Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
VON
Grayson and I retrieve the boxes from Stan.
There are six of them, packed with an assortment of logbooks with no clear organization. Stan is not one for orderly record keeping. We bring them back to the estate and store them in the blue study. Then Grayson heads out to the Thorn. He’ll be staying there intermittently until the trial.
“What’s all this?” Daisy asks, leaning against the doorframe.
“Work,” I say.
“Yeah, I kind of guessed that. Is this “no comment” kind of work?”
“Nailed it.” I stand and stretch out a kink in my back. “Where’s Dad?”
“He and Caden are taking Sebastian out for dinner. Did you meet him?”
“No,” I say. I don’t have the headspace for new people. I need to start looking through all these boxes.
“He’s really nice,” Daisy says. “He showed me pictures of his daughter. She’s adorable.”
“That’s great,” I say.
Daisy wanders over to the window. “I’m glad Noah is staying at the guesthouse,” she says. “We can protect him here.”
Daisy’s strawberry blonde hair cascades over one shoulder, her brows pinched together. I marvel at how much she looks like Mom: the point of her chin, the wide cheekbones, the deep blue eyes. She’s always had the biggest heart of all of us Evertons.
“Hey,” I say, coming over to hug her. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
She squeezes me back. “It’s good to have you home, too, you know. I’ve missed my big sister.” She glances up at me. “My only sister,” she reminds me. “You’ve left me alone with all the boys.”
I laugh and kiss the top of her head. “Don’t act like you don’t love your brothers.”
“I do,” she says. “But it’s not the same.” She disentangles herself from my embrace and walks over to the desk. There’s a photo of Mom and Dad on their wedding day, posed with bridesmaids and groomsmen. Daisy picks it up. “I know you blame Caden for the family falling apart, and yeah, it really sucked that he left us after she died, but so did you. And Finn. And Al. And Dad. This house was so empty.” My heart pinches as she looks up at me. “Noah was always there. He asked me how I was and invited me to dinner with him and Pop. He made my world a little less empty and a little less small.”
Her words hit me with a force I wasn’t expecting. For a moment, I can’t breathe. She’s right. I left her here, all alone.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
She puts the picture down. “I wasn’t trying to shame you. I’m just really glad you’re back.”
“I am too.” And I mean it.
She blushes then glances at her phone. “Shoot, I’m late to meet Maria.” She gives me a little wave and disappears out the door. I look at the boxes and decide to go get Noah. I’m going to need help with these.
I take the French doors in the kitchen and walk down the stone steps of the terrace, wishing I’d brought a coat. The night air is chilly and damp, and the breeze leaves goosebumps over my skin. The lights are on in the guesthouse, the curtains drawn. I knock on the door.
When it opens, I feel a rush of heat travel up my spine to blossom at the nape of my neck. Noah is freshly showered, his hair damp and a little curly, and his face lights up at the sight of me.
“Hey,” he says. “Come on in.” He steps aside and I walk into the snug room. He’s started a fire, and Penny is curled up in front of it.
“I didn’t know that fireplace worked,” I say, as Noah settles himself on the couch.
“Mountain man need fire,” he jokes.
I laugh. “Listen, there are about a million logbooks. They’re a mess. Stan needs to learn how to make things digital.”
“Welcome to Magnolia Bay. We’re old fashioned out here in the sticks.”
“I want to start looking through them tonight,” I say, trying to stifle my yawn. “But I need your help. Then tomorrow, I’ll tackle that witness list.”
He pats the space beside him. “Why don’t you sit down for a second? It’s been a long day.”
I cock one eyebrow. “Trying to seduce me?”
Noah holds up his hands. “My intentions are pure. You look really tired.”
“Gee, thanks,” I say, but I kick off my heels, my arches aching, and settle down next to him. He lifts my feet onto his lap and starts to massage them. “Oh,” I moan, sinking into the sensation .
“I don’t know how you wear those things all the time,” he says, his thumb hitting a sore muscle and making me gasp.
“They are fashionable, they give me extra height, and they are the expected footwear of my profession,” I say, my eyes drifting closed. “And they make my legs look fucking amazing.”
“Now that I agree with.” I hear the lazy smile in his voice. “So, what’s your plan for the witness list?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” I say, as his fingers move to dig into my heel. “I feel like someone must have seen you that morning. Someone from town. You can’t have been the only one awake.”
“At six am on a Sunday?” he says, one hand caressing my calf. “After that crazy-ass party? I don’t know, Von.”
“Patrick puts you too far away to get to the estate in time to have shot Mom. But maybe there’s someone else who, I don’t know, saw you run a stop sign or something.”
“Excuse me,” Noah says, aghast, pausing my massage. “I do not run stop signs.”
I open my eyes and chuckle, wiggling my toes at him. “If only you weren’t so law-abiding.”
He leans forward, his hand moving from my calf to my knee. “One of my many flaws,” he teases, slipping his hand under my dress to stroke my thigh. I gasp.
“This is a work visit,” I croak.
“I’m very focused on work,” Noah says, crawling toward me to brush his lips against mine. My skin feels like it’s on fire, his scent invading my nose, his hardness pressing against my belly. Noah is achingly soft as he teases my lips, one hand moving to cup my breast as I hike up my skirt.
There’s a whine from the fireplace and I turn to see Penny watching us.
“Oh no,” I say. “We can’t—we’ll scar her for life.”
Noah chuckles against my throat and stands. The next thing I know, I’m thrown over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift and carried into the bedroom. He shuts the door behind us.
“Put me down!” I squeal, and he gently places me on the ground then presses me against the wall, lifting my arms over my head and catching my wrists together in one of his giant hands.
“Turn around,” he growls, and a shudder rips through me as I follow his commands. He hikes up my dress, revealing my lacy black thong, then runs his fingers over my stomach before pressing them between my thighs. “So wet,” he groans as he begins to rub me. I push my ass against his hardness, writhing as he hits just the right spot. With my hands still pinned above my head, Noah yanks the thong off with a loud rip and then I hear his zipper come undone.
“Do you want to get fucked?” he murmurs in my ear.
“Yes,” I gasp.
“Yes what?”
“Yes, please,” I moan, and then he’s there, filling up that tender aching need inside me. Noah’s cock fits just right, as if it was made for me, and I cry out at the heavy drag of him, the licks of pleasure spiraling over me. His other hand strokes my clit as he thrusts himself inside me, urgent and insistent, and I beg him for more, feeling him grow harder as that center of need grows, sparkling and aching, each thrust bringing me closer to the brink. Noah fucks me until I can’t see straight and then he hits…just…there and I explode, my body quivering with release. I feel him come too, feel him spend himself inside me as I shatter in the ultimate bliss.
Noah’s head drops to my shoulder, both of us panting hard. He eases himself out of me and grabs a tissue from the nightstand, coming back to kiss my neck, my cheeks, to wrap me in his arms and kiss me tenderly. I love the dichotomy of this man—so commanding during sex, so sweet and sensitive after.
I look down at the scrap of black lace on the ground. “You owe me a thong,” I say .
He grimaces. “I did get a bit carried away.”
“Probably not a good idea to do this when people in the house are still awake,” I say. I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him in for a kiss. “But I’m planning to sneak down here every night, after everyone’s asleep.”
“Well,” Noah says grinning. “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”
“We need to set some ground rules,” I warn him.
“Right.”
“Absolutely no texting. We can’t leave any sort of digital trail. Unless it’s some kind of emergency about the case, zero contact on our phones, okay?”
“Got it,” Noah says.
“And when we’re in front of other people, we have to keep up appearances. No looks. No smiling. Definitely no physical contact of any kind. We have to stay professional.”
“Professional,” Noah says. “Got it.”
“Good,” I say, grinning wickedly, then I push him back down onto the bed.
Over the next few weeks, I discover just how hard being professional is when you’re falling for your brother’s best friend.
But I did not graduate top of my class without being able to take on hard tasks. I’ve got a mountain of work on my plate to keep me occupied, and during the day, I maintain focus on that.
Every night, however, I shut off the back door alarm when the rest of the house is asleep and sneak down to the guesthouse to see him. There’s an entire continent of Noah that I want to travel, and my nights are consumed by him, exploring his body, discovering all his different peaks and plateaus. During the day, though, I miss him so much it takes my breath away. I know this is the honeymoon period, where everything is shiny and new. It’s hard not to think of what happens next—when I go back to work at Phillips, Brace, and Horowitz and Noah stays here in Magnolia Bay. I’m still not sure how that will work. Or if it will work. But we don’t talk about the future yet. Almost like we don’t want to jinx anything.
Noah spends his days going through the logbooks while I set up interviews with everyone on Wilbur’s witness list. Grayson helps whichever of us needs him most. Noah and I make a good team. We communicate efficiently and effectively—and he’s excellent at prepping me for the interviews, since he knows everyone in town. The logbooks are frustrating. Each book contains multiple years, jumping from one to another in a matter of a page, and there’s no order to them, so it’s far more time consuming than either of us thought.
I get to know the people of Magnolia Bay, the people I once considered beneath me, through the interviews. My line of questioning is always the same. I start with Mrs. Greerson, Magnolia Grapevine Queen.
After asking her about her memories of the party, I turn my questions to the morning of the shooting. “Do you remember what time you woke up that morning?” I ask.
“Same time as always,” she replies, like it’s obvious.
I pause. “And what time is that?”
“I get up at six and make my coffee. Then I watch the news at six-thirty. Then I usually start checking in with people around town.”
“People like who?” I ask.
“Rebecca Watson—she and her husband, Lyle, run Furever Friends, the animal sanctuary. Rosemary Davenport, Isla’s mother, at the Thorn.”
I jot down all the names. “Do you remember that morning?” I ask. “Did you happen to look out the window or go outside or anything?”
Mrs. Greerson grimaces. “You mean did I see Noah, far away from Everton Estate? No, I did not. I wish I had, child. I truly wish I had.”
I interview Rebecca Watson and Mrs. Davenport, also on the list, along with both of their husbands. The Davenports didn’t even go to the anniversary party and were busy preparing breakfast for their guests in the morning. The Watsons left the party early—they were awake that morning, but they were tending to a sick goat. None of them saw Noah.
Next, I interview Dev Kumar, who runs the Grater Good. He’s a cheerful guy with a corny sense of humor, always at the ready with a terrible cheese pun. He assures me he was not awake until later that morning—he woke up to a phone call about the murder from Franco Amercini.
“That was around nine, I think,” he says as his phone starts to ring. “Sorry, this is my husband,” he says apologetically. “Hey love…” His face falls. “Oh. Okay. Let’s talk about this at home, I’m with Siobhan Everton right now.”
He looks despondent as he hangs up the phone. “Everything okay?” I ask.
“Yeah just…Reggie and I are trying to adopt, but finding a lawyer who is both competent and affordable is…” His voice trails off. “Sorry. Not important. Anything else you wanted to ask me?”
He looks so forlorn. I feel a pinch of sympathy, a sudden desire to be of assistance, like I was with Jake.
“I could help you, if you’d like,” I say.
Dev frowns. “Pardon?”
“I’m no adoption lawyer, but I know some people. I’m sure I can find someone who would be willing to help for a reasonable rate.” I smile. “I’ve racked up a lot of favors in my time.”
Dev’s eyes go so wide I can see whites all around his irises. He stares at me like he’s seeing the sun for the first time.
“Are you…are you serious?” he gasps.
Tears fill his eyes and I feel a loosening in my chest. “Of course,” I say. “I’d be happy to help. ”
Dev shrieks, startling me, then throws his arms around my shoulders. “Sorry, I’m a hugger!” he squeals, laughing, and then I’m laughing too, even though I’m decidedly not a hugger.
“It’s really no big deal,” I say, as he lets me go.
“It is a big deal,” he insists. “Oh my god, what’s your favorite cheese? No don’t tell me, I’ll send you a whole basket.” He grins. “This is the start of a brie-utiful friendship.”
I talk to Reggie, Dev’s husband, next. He’s a burly guy with Navy tattoos who loves to listen to Oldies on a small portable radio while he fixes cars. He thanks me profusely for offering to help him and Dev. But unfortunately, he was also not awake the morning of the murder. Cody Briggs, the sheriff’s son, works with him. I’ve only ever seen Cody with Mike the Dickhead, but when he’s at the garage, Cody is cheerful and polite, and I wonder if maybe he’s only keeping his distance from Noah out of allegiance to his father. Cody tells me he woke up around seven and got up to get some water—he noticed his father was already gone and figured he’d been called into work. Then he went back to bed. He found out about the murder later that morning when Mike called him.
Mike the Dickhead refuses to answer my questions. He just says he doesn’t remember, it was so long ago, blah blah blah, and his eyes keep darting to my chest. I can see why Noah dislikes him.
But for the most part, the more people I talk to, the more people in the town seem eager to help. Pamela and Eric Kim have come around to Noah’s side, though neither of them was awake that morning. Sometimes I’ll meet Grayson at Perks for a meeting, and Pamela is always ready with my americano and Grayson’s cortado. Charlotte and Isla have started inviting me to their Friday happy hours at the Screw, and sometimes Caden and Noah join us. My theory is proving correct—the more Noah shows his face around town, the more he reminds Magnolia Bay that he’s still the good man they’ve known for years. Public opinion has been shifting in his favor.
As the days to the trial tick down, I feel confident that there’s no one on Wilbur’s witness list who can actually help the prosecution. There’s no one who can really help the defense either, but we’ve got our silver bullet with Patrick’s testimony. Noah does go and meet with Patrick—I passed along that request. Noah is very quiet when he comes back that night, and we don’t have sex. We curl up by the fire in silence for a while. Then Noah tells me he’s glad he spoke to Patrick. That it helped knowing he’s turned his life around.
“At least now, he won’t hurt anyone else,” he says, as he stares at the fire crackling in the hearth, with Penny’s head resting on his leg.
One afternoon, a week before Thanksgiving, Grayson, Noah, and I are in the blue study looking through yet another box of logbooks. Thanksgiving is only a week away—then we’ll start the voir dire process before trial. I’ve been prepping Isla on her testimony, since the prosecution will be calling her as one of their first witnesses. I try to prep Dad too, but that goes about as well as expected. No matter how many times I remind him this is a criminal—not a civil—trial and he’s never been in a court like this before, he snaps at me that he doesn’t need anyone’s help and he knows how to handle lawyers.
I turn the page of the logbook in my lap, the list of names and dates blurring together.
“What the fuck, Stan,” Grayson says in frustration tossing the book he was looking through back into a box. “Someone should introduce him to the internet. Searchable terms. Excel spreadsheets. I feel like my eyes are going to bleed out of my head from looking at all of these.”
“The right book is in here somewhere,” Noah says in his typically optimistic manner.
“I need a break,” Grayson says, standing up and stretching. “ I’m going to grab a La Croix. And see if Isla’s made anything to snack on.”
“I think there are some Chelsea buns in the breadbox,” I say, running my finger down the list of dates.
Grayson pats his stomach. “That woman is devastating for my figure.”
He leaves and closes the door behind him. Noah groans and shifts in his chair.
“I didn’t think it would take this long,” he admits. “I’m starting to agree with you two. Stan needs to update his system.”
I shift in my chair, causing the logbook to fall from my lap onto the floor. I leave it for a minute, standing and stretching, then walk over to run my fingers through Noah’s hair. “The right book is here somewhere,” I remind him.
“You’re remarkably patient,” he says. “You could have made a really good deputy.”
“Ha,” I say. “No thanks. Those uniforms wouldn’t suit me. I don’t wear polyester.”
Noah chuckles and presses his cheek against my palm. Just as I crouch to pick up the fallen logbook, Grayson arrives back with a bun and a drink.
“Any revelations while I’ve been gone?” he asks.
“Sadly no,” Noah says as I grab the fallen book, which has opened to a random page. I see the date at the top and my heart falls into my stomach.
“Holy shit,” I say, landing back in my chair with a hard thud. “This is it.”
“What?” Noah says, as he and Grayson crowd around me. The top of the page is the right year. The first entry is for June seventeenth.
“Oh my god,” Grayson says as I flip through the pages, from the eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth…and there it is. June twenty-first. The day before my mother was killed. I run my finger down the list of names, my skin feverish, my heart pounding. Th is could be it. A real clue. It would be someone who Stan trusted, someone who came into the range around closing time.
And then I see it. The very last entry on that day, at 4:21pm.
“Wait….what?” Noah says.
What indeed. We all stare at the name in shock.
Sheriff John Briggs .