Olivia touched the orange kitten on the fur above his pink nose. “You don’t belong to me, Flynn. And Diane is a lovely woman.” She glanced at him quizzically. “Did you want me to be jealous?”
After a pause, Flynn answered. “I guess I did. If only a tiny bit.”
“Flynn—” The voice of Flynn’s assistant came through the intercom mounted on the wall. “I need a hand out here. I can’t leave the register and some folks are having trouble locating the books they want.”
“In other words, get my ass out on the floor?” Flynn asked after pressing the reply button.
Jenna giggled but obviously didn’t have time to engage in further conversation.
“Your public awaits,” Olivia said and pushed open the stock room door. Flynn put a hand on her arm as she held the door for him. “That’s supposed to be my job,” he scolded. “And don’t think you’ve escaped so easily. You’ve been as slippery as a piece of seaweed since the storm.” When Olivia didn’t respond, he dropped his hand and smiled. “All I’m saying is don’t be a stranger.”
Olivia watched him walk past the puppet theater, where he paused to pick up a
The next day, Olivia parked the Range Rover in front of a spacious transitional brick home located in a subdivision called The Marshes. Laurel was waiting for her, pacing in the driveway with a cell phone pressed to her ear.
“I can’t come home just yet,” she said and rolled her eyes for Olivia’s benefit. “Just put Dallas on his bed and tell him he has to stay there until he apologizes to his brother. Oh, you’ll forgive me when I bring you something incredible for dinner. Bye!” She sighed and gave Olivia a plaintive look. “Do you have something incredible for me to take home?”
Olivia indicated they should proceed up the flagstone walk. “I’m sure Michel can produce something to satisfy your husband. Pastry-wrapped tenderloin in red wine sauce is always a crowd-pleaser.” She noticed that Laurel’s fingers were shaking as her friend pressed lightly on the doorbell.
A haggard-faced woman with a small boy clinging to her thigh answered the door. “Laurel? Come in. Excuse the mess. I just . . .” She touched her child on the head, easing him away from her and giving him a gentle shove toward the stairs. As he began to climb, she finished her thought. “I just don’t give a damn anymore. Why make the bed? Why dirty a dozen dishes making a beautiful dinner? Why water the plants? If they die, it’s one less thing to deal with.”
April spoke in a flat monotone as though she had cried and raged so much already that there was no emotion left. In Olivia’s opinion, April had entered the worst phase of grief. She would have to wake every morning and face the emptiness within. One hundred times each day, she’d feel the vacuum that her husband’s death had created. It would suck all color, all taste, all the light from her world. The past was out of reach and the future was a frightening, black void.
Laurel murmured the customary words of condolence, but Olivia reached out and touched April on the elbow. The widow flinched, her eyes flying open as though the slight human contact had burned her flesh. Instead of removing her hand, Olivia curled her fingers around April’s forearm. “It will seem endless. They say time helps but some wounds don’t heal completely. You just go on. You drive to the grocery store and watch television and read books you’ll never remember. You’ll cry in unexpected places, eat the same foods over and over, and avoid your friends because they remind you too much of the woman you were before.” She removed her hand. “But you’ll make it. You will make it through this.”
April nodded. “Thank you. I don’t feel like I exist with everyone tiptoeing around me, like
Laurel turned her head, wiped her eyes with a tissue, and whispered, “Can we sit down for a moment?”
“Sure.” April absently led them to the dining room. The room had been decorated in muted greens and golds with dark walnut furniture. “We never use this room,” she remarked, looking around as though seeing the space for the first time. “I think I’ll sell all this stuff. The whole house. Everything. I can’t sleep in my room anymore.”
For a moment, Laurel seemed in danger of rising to her feet and fleeing from April’s grief. It filled the air like smoke, robbing the room of oxygen and replacing it with the family’s stifling loss. But Laurel rallied, took out her notebook, and uncapped her pen. “April, will you tell us everything? From the beginning?”
April did. She began with Felix. She shared the image of him lying on the kitchen floor with a puddle of red blood spread out beneath his head across the bright white tiles. “It was like a crazy dream. I thought I could just close my eyes and when I opened them, everything would be normal. Even when I started screaming, I felt like the sound was coming out of someone else’s mouth.”
It took some time before April could speak again. The thieves had taken the usual items: computers, sterling silver, jewelry, and a few other electronics. The Howards didn’t keep any cash in the house and they owned no original art, so their haul was less substantial than previous takes.
Laurel wrote down the name of the children’s school, learned that the family had no pets, and then asked April for the names of their household services.
April shook her head. “Felix had been worried about losing his job all summer long, so we’d been tightening our belts for months. I’ve been doing the cooking, cleaning, and gardening. Felix was in charge of lawn and car maintenance. The only service we still used was the dry cleaner’s and I didn’t drop off clothes unless I had a coupon.”
“I keep all mine in a special wallet,” Laurel said in an effort to commiserate. “I really like it when those big value packs come in the mail. And we use the Pizza Bay coupons religiously.”
This earned her a small smile. “We do too,” April said and then frowned. “You know, I forgot to tell the police something. When they asked me about what we’d done over the course of the week leading up to . . . the robbery, I tried to remember all the little details. I made this huge list, labeling each day and every activity. It gave me something to do—a way to help the cops bring justice to my husband. But, of course, it didn’t help or they’d have caught the bastards by now.” Her eyes filled with tears, but she shook her head and blinked them away. “But I forgot something. Hold on, I’ll show you.”
Olivia and Laurel waited quietly as April sorted through a pile of papers in a kitchen drawer. She pulled out a green flyer and handed it to Laurel. “We took these guys up on their offer a few days before the kids and I left. I did it to lighten Felix’s load a bit and give him the chance to fully concentrate on his upcoming presentation.”
Laurel studied the flyer and something flashed in her eyes. She engaged April in another line of questioning while sliding the paper over the polished table to Olivia. As soon as Olivia began to read, she felt her breath quicken. This had to be a tangible clue. She reread the advertisement.
We Strive to Make Your Life Easier!
Olivia could barely sit still through the remainder of the interview. That is until April made a comment about how difficult it would be for her to find employment as an interior designer. “I haven’t worked for years and my last job involved a huge office complex.”
Diverted by thoughts of her Bayside Crab House project, Olivia said, “April, I’d love to see photographs of your work. I happen to know someone in need of your skills. There’s no rush,” she added gently and handed April a business card.
April stared at the card in confusion. “I thought you were Laurel’s photographer.”
“I am,” Olivia agreed. “But I left my camera in the car. I assumed you wouldn’t welcome photos today.”
“I do want a picture of Felix in the paper,” April insisted firmly. “I want those sons-of-bitches to see the face of the man they killed. And I’m ready to show my portfolio to anyone, anytime.
