Page 47 of Moonshine Kiss
Jonah and I shared a look across the table. I didn’t much like lying. Even if it was only by omission. But there was no way in hell that I was telling the man that his daughter was the diabolical genius behind scaring off the press.
Clarabell and the sheriff shot the shit for a few minutes before she puttered off to serve up carbs and gossip for the rest of the breakfast crowd.
“Well, boys. I’d better be on my way,” he told us, sliding back out of the booth.
“Have a good one,” I said, giving him a nod that I hoped didn’t saysorry about helping orchestrate a town-wide mutiny.
Jonah slumped back against the booth when the front door jingled, signaling his departure.
“I feel like I just narrowly avoided getting called to the principal’s office,” he said. “No offense.”
Grimly I pushed my plate aside and pulled out my phone.
Me: Your daddy’s on a fishin expedition.
Cassidy responded immediately.
Cassidy: If you tell him I had any involvement, I’m going to become the worst next-door neighbor you’ve ever had.
I smirked.
“Man, when are you going to ask her out?” Jonah asked.
I put my phone away. “Shut up.”
It was Jonah’s turn to smirk. “Anyone in the family come up with anything about the week Callie disappeared?” he asked.
I shook my head. “You ever tried to remember anything that happened twelve years ago? I remember finding out she was missing. I remember the mess with police and reporters and search teams afterward. That’s all etched in my brain.”
I pushed my eggs around my plate, no longer feeling like celebrating the eviction of the press.
“But everything else?” I continued. “Dad leaving? Mom sending us to stay with Gibs that night? I’ve got nothing. Scar says she’s comin’ up empty, too. Who knows about Jameson and Gibs? Gibs didn’t have much to do with Mom and Dad after he moved out, so I doubt he’s got anything to add.”
“Someone will remember something,” Jonah said.
“You get a side of Pollyanna with your egg whites?”
“Nah. Secrets don’t keep. Sooner or later someone remembers something.”
23
Cassidy
George and Sir Edmund Hillary—named for his enjoyment of climbing literally everything in my house—had settled in nicely. The litter boxes were in my mudroom off the back porch. Their scratching post was in the front window. And their fur was everywhere else.
I’d stepped up my vacuuming game to every other day to keep up with the hairballs that accumulated all over the damn place and tried not to think about the hairless pigs Juney kept harping on. I liked having them around. They were good nap buddies. They meowed back to me when I talked to them. The three of us had spent hours playing with feathers on a stick and catnip-stuffed mice.
I wished I hadn’t pulled the trigger on those store-bought Christmas cards in August so I could have dressed the cats up in Santa hats and done one of those pet picture cards.
Next year.
Yep. I was embracing being a cat lady.
I was on-call today. One of those rare Sundays when I could mostly pretend to be a regular person. But other than handling a nuisance complaint or two, the day was mine. I’d slept in, with George cuddled to my back and Eddie sprawled on the empty pillow next to me, then made myself a beef stew that would feed me for a week straight.
The cooking was done. The cleaning complete. The cats were napping.
I didn’t know what to do with myself.
