by Lucy Kerr
“And nothing. We wrapped up some loose ends from canceling the wedding, not that it’s any of your business.”
“Oh, now you’ve got a problem with people asking questions?” he scoffed.
The cat sashayed back through the room and nimbly climbed a stack of boxes as if he was ascending a throne. Noah caught sight of him and goggled. “Is that a cat?”
“Yes. Don’t tell my mother.”
“I have never told your mother a single thing about this place,” he said, voice low and his eyes glittering. “I’m not going to start now.”
That was for the best, considering what we’d gotten up to here when we were teenagers.
The tension returned—less prickly, more fraught—as if memory had turned the air thick.
“I should go,” Noah said eventually, unfolding himself from the chair.
“Yeah. And I have … boxes. Lots of boxes.” I paused. “Are you going to the funeral?”
“Can’t,” he said. “Working the case. You?”
“Steven invited Charlie and me.”
“And you said yes?” His tone did not imply I would bring comfort to the bereaved.
“It seemed like the right thing to do,” I said. “Why—oh. You’re worried I’m going to ask a bunch of questions, aren’t you?”
“Are you?” he shot back.
“It’s a funeral, Noah! I do have some sense of decency.”
“But not self-preservation,” he retorted. “You’re not exactly inconspicuous, Frankie. A town this size, the prodigal daughter returns and solves a murder, then starts digging into another one? You’re stirring the pot.”
“Are you two going to fight every time you see each other?” Charlie’s voice floated up the stairs, and the cat bolted for the bedroom again. I rolled my eyes.
Charlie entered, dumped a stack of bills and orders on the table, and took stock of the room. “Frankie, you were supposed to be working on this!”
“I have been,” I protested. “It’s just … slow going.”
“You’ve barely made a dent.” Her eye twitched as she surveyed the towers of cardboard. “You’re really going to move all this back to Chicago? I think I’m working that day.”
“I am definitely working that day,” Noah said, peering into a box filled with rock-climbing gear. “Why don’t you just move in here? You’ve got enough stuff to set up house.”
“Did you miss the part about temporary?” I asked, more sharply than I meant. Just because Chicago was my past didn’t mean that Stillwater was my future.
“While you’re in town.” His eyebrows lifted at my tone. “Doesn’t it make more sense to stay here in your own place? The five of you have to be getting pretty cramped by now, right?”
“The whole point of Frankie coming home was to be around more,” Charlie replied, her tone chilly as a meat locker. “But obviously, it’s up to her.”
They turned to me, as if awaiting my decision.
But I’d already made my choice, hadn’t I? No matter how cramped the house, no matter how maddening my mother or how much I missed my privacy, I’d promised to help out.
Not to mention, sleeping on the bottom bunk and living out of boxes felt temporary. Nobody expected I’d share a room with Riley indefinitely. Setting up in my own apartment felt dangerously close to settling in.
“Seems like a lot of effort for a couple of months. Easier to stay at the house,” I said, acutely aware of Noah’s scrutiny—and Charlie’s relief.
I stood and dusted my hands on my jeans. “Let’s finish up those boxes. We’ve got a funeral to get to.”
Fourteen
By afternoon, the clouds had cleared, even if my mood hadn’t. The sky was a bright crystalline blue, and the bite in the air warned that summer was truly over. No more reprieves, no more gifts of unseasonably warm weather.
My efforts in the office had yielded clothing I’d nearly forgotten I had, including my go-to little black dress. It was made of some sort of miracle fabric—soft as my favorite yoga pants, impossible to wrinkle, dressy enough for cocktails, and conservative enough for church.
Or funerals.
“Black is a terrible color on you,” my mother said once I was home and had finished dressing. “It washes you out.”
“It’s a funeral, not a party.” I fastened tiny jet studs at my ears. “Nobody will care.”
“You could meet someone,” she pointed out. “I’m sure Steven knows a lot of eligible bachelors. Lawyers. Businessmen. Politicians.”
“Any guy who’s looking to pick up chicks at a funeral is not a guy I want to meet.”
Her eyebrows lifted as she considered this. “Fair enough. At least do something about your hair, Francesca. It’s disrespectful to leave it all …” She waved her hands around her head.
“It’s not that bad.” When I looked in the mirror, though, I could see her point. The curls were even more wild than usual, brushing the tops of my shoulders and refusing to stay tucked behind my ears. I eyed the pair of safety scissors on Riley’s desk and considered a last-minute emergency trim, but my mother snatched them away before I could act.
“Come here,” she said with a familiar, long-suffering sigh. She opened the jar of styling goop on the dresser and briskly rubbed some into my hair. Then, extricating one of Riley’s less exuberant barrettes from the top drawer, she smoothed down one side, pinning it above my ear.
“I look like a refugee from the thirties,” I grumbled. Sure, my hair had been tamed, temporarily—but it left me feeling like Betty Boop’s redheaded stepsister.
“You look presentable,” she said with a sniff. “Maybe a little lipstick?”
“Enough.” I swiped a ChapStick across my lips. “You’re sure you won’t come with?”
“Someone needs to mind the store,” she said. “You and Charlotte go.”
“Frankie, move it!” Charlie yelled. “We’re going to be late.”
I flew down the stairs. Charlie was waiting in what I could best describe as church clothes: black skirt, pale-blue blouse, gray sweater. Her hair was neatly pulled back in a bun and a tiny gold cross nestled in her throat.
She looked sensible and respectable, and my hand went to my hair again, feeling every bit the scatty sister.
“Maybe I should change,” I murmured.
“Too late,” she replied with a wry smile, and I got the feeling she wasn’t talking about my wardrobe. “You’re fine, Frankie.”
“Thanks for going with me,” I said as we drove.
“I’ve talked with Steven in the NICU a few times. I feel so sorry for him.”
“Even with his perfect teeth?” I teased.
“I’m not going to hold good dental hygiene against anyone.”
“Did he say anything about the investigation?” I parked down the street from the church, avoiding the snarl of traffic around the parking lot. News crews had lined the street as we approached, but there were plenty of sheriff’s deputies handling crowd control—nobody with a microphone or a video camera was allowed on the block.
“Why would I ask him that? Do you really think I’d gossip with him in front of his child?”
“To be fair,” I said, “it’s not like Trey would understand.”
“You’re impossible,” she hissed, then plastered on a smile and nodded at a group of funeral-goers.
“So he didn’t say anything?”
“Good grief,” Charlie said. “You solved one murder, Frankie. That doesn’t make you a detective.”
“Two murders,” I whispered as we entered the church, the nave crammed with so many flowers my nose itched. “One killer.”
A technicality, maybe, but since I’d nearly been victim number three, the details mattered.
We fell silent as we joined the crowd filing into the sanctuary. Inside, the air smelled of beeswax, lemon oil, and lilies. It wasn’t just politicians and political groups who’d sent offerings—there were arrangements from people I’d never heard of too, small clusters of ca
rnations with heartfelt notes attached, often in childish print. “Thank you for finding me a family,” read one of them, and something prickled behind my eyes.
Each card was a testament to the lives Kate had touched, as was the overflowing church. I caught a glimpse of Steven in the front pew, flanked by family members, somber and contained. The shock and unguarded emotion he’d displayed in the ER had gradually settled into a deeper, more sorrowful grief as he’d waited by Trey’s bedside. Now he was the picture of resolute sadness, the sort of noble suffering the cameras outside would love to see.
Ted Sullivan stood nearby, working his way through the pews, shaking hands with a variety of well-dressed, self-important people. He was networking while Kate’s white-and-gold casket stood not twenty feet away. He paused to say something to the sheriff, then went back to looking for his next victim, the next person to schmooze.
Disgusted, I turned away and scanned the room, hoping that someone in the wall-to-wall crowd would jump out at me. I wanted to take in the crowd, absorb its mood, let any stray impressions snag my attention and direct me toward whatever didn’t fit. I could watch myself and be watchful simultaneously, no matter what Noah thought.
The honey-colored wooden pews were full, so Charlie and I found a place along the side of the church beneath a stained-glass window depicting gently frolicking lambs. I turned to watch the people still streaming in, and Charlie elbowed me. “Don’t stare.”
“I’m observing,” I said primly.
“Quit it. You’re being weird.”
The collection of mourners was odd, to say the least. Politicians in custom-tailored suits rubbed elbows, uneasily, with people wearing black T-shirts and jeans. I even spotted Norris Mackie in one of the pews, his wife by his side, hands clasped and heads bowed in prayer.
Several people, including Kate’s sister and a coworker, gave eulogies during the service. Steven must have been expected to speak—the minister beckoned him forward, but after an excruciating pause, he merely nodded and continued with the service. A little surprising, considering Steven was accustomed to giving speeches, but as he covered his face with his hands, shoulders shaking, I felt ashamed at my snap judgment.
When my father had died, people had been quick to tell me how to mourn. Later, I realized that their well-meaning advice wasn’t just for my own good, but for their comfort. Grief is messy and awkward. It’s hard to know what to tell people when they’re living through a terrible hurt, and harder still to watch them suffer. Often, our instinct is to fix things. In truth, what people need is for someone to bear witness to their sadness, not try to stop it.
We followed the casket outside. There was no way to hide from the press now, unfortunately. Cameramen with long lenses clicked away as the procession trailed out of the church toward the waiting hearse. When we left for the cemetery, the television vans followed close behind. Police positioned themselves at the entrance, preventing the news crews from getting any closer.
We reached the cemetery and wound our way through the gently sloping terrain to the burial site, our feet crunching on the gravel path. Though the sky stayed clear, a biting wind crept under our coats. My dress slapped at my legs, and Charlie’s heels sank into the damp ground with every step.
“Awful,” she said, wiping her eyes ferociously. “Absolutely awful.”
For once we were in total agreement. We stood on the outskirts of the crowd as the minister began speaking. As unobtrusively as possible, I let my gaze drift over the assembly, mindful of Charlie shaking her head next to me, letting my instinct take over. I recognized plenty of people but only remembered a few. I’d been away too long.
The service concluded, and the mourners lined up to toss ivory roses onto the casket and offer last condolences to Steven. The line stretched down the hill, and judging by the glacial pace, we’d be here for some time. “Lovely service,” Charlie murmured, one of those inane niceties meant to fill the silence, and I nodded, surveying the manicured grounds and neat rows of graves.
My father was buried here, in another section of the cemetery, down the hill and past the columbarium, near a small pond with a stone chapel. I hadn’t been there in at least five years, I realized with a guilty start. No doubt my mother visited regularly, but I’d neglected him. As the line inched forward, the urge to visit my father’s grave grew stronger.
“Back in a few,” I whispered to Charlie.
“What—” she hissed.
“Dad,” I mouthed, and her scowl transformed into something like pity.
I skirted the crowd and made my way back toward the main drive, my footsteps overly loud on the gravel path.
The columbarium, shining white marble next to a small pond, marked the entrance to another, older part of the cemetery. Ancient, gnarled oak trees dotted the landscape, offering shade and casting shadows across the tombstones. Generations of Stapletons had been buried here. The closer I got to my father, the more tombstones bore our name, especially when I veered off the path and began making my way across the plots. I trailed my fingers over weathered marble and granite, my footsteps careful and measured, relying on faint memories to guide me.
And then there it was: a simple granite rectangle, a dual headstone. Matthew Stapleton, beloved husband and father. His dates, a stark reminder of how fate had robbed us all. And next to it, an empty space, meant for my mother someday.
I pressed a fist to my stomach, drew a steadying breath, and lowered myself to the ground.
“Hi, Daddy.”
My mom, of course, kept the grave immaculate. Only a few leaves had dared to land here since her last visit, and I picked one up, cradling it in my palm. It had been years since I visited. I should have had so much to say, so much to fill him in on. Instead, I fumbled for words.
“I came home,” I said softly. “I don’t know how long I’ll stay, but they needed me, and I came home. I’m sorry that I—” That I left, I’d been about to say. But it wasn’t true. I’d needed to go out into the world, and I wouldn’t apologize, not to my father, or his headstone, or anyone. “I won’t leave like that again. Not while they need me.”
I rested my hand on the icy granite and waited for some sense of his presence. That was how these things were supposed to work, right? A heartfelt confession, followed by a sense of peace, a swell of comfort. A sign that the departed was still with us, in some intangible way.
There were none of those things. Geese winged across the sky, trees rustled. I tugged my sleeves down over my fingertips, shivering.
I’d hoped that coming here would help me to feel a sense of connection to my dad. Instead, I felt lonely. My father’s spirit, any trace of his expansive, exuberant self, wasn’t here. I would find him at the store—in the creak of the floorboards and the hum of the table saw, in the gleam of the back counter and the mingled scent of varnish and powdered sugar. Those reminders had been too painful for too long; they were part of what had sent me running. Now those same memories welcomed me back. I wondered what Trey Tibbs would think of when he visited Kate’s grave. What memories he’d use to console himself, what stories people would share with him so that he’d know some aspect of Kate.
I stood and brushed away the bits of grass clinging to my dress. I needed to get back to the service. Surely, the line of mourners would have trailed off by now, and Charlie would be checking her watch and huffing with annoyance that I’d disappeared.
Retracing my footsteps, I saw that not only had the line trailed off, it had disappeared completely. I’d spent more time at my dad’s grave than I’d realized, and the crowd had moved to the parking lot, heading back to their everyday lives. Rather than join them, I headed back to Kate’s grave; it seemed wrong to leave without paying my respects.
The cemetery workers had yet to return and finish the burial; no doubt they’d wait until everyone had left. For now, a single figure still hovered at the far edge of the clearing, half-hidden behind a tree.
“Charlie?” I called, shading my eyes and s
quinting.
The figure ducked away, but not before I caught a glimpse of flannel shirt and baby fat.
Josh Miller.
“Wait!” Without thinking, I scrambled after him, “Josh, wait! Stop, or I’ll scream! There’re a million cops in the parking lot—they’ll be all over you in a minute!”
I had no idea if it was true, but Josh must have believed me, because he skidded to a halt midway down the hill. I approached him slowly, hands up to show I was defenseless, wishing I hadn’t left my purse and phone in Charlie’s car.
“You’re that nurse,” he said. “The one who fixed my shoulder.”
“You’re Josh Miller,” I shot back. “You killed Kate Tibbs.”
He didn’t deny it.
“What are you doing here?” I fisted my hands in the fabric of my skirt to hide their shaking. “Are you coming after Steven too? Kate wasn’t enough?”
“I didn’t mean to kill her.” He swayed on his feet. “It was an accident.”
“Right. You just happened to see her driving that night and decided to follow her? You didn’t mean to run her off the road?”
“It was an accident,” he said again, his voice vague and petulant. “I only meant to scare her, but she overreacted. The roads were bad, and she swerved, and … you don’t believe me.”
He took a step toward me, and I eased away, saying, “If it was an accident, why’d you run?”
The fugitive lifestyle was not treating Josh kindly. His hair was stringy and matted, his cheeks sallow, and his gaze unfocused. The scent of sweat and body odor hung in the air, and he rubbed at his forehead, growing agitated. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I didn’t mean …”
I drew a shuddery breath. “Why did you go back to your house?”
“My house?” His head jerked back to stare at me.
“I spoke to your neighbor. She said you came back in the middle of the night. You knocked over some garbage cans. Were you looking for something?”
He laughed, and I scrutinized him—his pupils were contracted to a dot, and his movements were almost languid, even as he rocked back and forth. He was high.
“Were you looking for your stash?” I said, taking a step forward, then another. “Money, maybe?”
