Chapter 36
By the time Mia and I arrived at the Blue Pelican, the late lunch crowd had thinned, leaving behind a softer hum of conversation and the occasional clink of silverware against plates.
The restaurant sat near the water, bright and airy, with wide windows overlooking the coastline and a row of blue glass pendant lights hanging over the bar.
It was the kind of place people came to enjoy a quiet meal with a view.
Not the kind of place people came to untangle family damage.
But here we were.
Mia slowed as we approached the hostess stand, her gaze shifting toward the dining room. “I don’t see them yet.”
“I’m sure they’ll be here. Renee isn’t going to pass up an opportunity to spend every possible moment with you.”
“Yeah, well, I have mixed feelings about it, as you well know.” She adjusted the strap of her handbag on her shoulder. “I feel bad saying that after they came all this way to see me and offer support.”
The hostess greeted us, and before I could get any words out, a voice rang out from across the dining room. “Mia! You’re here!”
Renee was standing by a table near the windows, waving with enough enthusiasm to direct air traffic. Bryan sat across from her, calm and composed, offering a smile and a wave when he spotted us.
Mia took in a breath.
“You can do this,” I said.
“I know,” though she didn’t sound convinced.
We walked to the table, and Renee stepped into the aisle before Mia had a chance to prepare herself. She hugged Mia again, not in the same forceful manner she had the first time in the driveway, but with enough emotion that Mia’s shoulders tensed.
We sat, and the hostess handed us menus before disappearing into the kitchen.
Renee clasped her hands together on the table, her eyes fixed on Mia like she was afraid looking away might break whatever fragile thread had pulled them together.
“I can’t tell you how happy I am that we’re spending time together.
I know the circumstances are awful, and I wish things were different, but being here with you now … it means a lot.”
Mia offered a small smile. “It means something to me too.”
The words were simple, but it was obvious they meant something to Renee. I saw emotion building in her eyes, but before it had a chance to spill over, the waiter arrived at our table.
He introduced himself, took our drink orders, and promised to return with water.
Mia ordered iced tea. Bryan asked for coffee. Renee chose sparkling water with lemon, and I ordered water and coffee because it felt like the kind of day that required both.
Once the waiter stepped away, Bryan leaned back and looked at me.
“I hope you don’t mind me asking,” he said, “but is there one suspect who stands out more than the others yet?”
Mia’s eyes flicked toward me, and I knew the name she was thinking.
Jeremy.
What happened between them was still too raw, and I didn’t think Mia needed to relive it over lunch with a cousin she didn’t see all that often, so I chose someone else instead.
“There are a few people I’m looking at,” I said. “One of them is Mia’s neighbor, Adrian.”
Bryan looked between us. “What happened with him?”
“The short version is that Adrian has a Saint Bernard named Moose,” I said.
“Had,” Mia corrected. “I mean, still has, I hope. I don’t know. He’s missing. Sorry. Continue.”
“Moose kept wandering onto Mia’s lawn and relieving himself.”
Renee blinked. “Oh.”
“It happened more than once,” Mia said.
The waiter returned with our drinks, setting them down one by one.
“Did you speak to Adrian about his dog?” Bryan asked.
“I did,” Mia said. “The first time, he was nice. That’s the part I hadn’t thought about until today.
I was watering the plants near the front walk, and Moose wandered over.
He was huge, but he was sweet. He put his head right against my hip like we were old friends.
Adrian saw he was in my yard, and he rushed across the street apologizing.
He seemed embarrassed. Charming, even, in a grumpy, rugged kind of way. ”
“Sounds like a decent guy,” Renee said.
“I thought maybe he and I would get along. He’d just moved in, and I was still new to the neighborhood myself. I hoped we could become friends.”
“What changed?” Bryan asked.
“Moose kept coming over, and Adrian kept apologizing, but the apologies started sounding less like apologies and more like he thought I was overreacting.” She glanced at me a moment, then cringed as she added, “And then came the bag.”
“What bag?” Renee asked.
Mia stirred her iced tea with a straw, looking anywhere but at her cousin. “I may have scooped up what Moose left on my lawn and put it on Adrian’s doorstep.”
Bryan paused with his coffee halfway to his mouth.
Renee’s eyes widened.
I said nothing.
“What? It wasn’t like I threw it through the guy’s window. Thing is, I also left a note.” Mia sank a little lower in her chair. “I was irritated.”
“What did the note say?” Bryan asked.
“It said to keep his dog off my lawn or he’d regret it. And hey, I know it sounds bad. But in every conversation with Adrian after the first one, he always had this way of looking at me like I was the problem. Like I should just accept it because Moose was a dog.”
“Then Moose went missing,” I said.
“Adrian came to my house and accused me of being involved,” Mia said.
Renee reached out, giving Mia’s hand a squeeze. “How awful.”
“It was, but I also understand how it must have looked.”
The waiter returned to take our orders, interrupting Mia’s story.
I chose a grilled chicken salad. Mia ordered fish tacos, and Bryan went with clam chowder and sourdough. Renee ordered a turkey sandwich, then asked enough questions about substitutions that the waiter looked like he regretted being assigned to our table.
Once he was gone, Renee shook her head. “I don't know. It’s hard for me to imagine someone committing murder over a missing dog.”
“People have killed over less,” I said.
“That’s not comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
Bryan took a more thoughtful approach. “If the dog meant a great deal to him, and if he blamed Mia …”
“It gives him motive,” I said.
Renee shifted in her chair. “Still, murder feels extreme.”
“He was home the night Wren died,” I said. “Alone.”
The four of us chitchatted about other things for a while, and the food arrived a short time later. For a few minutes, everyone focused on eating. Then Renee set down her fork and looked at Mia.
“Do you remember the family reunion at Grandpa’s house when we were kids?” she asked.
Mia looked up. “Which one?”
“The summer it was so hot all the adults stayed inside, and we spent the whole day in the pool.”
A faint smile crossed Mia’s lips. “I remember.”
“You and Wren kept swimming to the deep end,” Renee said. “I was too scared to follow.”
“You were little.”
“I was seven,” Renee said. “Old enough to be embarrassed I couldn’t join you two. Wren kept coming back for me. Every time I tried to swim closer to the two of you and panicked, she’d swim back and tell me I didn’t have to go all the way.”
Mia looked to the side as if recalling the memory.
Renee’s voice grew quieter. “I loved that about her. She never made me feel stupid for being afraid.”
“No,” Mia said. “She wouldn’t.”
“You were so much braver,” Renee said. “You’d swim all the way across and back before I even made it past the steps. I used to want to be part of whatever you and Wren had. I knew you were sisters, and I knew that made it different, but I always wished …”
She stopped herself.
“You always wished what?” Mia asked.
“That there had been more room in your lives for me too.”
The table went quiet, and Bryan stared down at his chowder, as if giving the two of them space.
Mia placed a hand on Renee’s shoulder. “I should have been a better cousin.”
“I’m just happy we’re connecting now,” Renee said.
“Me too.”
Renee, perhaps uncomfortable with the weight of the conversation, reached for her water and changed the subject. “So, besides the neighbor with the missing dog, are there any other suspects?”
Mia let out a small, bitter laugh. “There’s one. His name is Jeremy.”
I looked at her, surprised she’d brought him up.
“Who’s Jeremy?” Renee asked.
“A master class in why I should never be allowed to choose men unsupervised.”
“You don’t have to talk about him,” I said.
“It’s fine.” She looked at Renee. “Remember Christian? My ex?”
She nodded. “Wren told me you had a bit of trouble with him after the breakup.”
“When Christian and I were together, he wasn’t close to his brother, Jeremy, who only learned about me after Christian died.”
Renee went still. “Christian’s dead?”
“He died in a car accident a couple of months ago. I didn’t know until yesterday. No one told me.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks.” Mia exhaled. “Anyway, Jeremy found photos of me at Christian’s house, looked me up, and then showed up at the conference I was attending under a fake name.”
Bryan set down his spoon. “Are you kidding me?”
“He introduced himself as Simon Sullivan,” Mia said. “We met, we spent some time together at the conference, and after, we kept in touch. I liked him, and then Georgiana found out Simon is Jeremy Shepherd.”
Bryan looked at me. “Has he been questioned?”
“He has, but they didn’t have enough to hold him.”
Bryan sat back, his head shaking. “A man lies about his identity to get close to a woman whose sister was murdered, and there’s not enough to hold him?”
“Lying isn’t proof of murder,” I said.
“No,” Bryan replied. “But it’s a red flag. Isn’t it?”
I couldn’t argue.
Mia stared out the window toward the water.
“If I was on the outside looking in, and I wasn’t emotionally invested, Jeremy would be my main suspect,” she said.
We exchanged glances.
“What if Wren was the target all along, and not me?” she asked.
“What makes you think that?”
“After we talked, I started thinking about how good Jeremy was at deceiving me. What if he blames me for Christian’s death? Think about it. Christian died while texting me. At least, that’s what the police think, right? That he was on his phone when the accident happened?”
I nodded.
She continued.
“What if Jeremy found out? What if he saw the messages and the letters Christian kept, and he decided I took his brother from him?”
As I considered what she was saying, a troubling thought took root.
“Maybe killing me wasn’t the point,” Mia said. “Maybe it was about making me feel what he felt. I took his brother, so he took my sister.”
Whether or not her theory had merit, it was one I should have thought of before.
Grief.
Revenge.
Misplaced blame.
A sister for a brother.
My phone rang, the sound startling all of us. I glanced at the screen and pushed back from the table. “I’ll be right back.”
I walked outside and answered. “Hey Hunter, did you find something?”
Hunter’s voice came through low and serious. “I did, and there’s something you need to know.”