Brakes. Breaking.

  She was good at breaking things. I’d seen her breaking the radiat—

  “Ten cups.”

  “Perfect!” I hit a slight uphill and glanced in the rear view mirror. Please tell me that non-descript beige car was an unmarked Hilleville patrol—

  Whoops!

  We hit a downhill curve and ka-boom!

  “My chair!” Truman screamed.

  “Sugar!” I screamed back.

  “Six cups!”

  I searched desperately for a place to pull over. But the ditches on either side looked steep—

  I will not roll this car, I will not roll this car, I will not roll this ca—

  Another downhill.

  “Ka-boom!” went the trunk.

  “Aa-aaaa!” went Truman.

  But there was Lake Bess.

  I will get him home, I will get him home, I will get him hom—

  I took the turn for Elizabeth Circle on two wheels, hit a huge pot hole, and went airborne.

  “She knew the Destiny!” I screamed.

  We landed, and I swerved to avoid Rose.

  Whoops! And Ruby.

  “Aa-aaaa!” Truman said.

  “Do you trust me, Truman?”

  “Yes!”

  I took the turn for Leftside Lane and finally thought to lay on the horn.

  “Hold onto something.”

  “No kidding!”

  I let up on the horn, and felt around, and hoped I was opening the windows. I reached to my right and unbuckled my seatbelt. “Unbuckle yourself!”

  “What!!”

  “Do it!”

  We hit the driveway, and I hit Ms. Mauve’s car. It careened Wylie-ward, and a blur of people jumped out of the wa—

  I took out the birdfeeders and aimed for the water.

  “Swim, Truman!!”

  ***

  Someone was tugging at me.

  Joe.

  I propelled myself out the window, and we surfaced.

  “Truman!” I struggled to free myself. “Truma-aa—”

  “Got him!” That was my father.

  “Momma Cass!” That was Truman.

  I stopped struggling.

  Chapter 49

  Dad carried the child, Joe carried me. But the second my feet hit solid ground I reached out, and Truman latched on with all fours.

  “Are you okay?” I whispered.

  “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  Despite that issue, I hugged tighter, and took in the scene before me. Unexpected doesn’t begin to cover it, but let’s start with the goats.

  Oh, yeah.

  Rose and Ruby must have galloped, but there they were, eating spilled birdseed. Notz wasn’t happy about that, but from his perch on the porch, the cat directed most of his scolding at poor Charlie, who stood wet and shivering at my feet. FYI, Charlie never misses the chance to take a dip.

  But moving on to the cars.

  The only evidence mine ever existed was the few pieces of rocking chair bobbing on the surface of the lake, but a couple vehicles on dry land hadn’t fared much better. Ms. Mauve’s car sat in Joe’s yard. I doubted her trunk would ever open again. And Molly Donahue’s car, that nondescript beige vehicle I’d noticed earlier, had stopped in the middle of our yard. I glanced down. Probably when Maxine shot out the front tires.

  I must have been underwater when that happened. Which was probably also when Ms. Mauve had dropped her satchel to tackle Molly. The two of them were sitting cross-legged on the lawn. Maxine stood a few yards away, her deceased daddy’s shotgun aimed accordingly.

  “I hope you’re a good shot,” Ms. Mauve squeaked.

  Maxine jerked her head toward the beige car. “I already proved that.”

  Joe tugged on my very wet left sleeve. “Who is that?”

  “Ms. Donahue,” Truman answered for me while I struggled in my very wet pocket.

  I handed the flash drive to Joe. “Can you save this?”

  He held it up and shook it. “Drying it out in a bowl of rice should do the trick. What’s on this?”

  “Secrets,” Truman said.

  “Speaking of secrets, whatever happened to Evadeen Deyo?” Believe it or not, that was Molly. She waved to my father. “Did she make it home to Whoozit?”

  Dad scowled. “Whatzit?”

  “Or did Commissioner Dingle arrest her?”

  “Huh?”

  “Dad,” I said quietly. “She read your story.”

  “How’s it end?” Molly sounded kind of desperate, but Truman and I had no sympathy.

  “It’s a secret,” we told her, and Truman locked our lips and tossed the key into Lake Bess.

  ***

  While those of us who were cold and wet got warm and dry, the law enforcement personnel arrived. I’m told Sheriff Hawthorn took Molly Donahue away, but everyone else congregated around the fire that Sarah, Notz, and Charlie were tending in our fireplace.

  Make that, almost everyone. I peeked out the window as I came down the stairs and noticed Rose and Ruby and two of Hilleville’s finest supervising the local towing company. Fitting. Those cops had a lot of experience with the local towing company.

  I found P.T. in the crowd. “I’m guessing our second-shift bodyguards had a fender bender?”

  He nodded. “They never made it to Santucci’s”

  I sighed, caught sight of Ms. Mauve cozying up to Joe on the couch, and sighed again.

  “Smile!” Maxine popped in front of me and snapped my picture.

  But I really did smile when I spotted Truman. Someone had thought to put him in the chair closest to the fire.

  “Sit with me, Momma Cass!”

  The kid didn’t have to ask twice. When I finally looked up from a whole bunch of hugs, Ms. Mauve was standing before us.

  “We should leave,” she said.

  She reached for Truman, and my heart stopped.

  ***

  “You can’t do this!” I said once my heart started beating again. I rocked backwards and held on tight. “Truman doesn’t understand! You have to give me time to explain—”

  “Cassie, stop.”

  I looked up and saw Joe standing before me also.

  “We’re only going next door,” he said gently.

  “Ms. Mauve wants to visit the FN,” Truman added. He squirmed until I let go, and Ms. Mauve hustled him out the door.

  I reached out and caught Joe’s hand. “Put in a good word for me?”

  “Always.”

  ***

  “Girl.”

  I turned around. “What?”

  Dad pointed outside to where Ruby was nudging Molly’s car onto the tow truck. “How did this happen?”

  “How did she get to your car?” Sarah stood up from the fire tend and took the seat Joe had vacated. “And how did she get to Judy’s car on Sunday?”

  “And where did you find the flash drive that’s drying out at Wylie’s place?” Jason Sterling pulled up his rocking chair.

  “And what’s on it?” P.T. pulled up his.

  “And why did Molly kill Judy?” Dad asked.

  “My goodness!” Maxine took a break from taking pictures to inform us the Hanahan Herald would be “most interested” in all my answers. She sat down with Sarah and switched her i-Tablet to notetaking mode. Notz jumped in my lap, Charlie sat on my feet, and Maxine nodded to me. “Start. Chatting.”

  Chapter 50

  “Here goes,” I said. “This is what I figured out driving down Route 19 at a hundred and nineteen miles an hour. First of all, Molly must have followed me from Santucci’s, because I told her I was taking Truman out for pizza, and everyone knows Santucci’s has the best pizza around, but their parking lot was way too busy to go crawling under my car, and the same with Cornerstone Antiques, but we ended up at Crumble Creek Park, which was completely deserted, except for my car.”

  “And Molly’s,” several people added when I came up for breath.

  “And Molly’s small enough to fit under a car—mine or Judy’s—to tamper with the brakes, and she’s smart enough.” I glanced at Sarah. “Molly Donahue is no nincompoop.”

  Sarah smiled. “Not every cute blonde is.”

  I pointed out the window to where Rose and tow truck guy number two were tackling my Honda and spoke to my father. “I’m guessing Molly’s as mechanically inclined as Evadeen Deyo.”

  “But Evadeen attended several years of schooling to learn her skills,” Dad said. “Wasn’t Molly a secretary?”

  I told him people aren’t always what they seem. “Molly must have learned a lot from her ex-boyfriend Paul McGraw the car mechanic, and maybe off the Internet.” I glanced at Jason Sterling. “Thus those incendiary devices.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You think pretty clearly at a hundred and nineteen miles an hour.”

  I shrugged modestly, and he asked about the flash drive.

  “Where was it?”

  I told him where, and everyone did a forehead smack and shared a communal “Duh!”

  “Speaking of duh.” I turned to P.T. “You never learned who called Rebecca Pryce, because no one called her. Molly knew what happened because she witnessed it, because she caused it, and after witnessing and causing Judy’s death, and probably assuming Ryan was dead, she showed up at the sheriff’s office, because she knew Truman had survived, and she wanted to know where he was going, so she could get rid of him, too. The bitch.”

  Several people repeated that sentiment while I took another breath.

  “But the cops wouldn’t let her see Truman, and she got flustered,” I continued. “Which is why she didn’t recognize me at the sheriff’s, and why she didn’t know Truman’s whereabouts until Maxine’s column.”

  “Stupid, stupid Lake Bess Lore,” Maxine muttered and kept on typing.

  I nodded to my father. “And Molly knew we’d be at Bingo that night, which is when she broke in and stole our computers.”

  “And tried to kill us,” Dad added.

  P.T. rocked forward. “What about motive? Why’d she kill Judy?”

  “Embezzelment.” I glanced around the room. “Because A is for Abernathy.”

  ***

  I caught Jason’s eye. “Would you like some pencils?”

  A true shocker, he declined the offer and asked me to keep going, and I reminded everyone where Judy and Molly had worked.

  “Judy was responsible for the second half of the alphabet, and Molly the first half, but at home, Judy was sorting through years of Mrs. A is for Abernathy’s paperwork, and she must have found something fishy in the tax bills from Maple Street, and she figured out whatever embezzlement scheme Molly was pulling with that first half of the alphabet, and Molly must have gotten suspicious that Judy was suspicious, and must have seen Judy’s car at the office on Sunday, because she lives right there, and she must have panicked when she saw Ryan Webb with Judy, because everyone knows Ryan’s a computer whiz kid, and Molly knew Judy would only need his help if she were trying to do something pretty complicated, such as hack into a computer to get evidence, and so, Molly snuck over to the parking lot—deserted on a Sunday—and tampered with Judy’s car, but she got out of there real quick and didn’t see where Judy hid the flash drive.”

  I came up for breath.

  “Wow!” Jason said. “You think really clearly at a hundred and nineteen miles an hour.”

  Maybe, but I didn’t know everything. For example, I was unclear about what exactly is on that flash drive.

  Jason couldn’t say for certain, either, but he did say he’d spent most of the day reviewing the “squeaky clean” Hilleville House records. “I was getting started on the paperwork from Maple Street when I got the call about this.” He tilted his head toward the window, where the goats, the cops, and tow truck guy number three had moved over to Joe’s to tackle Ms. Mauve’s car.

  Joe, Ms. Mauve, and the little guy were also helping, and they had Truman sitting in the driver’s seat.

  I petted Notz. “He likes trucks.”

  “Babe,” Sarah said.

  I shook myself and focused on Jason, who informed us that Iris Abernathy had been overcharged on her property taxes, thirty dollars a year for the last four years.

  That didn’t sound like much, but apparently, that’s often how embezzlement works. Jason was sure the evidence would verify that Molly Donahue had been nickle and diming taxpayers for years.

  Maxine looked up from typing. “People didn’t notice their bills were wrong?”

  “Not with such small amounts,” he said.

  About then, the phone rang. Dad got up to answer, but I told Jason to keep going.

  “Because I don’t understand how the extra money ended up in Molly’s personal bank account,” I said. “People weren’t writing checks to her personally, were they?”

  “Probably false vendors,” P.T. answered, and he and Jason began discussing some convoluted scheme. I tuned out to listen to my father’s phone call.

  “Yes,” he kept saying. “I see,” he kept repeating. “Hold on.” He looked up and found Jason. “It’s for you.”

  Jason took the phone, and my father sat back down.

  “Who is it?” I asked, but Dad waved for me to be quiet, and we listened to Jason Sterling yessing this and yessing that into the receiver.

  “Hold on.” He looked up and found P.T. “Deputy Dent, you’re needed next.”

  P.T. hopped up and took the phone, and Jason sat back down.

  “Who is it?” I asked, and by then Sarah was also interested, and Maxine had set her computer aside, as we watched P.T. do the yessing this and that thing before handing the phone to Sarah.

  “Who is it?” I asked P.T., and Maxine was threatening to announce his real name to the whole world if he didn’t answer, when Sarah finally hung up.

  “That was the sheriff,” she said. “Ryan Webb is awake.” She grinned. “And chatting.”

  ***

  Maxine fired up her i-Tablet, I started pacing, and everyone else reported what Ryan was chatting about.

  “He’s craving Santucci’s pizza and chocolate chip cookies,” Dad said.

  “What else?” I asked.

  “Lots of techie stuff about firewalls.” Sarah answered. Apparently Molly had set up some very complicated firewalls on her computer, which is why Judy had needed Ryan’s help.

  “What else?” Maxine kept typing.

  “The victims,” P.T. said. “Molly Donahue preyed on the elderly and infirm.”

  “Over a hundred of them,” Jason said. “Mrs. Abernathy’s records will be the first on that flash drive.” He pulled his feet in so I wouldn’t trip. “Care to guess who’s second?”

  I stopped pacing. “Who? What?”

  “You mentioned him last night.”

  My mouth dropped open. “That old man! The taxes guy.”

  Jason nodded. “A is for Abel Albright.”

  “Who?” several people asked.

  “He lives at the Hilleville House,” I said and explained Mr. Albright’s obsession with his taxes. “He’s been right!”

  “Anything else?” Maxine kept typing.

  “Judy and Ryan found accounts with five false vendors,” P.T. said. “Electricians, plumbers, roof repair, you name it.”

  I shook my head and went back to pacing. “There were no ghost guys in that office. It was Molly. She purposely broke things, and then somehow siphoned money from the extra taxes, to those false vendor, and then to herself?”

  Jason nodded. “Which means Rebecca Pryce has some explaining to do. Her negligence is what allowed Molly Donahue to pull this off.”

  “Wow.” That was my father. “This scheme sounds more complicated than the inner workings of the notorious Stars Ajar Smuggling Ring.”

  Which brought me back to my hundred and nineteen mile an hour trip down Route 19, and when I’d been absolutely, one hundred and nineteen percent sure it was Molly.

  “She asked me about the Destiny this morning,” I said. “But I never told the name of Chance Dooley’s spaceship.” I smiled at my father. “How did Molly know the Destiny, Dad?”

  “Because she read my story, girl.”

  “Correction, old man. Because she loved your story.”

  Epilogue

  Truman stormed in and grabbed Cosmic Cow from the coffee table. “We love cookies!” they announced and headed for the kitchen.

  I turned to face Ms. Mauve as she and Joe joined us. “I promised him we’d bake today. Can’t you wait until after that to take him away? Ple-eease?”

  “Away?” She scowled. “Why would I take him away?”

  “Cookies!” Truman and Cow flew back to the living room, and Sarah jumped up.

  “Upstairs,” she ordered. “We need to wash those hands before baking.”

  “But I just took a bath.”

  “Up. Stairs.”

  Truman pouted a little, but in case you still haven’t caught on, everyone obeys Sarah. He handed me Cosmic Cow and marched away.

  “Good luck,” Sarah mouthed at me and followed.

  I held onto Cow for support, and again faced Ms. Mauve. “I am absolutely no relation to Truman Tripp,” I told her.

  “Not yet.”

  “Who? What?”

  “You do intend to adopt him, Dr. Baxter?”

  I stumbled, but I did not fall. “What?”

  “It’s what we child welfare advocates always hope for—a happy ending.”

  I looked at my father, but he seemed as confused as I. But Joe? Joe was smiling.

  “Turns out, Audrey’s known all along,” he told me.

  “Who? What?”

  Ms. Mauve shrugged. “You were acting so strange on Sunday. Looney, even for someone who’s famous for Looney.”

  “Looney?” I said, and it finally hit me. I raised both fists. “I’m Looney Tunes! I’m Looney Tunes!”

  “Tell me about it, babe,” Sarah called from above.

  I focused on Ms. Mauve. “We can actually do this?”

  She agreed the circumstances were highly unusual. “But the child’s mother did choose you.”

  My father leaned forward. “What about Dr. Eskew?” he asked. “What if Truman’s real family wants him?”

  Maxine looked up from typing. “She doesn’t. I called her.”

  “What!?” I pounced and landed in front of her. “When?”