Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Summer spent the next few days trying not to think about anything other than numbers, because if she did, she just might realize that she’d walked away from the best thing that had ever happened to her. Her days seemed longer without Joe in them, the nights eternal.
It was as if a piece of her, the best piece, was gone. It was a huge gaping hole in her heart and the biggest problem she’d ever faced. Needing to keep up some semblance of normalcy, she walked into Creative Interiors, the second biggest problem in her life.
Everyone agreed the fires were arson, but they remained unsolved. Now someone had stolen money from her mom and aunt right beneath their noses, probably someone she knew, and in all likelihood loved. Maybe even her own mother—which maybe made it not stealing at all.
Hell, she was so confused.
Everyone was at the store, and Summer attempted a broad smile. Attempted but did not achieve.
Tina put down a box and moved closer. “Darling?”
Her mother was right behind her. “Summer, what is it?”
Be strong. Be sure.
Instead, she burst into tears.
Everyone shoved close—her mother, Tina, Chloe, the twins, even Stella and Gregg, who’d been bolstered by her mom and Tina’s adamance of their innocence and had been working harder than ever.
Summer sniffed and looked around at the kind, friendly faces. “I screwed up.”
“What? Honey, no, you didn’t. You’re helping us, remember? You’re doing a great job.”
“With Joe. I screwed up a great thing with Joe, just because I was scared.”
“Oh.” Her mom let out a long breath, going typically silent in the face of deep emotion.
“I once walked away from a great thing,” Tina said, stroking Summer’s hair. “I was too afraid to go for it.”
“Who?” Chloe wanted to know.
Tina looked at her daughter. “Your dad.”
Chloe gasped. “I thought he walked away from you! He was an artist. He left you and went to France.”
“He wanted me to go with him.” Tina sighed. “My biggest regret.”
“I, too, walked away from a great thing once.”
Everyone stared in shock at her mom, who’d spoken.
Her smile was a little shaky. “Actually, twice.”
“Twice?” Summer asked.
“Your dad had to chase me.”
“Once,” Tina said. “He chased you once. You were fifteen.”
“The second time wasn’t Tim. It was more recent.” At that, her mom’s eyes locked on Summer’s.
And she realized who. Kenny. She’d walked away from Kenny.
“And I regret it greatly,” her mom admitted, gently stroking Summer’s hair. “Don’t live with regrets, honey. It’s just not worth it.”
“Madeline and I warned you about your horoscope,” Diana said. “Remember?”
Madeline nodded with her twin. Yes, they’d warned Summer.
“The only warning you gave me was to not get out of bed.”
“Or something bad would happen. Which it did.”
There was no arguing with Diana.
“I don’t have a regret.” Chloe flashed them the tiny braid of gold on her finger. “It’s a promise ring. Braden’s going to go back to school to become an accountant. We’re going to make a real life, no matter what happens.”
Gregg grabbed Stella’s hand. “It’s not about the regrets. It’s how you deal with them.”
“And how you learn from them,” Stella said softly, squeezing Gregg’s hand, smiling into his face. “We’ve made lots of mistakes and have hopefully learned a lot.”
“I have cookies,” Madeline said, and everyone stared at her in surprise because she rarely talked. “Oatmeal raisin. I made them myself. Nothing heals a heart faster than oatmeal raisin.”
So they sat around and ate cookies and drank herbal iced tea.
Summer didn’t feel any better afterward but she felt far less alone.
That afternoon, Madeline and Diana took her out.
Not to a college party or the mall, but on a bike ride along the beach.
That culminated with lying on the sand, soaking up some sun, eating ice cream, and talking about the male species.
Diana confessed to having a thing for a guy who worked at the art gallery next to Creative Interiors, and Madeline for the frat boy who worked at the sandwich shop on the other side of the gallery.
“That’s because he smokes with you,” Diana said in disgust.
Summer went from relaxed to tense in zero point four. “You smoke?”
“I’m almost eighteen,” Madeline said defensively. “And besides, it’s my body.”
Diana rolled her eyes. “And my lungs.”
Summer kept her silence but her eyes cut to Madeline’s feet, relieved to see she had nowhere near a size men’s eleven and a half.
That evening after closing, Bill went with Summer to the bank.
They’d been making the deposit in twos since the discrepancies had been discovered.
Summer had barely begun to scratch the surface of figuring out how much money was missing, never mind who’d taken it.
She had a lot of people interested in the outcome: her mother and Tina obviously, also the arson team, the police, and the rest of the staff.
It was a big, black cloud hanging over all of them. A new nightmare.
“Are you getting anywhere with the records?” Bill asked her.
Summer lifted a shoulder. “Slowly.”
They stared at each other somberly, knowing no one was going to like what they found.
“It’s scary,” she admitted.
“No one would blame you if you left now,” he said very gently. “Your future isn’t here.”
“Really? So where is it?”
“None of us really know.”
“But most of us at least know what we want.”
He looked at her blandly.
“You don’t?” she asked in surprise.
“What, just because I’m old, I’m supposed to know what I want to be when I grow up?”
“You’re an artist.”
“Yes, and by the very definition of that, I’m eccentric, addicted to antidepressant meds, and unreliable. I wouldn’t recognize my future if it bit me on the ass. Look, Summer, all I’m saying is that it’s okay not to know what you want to be. There’s no need to settle.”
“I’m not settling. And I know what I want to be. I’m an expedition leader.” She let out a long breath at his patient silence. “I know it’s not rocket science. It’s more like…brain candy. But that’s what I am. Who I am. I like it. I just don’t know where to be it.”
“Of course you do.” He ruffled her hair. “You just haven’t admitted it yet. Look, it’s simple. You want to head out of here, go. You want to stay, then stay.”
“What would you do?”
“Ah, now that’s even simpler,” he said with a real smile. “I’d run far and long and never look back.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
But that’s what she’d been doing. She’d been running for so long she thought maybe she was tired of it. It was easy to go. Even easier to stay gone.
And yet the alternative shook her to the core.
Joe had to take an Uber to work. This was because no one would pick him up and drive him there. It didn’t matter that they’d claimed to desert him out of love. “That’s bullshit anyway,” he told Ashes on the ride. “If they loved me, they’d get their ass over here.”
The Uber deposited them at the fire station, where he paid a small fortune for the honor. By the time he’d maneuvered himself up the front stairs, with Ashes patiently sticking to his side, he had a line of sweat trickling down his back and was shaking like a baby.
Oh, yeah, he was in great shape. Just great.
He barged into Kenny’s office and locked his legs into place so he wouldn’t fall down. “Where are we with the Creative Interiors case?”
Kenny stroked Ashes, who’d leapt into his lap. “You look like hell.”
“The case, Kenny.”
“Nice to see you too.”
“You just saw me,” Joe pointed out. “Last night. You brought me Chinese.”
“When you admitted your doctor told you to stay off work for another three weeks.”
“Yeah, yeah. Listen, I’ve been going over the notes.” Screw it, he was still shaking like a leaf, so he admitted defeat and sank into a chair. “But I’d like to see what else we’ve got.”
“The only ‘we’ here is me and whoever the chief can spare to help me.” Kenny’s eyes flashed regret. “You know that.”
“Don’t block me out.”
Kenny swore at that.
Joe rolled his eyes.
And Ashes, already aware of who was hers, jumped down from Kenny’s lap and headed to Joe’s.
“Please, Kenny. I need to do something. I’m losing it.”
“Christ. Fine.” Kenny tossed him a huge file. “We’re still watching the regulars.”
Joe read through everything carefully. “You and I both know that approximately eighty percent of the time, the owners turn out to be the culprits.”
“Yeah,” Kenny said miserably.
“Tina has an alibi. She was with her husband during both fires. The twins corroborated this, which gives all four of them an alibi.”
“Right.” Kenny’s mouth went grim. “Which leads us to the second owner.”
“Camille.”
“She didn’t do this,” Kenny said firmly.
“There’s no evidence against her,” Joe agreed. “But we know she was holding back in the interviews. It was also out of character for her to call Summer that night of the second fire.”
“You think she started the fire, then realized Summer was in there, and panicked?”
“She has insurance motive.”
“She has plenty of money.”
“Look, I know how you feel about her, Kenny.”
Kenny just looked at him.
“I know because I’m there,” Joe said quietly. “I’m in hell over her daughter, all right?”
“No, not all right. I’ll give you that there’s some circumstantial evidence against her. There’s also the fact that the fires accomplished something nothing else had.”
“They brought Summer home,” Joe said grimly.
They both looked at each other for a long moment.
“Let’s widen the scope,” Kenny finally said. “Back to all the players for a minute.”
“Okay.” Joe flipped a few pages. “Braden told the truth about quitting smoking. His doctor confirmed.”
“Yes.”
“And Ally. She’s never smoked, nor does she wear a man’s shoe. She also, thanks to the art gallery owner next to her, the one who has a crush on her, has a rock solid alibi. He was watching her through the windows. He saw her doing her books the night of the store fire.”
“Creepy but correct.”
“The twins.”
“Too young for the first fire.”