“Lying now, Principal Marrow?”
“Creative reporting. I learned it from your daughter’s last book report.”
Ethan bit back a smile as he stepped inside. “You know, one day, you’re going to admit you think we’re charming.”
“I’ll admit I think your daughters need the extra help I’ve been offering.”
“I can manage.” The refrain rolled from his tongue easily these days, but he struggled more and more to believe it.
Juniper arched her brow, and Ethan couldn’t help but feel, not for the first time, that Juniper saw more than she let on and knew exactly when not to say it out loud.
“Find a seat, Ethan.” She stepped aside. “We have a lot on our agenda today.”
Ethan slid past with a nod of his head.
The school gymnasium buzzed with the sound of folding chairs scraping the floor, paper programs flapping like fans, and someone already arguing about parking permits.
He went to the long folding table at the back and set out the tray of cookies. Then he dropped into the nearest folding chair in the back row.
“About time,” came a voice from Ethan’s left.
Theodore Nolan, Brim’s Hollow’s chief of police and Ethan’s best friend since they were both dumb enough to jump off the Hollow Creek bridge at age twelve, took the seat beside him. He was halfway through a coffee and wearing his usual uniform—pressed shirt, badge, and that calm, unreadable expression he used to great effect on both suspects and ex-girlfriends.
“You see Juniper out there? I was lucky to make it past unscathed,” Ethan said.
“She’s mad because her PowerPoint about proper mushroom foraging crashed. Again.”
“Then we’re all better off.”
Juniper’s heels clicked across the gym floor as she took her place at the front beside Percy Bloom—known to allas Poppy—Brim’s Hollow’s mailman, rideshare driver, and unofficial town gossip.
Poppy banged a gavel far too enthusiastically for a Tuesday. “If everyone could settle down.”
Juniper lifted a clipboard, lips pursed. “Let’s begin with a petition submitted by Mrs. Gribble, regarding” —she squinted—“‘limiting the BooBees’ walking hours due to excessive sidewalk loitering and traffic interference.’”
The BooBees were a long-standing walking group made up of retired nurses, an accountant, and at least one banker. They took up the front row and wore their signature black and yellow tracksuits with pride. They’d originally formed for a breast cancer walk over a decade ago and now walked every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at dawn, armed with gossip, granola bars, and alarming energy.
The BooBees crossed their arms in perfect unison.
One leaned forward to whisper, far too loudly, “Tell me how we’re a public safety hazard when Trent’s goats are still roaming the library parking lot.”
Ethan leaned over to whisper to Theo. “Hey, listen. I got this text I meant to ask you about.”
Theo didn’t look up. “There’s no way out of the audit.”
“I didn’t say I was trying to get out of it.”
“You didn’t have to,” Theo said, wincing as he took a sip of the black coffee he insisted on drinking when he was in uniform despite his preference for something much sweeter.
“But if I did want to at least delay it, would you have any pull?”
“Nope.”
Ethan sighed, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “I just don’t love the idea of someone poking around the orchard.Especially some bureaucrat from the city who thinks laws are more important than people.”
“We all have our principles,” Theo said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
