Page 86 of Threat of Danger
Chapter Twenty
ON THE WAYhome, Jess saw the Crowley’s Sugaring van in a neighbor’s driveway, the prominent logo, the black bird on the red maple leaf. Looked like Don Crowley was still going from farmhouse to farmhouse. Had Chuck ordered anything from the guy? He’d never said. Jess supposed they’d find out when the bill came. She would have to figure out a lot of things, and in a hurry, if she wanted to keep the operation going.
As soon as they got home, Zelda headed to her new downstairs room to lie down. Jess went to find Kaylee to break the news. She’d be home by now. The school bus would have come an hour ago. It usually came at three in the afternoon.
A dozen crows lined the top of the trees at the edge of the woods, she noticed. As Jess walked toward the sugar shack, she could swear the crows were watching her. When she shivered, it was from the strangely ominous sight of the black birds, and not from the cold. She walked faster.
Before she’d left the hospital, she and Zelda had gone upstairs to tell Rose what had happened to Chuck. They had all cried in each other’s arms. But Jess had not yet texted either Kaylee or Derek. She wanted to give them the news in person. In particular, Jess wanted to be there for Kaylee when she found out about her grandfather’s death. Kaylee would need support, and Jess would do whatever it took to help.
I’m so sorry, but I have some bad news for you, sweetheart, she rehearsed as she walked toward the sugar shack. Or,I love you, honey. Something terrible happened. I’m so sorry.Or ... Tears sprang into Jess’s eyes. She rubbed them away. How did you tell a kid that she’d just lost the only blood family she had left?
In the end, Jess didn’t have to say anything. The second she walked into the sugar shack, Derek and Kaylee turned toward her at the same time, and they knew.
Derek took one look at Jess and pulled Kaylee into a bear hug. Then, when Jess walked up to them, openly leaking tears now, he pulled all three of them together.
Kaylee knew what it meant, but needed to fight the news. Knowing and accepting weren’t the same. Her eyes, her voice, her entire body, begged. “Please tell me he’s not gone.”
“He is, honey.” Jess choked on her own tears. “I’m so sorry.”
This wasn’t Kaylee’s first time losing family. That she would have to go through something like this again seemed so incredibly unfair. Jess wanted to howl in protest.
“I’m sorry.” Derek’s tone turned thick with emotion. “I’m going to be here for you, OK? Always. And Zelda and Rose too. I know it. None of that orphan bullshit. You have family. So don’t even worry about that for a second.”
Me too, Jess wanted to say. She wanted to add herself to the list, to the family. But she was leaving in two weeks, starting a new shoot. The team needed her. Eliot needed her.
Except ... Eliot was a friend. He was a mentor and an inspiration. But this was family. And family came first.
“Let’s go into the house.” Derek steered them out of the sugar shack and toward the house. “How is Zelda doing?”
“Shocked,” Jess said. “Drained.”
Derek led them inside.
Within minutes, Zelda joined them, shuffling from her new room on shaking knees. “Can’t lie down. Can’t rest. Can’t turn off my brain.”
Derek went to hug her. When he pulled back, Kaylee ran to embrace her next.
Zelda hugged the girl back with a fiercely protective expression. “Oh, honey.”
They collapsed onto the couch together, holding on to each other as if the couch was a raft, racing down a flooded river.
Jess went to the kitchen for the box of tissues on the counter.
“I’ll take care of what needs to be taken care of,” Derek said quietly next to her.
The funeral arrangements.
“Thank you.”
Chuck had no relatives around—he’d come to the United States from Mexico alone, at age eleven. He only had vague memories of his life before. For the past several decades, the town and the Taylors had been his family.
Jess set the tissue box next to Kaylee and Zelda on the couch. “I’m going to make tea.”
She went back to the kitchen. She needed to keep moving. Maybe moving would keep the black hole of grief from finding her. She didn’t want to be sucked under. She wanted to stay strong and available for Zelda and Kaylee.
As she crossed the kitchen to the sink, Derek followed her, stopping at her elbow, and asking under his breath, “Do you think social services will get involved?”
Jess nearly dropped the pot she was filling.
