I jogged up Gran’s front steps, out of breath—proof I needed to do more cardio and less stressing about business—and opened the front door without hesitation. My grandmother hadn’t been clear about what the problem was on the phone, but it was an emergency.
“Gran? I’m here!”
“In the living room, Milly.”
I rushed through, fear building rapidly in my chest. What if she was hurt? What if she’d fallen or—?
I entered the living room and found Gran sitting in her favorite armchair. Thomas Pepper, my “half-brother” stood in the center of the room, his arms folded, his gaze hard as steel.
“What’s the problem? What’s going on?”
Gran took a deep, shuddering breath. “Thomas here as something to say regarding the cafe.”
“It was closed when I went by the Starlight Cafe to talk to you, Milly.” Thomas turned to me. “Which is concerning. But anyway, I came here so that I could discuss this with you both.”
“Discuss what with us?” I asked.
The cafe had nothing to do with him.
“There’s no polite way to say this.” Thomas cleared his throat, folding his arms and widening his stance. “I want half the cafe.”
“Excuse me?” My eyes nearly popped out of my bed.
Gran spread her arms as if to say, “And now you know why asked you to come over. The man’s crazy.”
I didn’t disagree.
“As your half-brother, I’m entitled to inherit what’s mine from Frank. He gave my mother and I nothing. Nothing at all. Not even a cent. Don’t you think I deserve something after all of that?”
Gran was right. He was a money-grubber.
My temper skyrocketed, but I took two deep, even breaths and met Thomas stare-for-stare. “OK,” I said.
He blinked. Hadn’t been expecting that, clearly.
“Milly?” Gran hissed.
“You can have half of the cafe,” I said, “as long as you provide me with a DNA test that proves you’re my sibling. And, of course, I’ll be talking to my lawyers to make sure that you don’t have much say in the business.”
Gran relaxed.
“A DNA test.” Thomas hesitated.
“Yeah. Is that a problem?” I cocked my head to one side.
I was pretty tired of being pushed around by the newspaper, by Detective Freedman, by just about everybody in town apart from my regulars, my employees, my family and friends.
“No. That’s not a problem,” Thomas said. “We can do that.”
“Great. I’ll organize a date for it with you later on. Right now, I’d like to talk to my grandmother. Alone.”
Thomas looked from Gran to me then shrugged. “All right.” He walked from the living room and down the hall without saying goodbye. I waited until he’d left, checking that he’d shut the door, then locking it behind him, before returning to the living room.
Gran pinched her nose. “Thank you, Milly. The minute he said it, I just wanted to throw something at him.”
I sat down on the edge of the sofa, closest to her, and placed my hand on her knee. “Gran, what’s going on? You’re never this down. You haven’t been yourself for weeks now.”
She sighed.
“Is it just because of Thomas?” I asked. “Because we can deal with him. If he’s actually related to us, we’ll talk to lawyers and figure things out, and if he’s not, then there’s no problem.”
“I feel a lot of guilt for what happened to your father, MIlly.”
“What? Why?” I shook my head. “Gran, that’s ridiculous. It was a terrible, terrible accident.” My dad had lost control of his car and crashed. He hadn’t been with anyone else, and he hadn’t crashed into another car.
“Because I’m not entirely convinced that Frank’s accident was, well, an accident.”
“What? Gran?”
“It’s been worrying me for a long time,” Gran said. “What if it wasn’t an accident? What if someone, you know… did something to him?”
It was such a strange thing to say, so out of left field, that I lost my train of thought for a second.
“Gran,” I said, at last, “Dad didn’t have any enemies. And the medical report was pretty clear about what happened to him.” It was so difficult discussing this, but maybe that was what we needed to do. Gran had been suffering because we didn’t talk about it much. “I think you can relax. There’s no need to feel guilty or worried or anything like that.”
Gran smiled at me. “Thank you, Milly. You always were the sweetest girl. I’m so lucky to have you as a granddaughter.” She pinched my cheek.
“What can I do to cheer you up?”
“Oh, you’ve cheered me up already.”
I wasn’t sure I bought that. “Gran, are you sure? I don’t understand why you would feel guilty about what happened to Dad.”
“Just me being silly, I guess,” Gran said. “Anyway, let’s not talk about that now. You’re right. I worry about things too much. Why don’t we have some hot chocolate and you can tell me all about what you’ve been up to.”
“I barely know where to start.” There was a lot I hadn’t shared with Gran over the past couple of weeks, simply because she’d been busy and so had I. “I’ve been investigating what happened to Nora Jensen.”
“Right, of course. The Bakers group leader.”
“And I think I have a few viable leads, but if they’re all going nowhere at the moment.”
“Give me a moment to make the hot chocolate and get the cookies, and then you can tell me all about it.” Gran got up and hurried out of the room. I knew better than to follow her and try to help her prepare anything. She liked her independence and she liked treating me, as well.
She came back ten minutes later with hot chocolate and cookies. “Here we go.”
“Thanks, Gran.” I accepted a mug from her and took a sip. It was chocolatey, rich, and delicious, as to be expected from a cup of Gran’s hot chocolate.
She sat down, smiling brightly, and I struggled not to frown. I still didn’t believe that she was fully OK, and I didn’t want her to hide her emotions from me. But, I also couldn’t pressure her to talk.
“So, fire away. Tell me what you have.”
I talked her through the main points of the case so far, including the missing knives, engraved with my initials, the glove that I now knew belonged to a member of the Bakers group, and the intrigue involving the Butchers.
“I’m fairly confident that this has to do with members of either the Bakers or Butchers group,” I said. “I just have to prove it.”
“A good thing we’re going to Jackson Cook’s party then,” Gran said. “I hear he’s having a lot of the Butchers group members over.”
“Yeah. The way I see it, I can rule out Hazel as a suspect if she really didn’t have a pair of those gloves, even though she lied about being able to leave the group. That would leave Elijah, Rebecca, or Jackson, but I don’t see a motive for Jackson that’s clear cut.”
“Excuse the pun,” Gran said.
I grimaced but laughed shortly after. “So, I guess that just means it’s got to be Elijah or Rebecca that I need to focus on.”
“Sounds simple to me.”
I chewed on the corner of my lip. I hoped Gran was right. So far, nothing in Star Lake had been simple.