“I don’t suppose—” I start to ask when she calms down.
“You cannot tell Taylor Grace. Promise?” Hollis begs. “She will go bananas if she finds out that Jonah was having an affair with me. She’s so unhinged. Jonah wanted to leave her. He told me. He said, at first, he thought she was just a poor, abused girl, then he talked to her sister.”
“He talked to Lydia?”
Hollis nods. “Lydia told him that Taylor Grace had a charmed childhood and was never abused, that she’s always been insane. And that she’s dangerous.”
“Jonah told me that he tried to bring it up in a therapy session, and Taylor Grace went ballistic. He told her that they needed some distance, then—”
“Shit. I knew it. Taylor Grace killed Jonah.” I pace in front of the counter.
“That’s what I think,” Hollis whispers. “You should come hang out with me and Lydia. Lydia cannot stand Taylor Grace. She and I really bonded over her craziness.”
“Yeah, Taylor Grace was complaining about it to me.”
“I’m not surprised. She is very possessive about her sister.” Hollis’s eyes widen. “You need to tell your friend Josie to be careful. Taylor Grace will probably go after her next.”
16
HUGHES
“Good, you brought the ham. Now you need to slice that up into small pieces. Watch the rolls while you’re in here,” Willow’s grandmother tells me when I stomp the snow off my boots at the back door to her house.
“I gotta go clean the bedrooms. The tourists checked out late today, even though they knew I have the party. Willow was supposed to do it. Have you seen her? Where’d she run off to? You didn’t pass her coming from your granny’s house?” Beryl asks.
“Um, I’m not sure,” I lie, still reeling from the kiss and from Willow’s reaction.
Dammit, Taylor Grace. Did she ruin what I had with Willow? And what did I have exactly? I’m pretty sure she likes me—or liked me prior to Taylor Grace kissing me, anyway. Jeez. How did I blow that?
Then I wonder: Did Taylor Grace know Willow was there? Did she kiss me just to make her mad? My sister always liked to say girls were way meaner than boys.
Now I sound like Taylor Grace. Paranoid and crazy. But if she does get that crazy jealous, then maybe Willow’s right. Taylor could have killed Dr. Merriweather out of jealousy.
While I hate to think that I had a murderer right under my nose as a client—I mean, what kind of private eye would I even be?—it’s better than my nana being the murderer. And she’s not making it any easier to think otherwise.
The back door slams open, then there’s Willow, smacking containers of cupcakes down on the counter. Her mouth is a flat line. “You can go. You don’t have to be here.”
“I’m helping with the party,” I remind her, setting down the knife.
“We don’t need your help.”
“Look, we have to talk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” Her voice has an edge. She shoves past me to wash off pomegranates in the sink.
I grab her arm and push her against the counter, feeling her struggle against me. “Look, Willow. I didn’t kiss Taylor Grace.”
“Are you kidding me, you stupid, lying—”
I grab her other wrist before she can slap me. She glares up at me, fuming.
“I don’t know why I even care. I hope you two are miserable together and she ruins your life and kills you like she did Jonah,” Willow spits.
“Well, damn.”
“And don’t say I’m bad-mouthing your ‘client’”—she makes air quotes—“either, because I have evidence from Hollis.”
I let her jerk out of my grasp.
