“Yuck, yuck, yuck. Fish blood.” Rem practically sang it.

  “And we clean up our table and tools while it’s soaking.”

  She turned to Thea, smiled. “Lots of people don’t want to know where their food comes from. And that’s just fine. But around here, it’s all part of the cycle.”

  She liked the last parts of the cycle better. Helping make the coating, watching it fry up.

  They had it with hush puppies and chowchow and some of the rice and broccoli casserole a neighbor brought them.

  She couldn’t write in her journal, and couldn’t stop the tears when Lucy came to tuck her in.

  Without a word, Lucy sat down and gathered her in.

  “We did regular stuff all day, just normal. And sometimes I didn’t think about them. We sat outside and ate cobbler, and heard a coyote up in the hills. When Rem tried to sound like one, I laughed. It’s like I didn’t care.”

  “No, darling, no, no, my precious girl. Living is what we have to do, and what they’d want. Because they loved us, they’d want us to live.”

  She eased Thea back, patted away the tears. “Grieving takes its own ways, its own time. Whenever you need to cry, you cry. But you have to laugh, too. You have to eat and sleep and wash your face, brush your hair, and all that regular stuff.”

  “I don’t want them to think we don’t care.”

  “They never would. Here, let’s lie down awhile.”

  Lucy lay down with her and stroked her hair in that way that always made Thea feel warm inside.

  “They made you and Rem out of love. You honor that love, you honor those who made you, by living a good, strong life. A happy one as much as you can. And when you find love, you hold on to it the way they did.”

  “I don’t want to find it when I’m sixteen.”

  When Lucy laughed, the warmth spread, and Thea smiled.

  “I’d as soon you didn’t either. But I’ll remind you of this when you’re sixteen and think you’re in love.”

  “How do you know the difference?”

  “It’s hard to tell at that age, so like I said, your granddaddy and me, we got lucky because it was true and real and deep, that love.”

  “You still love him.”

  “I do, and always will. When it’s the kind of love that holds through the years, the troubles, and the joys? It’s more than the heat and flutters inside you. I’d say it’s like something roots in you, roots deep. It grows, and it blooms. It can’t bloom without those roots.”

  “I want him to be handsome.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “And kind, like Dad.” Thea’s eyes started to droop.

  “Kind beats even handsome. What else?”

  “I hope he’s smart.” Those heavy eyes closed. “Likes books and music and animals. And he has to live here because I don’t want to move away.”

  As she drifted into sleep, Lucy stayed awhile longer, stroking Thea’s hair.

  I want all that for you, too, she thought. In its time, I want all that and more for you.

  * * *

  Love hadn’t taken root in her yet, but her grandmother’s words had. She could cry when she needed to, and she would. But she would do what Lucy said, and live a good life to honor those who made her.

  To start that good life, she got up even before her grandmother. She dressed and, with the dogs on her heels, went downstairs, let them out.

  She’d watched her grandmother make coffee often enough she knew how it worked, so she made coffee. It would be ready for her grammie when she came down.

  It was more dark than light when she went down, but she could see well enough to lead Aster into the barn. She scooped out grain, added the hay, then got down to the process of milking.

  It felt good, she thought. Good to just get up and do it.

  She thought how her mom had known how to milk a cow, but didn’t really like to. How her father had learned how, and did.

  As she walked back with the pail just as the sun lifted over the eastern hills, Lucy stepped out on the back porch.

  “Girl, you got an early start.”

  “I wanted to.”

  “You made the coffee.”

  “I think I did it right. Can I have some coffee milk?”

  “You surely can. Let me take that pail, and we’ll go have our coffee.”

  “I’m going to feed the chickens first, and get the eggs. Rem really likes milking Molly, so he can do that. I want to live a good life, Grammie, and honor them. I’m trying to start today.”

  “Oh, my sweet child.” Lucy pressed the back of her hand to her lips. “You’re going to make me cry now. Pride tears. I’ll take the pail. You go feed the ladies, and we’ll have coffee when you’re done.”

  When she was done, they sat with their coffee at the kitchen table.

  “Waylon and Caleb are going to start driving down with the things you and Rem wanted. They’ll be here tonight if they can, or tomorrow. The lawyer— Do you want to hear about all that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re old enough to get up on your own to make my coffee and tend the animals, you’re old enough to know what’s going on around you. The lawyer said it was fine to take what they’re bringing. It’s going to take longer to settle everything. The estate it’s called, and your mom and dad named me the executor of their estate. That means I work with the lawyers to get it all settled up.”

  “Get what settled? We can stay here. You said—”

  “That’s a different thing, and already settled. Thea.” Lucy waited a beat. “That part’s never going to change. I wouldn’t lie to you about something so important.”

  “I know. I just … I get scared.”

  “Don’t be scared about that. I just had to sign some papers. He emailed them, and I signed and did that scanner business. This is about the rest. The house, what’s in it, their cars, and the bank accounts and all that.”

  “Okay.”

  “It can take a year or two to get it all settled.”

  “Why?”

  “God knows, darling. It’s lawyers, and making sure everything’s done right and proper. I’m telling you so you know you and Rem have time to be sure what you want to do about all that. When you’re ready to go to college, you’ll have the means. They made sure of that. Beyond that, beyond the house, there’s a considerable amount of money that’ll come to you and Rem one day. I’m going to do my best to school you both on how to handle that.”

  Blowing out some air, Lucy sat back. “Your grandpa was a good provider. A hardworking man. And I didn’t sit on my hands. My business does just fine. But I’m going to tell you the pure truth. All this is more money than I’ve known in my lifetime. We’re all of us going to respect that.”

  “Are we rich?”

  Lucy took another sip of coffee. From where she sat, Thea could see her trying to work out what she wanted to say and how to say it.

  Then she said, “Hell with it. You’re sitting here drinking coffee with me, so I’m going to give you more pure truth. I try not to speak ill of people, and that ill can come back on you threefold. But it needs saying. Marshall and Christine Fox—’cause never again will I call them your grandparents—are the kind of rich people call wealthy. And they’re poorer in who they are than anyone living up in those hills struggling to keep a roof over their heads or fuel in the fire.

  “Do you understand what I mean?”

  Thea realized Lucy still held a lot of anger in that direction. And it made her feel warm and safe.

  “I understand.”

  “You’re going to be rich in who you are, you and Rem. I think you already are. Unless you’re plumb stupid, which you aren’t, you’ll never have to struggle for the roof or the fuel.”

  She sighed again. “I’ll be working with the lawyer and the financial adviser your parents had looking after all that, and an accountant, and Jesus only knows.”

  Thea saw the tears swim into Lucy’s eyes, and the struggle to hold them back.

  “You said to cry when you need to.”

  “I did. I did say that.” So let the tears come. “It’s my baby I’ll bury in a few more days, and the man I loved like my own child. I have to do right by their babies. I’m going to make mistakes, because people always do, and I’m no better than the next. But I have to do right by you and Rem. And here I am, loading you down with all this when you’ll bury your mama and daddy in those few days.”

  “No, Grammie, I want to know. It helps to know. I— Grammie, I can see your hurt, all dark red, like bleeding inside. And when I see it, it helps to know. Like needing to do the regular stuff. Like that.”

  Lucy reached across the table for her hand, and for the second time, Thea felt a flash, a spark. “I need to teach you, do right by you there, too. I promise, I will.”

  They both looked over as Rem clambered in with his eyes glazed with sleep and tears. “I dreamed they were back, then I woke up.”

  “Oh hell.” Lucy reached out for him with one arm, and for Thea with the other. “Let’s all have us a good cry, share these tears. Then Rem’ll go milk Molly and Thea and I can make breakfast.”

  Later, when they went out the front to weed and water, they found a mason jar filled with wildflowers and a round of bread wrapped in a cloth.

  “This is kindness,” Lucy said. “This is richness.”

  “Do you know who left them, Grammie?”

  “I do, Rem. Remember the lady we visited, and her little girl had ringworm? The bread’s for what I brought her, and the flowers are for your parents. This here’s stottie cake—it’s bread but some call it cake. You take it back in the kitchen, and we’ll make some sandwiches with it for lunch with that sun tea we’ve got going.”

  “Cake sandwiches!” He grabbed it up, ran inside.

  “At this rate we won’t have to cook for a week.”

  “Can we make candles later?” Regular stuff, Thea thought.

  “That’s a fine idea. We’ll do just that.”

  Chapter Seven

  Because Detective Phil Musk won the toss on the rental car at the airport in Kentucky, Detective Chuck Howard suffered through his partner’s driving.

  Worse, the airport sat a full hour from Redbud Hollow, and Musk never drove one damn mile an hour over the posted limit.

  He liked Musk, trusted him without a ghost of a doubt, even admired his dog-with-a-bone stubbornness, attention to detail, and suspicious mind.

  But he drove like an old woman.

  “At this rate, we may get there by nightfall.”

  “Enjoy the scenery, Chuck. It’s pretty country.”

  “We’re not here for the scenery. We don’t need to be down here in Nowhere Kentucky anyway. For Christ’s sake, we got our guy, Phil. He knows it, his lawyer knows it, or they wouldn’t have taken the deal.”

  “Life times two’s still better than the needle or the chair.”

  “So he’ll live and die inside. Now we’re down here going to interview the grieving mother and a twelve-year-old? He confessed, right down the line. We had evidence to stick right up his ass.”

  “And why’d we have that evidence, why’d we find him so fucking easy? The kid dreamed it? Bullshit, Chuck.”

  Musk took his eyes off the road long enough to give his partner the hard eye.

  “That grieving mother’s got guardianship of the kids, and the kids are going to roll in the dough. Dreamed it all? Give me a fucking break. Riggs did the murders, and yeah, we got him. But the rest?” Eyes trained on the road, Musk shook his head. “It doesn’t smell right. None of it.”

  “If this Lucinda Lannigan—who doesn’t have a mark on her record—set this all up, convinced the kid to say what she did, why didn’t Riggs roll on her?”

  “Don’t know, and maybe it wasn’t Lannigan, maybe it was the kid.”

  “Christ.”

  Because he’d given it considerable thought, Musk bore down into it.

  “Kids that age can be devious, can be murderous. You know that as well as I do. The kid’s down here with grandma and baby brother, and Riggs picks that time to murder the parents?”

  “He’ll be charged in Maryland, too, to ice the cake,” Howard reminded him. “The Mercedes, the jewelry, the MO. Two more murders.”

  “Harder to tie him to those. Claims he bought the gun off the street in Baltimore, says he found the Mercedes, keys in it, out of gas when he tried hitching on some back road in rural Maryland.”

  Deliberately, Howard sniffed the air. “Now I smell bullshit.”

  “Yeah, and they’ll wrap him. But they can’t wrap him on those like we did on this one. We talk to the kid, the grandmother, and we get the truth. Local sheriff, he’s too close to it, and when’s the last time he’s investigated a double murder? That would be never,” Musk said helpfully.

  Howard searched for patience. “It’s a stretch, Phil, and you know how much of a stretch.”

  “Dreaming it all’s a bigger stretch. It’s a Mister Fantastic stretch. We’ve got to wrap this up, Chuck. We don’t want that little bastard coming back later, crying he was framed by a twelve-year-old kid.”

  Howard hissed out a breath because there, he couldn’t argue.

  “I’m driving back when we’re done with this.”

  * * *

  In the kitchen, Thea and Rem helped work on a batch of candles. Lucy called the finished product Just Peachy for its scent and color. First they set the containers up, some travel tins that came with lids, some squat mason jars, and two bigger glass jars that had swirls of pink and orange. The bigger would get three wicks—Lucy said they gave a nice fragrance throw—and were Thea’s favorite.

  They’d set the wicks, and had the top of them secured to little sticks that lay over the rim of the jars and tins. Because they had to sit and cool and harden for a whole day, they sat on a sheet of brown paper on the counter in the workroom part of the kitchen.

  If they had time, they’d do another batch of lavender.

  They melted soy wax in the big double boiler. When Lucy made candles with beeswax, she let them stand on their own for their natural color and scent.

  Thea added the scented oil, and Rem the coloring.

  It all smelled good enough to eat.

  As they poured the last of the tins, the dogs scrambled up to bark, and someone knocked on the front door.

  “I’ll get it, Grammie!”

  Rem rushed to the front door with the dogs. Like the back door and the one off the side, only the screen door was closed, so he could look right through. He saw two men outside, in suits. Both had brown hair, but one was taller, and the taller one had some gray stuff in his hair.

  “Everybody, stop! Sit!”

  All three dogs sat, and though Duck made noises in his throat, all stopped barking.

  Rem said, “Hello.”

  “Hi there.” The taller one smiled at him. “I’m Detective Howard, and this is Detective Musk.”

  Obviously fascinated, Rem pushed open the door to study the badges. Then he looked up. “Are you the police who caught the”—he looked behind him, gauging the hearing distance to his grandmother—“the bastard who killed my mom and dad?”

  “We were part of that, yeah. We’re really sorry about your mom and dad. Is your grandmother home?”

  “Sure. I don’t get to stay by myself even though I’m ten. We’re making candles.”

  “Can we come in and talk to her, to you and your sister?”

  “Okay. At first I wanted you to kill him when you caught him, but then Deputy Driscoll said what prison was like, and how he’d be there forever. So that’s even worse. I guess. Is it?”

  Musk looked down. “If he lives to be a hundred and fifty, he’ll still be in prison. I have to figure that’s worse. Those are nice dogs.”

  “This one’s Cocoa, she came with me and Thea. That’s Duck and that’s Goose. They won’t bite you, since I told them to sit.”

  But when he opened the screen door again, they tore out like the house was on fire.

  “They need to run around awhile.”

  He led them back as Lucy stepped into the main kitchen with Thea. “Now, that’s a job well done. We can—”

  She broke off when she saw two strange men with Rem.

  Automatically, she nudged Thea behind her, reached for Rem’s hand.

  “Can I help you with something?”

  Protective, Howard thought. Guard the kids first.

  “We’re the police, Ms. Lannigan. Detectives Howard and Musk, out of Fredericksburg.”

  He noted she relaxed, visibly, even as one arm went around each child.

  “Oh. We weren’t expecting … We’re some of a mess. We were candle-making.”

  “Smells real good in here.” Musk put on his easy smile. “Like … peaches?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly right. Ah, we’ve got some iced sun tea, or I can make you coffee.”

  “It’s a rare day I turn down coffee, but it’s a hot one. That tea sounds good, if it’s no trouble.”

  “No trouble. Rem, why don’t you take the detectives to the front room while we get the tea.”

  “Here’s just fine.” Howard gestured to the kitchen table. “We just have some follow-up questions, but first I want to tell all of you we’re sorry for your loss.”

  “We appreciate that. Rem, you can take a counter stool, all right?”

  “The youngest always gets the shaft.”

  Howard couldn’t help but grin at him. “Tell me.” He poked a thumb at his chest. “Youngest of three.”

  Lucy took her best glasses from the cupboard. “Sheriff McKinnon came to tell us when you caught him. Can you tell us if there’s going to be a trial?”

  “He confessed to everything,” Howard told her. “For a full confession, we took the death penalty off the table. He’ll serve two consecutive life sentences. No chance of parole.”

  Lucy pressed a hand to her throat, nodded while the girl stuck by her like a shadow. She took the big glass jug from the refrigerator, poured the tea over the ice in the glasses.

  Crackle.

  “It’s a relief to hear that. I’m—we’re obliged you’ve come all this way to tell us. Did you drive from Virginia?”