Chapter 17
Chapter 17
Ceecee unclipped her seat belt and gave Calvin a determined scowl. “I don’t want to stay in the car. I want to question the suspects.”
He sighed as he looked at her, then at the house in front of which they’d parked. The little beige Honda was parked next to two other old cars, its dented front bumper confirming it was Greta’s. Beyond the house, a few sheep grazed in a pasture ringed with trees. It was quiet here, with few cars driving past and neighbors far enough away that the house seemed to stand alone.
The Davises were good people. But he needed to keep his sister safe.
“Stay in the car,” he said, “until I tell you it’s okay to come out.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Fine.”
After getting out of the truck, he squared his shoulders and faced the front door. His shoes echoed on the wooden porch steps as he approached, keeping his ears open for any strange noises. All he heard was the distant calls of seabirds and the rustle of the wind in the trees. He rang the doorbell.
Footsteps approached. A lock scraped. The door opened, and Helen Davis stood on the other side. “Sheriff!” she exclaimed. “What a pleasant surprise.” Her eyes slid past him, and she smiled wider. “And who’s this?”
“I’m Cecilia, but you can call me Ceecee,” the girl said, coming up beside Calvin as she stuck her hand out to shake Helen’s. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Pleased to meet you too, Ceecee,” Helen replied, eyes sliding back to Calvin, who tried to hide his frustration.
He looked down at his sister. “I told you to stay in the car.”
She just shrugged and stayed right where she stood. “I think I’ll be more useful if I can be there for the interrogation.”
Helen tilted her head and met Calvin’s gaze.
Calvin rolled his lips inward and released a breath through his nose. Glancing at his sister, he considered ordering her back. But her eyes were bright, and he was a sucker for that little smile at the corner of her lips. Besides, he trusted Daphne. He just wanted to know why she’d been parked outside his mother’s house.
He turned back to Helen. “I’m looking for the owner of that vehicle,” he said, pointing to the getaway car. “May I come in?”
Helen pursed her lips and stepped aside. “They’re in the living room,” she said in a tone of voice that said she wasn’t surprised, and closed the door behind him.
The house was worn but tidy, with evidence of many years of happy memories. Family pictures hung on the walls, threadbare rugs covered the floors, and a sense of calm permeated every room. Calvin slowed at the sight of Daphne’s high school graduation picture hanging in the hallway, right next to Ellie’s. He’d never sat for his photos; there hadn’t been any point, when no one cared about his graduation, least of all him. Daphne beamed at him from the nineteen-year-old photo, as straight backed and determined as she was now.
Ceecee’s head was on a swivel as her hand found her way into his. When they got to the end of the hall and turned into the living room, she shimmied closer to him so her body was pressed to his side.
“Greta,” Helen said, “Sheriff Flint wants to talk to you about your car.”
Three elderly ladies were sitting around the coffee table along with Daphne. A board game was set up before them, with coffee mugs on coasters in front of every player. All the mugs looked nearly full; the women hadn’t been here for long. But Calvin already knew that.
Daphne glanced up and met his gaze, blinking innocently. “Flint?”
One of the ladies shifted to look at him, adjusting her bifocal glasses on her nose. “My car? What about my car? The tags are all up to date, and it’s definitely roadworthy.”
Calvin pursed his lips. “I want to know why it was parked outside my mother’s house half an hour ago.”
“Well, I never!” Daphne’s grandmother said. “Outside your mother’s house? Greta’s car?”
“You’re mistaken, Sheriff Flint,” the third old lady said. “We’ve been playing Monopoly all day.”
His gaze shifted to the property cards in front of her, half of which were upside down. When he looked at Daphne, her cheeks were bright red. He held her gaze as he asked, “Are you aware it’s a crime to lie to an officer of the law?”
“Lying?” Greta exclaimed, grabbing the dice and rolling them. “Don’t be ridiculous! Monopoly is a classic, and it’s right here in front of us. And Saturday is for board games.”
“You’re going around the board the wrong way,” Ceecee piped up to say, pointing at the way Greta’s silver top hat was moving along the squares.
Greta made a big show of adjusting her glasses, then laughed and started moving the other direction. Calvin arched a brow at Daphne.
It took her about three seconds to crack. “I told them about the vow renewal,” she said. “It was my grandmother’s idea to go check out the house.”
“We were curious,” Mabel said, picking up her coffee.
“Wait,” Ceecee said, dropping his palm to put her hands on her hips. “ This is your girlfriend?”
“No,” he and Daphne replied in unison.
Daphne forced a smile. “We’re taking things slow.”
Ceecee ignored them as she took a step forward and squinted at Daphne. She tilted her head. “She’s pretty.”
Daphne blinked. “Who are you?”
“This is my little sister,” Calvin cut in. “Ceecee, this is Daphne.”
“Are you in love with my brother?” Ceecee asked.
“No,” Daphne replied, a little more vehemently than seemed strictly necessary.
“Then why are you dating him?”
“We’re not—” She exhaled sharply. “Look. We work together. We’re taking things slow.” She repeated the last sentence like it was her lifeline. Calvin arched a brow, and Daphne scowled at him.
Ceecee hummed. “But you’re going to my mom’s vow renewal together. That’s a date. So you’re dating. That means you’re girlfriend/boyfriend. That’s how it works.”
There was a silence. Daphne’s jaw worked as she frowned at Ceecee, then flicked her inscrutable gaze to Calvin. “Right,” she said.
Despite himself, Calvin’s heart gave a heavy thump. “Can’t argue with that logic.”
Daphne’s brows nudged ever so slightly toward each other. Then she smiled at Ceecee. “Your brother seemed a little desperate for a date. I was trying to be nice.”
Calvin snorted.
“I’m glad you’re coming,” Ceecee announced. “Otherwise, Calvin will be alone, and that’s embarrassing.”
“That’s true,” Mabel agreed. “That would be embarrassing.”
Calvin needed to get this interrogation back on track. His eyes narrowed on Daphne’s. “Why did you speed off when I spotted you, if all you were doing was satisfying your curiosity?”
“We panicked,” Greta said.
“ You panicked,” the third old lady said. “I was fine.”
“Why did you panic?” Calvin asked.
Greta blinked at him until Mabel said, “You’re a cop. Panicking when you’re doing nothing wrong in front of a cop is normal, no?”
Calvin tilted his head. “Well ...”
“Here we go!” Helen came gliding into the living room with a tray laden with snacks. “Daphne, scoot over so the sheriff can have a seat beside you. Ceecee, darling, do you want a drink? We have orange juice or water. I have sparkling water too, so we could do a fizzy orange juice drink with a funky straw, if you want.”
Ceecee brightened. “Really?”
“Come pick your straw,” Helen said, and Ceecee was off like a shot. Calvin almost called her back, but he heard her excited chatter through the kitchen doorway along with Helen’s kind responses, and he didn’t have the heart to drag her away.
That kind of motherly attention was exactly what Ceecee deserved. It was what had made him so horribly jealous of Daphne when they’d been in school together, and he could now sit back and let his sister enjoy the attention, at least. Helen had been the school nurse, so she was used to dealing with kids. Ceecee would be fine with her for a few minutes.
It would give him time to figure out what the hell kind of game Daphne was playing. Suddenly her reasoning during their phone call last night seemed a little suspect. Why had she agreed to attend the vow renewal with him?
Calvin took a deep breath and shuffled between the coffee table and the couch to take a seat next to Daphne. The three ladies before them looked at the two of them, big smiles on their wrinkled faces.
“Daphne’s father loves to bake,” Mabel said all of a sudden, picking up a slice of bread from the platter Helen had put down. She smeared a healthy layer of herbed cream cheese over it, then met Calvin’s gaze. “Does your mother like to bake, Sheriff?”
“Huh?” He frowned. “Um. No, not really. Not that I know of, anyway. We haven’t been that close since I moved off-island.”
“Hmm,” Greta said. “That’s interesting.”
“What about your grandmother?” the third woman asked, fingers drumming on the top of her butterfly-patterned cane. “Did your grandmother like to bake?”
There was a pointed pause. Beside him, Daphne put her elbows on her knees and massaged her forehead. A long sigh slipped through her lips.
Calvin cleared his throat. “Yeah, she did. She used to have fresh homemade bread whenever we’d go over to visit on the weekends.” She’d passed when he was young, just a year after his father had passed, and most of the good memories of his childhood had died with the two of them. After his grandmother’s death, there hadn’t been anyone around who seemed to care about him. His mother did her best to move on, and Calvin was left to deal with his grief on his own.
The three older ladies let out interested hums and leaned back in their seats, watching him with piercing eyes.
“Why do you ask?” He nodded his thanks as Greta pushed the platter of snacks closer so he could grab a cracker and a slice of aged cheddar.
“I knew your grandmother, you know,” Mabel said, voice casual. “I remember she had a beautiful cast-iron Dutch oven that was her pride and joy. She used it to make the crustiest, most wonderful bread I’d ever tasted.”
“Perfect crumb,” Greta added with a solemn nod.
“It was okay,” the third lady grumbled.
“Harry,” Mabel chided. “Please. The bread was perfect.”
“Oh, all right. It was delicious,” Harry replied, scowling at Calvin like he’d personally offended her.
“We all wished we had a pot like Brenda’s,” Mabel said, folding her hands on her knee as she smiled beatifically.
Daphne was very still beside him. When he glanced over, she was giving her grandmother a strangely intense look. What kind of madness had he stepped into? Were all Daphne’s family members this weird? And he still didn’t quite buy their explanation for why they’d been staked out in front of his mother’s house. At a stretch, he could buy that they were curious about the event venue. But that wouldn’t justify them speeding off as soon as they’d spotted him. They’d panicked, according to Greta and Mabel. But these were women who had egged Daphne on when she’d attacked a thief at the farmers’ market. Women who hadn’t been shy about taunting Bobby Troy about his precious truck in front of the entire sheriff’s department. They didn’t get nervous in front of law enforcement. They certainly didn’t panic.
“So?” Mabel asked, smiling encouragingly. “Do you remember the pot?”
“Uh, maybe,” he said, frowning. “Actually, yes. A sort of ugly thing, right? And horribly heavy.”
Mabel let out a noise that might have been one of outrage. Calvin frowned as Harry reached over and put a hand on her arm, as if to hold the other woman back. There was something going on here, but Calvin couldn’t quite figure out what it was. His instincts were screaming at him. These women were digging for something. They’d been watching his mother’s house, and now they were trying to get information from him.
But what? It couldn’t be about an old pot. Had they been wanting to rob the house? But Daphne would never do that, and these ladies didn’t look like they could move fast enough to commit a burglary. Stranger things had happened, though ...
His mind whirled. Daphne understood what the ladies were asking about, and she wanted them to stop. That was evident by the tightness of her shoulders and the way her lips were pinched into a bloodless line. That only happened when she was trying to hold herself back from saying something she’d regret. He knew, because that was the expression she had on her face whenever Calvin was doing his best to needle her into a reaction.
So she felt strongly about this—whatever “this” was. And Calvin was on the outside, scrambling to figure it out.
He decided to play along and give them a little crumb of information to see how they’d react. “I think my mother brought that pot home when we cleared out my grandmother’s house,” he said, “but I’m not sure what became of it. She’s a bit of a pack rat, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she still has it stashed somewhere.”
The older ladies—and Daphne, strangely—inhaled so sharply they sucked nearly all the air out of the room.
Calvin frowned.
It was Mabel who recovered first. She smiled at him and said, “Well, isn’t that wonderful? I love a good pack rat. Say hi to your mother for me, won’t you? And Daphne was just telling us how excited she was to be able to go to her vow renewal. I heard it’s going to be a beautiful ceremony.”
“Was she?” Calvin mused, turning to meet Daphne’s gaze. “How excited are you really, Cupcake?”
She leaned back against the couch, closed her eyes, and pinched the bridge of her nose like she was one second away from giving up on life, finding an uninhabited island away from everyone she knew, and becoming a hermit. She opened her eyes and met his gaze unblinkingly. “I’m thrilled,” she told him. “Can’t wait.”
His smile was sharp. “That makes two of us.”
“You’ll need a dress,” Mabel said. “What’s the dress code?”
“Cocktail,” Calvin answered, eyes still on Daphne. Her cheeks were flushed. He wondered what color her bra was today.
“I have a dress,” Daphne said, tearing her gaze away from his to look at her grandmother.
“Good. That’s settled,” Mabel said, and there was something in her demeanor that made Calvin’s instincts sit up and take notice. A note of triumph in her tone, or maybe a gleam in her eyes.
Something was definitely going on here. Daphne hadn’t agreed to go with him out of the goodness of her heart, and he wasn’t sure it had anything to do with quieting down the island gossips. She might be looking to lay some groundwork for her future exit plan, but that didn’t ring entirely true. There was something more.
Still, he couldn’t help the feeling of satisfaction that was coursing through him. She’d agreed to come with him. Out of everyone on the island, he couldn’t think of a better date. Even if she was hiding something from him.
To his left, the side door opened. All eyes turned to the woman who strode in. Ellie, Daphne’s sister, dropped her purse and blew a raspberry, pushing her disheveled brown hair off her forehead. “You will not believe what just happened!” She crashed into a chair and regaled them with a story involving a run through the forest and a supposed cougar that turned out to be the neighbor’s dog, and all the old ladies in the room hooted with laughter.
Beside Calvin, Daphne seemed to shrink into the couch. All the attention in the room had been sucked up by Ellie’s entrance, but his eyes were drawn to the wrinkle in her brow and the way the sparkle had faded from her eyes. She listened to her sister’s story, and something like sadness entered her expression.
She met Calvin’s gaze when he nudged her with his shoulder.
“You still want to do this?” Calvin asked quietly.
“Do what?”
“You know what.”
Her lips curled ever so slightly, but the sadness he’d caught hadn’t quite left her eyes. “I don’t know what I want anymore.”
Calvin wondered what was making her look so down. He wondered why, exactly, she’d agreed to be his date. He wondered why her grandmother had questioned him so strangely. But mostly he wondered about whether Daphne was looking forward to their date, even the tiniest bit.
Before he could probe her for answers, Ceecee came back in the room with Helen. His little sister’s voice was bright as she said, “At least my aunt Kathy will be happy that there’s enough time for Daphne to learn the choreography. She started teaching it to Jenna Deacon, but Jenna was really bad, and Kathy was getting super frustrated. I had to go hide in my room for a while because I knew she was soooooo mad. And really, it’s not that hard. Even a baby could learn the steps. I can help Daphne, but only if she’s better than Jenna Deacon. I don’t think anyone can help Jenna Deacon. She dances like a malfunctioning robot.”
Calvin felt Daphne go still beside him, and his own muscles seized up. Brows tugging low over his eyes as he caught his little sister’s gaze, he couldn’t help the tightness of his voice as he asked, “What’s this about choreography?”