TWENTY

With Sylvia and Zoe in tow, Pete found his father in the activities room. Other residents sat—some in upholstered chairs, some in wheelchairs—playing a word-association game. Harry, however, stood near the bank of windows, staring out at the snowy hillside beyond.

Pete placed a hand on his father’s shoulder. “Hey, Pop.”

Harry flinched and turned. “Son? What are you doing here? Not that it isn’t good to see you.”

What was he doing here? Harry had called him. Pete should have known better than to expect him to remember. “I came to see you.” He gestured toward Zoe and Sylvia. “I brought some friends.”

“Well, isn’t that nice. Any friends of my boy are friends of mine.” He extended a hand to Zoe. “I’m Harry. And you are?”

Pete plastered on a fake smile. At least Zoe always dealt with Harry’s memory loss better than Pete ever had.

True to form, she introduced herself as if she and Harry had never met.

His brow furrowed as he looked at her, fixated on her bandage. “Did you hurt yourself?”

Zoe touched the gauze. “I bumped my head is all. It’s nothing to worry about.”

“Oh, good.” Harry turned to Sylvia, who also introduced herself.

He winked at Pete. “You’re in the company of two lovely ladies, son.”

“Yes, I am.” He noticed they were garnering the attention of a number of the other residents, distracting them from their game. “How about we go to your room to talk. In private.”

“Uh-oh. That sounds om—omin—oh, damn. What’s that word?”

“Ominous?” Zoe said.

“Yes. That’s it. Ominous.” Harry looked toward the double door. “Only problem is…I don’t know where my room is.”

Pete offered him an arm. “I do.”

Harry brushed him off, instead offering both of his to Zoe and Sylvia. “Ladies?”

Pete led the way down the hall, his father being his charming self, a woman on each arm, trailing behind.

After reintroducing Harry to his room—“Are you sure this is mine? I don’t remember it”—Pete dragged in a couple of extra chairs from the hallway, and everyone found a seat.

Sylvia reached over and took Harry’s hand. “So are they treating you well here?”

Pete could tell his father was searching the corners of his befuddled mind. “I guess so.”

“Pop, do you remember calling me yesterday?”

That befuddled look again. “Of course I do.”

Of course he didn’t. Just as well. Dropping the whole “murder” thing suited Pete just fine.

“What did he call you about?” Sylvia asked.

Pete shot her a look. Don’t help. “It was nothing.”

“Well, clearly it was at the time.” Her jaw tightened as she repeated, “What did he call you about?”

“I’ll tell you later,” Pete said, his own jaw as clenched as hers.

Harry watched them, his eyes widening by the moment. “Is everything okay? It’s not Nadine, is it? Is something wrong with Nadine?”

“No, Pop. Nadine is fine.”

But Harry wasn’t appeased. “Don’t you go keeping shit from me. If something’s happened to your sister, I want to know.”

Pete glared at Sylvia. See what you’ve done? “Honest, Pop. Nadine is fine. I would never keep anything like that from you.”

Harry fell silent, but worry still shone in his faded eyes. Sylvia and Zoe both stared expectantly at Pete.

“Dammit,” he muttered. “He had his nurse call me yesterday and told me he thought someone had been murdered here.”

“I did?”

“You did.”

The entire conversation—and Harry’s half-ass train of thought—derailed as a knock came on the open door. The elegant woman on the walker, the one who had so beguiled Harry the other day, stood there. “Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had company.”

Grateful for the interruption, Pete leapt to his feet and moved to her side. “That’s quite all right. Please come in.”

“I wouldn’t dream of intruding on family time.” She smiled and Pete once again imagined she had been a real knockout in her younger days. She offered him her hand. “My name’s Barbara Naiman. I live right across the hall.” After a quick round of introductions, she motioned in the direction of her room. “My grandsons are visiting me as well. I wanted to tell Harry to stop over and meet them.” As if an afterthought, she added, “You can all come over too.”

Pete eyed Sylvia and hoped this time she caught his unspoken command to keep quiet. “That’s sweet of you, but as you said, we wouldn’t dream of intruding on your family time. We won’t be much longer and then I’ll drop my father off at your door.”

“That would be lovely. Thanks so much.”

Barbara maneuvered a slow but graceful turn with her walker and tottered off to her room. Pete glanced at his father. The old man appeared smitten.

“She’s quite attractive,” Sylvia said.

Harry kept his gaze on the doorway. “Yes, she is.”

Pete nudged him, glad for a better topic. “I think she likes you, Pop.”

Harry shot a fierce scowl at him. “Mind your manners, son. Barbara is a lady and any relationship between us is none of your business.”

But Pete could tell the bluster masked Harry’s embarrassment. Pete chuckled. “We should go so you can meet Barbara’s family.”

Harry shooed Zoe and Sylvia out of the room ahead of them, saying, “Ladies first.”

Pete walked with his father to the doorway to Barbara’s room. Inside, she sat holding hands and laughing with the same two young men Pete had seen with her days earlier. It struck him how life had come full circle. Instead of a young man meeting his girlfriend’s parents, Harry was about to meet his girlfriend’s grandsons. “Here we are, Pop.”

But he caught Pete’s arm, drawing back from the room rather than going in.

Pete chuckled. Apparently, meeting the family never became any less terrifying. “It’s okay. They’ll adore you. You have the Adams’ charm, remember?”

“No, no,” he whispered, pulling Pete closer, “it’s not that. Son, you need to do your cop thing and check this place out. There’s some weird shit going on around here.”

The same thing Harry had said on the phone.

Pete eyed him. “Oh?”

Harry lowered his voice further. “People are dying. And not because they’re just old. Someone here is a murderer.”

  

Zoe called dibs on the front seat for the drive home. She’d never experienced motion sickness before, but the drive to Brunswick in the rear of Pete’s Ford Edge had aggravated her headache. The front was definitely better.

Sylvia hadn’t let go of the topic of Harry’s earlier phone call, and Pete grudgingly shared his father’s suspicions, calling them “foolishness.”

“How can you be sure?” Sylvia demanded. “A residence like that? It would be the perfect setup. Did you see the pearls that woman, Barbara, was wearing? A person has to be well off to live in that kind of place. I can see someone killing them for their money.”

“Harry’s not exactly well off,” Pete reminded her. “Neither am I or Nadine.”

Sylvia didn’t let up until Pete vowed to run a background check on Golden Oaks and its employees.

Even with her brain fog, Zoe couldn’t imagine where he’d find the time. She suspected he’d only made the promise to shut Sylvia up.

Twenty minutes later, they were back at the Krolls’ farm, standing around the snowbound Escort. Pete lugged a tow chain from his cargo compartment and grumbled as he crawled under the small car to hook it up. From there, it was an easy feat to drag Sylvia’s vehicle out of the drift with his SUV.

“Go home and rest,” he ordered both of them before driving away.

Zoe stuffed her hands in her pockets as the cold chilled her cheeks. She fixed the older woman with a determined gaze.

Sylvia looked skeptical. “Why do I get the feeling we aren’t going home to rest?”

“Are you feeling okay?” Zoe asked, gripped by a moment of guilt. She wasn’t the only one who was supposed to be taking it easy.

“I’m fine, dear. But how about you?”

Her vision had cleared a bit even if her brain hadn’t. And the headache had subsided to a dull throb. “Actually, I’m feeling better. Let’s go check on Janie Baker. I wanna see how she’s holding up. Besides, it’s on the way home.”

  

As long as Zoe had known Janie, she’d never been inside her house. Located on the same hillside in Dillard as Oriole’s, but two streets over, the structure appeared tiny compared to Janie’s grandmother’s place. One story, square, with ancient aluminum siding that looked more dingy gray than white, the house seemed better suited to be a storage shed than a home.

When Janie answered their knock at the door, her appearance startled Zoe. Her face was as sallow and drawn as someone more than twice her age.

Janie took one look at Zoe and seemed equally as startled. “So what I heard was true. You got hurt by the same men who…”

The unspoken words, who killed my grandmother, hung between them.

Zoe fingered her bandaged head. “Afraid so.”

“Are you okay?”

Sylvia stepped in. “Of course she’s okay. Everyone knows she’s hardheaded.”

Grateful for the levity, Zoe gave a guilty-as-charged shrug.

Janie ushered them in to a tiny living room. A small sofa, one easy chair, a boxy TV, and a couple of end tables with lamps were all the space could accommodate. “I was just looking through Gram’s photos.” She gestured toward an old candy box filled with black and whites on the couch. “Sit down. I’ll bring you both some coffee.” She shambled out of the room.

Sylvia claimed the chair. Zoe picked up the box, sat, and placed it in her lap.

“Poor Janie.” Sylvia tsk-tsked. “She’s never had a spare dollar to her name. Yet she raised that boy of hers by herself and took such good care of Oriole.”

Zoe shuffled through the pictures, glad her vision had cleared. “Yeah. But even in school, she never had anything remotely designer. The other kids used to tease her about getting her clothes at the secondhand store in town.”

“The ‘other’ kids. Not you.”

Startled, Zoe met her gaze. “No. I always liked Janie. I loaned her an outfit once to go out on a date. I don’t remember if the evening went well, but she looked great.”

Sylvia grunted. “One thing’s for certain. She never could have afforded to put Oriole in a place like Golden Oaks.”

Zoe thought of the lush vegetable garden and the bag of produce the older woman had shoved on her and Earl not so long ago. “Oriole didn’t need to be in a place like that. She did well on her own.”

“Not so well. She died because she was home alone.”

The wistfulness in Sylvia’s tone and eyes made Zoe wonder if she was thinking about her own future. Oriole had died because she was alone. Sylvia had ended up in the ER because of the same thugs. “Anyone can fall victim to violence.” Zoe tapped the gauze encircling her head. “Being over a certain age and independent doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doomed.”

“Maybe not. But it makes you easy prey for these predators.” Sylvia gave a short laugh. “Or uneasy prey might be more accurate.”

Janie returned with a pair of mugs. Her hands trembled as Sylvia and Zoe each accepted a cup. “I didn’t know how you take your coffee.” Janie dug into her cardigan’s pocket and pulled out a handful of sugar packets.

Sylvia waved away the offered sweetener. “Black is fine.”

Zoe accepted a few of the packets, wondering if Janie had lifted them from a restaurant.

“I can bring you some cream if you want,” Janie said.

“I’m good,” Zoe told her. “Sit down.”

Janie slipped the rest of the sugar into her pocket and came up with a cellophane-wrapped plastic spoon, which she handed to Zoe.

Definitely lifted from a fast-food place.

Janie lowered onto the couch next to Zoe and pointed at the photo in her hand. Sepia toned from age, the picture showed a much younger Oriole with a dashing man in uniform. “That’s my grandpa.”

“He was very handsome.” Zoe handed it to Sylvia, who agreed.

“He died when I was little. Gram always said my mom favored him. Me too, I guess.”

Something in the hallway to the rear of the house thumped, and Marcus appeared. He kept his head low and glanced at Zoe then Sylvia before looking at his mother. “The guys are going sled riding up on the hill. Can I go?” His defiant tone hinted at a deep resentment at having to ask permission.

“May I,” Janie corrected. “And I’ve taught you better manners than this. Say hello to our company.”

Shoulders hunched, the boy nodded at them, mumbling what must have been a greeting of sorts. His gaze came back to his mother. “Well? May I?”

“Who all’s gonna be there?”

He rattled off some names.

Janie looked toward the window. “Okay. But bundle up. It’s cold. And stay out of trouble. Please.”

With a grunt, Marcus disappeared again.

“Kids,” Sylvia said.

Janie rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it. He’s a good boy, but he needs a male role model.” She shrugged. “And I can’t provide one.”

Zoe set her coffee on the table next to her and kept sifting through the photos, handing each to Sylvia. Most were old and faded with images of Dillard back in the days when it was a thriving coal-mining town. A few were newer and in color. She came across one, a posed portrait of Oriole, that looked recent. “Wow.” Zoe held it up to Sylvia. “I never saw her all dressed up like that.”

Sylvia squinted, tipping her head up and down, apparently trying to find the right focus through her bifocals. “Maybe she was going to church. Some folks still dress up for it, you know.”

Janie held out a hand, and Zoe turned the photo over to her. “Huh. I don’t remember seeing this one before. It does look recent, doesn’t it?”

Zoe rested a finger on the photo. “Beautiful necklace.”

The photo quivered in Janie’s unsteady grasp. “Yes. It is.”

“Family heirloom?” Sylvia asked.

Janie opened her mouth. Closed it again. Maybe it was Zoe’s brain fog, but she swore Janie seemed angry. “To be honest, I’ve never seen it before either.”