Last Straw (A Rainy Day Mystery Book 7) Read online

  “Fine,” she said, her tone more clipped than it needed to be. “You?”

  “Keeping busy,” Declan replied.

  “December is the church’s busiest time,” I told her. “For obvious reasons.”

  Luke appeared next to his sister, a coffee cup in his hands instead of the plate he had been holding earlier. His eyes landed on Declan, a friendly but puzzled expression on his face, and I remembered that this was their first time seeing each other.

  I made quick introductions.

  Luke stepped forward and the two men shook hands, and I had this awkward feeling, seeing my grown son standing next to a man I’d slept with. This was new territory for me. Brand new.

  “You’ve been a good friend to my mom,” Luke was saying.

  “It’s been my pleasure to get to know her,” Declan answered. “We’re both relative newcomers around here.”

  “Are you?” Luke asked.

  “Relatively speaking.” Declan grinned. “Anyone not born here is considered a newcomer.”

  He was certainly right about that.

  “Well, it’s good you found each other then,” Luke said. He brought his cup to his lips and took a long sip. “I think I’m gonna go clean up. You think it’s safe to get naked and not have any unexpected visitors walk in on me?”

  He was referring to the sheriff’s visit earlier but Declan’s cheeks reddened and I knew he mistook the comment.

  “We had someone stop by earlier that we weren’t expecting,” I explained. I didn’t want to go into details, because I knew Declan would have questions and I knew Laura would have opinions she would be more than willing to share with him.

  I would tell him later, without an audience.

  “I see,” Declan said, but I could tell he wasn’t really following.

  Luke said his goodbye and sauntered back through the kitchen, presumably heading back out to the guest house to start his shower.

  The three of us stood there for a moment, and the silence was deafening. The last thing I wanted to do was invite Declan in, which I felt horrible about. But I just wasn’t ready to face more questions from my daughter. Not after what we’d already gone through that morning with the sheriff.

  “I should probably get going,” Declan said, almost as if he could read what was going through my mind.

  “But you just got here,” I said, and then wanted to kick myself. Why was I complaining when he was giving me a way out?

  “I know, but I have a few more stops to make. Dolores is expecting a visit, and Len Konrath has pneumonia. Told his daughters I’d swing by to see how he is doing, too, especially since it looks like he may not make it in for Christmas services.”

  This was the Declan Murphy I knew: caring, kind, always looking out for others.

  He took a step toward me and offered a chaste, friendly hug. His mouth landed next to my ear. “I want to kiss you,” he whispered.

  A shiver of delight ran down my spine.

  “And I need to see you soon,” he added, his warm breath tickling my neck. “I have to talk to you.”

  I was pretty sure he wanted to do more than talk.

  Which was fine with me.

  I patted his back and straightened out of the hug. “Let’s get together for coffee soon.” And sex, I thought.

  “Sounds good.” He looked toward Laura and offered a quick wave. “It was nice to see you again. Will you be coming to the church for Christmas services?”

  Laura’s cheeks colored. “Oh. We hadn’t really talked about it…”

  “No worries,” he told her. “If we see you, great. You are always welcome to come. If not, I hope you have a blessed Christmas.”

  I nodded, a smile plastered on my face.

  I was just hoping for a blessed few hours at this point.

  A few hours that wouldn’t include further interrogation from my daughter.

  EIGHT

  “Why won’t you answer my questions?” Laura demanded.

  She’d laid into me the minute the door closed behind Declan, asking why he’d stopped by and what had we been whispering about, and why he’d brought a bag of gifts over. It had been nonstop.

  And true to form, I didn’t respond. Because I didn’t like the questions she was asking. And because she was asking questions I didn’t want to answer.

  How was I supposed to tell my daughter that I’d started a relationship with Declan, the town’s beloved pastor? And that I’d started a relationship with him while another relationship with my handsome next door neighbor was fizzling? I hadn’t been involved with anyone since her father and I had divorced, and now I was suddenly involved with two men? None of that news would sit particularly well with her, especially after what had just transpired with the sheriff and his drug search.

  “Honey,” I began, trying to think of something I could say that would appease her…or at least distract her.

  She stared at me, her foot tapping the ground impatiently. “I know what you’re doing.”

  “What?” Was it that obvious? Could she tell just by looking at me that I’d broken my celibacy streak? Maybe I was glowing or something.

  “You’re stalling.” Her lips pursed in disapproval. “You’re calling me ‘honey’ and avoiding answering, just like you always do when you don’t want to tell me something.” She paused. “Is it bad?”

  “What?” I repeated.

  “Whatever you’re not telling me.” A look of panic crossed her face. “Oh my god. Are you sick? Are you dying? Is that why he was here? The pastor?”

  “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “You were sick for ages,” Her eyes searched my face, probably for lingering signs of illness. “You said it was just a cold but…”

  I rolled my eyes. “Because it was just a cold.”

  Laura ignored my statement and motioned to the bag of wrapped presents I was still holding. “All that? Did he give you those things because he feels sorry for you? Or maybe they’re gifts from the church members. Maybe they want to give you one last good Christmas before you…” Her voice trailed off.

  I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation with my daughter. “Laura, I am not dying.” It was my turn to pause. “At least not that I know of.”

  “Mom!”

  “Well, it’s true,” I said.

  “Then what is all of that?” she asked, waving her hand at the bag. “Why did he bring you presents?”

  “Because we’re friends.” I swallowed. “And friends give each other gifts.”

  Laura stared at me with narrowed eyes, and I resisted the urge to cross my fingers in hopes that she was done with her questioning.

  “What kind of friends?” she asked.

  I tried not to let my shoulders sag. There was no way I was going to keep it from her now, not if she was coming to that conclusion on her own. Because she had a habit of running with ideas, however absurd, and since what she was hitting on was actually the truth…well, it was pretty much over.

  I was about to admit to my relationship with Declan, willing to let the cards fall where they may, when the sound of footsteps pounding from the kitchen to the living room caught me by surprise. Why was Luke sprinting through the house? Was something wrong with the shower in the guest house?

  I looked toward the kitchen and my eyes widened in surprise when I saw who was standing in the hallway, panting and out of breath.

  Jill stood there, her hands on her hips, doubled over and trying to draw deep lungfuls of air.

  “Jill?” I said, more alarmed than surprised that my next door neighbor’s daughter had let herself in through the back door unannounced. “Is everything okay?”

  Wordlessly, she shook her head.

  “No, everything isn’t okay?” I asked.

  She nodded, her hair serving as a curtain to hide her face.

  “What’s going on?”

  She pushed her hair out of her face, revealing tear-stained cheeks and red-rimmed eyes. “It’s…my dad,” s
he said, gasping for air.

  “Your dad?” My alarm grew. “What’s wrong? Is he okay?”

  She shook her head and her eyes filled with fresh tears.

  My heart caught in my throat and I imagined the worst. A farm accident. A heart attack. A car crash. “What happened?”

  “He’s gone.”

  The room started to spin. “What?”

  “Well, he will be,” she said, a sob escaping her. “The sheriff is there and he’s taking him away!”

  My vision suddenly cleared. “What?” I repeated. “The sheriff?”

  Jill nodded.

  “Why is the sheriff at your house?”

  “He had a warrant,” Jill said, hiccupping. “And he found drugs. He’s taking my dad to jail.”

  NINE

  There were about a hundred details missing from Jill’s version of the story, but I didn’t want to waste time asking questions. Instead, I grabbed my coat and slipped into my boots and headed for the door.

  Laura tried to stop me. “What are you doing?”

  “Figuring out what’s going on.”

  She reached out a hand and grabbed my arm. “We already know what’s going on,” she hissed. “The sheriff found what he’s been looking for. Drugs.”

  “Yeah, on the wrong property,” I pointed out. I wrenched free of her hold. Jill was already on the porch, half-running back to her dad’s house.

  “What does that matter?” Laura asked. “Better he found it there than here, right?”

  “We’ll talk about this later,” I said. Right then, I wanted to get to Gunnar’s house to find out just what was going on. Why would the sheriff have search warrants for both of our properties? And, more importantly, how had he found drugs at Gunnar’s? I’d seen the willy-nilly way he’d ‘searched’ my property.

  I raced toward Gunnar’s house, my feet crunching on the frost-covered grass. The mid-morning sun had done nothing to thaw the ice crystals clinging to the yellow-green blades of grass and fading green clover. A squirrel scurried up a black walnut tree as I approached, and a cardinal flitted toward its bare branches.

  The sheriff’s cruiser wasn’t in Gunnar’s driveway and I wondered if maybe he had parked behind the house, closer to the barn.

  But when I got to the house, Jill was standing in the doorway, looking stone-faced.

  “They’re gone,” she said, her voice oddly flat.

  “Who?”

  “The sheriff and my dad. He took him away.” Tears sprang to her eyes again and she let out a little sob. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  I placed my hands on her shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze. “Take a deep breath,” I told her. “I need you to tell me exactly what happened.”

  “She can’t tell you, because she wasn’t here,” a voice said. “But I can.”

  I looked up in surprise. A woman was inside Gunnar’s house. His ex-wife.

  Jill stumbled her way to the couch and then sank down on it, leaving me standing with her mother.

  “I’m Lucy,” the woman said, extending a hand. “You must be Rainy?”

  I nodded.

  She looked to be my age, maybe a year or two older. Her dark blonde hair was flecked with gray, and chic black glasses did a good job of masking any wrinkles surrounding her kohl-lined eyes.

  “Jill said something about the sheriff,” I said.

  Lucy nodded. She looked remarkably composed, all things considered, and I wondered if perhaps Jill had overreacted. Like my own daughter, she seemed to have a tendency to do that.

  “He stopped by about twenty minutes ago,” Lucy said. She sat down next to her daughter. “Said something about having a warrant.”

  I frowned. “Did you see it?”

  “I wasn’t very involved in the initial conversation,” Lucy said. “I was upstairs when the sheriff arrived.”

  “So what happened?”

  Lucy fingered the gold necklace around her neck. She looked well put together for a weekday morning on Christmas vacation, almost as if she were heading to work. She wore navy slacks and a cream-colored blouse, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think she was a teller at the town bank. But I did know better. This was Gunnar’s ex-wife.

  “He said something about having a warrant and needing to search the property,” Lucy said. “Gunnar was fine with it, even walked him through the house.”

  “He searched in here?”

  Lucy nodded. “Not the upstairs, though. Just the main rooms down here.”

  That sounded like the Sheriff Lewis I knew. He hadn’t even bothered to look in my house, focusing instead on the barn and guest house.

  “Then he went out to the barn. About ten minutes later, he was walking Gunnar back to the house, holding some bricks.”

  “Bricks? Like building materials?”

  Lucy looked at me. “No. Bricks of drugs. Marijuana.”

  My eyes widened. “What? He…he actually found some?”

  Jill had said as much when she’d arrived at my house, so I shouldn’t have been surprised. But I was. Not once in the eight months that I’d lived in Latney had Gunnar ever given me the impression he used drugs. And there had never been any indication that he’d sold or trafficked them, either.

  I also had to admit that I was taken aback by Sheriff Lewis’s success. The fact that he’d managed to actually find contraband was far beyond any capabilities he’d exhibited in the time I’d known him.

  Jill finally spoke. Her eyes were still red, and her lips quivered. “So what do we do now?”

  I didn’t respond, because I didn’t know. The fact that the sheriff had actually found drugs—and by the sound of it, a lot of drugs—on Gunnar’s property didn’t seem like it would bode well for him. I didn’t know if Gunnar had admitted the drugs were his or if he was denying it, but either way, he was going to need more than a wannabe private investigator. He was going to need a lawyer.

  “Rainy.” Jill’s voice was louder this time and when I looked at her, her eyes were trained on me. “He needs help.”

  The unasked question was there. I knew what she was doing. She was asking me to help.

  I swallowed down a sigh. I had been frozen with shock and fear when she first burst into my house a mere ten minutes earlier, and I’d cycled through all of the horrible things I thought might have happened to Gunnar before she finally told me about the sheriff.

  But now that I knew he was fine—well, not fine, but at least not dead—a new emotion had me paralyzed. Doubt.

  Could Gunnar really be responsible for hiding drugs on his property? Was that something he could have hidden from me, hidden from everyone? We’d gotten close over the months, at least prior to our Thanksgiving meltdown, and I’d been in Gunnar’s barn more times than I could count. If he had been using or dealing drugs, wouldn’t there have been clues? Wouldn’t that have been something I would have known, or at least suspected? I liked to think of myself as a relatively astute person. How could I have missed something like that?

  “Rainy.” Jill said my name again, louder this time. “You’re going to help him, right?”

  Indecision must have been written all over my face because her eyes narrowed and her lip curled in anger.

  “Oh my god. You aren’t, are you?”

  TEN

  “I didn’t say that,” I protested, weakly.

  “You have helped every single person in this town when they’ve asked.” Jill wasn’t sad anymore. She was livid. With me. “Every last one of them!”

  She had a point.

  “Dad has told me all the stories,” she said. “All of them. And I was here, I saw what you did for Dawn. You don’t even like her!”

  Another point well taken.

  Lucy was watching her daughter, taking in what she was saying.

  Jill gave me a disgusted look. “So what is it then? Why won’t you help? I mean, you were sleeping with him, for crying out loud.”

  I made a little sound and Lucy gasped out loud.

>   Jill gave me a defiant look. “You don’t think I know about that?”

  My cheeks were burning. “Now probably isn’t the time to talk about—”

  But Jill wasn’t having it. “Now isn’t the time for what?” she spat. “My dad is rotting away in jail and you won’t even help him.”

  I was pretty sure Gunnar hadn’t even made it to the sheriff’s office, much less been booked into the Bueller County jail.

  Besides, I was a little more concerned with something else she’d just said. How did she know about my relationship with her dad? Because if she knew, did that mean others knew, too? I’d thought Gunnar and I had done a good job of keeping our relationship quiet. Sure, Vivian had made noises about knowing something was going on, and I didn’t discount the idea that the local gossips, Sophia included, had speculated on whether or not we’d had a relationship, and how that relationship might have evolved. I knew I was the subject of a lot of stories in town—a ‘perk’ of being a newcomer—but I’d lulled myself into thinking that my personal relationships hadn’t been as much of a focus as the cases I’d found myself involved in.

  Apparently I’d been wrong.

  “Are you just going to stand there?” Jill asked. Her eyes were dry now, the fire of her anger no doubt drying them.

  Lucy cleared her throat and I turned to look at her. She was pale, her knuckles white as she gripped the locket of her necklace with clenched fingers. “You and…Gunnar?”

  Shame and guilt washed over me. They were ridiculous emotions to feel, especially since Gunnar and his ex-wife had been divorced for years. He hadn’t been cheating on her, so why did I feel like a mistress who had just wreaked havoc on a marriage?

  “It’s not what you think,” I began.

  Jill snorted in disgust. “Oh, really? Because Dad told me every sordid detail.”

  My gaze shot to her, and the satisfied grin she gave me when she saw the horror in my eyes was unsettling.

  “I know all about how you used him and then dumped him.”

  “What?”

  Jill nodded. “He told me everything after we came home from Thanksgiving dinner. Had a bit too much to drink and the floodgates opened.”