“What’s going on?”
“Nothing. I’m just crazy,” she said. “I haven’t slept much since…”
“Candace, was someone in your shed?”
At that point, my mother jumped to her feet, dropping Caesar somewhat unceremoniously onto the porch, and went inside.
“Nothing’s been taken, but I swear things have been moved around.”
“Where’s Joey? Did you call the sheriff’s department?”
“He’s … I don’t know where he is exactly. He said he had to run an errand, but I can’t get a hold of him.”
Oh crap, he might have had to go to the hospital after all. I jumped to my feet.
“What about Antonia and Nonna?”
“They left. Joey doesn’t even know they’re gone. Things were getting a little … tense, so Antonia took Nonna to a hotel.”
“I get it,” I said quickly. “Doesn’t matter. Did you call the police?”
“I did call over to the department, but Sheriff Bigly said…”
I could feel myself getting angry already.
“… just keep an eye on things and give her a call if anything else happens.”
“What? Seriously?” I pulled my hair back from my face.
“Well, I did tell her that it was probably my imagination.”
And Sheriff Bigly wouldn’t know that Candace hated to cause trouble for anyone even when she really needed help. And why didn’t she know that? Because she wasn’t from Otter Lake. “Okay, I’m coming over.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“We don’t know who killed Lyssa or why, and now someone is snooping around your property? I’m coming over.”
“I really don’t know that for sure. Like I said, I’m tired, and—”
“Already on my way.”
Just then my mother came back out and she tossed me her boat keys. “Bring her back here.”
Chapter Twenty
Some clouds had rolled in and it was getting dark fast. I really didn’t love boating at night, but I made it without incident to Candace’s. I tied the boat off and headed up the path to her place. Turned out, I also really didn’t love walking up to a cottage in the dark not being able to see what might be hiding in the woods. Stupid Freddie. Again, this was another one of those things we were supposed to do together. My mother’s words were still rattling around in my brain though. Maybe I was being too hard on him. Maybe he really was freaked out by the idea of bringing Sean to Otter Lake, and I was like some sort of security blanket slash punching bag for all of his upset feelings. Maybe I was freaked out by the wedding too, and—
Just then a tree branch snapped in the distance.
And maybe I was about to die because I was distracted with too much introspection.
I hurried up the cottage steps and rapped on the door. Enthusiastically. I heard Candace scream on the other side.
“It’s just me,” I said loudly, but, you know, not too loudly. Not sure why. I guess I didn’t want the person spying on me from the woods overhearing our conversation. “Let me in.”
The door whipped open, and there stood doe-eyed Candace clutching a double-pronged marshmallow skewer.
“Hey,” she said, reddening and putting the skewer down on the table by the door. “Sorry. I don’t even know why I was holding … that.”
We both looked at the metal rod.
“My imagination is totally running away from me.”
“I get it,” I said, closing the door.
Man, Candace looked even more tired. She had dark circles around her eyes and she had gone back to the “obviously unwashed hair loosely piled on her head” look. Not for the first time in my life, I wished I was a hugger. She looked like she could use a hug.
We stared at each other for a moment before I raised my arms. Oh what the hell.
She fell into my arms so hard, I fell back against the door.
“Thank you so much for coming, Erica.”
“There, there,” I said, patting her back. Her shoulder had somehow jabbed itself under my chin, pinning the back of my head against the door. And here I was worried a hug would be uncomfortable. “You seemed a little more freaked out now than you were when I spoke to you on the phone. Has anything happened?”
“I keep hearing things outside,” she said, stepping back and shooting a look over her shoulder.
“What kind of things?”
“I don’t know,” she said, fiddling with her hands. “But … but, okay, so I was just in the kitchen getting a glass of water and, well, the window’s stuck, so I’m hearing all the bugs and frogs and then…”
“And then what?”
“They all went quiet,” she said. “Like that.” She snapped her fingers. “Then right after I heard this twig snap—” Her eyes darted over my face. “You probably think I’m crazy.”
“Are you kidding me?” I squeaked. “That’s really freaking creepy. It’s like when my mother and I are at the retreat, like in the living room or something, and everything’s cool, then all of a sudden, out of a dead sleep Caesar whips his head up and looks at the window.”
“Exactly!”
“And you know he can hear something that we can’t, and … and it’s probably not good.”
Candace nodded.
“Okay,” I said, nibbling my lip. “I’m not doing a good job of calming you down here, am I?”
She waved what I was guessing was supposed to be a dismissive hand in the air, but it came off a little frantic. “I haven’t heard anything like that though in like twenty minutes. I think if anyone was going to do something, they would have done it by now.”
“Okay, whatever, I’m taking you back to my mom’s,” I said, grabbing her elbow. “You can text Joey and tell him to meet you there. Did you call the sheriff again?”
“No, I felt … silly, I guess, after the last time I spoke to her.”
I clenched my fist. Bigly. “She does that to people.”
“Are you sure your mother won’t mind if…”
“You know, the only thing bothersome about you is that you’re always worried you’re bothering other people. Now come on.”
She grabbed her keys off the table by the door and moved to head out. I didn’t follow though.
“What?” she asked, looking at me.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I said, looking at the table.
“The skewer?”
“Um, yeah,” I said. “It’s a long sixty-second walk to the boat. Do you need anything before we go?”
“Not really,” she said, but then a strange look came over her face. “But…”
“But what?”
“I know it sounds silly, but…”
“Candace.” I swear, people trying not to be annoying were very annoying.
“My dress,” she said, placing her hands on either side of her head.
“What about your dress?”
“My dress is actually in this wardrobe container in the shed. We didn’t have any room because this place is so small and—”
“Your dress is out there?” I pointed at the back window.
“It was fine when I checked earlier, but now with the whole frog-blackout…”
“You want to make sure it’s okay.”
She nodded. “I know it’s just a dress, but what if it’s an animal or something that got into the shed and—”
“It’s not just a dress,” I said. “It’s your wedding dress.” I was really trying hard to think like a bride. “We’ll just check it out real quick and then we’ll get out of here.”
“You know what? I’m sure it’s fine.” The hand she had waving in the air said it was fine, but the look of her face told a whole other story.
I dropped my chin and looked at her from underneath my brow. “I have a question you might want to ask yourself.”
She waited.
“Do you want Freddie procuring you a new wedding gown?”
“Let’s go,” Candace said, wa
lking out the door. “Quick.”
Chapter Twenty-one
“It’s not that I think Freddie has bad taste,” Candace whispered.
I nodded.
“It’s just … he can be very rigid about the way he feels things should be done.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.”
“And for the most part, I really like his choices, but for my dress—” An animal scurried under a bush like two feet away from us and Candace nearly snapped my forearm like a twig.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” I whispered, trying to pry her fingers from their death grip. “Just an animal. Maybe even a toad.”
“Sorry.”
“No problem.”
We continued clutching each other’s arms as we crept around the side of the cottage. I was holding a lantern. I didn’t exactly like the way it was lighting us up, but it was really dark, so we didn’t have much choice. Besides, it was probably just a raccoon causing problems back here. Or maybe a skunk.
Probably wasn’t a killer on the loose.
Probably.
Candace’s dress had better be really nice.
As we passed the chairs Candace had placed around the fire pit, a strange noise sounded from the distance … like the shed distance. It was maybe something … falling?
“What was that?” Candace hissed.
“I don’t know,” I said quickly. “But pass me that,” I said, waving at a chair. I spotted another marshmallow skewer resting on one of the arms. Candace gave me her skewer and reached for the other.
“Do you think that was a raccoon?” Candace whispered.
“A big raccoon.”
She nodded.
“Like a bear-sized raccoon.”
We froze.
“You don’t think it’s a bear, do you?” Candace asked.
“You didn’t leave any food in there, did you? Like candy for the wedding or something?”
She shook her head no.
“Well, then, I doubt it’s a bear. But a raccoon could make a real mess of your wedding stuff.” I believed that too. I also believed that if the murderer was hiding out in Candace’s shed waiting to kill her, he or she could have done it three times over by now. Hopefully. But then again, maybe he or she wasn’t in a rush.
“Erica, listen. I know you’re like really brave and stuff—”
“Do I look brave to you?” I was pretty sure my eyes were widened to three times their normal size.
“Maybe we shouldn’t—”
“Did I ever tell you about Freddie and the bat?” I asked, taking a hard swallow. We still hadn’t moved. Both of us had our eyes glued to the shed.
“Freddie and the … what?” Candace whispered. “No.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, taking a step forward and pulling Candace with me. “So this one time we were sitting on his back porch and he’s all like, Do you hear that? And I swear I couldn’t hear anything.” We crept closer to the shed. “But he keeps saying he hears something—like a rustling under the cover of the barbecue. And I’m thinking, You’re crazy, Freddie. I don’t hear anything. But he won’t let it go. So I say to him, Then take the cover off and see what’s there. But he’s looking kind of spooked, and he starts going on about rabid skunks and raccoons, so he picks up this broom, turns it around, and pokes the handle under the cover of the barbecue.” We took another step forward. “But nothing happens. No sound. No nothing. There’s nothing under there. And I’m thinking I knew I hadn’t heard anything. Then just as he says, I guess you were right—BAM! this bat comes flapping out from under the barbecue right at Freddie’s face. It’s all blind from the sunlight and crazy. Freddie starts screaming like someone is stabbing him, and I’m screaming too. He throws the broom in the air, and my beer goes flying.” I took a quick breath. “It was pretty funny.”
“Erica, why are you telling me this story right now?” Candace whispered. “Do you think an animal is going to come flying out at us?”
“Just the opposite,” I said, shaking my head. “I mean, what are the odds of something like that happening twice?”
“That’s not very good logic.”
“No, it isn’t, is it?” I said quickly. “You know, I’m sure your dress is fine. Maybe we should get out of her—”
Just then the shed door banged open and a blur came tearing toward us.
Chapter Twenty-two
“Bat!” I shouted.
It wasn’t a bat though.
“Erica!”
Candace and I stumbled back clutching each other, before falling to the ground.
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know!” I fumbled for the lantern and raised it toward the trees.
Man! Definitely man! Running for the woods!
“Hey! Who are you? What are you doing here?”
Shockingly, he didn’t answer. Didn’t even stop.
Candace and I stayed clutching each other, listening to him crash away through the trees.
A moment later, we were still clutching each other, but in silence.
The only sound was our breathing.
Candace and I helped each other get to our feet. Luckily neither one of us impaled ourselves on our marshmallow sticks.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She looked at me with big eyes. “I think … I think maybe I recognized that guy.”
“Really?”
“Well, Lyssa only showed me one picture on her phone. But that … that could have been Justin, her boyfriend.”
* * *
I dropped Candace off at the sheriff’s department, and told her I’d be back to pick her up in a bit. I didn’t exactly want to waste any time talking to Sheriff Bigly at the moment. One because she would probably see my helping a friend out as investigation interference, and two, I had another sheriff that I wanted to have a word with.
Enough was enough already.
Yup, I was feeling pretty righteous and wound up by the time I got back into my mom’s boat. Somebody needed to tell Sheriff Grady Forrester that it was time to get back to work, and if nobody else was going to do it, I guess it had to be me.
I started out across the water feeling like I totally had right on my side. The cool night air brushing back my hair as I headed on my mission seemed to prove it.
Sadly, in the short, short time it took me to get to Grady’s part of the lake though, I had decided that seeing him was the worst idea I had ever had, and I was really praying he wasn’t home.
I’m mean, seriously, for all I knew that lady who made sampler plates was back … or he was baking more cupcakes.
One never knew with Grady these days.
Unfortunately for my failing nerves, as I pulled alongside his dock it became clear that he was home. His boat was there and a yellow glow filled the front window of the cabin, so, yup, he was home.
It would have been a pretty cozy sight, if, you know, this didn’t severely suck.
I took a deep breath. I could do this.
This town was in crisis, and it needed its sheriff back. I knew with all my heart that Grady would have gone over to Candace’s to check things out when she first called, and maybe this whole tragic chapter in Otter Lake history could have been finished. I mean, it wasn’t like I was asking him to cut his vacation short because some kids were running wild with spray paint. This was murder.
Worse yet, a part of me was wondering if maybe Sheriff Bigly hadn’t been a little bit on to something when she accused me of ruining Grady’s reputation. Not that I believe his reputation as sheriff was ruined, but maybe it was partially my fault that Grady thought this town didn’t need him. Freddie and I had undermined his authority more than once the last couple of years. Maybe he thought people didn’t care if he was heading up this investigation or not.
But they did.
At least I knew that I did.
And he didn’t just get to bail on everything.
I trudged my way up the path that led to Grady’s door, checking my phone
quickly to make sure I hadn’t missed a text from Candace.
Nope, no text.
Okay, well, no problem. As I had told myself many times now, I could do this.
No matter how difficult.
I took a deep breath.
Hard to deny that seeing Grady, though, always stirred up all sorts of feelings—longing, regret, sadness, anger …
… lust.
I stopped walking. My eyes were glued on the front window of the cabin.
What the…?
Grady was sitting on his couch, wearing earphones … and not much else. In fact, I couldn’t quite be sure, but he might not be wearing anything at all. It was hard to tell because he was … knitting … and the yarn was draping over all the right—or wrong, depending upon how you looked at it—places.
This too … was new. I swallowed hard. Grady had never been into the yarn arts when we were together.
I tried to get my feet moving again, but … my God, the muscles in his forearms danced beautifully with the rhythm of his needles. It was mesmerizing. And all those muscles with the yarn? The contrast was just … overwhelming. It was kind of like seeing a fireman holding a kitten. Or a Viking holding a lamb. Not that I had ever seen a Viking holding a lamb. But if it looked anything like Grady holding yarn then—
Oh my God! What was I doing? This was wrong! I had only meant to come up and knock on Grady’s door, and now … now I was an exhibitionist! No, wait, that wasn’t right. It was the other one. A voyeur! A Peeping Tom! Like I had been at the cake shop … oh no, it was a pattern!
Just then my phone buzzed in my hands. I yelped and flung it in the air.
I bent quickly to pick it up.
Maybe Grady hadn’t seen that. It was dark out here, and he had been really focused on his stitches. I knew you had to be careful with knitting. It wasn’t like crocheting. You drop a stitch and—
I knew that wasn’t the case.
Nope, something had already changed in the air.
It was that strange prickly feeling you get when you know someone is looking at you.
I slowly rose to my feet and looked back at the window.
Grady’s face was still tilted down toward his knitting, but his eyes were targeted directly at me.
I waved a hesitant hand of greeting in the air. It withered and sank back down pretty quick.
Down the Aisle with Murder Page 12
