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MERYL IS SITTING ON the couch next to Heather, rubbing her back, when the doorbell rings. She’s on her feet to answer it before Heather realizes her hand is no longer there. Being in a daze would be putting it mildly; Heather loved Dottie like a mother. She’s the only one in town that would hire her after her release from jail.
“Heath,” Quinn says breathlessly as she pushes past Meryl and wraps her in her arms.
“Not every day a famous author shows up in her bathrobe and flannel pajamas. I’ll put on a pot of coffee,” Meryl quips.
Quinn glances down at herself and gives a tight smile, shaking her head. “As soon as the cops told me the news, I just grabbed my keys and hopped in the car. I can’t believe I left the house like this.”
She squeezes Heather’s hands, and despite only knowing her for a couple of years, Heather can read her mind. She can’t believe this is happening to her, of all people. She’s once again surrounded by untimely death.
“How are you,” she says, more of a statement than a question because she already knows the answer. Not well.
“I just don’t understand. The cop said nothing was taken. Why would anyone do this to Dottie?” Heather asks.
“I don’t know, but I promise I’m going to do everything in my power to find out who did this. I’m going to call the station and see if they’ll let me put up a reward for information,” Quinn says.
“Don’t you think they’ll criticize you for not also coughing up money for information on Susan’s death?” Meryl asks from the kitchen.
Heather smiles as Quinn rolls her eyes.
“Well, damnit, I guess I’ll do the decent thing and offer a reward for both. Even though Susan was a pious lunatic who threatened your niece and me with eternal damnation on numerous occasions.”
Meryl snorts.
As soon as they all settle in with their coffee, there’s another knock at the door. Heather’s eyes shoot to the clock above the stove; she can’t believe it’s already time for Ryan to drop Evie back off before he heads to work. Although he has the decency to knock, he never waits for one of them to answer, he just comes right in.
“Good morning, ladies!” Ryan loudly whispers as he enters the living room with a sleeping Evie in one arm and her favorite stuffed elephant wrapped around the other. “Oh, and Quinn Harstead. In her pajamas? Are you just overly exhausted from trying to ruin my life?”
Ryan isn’t Quinn’s biggest fan. After Revenge and Murder in Delta County came out, readers were calling for Ryan’s head on a platter. Well, more accurately, another part of his anatomy. Heather somehow had minimal backlash for her manslaughter charge, but Ryan’s shocking infidelity made him a target for scorned women everywhere. Quinn only told the truth, it’s not her fault the women of America turned on him.
“I’ll take Evie,” Meryl says with her hands out and nods her head towards the chair next to Heather, motioning for Ryan to sit.
“What’s going on?” he asks.
“Dottie Carlson was murdered last night,” Heathers says.
“What? What do you mean? How?”
“It appears she was strangled and that’s all we know,” Quinn answers, although the question wasn’t directed at her. “I stopped by the shop yesterday and visited with her and Heather for a while, so the cops showed up at both of our houses this morning.”
“They don’t think you guys had anything to do with it, right?” he asks, wide-eyed.
“I highly doubt it. They said they think she was murdered just after midnight,” Heather says.
“That’s around the same time Susan was killed, right?” he asks, and Quinn and Heather sharply turn their heads toward each other. They can’t believe they didn’t put this together before now. “What are the chances this town has two murders, both victims are older women who were strangled, and both killed at or around midnight?”
The women sit in silence. How did Heather’s ex-husband piece this together immediately when it hasn’t occurred to either of them all morning?
“Anyway, I’ve got to head to the office. Sorry for your loss. Both of you,” he makes a quick nod to Quinn before cordially patting Heather on the shoulder and leaving.
“He sure is a handsome bastard,” Quinn mumbles once he’s out the door. “But I wonder if he was born without an ounce of empathy, just like his mother.”
“You might be onto something there,” Heather responds.
Meryl reenters the room moments later with Evie on her hip. She’s sleepily holding a bottle and staring at Quinn; someone she’s not used to seeing in her house.
“Hello, my sweet baby,” Heather smiles as Meryl hands her over. She continues to stare at Quinn and reaches out a little hand in her direction.
“Well, this is a first,” Quinn responds. She’s not a fan of children, but she can’t help but smile. Evie has that effect on people. Quinn holds out her pointer finger in Evie’s direction and she wraps her sweet little fingers around it. Evie drops the bottle from her hand, which lands in Heather’s lap, and starts speaking in gibberish to Quinn.
“She likes you,” Heather says with a smile.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” Quinn tells her.
They spend the next few moments fussing over Heather’s precious daughter before she inevitably brings up what is dancing around in both of their minds.
“So, once this news breaks, it’s going to be a zoo around here.”
“Why don’t both of you come out to my house for a few days until it blows over? I’ve got two empty guest rooms and plenty of food,” Quinn offers. “I’ve never had a baby in the house, Christy will be beside herself.”
Heather’s first instinct is to refuse, but something in her wants to take Quinn up on the invitation. She’s never seen Quinn’s house, and she knows Meryl is dying to see the inside. Heather looks at Meryl and she gives a non-committal shrug, but her eyes are pleading with her to say yes. The ladies in her cribbage group will be hanging on every word when she gets back and tells wild stories about her time at the mansion in the woods.
“You know what? We’d love to. Thank you so much for the offer. Give me an hour or so to pack up some things and we’ll head that way.”
Quinn’s eyes light up, which tells the women she genuinely does want them to come and wasn’t just offering to be polite.
“I’ll have Randall cook the best dinner of your lives, and we can watch a movie in the theater room, whatever you guys want!” she exclaims.
“Theater room?” Meryl can’t help herself.
“I’ve been rich too long, haven’t I?” Quinn laughs.
“You won’t hear us complaining!” Meryl responds.
Before Quinn leaves, Heather mentions that she wants to give Frank a call to get him up to speed, and she’s going to shoot Ryan a text to let him know she’ll be taking Evie out to Quinn’s.
“You get Evie packed up, I’ll handle calling Frank,” Mer says nonchalantly, before leaving the room with her cell phone in hand, flipping it open to punch in Frank’s number because she still hasn’t figured out how to store a contact and refuses all offers of assistance.
Heather’s lips curl into a smirk and she shakes her head.
“What’s that about?” Quinn asks as she stands to leave.
“We’ll have plenty of time the next few days for me to catch you up on all the mundane gossip around here.”
“I seriously cannot wait,” Quinn responds, and Heather believes her.
She certainly didn’t have “avoiding media attention from the news of a possible serial killer by hiding out at Quinn Harstead’s mansion” on her list of plans for getting her life back on track but, alas, her life never does seem to go according to plan.