Page 13 of Cold as Hell

I lean back in my chair. “His boundaries might be invisible, but they are rock solid.”

“Yep. So he left when Lynn arrived, and I stayed about another half hour, finishing my beer. Lynn offered to buy us another round, but we’re all lightweights.”

“So she just got a drink for herself?”

He thinks and then shakes his head. “She didn’t bother. Shesaid if we changed our minds, let her know. That didn’t happen while I was there.”

“It did happen afterward. According to Kendra, Yolanda talked her into another drink, and Lynn bought the round.”

“Makes sense. Now you’re going to ask how Kendra seemed, and the answer is absolutely fine. She was Kendra. Goofing around with Gunnar. Needling Yolanda. Chatting with me. I saw zero sign she was inebriated or dosed. It must have come in that second round.”

“Or it was dropped into her drink by a passerby. Or it was injected during the closing bustle.” I sigh. “With a town of seventy people, you’d think it’d be easy to figure out who dosed a resident in our only bar.”

“It never has been. I’m guessing you’ll want a list of everyone who was there?”

“Yep. If you can do that, I can get Yolanda, Lynn, and Isabel to check it over.”

“Ask Gunnar, too. He might have taken off, but he pays attention. As for Yolanda, though…”

“Right. Her face blindness. I’ll ask, because she’ll be offended if I don’t. But I’ll be clear I know she might not have noticed who all was there.”

Anders insists on fetching Yolanda, which makes me feel a bit like a queen on her throne, but it’ll keep Dalton from fussing that I’ve been doing too much.

Yolanda built Haven’s Rock. Okay, she had help, including Kendra and Gunnar, but she was in charge. Her grandmother—Émilie—is our fairy godmother. Émilie had been one of Rockton’s earliest residents, and she and her husband had shown theirappreciation by joining the first board. That was in the early and optimistic days when the town truly was a sanctuary run by idealists. Over the years, that changed, but Émilie and her husband stayed on to keep it from becoming a pure for-profit endeavor… and no one dared kick them out because they headed one of North America’s biggest pharmaceutical companies.

So we have a billionaire backer, which would be more awkward if we didn’t value Émilie’s expertise more than her money. She truly is our fairy godmother—keeping us safe, finding us new residents, even securing a top-notch obstetrician for me—and we only want to be sure we never rely too much on her, however trustworthy she’s been.

Her granddaughter Yolanda is successful in her own right as the founder of a company specializing in environmentally friendly construction, which of course made her perfect for Haven’s Rock. But if the town is done, why is Yolanda still here? Because she won’t leave and no one dares make her.

Part of that is protecting her grandmother’s interests. Yolanda no longer suspects we’re preying on an elderly billionaire; she just thinks we’re naive idealists who might make a mess of Émilie’s passion project. Also, Yolanda has early Parkinson’s. She’s dealing with that… and hiding out so she doesn’t need to tell Émilie, who lost her husband to the disease.

The door opens, and Yolanda walks in. She’s in her mid-forties, tall and curvy, with brown skin and dark curls.

Before Yolanda reaches me, she says, “I don’t know who did this to Kendra, but she was fine when I left.”

I inwardly sigh. “No one’s accusing you of attacking Kendra.”

“Yes, but I will be accused of not looking after her. Because Kendra is sweet and popular, and I’m a stone-cold bitch.”

I lean back in my chair. “I see your point.”

She crosses her arms. “Thank you.”

“To alleviate it, I’m going to suggest you hold a town meeting. You can run it, and it’ll give you a chance to be very clear that you did not abandon poor, innocent Kendra—”

“Fuck off. I’m not running your damn meeting.” She slumps into the seat opposite me. “I’m just being clear that Kendra was fine when I left, which was a few minutes before closing. And I didn’t abandon her. She was talking to Lynn about whether they should take advantage of the warm weather to run an impromptu hike. It was getting close to midnight, and the conversation didn’t concern me, so I took my leave.”

“When you say ‘close to midnight’ can you be more specific?”

“I was in the residence building at twelve, so I probably left at ten to.”

“And went straight to your room?”

“Am I a suspect?”

I sigh. “Yolanda…”

“Fine. I went and sat on the toilet, okay? The one damn working toilet. The real reason I left early was that I had stomach cramps. Would you like details of what I did on the toilet? Maybe a sample from the tank to test for DNA?”

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