Quilty as Charged, page 16
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The card was signed with a simple dash and her name, Fran. No hearts, no warm wishes. Just the gift of a house. For the first time that weekend, that horrible, horrible weekend, Lydia let herself quietly cry. Fran wouldn’t have wanted Lydia to make a fuss, but Lydia would have anyways. At least a hug. She wanted to hug her friend. Lydia had been wondering about the Laurels. Fran was the only child of two only children. The cousins she had played with as a child were distant and had drifted out of her orbit. And she had never so much as married, not even a Graham-length marriage. Lydia had assumed the house would be auctioned off; maybe the bank would buy it? She didn’t know the details of those sorts of contracts. Now, here she was, the new owner of the Laurels, holding yet another piece of the puzzle in her hands.
Sleep was a long way off, and she knew it. Instead, Lydia switched the flashlight back off and lay in bed, moving pieces of information around in her mind the way she would move around pattern pieces on a length of fabric that threatened to be just a bit too small for her project. There was a way it all fit. She knew it. She just had to keep shifting the pieces until they clicked.
Mary, Martha, and Clark all had reasons to hate Fran. Cynde certainly had strong emotions. And Heather? Heather had a secret … a secret that might mean more than Lydia could seem to understand. A secret that Fran already knew. Did Heather know that Fran knew? She rubbed her temples, trying to dispel a growing headache. It all felt like a deadly version of “Who’s on first?”
But Lydia had to be honest with herself. She just didn’t buy that Amy had killed Fran. Which meant someone else had killed Fran and Amy.
She forced herself to consider Auden. Maybe he had wanted Fran to give him the house? To make up for ruining his chances with the Dalton house? Was it punishment for the loss of his dreams? Maybe Amy knew he did it and had to be silenced? She tried to picture Auden, pointing the shotgun at Amy, forcing her to take the fentanyl. It almost made sense.
But Auden had been with her when Fran died. And if he had wanted to kill Amy, someone would have seen him with the gun heading to Amy’s room, surely. Maybe he had an accomplice? The car in the drive? Someone else mad about Hillside? But how would an outsider know how to get around the house? No, Auden didn’t fit. Her gut told her that she was on the right track, though. What if the murder was really about the Laurels? She moved the pieces around again, and all of sudden, it clicked.
If Lydia was right, then there might be another murder. If she was right, the next step would require help. For the next step she would need Auden. But that meant she had to be sure, sure enough to risk her life on it, that she could trust him.
Lydia swung her feet off the bed, pulled off the quilt, and quietly left her room, Charlie trailing only a few steps behind. She left her flashlight in her room and navigated the house in the darkness, moving toward the glow of the still-burning fire in the living room.
Seeing that Auden was still awake, Lydia thanked every god she could think of that she wouldn’t have to wake him, easily imagining a million ways she could embarrass herself in the effort. Clearing her throat, she sat next to him near the fire and tried to explain what she had come to understand: “Auden. Fran gave me the house.”
Lydia waited for him to reply but saw that he was simply too shocked to respond, so she plowed ahead. “I didn’t tell the group, but Fran wrote notes for everyone. I was going to give them to everyone at the end of the retreat, let people have one last touch of Fran in their lives. I read mine tonight. She did tell me she was dying. She just did it in the note. And she told me she is leaving the Laurels to me.” With that, she paused, offering Auden a chance to interject. Nothing. She suddenly understood the cliché about being able to knock someone over with a feather.
Lydia plowed on: “Auden, listen. There’s more. I was nosy. I read everyone else’s letters.…” At that revelation, Auden’s mouth tightened, but he stayed quiet, still willing to listen.
“There wasn’t a letter for you, obviously. Fran didn’t think you would be playing the game. And there wasn’t a letter for Amy. Fran must have written the letters before Cynde told her she was coming. Anyway,” she paused. Auden still looked shocked. Worse, he looked disgusted.
“I know. I shouldn’t have. But maybe the ends justify the means? Maybe not, I don’t know. The letters weren’t that scandalous, really. But they got me thinking. What if Amy didn’t kill herself? What if she was murdered, just like Fran was murdered?”
Auden sputtered to life, “Lydia, we talked about this. Who would murder Amy?”
Lydia, relieved he was at least participating in the conversation now, rushed to explain her theory: “I think Amy was murdered, not because of who she is, but because it meant we would stop looking for a murderer. She was just a scapegoat. I don’t think this was ever about a love triangle; I think this whole terrible thing is about the Laurels,” and with that, she stopped, pleased at her explanation for once.
“You think this is all about the Laurels? Are you saying I killed them?” Auden asked, his face reddening. “I didn’t have to tell you about my plans, Lydia, about my woodworking, what I wanted to do with my life. I told you because I trust you. Not to have you throw it back in my face as a motive for murder.”
Lydia reeled back, and she rushed to clarify, whisper-yelling, “No! Sorry. No. I’m saying, listen, I need to tell you about the other letters. And well, the things I have, um, overheard this weekend.” It was a loose definition of “overheard,” but she didn’t want to admit to Auden how much she had been intentionally eavesdropping.
“At first, I thought this was all about Fran and the store. She’d been pressuring people to invest in the store before I bought it. I think she really rubbed some people the wrong way,” which was putting it mildly, she added silently, “but then I thought I must have been wrong when Amy died. That was just a love triangle. But that didn’t hold water, either. Cynde might have been in love with Fran, but they weren’t together. Amy gained nothing in killing Fran. And the fentanyl? She wouldn’t even take aspirin for a headache, and then suddenly she takes the strongest opiate on earth, the one that killed her brother? It never fit. Nothing about Amy being a murderer made any sense. You said so yourself when we found her body. So, then I wondered. What if it was about Fran, her life before Measure Twice? I still wasn’t sure until I read the letter and learned about the Laurels. And if I’m right, Auden, I need to do something a little risky. And I need your help.”
She took a deep breath and went on. “Because if this is all really about the house, then I’m the next target. At least I will be, when I tell everyone at breakfast that she left the house to me. And when I tell them … when I tell them I read the letters she wrote to everyone else,” she added, still a little ashamed she had read them and had to admit as much to Auden.
“You’re going to tell everyone you read their private notes from Fran?” Auden asked, forcing himself to keep his voice steady but clearly flabbergasted at her plan. Little did he know how much more absurd it would get.
“Yes. As soon as everyone is in the kitchen in the morning. I am going to tell them about the notes, that Fran left the house to me, and that I read the rest of them. But I don’t want you to be in the kitchen when it happens,” she added.
“Lydia, I said before, I really don’t think we should be splitting up, and if people are going to be upset with you, I would … well, truth be told, Lydia, I would rather be there to keep you safe, just in case,” he finished, looking down at his hands.
Was he blushing?
Since the night she’d discovered Graham and Emma-Grace and spilled her diet lemonade all over the bedroom carpet, Lydia had only been on one date. Set up by Fran. She had gone to dinner with her neighbor, Brandon, only to find him murdered not long after. After that, and her own escape from death, she had put all thoughts of dating firmly out of her mind. Firmly.
It didn’t matter if Auden was maybe blushing a little bit. It didn’t matter that she loved the idea of him keeping her safe, of him even wanting to keep her safe. Now he was looking up, right into her eyes.
They were lit by the fire, and Lydia suddenly felt too aware that they were both in their pajamas, even though Auden still had a blanket, one of Fran’s quilts, draped across his lap. If she wasn’t there to talk about a murderer, it might have even felt romantic. She suddenly realized how close they were sitting. They must have moved closer as they whisper-argued about the letters and her absurd plan.
He was looking at her now with an intensity she wasn’t sure how to decipher. There were no distractions, the house quiet but for the ever-present storm. It felt beyond surreal, to be sitting in a dark house, by a fire, in the middle of the night, with a handsome man. As if no one else existed, as if the whole weekend had never even happened.
Just how he had been sitting with Heather the night before.
Lydia broke their gaze, looking at the dark window that only dimly reflected the light of the fire, leaving the storm-filled world outside impossible to see clearly. Auden was gorgeous; there was no way around it. And in the moment he looked right at her, she felt a nervous giddiness that she hadn’t felt in more than months—that she hadn’t felt in years. All she could do now was hope—hope that, when the storm ended, he would still want to look at her that way. Hope that, after he heard the rest of her plan, he would still want to help her. Hope that her plan would work.
“Thank you,” Lydia said quietly, officially ending the moment. “Thank you for wanting to keep me safe. I do need your help to stay safe, but not in the kitchen. I need you to hide in the bathroom.”
The grandfather clock chimed its longest run, all twelve loud bongs to mark they had reached midnight.
Lydia repeated herself, “I need you to hide in the bathroom.”
“Excuse me?” Auden asked, shifting away from her as he said it.
“If I’m right, and I understand that is a big ‘if’ right now … if I’m right, then the person I think is responsible for all of this will want to hurt me next. We need to catch them in the act. Which means I set the trap in motion, by telling the group about the Laurels, and you wait in the bathroom that connects to my room to catch them in my room.”
“You think this person is going to head straight to your room?” Auden couldn’t hide his incredulity.
“Yes. I’m almost certain. And Auden?”
“Yeah?”
“We’re going to need your gun.”
Chapter Fifteen
Monday
When she woke up, rested, she suddenly noticed that the rain had finally stopped. Lydia took a moment to soak in the quiet—the real, rain-free, quiet—of the morning. Thankfully, the night before, Auden had agreed to her plan. All of it. She flinched, remembering how awkward her good night had been. She had stood up, and then he had stood up, as she had leaned down to hug him, she caught him sort of around the waist as he rose and then he had patted her head since he couldn’t hug her back from that angle. Terrible. It would have been funny in any other context, but when you’re planning how to capture a double murderer, it’s hard to keep your sense of humor.
She hadn’t even said anything after that train wreck of a hug, simply straightened up, turned around, and headed to bed. At least for once she had actually fallen asleep quickly.
No nightmares. Instead, the real nightmare was just outside her room. Lydia was surprised at how calm she felt. Maybe calm is the feeling left on the other side of fear. No matter the reason, she was relieved to not be shaking. She needed to act natural. Everything depended on nothing seeming weird.
Shifting Charlie from the bed, she got up and grabbed black leggings and a shirt that read I HEART CRAFTING in pink letters on a black background. Slipping into the bathroom she shared with the M’s, she brushed her teeth and splashed her face with the frigid water. She looked in the mirror and told herself to breathe.
She was ready. Hair in a messy topknot, she made her way quietly into the kitchen. She needed coffee. It was time.
Just like the day before, Auden was still asleep, and the house was silent—truly silent now that the sleet had stopped. With a steaming mug of coffee, she quietly tucked herself into the large leather chair that faced the enormous windows in the back of the house. Her house. It seemed impossible that she owned the Laurels. She wanted to be excited, but the loss of Fran flooded the extravagance of her gift with grief. How many times can one person change your life? Now she would never have a chance to tell Fran how much it mattered, how much it all mattered.
The mug in her hand was a twin to the mug Fran had kept in the Measure Twice break room. It seemed impossible to live in a world without Fran. She realized she was crying, almost silently. There wouldn’t be any more moments where Fran changed her life like a fairy godmother. But at least there was one thing she could do for Fran. And she had to start now, so she peeled herself from the deep, comfortable leather chair and went back into the kitchen to warm up the leftover muffins.
Auden joined her, pouring himself a mug of coffee. She pulled the baking tray of warmed-up muffins out of the oven and set them on top of the stove. As she transferred them to a blue-and-white platter, she heard the rest of the house waking up. One by one, the rest of the group wandered in, filled heavy white-and-blue mugs with coffee, put muffins on matching plates, and sat down. The kitchen was filled only with the sounds of muffin wrappers being removed and the muffins themselves being consumed, a little more quickly than normal.
They all seemed in silent agreement that one thing was needed that morning: sugar. As they ate in silence, the beautiful silence left in the wake of the storm that had ended overnight, the sun shone into the summer room. The ice hadn’t melted, but it was a promising start to the day. Maybe they could go home soon. Lydia, knew, even if they didn’t, that one more thing had to happen before they could be free.
“I know you all think I had a bit of a blind spot when it came to Fran,” Lydia announced to the table, with no segue whatsoever. Clark looked like she had just declared it was raining frogs. Everyone stopped eating.
“You were right. There was a lot I didn’t know. Or maybe I didn’t want to know. But I am coming to understand things a lot better. Yesterday, when I went to get the prizes for the game, I found something else, something important, something I should have told you about before now. You see, in addition to the prizes, Fran wrote each of us a card. And, I … well given what had happened, I … I read them. The cards. I read all of them,” Lydia admitted.
No one spoke. Even Cynde looked appalled. And Clark, well Clark looked livid. Lydia pressed on.
“It was none of my business, and I won’t mention your cards again. I’ll give them to you in a moment. But before I do that, I need to tell you all what was in my card.”
This shift surprised the group further.
“In her note to me, Fran told me she left me the house. The Laurels belongs to me, now. The house is mine, and.…” Lydia wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence, but it didn’t matter. It had worked. For a moment. Lydia thought ice had slid off the roof and crashed next to the window. But instead, Heather stood halfway to the table, staring at her empty hands in shock. The white-and-blue plate she had just been holding lay on the floor, shattered. Mary got up to help, but Heather had already turned on her heels and left.
Mary turned to Martha, muttering, “Poor girl; this has all been too much.” Lydia grimaced, but waited, and passed out the cards to those still at the table.
It had to work.
Lydia prayed that on the other side of the house, Auden waited, just like she had told him to, in the Jack-and-Jill bathroom with the door cracked open. If she was right, just now, as Lydia passed out the cards to the stunned sewists still at the table, Heather was opening Lydia’s door and stepping into the Flower Room. Auden would be watching as Heather reached into her pocket and pulled out the orange bottle she had tucked away, watching as she grabbed Lydia’s water bottle on the bedside table, unscrewed the cap, added in two small pills, screwed the cap back on, and shook it.
In the kitchen, Cynde, Clark, Mary, and Martha were opening their cards from Fran and reading them, silently, angled away from each other as if there were any secrets left to protect. Lydia had expected Clark to be the first to complain that she had read the cards, but it was Cynde who spoke first:
“Lydia, what on earth possessed you to read these cards? Fran was a private person. She deserved to say what she wanted to say, privately,” Cynde said, stressing the last word. “We’ve all gone along with your ideas on this trip, but you’re acting like you are the only adult here. This isn’t some summer camp, Lydia. You had no right to read the cards.”
As she had fallen asleep the night before, Lydia had tried to prepare herself for exactly this reaction. It was unavoidable, but knowing that didn’t make it any less painful.
She had practiced her excuses, but the words failed her now in the face of her friend, who clearly felt betrayed.
“You’re right, Cynde. I was out of line. I hope, in time, you can forgive me. Ever since … ever since we.…” Lydia paused, trying to find the least hurtful word. “Ever since we lost Fran, I have wanted so badly to believe that it was some stranger, some outsider, who did this. Fran loved all of you, and she loved Measure Twice, and I guess I just thought, if I knew everything, I could keep us, the store, everything safe.” Lydia hoped, as she apologized to Cynde, that the woman didn’t notice how she also kept listening so keenly toward her bedroom.
Cynde clearly found Lydia’s apology lacking and was just about to make it clear to her exactly how lacking, when Lydia heard the noise she had been waiting for: Auden’s voice, saying loudly enough: “That’s enough, Heather.”
Lydia got up from the table and without saying anything further, ran to her bedroom.
The door was closed, and she waited for a moment, straining to hear the conversation inside. It was too quiet. Lydia opened the door to her room. Even though she had expected the scene in front of her, even though she had, in a way, planned it, she was still shocked. She was right.
The card was signed with a simple dash and her name, Fran. No hearts, no warm wishes. Just the gift of a house. For the first time that weekend, that horrible, horrible weekend, Lydia let herself quietly cry. Fran wouldn’t have wanted Lydia to make a fuss, but Lydia would have anyways. At least a hug. She wanted to hug her friend. Lydia had been wondering about the Laurels. Fran was the only child of two only children. The cousins she had played with as a child were distant and had drifted out of her orbit. And she had never so much as married, not even a Graham-length marriage. Lydia had assumed the house would be auctioned off; maybe the bank would buy it? She didn’t know the details of those sorts of contracts. Now, here she was, the new owner of the Laurels, holding yet another piece of the puzzle in her hands.
Sleep was a long way off, and she knew it. Instead, Lydia switched the flashlight back off and lay in bed, moving pieces of information around in her mind the way she would move around pattern pieces on a length of fabric that threatened to be just a bit too small for her project. There was a way it all fit. She knew it. She just had to keep shifting the pieces until they clicked.
Mary, Martha, and Clark all had reasons to hate Fran. Cynde certainly had strong emotions. And Heather? Heather had a secret … a secret that might mean more than Lydia could seem to understand. A secret that Fran already knew. Did Heather know that Fran knew? She rubbed her temples, trying to dispel a growing headache. It all felt like a deadly version of “Who’s on first?”
But Lydia had to be honest with herself. She just didn’t buy that Amy had killed Fran. Which meant someone else had killed Fran and Amy.
She forced herself to consider Auden. Maybe he had wanted Fran to give him the house? To make up for ruining his chances with the Dalton house? Was it punishment for the loss of his dreams? Maybe Amy knew he did it and had to be silenced? She tried to picture Auden, pointing the shotgun at Amy, forcing her to take the fentanyl. It almost made sense.
But Auden had been with her when Fran died. And if he had wanted to kill Amy, someone would have seen him with the gun heading to Amy’s room, surely. Maybe he had an accomplice? The car in the drive? Someone else mad about Hillside? But how would an outsider know how to get around the house? No, Auden didn’t fit. Her gut told her that she was on the right track, though. What if the murder was really about the Laurels? She moved the pieces around again, and all of sudden, it clicked.
If Lydia was right, then there might be another murder. If she was right, the next step would require help. For the next step she would need Auden. But that meant she had to be sure, sure enough to risk her life on it, that she could trust him.
Lydia swung her feet off the bed, pulled off the quilt, and quietly left her room, Charlie trailing only a few steps behind. She left her flashlight in her room and navigated the house in the darkness, moving toward the glow of the still-burning fire in the living room.
Seeing that Auden was still awake, Lydia thanked every god she could think of that she wouldn’t have to wake him, easily imagining a million ways she could embarrass herself in the effort. Clearing her throat, she sat next to him near the fire and tried to explain what she had come to understand: “Auden. Fran gave me the house.”
Lydia waited for him to reply but saw that he was simply too shocked to respond, so she plowed ahead. “I didn’t tell the group, but Fran wrote notes for everyone. I was going to give them to everyone at the end of the retreat, let people have one last touch of Fran in their lives. I read mine tonight. She did tell me she was dying. She just did it in the note. And she told me she is leaving the Laurels to me.” With that, she paused, offering Auden a chance to interject. Nothing. She suddenly understood the cliché about being able to knock someone over with a feather.
Lydia plowed on: “Auden, listen. There’s more. I was nosy. I read everyone else’s letters.…” At that revelation, Auden’s mouth tightened, but he stayed quiet, still willing to listen.
“There wasn’t a letter for you, obviously. Fran didn’t think you would be playing the game. And there wasn’t a letter for Amy. Fran must have written the letters before Cynde told her she was coming. Anyway,” she paused. Auden still looked shocked. Worse, he looked disgusted.
“I know. I shouldn’t have. But maybe the ends justify the means? Maybe not, I don’t know. The letters weren’t that scandalous, really. But they got me thinking. What if Amy didn’t kill herself? What if she was murdered, just like Fran was murdered?”
Auden sputtered to life, “Lydia, we talked about this. Who would murder Amy?”
Lydia, relieved he was at least participating in the conversation now, rushed to explain her theory: “I think Amy was murdered, not because of who she is, but because it meant we would stop looking for a murderer. She was just a scapegoat. I don’t think this was ever about a love triangle; I think this whole terrible thing is about the Laurels,” and with that, she stopped, pleased at her explanation for once.
“You think this is all about the Laurels? Are you saying I killed them?” Auden asked, his face reddening. “I didn’t have to tell you about my plans, Lydia, about my woodworking, what I wanted to do with my life. I told you because I trust you. Not to have you throw it back in my face as a motive for murder.”
Lydia reeled back, and she rushed to clarify, whisper-yelling, “No! Sorry. No. I’m saying, listen, I need to tell you about the other letters. And well, the things I have, um, overheard this weekend.” It was a loose definition of “overheard,” but she didn’t want to admit to Auden how much she had been intentionally eavesdropping.
“At first, I thought this was all about Fran and the store. She’d been pressuring people to invest in the store before I bought it. I think she really rubbed some people the wrong way,” which was putting it mildly, she added silently, “but then I thought I must have been wrong when Amy died. That was just a love triangle. But that didn’t hold water, either. Cynde might have been in love with Fran, but they weren’t together. Amy gained nothing in killing Fran. And the fentanyl? She wouldn’t even take aspirin for a headache, and then suddenly she takes the strongest opiate on earth, the one that killed her brother? It never fit. Nothing about Amy being a murderer made any sense. You said so yourself when we found her body. So, then I wondered. What if it was about Fran, her life before Measure Twice? I still wasn’t sure until I read the letter and learned about the Laurels. And if I’m right, Auden, I need to do something a little risky. And I need your help.”
She took a deep breath and went on. “Because if this is all really about the house, then I’m the next target. At least I will be, when I tell everyone at breakfast that she left the house to me. And when I tell them … when I tell them I read the letters she wrote to everyone else,” she added, still a little ashamed she had read them and had to admit as much to Auden.
“You’re going to tell everyone you read their private notes from Fran?” Auden asked, forcing himself to keep his voice steady but clearly flabbergasted at her plan. Little did he know how much more absurd it would get.
“Yes. As soon as everyone is in the kitchen in the morning. I am going to tell them about the notes, that Fran left the house to me, and that I read the rest of them. But I don’t want you to be in the kitchen when it happens,” she added.
“Lydia, I said before, I really don’t think we should be splitting up, and if people are going to be upset with you, I would … well, truth be told, Lydia, I would rather be there to keep you safe, just in case,” he finished, looking down at his hands.
Was he blushing?
Since the night she’d discovered Graham and Emma-Grace and spilled her diet lemonade all over the bedroom carpet, Lydia had only been on one date. Set up by Fran. She had gone to dinner with her neighbor, Brandon, only to find him murdered not long after. After that, and her own escape from death, she had put all thoughts of dating firmly out of her mind. Firmly.
It didn’t matter if Auden was maybe blushing a little bit. It didn’t matter that she loved the idea of him keeping her safe, of him even wanting to keep her safe. Now he was looking up, right into her eyes.
They were lit by the fire, and Lydia suddenly felt too aware that they were both in their pajamas, even though Auden still had a blanket, one of Fran’s quilts, draped across his lap. If she wasn’t there to talk about a murderer, it might have even felt romantic. She suddenly realized how close they were sitting. They must have moved closer as they whisper-argued about the letters and her absurd plan.
He was looking at her now with an intensity she wasn’t sure how to decipher. There were no distractions, the house quiet but for the ever-present storm. It felt beyond surreal, to be sitting in a dark house, by a fire, in the middle of the night, with a handsome man. As if no one else existed, as if the whole weekend had never even happened.
Just how he had been sitting with Heather the night before.
Lydia broke their gaze, looking at the dark window that only dimly reflected the light of the fire, leaving the storm-filled world outside impossible to see clearly. Auden was gorgeous; there was no way around it. And in the moment he looked right at her, she felt a nervous giddiness that she hadn’t felt in more than months—that she hadn’t felt in years. All she could do now was hope—hope that, when the storm ended, he would still want to look at her that way. Hope that, after he heard the rest of her plan, he would still want to help her. Hope that her plan would work.
“Thank you,” Lydia said quietly, officially ending the moment. “Thank you for wanting to keep me safe. I do need your help to stay safe, but not in the kitchen. I need you to hide in the bathroom.”
The grandfather clock chimed its longest run, all twelve loud bongs to mark they had reached midnight.
Lydia repeated herself, “I need you to hide in the bathroom.”
“Excuse me?” Auden asked, shifting away from her as he said it.
“If I’m right, and I understand that is a big ‘if’ right now … if I’m right, then the person I think is responsible for all of this will want to hurt me next. We need to catch them in the act. Which means I set the trap in motion, by telling the group about the Laurels, and you wait in the bathroom that connects to my room to catch them in my room.”
“You think this person is going to head straight to your room?” Auden couldn’t hide his incredulity.
“Yes. I’m almost certain. And Auden?”
“Yeah?”
“We’re going to need your gun.”
Chapter Fifteen
Monday
When she woke up, rested, she suddenly noticed that the rain had finally stopped. Lydia took a moment to soak in the quiet—the real, rain-free, quiet—of the morning. Thankfully, the night before, Auden had agreed to her plan. All of it. She flinched, remembering how awkward her good night had been. She had stood up, and then he had stood up, as she had leaned down to hug him, she caught him sort of around the waist as he rose and then he had patted her head since he couldn’t hug her back from that angle. Terrible. It would have been funny in any other context, but when you’re planning how to capture a double murderer, it’s hard to keep your sense of humor.
She hadn’t even said anything after that train wreck of a hug, simply straightened up, turned around, and headed to bed. At least for once she had actually fallen asleep quickly.
No nightmares. Instead, the real nightmare was just outside her room. Lydia was surprised at how calm she felt. Maybe calm is the feeling left on the other side of fear. No matter the reason, she was relieved to not be shaking. She needed to act natural. Everything depended on nothing seeming weird.
Shifting Charlie from the bed, she got up and grabbed black leggings and a shirt that read I HEART CRAFTING in pink letters on a black background. Slipping into the bathroom she shared with the M’s, she brushed her teeth and splashed her face with the frigid water. She looked in the mirror and told herself to breathe.
She was ready. Hair in a messy topknot, she made her way quietly into the kitchen. She needed coffee. It was time.
Just like the day before, Auden was still asleep, and the house was silent—truly silent now that the sleet had stopped. With a steaming mug of coffee, she quietly tucked herself into the large leather chair that faced the enormous windows in the back of the house. Her house. It seemed impossible that she owned the Laurels. She wanted to be excited, but the loss of Fran flooded the extravagance of her gift with grief. How many times can one person change your life? Now she would never have a chance to tell Fran how much it mattered, how much it all mattered.
The mug in her hand was a twin to the mug Fran had kept in the Measure Twice break room. It seemed impossible to live in a world without Fran. She realized she was crying, almost silently. There wouldn’t be any more moments where Fran changed her life like a fairy godmother. But at least there was one thing she could do for Fran. And she had to start now, so she peeled herself from the deep, comfortable leather chair and went back into the kitchen to warm up the leftover muffins.
Auden joined her, pouring himself a mug of coffee. She pulled the baking tray of warmed-up muffins out of the oven and set them on top of the stove. As she transferred them to a blue-and-white platter, she heard the rest of the house waking up. One by one, the rest of the group wandered in, filled heavy white-and-blue mugs with coffee, put muffins on matching plates, and sat down. The kitchen was filled only with the sounds of muffin wrappers being removed and the muffins themselves being consumed, a little more quickly than normal.
They all seemed in silent agreement that one thing was needed that morning: sugar. As they ate in silence, the beautiful silence left in the wake of the storm that had ended overnight, the sun shone into the summer room. The ice hadn’t melted, but it was a promising start to the day. Maybe they could go home soon. Lydia, knew, even if they didn’t, that one more thing had to happen before they could be free.
“I know you all think I had a bit of a blind spot when it came to Fran,” Lydia announced to the table, with no segue whatsoever. Clark looked like she had just declared it was raining frogs. Everyone stopped eating.
“You were right. There was a lot I didn’t know. Or maybe I didn’t want to know. But I am coming to understand things a lot better. Yesterday, when I went to get the prizes for the game, I found something else, something important, something I should have told you about before now. You see, in addition to the prizes, Fran wrote each of us a card. And, I … well given what had happened, I … I read them. The cards. I read all of them,” Lydia admitted.
No one spoke. Even Cynde looked appalled. And Clark, well Clark looked livid. Lydia pressed on.
“It was none of my business, and I won’t mention your cards again. I’ll give them to you in a moment. But before I do that, I need to tell you all what was in my card.”
This shift surprised the group further.
“In her note to me, Fran told me she left me the house. The Laurels belongs to me, now. The house is mine, and.…” Lydia wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence, but it didn’t matter. It had worked. For a moment. Lydia thought ice had slid off the roof and crashed next to the window. But instead, Heather stood halfway to the table, staring at her empty hands in shock. The white-and-blue plate she had just been holding lay on the floor, shattered. Mary got up to help, but Heather had already turned on her heels and left.
Mary turned to Martha, muttering, “Poor girl; this has all been too much.” Lydia grimaced, but waited, and passed out the cards to those still at the table.
It had to work.
Lydia prayed that on the other side of the house, Auden waited, just like she had told him to, in the Jack-and-Jill bathroom with the door cracked open. If she was right, just now, as Lydia passed out the cards to the stunned sewists still at the table, Heather was opening Lydia’s door and stepping into the Flower Room. Auden would be watching as Heather reached into her pocket and pulled out the orange bottle she had tucked away, watching as she grabbed Lydia’s water bottle on the bedside table, unscrewed the cap, added in two small pills, screwed the cap back on, and shook it.
In the kitchen, Cynde, Clark, Mary, and Martha were opening their cards from Fran and reading them, silently, angled away from each other as if there were any secrets left to protect. Lydia had expected Clark to be the first to complain that she had read the cards, but it was Cynde who spoke first:
“Lydia, what on earth possessed you to read these cards? Fran was a private person. She deserved to say what she wanted to say, privately,” Cynde said, stressing the last word. “We’ve all gone along with your ideas on this trip, but you’re acting like you are the only adult here. This isn’t some summer camp, Lydia. You had no right to read the cards.”
As she had fallen asleep the night before, Lydia had tried to prepare herself for exactly this reaction. It was unavoidable, but knowing that didn’t make it any less painful.
She had practiced her excuses, but the words failed her now in the face of her friend, who clearly felt betrayed.
“You’re right, Cynde. I was out of line. I hope, in time, you can forgive me. Ever since … ever since we.…” Lydia paused, trying to find the least hurtful word. “Ever since we lost Fran, I have wanted so badly to believe that it was some stranger, some outsider, who did this. Fran loved all of you, and she loved Measure Twice, and I guess I just thought, if I knew everything, I could keep us, the store, everything safe.” Lydia hoped, as she apologized to Cynde, that the woman didn’t notice how she also kept listening so keenly toward her bedroom.
Cynde clearly found Lydia’s apology lacking and was just about to make it clear to her exactly how lacking, when Lydia heard the noise she had been waiting for: Auden’s voice, saying loudly enough: “That’s enough, Heather.”
Lydia got up from the table and without saying anything further, ran to her bedroom.
The door was closed, and she waited for a moment, straining to hear the conversation inside. It was too quiet. Lydia opened the door to her room. Even though she had expected the scene in front of her, even though she had, in a way, planned it, she was still shocked. She was right.
