Chapter Nine
Meal eaten. Death discussed. General chitchat handled.
I couldn’t concentrate through any of it. Every teacher I ever had said I was prone to daydreaming. My wild imagination would take off and get me in trouble as I made up grand stories. I preferred to think of what I did as creative license or a healthy extrapolation of facts. Gram used the words “embellishing”
and “exaggerating.” Two things I clearly grew out of, but the name on the ledger was an actual thing.
Abigail Burns bought a pie from Gram and Celia. The pie had been delivered one day before her husband died. Gram and Celia were acting weird and getting weirder by the second. They had absolutely reacted to the news about the nasty husband being dead, and not in the usual town gossip kind of way.
I needed help to figure this out. An accomplice. An ally.
I settled for Jackson.
He put his dirty dishes in the sink, said his round of thank-yous, gave kisses to Gram and Celia, and headed back for what appeared to be the night shift portion of his legal job. I caught up to him as soon as he stepped out the door and into the warm night.
“Jackson.”
He stopped at the sound of my whisper-yell. “Why are you talking like that?”
I grabbed his arm and pulled him a few more feet away from the house. You know, just in case. “We have a problem.”
“We?”
He made everything difficult. “Gram and Celia.”
His skeptical expression morphed into concern. “What about them?”
“Something is wrong.”
“With dinner? The pork was delicious as usual.”
“Not the cooking.”
I leaned in closer. Just far enough to smell him because I was human and weak and he always smelled amazing, tonight being no exception. “I need you to listen.”
He made a weird, strangled sound. “I’m trying.”
“This is about the poison. Well, not really. It’s about Celia and Gram and their sneaky behavior. Their odd reactions. Secrets.”
I tightened my hold on his arm. Took a second to appreciate the muscle under my hand. “Actually, maybe it is about the poison. Not intentionally because I can’t see Gram and Celia doing that but something. I can’t tell what.”
“What are you talking about?”
He genuinely looked confused and how was that possible? “Did you fall asleep during dinner?”
“I’m starting to think so.”
Fine. I’d spell it out. “Cash Burns and his wife.”
“Are you okay? You’re acting stranger than usual, and that’s saying something.”
This time he did the touching. His hand went to my waist and stayed there. Those impressive fingers brushed over the hem of my shirt. I didn’t need soothing, but I didn’t hate it. We never touched in a non-sibling way . . . except once . . . and oh, boy.
For a second, nothing moved. The sound of crickets and wind blowing through the trees filled in the background. The air felt sticky, signaling impending storms. It was near sundown, but I could see Jackson’s face.
I had to swallow three times before I could say a word.
“It’s easier to show you what I mean.”
I pulled out my cell then flipped through the photos, landing on the one with the notation about Abigail. “Do you see that?”
His body circled around mine as he leaned in closer. My brain short-circuited.
“Is that a photo of a computer screen?” he asked.
Two more swallows. “It’s the business ledger for the dessert shop.”
He stepped back. “Why do you have that?”
“That’s not the point.”
He moved on to frowning. Big-time frowning. “I disagree.”
He wasn’t wrong but that. Right there. He killed the mood. Sure, I was the only one reacting to the mood or even noticing there was a mood, but whatever.
I put a few more inches between us as I struggled to explain without suggesting I’d been snooping, which I had. “I was in Gram’s office because I was worried the business ran into financial trouble. I didn’t know about Cash Burns’s death yet. But the spreadsheet was there.”
He looked amused now. “Magically?”
“I didn’t use that word.”
“You accidentally took photos of it?”
Yes, my behavior sucked. I’d apologize once I knew for sure nothing was going on with Gram and Celia. “We can argue about this later but—”
“Oh, we will. You may have forgotten but I’m a lawyer.”
How in the world could I forget that? “I didn’t steal the ledger and you’re not a prosecutor. Calm down.”
He shook his head. “Every conversation with you goes like this.”
That seemed unnecessary. I was trying to help here. “What does that mean?”
“Kasey, you . . .”
He visibly grabbed for control. The tension rolling over him eased. “Okay. Fine. That argument can wait.”
I should have moved on but the need to defend myself, at least a little, pulled at me. “You know they hide bad news from me.”
“The heart issue. Yes.”
He nodded. “I know that’s a constant worry for you. I worry, too. I also agree Mags didn’t handle the situation well, but it happened two years ago.”
That argument didn’t persuade me at all. “Do you think Gram and Celia have radically changed their ways in the last two years?”
“Good point.”
He blew out a long breath that sounded like he’d hoisted the white flag of surrender . . . for now. “Tell me why you think this spreadsheet or ledger or whatever it is matters.”
“The star.”
He didn’t react to my epiphany, which made me think my imagination had run a little wild on this. I tried again anyway. “Do you know what the star means?”
“Something that’s none of your business?”
Fair but not helpful. “I’m serious.”
“I’m not sure why you think I’m not.”
I needed a new accomplice. Until I found one, Jackson was it. Unfortunately. “There’s only a star on a few deliveries and it’s on the delivery that went to Abigail. The next day, her husband was dead.”
Still nothing from Jackson but a blank stare.
“What if this all goes together somehow?”
I didn’t have the fancy law degree, but I had experience with Gram and Celia, and that poison talk at the table definitely made them jumpy. No question about it. True, the timing could be nothing. But it could also be something, and if it was something, Celia and Gram needed our help. No way they’d ask for it, so we’d have to insist. “Do you need me to walk through the facts again?”
I saw the second he understood my point. I also heard it because his eyes went wide then he laughed. “Oh, come on.”
“I offered to help them with the business. To file, do books, whatever. Gram and Celia were adamantly against it.”
“I wonder why. You’re the obvious person to help.”
His flat voice telegraphed his sarcasm.
“Now you’re just being rude.”
His mouth opened twice before he actually said anything. “First, we don’t know if Cash was poisoned. So let’s not invite trouble.”
Easy for him to say. “That’s not really how I operate.”
“No kidding.”
He smiled. “Second, Mags and Celia sell a ton of pies. Abigail is probably a regular customer, like a lot of people in town.”
Every word he said made sense, but I wasn’t in the mood for a rational argument. We were dealing with a very unlikely scenario here. My reaction probably grew out of my need for a distraction from my business mess, but sometimes shocking things happened. My life was a testament to that. This could be one of those times.
“What about the star? It could mean—”
“That Abigail has an allergy they have to be careful of. That she likes extra coconut in her coconut cream pie.”
He exhaled as if he’d given a big speech. “There are a million reasons why they’d use a star and none of them are about poison.”
Logic. I recognized it but didn’t appreciate it at the moment. Something—money, poison, health—had gone wrong with Gram and Celia. The gnawing panic inside me told me that much and they weren’t talking.
“You are off on a wild tangent here,” he said.
He really did suck the life out of everything and made it boring. “But the man is dead.”
“Cash probably has a huge amount of stress because of his business and his son. That Austin guy would be exhausting to have in the family.”
“You say that now. It would have been nice if you’d stepped up and defended me at Christmas.”
Back then he’d shot me a look that said behave and scurried off with Anna hanging on his arm.
“I did.”
“What?”
“I backed you up at the club. After you left.”
What he was saying didn’t have any relationship to reality. “Again, what?”
He shrugged. “The club manager got caught in the middle. He didn’t want to ruin his business relationship with Mags and Celia or upset the other members. So, I calmed down Cash and my dad. I demanded Austin apologize, and he did.”
Look at Jackson being all chivalrous. “No way.”
“It was a half-assed apology, of course, but the girl said she was satisfied. Cash made Austin leave and cool off. The club then suspended him for a month. Not a perfect resolution, but it was more responsibility than Austin usually took for his actions.”
Backing me up was sweet and decent. But Jackson had hidden his help, which made no sense. “You never told me any of this.”
“My negotiation skills come in handy sometimes.”
I stared into his eyes, ready for him to make a joke or pull away. He didn’t do either. He matched my stare. We stood there until the roar of a car engine passing by broke the spell.
Despite being unable to swallow, I cleared my throat. “Right.”
“Yeah.”
“Yep.”
What else could I say?
“Mm-hmm.”
I heard the hitch in his breathing and tried to calm mine down. “Exactly.”
We needed to stop before we ran out of useless words. I took a giant step back this time and inhaled nice and deep, hoping a flood of fresh air would help restart my brain.
“Look, I have to get back to the office and work for a few hours. Tomorrow is Friday. We’ll have dinner and you can plead your case,”
Jackson said in typical lawyer fashion. “Then I’ll poke holes in it, and we can formally put the issue to rest.”
“You’re mighty sure of yourself.”
“Yes, and after we finish that topic you can tell me what you’re really doing in town.”
How did he circle back to that? “I told you. A visit.”
“I’ve set out my terms.”
Smooth. Impressive, really, but his look of satisfaction made me want to fight harder. “Fine, but it’s possible I’ll win the argument.”
His smile hit full wattage. “There’s a first time for everything.”
I refused to let him have the last word. “You’ll see.”