“You and I both know I’ve never owned a necklace worth the cost of mailing it.”
The call disconnected and Siobhan forced herself to set her phone down on the table instead of throwing itacross the room. One, she had to set a good example for her son and, two, she couldn’t afford to replace it or have any damage to the wall patched.
She knew if she called back, Kelly wouldn’t answer. By tomorrow, her sister would have a new burner phone, and Siobhan would have no way of contacting her again. And if shewasstaying with Janelle, there was a good chance her mother overheard at least Kelly’s end of the conversation and wouldn’t take Siobhan’s calls for a while, either. She wouldn’t want to miss out on an opportunity to have a son-in-law with a beach house.
Looking at the note she’d written on the envelope, she felt despair creeping in. Even if Kelly was staying with their mother temporarily, Janelle would deny it. Siobhan definitely didn’t have the money to hire a private investigator to prove she was there, nor did she have the time or means to do it herself. She’d have to hope, if it came to that, the court system or law enforcement would be able to help.
Rather than wallowing, she stood and went to look at picture books with her son. Oblivious to her anxious state, he pointed out all the objects he could find in the photo of a busy playground, and she smiled when he started counting the flowers he could see on the page.
As she felt some of the tension easing from her body, she wished Brian was there to talk to about her conversations with her family, and that brought a whole new surge of tension.
He couldn’t be the person she leaned on. He was her son’s biological father, and that relationship between them came first for the rest of their lives. He was also her sister’s ex-husband. Her former brother-in-law.
No, Brian Kowalski could definitelynotbe her person.
* * *
“How do you devote your life to running a true crime podcast and not be able to come up with a plan for getting away with murder?”
Brian paused in the doorway of the store, Stella at his heels, pondering the question he’d walked in on Rob asking Hannah. Then he continued on, making sure the dog’s tail was in before pulling the door closed.
“Icancome up with a plan for getting away with murder,” Hannah was saying. “I’m just not going to tellyouhow.”
“Dave again?” Brian asked, dropping into a chair.
“There seems to be some confusion about who actually owns this property,” Rob said, and Brian knew the interaction must have been a bad one because their roles were usually reversed—Brian had a shorter temper and Rob was his voice of reason.
“Dave and Sheila have been camping here for decades,” Hannah said, clearly stepping into the peacemaker role. “It’s like a second home to them, so of course they’re going to have feelings about things changing.”
“I was trimming back the branches that scrape down the side of their neighbor’s truck because I don’t want us on the hook for repainting it if it gets scratched up and Dave accused me of trying to make it so there’s no shade at all in the campground.”
They’d taken some trees down before the campground opened for the season because taking down an unhealthy or dead tree was always better than having one fall on an RV or one of the guests. One of them had been a disease-weakened tree that had still offered shade to one of the campsites—not Dave and Sheila’s—and it seemed they would have to hear about it forever now.
Hannah sighed. “Only six more weeks or so and then you won’t have to worry about them again until spring.”
Brian chuckled. “You sure you want to spend the winter alone with this guy?”
She looked at Rob, her expression softening in a way that Brian envied. He’d like to have somebody in his life who looked at him the way Hannah looked at his brother. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“With fall coming and a list of things to do before we can close up, there’s a lot going on,” Brian said, mostly to distract himself. “Maybe I should tell Joey to come up next weekend.”
Rob frowned. “For what? I mean, last I knew, Ellie’s had some morning sickness, except it’s also midday sickness and evening sickness, so Joey’s been taking Nora to school and picking her up. He said something about maybe working Saturdays to make up for the lost hours.”
“I’m not going to be around next weekend, and he hasn’t spent as much time here, so he probably has a higher Dave tolerance than you do.”
“Sure, becauseyou’rethe tolerant one of the bunch.” Rob snorted. “And did I know you wouldn’t be around next weekend?”
“I told you. And it’s on the calendar.”
After a few seconds of thinking about it, his brother’s face lit up. “Oh, the sleepover. I can’t believe that slipped my mind.”
On the other hand, it neverleftBrian’s mind. No matter what he was doing, some part of his brain was thinking about the fact that hissonwould be sleeping in his house next weekend. It was surreal and exciting and terrifying.
Hannah laughed. “I won’t let Rob kill off any of the campers while you’re gone, Brian.”
“Speaking of killing off campers.” Rob sighed and held up his phone. “Some jerks rode through the pasture again and tore it up. Somebody passing by got a picture from the trail, but it’s not great. Do these look like the machines from site thirteen to you?”
Brian took the phone from Rob so he could see the photo filling the screen. His brother was right about it not being great, but he knew whoever had sent it to the lodging establishments—either the conservation officers or the local ATV club—would send the best they had. After zooming in as far as he could, he squinted. “It’s hard to tell, looking at the machines, but see here?”
