Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Daisy
The phone rang while I was on my second cup of coffee, standing at the kitchen window, mentally preparing myself for a full day of appointments.
The name Sheriff Patrick flashed onscreen. I set my mug down and clicked into the call.
“Morning, Daisy. Do have a few minutes?”
“Of course.”
I heard squeaky noises, like he’d settled back in his chair, the way a man did when he was choosing his words carefully. Patrick was not a man who spoke carelessly, which meant that when he called you, you listened.
“I want to start by saying I can’t share much. Frankly, some details your father noted go back further than my time in this office.” A pause. “But I thought you deserved to hear this directly from me.”
“Okay.”
“The things you recalled from your father’s notebooks, the specific incidents he noted, the vehicles, the conversations with my dad—some of those line up with things in the cold case file for his murder.
Things that were never made public. Only someone who was there, or directly involved, would have known. ”
I knew it. Dad wouldn’t have just made things up.
“Your father was watching something happening in real time, and careful enough to document it, which means what he left behind matters.” He paused. “It’s enough for me to believe something terrible was happening at the time. The cold case on my father’s death may not be so cold anymore.”
“What does that mean?” My knees weakened, and I clutched the counter for support.
“I can’t say more right now.”
“I understand.”
“But if the cold case gets reopened and I investigate deeper into what our fathers were digging into, certain people could get upset. No telling what desperate people would do.”
I blinked. “Are you telling me to watch my back?”
“Be careful.” The chair creaked again as he stood. “I just wanted you informed. You’ve earned that. Oh, and one more thing. We ran the prints we found at your house. Other than your sisters, no other prints were found. I think Knox was right. The perpetrators wore gloves.”
“Thanks for letting me know.” After we hung up, I remained at the kitchen counter for some time.
Dad had been seeing something real, written it down in his careful, cramped handwriting, and kept showing up to document it right until the day he and Mom were taken from us.
He had not been paranoid or obsessive. He had been exactly what he always was—methodical, precise, and paying attention when everyone else was looking the other way.
Now someone had possession of his journals. And they probably knew we might have read them, too.
I pressed my hands flat on the cool surface and breathed in deeply. A sick feeling entered my stomach because, without the sheriff naming names, he must have meant the Brewsters.
Be careful, watch my back, because the Brewsters could get upset. Given how my past intersected with Trevor and the congressman, and Dad’s journals supplied a context for reopening the case, could only make things worse for me and my sisters.
I needed to tell Ivy and Sage. I kept things from them before, and they got upset with me. They should know about this call from the sheriff, at least.
My mind was firmly elsewhere on the drive into Forest Grove, running back every word Patrick had said, turning the pieces over.
I was somewhere past the first mile marker when I noticed a truck tailgating me. Sometimes a few lengths back, far enough to be nothing, then whoever it was would speed up and get close enough to keep pace with me.
It was probably nothing. The road led into town, and people drove on it every day. I was rattled by the Sheriff’s call, reading too much into things, that’s all.
I sped up a little more.
The truck did too. I noted the blue color, maybe a Ford. Tinted windows prevented me from seeing the driver when it was close.
I broke out into a cold sweat. Sometimes Trevor would follow me home when I was out in town…
Forget this. I panicked and turned off to the right, two roads before Forest Grove. The truck followed. Another left, down Birch, heading directly into town, and he was still there behind me. My heartbeat raced until at last he fell back and turned before I hit Main Street.
When I parked in front of the Copper Cup, I sat there for a moment, hands on the wheel, gathering myself together, gulping shaky breaths. It was probably nothing, just imagining things. I got out and rushed to find my sisters.
The Copper Cup was its usual mid-morning busy place to be, with half the tables occupied, the smell of coffee and Harper’s fresh pastry coming from the kitchen.
It hummed with people who had nowhere urgent to be, old men and couples leisurely sitting about.
I spotted Sage behind the counter. She handed me a coffee, which was one of the many reasons I was grateful for her at this job.
“Thanks. Can I talk to you in a few minutes ?” I asked.
“Find a seat. I’ll be over.”
I walked around for the best spot, but I noticed the Forest Grove Gossip Gal printed out and tacked to the community board by the door, the way it had been ever since someone anonymously had been creating these.
It was cute and reminded people to keep their humor about things, but I usually ignored it.
Someone had circled a section in pencil, which told me it had been up long enough for people to have opinions about it. I skimmed it until I realized it was all about me and Knox.
The heat that moved up my neck was not from the coffee.
I turned around. Three tables of women had gone a little too quiet, a little too quickly. I heard whispers and saw stares. They all must have read it and presumed to know about me and Knox.
Every single person in this room probably read the part about the truck and the hardware store receipts and jumped to conclusions, and now they were doing the small-town version of trying not to stare, which was essentially just staring with more effort.
I tore it off the board and brought it with my coffee to the counter.
“Sage, do you know who writes this?” I interrupted her with a customer.
She glanced at it, then at me, with the expression of someone walking carefully across uncertain ground. “Uh, no. I honestly don’t know.”
“She’s writing about me. About Knox’s truck.” I pressed my lips together, skimming it again. “Dale from the hardware store? I will never buy another bolt from that man again.”
“Dale did nothing. What’s got you so—“
“I don’t want the whole town in my business, Sage,” I hissed, unable to rein in the edge in my voice. “Or walk into a room and have everyone staring at me like I’m the entertainment—exactly like they are now. I just want to live my life in private.”
Sage grew quiet, her eyes shifty. She knew something and wasn’t saying it.
“She’s rooting for you and Knox,” she chose words carefully. “Everyone is. Only because we care.”
“I don’t need rooting for. I need privacy.”
With that, I pushed off the counter, grabbed my bag, and headed for the door. I glanced back at her, at her hurt face, and wasn’t looking where I was going. The door opened the moment I planned to exit, and I walked right into a solid chest.
Knox caught me by the arms, with Ash a half step behind him, both of them in ranch jackets, mid-conversation about something that ended the moment I crashed into him and his eyes landed on me.
His hands steadied me, like the hero he always was. “Hey—” he started in, his smile smoldering at me in an instant.
I became acutely aware that the coffee shop had gone completely silent behind me, because people couldn’t mind their own business.
I stepped out of his hands.
His eyebrows drew together. “Daisy—”
“Not here,” I said under my breath. “I can’t do this here.”
His jaw worked once. His eyes moved briefly over my face, reading it, cataloguing and deciding in the time it took most people to blink.
“Okay,” he murmured.
I pushed through the door and sprinted to my truck without looking back, before I heard the door again and his boots on the gravel behind me.
I turned at my driver’s side. He stopped a few feet behind me, not crowding me, hands in his jacket pockets, watching me with the patience and concern that I simultaneously relied on and found deeply inconvenient.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted, and I meant it, which did not make it any simpler. “I just couldn’t—not in there. Not with people looking.”
He studied me for a moment. “Are you okay?”
“I will be.”
He did not look entirely convinced, but he did not push. “I’ll come by tonight. After dinner.”
I nodded. “Yes. Come to the house. We’ll talk then.” I scrambled inside my rig.
He held my gaze through the window for one beat longer, and then he went back inside. I exhaled—only caught off guard by a scrap of paper under my windshield wiper that wasn’t there before.
Like déjà vu, I quickly grabbed it and read it. Familiar handwriting scrawled, “It was all your fault,” across it.
“What the hell?” It was happening all over again. The same things that Trevor used to do to me, the following, the lurking, the notes, his obsession with me… I’d been right all along, even probably those times my gut told me someone was out in the orchard spying on me, was probably him.
Panic set in, heart racing, difficulty breathing, shaking.
I had no business being behind the wheel.
As if the note had burned my fingers, I threw it into my bag.
Somehow I managed to start up my rig and drove to my next appointment, constantly eyeing my mirrors for signs of anyone following me the entire way.
When I arrived at my appointment, their horses came into the paddock to greet me.
The owners weren’t around, which suited me perfectly fine.
I preferred horses anyway, the way they could emotionally soothe my soul.
For several minutes, a few of them surrounded me, breathing on me, as if sharing in my pain, knowing I needed protecting from everything in my life.