by Tess Rothery
“Someone like Benji.”
“Exactly. And she got her great-grandfather instead.”
Angus sat on the edge of the bed and wrapped his hand around Ingrid’s foot. He massaged it through the blankets.
Her heart fluttered, as it did almost every time he touched her. Even the simplest good morning kiss or brushing hands as he passed her a garden rake. Whatever it was, it was electric. It didn’t matter how many years had passed, or how much muddy water had gone under their bridge. She melted at his touch, every time. She closed her eyes and his hand traveled up her calf. Things had been very good the last couple of years, after they’d cut almost all red meat out of their diet. Magical, almost.
He slid to his side, so he was lying beside her now, and laid a kiss on her collar bone.
The sizzle was so good she almost felt guilty.
She rolled into his arms and let him know how thankful she was for…. everything.
The next morning, Taylor wandered her cold house all alone. She didn’t like it.
Grandpa Ernie was supposed to be sitting at the table eating his raisin bread toast and having his pills. Belle was supposed to be making coffee. Jonah was supposed to be having some sort of hyperactive a-ha moment about his future as a TikTok star.
She was supposed to have someone, anyone, there with her to bounce ideas off.
She turned to her phone and sent a text to Valerie Ritz, heiress of the hotel fortune, current girlfriend of her most annoying cousin, and sort of head of Jonah’s fan group the Juvies.
“Can you find Jack Groening online?”
She stared at her phone, hoping for an immediate reply, but didn’t get one.
It had been ages since Jonah had sent her those Snap Chat clips of her mom. She could have used one right about now. They were just sitting in her app, waiting for that one last magical rewatch before they disappeared.
She didn’t do it.
But she did open YouTube and pull up the show. She closed her eyes and scrolled, then jabbed her finger to start a random video.
“Good day to you!” Her mother sounded absurdly cheerful. “Good day, good day, good day. Love is in the air. Did you know that?” She held up a quilted square that made a heart patch. “My daughter is in love.”
Taylor stuck her tongue out at the vision of her mom.
Clay.
Though she hadn’t watched this video recently, she remembered it well. She’d called her mom and gushed about her love for her diffident boyfriend. They’d just planned a vacation together and she was positive he was going to propose.
He hadn’t.
Laura Quinn leaned in toward the camera. “Don’t tell my daughter, but love is a lot of work, right? It’s more than just those shivers of excitement you get every time he walks in the room. But…” She held up the patch again, her face warm with a charming smile, “this patch isn’t hard work, and you’re going to love making it!”
Well. If that wasn’t pointed, Taylor didn’t know what was. So, she wasn’t in love with Graham just because he made her light up like a Christmas tree every time she saw him. And having loved Clay for four long years, she was old enough and wise enough to know love was work. But…couldn’t it be both? Couldn’t it be electric and effort?
She wished she had some kind of love-role model. Some couple in her life that had both the experience of getting through hard times and a passionate love life.
She supposed if she was desperate enough for advice she could talk to Sissy. Sissy and Phil seemed to have a strong marriage.
The idea wasn’t pleasant. A long lecture about love from her overbearing friend was on the top of the list of things she did not want. Instead, she made herself a piece of raisin bread toast and a cup of instant coffee.
Before the toast popped, the text from Valerie Ritz came. It was just a link, but it was a good one: Tons of links to Jack Groening’s anything-but-private social media.
She dove into his LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook accounts. She expected to find signs of antisocial personality disorders, or narcissism, or sociopathy that would fit with her idea of the kind of man who would buy a relationship with a younger woman.
Instead, she found a family man with grown kids. An outdoorsman who loved his canoe, and the doting partner of the woman she had never seen alive. He was even friendly with his ex-wife. A photo of a holiday table spread with what was possibly a thanksgiving feast stopped her. Two men around Taylor’s age, each with a blonde, well-dressed woman. Molly Kay. A woman in her fifties, and two men in their fifties, one of whom must have been Jack. No sign of young Larry. But from all signs, Molly was a part of the family. Not a dirty secret.
Jack would be deep in grief right now. And not at all likely to try and find a replacement girlfriend. Not so soon, anyway.
On the surface it didn’t look like Molly’s unusual romantic relationship could be the cause of her murder, but then, perfectly normal seeming romantic relationships kill women every day. Taylor wouldn’t write Jack off just yet.
It was early. She had a feeling now was her chance to catch Coco. She’d probably be asleep still, but all the better. She packed a few more things for her stay at the farm, thinking she might decide to stay a while. The idea of staying with the family was both attractive, when compared to this cold lonely house, and overwhelming. The Quinns could just be so much.
Then she thought of that family picture with Molly Kay in it. Hadn’t Coco said Jack’s wife was deceased?
Taylor found Coco in the little white guest bedroom at the farm.
She sat at the small, white desk in the strawberry themed guest bedroom in the house of her grandmother’s sister. That’s what primarily hit Taylor as she looked at her young shoestring cousin. The girl with the messy dark hair, the black cashmere sweater hanging off her thin shoulders, and the long legs in charcoal leggings didn’t fit in this room. Though she couldn’t be twenty yet, she was both too old and too sophisticated for the Hallmark channel style of the room.
Taylor had been inclined to rush the girl, come strutting in with loud, forceful questions, bar the door till she got her answers.
Instead, she knocked lightly. “Coco?”
The girl looked up. She was a pretty girl, but not a stunner. Youth was her primary asset, and she was marring that already with long nights out.
“What?” The tone was surly and matched the face.
“Can I come in?”
“It’s not my house.”
Taylor stepped into the room. She didn’t like the feeling of looming over Coco, so she sat on the edge of the bed.
“Let me guess.” Coco turned back to the papers on the desk. “You’d like me to answer a few questions because I might know something that will help you figure out who killed my best friend.”
There was that word again. It struck Taylor this time. How was this Molly Kay everyone’s best friend? She and Asha were at least the same age and had likely grown up together. But Coco?
“How did you and Molly meet?”
“Walking down by the creek,” Coco said.
“Really?” Taylor couldn’t picture the burned-out candle of a teenager doing anything as wholesome as that.
“Yes, really. I was sent here over the summer and there wasn’t anything else to do. Lilly and I found an easy way down and spent a long time there. One day Molly was there, too, with her sister and Laurence. They were catching crawdad’s or something. We just hit it off.”
“Is that when she signed up with your website?”
“Nope. I didn’t have a website yet. Started that when your grandma refused to let me go home.”
“Ah, like punishment,” Taylor murmured.
“No, like a job.”
“But didn’t you say…”
“Don’t be naïve. The website is just a job. But if you tell that to the journo you’re sleeping with, I’ll deny it.”
Taylor didn’t refute the claim she was sleeping with Graham. She wasn’t, but somehow admitting
that to Coco felt like a failure. “Do you make good money?”
Coco’s smile was all the yes Taylor needed.
“Then why are you still here?” Taylor tilted her head, trying to understand what could be going through this girl’s mind.
“It’s what works for me right now.”
“Is that the same as a ‘no comment?’” Taylor asked.
“That was a comment. What do you want? Why do you think you get to ask me anything else? I’ve already told you way more than I should have. I’ve heard what the cops think of you.”
“Deputies…” Taylor corrected. “They hate it, but that’s okay. I get to ask questions because a murder victim was dug up at my grandparents’ house. That’s enough reason for anyone. I think you’d be asking questions too.”
“And who would I ask?”
“Was she out with Jack that night?”
“How would I know? I set up the first date. Sometimes first few dates, but after that, it’s on them.”
“Has anyone talked to him yet?”
“He’s devastated. He really loved her.”
“Must have been hard, losing her after he lost his wife…”
Coco looked up, sharply. “His wife didn’t die.”
“Oh? I thought you’d said…”
“Not Jack’s wife.”
“Was she dating more than one man?” Taylor pressed.
“Sometimes she did favors for me.”
“But you said the widower loved her.”
Coco rubbed her eyes, shook her head, and let out an exasperated sigh. “You never knew her. Every girl thought she was their best friend. Every man wanted to marry her. She had that kind of effect on people.”
“And you liked mentioning the widower during our conversation because it was more sympathetic….”
“Sure.”
“This Jack…he didn’t mind her seeing other men?”
“I wouldn’t know. Their boundaries were theirs, not mine.”
“But she hadn’t stopped seeing Jack?”
“Not that I know of. Like I said, he was madly in love with her, and if I had to judge, she was just as in love with him.”
“Was he going to marry her?”
“Marriage is complicated. But you know that.” There was no judgment in her words. “If they married, she’d be off my books and she liked supporting my business.”
“You mean…she would have turned down a proposal just so she could keep paying you a percentage?”
“She’s a single mom now. That’s good for her taxes. I don’t know. I just know all sorts of people don’t bother getting married.”
“He was paying for her place, right?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t she just move in with him?”
“Probably because he hadn’t invited her. It had only been a few months. What did you expect? Sugar baby to trophy wife in less than a year? Not likely.”
“I saw she was at the family Thanksgiving.”
“I didn’t advise her to do that, but Jack called and begged. I don’t know how many ways to tell people this, but the guy loved her. Yes, he was in his fifties. But tell me honestly that a man in his fifties wouldn’t fall for a beautiful, innocent girl like her? It’s perfectly normal.”
“He’d have gotten a built-in family.”
Coco smiled, and her eyes narrowed. “It would be silly to think she’d stay single just to support my business. She couldn’t just leap into someone’s house as a lover or a wife. She had Laurence to think of.”
“Did you ever hear what his kids thought of her?”
“You’re several days behind the sheriff. They also thought that maybe one of the adult children would want to get rid of the girl who was a threat to the old inheritance.”
“Was there a lot to inherit?”
“There was enough to pay the bills. I don’t know anything more than that.”
“As a sugar baby, what kind of support had Molly hoped for?”
“She wanted housing. Rent paid and cash to set aside to get her own place later. Something nicer for her and Kelly and Larry. I tried to talk her into something better like grad school or something, but she was really single minded. A nice house for her family.”
“What does Kelly do for a living?”
“You’ll laugh.” Coco’s eyes twinkled almost like they were buddies. “She sells clothes for Sims characters.”
“What?”
“Don’t ask me details. It was boring and I didn’t understand. But it was something to do with in game purchases and she makes plenty doing it. She works from home. Takes care of Larry. Pretty sweet gig.”
“Why didn’t Molly work with her on something like that?”
“I loved the girl, honestly. But she wasn’t smart enough to do that kind of thing. Kindergarten was more her level. Which is why I thought grad school so she could max out her potential wages as a teacher. It’s the short-term thinking that makes me crazy.”
“What’s your long-term thinking?”
“You don’t think I can make A Friend of Coco a million-dollar business?”
“It’s hard to imagine.”
“It’s the world’s oldest profession. It will never go out of style. But in case it does, I’ve started college. Computer programming at the tech school.”
“That seems smart.”
“Especially since I don’t have to pay for it.” She turned back to her desk.
“Just one more thing. How did Jack Groening find out about your services?”
“He’s an old friend of Robert’s.”
“Robert?”
“Yes, my daddy, as we call them. Or boyfriend, if you’d be more comfortable. Robert answered an ad on Craigslist while you were tied up with that murder-quilt show back in October.”
Taylor’s throat closed. While the adults around her had been completely distracted, the child had literally been advertising herself. She fought the urge to yell at her for being an idiot. “Only since October…” It had only been six months. Coco had managed to accomplish a lot in that time. A lot that Taylor wished could be undone.
“People meet, fall in love, and get married in six months.”
“Has he proposed?”
“Marriage is complicated.”
“I see. Poor Molly that she never did get that life. Siblings for Larry. All of that.”
“Oh, Molly couldn’t have any more kids. It was kind of perfect. The one fear is always that the birth control will give out. A no-babies clause is pretty standard.”
“Ah. What happens if a girl does get pregnant?”
“What do you think?”
Taylor shifted uncomfortably.
“According to the contract, if a girl gets pregnant, the daddy—ironic, I know—will not be held responsible in a court of law. I don’t remember the actual words. But it’s basically a get out of child support free clause. I always wondered if it would actually hold up.”
“I wonder…what if there had been a miracle or something? What if Molly was pregnant?”
“That would have been some miracle after her hysterectomy.”
“What? But she was so young?”
“HPV Cervical Cancer. Antivax parents. What can I say? Lost her uterus from a preventable disease before she was twenty-five.”
“So….it wasn’t like Jack killed her over that.”
Coco sighed, then pulled her hair into a tight ponytail, and yanked on it in frustration. “Jack would never. He was a sweetheart. Being fifty and liking twenty-five-year-olds does not make you a killer.”
“What about his kids?” Taylor remembered a murder caused by jealous adult kids who feared their inheritance. “Would one of them have wanted Molly out of the way before Dad’s will changed?”
“Like I said, the cops are looking into that already. I’m not a cop. I’m just a girl running a business and going to school. And if you don’t mind, I have class in ten minutes.” She tapped the top of a closed laptop.
> “Sorry. Thanks for talking to me. You don’t like what I’m doing, but if I learn anything you should know, I’ll tell you.”
“Fabulous.” The sarcasm dripped off the single word.
Chapter Seven
Taylor closed the door behind her and walked down to the spare room she would be staying in. Also, strawberry themed, but this time the room had a base of honey oak wood and minty-green fabrics instead of red on layers and layers of white.
Taylor kicked off her shoes and snuggled into the fluffy green slippers that Grandma Quinny left for anyone who stayed in this room. Grandma had been up for hours. There was a chance she was still in the kitchen.
She wasn’t, but it didn’t take long for Taylor to find her.
Grandma Quinny was in what anyone else would call a mud room, but what she affectionately called her summer kitchen. The big, concrete-floored space with a spare stove and a utility sink. It was in this huge room to the side of the patio on the back of the house, that Grandma Quinny made her famous freezer jam and did all of her other canning.
Grandma Quinny leaned on her elbows at the counter—a vintage fifties laminate—poring over a faded handwritten recipe book. An electric percolator sat at the far side of the counter and the seductive aroma of coffee wrapped itself around Taylor.
“Good morning. Here to spend some time with Ernie?” Grandma Quinny, though asking an honest question, made it sound like an accusation. “Um…. not exactly, though I thought I’d take him out to lunch.”
“Good. He misses you. Asked about you all morning. And Belle. Call that girl and see if she’ll go with you. And I think he’d like to see her mansion, too, if it’s safe for him.”
He relied on a walker and early renovations had made it too dangerous for him to maneuver in Jonah and Belle’s new place.
“I came over early, though, so I could talk to Coco.”
Grandma Quinny shut her cookbook. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”
“Yes, thanks.”
Grandma Quinny filled a sturdy ceramic mug, one Taylor recognized as the work of Annie Farkas, widow of the man who used to be Chaplain of Bible Creek Care Home. “Did you learn anything? I can’t get a thing out of that girl, even with the professional help of your journalist friend. And I swear, I used to be good at that.”
