Chapter 4 #2
“I think so.” Holly kept her face angled toward the pastry case, her voice steady enough that anyone watching would think she was discussing inventory. “She always sits by the window.”
Reid looked toward the street, then the reflections in the darkening windows. Tonight the glass showed the room back to itself, warm light and moving figures layered over the rain outside. During daylight, anyone across the street could see in clearly. At night, the vulnerability reversed.
“Where are the blinds?” he asked.
“I don’t have blinds.”
He lifted his brows. “Why not?”
She lifted one hand. “Historic storefront. I wanted the windows open so it’s warm and inviting.”
He didn’t say what she already knew. Open, warm, and inviting also meant visible.
Across the room, the silver-haired woman touched the book beside her and said something that made the rest of the table fall silent.
Holly heard it. Reid could tell by the way her hand closed around the stack of small plates.
She recovered quickly, carrying the plates over with a softness that belonged to grief rather than service.
“Nell must be running late,” the silver-haired woman said when Holly reached the table. “Should we go ahead and order for her?”
Holly glanced back at him. The club members didn’t know. Nell’s attack hadn’t been made public. He nodded.
“Sure.” Holly’s voice held. Reid didn’t know how, but it held. “Cinnamon, no whipped cream?”
The woman nodded. “That’s right.”
“I’ll bring it over.”
Reid turned toward the counter, putting his back to them as Holly returned. “That couldn’t have been easy. You handled it well.”
Holly gave him one brief glance, then walked him through the process of making the cocoa. Milk, chocolate, cinnamon, no whipped cream. He watched her hands as she worked, steady and efficient, though the moment had to be cutting at her. “It feels deceitful,” she said softly. “Not to tell them.”
“Hopefully, when you can, you’ll have better news to share.”
When the drink was ready, Reid expected her to carry it over herself. Instead, she set it on the tray and held it out. “You take it.”
He carried the cup to the book club, placed it beside the yellow book, and stepped back. “Did you enjoy this month’s selection?” he asked.
Responses were mixed and passionate enough that he gathered the book had either changed lives or ruined a perfectly good week, depending on which end of the table answered.
As he returned to the counter, the second group came in with more noise. The courthouse retirees arrived like a weather system, laughing over one another, shaking rain from hats, carrying card decks, score pads, and old grudges with equal enthusiasm.
They claimed the long tables, and within two minutes, they’d rearranged chairs, argued about rules, and ordered enough coffee to suggest none of them planned to sleep tonight.
Reid recognized one of them before the man saw him.
Hank Toler had been a bailiff in his grandfather’s courtroom for more years than Reid could count.
He was older now, his shoulders rounded, his hair gone white, but his voice still carried the gravelly authority that could silence a gallery by clearing his throat.
He stood near the counter studying the menu with narrowed eyes, as if he needed a new eyeglass prescription but was too stubborn to get it.
Holly reached for a mug. “Evening, Hank. Usual?”
“Depends. You still watering down the coffee for the tourists?”
“I save the dangerous stuff for you.”
“Good girl.”
Reid stepped closer with a stack of clean spoons, and Hank’s eyes narrowed again, then widened. “Well, I’ll be damned. Reid Fleming.”
Reid offered his hand. “Good to see you, Mr. Toler.”
Hank ignored the hand and pulled him into a back-thumping hug that made the spoons rattle. “Mr. Toler, my ass. You call me Hank. You’re not twelve anymore.”
“No, sir.”
“Still stubborn, I bet, though, ain’t cha? Just like your grandfather.” Hank stepped back and looked him over. “Your sister tell you I asked after him?”
“She did.”
“Did she tell you I called him a mule-headed old tyrant for not coming to cards?”
“Also, yes.”
Hank jabbed a finger toward him. “That man needs to get out of the house. We’ve got room at the table, and Dottie cheats badly enough to keep him entertained.”
Behind him, a woman with short gray hair and bright red glasses lifted her coffee. “I don’t cheat.”
“Liar,” Hank called back.
Reid felt a smile pull at his mouth despite the day. “I’ll tell him he’s invited.”
“Tell him if he doesn’t come, I’ll show up at his house with pinochle cards and no mercy.”
Hank’s teasing eased some tightness Reid hadn’t realized he’d been carrying.
His grandfather had been fading from public life by inches, first declining invitations because he was tired, then because his knee hurt, then because remembering names took more effort than he wanted anyone to notice.
Reid had come home to help, but help often felt like standing outside a locked door, listening to a man he loved retreat from the world.
Holly set Hank’s coffee on the counter. “I’ll have Roni tell the judge that I’ll make lemon scones if he comes.”
Hank picked up the mug and gave her a fond look. “That might do what my threats can’t.”
Holly was busy ringing Hank up, but her expression had softened in a way that made Reid’s chest tighten. She remembered his grandfather’s favorite. Of course she did. Holly built rooms out of details other people missed.
“You working here now?” Hank asked.
“Filling in to help Holly out,” Reid told him.
Holly slid Hank’s change across the counter. “It’s temporary.”
Hank carried his coffee back to the card table, and the evening settled into motion. The book club talked quietly in the corner. At one point, they asked Holly if she’d heard anything from Nell.
Holly shook her head, not looking at them. “Maybe she’s sick or didn’t want to come out in the rain.”
“I’ve tried texting and calling her,” the woman who’d saved Nell a seat said. “I’m getting no answer.”
Panic skated across Holly’s face, but she didn’t look at Reid. “I’m sure she’ll be in touch soon.”
“Oh, you know Nell,” one of the other women said with a dismissive wave. “She probably stopped at the library and forgot the time.”
The group returned to their discussion, which sounded to Reid more like gossip than plot or character insights.
The retirees played cards with enough commentary to count as a civic event. Holly moved between the two tables, pouring refills and taking orders.
At the card table, Hank mentioned courthouse security changes and grumbled that the new generation wouldn’t know a proper chain of custody if it bit them.
Dottie with the red glasses asked Reid if he knew how to play euchre, then told him never mind, he had the face of a man who counted cards and ruined fun.