Chapter 37 Avery
AVERY
I headed straight for Sugar Pine Creamery. I had a lot of questions and none of them were well formulated enough for me to be ready to talk to Beck, Noah, or Dane. They didn’t even know I was nosing around Harold’s death.
Except when I got to the ice cream shop, it was dark inside, the Closed sign hanging on the glass door.
Darn it.
I eyed the Crumb next door. Beck would be there making more doughy goodness while Malcolm — if he was working — bopped to Bakery Beats.
No, I wanted to talk to Lena on this one.
I shot her a text and was relieved when she answered right back. She closed the shop on Tuesdays, but she gave me her address in town and told me to come over.
According to my phone it was less than a ten-minute walk from Main Street, so I started moving, turning off Main and entering an unfamiliar residential neighborhood that must have run behind Aunt Evelyn’s house on Foxglove Lane.
The houses were more modest here, but they were all neat and well maintained, a pretty row of Arts and Crafts-style houses, bungalows, and cottages, all with freshly cut lawns and colorful flower beds.
The afternoon sun had just started to dip in the sky, but it was still warm, a sure sign of the impending summer. I tried to imagine myself back in the city, the sound of horns honking and people yelling instead of birds singing and lawn mowers humming.
It was almost impossible. My other life seemed a world away. Even more confusing, I wasn’t sure I missed it.
I thought about the promotion I’d been promised late last year, but instead of excitement, I only felt resignation, like it was a consolation prize instead of the position I’d coveted since I’d first started at Livable Cities.
I wasn’t thinking straight. Harold’s murder and my sexual experimentation with Beck and Noah — not to mention my lingering hunger for Dane — were like hypnotic fog in my brain.
I needed to focus.
I was approaching the blue dot on the map that was Lena’s house when I spotted a familiar figure bounding up the steps of a narrow two-story Victorian with yellow paint.
I did a double take, wondering if I was seeing things.
But nope. It was Dane.
My heart skipped a beat at the sight of him, looking as yummy as ever in dark jeans and a T-shirt that showed off his cut biceps and tattoos. His face was tan under his short dark hair, and his watch shimmered when it caught the sun.
He knocked on the door, waited for it to open, then stepped inside.
My stomach twisted. Did Dane have a girlfriend? Or a girl that he was seeing?
Jealousy reared its ugly head. My night with Beck and Noah had been hotter than hot, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t still fantasizing about Dane.
It had been a mistake to get naked in the courtroom at the town hall, but I hadn’t stopped thinking about the next time I could get naked with him, especially since Beck and Noah seemed amenable to group playtime.
Now I had to resist the urge to march up the walkway of the house next to Lena’s, yank on the door, and make a reality-TV-level scene on the porch.
I forced myself to breathe. Dane wasn’t my boyfriend. He didn’t owe me anything, especially since I was fucking his two roommates.
I got myself under control, turned up the walkway to Lena’s house, and rang the bell.
She opened the door a few seconds later, her brilliant smile lighting up her face.
“Hey! Glad you found… it.” Her smile faded. “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head, feeling stupid. I’d come to tell her about the slides and now I was upset because I’d seen Dane going into someone else’s house.
She grabbed my arm and pulled me inside a cozy foyer with dark wood floors and pale blue walls. “Come on.”
She led me up a set of narrow stairs at the front of the house.
“Lena? Is that your friend?” an older woman called out.
“Yeah, Gram. We’ll be down in a few.” Lena pulled me into a bedroom on the second floor and I knew immediately it was hers.
The walls were lime green, brightly colored pennants hanging from the corners. A chandelier hung overhead, casting rainbows over the room from multicolored glass shades, and her furniture was painted in happy, bright colors that somehow didn’t clash with all the other color in the room at all.
“My gram is dying to feed you,” Lena said. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. And she’s a good cook, so there’s that.”
“You live with your grandmother?” I asked.
“I’m saving money for a second store in Carleton,” she said. “Or maybe Blackwell Falls.”
“Oh wow, that’s awesome.” My mind was spinning between Dane, the brightly colored room that made me feel like I’d eaten too much sugar, and the new information about Lena’s life.
She sat on the edge of the bed. “Sit. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I came to tell you something about Harold,” I said, sitting next to her.
“Yeah, but that’s not what’s wrong, is it?”
I shook my head. “I saw Dane going into the house next door.”
She lifted her eyebrows like she was waiting for me to say something else. “And…?”
“I just… I guess I didn’t realize he might have a girlfriend.”
“A girlfriend?” She looked confused, but then her eyes widened, like she’d just solved a puzzle. “Oh! You think he’s next door visiting a girl!”
“You said he didn’t have family.”
She smiled. “Wow, you’ve really got it bad, huh?”
“I have no right to be jealous. Like… no right.” I wasn’t anywhere near ready to tell Lena I’d already slept with Beck and Noah.
“Well, you’re in luck. You have zero need — that I know of — to be jealous. Dane’s just working on Harmony House.”
“Harmony House?”
“It’s kind of like a halfway house for foster teenagers who can’t find homes. Mrs. Diaz runs it.”
“Wait… Dane works with foster kids?”
“Well, teenagers… yeah. He keeps the house in order for Mrs. Diaz, stops in to do repairs and stuff, hangs with the kids, teaches them how to fix leaky faucets and running toilets, that kind of thing.” She hesitated. “I think it’s because of how he grew up.”
The thought of Dane growing up in foster care and spending his free time as an adult helping other foster kids made me want to ugly cry.
“I didn’t know.” It wasn’t the first time a revelation about Dane had thrown me for a loop, but it was definitely the biggest loop. It was hard to imagine Dane — gruff, cold Dane — acting like an older brother to a bunch of teenagers living in a foster home.
“I’m not sure anyone knows, except for Mrs. Diaz and the kids. I only know because the house is next door and Mrs. Diaz told my gram that she didn’t know what she would do without Dane. Apparently he pays for the repair supplies and everything, and the kids love him.”
“Wow…” I looked at my lap. “I feel so stupid.”
“Don’t feel stupid! You must really like him.”
“Like” wasn’t the word that would have come to mind even an hour ago when thinking about Dane, but now I realized she was right.
I did really like him.
He could be aloof and critical and thorny, but he cared about the people around him. It wasn’t a show-off kind of caring — he didn’t want credit for it or even attention — but it was the kind of caring that counted.
A brings-flowers-to-the-cemetery-when-no-one-is-looking caring.
A gets-you-out-of-a-tight-spot-even-when-you-don’t-ask caring.
A shows-up-to-help-without-fanfare caring.
“I guess I do really like him.” I laughed a little. “I don’t think I realized it until just now.”
She grinned. “You could do a lot worse.”
I took a deep breath and realized I felt better. “Thanks.”
“That’s what friends are for. Now, you said you found something on the slides from the meeting?”
I took out my phone and pulled up the picture I’d taken of the image from the slide. “The slides had plans for the Hearthstone development, not just plans for the gated community but for a marina and a golf course too.”
She peered at the picture on my phone. “A golf course?”
I nodded. “And there are other notes too, suggested relocation of power lines and water access. And look…” I pointed to one of Harold’s initials.
“‘HP…'” Her eyes widened. “Wait… are you saying Harold Pembroke was working with Hearthstone to get the development approved?”
“Is there anyone else you can think of with the initials HP?”
She furrowed her brow. “I mean, I’m sure there’s someone in town with those initials, but no one on the town board, no one I can think of that would have anything to do with the Hearthstone development.”
I chewed my lip. “What if it was someone at Hearthstone? An executive signing off on proposed changes?”
“It’s possible,” Lena admitted. “But if it wasn’t, if Harold was working with Hearthstone instead of against it… well, it changes everything.”
“Exactly.”
“Shit.” Lena looked at me. “You should take this to Sheriff Crowe.”
“It’s not proof it was Harold though.”
“She can sort that out,” Lena said. “It’s her job.”
“Maybe…”
“No, not maybe.” Lena’s voice was surprisingly firm. “Going to the town meeting is one thing. Nosing around the Hearthstone development is another. Don’t forget that Harold was murdered over it.”
Technically we didn’t know that, but I got her point.
I tapped my foot, thinking. “I’d just feel better if I could bring her some proof the signature was Harold’s.”
Lena looked worried. “Listen, we haven’t known each other long, but tell me you’ll take this to Sheriff Crowe. It’s been a minute since I’ve had a real friend. I’d rather not lose you to some psycho killer when we’re just getting to know each other.”
“I will.”
And I would, but Sheriff Crowe had made it clear she wanted me to wash my hands of Harold’s murder. I wasn’t looking to be a hero, but if I was going to admit to ignoring the sheriff I wanted to bring her evidence, not unsubstantiated theories.
Besides, this was Blackwell Hollow. I was perfectly safe.