Page 81 of Road Queens
“Oh, fuck, how awful is it that I couldn’t remember her name?” Sidney sighed. “There’s just so many.”
“Okay, here’s where we might have an edge on the cops,” Amanda said. “Maybe we should look at Wanda’s family and friends. And Debbie’s.”
Cass was already shaking her head. “Neither of them had any friends when they died. That’s what they do. The abusers. They isolate their wives. Hell, Debbie left a good chunk of her money to us.”
Dave looked surprised. “I didn’t know that.”
“Me neither,” Beane said.
Well, no. They wouldn’t. It wasn’t common knowledge. And given how Debbie’s murderous husband had gone to prison, Amanda wanted to keep it that way. “It’s how I bought this building,” she said. “Without Debbie Frank, my Hole wouldn’t exist.”
“It would have,” Cassandra said at once. “It just would have taken you longer. You started saving up for your own store in middle school, for God’s sake. You told me all about it the day we met.”
This.Thiswas why Cassandra’s abandonment had been so hurtful, and why Sidney had needed to talk Amanda into poking their noses back into her life: Cassandra’s utter, unflagging loyalty to friends. Cass had punched people in the face on Amanda’s behalf. They had faced danger and inclement weather and carbs together; they had saved lives. Amanda would have bet Debbie Frank’s fortune that they were indissoluble. The three of them had been a resourceful, loving unit. Right up until they weren’t.
“That explains a lot. I always wondered how you made any money,” Dave replied. “Your shop keeps erratic hours, and half the time, you’re not even here.”
“My shop keeps erratic hours this week,” she corrected. “I don’t normally have to run around clearing a friend of murder.”
“Naw, Dave’s right,” Sidney said. “You’re shut down a lot. You close every year on February twenty-second.”
“Excuse me for thinking Edward Gorey’s birthday should be a national holiday. No.International holiday. I will eventually bend the world to my will, Sidney.”
“And you close it for Night of the Radishes.”
“Oh, so acknowledging another country’s holiday is bad?”
“It’s not a holiday,” Sidney said. “It’s a radish-carving competition on December twenty-third with a cash prize for the most elaborate radish. Ask me how much I hate that I know that.”
“Which you only observe because you don’t like being open that close to Christmas,” Cassandra added. “Which is insane! Christmas Eve Eve is a gigantic retail holiday.”
“It’s also the best day of the year,” Amanda replied with a happy sigh. “It’s all the anticipation but none of the stress, because anyonesensible finished their Christmas shopping a week ago. You can just curl up with tea and read and watch it snow and wait for presents.”
Sidney groaned but (uncharacteristically!) didn’t say anything.
“You also close for Chocolate Mint Day,” Dave said.
“Can we get back on topic, please?”
“Sure,” Dave said. “I think it’s great that you guys ran a network for abused wives. And I’m not the only one.”
“Abused partners,” Sidney corrected. “Husbands and boyfriends get beat up too.”
“Right. Still neat, though. The network, not guys getting smashed by their spouses.”
“But there’s a downside to everything,” Amanda pointed out.
“Aw, c’mon,” Sidney teased. “Everything?”
“For every situation that highlights humanity’s essential compassion, there’s an opposite factor,” Amanda insisted. “There was a reverse Underground Railroad, for example, I’m sorry to say. Treacherous shitheads would ‘rescue’ a runaway slave, only to turn around and sell them.”
“Jeez,” Dave said. “I didn’t know that either.”
“We did,” Cassandra said. “We can give you the short version.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my version,” Amanda grumped. “But it’s moot anyway. OpStar is dead, and we don’t have any leads, probably because we’re not looking for any. Plus, no one’s actually hired Sean.”
“I don’t care about that,” he replied.
