Since Luke had discovered yesterday that someone had been in Finley’s house, anxiety had been crawling over him. Through the night, he’d struggled with nightmares.
At this point, he was willing to try just about anything that might distract him. Including this.
He moved back and held the door for them.
Finley’s bachelor father had not harbored a deep and committed brand of love for very many people. His parents. Robbie and Robbie’s wife and kids. Finley. Just those. Nonetheless, the people he’d loved, he’d loved and protected fiercely.
Memories of her history with her aunt and uncle swam throughFinley’s mind as she and Luke walked toward their front door on Monday evening.
Her dad’s parents had passed away before Finley’s birth, at which time Robbie’s family of four had relocated to the Sutherland farm. Robbie and June had sold off the farming equipment and continued their long-held jobs—Robbie as an accountant and June as a full-time mom.
When Finley was small, Aunt June had been her dad’s backup caregiver. Whenever Dad needed time to himself to work, run errands, or go on a date, Finley had come here to Robbie and June’s.
She remembered standing on a chair next to her aunt, both of them wearing pink aprons and making sugar cookies. June had let Finley choose the cookie cutters and drop food dye into the white frosting to create the most fantastical colors.
June was the one who’d introduced her to Sesame Street and kept fresh Play-Doh on hand. She’d brought her daughter’s old dollhouse down from the attic for Finley, who’d spent hours concocting lives for the dolls and their pets. Together, June and Finley would walk down to the pond on the property, June’s gray cat prancing along behind them with its tail held high.
Back then, Robbie and June’s kids—Eric and Leslie—had been in their early twenties. At every family gathering, they’d been Finley’s good-natured playmates. Occasionally, luxury of luxuries, she’d had one of them all to herself when they’d served as her babysitter.
In her eyes, they’d been incredibly cool. Young, energetic, great-looking. Eric took her out for ice cream in his sports car, rode bikes with her, beat her at card games. Leslie put makeup on Finley and painted her nails.
Before Finley started kindergarten, she’d served as flower girl at both of their weddings.
Robbie and June were now eighty and seventy-eight, respectively. Eric was fifty, with a college-aged daughter. Leslie, twoyears younger, also had a college-aged daughter, plus two high school–aged sons.
Finley had never met her mother, so the Sutherlands were the entirety of her family. All she’d known. All she had. She’d been fortunate. They were gracious, loving, supportive.
Finley rang the doorbell, then glanced up at Luke. Just that—the two of them looking at each other without words—caused the air to turn hot.
His eyes glittered. She’d experienced his passion through his kisses but what she saw in his eyes was even more compelling. This ... this desire that hovered between them was growing unbearable—
June answered the door and enveloped Finley in a hug that smelled, as it always had, of Shalimar perfume. A pretty woman with a pillowy body, June had the type of personality that would have been perfect for a TV chef famous for cooking Southern food. She’d styled her short dark gray hair in a flattering style. She had on knit pants, a turquoise top, pink-rimmed glasses, and an enormous, chunky necklace.
Robbie approached with a smile, wearing a V-neck sweater over a button-down. He motioned them into the foyer. “Come in, come in.”
They passed the front office and sitting room and made their way into the open-concept living room, dining room, and kitchen space.
In the 1920s, Finley’s great-grandparents had built the original clapboard farmhouse. With gingerbread porch trim and redbrick chimneys, it oozed charm, if not square footage. By the time Robbie and June inherited it, it had been crumbling at the edges.
Right around the same time Finley had received her nest egg from her dad, her aunt and uncle had renovated the farmhouse. They’d added three thousand square feet in a way that beautifully complemented the original style and architecture. Nowadays, every inch of this place was in excellent shape.
A Jeep Grand Cherokee, Lexus sedan, and a sports car from the 1960s occupied the new garage. They’d purchased a vacation cottage on the Gulf Coast and went on two cruises annually.
Given that the increase in their standard of living had occurred right when Finley had received a monetary gift from her father, and given that Robbie’s job had remained the same up until his retirement, she strongly suspected that she had not been the only beneficiary of her father’s lucrative investment in Apple. It would have been very much like her dad to give money to both of the people he cared about most.
The group settled onto the overstuffed furniture. Soon, they had drinks in their hands and were snacking on the appetizers arrayed on the coffee table. Robbie and June’s current cat—the fourth gray cat they’d owned during Finley’s lifetime—curled into a donut on her lap.
There was no reason to rush the conversation she’d come to have with her uncle. In the most recent clue, her dad had specified that she should not alert Robbie to the fact that her questions were connected to the hunt. To pull that off, she needed to act as normally as possible and raise the subject of the day before the murder as organically as possible.
She amused herself by observing Luke in the habitat of her relatives’ home. He’d chosen clothing more formal than usual—a simple navy sweater and gray pants. He was on his best behavior. Quiet, but polite. Charming in a reserved way. She could tell that Aunt June was already in raptures over him.
After a time, they transitioned to the dining table. Robbie and June carried over ham, biscuits, salad, and potatoes. Finley helped herself to everything except the ham, which most definitely wasn’t vegan.
June, bless her, brought up Finley’s dad while they ate. “I miss him so,” she said. “Just the other day, Robbie and I went to Skyline Diner, where we used to eat breakfast with your father. I couldn’t think of anything but him the whole time.”
“It’s like that for me, too,” Finley said. “Certain foods or placesbring him to the front of my mind.” She set down her fork. “Songs, too. In fact, the other day I heard John Denver’s ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads.’”
June nodded. “He couldn’t listen to that song and not sing along to it.”
