Page 19 of The Usual Family Mayhem

“Look, I have to get back to the office and work for a few hours. Tomorrow is Friday. We’ll have dinner and you can plead your case,” Jackson said in typical lawyer fashion. “Then I’ll poke holes in it, and we can formally put the issue to rest.”

“You’re mighty sure of yourself.”

“Yes, and after we finish that topic you can tell me what you’re really doing in town.”

How did he circle back to that? “I told you. A visit.”

“I’ve set out my terms.”

Smooth. Impressive, really, but his look of satisfaction made me want to fight harder. “Fine, but it’s possible I’ll win the argument.”

His smile hit full wattage. “There’s a first time for everything.”

I refused to let him have the last word. “You’ll see.”

Chapter Ten

Micah called at seven-fifty the next morning. I was not a morning person. He didn’t seem to care.

He said he needed aFriday status. I hadn’t done anything that required a status check so far in this job. If actually doing work meant wake-up calls before nine I might go back to eating my free bagel, playing games on my phone, and waiting to be fired.

After another half hour in bed and a cup of coffee, I went outside. Actually, I took a shower and ate a muffin before declaring I needed fresh air. A legitimate excuse in this household. Celia used the phrase all the time. She thought the whole world needed fresh air.

As a kid she’d kick me out of the house in search of sun and oxygen. That worked in North Carolina for most of the year. It’s lucky we never lived in Alaska or somewhere equally frigid.

In addition to the riot of flowers and the raised vegetable beds, my favorite thing in the yard was the gazebo. It sat in the back corner framed by two flowering dogwood trees. A trail of pavers led to the white octagonal structure.

This wasn’t just any old gazebo. No, Gram had gone all out. She claimed every Southern home needed one. Since none of our neighbors had one, I was skeptical about that being a rule.

Electricity. String lights. A beverage refrigerator. An enormous outdoor sectional sofa. A serving table. A buffet. An ottoman. This thing had all the trimmings, which made it the perfect place for me to sneak away and study the ledger I’d photographed.

Knowing Jackson, tonight he’d break out a lecture on privacy and appropriate boundaries. He’d likely add a shot or two about my supposed tendency to exaggerate. While all of that was valid, I had to hold my ground until we had more intel on the weird things happening with Gram and Celia. I needed to be ready. He was afactguy. He couldn’t be won over by charm. I knew because I’d tried that for almost a decade before finally giving up.

An hour and one bottle of water later and I found the smoking gun. Not really but I wanted to think of it that way. I’d only photographed a few months of the ledger. Two deliveries had stars in that last column on the pages I grabbed. One was for Abigail Burns. The other was for Delilah Rhine.

In addition to having a spectacular name, Delilah had a dead husband. He died of a heart attack. A heart attack that happened one day after the delivery of a chess pie and other assorted goodies from Mags’ Desserts. Unrelated, but in case anyone wondered the key ingredient in that Southern classic was vinegar. Gram told me that once as if she were passing down a family secret.

Right now, I didn’t care about the ingredients. I cared about the timing of Delilah’s delivery. Having two pies with a special star next to them delivered to two households with recently dead husbands qualified as a pretty big coincidence. Okay, that was a stretch, but still. Even Jackson with his big brain andtendency to ignore what the rest of us calleda gut feelingwould see the possible connection. I hoped.

“Here’s some tea.”

“Shit!” On instinct, I threw my cell and nearly dove under the sectional. “You scared the crap out of me.”

Celia laughed. “Clearly.”

My heart thundered hard enough for the neighbors to hear it. “I... uh... yeah.”

Where the hell was my phone? I remembered holding it, then she snuck up on me. Kudos to me for having the instinct to lash out when attacked, but the phone had the incriminating, totally inappropriate, gathered through snooping photos on it, so I needed to beat Celia to finding it.

“This is for you.” The ice cubes clinked when she held out a glass. “Don’t worry. It’s herbal tea, not that sweet tea crap Mags likes to drink.”

I closed the notebook I’d been using because I didn’t want her to see my scribbles but mostly because I needed to put all of my energy into responding to that shocking statement. “Celia Windsor, have you been pretending to like sweet tea to make Gram happy? Like, for twenty years?”

“Of course.”

I delivered my best fake gasp. “That’s outrageous.”

“She adds so much sugar my teeth tingle when I drink it, but I sip it anyway because it makes her happy.” Celia sat down next to me on the sectional. “In return, she’ll share a cherry pie with me even though she detests cherries.”

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