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Daisy
I’mat Dr. Hoover’s door. Tom wanted to come earlier, but I insisted on waiting for a reasonable hour. The clinic opens at ten today, so nine is reasonable, especially if I arrive bearing Glory’s cinnamon buns. Tom himself isn’t with me. He wants to get a read on where the police are with regards to the investigation, and he thinks he knows someone he can trust to give him that information.
He dropped me off and insisted I take his cell phone. We’re supposed to meet at the abandoned house where we salvaged the window. From there, we’ll compile what we know and plan our next move. Or that’s his version. I already know my next move. No matter what happens with Dr. Hoover, I am going to turn myself in as the real Celeste. Either I will bring enough for the police to arrest the imposter for my grandmother’s murder, or I won’t. I will not keep digging, further endangering Tom as an accomplice.
It takes a few minutes for Dr. Hoover to answer. He’s got to be past retirement age by now, but he doesn’t look much older than when I knew him, still bright eyed, his curly hair shorn almost to his scalp.
“Well, I know that’s Tom’s truck,” he says with a smile. “But you do not look like Tom.”
The smile falters as his dark eyes fix on me. Then they widen, and he pulls on a pair of glasses worn around his neck.
“Hey, Doc,” I say. “Been a while.”
“It has, hasn’t it?” His words come slow and careful, eyes fixed on me, uncertain and assessing. “Remind me the last time I saw you.”
“When I was ten. I sprained my ankle jumping out of a tree.”
His eyes sharpen. He’s not asking because he’s trying to place me. He’s testing me.
“And who brought you in?” he asks.
I smile at the memory. “Tom Lowe. He doubled me on his bike, racing to your office, screaming ‘emergency!’ like some kind of siren. He came into the parking lot so fast he wiped out on the gravel, and when you came out, we were arguing—he was trying to carry me, and I was telling him to stop fussing.”
Dr. Hoover leans against the doorframe and gives a long exhale. “CeCe.” He backs up. “Come in, child. Come in.”
I follow him into the trim little house, which also looks exactly as I remember.
“Tom blamed himself when you didn’t come back to Fort Exile after that,” he says as he leads me into the living room. “He was sure your parents were keeping you away because he let you get hurt.”
I wince. “Oh.”
He waves me to a seat. “Maeve set him straight soon enough, told him to stop being silly.” He sighs. “CeCe Turner. So who the hell is the woman living in your house?”
“Good question. Tom and I are sorting it out.”
“She didn’t remember that ankle sprain. I asked her about it, just breaking the ice, and I could tell it caught her off guard. I didn’t think much of that. It wasn’t exactly a traumatic injury, and while you’d always been a quiet child, you’d apparently grown up to be cold and distant, too. It happens. I let it go. I shouldn’t have.”
“She fooled a lot of people.”
“Not Tom, I bet. There was no way she pulled the wool over his eyes. I don’t know how she thought she would.”
“As far as she was concerned, Tom was just a guy Celeste Turner hung out with now and then when she visited her grandmother.”
“I guess so.” A deep sigh. “What a mess.” His brow furrows. “Wait. Are you the young woman who’s been living with her? Doing repairs?”
“Yep.”
The furrow deepens. “Didn’t I hear that lawyer was found dead in the swamp?”
“Yep. All I can say for sure is that neither Tom nor I had anything to do with that. I’m here to ask about Maeve. About her death. I have questions.”
“I’m sure you do, and as her next of kin, you are entitled to answers. Ask away.”
Celeste
I turn into my drive to see it blocked by a familiar pickup, one that would have made my heart skip a few days ago.
It’s Tom.
