then.”
She nodded.
I was grateful she hadn’t argued about leaving her car. I didn’t want her wandering around alone playing Nancy Drew in the middle of the night. Maybe it was her grief. Maybe it was because she felt she could count on me to be the adult so she could take a break from that role, after being the adult for both herself and Neanna—and perhaps for Neanna’s Gran. Or maybe she was used to being the pampered, headstrong child. Whatever the reason, her inner child ran the risk of interfering with what she’d hired me to do. I needed to do what I could to prevent that.
I turned onto the winding two-lane road toward Dacus. We passed scattered brick ranch houses and house trailers, some with roadside mailboxes bearing familiar family names. A few cars met us, headlights on now as full dark fell among the hardwoods and pines lining the rural road.
“Avery?”
Fran stared straight ahead. “I want you to understand something. Neanna didn’t kill herself.”
I didn’t reply.
“She didn’t. I know you think that’s just nutty denial. It’s not. I knew Neanna. Sometimes better than she knew herself. I knew the good
and
the bad. She didn’t, Avery.”
We drove in silence the last few miles to the inn. I pulled slowly into the rutted drive and stopped at the bottom of the front steps.
“I want you to find out what happened. I want you to find out why she’s gone. It doesn’t matter what it costs.”
Now I knew she was talking crazy. No client ever said, “No matter what it costs,” not even the well-heeled corporate ones.
“Fran, don’t worry. I know the officer who’ll be in charge. He’s good. We’ll find out all there is to know.” I patted her on the forearm and studied her profile in the dim light.
When she offered no response, I said, “I’ll see you for breakfast in the morning. We can talk about what else needs to be done.”
She unlatched and pushed open the long, heavy car door.
“Call me if you need anything tonight, Fran. Promise?”
She leaned down to look in the car and nodded, solemn, before she closed the door and climbed the steps between the gargantuan white porch columns fronting the inn. I hoped she’d find tea, cookies, and comfort inside—something more genteel and less sticky than the Pasture.
Tuesday Morning
The next morning, I parked my car in the area tucked discreetly at the side of the inn and followed the gravel drive around to the grand front entrance.
Fran hadn’t come downstairs yet, so I picked up a paper from the stack of Monday’s Dacus
Clarion
, dropped some coins in the jar, and sat on a bench in the hall leading to the dining room. At the bottom of the front page, I found the two-paragraph story about the discovery of the body at the overlook.
Noah Lakefield, the
Clarions
’s new—and only—field reporter, quoted a sheriff’s department spokesperson saying the death was under investigation. I’d been skeptical when Noah had first accepted the job in Dacus, and amazed when he’d seen the business that brought him to town finished and decided to stay. With his exuberant hair and his lithe build, he had equal amounts ofcharm and bluster, depending on which he needed to get a story. His talent and drive should have taken him on to a larger, more prosperous paper, but he also had a boyish naivete that could be contagious—and seemed unusual for someone who had been a fire-breathing investigative reporter.
The paper comes out midday on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so Noah would be hard at work on tomorrow’s edition. With the death listed as a suicide, he wouldn’t be chasing after Fran. That would violate the editorial policy for both Walter, the editor, and my dad, the paper’s new owner. The thin ten-page paper was filled with high school sports, elementary school science projects, civic group meetings, and yard-of-the-week photos. In a small town, embarrassing personal stories were told elsewhere.
I folded the newspaper
She nodded.
I was grateful she hadn’t argued about leaving her car. I didn’t want her wandering around alone playing Nancy Drew in the middle of the night. Maybe it was her grief. Maybe it was because she felt she could count on me to be the adult so she could take a break from that role, after being the adult for both herself and Neanna—and perhaps for Neanna’s Gran. Or maybe she was used to being the pampered, headstrong child. Whatever the reason, her inner child ran the risk of interfering with what she’d hired me to do. I needed to do what I could to prevent that.
I turned onto the winding two-lane road toward Dacus. We passed scattered brick ranch houses and house trailers, some with roadside mailboxes bearing familiar family names. A few cars met us, headlights on now as full dark fell among the hardwoods and pines lining the rural road.
“Avery?”
Fran stared straight ahead. “I want you to understand something. Neanna didn’t kill herself.”
I didn’t reply.
“She didn’t. I know you think that’s just nutty denial. It’s not. I knew Neanna. Sometimes better than she knew herself. I knew the good
and
the bad. She didn’t, Avery.”
We drove in silence the last few miles to the inn. I pulled slowly into the rutted drive and stopped at the bottom of the front steps.
“I want you to find out what happened. I want you to find out why she’s gone. It doesn’t matter what it costs.”
Now I knew she was talking crazy. No client ever said, “No matter what it costs,” not even the well-heeled corporate ones.
“Fran, don’t worry. I know the officer who’ll be in charge. He’s good. We’ll find out all there is to know.” I patted her on the forearm and studied her profile in the dim light.
When she offered no response, I said, “I’ll see you for breakfast in the morning. We can talk about what else needs to be done.”
She unlatched and pushed open the long, heavy car door.
“Call me if you need anything tonight, Fran. Promise?”
She leaned down to look in the car and nodded, solemn, before she closed the door and climbed the steps between the gargantuan white porch columns fronting the inn. I hoped she’d find tea, cookies, and comfort inside—something more genteel and less sticky than the Pasture.
Tuesday Morning
The next morning, I parked my car in the area tucked discreetly at the side of the inn and followed the gravel drive around to the grand front entrance.
Fran hadn’t come downstairs yet, so I picked up a paper from the stack of Monday’s Dacus
Clarion
, dropped some coins in the jar, and sat on a bench in the hall leading to the dining room. At the bottom of the front page, I found the two-paragraph story about the discovery of the body at the overlook.
Noah Lakefield, the
Clarions
’s new—and only—field reporter, quoted a sheriff’s department spokesperson saying the death was under investigation. I’d been skeptical when Noah had first accepted the job in Dacus, and amazed when he’d seen the business that brought him to town finished and decided to stay. With his exuberant hair and his lithe build, he had equal amounts ofcharm and bluster, depending on which he needed to get a story. His talent and drive should have taken him on to a larger, more prosperous paper, but he also had a boyish naivete that could be contagious—and seemed unusual for someone who had been a fire-breathing investigative reporter.
The paper comes out midday on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so Noah would be hard at work on tomorrow’s edition. With the death listed as a suicide, he wouldn’t be chasing after Fran. That would violate the editorial policy for both Walter, the editor, and my dad, the paper’s new owner. The thin ten-page paper was filled with high school sports, elementary school science projects, civic group meetings, and yard-of-the-week photos. In a small town, embarrassing personal stories were told elsewhere.
I folded the newspaper
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