Blake sidestepped the barb and recalled that the news had indeed reached her through Lola’s social circle. The news had been sad, but she’d been dealing with a lot at the time. She hadn’t thought too much about it past a wave of sympathy. She might have known most of the Seven Roads locals, but she’d never met the young Missy.
“I heard about her passing. Her daddy is Jonathan Clearwater, the owner of the tractor supply before he retired and sold, right?”
“Yeah, that’s him.” A grimace passed over Cassandra’s face. “He was a big part of her problems. After he shut the tractor supply down and laid everyone off, a lot of people were angry. It’s not like we have a big job pool here, you know? Especially the older folks who’d been there for a minute. But it’s not exactly like they could have told him off or said anything but nice words in his direction. So they turned to the safer option of pushing that frustration onto the easier target. People were passive-aggressive and sometimes outright rude to Missy. Nothing too bad in the beginning, but after a while, it became a thing that had people whispering whenever she was around. She must’ve gone to her dad about it, but it backfired. They had a big fight near the diner. Yelling so loud that Mrs. Thomas almost made them leave.”
Cassandra cast her a look. If she had been Corrie, she would have no doubt commented on the similarities of the last part with Blake’s own past, but thankfully, she stayed on topic. She leaned back slightly, shaking her head a little more.
“Then her boyfriend went and left her—Corrie thinks because he couldn’t take the unflattering spotlight—andthento make matters worse, he had the gall to start dating her best friend. Like it was out of a sitcom or something. They’re still together, by the way. I sold them coffee last week.”
Blake didn’t have any other words than “Yeesh.”
Cassandra seconded the sentiment.
“If that wasn’t enough of a sad story, Missy died a week after that news broke. She was found beneath the bridge out at Becker Farm.”
Blake stopped twirling her hand through the candy dish. That part she hadn’t heard through Lola’s rumor mill.
“Did she fall or jump?”
Hesitation. It lined every beat of time between Blake’s question and Cassandra’s answer. When it broke, her words had become notably colder.
“She was found at the bottom, in the dirt. That’s all I know.”
Blake averted her eyes to the dish.
“What did the newspaper say?”
There was no hesitation this time.
“That Missy jumped.”
“And what does the sheriff out there think?”
No hesitation again.
“From what I’ve heard, that she didn’t.”
“He thinks she fell?” Blake asked the question, but she suspected that wasn’t the answer.
“You’d have to ask him that.”
Cassandra sighed out long and loud. Her patience with Blake seemed to be running out. So Blake went in for one last go.
“Why is he barking around your tree then?” she asked. “Were you and Missy close?”
Cassie shook her head.
“No. But I supposedly was the last person to see her alive.” She pointed toward the door. Beyond that was the hallway that led to the main coffee shop room. “She came to get a coffee a few hours before she was found beneath the bridge.”
“You two talk?”
“Unlike the rest of the town, I thought it would have been impolite to ignore her. Or heckle her. We talked about the weather, about laptop brands, and then about how expensive whipped cream had gotten. She left when she was done with her coffee. She tipped well, smiled nice, and then was just gone. That’s the long and short of it.”
“Laptop brands?” That wasn’t exactly normal chatter, especially with Cassandra, who had never been a fan of technology in school.
“She had one with her and seemed capable enough with it. I asked if she liked it well enough since my youngest, Hunter, spilled milk all over mine and I needed to get another. She was nice about that too.”
Talking about laptops, the weather, and whipped cream hours before potentially jumping off a bridge. Drinking coffee too. It didn’t sound like a woman who was planning not to see the end of the day.
