Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
CADEN
“Do you even know how to use a hammer?” Von says wryly as she passes me the salad.
“Ha ha,” I say.
“Wow,” Daisy says, her eyes wide. “You’re making the booths. Like, with your own hands.”
“I want to see this chicken coop,” Alistair says. “Can you guys imagine Caden chasing down a rowdy rooster?”
Von and Daisy laugh and even Finn chuckles.
“I wasn’t chasing the chickens,” I say. “I was building their home. And Fernando didn’t live in the hen house.”
“Fernando,” Von deadpans.
“What?” I say. “That was the rooster’s name.”
“Ah, yes,” Al says, leaning back in his chair. “I can just picture it. Caden’s Coop. A haven for Argentinian chickens. Did you harvest their eggs too?”
“Actually yeah,” I shoot back, grinning. “They were delicious. Came in all sorts of colors.”
Von raises a slender eyebrow. “Who even are you right now,” she says, taking a sip of her wine.
We’re eating in the dining room, the one place in this house I’ve never liked. It’s somehow enormous and stuffy all at once—no windows, lots of pretentious art on the walls, and a massive oak table with a chandelier hanging overhead. We used to eat in the kitchen, where it’s light and airy and we could see the bay. Mom loved eating in the same place that she cooked. I wonder if all the meals have been in here since she died.
Dad is at the head of the table and the rest of us are scattered at various chairs. The table sits twelve, so there’s a lot of space.
Dad and I have not spoken to each other since he arrived. Which is fine by me. I’d rather talk to my siblings anyway.
“Whose booths are you making?” Daisy asks.
“Just Dev’s and Jake’s. Oh, and Isla’s,” I add, glad my voice doesn’t crack on her name.
Daisy gasps. “Isla is doing a booth? That’s awesome!”
“Isla…” Von says, her eyes narrowing. “Isn’t she that girl you were?—”
“Thanks for getting the permit sorted out,” I say to Finn, cutting Von off.
Finn gives a self-important shrug. “Happy to help.”
I dig into my pasta, feel lighter, buoyed by the turn today has taken. I can help Isla. I can make something for her. Something useful.
I can’t wait to see her again tomorrow. Engaged or no, I’ll take every last second I can get with her before I leave.
“Carpentry?” Dad says with disdain, injecting himself into the conversation like a bucket of ice water tossed on my head. “Chicken coops? That’s what you were doing in Argentina?”
I meet his cold dark eyes with defiance.
“I helped patch the roof of an outbuilding too,” I say. “I can fix the engine of a car or motorcycle. I can mend my own clothes if they get torn. I’ve spent hours crouched picking grapes. I know how to cut and prepare staves for wine barrels. I’ve learned how to operate a press and clean out a crusher. Want me to go on?”
If Dad thinks I’m ashamed of doing manual labor or gaining actual skills, he needs to think again. I’m proud of what I’ve learned at Catarina Azul. Daisy is gaping at me and even Von looks surprised. Alistair chuckles.
“So that’s where those giant arms came from huh?” he says, polishing off his glass and reaching for the wine bottle to pour himself another.
I hold my father’s gaze. He’s unflinching, his face revealing nothing.
“Is this meant to impress me?” he says.
I grit my teeth. “No, Dad. My life doesn’t revolve around you anymore.”
Finn’s eyes widen. Alistair is practically salivating with glee at the tension in the room. Then Daisy pipes up, her voice determined.
“Tell us more about this winery,” she says.
“It’s called Catarina Azul,” I say, turning away from my father. “It’s one of the top sustainable wineries in Argentina. I’ve learned a lot there.” I slice my gaze back to Dad. I remember a time I was so terrified to share my ideas with him. When the thought of revealing my dreams was panic inducing. But not anymore. He doesn’t have that power over me any longer—and I really know what I’m talking about now. I’ve lived it.
“Everton could benefit from sustainable practices,” I say. “With climate change, soil erosion, and hotter summers, the methods Sebastian Ramos—he’s the winemaker at Azul—the methods he practices could really make a difference here. Plus, sustainability is popular. Younger generations are concerned with, you know, having a planet that’s livable.” I look at the twins. “It’s good PR and good politics.”
“Shit, he’s right, Dad,” Alistair says as Finn nods thoughtfully.
My father puts his fork down. “We are not changing the practices at Everton. They’ve worked just fine for the last eighty years.”
“Yeah, but things are different for us now,” Al insists.
Dad glares at him. “Meaning what.”
Al and Daisy glance at each other. No one wants to say it out loud.
Fuck it.
“Because Mom’s death hangs over the estate like a black cloud,” I say. Everyone at the table freezes. Dad’s jaw looks like it’s been carved in stone.
“And what exactly would you know about that?” he says. His voice is icy-soft and sends a shiver up my spine. “You have not been here.”
“I stopped by the lodge today. It was maybe half full. We used to have people waiting for a table. It’s July, for god’s sake. This is supposed to be peak season.”
“And you think this sustainability nonsense will somehow solve that problem?” Dad sneers.
“It isn’t nonsense,” I say sharply.
“I thought you did not wish to be involved in the estate any longer.”
“I don’t,” I say. “I’m only trying to help.”
“Can we talk about something else?” Daisy says.
Dad ignores her. “You are not helping. You cannot have it both ways. If you really want to help, you will abandon this sustainability rubbish, stop raising chickens in Argentina, and come back to accept your role at Everton.”
“My role,” I spit. “You mean doing whatever you say and following all your rules. You haven’t changed at all, have you? Still trying to control everything and everyone. Didn’t Mom’s death teach you anything, Dad? You don’t have control . The more you try to clutch it, the more it slips through your fingers.”
“You will not speak to me?—”
“I’ll speak to you however I damn well want!” I cry, standing. Von leans back, startled and Daisy’s eyes are so wide I can see whites all around her blue irises. “All your rules, all your fucking rules…you won’t do this, you will do that. Show you’re serious about the winery, but no not like that, only in the way I say. Come to meetings but don’t talk. Don’t disagree. The only opinions I got to have were yours. That’s why I left, Dad! You were going to hamstring me so tight, I’d never be myself. I’d never make a decision on my own ever again. Who does that to their own child? Mom was the only real parent we had.” I feel the rage building in me, reaching a tipping point. “You act like you have all this power, and yet you still don’t know who took her from us! Why do you think I came back here in the first place? It was for her, Dad! You let her case go fucking cold!”
I hadn’t realized I blamed my father for that until this moment. But I do. All the wealth and power he’s accumulated over the years and for what? It’s useless. Mom’s gone and no one seems any closer to figuring out who took her from us than they did five years ago.
Dad looks like I’ve slapped him. For a moment, he’s utterly speechless.
My siblings look shocked too. I wonder if nobody talks about this. Like they all pretend it’s fine Mom’s killer has never been brought to justice. Even Daisy making the pasta sauce feels new—the first time Mom has been willingly brought into this house again.
I storm out of the dining room before Dad can catch his breath. I feel awake for the first time in ages. My skin burns like I’ve got a fever. Maybe I do. The shell around me is cracking open and whatever is emerging is raw and angry.
I stalk through the kitchen and out the back door. Down the stairs, past the pool, and this time I ignore the rhododendrons beckoning me. I stride up to the tiny shed, its teal door chipped in some places, its red roof shining pale pink in the moonlight. I put my hand on the knob and take a breath.
I will not be afraid of this place like the rest of my family is.
As I step across the threshold, it’s like stepping back in time. The interior is dipped in silver, the dappled bay glittering like a coin outside the large window that takes up most of the back wall. The glass is pristine, all trace of the violence that happened here erased.
Mom’s pottery wheel is still in the same position, the stool sitting in front of it like it’s just waiting for her to come back. The bookshelf is still crammed with trinkets. Some things have been removed, probably by the crime scene unit. But mostly, it’s untouched. Just like Daisy said.
I inhale the scent of clay and metal, mixed with the staleness of dust. I remember all the times I would hang out with her here, talking about the town, or bemoaning the fights I was having with my siblings, or working through arguments with Dad. I loved being in this crammed, cluttered space that didn’t care about rules or order. She feels so present here. Like if I turned around, I’d see her standing behind me, that warm smile on her face. Maybe a smudge of clay on her cheek. Her red hair knotted and held in a bun by a pencil.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I whisper, my throat tight. “I’m sorry I abandoned you. I’m sorry whoever did this got away. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you . ”
I stand there in silence for what seems like hours. The only sound that answers me is the faint thump of my own heart.
“I’ll find them,” I vow to her, as if saying the words out loud will make them come true. “I’ll find out who killed you and bring them to justice. I swear it.”
I wake up the next morning and text Noah, asking him to come over on his lunch break.
He shows up around noon. Daisy is at the lodge and Finn and Alistair are with Dad in the city. I’m in the kitchen, sitting at the enormous marble island with a cup of coffee and some of the files Fred Norman sent over printed out in a stack in front of me when he pokes his head in.
“Magnolia Day booths, huh?” he says.
“Word really travels fast,” I say.
“The Magnolia Grapevine is faster than a telephone, as Pop likes to say.” Pop Patterson is Noah’s grandfather. His real name is George but everyone calls him Pop.
Noah takes the seat across from me. Copper pots and pans hang on a rack overhead and the black and white tile floor is polished to a sheen beneath our feet. Noah rests his chin in his hands.
“So,” he says. “To what do I owe the honor of being summoned to Everton Estate?”
“I want to talk about my mother’s case,” I say.
Noah’s shoulders tense. “Caden, I told you—it’s an ongoing investigation. I can’t talk to you about it.”
“Don’t give me that cop bullshit,” I say.
“It’s not bullshit,” Noah says.
“You were the one who kept it open for me and now you’re saying you can’t talk to me about it?”
Noah shrugs. “Them’s the breaks.”
I huff. “Well, I have all this information from Dad’s PI. Can I talk to you about that ? Because I don’t fucking understand a lot of it.”
Noah looks intrigued. “Yeah,” he says.
“It says there were no fingerprints, no DNA, nothing. There isn’t even a bullet. How is that possible?”
“He probably wore gloves, which would make sense if it was a burglar. He wouldn’t have left DNA unless he spat on something or cut himself. It wasn’t like there was a fight or your Mom had a chance to scratch him or anything. And there was no bullet because…” He swallows.
“Because what?”
“The bullet went right through her,” Noah says softly. “And through the window.” My shoulders tense. “Bullets don’t stop unless there’s something to stop them. Or until they slow down. There’s nothing beyond your mom’s pottery shed except…”
“The bay,” I say. The bullet is out in the water somewhere. Impossible to recover. Like finding a needle in a haystack.
I drop my head into my hands. The impossibility of this task, and all the missteps I’ve made since that day, seems to hang around my neck like a shackle. The anger at my father bubbles underneath.
“It seems insane to me that we have all this—” I gesture out at the expensive appliances and marble countertops. “And yet it means nothing. Someone was able to walk onto our property, shoot my mother, and get away with it. They just disappeared. Who does that?”
“You,” Noah says simply.
I glare at him. “I did not shoot my mother.”
He holds up his hands. “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m only pointing out that people do vanish, Cade. If this was a robbery gone wrong, as the sheriff suspects, then it could have been a drifter or thief with no connections to Magnolia Bay. Someone who saw a big house and tried to seize the opportunity. If it was a payback scheme or revenge plot from someone burned by the Everton business, as your dad seems to think, then the killer covered their tracks well.”
“What do you think?” I ask.
Noah cracks his knuckles and sighs. I knew he’d spill his guts if we kept talking. He’s a big old softie under the tough cop exterior. “I don’t know. That’s what makes this case so confusing. If it was a random thief, how did they know to access the back of the house through your mom’s garden where there were no cameras?”
“They must not have known much about our family at all,” I add. “Otherwise, they’d know that Mom loved to work in her shed in the mornings. Especially after any large event, like the anniversary gala.”
“That’s what your Dad said,” Noah replies. “Or did you already talk to him about that morning?”
“I’m trying to talk to Dad as little as possible.” I give him a sardonic look. “Besides, you think Russell Everton is going to appreciate being interrogated by his impudent, runaway son?”
“Right. Well, I’m sure this PI has his statement in there, so there’s no harm in me telling you. Your dad says your mom got up around five thirty. She told him she couldn’t sleep and wanted to work. He said she got dressed and left their bedroom at around five forty-five. Then he went back to sleep. The gunshot woke him up. He thought it was a car.”
“That’s what Finn said too,” I murmur.
Noah nods. “People’s minds usually try to come up with the simplest explanation. Especially around here—no one would think ‘gunshot’ first in Magnolia Bay. Your father said he stayed in bed for about fifteen more minutes and then decided to head out to the grounds and check in on your mom. And that’s when he found her.”
My throat tightens, remembering the 911 transcript.
“But what was the plan?” I say. “Our house has an alarm system. Surely, any burglar worth their salt would know that. And why shoot Mom in the shed? Why not just sneak past?”
“There’s a lot of lawn between the shed and the house,” Noah says. “There’s nowhere to hide really. If your mom saw this person, they might have felt they didn’t have a choice. And then, once the gun went off, they ran. Probably back the way they came, through the garden. That leads out to the far side of your little front vineyard. They could have disappeared into the woods that line the property by the lodge.”
“And what about Dad’s theory?” I ask. “That it was some enemy of his.”
“The sheriff looked into that personally—your dad did not want any negative attention aimed at the company, so he made sure the sheriff operated with discretion. He interviewed former employees, rivals, suppliers who claim they got stiffed.”
“Dad would never stiff anyone,” I say. My father might be a hard man, but there’s nothing he prizes more than his reputation. He’s strictly by-the-book.
“And of course, you were a favorite subject of speculation,” Noah adds. “Even after you were cleared.”
“Isla told me she vouched for me.”
“She did.”
“I never meant to put her in that position.”
“The department kept her name out of the papers.”
“Thank you,” I say sincerely.
“Isla’s my friend too,” Noah reminds me gently. “I wasn’t even a deputy back then, I was still only in training. But I told the sheriff if we released her name, it would only add to the shitshow.”
Silence falls between us. “Was she…after I left, did…” I struggle for the words. “How was she?”
Noah raises an eyebrow. “That’s a question for Isla herself.”
Fair enough.
“You should read the newspaper articles about the case next. There was so much speculation. See what you can glean there. The library will have them all have archived. Or you could just Google them,” he adds.
I have to go to the library today anyway to meet Isla.
“Okay,” I say. “Thanks, Noah.”
“No problem,” he says. “Hey, some of us are going to the beach next Friday. You should come.”
“Who’s ‘some of us’?” I ask warily.
Noah rolls his eyes. “I don’t know if Luke Richards is going. He doesn’t generally hang out with townies.”
“He should. He’s marrying Isla,” I say. I can’t believe they’re getting married on my own goddamn property. Part of me wanted to confront Daisy about that, but for what? Everton needs the money and it’s not like Daisy should be making business decisions based on my feelings.
“Yeah,” Noah says thoughtfully. “I still don’t really get that. They seem so different.”
“She and I were different too,” I point out.
“Nah,” Noah says, shaking his head so that his hair falls into his eyes. “You were never like the other kids who grew up on the Way. Too much like your mom.”
His words settle around me, a sort of comfortable pride. Mom wasn’t born into this world the way Dad was. She grew up in a working-class family in New Jersey. She always kept us grounded.
“Anyway,” Noah continues. “I don’t know if Isla is going either. It’s me and Jake, Joni, Charlotte, and Mike and Emily Cochran. If Mike’s not in the drunk tank again, that is.”
Noah rolls his eyes. Mike’s family runs the kayak and bike rental shop on the water. He was always getting into trouble, ever since we were teens. Looks like that hasn’t changed.
“I’ll think about it,” I say.
“Think about what?” Von says as she walks into the kitchen. Her heels click on the tile floor as she opens the fridge and pulls out a bottle of water. She turns to see Noah and her expression tightens. “Oh. You’re here.”
“Lovely to see you too, Siobhan,” Noah says with mock sweetness.
My sister and my best friend always disliked each other back in the day. It seems like that hasn’t changed.
“I have to head into the city,” Von says to me.
“And which CEO might you be helping evade a fraud conviction today?” Noah asks.
Von glares at him. “At least I don’t spend my time eating donuts and sitting on street corners with a radar gun,” she shoots back. “Do you guys ever actually do anything around here, or is the sheriff’s office just another incompetent waste of taxpayer money?”
“All right, enough Von,” I say, as if she’ll actually listen.
“Hey, I’ve kept your mother’s case active for as long as I could,” Noah says.
“Active isn’t the word I would use,” she retorts. “From where I’m sitting, you haven’t done jack shit.” Before Noah can reply, she turns back to me. “I don’t know what you’re thinking antagonizing Dad but stop it. We don’t talk about Mom’s…” She can’t even bring herself to say the word murder. “We don’t talk about it in this house.”
“How would you know?” I say. “You’re never here.”
Two red spots appear on Von’s cheeks. “Neither were you, until a week ago,” she snaps. “So don’t get all holier than thou on me. I have an important job, Caden. A real job, not fixing motorcycles on some Podunk winery in Argentina.”
Noah stands. “As lovely as this family reunion is, I’ve got to get back to work. Those donuts aren’t going to eat themselves,” he adds, tipping an imaginary cap at my sister. “See you around, Caden.”
She glowers after him. “I do not understand how you’re friends with him.”
“Don’t be such a snob,” I tell her. “Noah’s a good guy.”
“Whatever. I’m heading out. Tell Daisy thanks for dinner.”
“She really nailed Mom’s pasta sauce, didn’t she?”
Von’s face softens. “Yeah,” she says. “She really did.”
“I went out to the shed last night,” I say, my gaze drifting to the back window, where the little cottage sits on the waterfront, deceptively quaint.
I sense Von stiffen. “And?”
“It looks the same.”
I meet her eyes and see a flicker of the pain I witnessed the day I arrived home, when they were wheeling Mom’s body out of the house on a stretcher.
“Did you hear anything that morning?” I ask.
Von’s jaw clenches and she shakes her head. “You know me,” she says. “I can’t sleep unless I’ve got an eye mask on, ear plugs in, and a white noise machine going.” She swallows hard. “I wish I had heard it. Maybe I could have…”
Her voice trails off.
“I don’t think any of us could have done anything,” I say.
Von’s eyes flash. “You weren’t here,” she snaps. Then she presses her lips together and takes a long inhale. “Do you know how hard it was? After Mom died, and you left? Dad was…” She shakes her head. I feel everything in me freeze, like ice crusting over my skin. “I don’t know if he slept. He tried to act like everything was normal. We never talked about Mom. I never saw him cry. Daisy was a mess. Al was drinking a lot, even for him. Finn copied Dad, pretended he was fine. I tried to take care of everyone but that’s not me, Cade. That’s you . You and Mom were the caretakers. I don’t…I don’t know how to talk to people. I’m no good at comfort.”
“I’m sorry, Von,” I say. And I mean it. It feels like there was no good choice for me to make back then. I’ve hurt so many people.
She points a manicured finger at me. “You better find out who did this. Otherwise, you’ve gotten all our hopes up for nothing.” Her phone buzzes. “My car is here.”
She turns and stalks out of the room.
I shower and head to the library an hour before I’m due to meet Isla. Mrs. Nowak, the librarian, jumps up from her seat behind the reference desk when she sees me.
“Caden Everton,” she says, beaming. Her glasses hang by a beaded chain around her neck and her graying hair is pulled back in low ponytail. “I heard you were back in town.”
“Hey Mrs. Nowak,” I say. “I was wondering if you could help me with something.”
“Of course,” she says.
“I’m looking for all the articles that were written about my mother’s murder.”
Mrs. Nowak’s kindly face clouds over. “What a tragedy,” she says. “Marion was so loved by this community. We were all devastated by her death.”
She leads me over to a row of computers with dividers between each one. With a few keystrokes, she’s brought up a page filled with headlines of various articles.
“Here you go,” she says. “This is everything we have, from the local papers to the national news.”
“It made national news?” I ask.
“Oh yes,” Mrs. Nowak says. “There were a few days where you couldn’t go anywhere in this town without running into reporters.”
I feel a wave of shame wash over me. My family was dealing with their grief along with an invasion of their privacy and I wasn’t there, as Von so aptly pointed out. It felt like the right decision at the time—but now I’m questioning everything. If I had stayed, how different might things be now?
I take a seat in front of the screen with renewed determination. No point in fretting over the past. I have to focus on the present. My family is counting on me.
I place my finger on the mousepad and click the first link.