“Okay, okay,” Chris soothed. “Keep your voice down.”
“Look, I’m calling to let you know we have a situation here. Conn has it under control. Lieutenant Hawthorn’s coming over later to discuss security protocols, or whatever. That’s all. Go back to your lady love. I’ll let you know what we decide.”
“Do you want me to make an appearance?”
“No,” Cady said. Conn turned the corner to her mother’s street and was nearly sideswiped by a city plow. “Please, I’m begging you, do not come back to Lancaster. We just got twelve inches of snow and it’s a wasteland here. They’ll probably close the airport any second.”
Conn snorted. Cady heard a bed squeak and rustle, then the clatter of blinds.
“Cady. Please. You got six inches of fluffy white powder.”
“How do you know that?” she asked, suspicious.
“The weather app on my phone,” he said. “I want to be in on the conversation later today. What time?”
“It might be tomorrow. I’ll let you know. I’m going Christmas tree shopping with my mom and Emily today.”
“From NASCAR to Norman Rockwell. You cover all the cultural bases. Text me the time.”
The call disconnected in the middle of a soft exhalation. “He hung up on me,” Cady said. She scrolled through her texts. A bunch from Emily she didn’t read because the last one was!!!!!!!!!!! and a new one from Bryan. DDoS again. Working on tracking this motherfucker down and nailing his balls to a cement block.
“Great,” she muttered.
“What?”
“My site’s down again.”
“I don’t think this is coincidental,” Conn said. “Where does he live?”
“Bryan? Here. I’ve tried to stick with local businesses when I could. My personal lawyer’s here, too.”
“No, Chris.”
“Brooklyn.”
“Did he go home when he left?”
“I assume so,” Cady said. “Why?”
The Audi slid to a stop by the curb. “I’m not crossing anyone off the list until I can conclusively clear them.”
“It’s Chris. You might as well suspect my mother of gaslighting me.”
“She had a key.”
“Which sits on a hook by the kitchen door, where anyone from a neighbor to one of Mom’s or Emily’s friends could have snagged it.”
“That’s why we’re getting the locks changed today.”
His focus shifted from her face to over her shoulder. Cady turned to see Emily and her mother standing on the stairs while her mother locked the front door. Her mother, dressed in blinged-up jeans and fur-trimmed boots marched down the neatly shoveled steps, Emily mincing along behind her in four-inch-heeled black boots and a bright red wool coat. Her yellow-and-blue plaid skirt barely peeked out from under the coat’s hem, and a big shopping bag dangled from one hand. A handsaw hung from the other, kept well away from her wool tights.
“What’s with the saw?”
“We cut down the tree ourselves,” Cady said. “If you gave my mother a hundred and sixty acres of open prairie and a mule, in a year she’d have cash crops ready to sell.”
Conn hit the button to open the trunk. “You didn’t buy your mom a house after you made it big?”
“I offered. She refused. This is her community. She looks in on elderly neighbors, organizes block parties, and this is what she can afford. I think my dad left a bad taste in her mouth. His thing is the best. The best house, car, clothes, watch, barbecue grill tools.”
Conn shot her a look. “Grill tools?”
“You know. Spatulas and tongs?” she said, demonstrating with flips of her wrists and pincer motions. “You name it, he’s got the best. Every time you talk to him it’s about how he’s getting the best of something. Mom loves what she has. It’s a point of pride for her to take care of what she’s got on her own. She couldn’t give us much, but she gave us family, a sense of pride in the things we did and the way we did them. These are our rhythms. Mom, come sit up front.” She introduced Conn to her mother, took the saw from Emily and set it in the Audi’s empty trunk, then climbed into the backseat with Emily.
“Good morning, Cady. Good morning, Conn.” Em folded her long legs and smoothed down her skirt.
Emily’s voice was pure sweetness and light. Cady was too focused on figuring out how to ask her mother about the keys without giving away the latest development to parse this change in temper. “You look great,” she said, twisting sideways to take in every detail of Emily’s outfit, including the six-inch gap between her knees and her skirt. “Are you going to be warm enough at the Christmas tree farm?”
“I said the same thing,” her mother said from the front seat.
“I thought maybe you and I could take some pictures out there,” Emily said, pulling her cell phone from her pocket and getting a good look at Cady’s casual outfit. “What are you wearing? Did you do your hair? Didn’t you read my texts?”