Page 27 of The Usual Family Mayhem

One more search. I’d be quick. I’d limit my snooping to that one column with the stars. I would not look at anything else.

This would be the last time.

I slipped around the kitchen island and stood behind the chair Celia had been sitting in. Keeping watch, listening for footsteps, and snooping turned out to be a lot to do at one time. I managed but my heartbeat thundered in my ears. Nervous energy bounced around inside me, making my hands shake as I opened the laptop. The document on the screen was a list of vendors and not helpful to my informal investigation, but I spied the tab for the ledger.

A few clicks and I was back in Celia and Gram’s private space, fighting off a final kick of guilt for going down this road. I didn’t expect to see a footnote about poison. I wasn’t that lucky. But I did expect to see stars. They were gone. I scrolled through pages. Nope, that final column no longer existed.

Abigail Burns and Delilah Rhine now were just two of the people who bought pies and received some sort of gift package from Gram and Celia over the last few months. Nothing indicated anything special about their pies or their deliveries. The evidence was gone.

The sunny kitchen felt tight and airless as the walls crashedin on me. I tried to stay calm, but my frenzied heartbeat had other ideas. The rush of my own breathing filled my ears.

One more thing to check.

I opened the pantry door and scanned the shelves. No locked cabinet anywhere. The containers of cupcake decorations now sat in rows like they always had before with the sprinkles on display. Organized by color. Right there for all to see.

Wrestling my imagination back under control would not be an easy task. Two pieces of potentially damning evidence had disappeared. To be absolutely correct, were erased. The stars and locked cabinet might not have been indicative of anything before but the absence of both now felt like a big deal. Like Gram and Celia were covering their tracks because the police were looking into the possibility of Cash’s death by poison.

Now I just had to convince Jackson.

Chapter Fourteen

A cup of tea and two cinnamon muffins later I showed up at Jackson’s house after a quick warning text. He lived in a condo in downtown Winston-Salem. A loft because of course. The love of lofts appeared to be entrenched in male DNA.

I hadn’t been there since he moved in three years and two girlfriends ago. That time I tagged along with Celia when she dropped off something for him. I remembered white walls, high ceilings, and exposed pipes. Expensive with a fancy kitchen complete with stainless everything. He was on the third floor but still had decent views. I also heard rumblings about a rooftop deck.

He answered the door all sweaty and breathless. His wet shirt stuck to him, showing off broad shoulders. It was criminal to hide those things under stuffy suit jackets. His hair went every which way. Those legs... toned and muscular, especially for a guy who sat at a desk twenty hours a day.

He looked adorably messy, standing there holding his earbuds.

I forgot how to use words.

After being subjected to a few quiet minutes of his intense frowning, I coughed up the information about the ledger revision and the now missing locked cabinet in the pantry. At least I thought I did. I could have said anything. My brain was so fuzzy it’s possible I gave him my usual take-out coffee order.

His frowning didn’t ease. “Say that again.”

I couldn’t even if I wanted to. But he could prevent further blurry thinking if he did one little thing. “I can wait if you need to take a shower... or find more clothes.”

“What?”

Moving on. I’d pretend he was wearing a clown costume or something similarly sinister. I closed my eyes and reopened them and... nope. Still hot and sweaty.

“The stars are gone.” There. I’d said something comprehensible.

“What does that mean?”

Maybe not so comprehensible. “I went back into the ledger on the computer and—”

“Again?”

Interesting that even in his half-clothed, rumpled state he used a judgmental tone. “I needed more evidence to convince you.”

“So, this is my fault?” He left the entry hall and moved into the kitchen.

I followed, which gave me an opportunity to check out his outfit from behind. Equally impressive.

“Let’s try this again.” He took two water bottles out of the refrigerator and handed me one. “I thought we agreed I’d check for information on Delilah’s husband, and you’d stand down.”

I twisted the bottle top but didn’t remove it. Playing with the piece of plastic gave my hands something to do. “No. You said you would look into it. I never said I’d stop investigating. I certainly never agreed tostand down.”

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