by Jeff Shelby
The sheriff’s eyes bulged and I was pretty sure steam was coming out of his ears.
“Get. Out.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “This is a public building,” I said. “You are a public employee. I have every right to be here.”
I didn’t know if that was exactly true, but I figured he wouldn’t know, either. I mean, it was Sheriff Lewis.
Confusion flickered in his eyes and I could tell he was wondering if this were true or not.
I turned my attention to Dawn. “Do you have a lawyer coming?”
Curtly, she shook her head.
“And is Martin here? Or on his way?”
Another shake of her head.
I tried to hide my frown. If he was so concerned about Dawn, where in the world was he? He was the one who’d asked Mikey to come to me, and I assumed he’d done this because he had decided to follow Dawn to the sheriff’s office. I glanced behind me, looking at Mikey with raised eyebrows.
“He’s cooking the turkey,” Mikey half-whispered. “For Thanksgiving.”
I rolled my eyes. I knew what the turkey was for. “That’s more important than his wife being hauled in for questioning?”
Mikey just shrugged. “He promised her that he’d cook Thanksgiving dinner. That’s what he’s doing.”
A man’s wife had been taken into custody by local law enforcement—and probably rightfully so, based on what I’d just learned—and her husband thought it was more important to continue cooking the dinner he promised her? The dinner she might not be coming home to actually eat?
It was completely absurd, but not surprising. The people in Latney rarely did what I expected them to do. I stole another quick peek at Dawn, who was now shooting daggers at the back of Sheriff Lewis’s head.
Maybe Martin had decided to continue with dinner because he didn’t want to run the risk of ending up like his brother-in-law.
Dead.
“I can call a lawyer for you,” I offered, a little reluctantly. But then I cleared my throat and said, “You need one before you answer questions. Trust me.”
Even though I was now convinced Dawn had played a role in Owen’s death, I still felt a sense of obligation to help her, however misguided that might be. No, she had never been particularly nice to me, and yes, she’d directed her ire at me on more than one occasion in the past, but I’d spent enough time around her at the Wicked Wich to feel at least a small sense of duty to help her out.
Because even though I thought she was responsible for Owen’s death, I didn’t think it had been a coldly calculated, premeditated murder. I knew Dawn’s personality, knew her temperament, and I could see how she might have marched over there, upset and a little unhinged, and acted on those feelings. It didn’t excuse the behavior, not in any way, but it did explain it.
And a lawyer would be able to help guide her through questions and formulate a defense that might lessen whatever charges she would end up facing.
The sheriff had moved behind his desk and was consulting a yellow legal pad in front of him. Even from where I was standing, I could see the scribbled notes on the paper.
“Is she free to go?”
The sheriff looked up from his papers. “Of course she’s not free to go. I’m reviewing my notes.”
“Do you have an arrest warrant?” I asked.
He glared at me.
“Is she a suspect?”
The sheriff’s moustache twitched.
I turned my attention back to Dawn. “You don’t have to stay,” I told her. “He has no legal grounds to hold you.”
I felt a little uneasy saying this, because I wasn’t exactly well versed in criminal law. But I did know one thing with certainty: Sheriff Lewis wasn’t, either.
“You’re making a mistake,” he growled when Dawn reached for her purse.
“Sheriff, go home,” I said with a smile. “It’s Thanksgiving. Go eat your turkey and…and jellied cranberries. Dawn will still be here tomorrow.”
He frowned. “In my office? You just told her to leave!”
“Not in your office, but in Latney. She’s not going to skip town. She’ll be here, and she’ll find a lawyer to come with her when she answers your questions. Isn’t that right, Dawn?”
I couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t disappear, but it seemed highly unlikely. The Wicked Wich meant too much to her. There was no way she would abandon her restaurant.
Dawn responded with a grunt.
“You’re going to be sorry you got involved with this,” Sheriff Lewis said to me.
“I already am,” I murmured. To him, I said, “I hope you have a nice Thanksgiving.”
Dawn had stood up and was stalking toward me, her rage almost palpable, like a force emanating from her body. I stepped away from the door and she strode out into the hallway, her purse clutched to her side, her shoulders ramrod straight. She didn’t even glance at Mikey as she marched past him.
With one last glance at the sheriff, I hurried after her. Mikey brought up the rear.
“Dawn, wait up,” I said as she clipped past Trudy’s empty desk and headed for the front door.
She whirled around and the expression on her face halted me in my tracks.
“What?” she spat.
“I…” The look she was giving me made my throat close up.
“What?” she repeated. “Why are you even here?”
“I…” I swallowed, trying to find my voice. This was not the reaction I had been expecting. I didn’t think she would fawn over me with appreciation or gratitude, but a short thank you and a nod of the head wouldn’t have been out of the question. “Mikey asked me to come. Because Martin did.”
My explanation made zero sense the way I phrased it, but she clearly got the picture because her lips curled into a snarl.
“I don’t want your help,” she growled. “And I don’t need it. So why don’t you go back to your pretty little family and your pretty little house and leave me the heck alone!”
TWENTY NINE
“You don’t want my help?”
I was taken aback.
“You heard me,” Dawn said.
We were outside in the parking lot, within feet of my car. The sky was thick with clouds, the air damp and cold. I hugged my arms, trying to wrap myself up and away from the chill in the air and the chill emanating from the woman standing in front of me.
“Dawn, Rainy is only trying to help,” Mikey offered.
“I just said I don’t need help,” she snapped.
She was like a caged animal, ready to lash out at anyone who got too close.
Her attitude was making me mad. Because I had never offered to help—she had explicitly asked me. As had Martin. And Mikey. I wasn’t there because I wanted to be; I was there because all three of them had guilted me into it.
“You called me,” I said evenly. “Do you remember that? You asked me to come to the restaurant. You told me what had happened and you asked me to help.”
She faltered for a moment, her mouth opening and closing as she searched for words.
“Yeah, well I changed my mind,” she finally said.
“Well I didn’t get the memo,” I retorted. “But I have it now. And I am officially done. Done helping and done caring.”
I dug my keys out and hit the unlock button on the fob with much more force than necessary.
“I don’t need you, Rainy Day,” Dawn said, folding her arms across her chest. Her eyes flashed. “I’m going to take care of things my own way!”
“You do that.”
She tucked her bag against her and started walking toward the sidewalk. It was only then that I realized she didn’t have her car…because the sheriff had picked her up.
“Is she walking home?” I said to Mikey. “All the way back to Latney?”
He scratched his chin. “Sure looks like it.”
I sighed. It would take her a couple of hours to get back to Latney, and it wasn’t as if the country road between Winslow and Latney w
ere suited to walking. It was a two-lane road with no sidewalk and very little shoulder—and what did exist consisted of gravel and dirt, which would probably still be muddy after the deluge of rain we’d received the day before.
Dawn was still walking away from us, heading out of town and back to Latney.
“Dawn, wait!” I called.
She didn’t slow down.
“This is ridiculous,” I muttered. I got in the car and Mikey slid into the passenger seat.
“What are you gonna do?” he asked.
I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to drop Mikey off at his place and head home and forget I’d ever gotten involved in this stupid case in the first place. Dawn was guilty, and she was mad as a hornet at me—and everyone else attached to what had happened with her brother and his case—and I wanted to kick myself for agreeing to help.
I needed to firm up my backbone and learn how to say no.
But that would have to wait.
Because right then, a woman I knew was walking down a country road with fast-moving cars and no sidewalk to speak of. She had miles to go, wearing a thin jacket and no hat in temperatures that were hovering below 40 degrees.
I knew myself.
I knew that what I wanted to do very seldom matched what I actually did.
I pulled up alongside Dawn and hit the button to roll Mikey’s window down.
“Get in or so help me, I will run over you,” I said.
“I don't want a ride.”
“And I don't want to be offering you one,” I said. “But it's Thanksgiving and I want to get home to my family with a clear conscience. So get in the car and let me give you a ride home and then we can never speak to each other again.”
She slowed and I stopped the car.
“I don't—”
“Oh my god, I know!” I said, exasperated. “Just get in and shut up.”
THIRTY
“That was awfully nice of you.”
It was just me and Mikey in the car, as we’d just dropped Dawn at her house.
“I know,” I replied.
Stony silence had accompanied us on the ten-minute drive back to Latney. Dawn had climbed into the backseat without a word and spent the entire drive with her arms folded across her chest, her seatbelt undone. I knew the seatbelt laws in Virginia allowed for people in the backseat to ride unbuckled, but it still made me nervous. I slowed down to well below the speed limit, hoping my perfect driving record wouldn’t be shattered by an unexpected accident that ended with Dawn flying through the windshield.
“She’s not a bad person, you know,” Mikey said.
We were en route to the house he shared with his grandmother. The residential street he lived on was quiet. The weather and the holiday combined had left yards and sidewalks virtually deserted, but extra cars parked on the road indicated all was not quiet inside the homes we were passing. I immediately thought of my own guests waiting at my house—my daughter and her boyfriend—and guilt slammed into me. I’d promised Laura I was done and what did I do the minute someone showed up on my doorstep, asking for help?
I’d dropped everything and dove right back in.
“I’m sure she isn’t,” I said, responding to Mikey. But privately I had my doubts, especially with the news Mikey had revealed on our drive to the sheriff’s office.
I shook my head, trying to clear the thoughts sneaking their way in.
I was done.
Done investigating.
Done caring.
I pulled up to the curb in front of his house. It was dark, and I wondered if his grandmother was a late sleeper or simply hadn’t been able to turn on any lights.
“What are your plans for Thanksgiving?” I asked, changing the subject.
Mikey slumped a little in his seat. “Oh, not much.”
“You celebrating with your grandma?” I asked. “And your sister and her family?”
He shook his head. “We were supposed to.”
“Supposed to?”
“I was going to have dinner with Charlotte and her family,” he explained. “Grandma doesn’t really know it’s Thanksgiving—I keep telling her but she keeps forgetting—and she doesn’t like turkey, anyway. So I was going to head to Char’s for dinner but they’re all sick—the flu, she thinks.”
I thought back to when I’d seen them at Toby’s, and how the little girl’s eyes had been red-rimmed and how tired she’d looked slumped in the front of the grocery cart.
“Oh, that’s too bad.”
“Yeah, so I thought it would be best if I just stayed home. Dawn’s gonna need me tomorrow and the rest of the weekend, so I want to stay healthy if I can.”
I didn’t want to point out that Dawn might be spending tomorrow and the weekend behind bars if the sheriff had anything to say about it. “Home?” I asked. “By yourself?”
He smiled. “I won’t be by myself. Gran is there.”
“But…what about dinner?” Mikey was a cook. He wanted to be a chef. Surely Thanksgiving, a celebration that relied almost solely on food as its main claim to fame, was a holiday he would look forward to celebrating.
He shrugged. “I bought a frozen dinner yesterday after work. You know, the one with turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes? It even has that little cobbler thing for dessert. I picked the cherry one.”
I stared at him. Those were almost the exact same words Declan had used when he’d described the meal he’d picked out for his holiday dinner. The meal I’d forbade him to eat.
“You are not eating that,” I announced.
His expression clouded. “Why not?”
“Because…because you’re not,” I stammered. “It’s Thanksgiving.”
“It’s just another day, Rainy.”
But it wasn’t. I couldn’t imagine spending a family holiday alone. Even though I’d moved away from my daughter and my son lived on the other side of the country, I knew I’d always try to find a way to spend holidays with one of them. And if that failed, I knew I would spend it with makeshift family, the people invited into my home and heart not because they were tied to me by blood but because friendship and love bound us together.
Mikey was a friend.
And there was no way I was letting him celebrate Thanksgiving alone.
Especially with a frozen turkey dinner.
THIRTY ONE
The smell of fried onions and garlic greeted me when I stepped into the house.
I knew I hadn’t started cooking anything, but clearly someone had.
I set my purse down and made my way toward the kitchen, a little leery about what I might find. Connor or Laura had obviously taken it upon themselves to start cooking the holiday meal. What they would be making was anyone’s guess.
I also had to worry about what Laura’s reaction to me might be.
She’d been stone silent when I’d taken off with Mikey an hour or so earlier, but the judgment and accusation had been clear in her expression. I had told her I was done investigating.
And I had lied.
I pasted a smile on my face as I stepped from the hallway and into the kitchen.
Connor was at the stove, his back to me, his arm moving as he stirred whatever was in the frying pan in front of him.
Laura was nowhere in sight.
He must have sensed my presence because he turned and offered a half wave with his free hand. “You’re back,” he said.
There was no judgment in his tone and I relaxed a little bit.
“Sorry I left so quickly,” I said. “A…friend needed some help.”
He nodded and turned back to the pan. “That’s what Laura said.”
“Speaking of Laura, where is she?” I asked.
“I think she’s upstairs,” Connor told me. “Probably making the bed or getting dressed.”
I took a few steps toward him, mostly so I could see what was in the pan that was consuming so much of his attention. “What are you cooking?”
“Oh, I just thought I could get start
ed on the stuffing,” he said. “Get the onions and garlic and seasoning cooked up so you could add them to the bread when you’re ready.”
I relaxed some more. He was helping to prepare the stuffing, not creating another duck recipe.
“That’s awfully nice of you,” I said. “Thank you.”
He turned the burner to low and swiveled back around to face me. He was still holding the wooden spoon he’d been using to stir the onions and garlic. “Not a problem,” he said, grinning.
I was about to tackle the bird once again, actually get the thing in the oven, when Connor cleared his throat. “Laura filled me in on everything that’s been going on.”
“I sort of expected she would.” I gave him a rueful smile. “She has every right to be upset with me. As do you. I’ve been a horrible host.”
“You’re not a host,” Connor said.
“Of course I am. You’re staying at my house, you’re here to visit, and I’ve spent more time away from the house than actually here.”
“You’re not a host,” Connor repeated. “You’re Laura’s mother and you have a life—a life that includes friends who need you.”
His words silenced me. And not just because he’d inadvertently called Dawn a friend when she absolutely was not one.
He moved away from the stove and I took his spot, turning the oven on in preparation for the turkey. With any luck, it might actually be ready in time for a late afternoon dinner.
“You shouldn’t put your life on hold for us,” he said, continuing the conversation. His smile returned. “We’re here to visit you and to experience what your new life is like. And if that means you’re off helping friends and solving mysteries, then that’s fine.”
I didn’t think I’d ever liked Connor more than I did at that moment.
“And Laura feels the same way?” I asked doubtfully.
Connor’s smile widened and he cocked an eyebrow. “She does now.”
I chuckled. “Well, thank you, I think.”
