Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
“What does that even mean?” I asked from the back seat, where I’d spread out my notes on Frank Holloway across my lap.
“It means she found out about Hank and me, and she’s scandalized.”
My head snapped up from my notes. So I’d been right about them.
The casual touches, the way they gravitated toward each other—it hadn’t been my imagination.
Something warm bloomed in my chest at the confirmation, though whether it was happiness for them or envy for what they’d found, I couldn’t quite say.
Dottie’s voice dripped with sarcasm as she continued. “Apparently, seventy-eight-year-old women aren’t supposed to have romantic relationships. We’re supposed to sit quietly in our houses doing needlepoint and waiting for death like proper old ladies.”
Hank chuckled from behind the wheel, his hands positioned at ten and two. “She actually said that?”
“Not in so many words. But she kept saying things like ‘Mother, at your age’ and ‘what would people think’ and ‘have you no sense of propriety?’” Dottie pulled out a compact mirror, checking her lipstick with the critical eye of someone who refused to let age dictate her presentation.
Today’s shade was crimson—bold, unapologetic, perfectly Dottie.
“I told her that I had plenty of propriety, I just chose not to let it dictate my personal life.”
“I’m guessing that didn’t help,” I said.
“Made it worse, actually. She started crying, said I was being reckless and irresponsible, then hung up on me.” Dottie snapped her compact shut with satisfying finality.
“The next day she called my son Gerald to stage an intervention. Gerald—bless him—told her to mind her own business and that I deserved to be happy.”
“At least one of them has sense,” Hank observed.
“Gerald’s always been the practical one.
Takes after me. Veronica takes after her father—all emotion and propriety and worrying about what strangers think.
” Dottie twisted in her seat to look at me fully, and the afternoon light caught the purple frames of her glasses, making them gleam.
“The real issue is that she’s jealous. Forty-five years old, divorced, working eighty-hour weeks at a job that’s eating her alive, and her mother is having more fun than she is. That’s what’s really bothering her.”
The landscape rolled past us—spartina grass waving in the breeze, egrets picking their way through shallow water, the occasional house on stilts rising from the marsh like a ship anchored in green seas.
The low country had a way of making even difficult conversations feel softer somehow, as if the land itself absorbed the sharp edges of human drama and gentled them into something more bearable.
“My kids aren’t thrilled either,” Hank admitted, taking the exit toward Beaufort. “My daughter Patricia keeps making pointed comments about ‘moving too fast’ and ‘being disrespectful.’”
“That’s complicated,” I said carefully, knowing from the island gossip network that Eleanor had raised Hank’s children after their mother died young. “What does your son think?” I asked.
“Michael doesn’t care one way or the other.
He’s got his own life in Charleston—three kids, demanding job as a marine biologist, no time to worry about his old man’s love life.
He called last week and said as long as I was happy, that’s what mattered.
” Hank’s voice held fondness despite the complicated emotions.
“But Patricia keeps saying Eleanor deserves more respect than this, that I should wait longer before moving on. She actually suggested I wait until the five-year mark, as if grief operates on some kind of official timeline.”
“Five years,” Dottie scoffed. “What’s magical about five years? Does grief expire like milk?”
“According to Patricia, yes.” Hank took a turn a bit wide and earned an annoyed honk from a truck.
He waved dismissively. “Eleanor knew what she was doing though. She told me six months before she died that I wasn’t allowed to mope around after she was gone.
Said she’d haunt me if I turned into one of those widowers who let themselves go to seed. ”
I remembered Eleanor—sharp-tongued, elegant, the kind of woman who’d order Earl Grey and then tell you exactly what you’d done wrong with the steeping.
She’d been a regular at The Perfect Steep, always sitting by the window with her crossword puzzle, making acerbic comments about the tourists who thought iced tea was the same as proper tea.
“She came into my shop every Thursday,” I said. “Always complained that I made the tea too hot, then drank three cups.”
“That was Eleanor,” Hank said. “Complained about everything but kept coming back for more. Drove me crazy for forty-two years, and I loved every minute of it.”
I found myself smiling despite the heaviness of our mission.
There was something deeply comforting about watching two people who’d lived full lives—who’d buried spouses and raised children and survived decades of joy and grief—find each other in the messy middle of it all.
It made the future feel less frightening somehow, as if happiness wasn’t just for the young and uncomplicated.
“Speaking of romantic entanglements,” Dottie said, turning in her seat with predatory interest, “are we going to discuss Sheriff Beckett, or are you going to keep pretending that little goodbye wasn’t dripping with sexual tension?”
Heat flooded my face. “We’re investigating a murder.”
“We’re always investigating something. Doesn’t mean you have to die a nun.
” Dottie’s eyes, magnified behind her cat-eye glasses, were entirely too knowing.
“The man looks at you like you’re water and he’s been wandering the desert for forty days.
It’s actually painful to watch—all that want with nowhere to go. ”
“Leave her alone,” Hank said, though his eyes crinkled with amusement in the rearview mirror. “Not everyone moves at your speed, Dottie.”
“My speed got results. You’re here, aren’t you?”
“Because you told me my beef bourguignon was adequate and then invited yourself over the following Tuesday to see if I could do better with coq au vin.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
I pressed my fingers against my mouth, trying not to laugh. They were terrible together in the best possible way—sharp edges that somehow fit.
“Dash is…” I started, then stopped, unsure how to finish.
“Waiting,” Dottie supplied. “Very patiently, I might add. But patience runs out, honey. Even for sheriffs with sad eyes who look like they stepped out of a film noir.”
“I haven’t noticed—”
“Liar.” Dottie turned back around, studying me in the visor mirror. “You’ve known him five weeks now. Long enough to know if you can see yourself spending your life with him. Either you can or you can’t. Sitting in the middle just wastes everyone’s time.”
The question landed with unexpected weight.
Could I see myself spending my life with Dash Beckett?
The thought should have terrified me—it had only been five weeks, barely enough time to know someone’s coffee order, let alone their soul.
But the problem wasn’t whether I could imagine it.
The problem was that I could imagine it too easily, and that scared me more than not being able to imagine it at all.
“He keeps things close,” I said finally.
“His past, why he really left undercover work, what he’s running from—because he’s definitely running from something.
I can see it in the way he watches doors, the way he goes quiet sometimes like he’s somewhere else entirely.
And I don’t know if he’ll ever trust me enough to let me in. ”
“So you’re worried he’s got secrets,” Dottie said.
“Everyone has secrets. But his feel…bigger. More dangerous. The kind that might matter.”
“Then ask him,” Hank said simply. “Straight out. No dancing around it. You want to know who he is beneath the badge, you ask him to tell you.”
The landscape had begun to shift as we approached Beaufort—marsh giving way to neighborhoods, then to the historic downtown with its antebellum architecture and tree-lined streets.
Live oaks created tunnels of shade that dropped the temperature ten degrees, their branches arching over brick sidewalks and wrought-iron balconies.
Beaufort had the unhurried elegance of old money that didn’t need to announce itself, gardens tended by the same families for generations, history preserved in every careful detail.
Bay Street was busier than expected for a Tuesday afternoon—tourists browsing shop windows, locals running errands, the steady flow of people that kept small downtown districts alive.
“There’s the hardware store,” Hank said, slowing as we approached a brick storefront with cheerful red lettering. “But good Lord, look at this parking situation. There’s not a spot anywhere.”
He was right—every space along Bay Street was occupied, cars parked bumper-to-bumper along the entire block.
“Drop us off in front,” Dottie suggested, already gathering her purse. “You can find parking and meet us inside. No sense in all of us circling like vultures.”
“You sure?” Hank asked, but he was already pulling up to the curb.
“We’ll be fine,” I assured him, tucking Frank Holloway’s folder—the one containing all our questions—into my handbag. “Two harmless ladies asking questions about old times. What could possibly go wrong?”
“That’s what people say right before things go spectacularly wrong,” Hank muttered, but he was unlocking the doors.
Dottie leaned over and kissed his cheek—quick, casual, the kind of gesture that spoke of intimacy and comfort rather than passion. “We’ll be careful. Find a good spot for the Buick. You know how you get when someone parks too close to your doors.”
“That’s because people don’t understand the concept of personal space,” Hank said, but there was affection in his mock indignation.