Page 69 of Your Every Wish
“According to the news story I read, detectives checked the electronic registry of the lake’s boat-launch parking lot and found that a car with the husband’s license plate had been there Christmas Eve. Later, they found homemade cement anchors in his garage.”
“My God, who does that?”
“Kill their wife?”
“No, leave the evidence lying around so any half-decent investigator can find it. What an idiot.”
I snort. Leave it to Kennedy. Sometimes I think she says outrageous things just to show how tough she is. How resilient. Based on the stories she’s told me about her mother and her childhood, I’m not surprised. Not to be too dramatic—it wasn’t as if Madge Jenkins was a crack addict, turning tricks to support her habit with a little girl under her roof—but Kennedy’s upbringing was a lot different from mine.
“I’ll go with you to Misty’s,” I say. “But Kennedy, Misty may be good at finding missing people, but I wouldn’t count on her to find money that doesn’t exist.”
Kennedy
Misty’s sprawled out on her living room floor when we get there, a pair of scissors in one hand, a pin cushion around her wrist on the other, and a ruler gripped between her teeth.
“Can you flatten that side down?” she asks but it comes out garbled with the ruler still in her mouth.
I walk around her, crouch down, and straighten out her pattern, which has curled up from the pink polka dot fabric beneath it. “You want me to pin it?”
“That would be great.” She sticks out her wrist so I can help myself to a few pins.
“What are you making?” Emma asks.
“My Halloween costume and it’s rather complicated, so I don’t have time to help you find your late father’s missing fortunes.”
I look at the pattern’s envelope on the coffee table, expecting a witch’s costume. The picture shows a flouncy flamenco number with at least twelve sets of ruffles and big poofy bell sleeves. Yep, it looks hella complicated.
On the dining room table is a sewing machine, a yardstick, a bolt of lace, a second pair of scissors, and a half-eaten apple.
“Help me up.” Misty puts down the ruler and scissors and holds up her arms so we can hoist her off the floor. “I need coffee. You girls want any?”
“Sure,” I say, though I don’t. I’ve already had my morning fill and will float away if I drink anymore.
I nudge Emma.
“Yes, please.”
“Let us help.” I start to follow Misty into the kitchen.
“Stay where you are. I’ve got it.” She returns a short time later with a silver tray laden with coffee service for three and a plate of sugar cookies, which she probably baked before even changing out of her pajamas, and sets it down on a side table in the living room. “Excuse my mess. Fix yourself a cup and sit anywhere you can find a spot.”
Emma and I choose the sofa. Misty moves a stack of patterns from one of the easy chairs onto the floor and sinks in with her cup of coffee. “I should’ve stuck with last year’s costume. What are you girls going as?”
A real-life inmate, I think to myself.
“It’s a surprise,” Emma says and catches my eye, then gives a guilty little shrug of her shoulders.
Neither of us has given any thought to the Cedar Pines Halloween potluck, let alone our costumes.
But it’s futile to try to hide this fact from a soothsayer because Misty glances at both of us and shakes her head. “Did you find the golf bag?”
“No, we didn’t, and we searched the entire house.”
“I don’t know what to tell you.” She snags a cookie and dunks it in her coffee.
“What’s in the bag?” Maybe this is all a waste of time. Something tells me it’s not but maybe I just want to believe. Maybe because it’s my last resort.
“You asked what the key went to. I told you,” she says so nonchalantly I want to smack her.
