Page 20 of Hard Heart

“The FOIA request?”

“It was definitely arson, but there was no arrest, let alone a trial. The case seems to have gone cold.”

“Well, that sucks. And speaking of sucking, if Star offers you one of his homemade nettle infusions, pour it somewhere when he isn’t looking.”

“That bad?”

“Worse.”

Heidi warned me about the nettles. She should have warned me about the cookies.

As dusk fell, I found myself kneeling on a cushion as Star talked me through the intricacies of macramé wall-hangings, but he’d barely made it halfway through the pattern when I keeled over sideways and face-planted in the remains of my Christmas crudités. The last thing I remembered was Star scooping me up and depositing me on a futon in the room I was sharing with Heidi. She was already snoring on the other side of the room.

My first words when I rolled over to face Heidi on Boxing Day morning? “Never again.”

“Oof, those were strong.”

“Why didn’t you warn me?”

“I did. I said, ‘Those are Starlon’s special cookies.’”

“Are you kidding? I thought you meant it was an old family recipe or something.”

“I mean, it might be.”

“His mum named him Derek. Does that say ‘weed cookies’ to you?” I got busy googling the implications. “It says here that after smoking weed, you should wait twenty-four hours before you drive.”

“That sounds, like, super cautious.”

“Of course I’m being cautious—I’m a lawyer, and I don’t want to be disbarred before I even get to practise in the state of Virginia.”

“And you didn’t smoke the weed, you ate it.”

“I doubt the method of ingestion matters.” A yawn crept up on me, and I clapped a hand over my mouth. “Ugh, I’m not sure I’ll make it back to Richmond without another twelve hours of sleep.”

“Mom and Starlon won’t mind if we stay another night. Hey, you can finish your macramé.”

“The more you talk, the worse it sounds. And what about your macramé?”

“You know how many nails I’ve broken with those knots?” Heidi stretched out her arms and legs, arching her back. “Whoever invented futons should be forced to sleep on one every night for the rest of their life. We could go ice skating?”

“How did we get from futons to ice skating?”

“Undiagnosed ADHD?”

I tried stretching myself, then sat up in a hurry when my leg cramped. “Ow!”

“Cramp? You should eat more potassium. Or magnesium. One of the two, I forget which. You want me to get you a banana?”

“Only if the banana comes with paracetamol.”

“With what?”

“Aceta… Aceto… Tylenol. I need Tylenol.”

Heidi rolled out of bed, and I lay back and rued my life choices. Christmas had long been my favourite holiday—the carols, the sparkles, the candy canes, the visit from Santa… Dad always drank the whisky left out for the reindeer and dressed up. And this year, I should have been in New York with my soon-to-be in-laws, stuffed full of turkey and getting ready to become Mrs. Rudd Bester. We’d planned a Boxing Day walk in Central Park, and we were going to watch the ball drop in Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

Don’t get me wrong, it was kind of Heidi’s family to let me visit. And the cabin did have a certain rustic charm, tucked away in the woods on the edge of town and surrounded by nature. All I could hear was birdsong. No traffic, no TV, nobody arguing over who got the last Quality Street. But I still felt bloody miserable.