that was true. And it was why Taylor needed to settle down, find a husband, and have children. Ingrid could have continued working for the sheriff when she was Taylor’s age. Maybe even become a deputy herself. But what kind of life would that have been? At least compared to her life with Angus and that huge passel of children she had raised right here in Comfort.
She shook her head to clear the cobwebs. She didn't know that she looked exactly like her granddaughter when she did that. But Taylor's moping, the way it reminded her of Todd moping over Laura, all of that had distracted her. She hadn't been able to dig into what Taylor knew and pull out the pieces she needed. And she needed so much if she was going to resolve any of this. As she was contemplating her next move, her phone rang. It was Evelyn from the Yarnery. Robert Jessup's sister.
Evelyn and Ingrid Quinn met at Sacred Grounds. “Whatever else we do in this life, at least our coffee dates can contribute to the greater good.” Evelyn’s self-righteous tone set Ingrid on edge. It was absolutely true that contributing to help the homeless was important, but the other local coffee shops employed folks in town, and that seemed important too. Ingrid dismissed her complaint. She was just in the mood to disagree.
They sat at a table by the window, holding paper cups of brewed coffee with just a little cream. For someone who had wanted to contribute her mite, Evelyn sure had ordered the cheapest drink. “My sister-in-law Charlotte will be here in a moment.” Evelyn spoke in a quieter than normal voice. “She doesn’t know you’re joining us, but I knew you’d want to. After all, you went out of your way to have lunch with Robert.”
A little flutter of adrenaline played at Ingrid’s heart. What did Evelyn know about the lunch date? Surely nothing. Surely Robert hadn’t told her about his expensive infidelities.
They didn’t have to wait long for Charlotte Jessup to arrive. Ingrid wanted to call her a young woman, as she wasn’t quite fifty yet, but the word didn’t suit the small, round woman. Her face was pleasantly crinkled with laugh lines, and her figure spoke of a healthy appetite. Plump was the word Ingrid would use, if forced. She looked older than any of Ingrid’s girls, though she wasn’t. She was, however, attractive. Warm. Sunny, even. Damn the eyes of her husband for straying to youth when he had such a charming wife already.
Evelyn and Charlotte exchanged kisses on the cheek, and Charlotte joined them without ordering. “What a mess, yes?” she said. “I can see why you’d join us, Ingrid. After all, that poor girl was found on your property.”
“Thank you for understanding.” Ingrid took a sip of her coffee. Wise money said this was a time to listen more than speak.
“I still can’t believe my husband would get himself tangled up in a mess like this.” Charlotte tsk’d softly. “But his friends did ask for help meeting women. You know? They see how happy we’ve been all these years and want what we have.” She paused and wrung her hands. “I can’t blame them, can I?”
“Robert has always been a sucker for a risky investment,” Evelyn said. “Though how you let him give money to...” She glanced at Ingrid.
“Coco’s mother warned us,” Ingrid said. “We were tasked with keeping her out of trouble, but that looks so different than it did when our kids were young. There was a time when keeping a young woman at home was how you did it. Apparently no longer.”
Evelyn and Charlotte nodded, accepting Ingrid’s words as both her taking her share of the responsibility and not laying blame on Robert.
“You haven’t had any trouble with the police, have you?” Evelyn asked her sister-in-law.
“No, though I wonder if we won’t. I tried to stop Robert from acting suspicious, but he’s smashed the hard drive of all his computers and destroyed his phones on purpose. I said that makes it look so much worse, but he said he wants no physical ties to the website...what was it? Coco’s Friends?”
“A Friend of Coco,” Ingrid supplied. “But if he was funding her, I would think destroying a hard drive couldn’t hide it.”
“The fool gave her cash.” Charlotte’s face matched her disgusted tone.
“Doesn’t sound foolish to me,” Evelyn said. “Cash is very difficult to trace.”
“I wouldn’t wonder the girl insisted on it,” Charlotte said.
“And he was just funding her business?” Ingrid asked.
Charlotte stiffened. “I trust my husband with my life. He was just funding her business. No different than when he helped that foolish Reuben boy, what was his name? Hayden, I think. He funded that kid’s online poker website, even though he knew it was illegal.”
“Does he fund a lot of illegal operations?” Ingrid asked.
Charlotte took a sharp breath through her nose. “He takes calculated risks. He sometimes funds businesses when he believes a law is about to change. He has made a mint investing in marijuana farms that regular banks refuse to touch.”
“I see. A gambler.”
Charlotte looked down at her empty hands. “Yes. But a good one. Over the years he’s done well with his risky decisions.”
“And there’s never been any violence before,” Evelyn stated.
Charlotte shook her head slowly. “Just the once. The first green pharmacy he funded was robbed. The lady who ran it was injured, but not killed. This….this is the first time he’s ever been involved in something so tragic.”
“But how is he involved, exactly?” Ingrid was getting tired of the false narrative. She had no doubt at all that Charlotte knew about her husband’s penchant for legal teens. This random coffee date was clearly for the sake of gossip control. “We don’t know that Molly’s death was related to her dating history.”
“No?” Charlotte looked surprised. “But I had heard that her burner phone was found with her body.”
“So?” Ingrid dismissed.
“But it had been smashed, hadn’t it? Like a sign. And something about a necklace. The gossip is just terrible. The murders in Comfort are all anyone talks about anymore.” Charlotte tilted her head like a confused bird as she looked at Ingrid. “But I suppose they don’t talk about it here the way we do in town. You know they call this place Discomfort now, don’t you? And Sorrow, as well, which I think is a bit more poetic.”
Ingrid bit her lower lip. She had been reading everything there was to read about the case. She’d had one or two personal conversations with Graham as well. She’d seen nothing about a smashed burner phone, and even having seen the phone herself, she hadn’t noticed it had been smashed. Gossip did tend to grow a story, but Ingrid wondered. “But how could a smashed phone be a signal to anyone? After all, the poor girl had died such a violent death. A phone getting broken only seems reasonable.”
Charlotte’s eyes flew wide. “Is that what they’re saying here? But didn’t you see the body? Poison isn’t exactly what I’d call violent.”
“She had bruising on her face. It looked as though she’d been in a fight.” Ingrid exaggerated to see what else she could pull from Charlotte. She hadn’t heard anyone say poison before. It was as good a guess as any, but Charlotte seemed too sure. Especially as there hadn’t been any standout signs of acute poisoning such as vomit on the deceased’s clothes or swelling of the face or tongue.
“Don’t listen to gossip.” Evelyn patted her sister-in-law’s shoulder gently. “No one is saying anything like that around here. Nothing about smashed phones or warnings left behind. Goodness, Charlotte, I haven’t heard anything about how she died at all, and trust me, this is all anyone has been talking about.”
“No one is talking about the warnings?” Charlotte asked. She sighed and shook her head. “Gossip. A terrible thing. You’re right, I shouldn’t be listening to it. For all we know she’d just come to see her friend and d
ied. Some sort of heart condition maybe.”
“She didn’t drop dead of a heart condition and then bury herself in my field.” Ingrid snorted.
“The fruits of wickedness…” Charlotte said. “I must sound crazy. But are you sure she wasn’t, um, planted there as a warning to Coco?”
“We don’t know anything.” The tingle of realization that skittered through Ingrid’s system. She was beginning to see the light. But how to prove it? Where to get the evidence? What evidence was there to get? “I’m so sorry for invading your coffee date,” Ingrid apologized. “I should go. You know Ernie Baker is staying with us and I hate to be away too long. My darling Angus forgets that Ernie needs looking after and is apt to go off to his fields and leave the poor man alone.” She moved as though to leave.
“How dare you!” The scream that broke the iciness in the room came from the register. “How dare you show your face after what your family has done to my daughter!” Dahlia Szkolaski, the passionate immigrant woman Ingrid had noticed at the coffee shop before rushed from behind the counter. “Abducted! Imprisoned! Abused! My daughter!” Dahlia swung a fist at the much taller Ingrid and connected with her collar bone. But Ingrid had already taken a defensive stance, feet shoulder width apart, one behind the other. She rocked back without falling and then recentered, this time in warrior pose. “Dahlia, what are you talking about?”
“My darling Asha. That Taylor, your Taylor,” she spit the name out, “she sent her off with a bad man, a terrible man, and now she’s ruined!”
“Ruined!” Ingrid repeated in shock. “It’s 2020.”
“Broken. Harmed. Hurt. She’s been hurt.” Dahlia flung the towel that had been clenched in her fist. “And what can I do about it? Who will listen to me? You are rich and we are poor!”
Evelyn had positioned herself behind Dahlia and guided her back with gentle motions. “Dahlia, what are you talking about? You’re hardly impoverished. Your husband is the elementary school principal. We just approved a massive raise.”