Chapter 19 Willow
WILLOW
“Idid what?” Damien groans next to me in the cell the next morning. We’ve spent all night crammed in a cell with a number of seniors who came for their annual holiday pilgrimage from Florida and were singing Christmas carols drunkenly. “I ain’t killed nobody.”
“Me neither!” I protest. “Damien confessed. Why am I here?”
“Didn’t,” Damien slurs.
“You’re an accomplice, Willow. And we have a video of you confessing,” the cops explain.
“The police in this town are incompetent!” I screech and rattle the bars.
The worst part? The murderer is long gone with their bloody coat from Gran’s house.
Damien leans over to puke.
“We also,” interjects the police chief, a big, burly man with a bad sunburn and an even worse attitude, “have several witnesses to you wandering the Christmas market, screaming your head off about how your wife was cheating on you and was trying to steal your money.”
“She is trying to steal my money, Uncle! You need to tell Taylor Grace that I started the divorce proceedings. I want a restraining order against her—and the guy she’s cheating on me with.”
“Dr. Merriweather,” I tell the police chief, filling him in.
Damien wrinkles his nose.
The police chief swears. “Well, both of them are dead.”
“Wait, Taylor is actually dead? Like, you’re not just fucking with me? Uncle Ralph, my wife is dead?” Damien sits heavily on the floor.
“Now don’t cry, pet,” one of the elderly women says to him as he buries his face in his hands. “My husband keeled over dead one day in the ’80s, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Chewing on a toothpick, the police chief glares down at Damien, then he grunts.
Does he think Damien is innocent? “Willow. Your bail’s been posted.
You’re free to go. You cannot,” he warns, “leave town. Can’t believe this shit.
I leave town for five days—I have a five-day vacation—and it all goes to shit. ”
I follow him out into the chilly lobby.
Hughes wraps me up in a hug. “Are you all right?” He cups my face. “I tried to get you out sooner. They wouldn’t let me, even though Nana said they usually take bribes.”
“Wait, you bailed me out?” My eyes search his.
“The amount they’re charging for bail these days!” His grandmother is horrified.
“They upped it because of the Christmas season.”
“This town is run by the Mafia!” Nana shakes her fist in the direction of the police chief, who looks like he would rather be anywhere but dealing with the general public.
“He sprung you out of jail.” Gran tries to wipe at my face. “You need to let him hit that, girlie. Man puts up that much bail money, he should get to open as many Advent calendar doors as he wants. You feel me?” She swats my hip. “Go get ’em.”
“You probably want to go home,” Hughes tells me. He still looks concerned.
“Can’t,” Gran states. “The new Airbnb-ers are there. They want their dog to stay in your shed. You’ll have to stay at Mary Lou’s carriage house.” My grandmother winks at me. “I’m your best wingwoman.”
“I should, um…” After a murder and a night in jail, I really just want a shower, but is that weird?
I mean, getting naked with just a door between me and the guy I like seems like a big step to make on no sleep.
“I really need to go clean my shop. I need to get it open again. I can’t keep hemorrhaging money. ”
“Well, thankfully, Taylor Grace is dead, so you don’t have to.”
There is a small crowd outside my shop when I walk up, Hughes protectively beside me. I pull at the caution tape over the door and step inside. Instead of the smell of freshly baked cookies, it smells like death.
“I don’t think I can do this.” I slump into a chair.
“Let me make you some tea. Peppermint?”
“Black tea. I need some caffeine,” I groan.
The kettle boils.
“Willow,” Hughes says then waits a beat.
“What?”
“Never mind. I just wanted to ask you, well…” He trails off.
“What?” I snap at him. “You think I did it? You think I killed Taylor Grace?”
“No, that’s not—I was going to ask you if you were okay staying with me tonight in the carriage house.”
I immediately feel bad for being mean.
This is why you’re alone…
“So,” I whisper, “you don’t think I’m a murderer?”
“Even if you are,” he whispers, “I still want to kiss you. I wanted to kiss you last night.”
“Do you think an overnight is a little too soon? We haven’t even held hands yet.”
He leans in, lacing his fingers with mine. “I think we can fix that.”
And then he does—slowly at first, tentatively, like we’re testing the edges of something dangerous.
His hand finds my jaw, thumb tracing along my cheek, anchoring me in the quiet chaos of the moment.
For one suspended second, the world narrows to the heat of his mouth and the wild hammering of my heart.
When we finally break apart, he whispers, “You never actually said that you definitely didn’t kill your business partner. Still think I should be worried?”
“Only if you stop kissing me,” I say and pull him back in. I press kisses to his mouth and jaw. “For the record, I did not kill Taylor Grace. Not that I haven’t bought a voodoo doll or two, hoping the universe will take her out.”
He laughs, nuzzling my nose with his. Giddy from the lack of sleep and the feeling of being in his arms, I wrap my arms around his neck.
“Oh!” Hollis stands wide-eyed in the doorway. “I didn’t realize you were…”
“Um…” I jump back from Hughes.
He still keeps my hand in his.
“Just, uh…”
“I’m here to clean up,” Hollis says, her eyes red and puffy.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I—I feel like I should. I—” She sounds like she’s about to cry.
“There’s a lot of blood. I’ll take care of it. You should go home.” I shoo her to the door. “Rose is at the stall.”
“I can’t just sit at home,” Hollis frets. “I just—I don’t understand how this happened. And the police don’t know anything. They can’t find her phone, and they aren’t even trying to solve this case.”
“Maybe we should just let well enough alone,” Hughes says. “As long as we can prove Willow didn’t do it, then what’s the problem?”
Hollis gives him a long look. “Yeah, I guess so. I’ll take the last of the sugarplum truffles to the stall,” she tells me, grabbing a napkin to wipe her eyes.
I lock the door behind her.
Hughes starts filling a bucket with soapy water.
As soon as we’re alone, he kisses me again, right there next to the ovens.
I’m boiling up by the time he releases me.
“I probably should shower before, um…” I pull at my sweater.
“Before I eat your Christmas cookies?” He smirks. Then he dunks a mop into the bucket and starts mopping the floor.
I poke around half-heartedly for cleaning supplies, the tea not doing as much caffeine-wise as I need to wake up.
“So, who do you think killed her?” he asks as I grab a broom and sweep under the counters. The police have tracked in all sorts of leaves. “I mean, I think Lydia was acting weird last night.”
“She wouldn’t kill her own sister, would she?” I wonder.
“Could be Lydia’s husband. My money’s on Damien, though.”
“He says he didn’t do it.” I fill him in on the conversation in the jail cell.
Something metallic clinks on the floor. I almost shout at Hughes to come look, but something stops me. Maybe it’s Hollis’s reaction to him. Maybe it’s how he doesn’t seem upset that Taylor Grace, his client, is gone. Maybe it’s best to play things close to the vest.
“I’m going to dump this water in the drain outside,” Hughes tells me, hefting the bucket.
I nod, watching him leave, then quickly bend down to investigate.
It’s not a piece of metal or a mixer attachment.
It’s a bracelet. I don’t think I’ve seen Taylor Grace wear anything like it.
It looks expensive—a diamond glitters on it.
It’s a delicate piece, the diamond hanging off the chain like a little charm.
Does it belong to the murderer? Are we looking for a woman? If so, she’s a very elegant one.
Then I notice the smell. It’s spicy, pungent, almost tart. These aren’t leaves from the trees outside. They’re something else. I grab a handful and wrap them in a napkin along with the bracelet. I stick them in my pocket right as Hughes comes in, shaking off the snow.
“Find any clues?” Hughes asks with a smile.
I pull him down for a kiss so I don’t have to look into his eyes when I lie. “No.”