“Come,” Myrtle tells her. “You must be tired. I can put you in cabin two to rest before everyone else arrives.”
Myrtle leads her toward the door. “Watch the café,” she orders as she passes. “I’ll be right back.”
I flash her a look that saysSeriously?After all, I accidentally murdered a man here less than twenty-four hours ago. But she waves it off.
“Ta-ta!” the woman calls, waggling her fingers over a shoulder as they stroll into the afternoon sun. I watch them disappear behind the door of cabin two, my heart beating fast.
“Who the heck was that?” Ed asks, staring toward cabin two.
“Azalea,” I tell him like I’ve known her all my life.
He looks at me. “One of yours?”
“Apparently,” I reply.
She’s only the first, I realize a moment later. There will be more. How many, I don’t know. Myrtle went straight to bed after making the call last night and has said very little today, aside from having me phone several incoming guests and refund their deposits so the cabins would be available for family. I gave them all some lame excuse and endured being cursed out about half a dozen times before 10A.M.
“You’ve a strange family,” Ed says, taking the coffeepot from me to refill his cup.
I can’t argue with that.
IT’S THE SIX-YEAR-OLDwho unnerves me the most. She stands at her mother’s side when they arrive, watching me with guarded eyes—something no one under ten should have. When I offer her our standard peanut butter and jelly, she regards me coolly and says, “You’re the one Mommy calls a complication.”
“Scarlet!” her mother admonishes. “Don’t be rude.”
But Scarlet only looks pleased with herself.
I smile tightly into her mother, Barbie’s, face. “Cute.”
“It was a long flight,” she offers weakly.
As it turns out, Azalea is the least of my concerns. They continue to arrive over the next twenty-nine hours, the bane witches, trickling in like flies off carrion, each more eccentric than the last. They all cast a wary eye my way, but it’s clear they know who I am. It’s an unusual feeling to be surrounded by strangers who know you. I expected some kind of familiarity, a familial bond that would kick in like blood memory to lend me a sense of trust or at least recognition. But by the end of the next day, the only thing that makes it clear they are family is the restlessness behind their eyes, a shifty, hungry look they all share no matter their age or personal style.
I gather from the whispers that the clan matriarch is coming, “Is she here yet?” and “Have you heard?” being repeated in hushed tones near Myrtle’s ear over and over throughout each day. Aunt Myrtle answers them with a shrug and a brisk shake of the head, but it’s clear she’s on edge. At one point, I pull her aside.
“Who are they talking about?” I ask her.
She purses her lips. “Aunt Bella.” Then she inclines her head. “Myaunt Bella.”
I swallow, recalling the women in the picture she named. “You mean…?”
“Your great-grandmother’s sister.” Her eyes are pointed, driving home the implications.
“Jesus… How old is she?”
Myrtle sighs. “One hundred and two.”
I recoil. “Is it even safe for her to travel?”
“We’ll find out,” she says with a shrug. “Apparently, she insisted.”
Her words are little comfort. And it begins to sink in just what a big deal this is—Iam—for a centenarian to come all this way to weigh in. It only makes me more nervous. While it might look like a family reunion on the surface, I am being evaluated. Opinions will be aired. Votes cast. Decisions made. And though Myrtle hasn’t said as much, I get the feeling a lot more hangs in the balance than if I’ll be invited to the next potluck.
As if things aren’t already tense enough, Sheriff Brooks shows up an hour before close. He sits at an open table, watching me rush to serve bowl after bowl of chicken and dumplings to our unusual crowd, along with a few regulars and two travelers in for a quick meal. He’s nearly impossible to ignore, the warmth radiating off him like a heat lamp, my blood cold and needy. Every time I see him, something inside me stirs a bit more. It takes a while for me to realize it is desire. I haven’t felt it in so long. Instinctively, I understand this to be beyond inconvenient. When you have just learned you are responsible for the untimely deaths of three men, developing a piping hot crush on the local law enforcement is not exactly ideal. And Myrtle is always watching, along with the rest of them now.
When I finally get over to him with a cup of coffee and a water, he asks me to sit down.
“Now?” I question.
