Five #2
Lupe, who was working her one Monday a month—Taylor Kang needed it to meet her husband in Lewisburg so her son could have a supervised visit with his father and the court-appointed counselor—scoffed loudly.
“We all know that if any of us had called you about it, you would have hung up. You tend to be very secretive about your love life.”
“I’m leaving,” I announced, getting up. “I’m closing tonight, I shouldn’t even be here.”
“No, no, no. Wait, wait, wait,” Laura Banks, another of my servers, ordered as she came running up to join the four other women. “Did they really dig up your new neighbors’ yard looking for human remains? I heard the state police crime scene unit was out there.”
I shook my head at her.
“What? If you’re not spilling about your sex life…” She turned quickly to look at the others. “He wasn’t, was he?”
“No,” they all said at once, sounding really put out over that.
Laura’s attention was instantly back on me. “If we’re not hearing about you and the gorgeous man with the biceps and the thighs and the baseball cap and the dimples—”
“I nearly died when he smiled at me with the dimples,” Dakota confessed, fanning her face with a menu.
“—then we should at least get to know why they’re digging up your neighbors’ yard looking for people they murdered.”
I put both elbows on the counter, laced my fingers together, and looked at all of them. “Do you think if the state police found murdered people on the Swann land, perhaps someone would have been arrested?”
They were all quiet.
“That’s an excellent question,” Dakota pointed out.
“Being where we are, in this county that’s hundreds of years old, what do we think is far more likely than newly murdered people?”
Everyone stared at me.
“Oh,” Lupe said after a moment. “I see what you’re getting at. Whatever’s buried out there is probably really old.”
“That’s correct.”
“Ugh, boring. More old dead people,” Gaia said before leaving us to return to the kitchen.
“They do find a lot of them around here,” Lupe stated. And it was true.
“What about the nice man who took you breakfast?” Evie pressed.
“And coffee,” Lupe added.
“Nothing. He’s nice. I’m sure we’ll be friends.”
“No,” Evie moaned. “No more friends. You need to get laid.”
“She’s not wrong.” Dakota gave me a meaningful look.
“I’m going home now,” I announced.
“So who do you think they found on your neighbors’ property?” Laura asked me. “Another old miner or part of a graveyard that everyone forgot about?”
Sadly, that had happened more than once. Sometimes, when the last person tending to a family cemetery died unexpectedly, things got overrun and fell into disrepair and that was it—a lost graveyard that no one knew was there, as it had been on private land.
“Maybe it’s my ex-boyfriend,” Evie told her. “They never did find Clay.”
I wished I could have told her it wasn’t Clay Bingham, who she’d dated for three months a year ago.
Evie had thought she’d met a nice man, though something about him had kept her from introducing him to her two dogs or her tortoise, Henrietta.
When she showed up to work with a scarf on in July and more makeup than I’d ever seen her wear before or since, I had gotten to the bottom of the mystery.
Clay had wanted more than kissing one night when they were watching a movie together at his house, and when Evie said no, he’d tried to beat her into submission.
And yes, he’d gotten in a few good punches, but Evie had police-grade pepper spray in her purse that her father insisted she carry, and had completed the self-defense course that I paid for that all the women who worked for me could take at their leisure.
Between those two, she had beaten the holy crap out of Clay Bingham.
The issue was, though, after that, we all kept seeing him.
He couldn’t come into The Bower. Every time he tried, he passed out on the sidewalk and was picked up by White Sulphur Springs PD.
Evie and I drove to Lewisburg and got a TRO that kept him away from where she worked, her home, and her parents’ home, because that was where her fur babies went when she was working.
But Clay was persistent, and he started following her home at night.
That was scary for her, would have been for anyone, and when she drove to my house one night instead, I became his target for a moment.
It was enough.
I had carried him to the grove, and the dryads had confirmed exactly what I’d assumed.
He was guilty of hurting many innocents.
He too had enriched my land, and when a few weeks had gone by with no sign of him, Evie came back to life.
What was interesting, though, was that no one—no parent, sibling, friend, anybody at all—came looking for him.
I knew he’d worked at a feed store in White Sulphur Springs, but even his boss didn’t care.
Now, Evie was dating a guy we all liked, River Davis, who was a forensic technician with the state police. I especially liked that he was—
“Wait…” I glared at her. “Did River tell you that he was out at my neighbors’ place?”
“What? That’s crazy.”
“He’s gonna get both of you in trouble.” I stood up. “I’ll see you all later.”
“Who’s opening tomorrow morning, since Desta has to be at her son’s Thanksgiving pageant at eight in the morning?” Gaia asked, having returned a minute ago.
“Eight?”
“I know. The horror.”
“And it’s in Lewisburg, right?”
Gaia nodded.
“So that’s really early.”
“Yep.”
“I guess it’s me,” I told her.
“No,” Kim Rawley said as she walked by to get a cup of coffee from Josie Slater, who was by far the best barista we had. She was gifted, which was why I put her in charge. “It’s Sachi if you’re closing tonight.”
“Which would she rather do?”
“You know she’s not a fan of the day star, so if I were you…”
“Okay. Call Sachi, tell her she’s closing, and I’ll be here first thing tomorrow morning.”
“You don’t need to be. Paris is here tomorrow too.”
“Yes, but who’s going to supervise her if I’m not here?”
“True,” Kim agreed. “Though her pop-up menu items are better than yours.”
“They’re disgusting,” I assured her. “No one needs to eat peanut butter and jelly pancakes or marshmallow and fudge swirl pancakes. It’s too much sugar.”
“I have no idea why you hate sugar,” Lupe said. “And the cinnamon sugar praline and pecan pancakes were amazing.”
“I think I’m gonna be sick.”
“Maybe, since you have tonight off, you drive to Lewisburg and get laid,” Gaia suggested, waggling her eyebrows at me.
“Whose car am I taking?” I deadpanned.
“Yeah, that’s another thing,” Dakota chimed in. “You need a car. It’s time. I feel like a sports car is the way to go.”
“Because that’s such a good choice for the snow.”
“I always imagine him on a motorcycle.” Evie grinned.
“Also an excellent choice for the snow.” I hoped they could hear the sarcasm.
“You know what? Who cares?” Gaia told me. “You just need something reliable to get you to and from Lewisburg.”
I shook my head and started for the kitchen.
“You’re too pretty to be celibate,” Lupe called after me.
Everyone in my restaurant laughed, but I kept walking, hoping that little interlude wouldn’t show up in a Yelp review.
I ended up going home around lunch. They didn’t need me, and I’d realized lately that soon I was going to need another challenge, something new to focus my energy on. I just had to figure out what that would be.
I took the long way home, walking down the side of the road because every now and then people dumped dogs around there, although not as often as in a lot of other places.
Thankfully, there were none, and I was about to make the turn up my drive when a familiar SUV slowed down beside me.
I didn’t look around immediately; I waited until I heard the window roll down.
“Yes? Something I can do for you?” I asked Reggie, who was driving.
“That’s an awfully cold greeting.”
I kept walking.
He revved the engine and drove ahead of me before turning into my drive and parking.
“What do you want?”