“I still can’t believe it. Why would anyone want to kill her?” Her voice trembled. “You have no idea what it’s like to know my Ivy was murdered.”
“My parents were murdered when I was nine, so I know how hard that kind of thing is to take. Even all these years later, I’m not over it,” Paradise said.
Karen’s interlaced fingers tightened. “I’m sorry I spoke to you like that. I’m not myself.”
“I understand, truly.” Paradise fidgeted on the sofa. “Did Ivy ever mention my name? My cousin is Rod McShea, and he’s the sergeant in charge of the Bon Secour substation. He mentioned they’d found emails from someone who was paying Ivy to feed them information about me. Did she ever mention those emails to you?”
Karen bit her lip and looked down as the orange cat made a reappearance. She picked up the large feline and petted it for several long seconds. “She mentioned it just before she died. We had a fight because she asked me for money. Again. She had gambling debts she needed to pay, and, well, there was no way I was giving my money to con artists and criminals. She promised she’d repay it as soon as she was paid for finding out information on you. I never would have helped her get a job there if I’d known she was going to spy on anyone.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” Paradise said in a soothing voice. “Did she give you any clues to the identity of who hired her or why?”
“I asked her, and she said it was someone from your past who wanted to see what you were up to since you’d come back to town.”
“My past. I was a teenager when I moved away from here. I’m nobody important, so this makes no sense.”
The cat jumped down from Karen’s lap, and she brushed hair from her black yoga pants. “I’m a big fan of lists. Maybe you should make a list of everyone you know from when you were a teenager. It might help.”
They’d still never gotten a lead on who killed Paradise’s parents.At first they’d thought it was the former sheriff, Gerald Davis, since his shoe size fit with the impressions found at the scene of the murders, but his DNA wasn’t a match. Their investigation had gone nowhere since then, and Paradise abandoned it to focus on getting the veterinary business on solid footing.
But what if the murderer was behind the break-ins and sabotage events? He might be trying to drive Paradise away before she remembered his face. She hadn’t mentioned having more nightmares or snippets of memory of that night, but they’d been concentrating on other things.
There were still plenty of people around who lived here at the time of the murders. He glanced at Paradise’s set face and knew she would not be run off.
Someone I know hates me enough to stalk me.
While Paradise worked, the thought kept reverberating through her head. When her workday was over, she rushed to Jenna’s house and went through the empty house to Blake’s office. In one of the bookshelves lining his wall she found the yearbook from her sophomore year. She carried it out to the living room where she settled on the sofa with the kittens leaping on her legs and burrowing into her lap.
Sweet little nuisances. She launched the Notes app on her phone, but the back door opened before she could start going through the yearbook. Jenna’s voice called from the kitchen.
“I’m in here,” Paradise said.
Small bare feet slapped on the wood floors as the boys ran to her. Two warm little bodies swarmed into her lap, each one grabbing up a kitten as they snuggled close.
Levi patted her cheeks with both of his hands. “I missed you, Simba.”
The boys had quickly taken to calling her by Blake’s nickname for her, and she didn’t correct him. “I missed you too.”
The seven-year-old had been gaining muscle and bulk in the past few weeks, and his weight was heavy on her leg. She didn’t mind though. Before they knew it, the boys would be too grown up to want to snuggle on her lap. Five-year-old Isaac still held on to his skinny little-boy frame.
Jenna appeared in the doorway. “I’ve got hummus and carrot sticks for you guys. If you eat all of it, you can have a brownie.”
The black bean brownies were tasty enough for the boys but healthy enough for their mom to allow as treats. The boys scattered, taking the kittens with them to the kitchen, and Jenna joined Paradise in the living room. She nodded at the yearbook. “Blake will be here any minute, and the two of us will help you make a list. He told me what Karen said. It’s disconcerting.”
“It’s hard to wrap my head around someone watching me, keeping tabs on where I am and what I’m doing. A cornered animal is a dangerous one.”
Jenna winced. “Finding out Owen Shaw and Lacey Armstrong were behind what was going on here really shook my belief in people. I never would have believed they could do what they did—Owen especially.”
The former vet had fooled everyone. Paradise opened the yearbook and paused when she heard Blake come in the door and speak to his brothers before heading to join her. The afternoon wind and sun had roughened his skin and tousled his dark hair. She was tempted to skip the research and kiss him instead, but the stray thought made her realize she was reluctant to find out more about her adversary. It was unnerving to be so hated.
She patted the seat cushion beside her. “Let’s go through the yearbook and list people who still live here.”
He dropped down to her right. “You realize it could be a shopkeeper or one of your parents’ friends and not a student.”
“But this is a place to start and it might remind us of other people or circumstances we’ve forgotten.” She tried to ignore how much she wanted to lean against him and forget all this. “Start at the beginning.” She held out the yearbook.
He took it and flipped it open. The first few pages were pictures of clubs and activity groups. “Hey, didn’t your mother sometimes help at the pottery club at Tupelo Grove University? And she taught in the Art Department, so maybe something happened at the college.”
“Yes, she did. The older girls were always sweet to me and sometimes braided my hair. I don’t think I would have remembered it if you hadn’t mentioned it though.” She jotted downPottery Club. “We should get a yearbook from back then and see if we can find out other parents who helped out.”
