Did he think Eli told her the details of the crimes he investigated?
He didn’t.
“It’s all public knowledge,” she replied, trying not to sound annoyed. “The dead girl has been identified, at least. She was Russ and Bethanne’s cousin, apparently. Grew up in Lubbock, Texas. She and Freddie met online, and it looks like she came here to see him and try to get some money out of Russ.”
“Poor Russ,” Alice said.
“He’s taking it pretty hard,” Brynne admitted. “According to Eli, he feels guilty because Tiffany died before they could get together. He would have helped her.”
“Eli gives you inside information?” Alice asked hopefully.
Brynne took a deep breath, released it slowly, reminded herself how much she loved her nosy but well-meaning mother. “No,” she said firmly, “he doesn’t. That would be unethical, and Eli is all about ethics.” A pause. “Like I said, most of this is public knowledge. The rest was probably leaked. You know how things like that work around here.”
Both Mike and Alice were silent.
Finally, Alice asked, “Did this Tiffany person have family in Texas? Someone to claim her?”
“No,” Brynne answered, more patiently this time. “People pitched in to pay the expenses, and Russ had her buried locally. This whole thing has really thrown him—I guess because Bethanne’s almost certainly dead and Tiffany was family, even if she was a stranger.”
“He still has Shallie,” Mike put in. “From what I’ve seen, she and Cord have been mighty good to Russ. Helping him get back on his feet and all.”
“Yes,” Brynne said, feeling a special warmth for her friends. “They’ve been good to him. They really care, and given some of the stories Shallie’s told me about being fostered with the Schafers, that’s pretty amazing.”
“Well, please remember us to Russ,” Alice said. “I trust you took him a food basket, too—the way you did for the Lansings?”
“I did.” Brynne smiled sadly, though no one was there to see her expression. “Let’s just say Russ was a bit more appreciative than Fred and Gretchen were. At least, he invited me in and said thank you.”
“It’s not about being thanked, of course,” Alice reminded her daughter, who didn’t need reminding. “Poor Gretchen would probably be ashamed to have visitors. I doubt that old house of theirs is in good repair.”
“Neither of them will let anybody get within ten feet of the front door, even when they’re not pretending to be out,” Brynne said. “They turned Freddie’s computer over to the sheriff’s department, but it’s pretty clear that they were just trying to avoid being served with a search warrant.”
“What are they looking for?” Mike asked. “Eli and his people, I mean.”
“I don’t know, Dad,” Brynne answered patiently. “Freddie was involved in some fairly extensive criminal activities before any of this stuff happened. They’re probably tying up some loose ends. Checking to see if any of the people Freddie ran with had reason to force him into hanging himself.”
“Awful,” Alice said, with distaste. “This is just awful.”
Mike had his own theory. “Looks to me as though Freddie struck out with that Tiffany gal. Maybe he did that thing you hear about online—catfishing. She got here, didn’t like his looks, and when she rejected him, he killed her. Wouldn’t be the first time something like that happened.”
Brynne frowned, puzzled. “Catfishing?” she asked.
Mike was obviously pleased to fill his daughter in on modern lingo. “That’s when you bait somebody online—use somebody else’s photo for your profile, pretend you’re a whole different person. That’s catfishing. No big surprise that it ends badly most of the time.”
Brynne recalled the young man she’d heard in the restaurant one recent morning, referring to Freddie as an incel.
An involuntary celibate.
Talk about sad.
She laughed softly, just to soften the mood. “Thanks for that, Dad. I might have gone my whole life thinking catfishing was a means of catching supper.”
Mike chuckled. “We’d better get off the phone,” he said. “Let you get back to running that restaurant. Your mother and I shouldn’t have stuck you with the whole job.”
Strangely, Brynne’s throat tightened. She liked running Bailey’s. Even loved it.
“I’m doing fine,” she said. “Have you checked the Excel sheets I sent after the New Year’s Eve party? We made a fortune.”
“You made a fortune,” Mike corrected her. “After taxes and expenses, Brynne, that money is yours.”
“I have all the money I need,” Brynne said.
Her mother clearly wasn’t listening. “I just realized that there have been two deaths in the community,” she said, sounding worried. “There is bound to be a third one, and soon.”
“That’s superstition, Mom,” Brynne told her mother, echoing what Eli had said. “This is a small town and the brain looks for patterns. That’s all it is.”
Eli would have laughed if he’d overheard that. She’d absconded with his argument, which was priceless, since she didn’t quite believe the theory herself.
They’d had it several times, in fact, at her table when they shared a meal—alas, usually breakfast—or snuggled up on Eli’s couch, between movies on Netflix. They’d ended up throwing popcorn at each other, much to Festus’s delight, and laughing like a pair of fools.
And afterward?
Well, that was even more fun than throwing popcorn.
“I hope you’re being careful,” Alice fretted.
Brynne was momentarily startled, thinking her mother was referring to the intimacy she and Eli shared. Fortunately, she realized pretty quickly that Alice was still on the death-comes-in-threes theme.
“Always,” Brynne said gently, because she knew she was everything to her parents, even as Freddie Lansing had been everything to his.
Loving another person so completely was a major risk.
After the call, Brynne left the restaurant to Miranda and Frank, since the lunch rush was still about ninety minutes out, climbed into her roadster and headed for the house on Pine Street, the modest split-level ranch she’d grown up in.
Hank, the neighbor her dad hired for occasional maintenance and odd jobs, was there, replacing floorboards on the front porch. A kindly man, tall and thin and blessed with a shock of steel-gray hair, stood up to greet her with a broad smile and a fairly loud, “Brynne! Did your dad send you over here to make sure I’m earning my pay?”