“Everyone is a suspect.” Rebecca reentered the office carrying the nineteenth or twentieth bag of ice. I had lost count at fourteen. She skirted the desk and handed the bag to me. “Apply for twenty minutes.”
“Yes, doctor.” I winced when I placed the ice on the wound.
“
“I’m hot on your trail,” I said, struggling to sit.
“Not without our help,” my grandmother admonished. “Rebecca, some assistance please.”
They each clutched one of my elbows and helped me rise.
Resembling a teetering three-legged-race team, we squished through the door. Over my shoulder, I gave a word of warning to Rags and Rocket. “Behave.” Both looked at me with mournful eyes as if wondering how I could ever think they would do otherwise.
“Are you sure you don’t know who it was that attacked you?” Rebecca asked.
“For the last time, I’m positive.” I tried to break free of my captors.
They clinched me more tightly.
“You said he smelled like horses,” Grandmere said.
“Hay,” Rebecca countered.
“Both,” Grandmere said. “And he was wearing dark clothing.”
“And taller than you,” Rebecca added.
“Taller than any of us,” I said. “And he was wearing a mask.”
“What was his eye color?” my grandmother asked.
I moaned. “Just because I slept doesn’t mean I don’t remember you asking me all of these questions before.”
“Close your eyes and try to remember.”
“Oh, please, Grandmere.”
“Try. Adjust your thinking.”
There was that phrase again. What wasn’t I adjusting? I was looking outside the box. Everyone was a suspect. Heck, if I didn’t know better, I would even suspect myself. I closed my eyes for a nanosecond and reopened them. “I can’t see a thing. Not a darned thing. Now, release me.” I wrested free, exasperated and exhausted. Keeping the ice pack on my forehead and using one hand to plead my case, I said, “It’s a blur.”
My grandmother itched to grab hold of me again, but I backed away.
“Could it have been Arlo MacMillan?” she asked.
“Or Barton Burrell?” Rebecca said.
“For all I know, the intruder was a thief who had nothing whatsoever to do with Kaitlyn’s death. Look, I’m not psychic. Stop badgering me.”
I trudged into the shop, self-doubt squeezing the air out of me. Were Oscar’s attacker and the thief at the tent one and the same? Was he a tourist or a local? Could I travel, inn to inn or house to house, looking for someone who owned a ski mask? Maybe in my panic I had overestimated the height and size of him. Maybe the scent of horses and hay I had picked up had come from the properties around Oscar’s house and not from the intruder. Everyone north of town owned horses.
“If only Oscar were lucid,” Rebecca said.
Poor Oscar was lying in a coma on a hospital bed. The attacker had knocked him out cold. If I hadn’t shown up, would Oscar be dead? If I hadn’t used Jordan’s self-defense technique, would I? The thought made my head throb.
As I reached the cheese counter, Amy raced from the wine annex and threw her arms around my waist. “Aunt Charlotte, you’re awake.”
Clair followed suit. She said, “Thomas, Tisha, and Frenchie came with us.”
Tyanne’s towheaded children were perched on the stools by the marble tasting counter, helping themselves to slices of Monterey Jack. Frenchie, Freckles’s eldest daughter who was older than the twins by three years and usually the model of good behavior, stood beside them, flailing Thomas with her red braids.
“Stop it,” Thomas cried.
Frenchie persisted.
Tisha said, “Mommy kicked us out of the tent. Frenchie and Thomas were sword fighting with icicles.”
Thomas said, “Other kids were doing it, too.”
“They were doing it outside, you goon.” Tisha gave her brother a stern look, then turned her attention back to me. “Mommy told us to skedaddle.”
Amy latched onto my sweater and drew me to her level. “Thomas is still being a pill to me,” she whispered.
“I’m sure he’ll change, in time.”
“Ha! Never. Men.”
My niece—a cynic at the tender age of nine. I smiled, which sent another shooting pain to the knot on my forehead. So much for an ice pack dulling the ache.
“Matthew,” my grandmother called to my cousin, who was polishing glasses behind the antique bar in the wine annex. “A glass of Pellegrino water for Charlotte.”
I tossed the ice pack into the sink behind the counter and followed my grandfather and the heavenly scent to a mosaic cafe table. I nestled into a wrought iron chair and eyed the pale orange quiche appreciatively, then dove in. Pepere must have added extra nutmeg and maple syrup to his recipe. The luscious concoction melted in my mouth. I mumbled my thanks.
Neither Pepere nor Grandmere acknowledged me. They hovered on either side, hands folded in front of them, making me feel like a fish in a fishbowl. With a very bad lump on its head. Lucky me.
Matthew set a stemmed glass of sparkling water on the table and settled into the chair opposite me. “Do you have a headache?”
“I’ll survive.”
“Next time—”
“There won’t be a next time,” I promised.
“Thanks be to God,” Grandmere said.
Pepere steepled his hands and said a French blessing of his own.
“Liar.” Matthew chuckled. “Sure, there will. You’re my sassy, headstrong cousin.”
“I’m not headstrong.”
Sylvie flounced into the annex and said, “Yes, you are.” The sheer sleeveless dress she wore was better suited for the middle of July, but I didn’t have the energy to tell her she had no common sense. “You’re as headstrong as Matthew, Charlotte, hence that nasty bump. Bullheadedness runs in the Bessette veins, doesn’t it, love?” She peered at Matthew, who flinched.
My grandmother clucked her tongue and elbowed Pepere. Without a word, he ushered her into The Cheese Shop. He preferred that Matthew handle his marriage issues alone. Unfortunately, I was slow on my feet.
“You need to think before you leap, Charlotte,” Sylvie persisted.
“Who asked you?” I said, the words not nearly combative enough. If only I could master a tough New Jersey accent. I couldn’t. When I had tried to do one in a high school play, I had sounded like a mixed-up urchin from Ireland.
“And you’re bossy,” Sylvie continued, undaunted. She flung her faux ocelot coat over the back of a chair and fluffed her hair. “You push people around.”
Matthew bounded to his feet. “Sylvie, this is a private conversation.”
“It’s not private unless you’re whispering.”
“Leave.”
“Matthew, I’ve got this.” I clambered to my feet, ready to have it out with his ex once and for all. “Sylvie, I do not boss.”
