Page 9 of Taken Away

“She was the best of us!” Mary Lou wailed.

“She absolutely was not,” Helen snapped, dabbing her eyes. “She cheated at bridge for twenty years. Used a signal with her rings. I saw it all the time.”

“She only cheated because Harold cheated first!”

“Harold’s been dead since the Clinton administration, Helen. Let it go.”

Aubrey went still.

“Ye left out the part where they terrify the local police,” a deep voice rumbled from behind her.

Aubrey spun around.

A tall man with sun-weathered skin and dark auburn hair streaked with copper and silver stood there, a file folder tucked beneath one arm. His eyes were sharp, but the easy smile beneath them softened the impression.

“Declan O’Rourke,” he said, his hand enveloping hers, a faint, musical trace of Ireland in his vowels. “But call me Deck. I do the heavy lifting for Eleanor.”

“Heavy lifting?”

“Private investigations, mostly,” Deck said, his gaze lingering on her a beat too long, sharp but kind. “When people decide to lie, disappear, or die without leaving a clear trail. Mabel was a gem. She thought the sun rose and set on ye.”

Before Aubrey could answer, another man stepped through the conference room doorway. A faded Blackwood Estate cap sat low on his brow, rain beading along the bill. He pulled it off as he stepped inside.

“Well,” he said quietly, “There she is.”

Something in his voice made her straighten.

“You probably don’t remember me,” he said. “But I remember you.”

Aubrey blinked.

“Red Stephens.”

Recognition flickered around the room immediately. Even the book club ladies softened.

“Red’s been with Blackwood longer than the vines,” Mary Lou announced tearfully.

“Longer than some of our marriages,” Helen muttered.

Red ignored them, his gaze staying on Aubrey.

“You used to sit on the back porch with a suitcase full of Barbies,” he said. “Would line ’em all up along the railing while your aunt hollered at the farmhands for cussing too loud around you.”

The memory hit Aubrey so suddenly it stole her breath—summer heat shimmering over pasture grass. A glass bottle of Coca-Cola sweating against her small palm. Pink Barbie shoes scattered across weathered porch boards. Mabel’s laugh carrying across the fields while cattle moved slowly beyond the fence line. Underneath it all, the rich, sweet scent of heavy purple grapes ripening in the summer sun.

For one brief second, she remembered being happy here.

Red’s expression gentled slightly, like he saw the memory land.

“Mabel was awful proud when you came to visit,” he said quietly. “Didn’t matter how long it’d been.”

Emotion climbed unexpectedly into Aubrey’s throat.

Deck shifted the file folder beneath his arm, expression turning thoughtful.

“Truth be told,” he said quietly, “your aunt had me looking into a few things before she passed.”

Aubrey looked up. “What kind of things?”