Chapter 13 Willow
WILLOW
“Are all the drunk people really going to appreciate these garlands?” I complain to myself as I haul the sled full of evergreen boughs through the Christmas market.
Maybe I should have taken Hughes up on his offer for a date.
Not a date. Just beer and pizza. “You can’t let a man buy you food then insist he perform manual labor for your granny. ”
Breathing hard, I adjust the pull on the sleigh and make sure I’m not about to lose any garlands. I need to lay off the cookies. Though, speaking of cookies, a gingerbread latte would be really good right now. A girl needs caffeine if she’s going to perform unpaid labor for her grandmother.
The Jingle Bites Café is bustling.
It’s a small town, and I’m not the only one with a sleigh, carriage, or dog stroller of packages from the Christmas market parked outside.
“Oh!” Rose exclaims when she sees me. “Did you come to get Hollis’s bag? She left it here.”
“Oh, uh, no, but I’ll take it to her,” I promise Rose before she can protest.
I bus a few tables then grab a tray and extra napkins and take them out into the café, wondering if it would be super un-feminist of me to try wheedling Hughes into lugging all my garlands home to Gran.
Weird… there’s that tall, svelte woman with the glossy hair again. Where do I know her from…?
“Oof! Sorry, Mrs. Levensworth!” I apologize as I drop Hollis’s bag, my phone, and the napkins all over the floor. “Shoot, shoot, shoot.” I scoop everything up to dump Hollis’s stuff back into her tote.
Then stare.
There, at the bottom of the bag, is a tiny toy train.
“What the what?” I take it out.
It’s a model train like Gideon sells in his shop, still in its little plastic box.
No freaking… no way. Is Hollis the murderer?
I dump the napkins on the nearest table and hurry outside.
“Oh, hey, Willow.”
“Hughes, oh my gosh.”
He gives me an odd look and adjusts the duffel bag over his shoulder. “Gran made me clear out my murder clues. I thought I could stash them here. If that’s still okay…”
“Here, with Hollis?” I squawk. “Um, actually—”
“Oh, I mean, it’s okay if I can’t stay here.” He shuffles his feet.
“Uh, no, I’m not leaving anyone out in the cold.” I laugh nervously, looking over my shoulder. “But actually, I think you’re just going to bunk with me and Gran tonight. Yep. That’s the plan.”
“Aren’t you busy? I know you were party planning.” He gives me a quizzical look.
“Yes, I have a thousand pounds of garland here.” I gesture wildly. “We need to talk.”
“About the case? Did you find another clue?”
“Not here,” I hiss and pull him to the side entrance of the shop and into the kitchen.
We’re enveloped by the heat and the smell of cookies. I immediately start sweating.
Hughes unbuttons the trench coat. “So, what d’ya got? Crack the case wide open?”
I drool at him. He gives me a questioning look as he peels off that stupid trench coat to reveal a stupidly hot body. What kind of man has a body like that and hides it under a trench coat?
“I, um—” I’m going to pass out. “Well, there’s been a development,” I squawk.
“You don’t look so good. What happened?” He grabs my face. “Willow, what is it?”
“I want to have sex with you.” Actually, no, that’s not what I say.
“Just, gosh, it’s warm in here.” I shove Hollis’s bag at him, drag off my coat, and fan myself.
Yeah, I really need to start working out or something.
This is ridiculous. “I think—okay, this is going to sound crazy, but I think Hollis is the murderer.”
He huffs out a laugh. “Hollis? She’s so friendly, and she likes to bake. Isn’t she your right-hand man?”
“Means, motive, opportunity.” I tick off the items on my fingers.
“Motive?”
I pull the little train out of her bag. “I’m 100 percent—okay, maybe 90 percent—sure she took this from Dr. Merriweather’s office.
” I show him the photos I’ve taken of the blank space on the shelf.
“It’s a souvenir or a reminder or something of Dr. Merriweather.
And she goes back and forth to my stall all day.
She could have rigged something to murder Jonah. ”
“So, we know she was a patient? And if so, what would he have done to make her murder him?”
I shrug. “Cheating on her with Taylor Grace?”
“We actually don’t know that they were sleeping together,” Hughes argues.
“You’re so na?ve.”
He pulls out his phone.
“Are you calling the police?”
“I’m checking the log of names… Hmm,” he says. “I don’t see a Hollis.”
“Darn.”
Frowning, he looks harder at the list of names we got from the therapist. “Is Hollis her actual name?”
“Uh, no. It’s Katie Hollister. There were a lot of Katies in class that year—”
“Here it is. Katherine Hollister. Damn, Willow. I think you just found us another suspect.”
“Shit, maybe those are her underwear. I need to—” I look back toward the Christmas market and my stall, where Hollis is currently. “It’s all circumstantial. I need more clues.”
My phone rings.
“Gran… yes, we’re coming—Hughes, let’s walk and talk,” I tell him, gesturing.
“Oh, you’re with a man? Never mind.” Gran cackles on the other end of the line. “That Airbnb-er was complaining to me that you’re running some sort of cathouse out of the shed.”
I clap a hand to my face while a smirk plays around Hughes’s mouth.
“No, that’s not what’s going on here.”
“Good. Now, you know I’m on Team Willow, but real talk: You’re not in your twenties anymore. You can’t be making a man like Hughes pay to have sex with you. Now, a man like Trudy’s son? Yeah, go ahead and make him pay. Make him shower too.”
“Okay, thanks for the advice. I’ll definitely incorporate that into my day-to-day life. Gotta go. See you in a bit.”
Hughes has a sly grin on his face. “You look cute in that sweater.” His hands circle my waist. “I’d definitely pay big bucks to have sex with you.”
I’m not going to think about him spying on me, I tell myself firmly. It’s not hot. It’s embarrassing. “Say, do you want to—” I grab his bicep. It’s as hard as a rock under the black turtleneck. “Do you want to use those big, strong man muscles”—Willow, what actual the fuck?—“to haul some garlands?”
“Yeah,” he says, his lip catching in his teeth. “Yeah? On one condition. You let me take you out on our pizza-and-beer date.”
“Okay,” I squawk. “It’s a date.”