“Mom!” I launched myself from my seat, sending it spinning into the back wall. I jumped forward, planted my hands on her desk, and looked over.
There lay my mother, limbs contorted in weird angles, eyes closed, and tongue hanging out of her mouth.
“Wow,” I said. “Nice commitment.”
She opened one eye to give me a wink.
I shuffled back to retrieve my chair while my mother got to her feet, brushing off her ankle-length skirt.
“So the powerful man from a longish time ago died?” I asked.
She rolled her hand.
“At the fair?”
She nodded.
“Okay, Mom, what does this have to do with anything?”
She put up one finger in a wait gesture.
She scrunched her face up again into a thinking expression. She then repeatedly slid her head from side to side on her shoulders.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “I have no idea what that’s supposed to be.” I pursed my lips. “Bollywood?”
She slapped her palm against her forehead.
“I’m trying!” I shouted. “Wait! I’ve got it!”
She looked at me expectantly.
“The twins!”
And there was that mom smile again.
“So the twins have something to do with a man who died at the fair from a longish time ago?”
She nodded.
I swiveled side-to-side gently in my chair. “And that has something to do with why they are so upset with what happened yesterday?”
She nodded again, more quickly this time.
“But what?” I asked.
My mom held up another finger for me to wait. She seemed to be thinking for a moment. Then she snapped her fingers and brought her hands to her armpits, flapped them like wings.
“A bird!” I shouted. “No! Tweety!”
She nodded then tapped the ring finger on her left hand.
“Tweety’s not married,” I said slowly. “Wait. Engaged?”
My mother nodded.
“Tell me she wasn’t engaged to Mr. Masterson.”
My mother grimaced.
“Crap.” I fell back against the chair. Well, I guess that was part of the history Kit Kat was talking about. “But what does the powerful man’s death have to do with Tweety being engaged to Mr. Masterson?”
My mother just shrugged.
I waited for her to continue, but she was already moving around the desk to leave.
“Wait! Where do you think you’re going?”
She tapped the spot on her wrist where a watch would have been if she ever wore one.
“No! We were just getting started!” But I too could already hear the sounds of a bunch of people not saying anything entering the retreat. I sighed. “Mom, before you go…”
She turned.
“You know both Kit Kat and Tweety have warned me to leave this alone.”
She nodded.
“But I’m worried, and I get the feeling they might need some help with all the talk that’s going on around town.”
She nodded some more.
“I’m not sure how Grady’s going to feel about this, though.”
She screwed up her face in a Who the hell cares what he thinks? expression. Being the overprotective momster she could be, she had an issue or two with Grady—mainly because she blamed him for my moving to Chicago in the first place.
“You’re right. The twins are family,” I said firmly. “I just wish I knew how to help. I don’t want to make things worse.” I shook my head and got to my feet. “But you know what? I am absolutely positive that once the medical examiner has looked over everything, he’ll declare that Mr. Masterson died of natural causes.”
* * *
“So did you hear that Mr. Masterson may not have died of natural causes?”
I fake-cried a few breaths. “Freddie, I haven’t even had my coffee.” I tied my mom’s boat off at one of the posts on the marina’s dock and wiped my hands on my jeans. It was pretty cold. I’d need gloves soon. “Don’t be messing with me.”
He swayed back and forth on his heels, arms folded across the front of his uniform. “I’m not. Rumor has it the medical examiner won’t sign off on anything until he runs more tests.”
I groaned and rubbed my eyes. Thanks to me.
“Yeah, Mrs. Masterson is dead-set against—oh, bad choice of words,” he said, bringing a hand to his mouth, before whispering, “an autopsy. But again—”
“Rumor has it,” I filled in.
“Rumor has it that the medical examiner is going for a court order,” Freddie said with a knowing nod. He then raised his eyebrows and made a clicking sound with his tongue. “So you know what I’m thinking?”
“Oh God, here we go.”
“Mrs. Masterson probably offed him in a fit of jealous rage because he was having an affair with—” Freddie stopped talking to take a step away from me. “—with someone.” He then took a hurried sip from his coffee, peeking up at my reaction over the rim. “So what do you think?”
I didn’t say anything, just planted my fists on my hips and looked up at the sky.
“Erica?”
Still nothing.
“You’re mad. I knew you’d be mad. You’re doing that thing where you rub the side of your teeth with your tongue like you’re cleaning them—gross habit by the way—and you only do that when you’re mad.” He took another step back. “But, hey, it’s better that you hear it from me. I’m sure I’m not the only one thinking it.”
“I heard nothing, Freddie,” I said as flatly as I could.
He squinted.
“I heard nothing … because you said nothing,” I said with a sharp nod. “And do you know why that is?”
“Um, no?”
“Because you heard nothing, and, really, that means that you have nothing to say. And that’s the end of that.”
I stomped past him on the dock. I really could not have this conversation until I made it to the Dawg and had a coffee in my hand. This was do over day. Why was everybody trying to ruin do over day?
I heard Freddie shuffling along the planks to keep up with me. He didn’t like docks. The swaying sensation always made him feel like he was falling.
“Come on,” he called out, but the sound was quieter than it should have been, given that he was probably looking down at his feet to make sure they weren’t going for the edge. “I’m on your side. I’m on the twins’ side.”
I stopped at the end of the dock, waiting for Freddie to catch up. “It’s not you,” I said with a sigh. Then I remembered all of Grady’s difficulties with Freddie. “Well, it’s a little bit you. But it’s mainly that I just can’t believe any of this,” I said, throwing my hands into the air.
Freddie carefully stepped over the final lip of the dock onto the ground. “Which part?” he asked with a smile at his ability to once again successfully navigate the dock danger.
“So like every time I come home I can expect a murder?” I asked, meeting his eye. “Is this the new normal?”
“Are you okay?” he asked carefully. “You sound like you’re working yourself up to something here.”
I put my hand on my forehead. “And the twins! I know they had nothing to do with this.” Okay, that was a big ol’ lie. My conversations with the twins and my charades session with my mother had told me they at least had something to do with something. “But that doesn’t matter in this town! You’ve already probably got everyone’s tongues wagging with your theories,” I said loudly, sticking out my palm as though I were serving up a handful of indignation to him.
“Hey! I—”
“And you know what this means, don’t you?” I asked, nodding angrily. “Grady’s going to be working! Probably all week. Maybe even the weekend! I’m never going to get him on that Ferris wheel or … or get him to win me some teddy bear at some overpriced game!”
“Well, that’s probably—”
“Which sucks! On so many levels!”
“It does, but—”
“How am I supposed to be able to figure out what’s going on with me and Grady if we can’t find any time to spend with each other that isn’t about murder … or you!” I shouted with probably a little too much disgust on my face.
“Hey, I can’t help it if—”
“I mean, we need some quality time together that involves more intimacy than you can get through a phone!”
“Ew.”
“It’s ridiculous!” I shouted, turning to make my way back in the direction of coffee.
“Hey!” Freddie called out after me. “You know what else is funny?”
“What?” I answered tiredly.
“I bet you Mr. Masterson would have thought his murder would have been a little bit more about him.”
I skidded to a stop. A moment later, I glanced up from the dirt I was staring at to meet Freddie’s eye. “I hate you so much right now.”
He nodded. “I’m keeping you firm on the path to righteousness.”
I eyed his smile. “You could look a little less pleased with yourself.”
“I am grateful for the small things gifted to me by life.”
I turned on my heel, headed once again for the Dawg.
“Where are you going in such a hurry? I thought you could walk my beat with me at the fair. The midway doesn’t open until eleven. Do you want to get breakfast?”
“Can’t. Got stuff to do.”
“Like what?”
“Well,” I said, slowing my pace to allow Freddie to catch up. “I thought I’d start by buying myself and Grady a coffee to apologize—”
“Uh-oh. What did you do now?”
I spun to face him. “It’s not what I did. It’s what we”—I gestured back and forth between us—“did.”
“Now I get why you’re in such a bad mood. Guess he heard about your breakdown at the bingo hall.”
“Yes, he did. From me.”
“What did you go and do that for?”
“I don’t know,” I said, throwing my hands into the air. “Maybe because I don’t want to lie to him every time we talk?”
He stopped walking. “We’re fighting a lot these days. I think we need a date night to revitalize our relationship.”
I turned. “Freddie, don’t you see that’s part of the problem? I can’t do the stuff you want me to do without it upsetting Grady. And I can’t do the stuff he wants to do with me because he’s already busy trying to be super-awesome sheriff guy. And do you know why he’s doing that? Because nobody trusts him anymore because they’re all too busy trusting you!”
Freddie nodded, but his face tightened. “I see.”
I instantly regretted my words. This wasn’t his fault. I was just frustrated by … everything. “Aw, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“No,” he said quickly. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine,” I said. “I didn’t—”
“But,” Freddie said, cutting me off. “I think you’re missing something pretty important here.”
I exhaled roughly. “And what’s that?”
“When it comes to finding out what’s happening with the twins and this whole mess, you’ve talked about what I want to do to get to the bottom of it. And you’ve talked about what Grady wants. But what is it that you want do, Erica? Do you want to do something? Or nothing?”
I felt my brow crinkle. “I, I—”
“No, don’t answer,” Freddie said, putting his hand up in a stop gesture. “I want you to think about it.” He was walking backward away from me. “Because if you do—really think about it, I mean—I’m pretty certain that you’ll come to the conclusion that you have never felt more alive than when you’re doing what we do … with me.” His eyes darted around a moment as though he was making sure he had that right. Then he nodded and turned to stomp away, nearly running over an older couple strolling hand in hand. He had to hop around them in a semicircle with his hands up to avoid a collision.
As the couple he nearly hit moved past me, I heard one of them mutter, “I thought he was gay?”
* * *
A few minutes later, I was attempting to pull open the door of the Dawg with two large coffees in my hands. Normally, I would have refused to do what Freddie had told me to, based on principle alone, but his words were still bouncing around in my brain. What did I want? It was a pretty deep question on a lot of levels, and it brought up a lot of other questions. Had I come home just to see Grady? Or was there a part of me that really wanted to come home? And if there was a part of me that wanted that, could I handle all that came with it? What if things between Grady and me didn’t work out? Did I still want to come home? Somewhere, deep down, I was starting to suspect that a part of me did feel like I belonged in Otter Lake … and that was terrifying.
And what about Freddie and all his detective adventures? If I was being, completely, completely honest, I did get a bit of rush out of the whole business. Freddie didn’t make me go to that bingo hall. I wanted to. But it was ridiculous. Otter Lake Security was not a real option for me. It was like playing dress-up—and yet Freddie had somehow managed to find a way to get paid for it. That was the most ridiculous part of all.
Gah, I had a headache with all this merry-go-round thinking. I needed to go back to the whole living-in-the-moment thing. At least for a minute or two. I finally managed to get the door of the Dawg open so I could step outside. Yes, sunshine. I needed to feel the sunshine, smell the fresh air, absorb the beauty of my surroundings … ponder why there was a group of people standing on the sidewalk staring at something across the street with looks of horror on their faces.
Yup, that was odd.
Two men, one wearing a red flannel shirt, the other a blue, were just standing there, staring, along with a woman. There was also a younger couple huddled a little farther down the sidewalk, clutching a stroller protectively, like at any moment they might have to run. All of them were looking at the same spot across the street. I tracked their collective gaze, hearing the woman say, “That poor, poor man. He has no idea.”
Hmm, she must mean that tall, blond guy in the dressy pants standing in front of Mrs. Moore’s house. Strange. I mean, the pants looked good. Really good. Like I was having trouble looking away good. But definitely out of place for this town. You could wear those pants to play golf. Maybe even brunch. And he didn’t look like a poor man to me, but Mrs. Moore, who was standing beside him, pointing at the porch, well, she looked pretty upset.
“What is he thinking?” Red-Flannel asked.
“I’m telling you he doesn’t know,” the man in blue answered with a pitying chuckle. “How could he?”
“But she won’t send him under there after it?” the woman went on.
“That’s exactly what she’s thinking. She’s nuts. It’s like that time she called the fire department for help. They wouldn’t touch it either.”
“But his father just died!”
My eyes whipped back over to the man. Matthew Masterson. Well, that explained the fancy golfing pants. He was an architect in New York last I heard. He must be back in town for … well, of course, he was back in town. His father had just died.
“Oh no! He’s going to do it!”
Matthew dropped to his knees and moved his head around as though trying to see past the latticework covering the space underneath the porch. He then edged toward a gap between the interlaced wood and a bush.
The woman slapped her hands over her face. “I can’t watch.”
The man chuckled again.
“Don’t just stand there laughing!” The woman whacked him on his arm. “Do something!”
“Oh, I’m not going over there.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, edging closer to the couple.
The man in the red flannel shirt gave me a nod. “It’s the fair. Got Mrs. Moore’s Buttercup all upset. He tried to escape the backyard and somehow got himself stuck there under the porch.”
I shot a sideways look back over to the house. “I take it Buttercup’s not friendly.”
The man in the blue flannel shirt, standing with the woman who appeared to be his wife, laughed heartily at that. So heartily, he had to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye.
“Get ahold of yourself,” she said to him sharply before leaning around to look at me. “Buttercup has the whole town in terror.”
I looked back at the house. Yup, Matthew Masterson was half under the porch now. I pointed back at the Dawg. “Maybe if I got some meat, we could lure … Buttercup out?”
The man squinted at me. “Meat?”
“I thought…” I squinted. “Buttercup’s not a dog?”
He shook his head. “A dog? Heck no. I’d go in for a dog.”
I raised my hand in question. “So, Buttercup is a cat?”
He shook his head again, but this time a smile spread across his face.
“Okay,” I said, dropping my hand. “You’ve got me. What is Buttercup? Raccoon? Fox? Beaver?”
“Worse.”
When he finally told me, my face dropped.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I’m serious.”
All three nodded. The couple with the toddler nodded too from their safe distance.
My eyes widened. “And you’re just watching?”
“Hey, don’t judge us,” the other man sputtered. “You haven’t seen what that thing can do.”
I threw him my best imitation of a You’re going to need to make this right with your God look I’d learned from a particularly harsh DA back in Chicago. “Someone has to warn him.”
The blue-flanneled gentleman waved out a pathway for me with his hand.
I rushed across the street, placing my coffees on the curb before racing up the lawn. Mrs. Moore cut me off halfway. “Erica, isn’t it? So glad—”
“He doesn’t know,” I said more as a statement than a question. “You didn’t tell him.”
“Buttercup is just misunderstood. He’s really quite—”
I ran around her to the porch. “Matthew? You’re going to need to back out of there slowly. Really slowly,” I said, crouching to see into the gloom.
He looked back at me over his shoulder. “Erica? Erica Bloom?”
I nodded but didn’t meet his eye. I was too busy scanning the darkness. I couldn’t see anything, but I could feel the danger. “Back up now. Slowly.”
“It’s been years. Give me a second, I’m just helping Mrs. Moore get her … cat? I think she said it was a cat.”
“It’s not a cat.”
His face crinkled in question.
“If it’s not a cat, then what is…” His voice trailed off when he heard the noise coming from underneath the porch.
The telltale hiss.
We both tracked the sound into the shadows.
“Is … that what I think it is?”
“Uh-huh.”
The glint of two beady eyes caught the light in the darkness.
It was so much closer than I could have imagined.
Matthew backed up a little, but then looked over to Mrs. Moore, who had her hands still clutched to her chest. I watched his shoulders sink. “Well, I have come this far…”
“No! Don’t do it!” I shouted.
The beast’s mouth opened again, pink tongue quivering in another warning hiss.
Matthew rose to his feet. “I’m not leaving, Buttercup,” he said throwing his arms out. “You’re going to have to come get me.”
Buttercup’s wings unfolded and spread impossibly wide into the enclosed space.
My head shook back and forth in horror.
“Matthew…”
The wings gave a single flap and—
“Run!”