Hank scowled. “Not helpful.”
Reno piped up. “Of the four samples you’ve shown us, this one is the second most boring.”
“Why are we voting on second place?” Hank demanded.
“Thorough governance.”
Hank looked at Dillon in desperation. “Help me out, Man.”
Dillon looked over the tile samples carefully and announced, “First one. Stop talking about tile.”
Hank set the winning tile aside and reached for the grout samples. “Either of you know anything about picking grout?”
“My billable rate at a litigation firm in a city where you couldn’t afford to live was eight hundred and sixty dollars an hour. You’re not paying me enough to give grout advice.”
“Zero is what your grout advice is worth,” Hank retorted.
“Zero is what you’re paying me. Different math.”
“You ever going back to law?” Dillon interjected.
“Nope. Never.”
Dillon grinned. “Never’s a long time, Me Friend.”
“I mean it,” Reno declared.
And so it went. They teased and harassed one another good humoredly as they laid underflooring and put a waterproof membrane over it in preparation for laying the boring white floor tile Hank would buy tomorrow in hopes of convincing a judge to give him custody of his fourteen-year-old daughter.
Saturday morning dawned clear and cool in the Stillwater Valley, the sky turning every pastel shade of lavender, pink, peach, and yellow before the sun burst over the horizon. Reno took the oversized blueberry muffin Grace had sent him home with him out to the porch and sat down to enjoy it. Grace O’Donnell could out bake even his grandmother, and that was saying something.
He’d come home from the bakery at five, after Mary arrived to help Grace pack up the McAllister cake for transport to the wedding later today. Two nights in a row he’d sat in his truck in the alley behind Buns ’N’ Roses watching nothing happen, which was the best possible outcome.
Walter came out through the doggie door, walked down the driveway in his dignified manner, picked up the weekly newspaper in his mouth, and carried it back to Reno.
“Thanks, Walt.”
The dog’s tail thumped.
The paper was a bit soggy but still perfectly legible. Reno unfolded it, saw the headline, and stopped cold.
SHOEMACHER FIRE INVESTIGATION REOPENED. Below it, in smaller type: Sheriff’s Office Working with State Fire Marshal on Re-Examination of 2021 Blaze.
Last he’d spoken with Cooper the investigation, which had been ongoing for several months, was being kept under tight wraps. What had changed? Reno scanned the article quickly.
The article reminded its readers, as if any reader in Cobbler Cove needed reminding, of the main horse barn at the Shoemacher Racing Stable going up in flames on a hot August day with a crew of eight firefighters trapped inside. The original investigation, conducted by a state fire investigator named Lex Jansick, had ruled the cause accidental and attributed ignition to an electrical fault. The insurance company had paid up. The case was closed. The widows had buried their husbands.
Now, according to the Cobbler Cove Crier, the Sheriff’s office was working with the State Fire Marshal’s office and what the article called additional law enforcement partners to re-examine the original findings. Anyone who’d been near the property the day of the fire or who had knowledge of the barn’s construction and maintenance was being interviewed. The article listed a few neighbors and former ranch hands, who’d supposedly been interviewed in the last few weeks.
The sheriff’s office had no comment regarding what prompted the new investigation. But the article noted that Cooper Lawton, recently brought on as the department’s lead investigator, was said to be in Arizona at present where Lex Jansick was reported to have retired several years back.
He thought about the sadness that clung to Grace now and then when she thought no one was looking and the longing way she looked at Lily sometimes, as if she was wishing Lily’s father was alive. Depending on what Cooper learned in Arizona, the hole in Grace O’Donnell’s life might be a very different shape than she’d been told all this time.
How would she react if she found out, after having already grieved him, that her husband had been murdered? How would all the widows react? Would they have to grieve their husbands all over again? What would happen to his friends and his own brother who loved those women? Would their new relationships survive the shock?
Reno was suddenly a great deal less sleepy than he had been a few minutes ago. He really needed to sleep, though. He’d offered to look after Lily for a few hours this afternoon while Grace drove the McAllister wedding cake over to Apple Pie Creek and assembled it at the reception venue. Grace’s babysitter was still sick with the flu and all of the WoWS were busy today and couldn’t pinch hit for Grace. He’d overheard Grace ask Mary if she was busy this weekend, and the older woman saying was spending it in Bozeman. That was when he’d stepped in to ask Grace if he could help her with whatever she needed.
As he went inside and lay down in bed, he wasn’t sure which worried him more: Grace being devastated all over again if it turned out her husband’s death had been intentional or having to spend three hours with a four-year-old. By himself. In charge. Responsible for her being alive and unharmed at the end of that time.
