I was still fuming about being dismissed as nothing more than a waitress when Hunter finally deigned to join me.
“How long have you been back in town?”
The question caught me off guard. “Two weeks. But I’ve been going back and forth between here and my old place on Harsens Island, so I only spent a few hours here between trips.”
“I didn’t realize you were back in the state already.” He looked put out. “I guess your family failed to mention it.”
“I wasn’t on Harsens Island very long. I was trying to get information for a book, but it didn’t pan out.”
He eyed me for a moment, his expression unreadable. “I’m sorry about the book thing. I know how important that is to you.”
“I don’t know if I would say it was important,” I hedged. It was a ridiculous lie. If anyone knew how important writing was to me, it was Hunter. He’d sat around watching SportsCenter for two years while I scrawled hundreds of story ideas on napkins and in little notebooks I insisted on carrying around with me. Denying it now was bad form, but I couldn’t stop myself.
“Right.” He held my gaze for a long beat and then heaved out a sigh. “I know you didn’t have anything to do with this, but I have to ask you some questions.”
“Then I guess you have to ask them.” I rubbed at a food stain on my apron. “I didn’t think you wanted to be a cop. I mean ... after your father and everything I just assumed you were going to follow your dream and be a sportscaster. That’s what you always wanted.”
His gaze was contemplative. “Not everybody gets to live their dreams, Stormy.” His voice was soft. “You got to, which is nice, but it was never a reality for me. My parents didn’t have the money to send me to an expensive school. I had very few options up here. One of the more reasonable ones was the police academy.”
On the surface, that made sense. Still, it hurt me to think about what he wanted compared to where he’d ended up. “That doesn’t mean you had to stay here. You wanted to live in the city like me. You could’ve been a police officer anywhere.”
“This is home.”
“Yeah, but ... .”
“You had big dreams about living in a city, too,” he countered, his eyes firing. “You’re right back here with me. You better than anyone should realize that some dreams aren’t meant to be.”
The statement, however true, grated. “I’m still working on my writing. This is just temporary until I can figure things out.”
“There’s nothing wrong with waitressing.”
“That’s what people who don’t waitress say.” My temper flared. “It’s a hard job. Really hard. That’s why I wanted to do something else.”
“You wanted to be a writer because you couldn’t keep your head in one place,” he corrected. “You liked visiting a million different locations, even if it was only in your dreams. You didn’t want this life. You wanted something more. I’m sorry it didn’t happen for you.”
I wanted to argue that it still could, but it seemed like adding to a conversation going nowhere. “What do you need to know?” I rubbed my forehead to ward off what I was certain would flower into a raging headache.
“Has your grandfather said anything about Roy since you’ve been back?”
The question caught me off guard. “You can’t think he had anything to do with this. My grandfather is many things, but he’s no murderer.”
“I don’t have a choice but to follow the clues.” Hunter was firm. “Your grandfather had a relationship with the victim. Now, granted, Roy had a particular personality. People everywhere hated him because he was a cranky old pervert who said inappropriate things to any female he crossed paths with. I have to start somewhere.”
“I don’t know what his relationship was with my grandfather,” I said. “I wasn’t around for any of that. I’ve been ... busy.”
“You mean you tried to separate yourself from this world,” Hunter countered. “I get it. I understand. You separated yourself from me, so I get it better than most. You were still in touch with your family, though. Did they mention your grandfather arguing with Roy?”
I shook my head, my heart pinging at the naked emotion that briefly took over his features. He shuttered it quickly, which was to be expected, but it wasn’t fast enough that I could stop the guilt from bubbling up and grabbing me by the throat.
“I didn’t want to leave you.” The words were out of my mouth before I thought better of them. “I wanted you to come with me. You wouldn’t.”
“I couldn’t,” he said, looking away from me. “I didn’t have the money to leave.”
“And I couldn’t stay.”
Briefly, his eyes filled with sadness. Then he collected himself. “Try to think if you remember your family telling you any stories about Roy while you were gone. It’s important. Someone obviously cared enough to kill him — and in a hard way.”
“You still haven’t told me how he died.”
“Someone stabbed him at least three times.”
“Okay. I’ll let you know if I remember anything.”
“Thank you.” Hunter pushed himself to a standing position. “I need to talk to the other workers. We’re done here.”
And just like that, I’d been dismissed. If I was hoping things between us would thaw, at least be friendly, our brief interaction was enough to dissuade me of that notion. We weren’t going to be friends, or even friendly. Whatever we had years ago was long gone, and it was time to accept that.
MY FAMILY IS BIG BUT CLOSE. I was an only child, but I had a bevy of cousins, all of whom might as well have been siblings given the way we were raised. My Aunt Lottie always joked that it didn’t matter which kids you took with you after a family event, you simply had to leave with the same number. Most of the adults in the family took that to heart. Of all my cousins, I was closest with Alice. In addition to being David’s sister, she was close to me in age. We spent a lot of time hanging out while growing up. It didn’t surprise me that she was the first to darken my doorstep once the restaurant had closed for the night.
“I brought whiskey,” she announced, brandishing a bottle as I opened the door.
She was small, not even five feet, and had one of those ski-slope noses that made her face look young and pixie-ish.
“Whiskey, huh?” I took the bottle and studied the label as she pushed inside the apartment. “I could use a shot — or three.”
“I figured you could.” Alice was all smiles as she glanced around. “Where’s all your stuff?”
I followed her gaze, frowning at the three boxes in the corner. “That’s all the stuff I have.”
“But ... that’s nothing.”
“Yeah, well, I spent years moving around,” I reminded her. “It’s better to pack light when you’re doing all that moving. Over the years, I learned that things were a bad idea.”
“I love things.” Alice threw herself on the couch, a throwback from my grandparents’ house. Years ago, they’d bought new furniture and the old stuff had migrated to the apartment. It was orange velour — and ugly. Luckily it was also comfortable. “I can’t get enough of things.”