by Dixie Davis
But the Mitch she knew wasn’t real. The Mitch she knew wasn’t a liar; he wasn’t married; he wasn’t a murderer.
“If it were anyone else,” Lori murmured. “Anyone else — you know I’d already be down at the police station or the jail or interviewing somebody.”
Andrea nodded. “If it were anyone else, you’d have no trouble working to find out the truth.”
“Andrea, nobody wants the truth more than I do. Nobody deserves it more than me. But that doesn’t make me the right person to go out there and try to find it.”
Andrea lifted a skeptical eyebrow, but Lori’s tone was final. This was all she could handle, reeling from everything Mitch had put her through. She thought he was innocent — she needed him to be innocent — but her emotions were just too raw to be the one to go out and prove it.
“I didn’t know Debra well,” Andrea admitted, her gaze turning to the dormant fireplace. “And I do like Mitch. But most of all, I want to know what happened. Yesterday, and ten years ago.”
Lori frowned at that phrasing of the problem. She wanted to know the truth too — she deserved it more than anyone, except maybe Mitch.
And then it hit her: all this time, she’d been so focused on herself as a victim here because of what this death meant. But Mitch hadn’t purposefully been philandering. He was as much a victim of Debra’s deception as she was.
Andrea stood, straightening the flowing edges of her suit jacket. “Good luck.” Andrea held out her arms for another hug, which Lori gladly accepted.
Having her friends stand by her right now was all she could ask — and it was probably all that was going to get her through this experience.
Andrea left to head into work at the museum, while Lori busied herself cleaning up breakfast. Only a little of the yogurt was left, so she scooped it into a shallow Tupperware container to freeze it for homemade frozen yogurt, one of Mitch’s favorites.
Lori caught herself and pivoted to scrape the yogurt directly into the trash can. The last thing she needed right now was to leave herself reminders of him in her own freezer.
And not just because she felt guilty for taking a step back from probably the most important murder investigation Dusky Cove would ever see.
Lori poured the granola into a bag and resealed it. She carried the chafing dishes into the kitchen, wrapped up the leftovers for future lunches and dinners, washed the dishes. She did not think about Mitch sitting in the same prison where she’d had to spend a weekend.
She worked so hard to not think about him, Lori not only washed the serving dishes and plates from breakfast by hand, she scrubbed the stainless steel kitchen counters, mixed up a batch of sweet roll dough for tomorrow, started her daily load of linens, switched out the dining room tablecloths, and deep cleaned the parlor. It wasn’t until she was dragging the refrigerator out of its slot in the racking that Lori finally accepted what she was actually doing: merely avoiding the real stress in her life.
Avoiding the heartache.
Cleaning had always been her go-to method of dealing with stress. But even that didn’t seem like enough this time around.
Her house had been spotless for months after her husband Glenn died all those years ago. Finally, she’d seen a therapist and started actually healing.
Somehow, this was so much more traumatic than slowly losing her husband to cancer, as awful as that had been.
Lori forced herself to push the fridge back where it belonged. She still needed to feel productive, so she chopped up vegetables for an omelet bar tomorrow. If she still had guests once the news got out about Debra.
Once again, she worked very hard — literally — to keep her mind off what was troubling her. Though slicing up the peppers and onions and mushrooms didn’t do much to keep her mind off the hand floating to the surface, the horror — but not shock — on Mitch’s face, the way he let Chip punch him.
This wasn’t fair. Not any of it. After being alone for so long, after the ups and downs Mitch had put her through, after they’d finally both found some happiness, everything had to come crashing down now? What had she done to deserve this?
Lori shook her head at herself and the mountain of sliced veggies she’d built. She grabbed a large Tupperware tub and started piling the vegetables in there. She’d learned long ago that what a person “deserved” had nothing to do with what they got in life. Being a good person, having the good fortune of being born in a certain place, time or social standing, even hard work weren’t guarantees that your life would be easy and good forever.
Death came to everyone, didn’t it?
And it had come to Debra Watson Griffin twice.
Lori stopped short and turned around. Out her windows, she stared at the shop across the street, also in a converted historic home. Dusky Card and Gift’s windows were dark. The “Closed” sign hung askew on its door.
Debra didn’t deserve whatever had happened to her, no matter what she’d done to Mitch. But most of all, Ray and Katie, her parents, didn’t deserve this.
Here Lori had been, wallowing in her self-pity, griping about what she “deserved” and how she was the real victim here. There had actually been a murder, with a real victim. Her parents were some of Lori’s closest neighbors, who’d always been kind and supportive to her.
Those were the real victims.
Even if her heart was too caught up in her relationship with Mitch and its demise — maybe? — to work the case for him, and even if her personal feelings about Debbie’s disappearance and dramatic reappearance were too hard to work the case, she could do this for her friends who had just lost their only daughter all over again.
She had to.
Lori gathered her courage about her. She could do this for Ray and Katie. Even if she’d only barely met Katie after two years of living across the street. The woman was bedridden, so it wasn’t as though she was avoiding Lori.
As a good Southern woman, Lori couldn’t just go over to a home of a grieving friend empty-handed. Just like Val and Kim had done for her last night, she had to bring more than just an offer to help.
Lori flipped through her favorite cookbook until something jumped out at her: strawberry sweet rolls. Ray had mentioned once that Katie loved strawberries. This would be perfect.
The dough was already risen — a little over proofed, perhaps. Lori punched it down and got out her rolling pin. She tried not to take too many of her frustrations out on the dough — speaking of things that didn’t deserve cruel treatment.
Once it was rolled out in a large rectangle, Lori fetched the strawberries and strawberry jam from the fridge. Much as it pained her to spend the money on fruit that was out of season — and therefore not very good — Lori had found that having a special treat seemed to make her guests especially happy.
Although it hadn’t worked for Shawn. But, then, who could be happy if they could never eat another baked good as long as they lived?
As if Lori didn’t have significant problems. Whatever Shawn was going through had to be serious, too, at the very least to him.
Lori warmed up the jam to make it gooier, then spread it over the dough. She quickly chopped up the strawberries and spread them over top of that, then rolled up the dough just like a cinnamon roll. Once they were risen, Lori slid the rolls into the oven.
Baking was supposed to make her feel better. She wasn’t sure it was working.
Then again, maybe it was the eating that actually cheered her up.
The timer rang, and Lori pulled the rolls out of the oven. She spread the cream cheese frosting — store-bought, though she’d keep that secret to herself — over the top, letting the tangy sweetness melt into every spiral and nook.
Both pans, one unfrosted, went on the tall kitchen rack to cool. Lori hurried upstairs to try to make herself look presentable. Even her favorite dress wasn’t doing much to make her feel happy, and the bags under her eyes betrayed the tossing and turning she’d endured the night be
fore.
She could hardly imagine Ray and Katie had had an easier time of it, though.
Lori fluffed her curls, leftover from yesterday, and pulled out her makeup.
Did she dare apply any? She didn’t have waterproof mascara or eyeliner, and she couldn’t imagine her meeting with Ray and Katie was going to be happy.
She changed her mind and put the makeup away. She quickly straightened her quarters, putting away the things she hadn’t had the energy or time to the night before. The special occasion makeup she only wore on a date with Mitch. The muddy shoes she’d taken off. The bed she’d tried unsuccessfully to sleep in.
Lori shook off the self-pity. She was going to be there for Ray and Katie. They probably knew how much she was hurting, too. But she hadn’t had one of her children fake her own death and pretend like she didn’t exist for a decade, only to actually show up dead.
Murdered?
It was hard to say. An awfully big coincidence either way.
Unless this really was all related.
Lori headed back down to the kitchen and covered the smaller, frosted pan of strawberry rolls with foil. The frosting had already begun to set up again, a little more translucent than before, showing the beautiful swirls through the glaze.
Normally, Lori would have been thinking of saving one for Mitch about now. Lucky for her, she didn’t have to worry about that anymore.
Lori was halfway across the street when it hit her. Not only had the Watsons lost their daughter all over again, but since Debbie had been gone, Mitch had still been like a son to them.
And now they were losing him, too.
She definitely wasn’t the biggest victim.
The lights were off inside Dusky Card and Gift. Lori peered through the windows. Somehow, without Ray there to liven the place up, it really did look like the town joke of “Dusty” Card and Gift.
Lori had loved the little shop with its unique finds — historical, authentic, local, touristy and all combinations of the above. But she’d never fully realized that her favorite part of the shop had to be Ray himself.
She knocked on the door, the “Closed” sign rattling against the glass. She didn’t expect Ray, and especially not Katie, to answer.
Luckily, Lori knew what to do. Obviously neither their daughter nor their surrogate son was around to take care of them, so Lori figured she must be third in line. After all, three months ago when Mitch was in Atlanta for a botany seminar and Ray had taken Katie to Duke Hospital for surgery, Lori was the one who was in charge of watering houseplants and accepting deliveries.
And that meant she knew where the spare key was. Lori rounded the house to the back porch and felt underneath the porch steps. Mitch had installed powerful magnets underneath the side of the treads to hold an extra key. Lori slid it sideways off the magnets and climbed the porch steps to unlock the back door.
“Ray?” she called. “It’s me, Lori.”
The kitchen was dark and silent.
Were they not up yet? Or just not up to getting up yet?
Lori let herself in and turned on the lights. She knew all too well that some tragedies were so hard to face that sometimes it was just easier to go back to bed.
But she also knew that those true tragedies were always the ones that wouldn’t go away with a little more sleep.
She set her strawberry rolls on the counter and put a pot of coffee on. Even if Ray and Katie couldn’t provide their own sense of normalcy, Lori would do what she could to keep their world turning.
“Who’s there?” Ray’s voice carried down the stairs, little more than a weak croak.
“It’s me, Lori,” she called back. Again.
Halting steps creaked down the stairs. “Do you need something?” Ray asked.
She turned around to face him as he reached the tiny kitchen. His threadbare bathrobe hung limp on him, as if he’d lost twenty pounds overnight. His always dull blue eyes seemed even weaker somehow now, as if they were fading away even faster than he rest of him.
He’d aged at least a decade in the last twenty-four hours. Lori couldn’t exactly blame him.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” she said gently. “I just wanted to make sure you two were all right.”
“All right?” Ray clenched his jaw, taking a step forward to clamp a hand on the back of one of the kitchen chairs. “My daughter comes back from the dead just long enough to get herself killed and you want me to be all right?” By the time he reached the last word, he was shouting.
Lori took his anger like a wave breaking over her. “Of course not. You don’t ever have to be all right after something like this. I just brought you some breakfast.”
Ray instantly deflated. “I’m sorry, it’s just —” He shook his head, wiping his eyes.
“Nobody knows how to deal with death,” Lori said, her voice gentle.
“You’d think it’d get easier with practice.”
Lori fixed him with a look that said really? “I think this is one thing that practice can’t make perfect.”
Ray shuffled over to the kitchen table and sank into a chair. Lori grabbed a napkin from the holder decorated with a wooden goose silhouette and used it to serve Ray a strawberry roll. “Is Katie awake?”
“Yes.”
“Should I take her one?”
“Sure.” Ray settled with his elbows on the table on either side of the strawberry roll, staring down on it like it held the depths of his soul.
Or the past.
Lori grabbed another napkin and pulled another strawberry roll from the pan. She climbed the stairs and headed to what she hoped was the master bedroom. She didn’t think she’d ever been upstairs in their apartment. Usually she stayed in the storefront or the kitchen.
The upstairs was quiet. Eerily so. There were only four doors off the hall and one clearly was a closet, so she had a pretty good chance of finding Katie on her first try.
Lori crept down the carpeted hall. The closer she got to the door at the end of the hall, the stronger the smell of medical disinfectant grew.
Lori opened the door slowly, a loud creak emanating from the hinges. “Miss Katie?” she whispered.
“Who’s there?” Katie’s thin voice carried a note of pain.
From whatever it was that had kept her bedridden for years, or from the turn of events from last night? Lori poked her head in. “Hi, Miss Katie. It’s me, Lori, from across the street?”
Katie lay on the bed, her oxygen tube loose, her wispy white hair disheveled. Lori had only seen her once or twice, but she’d always had her hair carefully combed back into a neat ponytail. “Hi, Lori. What can I do for you?”
Lori couldn’t hold back a sad chuckle. Everything that Katie was going through, and her first thought was what she could do for Lori? “Nothing, Miss Katie. I was just bringing you some strawberry sweet rolls.”
“Oh. Thank you.” But she didn’t perk up at the mention of the treat. Her gaze shifted past Lori, first to the window and then to nothing.
Lori crossed the room to the hospital bed where Katie lay. “How are you holding up?”
“Not as well as I would’ve thought,” Katie murmured. “You’d think that you couldn’t hurt anymore after ten years of dealing with this. I thought I’d be used to it.” She shook her head slowly.
Lori set the strawberry roll on the high table beside her bed. “There’s no instruction manual for mourning.”
“And if there were, I don’t think they’d cover this situation.”
“Kind of a special case,” Lori agreed.
“You know,” Katie said, although it sounded like she was talking more to herself than Lori, “when Chief Branson came by, I knew something had to be wrong. Of course. Chip’s never made many social calls. But when he said they’d found Debbie, I thought they meant they’d finally found her body after all these years. He had to tell us what he was saying at least three times before it started to make sense. Something
like sense.”
Nothing like sense, really. “Yeah, I was there, and it doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Katie’s laugh was completely humorless. “No, I suppose it doesn’t.”
“I know this is a difficult time for you, but I’d love to help you however I can.”
“You’re the resident sleuth, aren’t you?”
Lori turned one palm skyward, the weakest possible shrug. “I guess I am.”
“Then I want you to figure this out. If Mitch did this.” Her voice hitched on her former son-in-law’s name, and she took a deep breath. “Or who else did.”
“Of course. For you.”
The faintest shadow of a smile passed over Katie’s countenance. “Strawberry roll?” she said after a moment.
Lori quickly handed her the treat from the table. She realized she didn’t know if Katie could feed herself — she’d brought plenty of treats and meals over the years, but Ray always brought them up to her.
Katie quickly settled the matter by taking the roll and napkin from Lori’s hands. “Thank you.”
Lori nodded. She hated to bring it up just when it seemed like Miss Katie was finding some small measure of peace for a moment, but she’d just asked Lori to investigate. Plus, Lori wasn’t likely to find herself in this room again for a while, if ever.
“Miss Katie,” she started slowly, “what do you remember about what happened ten years ago?”
“The first time my daughter died, you mean?”
So much for putting things delicately. “Yes.”
Katie sank back further into her pillow as if merely thinking of that time made her weaker, looking toward the heavens. “Debbie was unhappy. She tried to hide it, but if you knew her well, you could see it.”
“Unhappy in what way?”
Katie’s gaze fell from the ceiling to the strawberry roll in her hands. “I must be the worst mother in the world, but I don’t know. I tried to talk to her about it, but . . . she just never seemed to want to open up to me.”
