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Earlier this morning, while I was in the shower, she’d talked to her parents, and they’d agreed to go back to California on Saturday. As Chloe had already pointed out, it wasn’t as if they could stay in Globe indefinitely, and at least by waiting until the weekend, they’d have a chance to sit down with their daughter and her lawyer and get a better idea of where things stood. It sounded as though neither Jordan nor Heather was entirely happy about the prospect but had realized they simply weren’t in a position to remain here for months. True, the docket in Gila County moved a lot faster than it did in the Phoenix area because of our much smaller population, but still, if this ended up going to trial, it would take a while.
I couldn’t quite ignore the feeling of relief that came over me when I heard those plans. Yes, we’d all gotten along together better than I’d thought we would, but it was still a little awkward to be around my biological father and his wife.
And things improved even more when I got a text from Josie a few minutes after Chloe unlocked the shop’s front door.
I heard that the Speroses are leaving tomorrow. They just wanted to be here to handle having their son’s body sent home.
If I hadn’t lived in Globe for almost three years by that point, I might have asked Josie how she’d managed to acquire that particular piece of information. However, I knew my friend’s data-gathering skills were second only to those of an NSA operative, so I didn’t bother. The most likely explanation was that she’d talked to someone in the police department, or maybe someone who worked at the local funeral home, and they’d given her the skinny.
The important thing was that we wouldn’t have to worry about encountering the justifiably angry and grieving parents of Chloe’s former boyfriend. While my heart ached for them and what they were going through, I also knew they were directing their anger toward the wrong people. Chloe was family — and Jordan and Heather as well, in a slightly uncomfortable sort of way — and I didn’t want anyone making their lives any more difficult than they already were.
And if the medical examiner had released Jack’s body to be taken back to California, that meant he must have concluded his investigation. I hadn’t heard anything about that, but I wasn’t exactly on Henry Lewis’s email list.
I’d asked Josie what the coroner had found, and even her reply text had sounded slightly annoyed.
I don’t know. I’ve been trying to find out, but no one else in the department seems to know anything, either.
Under other circumstances, this all might have seemed somewhat suspicious, but I had a feeling the reality was much more mundane. Henry wasn’t talking because the medical examiner hadn’t found anything that didn’t line up with the obvious cause of death.
I had to believe that could only be good news for Chloe. If they’d found something incriminating — her fingerprints on the wooden handles of the garrote, or her DNA under Jack’s fingernails — then I had to believe Henry would have been in contact with her. Now, though, the evidence was looking more and more circumstantial.
And if that was the case, then it seemed to me the chances were good that her lawyer might be able to make the entire thing go away.
To my surprise, the first person through the shop’s doors that morning was Hazel. We’d been communicating by text so she had something of an idea of what was going on, but it seemed she wanted to talk in person just to reassure herself.
“How are you?” she asked Chloe, who also seemed somewhat startled to have her sort-of landlady show up out of the blue.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Selena’s been taking good care of me.”
“That sounds about right,” Hazel replied, a corner of her mouth lifting, as though she hadn’t expected to hear anything different. “I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything else I could do to help you out. I can understand why you might not want to stay at the house after what happened, so I checked with Mavis Jones to see if any of her Airbnbs are available. She’s got one free for the rest of this week and next week, too.”
At once, Chloe shook her head. “I appreciate you doing that for me, but I’m fine with staying at your place. Selena and I did a cleansing there this morning, and I know it’s totally safe.”
Only three years of being my best friend probably prevented Hazel from lifting an eyebrow at that comment. While she’d never gotten on board with all the woo-woo stuff, she knew it was important to me…and that, although she had her doubts, she couldn’t argue that my methods were pretty effective.
“If you’re sure — ” Hazel ventured.
“Oh, I’m sure,” Chloe said firmly. “It’s a darling house, and just because something awful happened there, that doesn’t mean I should leave. Besides, I think moving to a different Airbnb would make it seem as if I was feeling guilty about Jack’s murder, you know?”
I hadn’t thought about it that way, but I could see why Chloe might believe such a thing. Yes, she’d come to stay with Calvin and me for a couple of days to get over the shock of her ex-boyfriend’s death, but going away indefinitely might have signaled to some people that she was avoiding the Airbnb because she couldn’t bear to be continually reminded of the place where she’d killed him.
Hazel looked somewhat more skeptical, but it seemed she realized she shouldn’t argue the point, not when it already appeared as though Chloe had her mind made up.
“Well, I’m glad you decided to stay,” Hazel said, her tone studiously neutral. “And you just let me know if there’s anything else you need.”
“I will,” Chloe promised her.
After that, Hazel headed out, saying she needed to stop in the Sundowner Gallery down the street to check on the placement of a new painting she’d dropped off the day before. Once she was gone, I looked back over at my little sister.
“So…you really are going to stay at the Airbnb.”
“Well, yeah,” she replied. “It would have been kind of silly to go to all that work cleansing and protecting the place if I wasn’t going to actually sleep there. Like I said, I don’t want to intrude on you and Calvin any more than I already have. It’ll be fine.”
She looked so confident that I didn’t dare contradict her. Besides, she was right — there was absolutely nothing in the house that could hurt her, and all signs seemed to point to this being an isolated incident. I had to believe that Henry was following up on any possible leads, doing his best to discover who in Jack Speros’s circle of friends and acquaintances would have been motivated enough to come to tiny Globe, Arizona, to seek his revenge.
Well, except for the part where Chloe had already told me that Jack didn’t have any real enemies, except possibly Mr. Bryce Arsenault, erstwhile cheater of tests. I thought then of the card reading I’d done the afternoon before.
The Devil. The Seven of Swords. The Emperor.
