Luna pulled into the driveway of her place and saw her youngest sister’s car parked out front. Sayeh, a narcotics agent with the FBI in New York, wasn’t one for obligatory visits home, much less impromptu ones, so seeing the older gas-guzzling Jeep immediately filled Luna with dread.
As she opened the front door and heard the instant tension between Sayeh and their adoptive father, Bill, she knew her gut wasn’t far off.
She didn’t start with “Hey, how’s it going?” or “Good to see you, Sayeh,” because Luna was too worn out from the day to mess around with useless chitchat when all hell was about to break loose. It wasn’t often that Sayeh or Kenna came to visit, so that could only mean trouble wasn’t far behind.
“What’s going on? What are you doing here?” Luna asked. “Is everything okay?”
Their father answered before Sayeh could. “Everything is not okay. Your sister’s been suspended from her job and she’s homeless.”
Luna gasped in shock. “What? What happened?”
Sayeh glared at their dad. “That’s not entirely accurate. Leave it to Dad to blow things out of proportion.”
“Were you not suspended?” Bill shot back.
“Technically, on administrative leave—”
“Pending an investigation!”
“That’s just the legal jargon for the paperwork. It’ll all blow over and I’ll be reinstated but it’s bad timing because my apartment is undergoing major renovations to satisfy health-code violations, which means, everyone in the building, not just me, had to vacate. So, technically, it’s true I’m temporarily displaced, but it’s not like I was evicted or anything like that, which puts me here for a few weeks,” Sayeh said, ending with a wan, fake smile. “Surprise.”
Luna frowned, thinking of how disruptive having Sayeh around would be to her routine, but she wasn’t about to turn away her baby sister. She sighed, resigned to the situation. “Of course you can stay. I turned your old bedroom into a catchall for storage but you can make it work for a short while.”
When their adoptive mother, Nancy, died a few years ago from cancer, Luna had given up her tiny rental to move back home with her dad to help him adjust to living without Nancy, but then, it’d seemed easier to stay.
And it wasn’t bad. Luna and her father had always been close, so it wasn’t a hardship to be home again, but that wasn’t the case with Bill and Sayeh.
Sayeh was such a hothead and carried a chip on her shoulder that would topple a water buffalo. Time hadn’t softened her disposition, and she always bumped heads with Bill, no matter the topic.
The idea of sharing a roof with these two again gave Luna an instant migraine.
“This isn’t going to blow over like it’s no big deal,” Bill warned Sayeh, returning to the topic that must’ve caused the tension in the first place. “You punched another agent in the face. That’s assault. They take that sort of thing very seriously in the FBI. Hell, everywhere!”
“Trust me, he had it coming,” Sayeh grumbled. “And when the facts are presented, that will become clear. In the meantime, I just have to sit tight and let my union rep do all the talking.”
“You punched another agent?” Luna asked, dumbfounded. “Why?”
“I can’t talk about it while it’s still under investigation,” Sayeh answered, “but you would’ve done the same.”
“I highly doubt that,” Luna returned, shaking her head. All she wanted was a cold beer and a shower. The family drama would have to get in line. “Okay, well, it’s been a long day, so can I trust you two not to tear the house apart while I’m cleaning up?”
Annoyed, Bill shook his head and muttered under his breath before waving Luna off and shuffling out of the room. He disappeared out the back door to his workshop to work off some steam. Dad liked to tinker with woodworking in his retirement, and while he wasn’t particularly good, it kept him occupied. That’d always been Mom’s reasoning when Luna had questioned why she let him spend so much on a hobby that went nowhere.
“A man needs to stay busy,” she’d said with a soft smile as she crocheted by the fireplace, listening to her favorite jazz CD. “Besides, he’s getting better. Did you see that shoe he carved for me?”
Luna’s gaze strayed to the clumsy carving that remained on the mantel right where her mother had placed it all those years ago and smiled despite the situation and her emotional fatigue.
Nancy had always been better at soothing Sayeh’s temper than anyone else, and Luna certainly hadn’t inherited her special touch. Luna was too straightforward and logical to try and navigate the twisted emotional tangle inside Sayeh’s brain.
Now that her dad was out of earshot, she looked to her sister. “Do you really have to pick a fight the minute you step foot through the door?” she asked.
“He started it,” Sayeh said, folding her arms across her chest. “I hadn’t been here more than thirty minutes when he started in on me. He’s the one who needs to temper his tongue, not me.”
Sometimes there was no getting Sayeh to see reason, and Luna was too tired to try. “Okay, fine, be that as it may, I’m working a big case, and I can’t afford to waste energy refereeing you two, so take it down a notch.”
Sayeh’s interest rose with her eyebrows. “Yeah? How big?”
Sayeh hadn’t heard yet. Luna broke the bad news. “A few days ago, the entire Leicki family was killed in their home. Charlotte Leicki used to be Charlotte Reeves.”
Recognition dawned. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I know you and Charlotte used to be close. What happened?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, hating that there was so little information as of yet. “At first glance, it looks like a burglary gone wrong but I’m not sure if it’s that cut and dry.”
“What do you mean?”
Luna couldn’t share much, especially when the case was still an open investigation. She shook her head, seaming her mouth shut. Sayeh understood.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Not really,” Luna admitted. “I haven’t really slept since finding them. I keep seeing their bodies, and I know that the potential of finding bodies is part of the job but until now, it’d never actually happened. Not like this.”
“It’s always harder when you know the victims,” Sayeh agreed, her expression softening. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t understand how something like this could’ve happened here,” Luna said, shaking her head at the senselessness. “Cottonwood is a nice place. People don’t have to worry about being murdered in their beds, not here. That’s the kind of stuff you read about in the big cities. I know it’s stupid but there was a comfort in believing Cottonwood was different.”
“Sis, you’ve always viewed Cottonwood through rose-colored glasses. The fact of the matter is, Cottonwood has its share of darkness, too.”
“Yeah, I know, but this dark? An entire family was murdered. The boys... They were picked off like rabbits in a field. Who could do that to two little boys?” Luna bit her tongue. She shouldn’t have said that, but the image of Liam and Jeremy haunted her as much as seeing Charlotte brutalized.
“You’d be surprised how easily some people can compartmentalize,” Sayeh said.
Luna knew that Sayeh probably saw this kind of thing all the time with the work she did with the FBI, but it was a shock to Luna.
“No leads?”
“Not yet, but we’re still waiting on the coroner’s report.”
Sayeh reached out to rub Luna’s shoulder in commiseration. “Man, that’s a shit sandwich.”
“It gets worse.”
“How?”
“Charlotte’s brother, Benjamin, showed up today looking like the devil pushed him here all the way from Arizona, demanding that we do more to solve his sister’s murder. We’re doing everything we can and to insinuate otherwise is flat-out uncalled for.”
“Grief does crazy stuff to people.”
“I understand that and I’m trying to be kind but he turned out to be a jerk. It’s no wonder Charlotte had a hard time getting him to ever visit.”
“Maybe he doesn’t like Cottonwood for reasons that you’re unaware of,” Sayeh suggested.
“Maybe so, but that doesn’t give him the right to crap all over my department because he’s holding a twenty-year grudge against the town.”
Sayeh shrugged. “Some things are hard to let go of.”
“Well, I need to do whatever I can to get him to calm down and let us do our jobs so he doesn’t end up in the way. Oh, and Bonnie Turford is breathing down my neck for an exclusive scoop for the Tribune but I don’t want to talk to any press, much less the local newspaper that most recently wrote a story about how budget cuts had ended the beloved K-9 program.”
“Everyone loves dogs,” Sayeh said with a small smile.
“Yes, everyone does love dogs, and hopefully the Cottonwood PD gets the grant they’ve applied for so the K-9 program can continue. Otherwise, it’s been axed.”
“So how are you going to handle Benjamin?”
“I’m going to try to be accommodating as much as possible but he’s going to have to understand there’s only so much I can do. Everyone loved the Leicki family. No one wants to see justice for their deaths more than me. I don’t know why he’s coming at me like I’m the enemy.”
“Don’t take it personally,” Sayeh said, grabbing her suitcase. “Like I said, grief messes with people. When he calms down he’ll see that you’re not the enemy.”
“I hope so,” she murmured, watching Sayeh walk down the hall and disappear into her old bedroom, an air of resignation clinging to her squared shoulders. Luna never understood why Sayeh hated Cottonwood so much, but she could only imagine how Sayeh must feel right about now.
Except that wasn’t Luna’s problem to solve.
She had bigger fish to fry.
Benjamin settled into the rental property, took a long, cool shower to rinse off the sweat and travel grime, and emerged feeling slightly more human and less volatile.
Maybe he’d come at Luna too hard. It wasn’t her fault that she was in over her head. The most crime Cottonwood PD saw was a burglary and possibly drug-related incidents, but rarely something as horrific as what’d happened to Charlotte and her family.
He didn’t want to think about it but couldn’t help imagining how terrified they must’ve been.
Sweet Charlotte, always the peacemaker, always trying to make the best of a bad situation, had finally found herself in a position that she couldn’t smooth over with charm and kind gestures.
She’d always been a baker.
Their dad, that rotten son of a bitch, never missed an opportunity to take his rage out on his two kids, but Charlotte found that plying him with sweets often dulled his anger. It was hard to scream at someone who’d just popped a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie in your mouth.
It wasn’t a foolproof strategy, but it worked enough to save their hides a few times.
Benjamin wiped at his eyes. He had no doubt Charlotte had done her best to talk her attacker out of hurting them, but her pleas had fallen on deaf ears.
Who would want to hurt someone like Charlotte and the boys? He held on to the instinct that the buck stopped at Roger, but even so, the man had the soft hands of an accountant. It wasn’t like Roger was running with a street gang in his spare time.
Or maybe that’s exactly what he’d been doing. Hell, who knows? He’d give his soul for a chance to undo what’d happened to Charlotte and her family, but he’d have to settle for doing everything in his power to see justice served.
But even that solemn vow seemed flimsy in the face of his reality. He couldn’t make up for squandered time when there was no more time to give.
How was he supposed to reconcile that truth in his heart now that she was dead?
Benjamin always thought there’d be more time to sort out the past, but that’s what’s crazy and cruel about the reality of passing time—there’s never enough of what you truly need.
He walked to the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the fridge he’d paid extra to have stocked on his arrival.
Tomorrow he’d work on being more civil to Luna. She wasn’t the enemy.
And maybe that adage, “You catch more bees with honey than vinegar,” actually worked.
Might as well put it to the test.