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“Miles is—” I stop. For some unholy reason, I want to defend him, but I shouldn’t. “He’s in a confusing place. Not that I’d forgive him easily after the crap he said, but I get why he might not be rushing in to apologize with everything else going on.”
“No excuses for bad behavior, lady.”
“Yeah, well, there was more going on that day than just meeting with someone he can’t stand. And now that I see how she’s trying to sink him, a part of me gets why he went off.”
Pippa takes a slow, thoughtful sip of coffee before she says, “It’s not your problem anymore. He made sure of that. And you can’t just dismiss the claims if you don’t really know whether or not the psycho ex-girlfriend really put them up to it.”
“No, but I have my doubts. Especially about Ava Wickes.”
“Wickes?” She squints at me. “Oh, right. The lady who said daddy dearest couldn’t keep it in his pants. You think she’s lying?”
“Depends. She says the advances went on even after he retired. Right up until the last day she saw him...”
“Just because he stepped aside for his son doesn’t mean he lost all his power. Look how powerful Brock’s grandparents are despite pretending to retire.”
I shake my head. “Pippa, the article says the last time she said she saw him was June, 2013 at his Seattle mansion. It can’t be true. Royal Cromwell and his wife were on Bee Harbor’s guest roster for most of the month. I found the receipts.”
“Oh. Oh, shit,” she whispers, stopping mid-sip.
“Yeah.” I pick up my phone and punch Ava’s name into search to pull up the article just so she can see the June comments. But something else appears under recent results. “Oh, that’s interesting.”
“What?” Pippa asks.
“I Googled her name, thinking the articles about her allegations would come up, but here’s something else...” I don’t say more while I’m skimming a short piece about her daughter.
“Jenn?”
“Looks like a local news outlet did a feature story on her daughter, but they got a few comments from Ava, too.”
“Why would they do a story on her daughter?”
“She has a 4.0 and near perfect SAT score. About six months ago, some organization—Rising Stars—offered her a full scholarship to the college of her choice. She’s also a pretty popular teen TikTok influencer.”
“Rising Stars, you said?” She stops and picks up her phone. “Huh. Must be new.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Ugh, I memorized like every major Seattle scholarship by name while I was helping Maisy apply. Even Dad was pulling his hair out. She got a couple smaller ones, and a generous donation from the Bank of Pippa and Brock covered the rest. Anything for my little sis, right?” She smiles. “But I’ve never heard of Rising Stars.”
She types on her phone for a minute and glances at the screen.
“Honestly, Miles should have put this kid on his creative team before all this shit went down. She has more followers than your travel channels.”
“The younger they are, the faster they blow up these days,” she says. “Hey, did you see Rising Stars was founded by Simone Niehaus? I’ll give you one guess who the corporate backer is.”
“Pacific-Resolute. Jesus.” A chill sweeps down my spine.
There’s something eerie about this.
Either Ava is flat-out lying or she got her dates horribly mixed up for the last time she saw Royal Cromwell. Meanwhile, her daughter was just tapped for a free ride from a nonprofit controlled by Miles’ mortal enemy.
There’s more going on here, but what? How?
“What’s the kid’s name?”
“Huh?” I’m so gobsmacked I’m only half paying attention.
“Wickes’ daughter?”
“Michelle.”
“Michelle Wickes?”
“Yeah. What are you doing?” I ask.
“Scanning her social media. There’s more coincidence here than a bad Christmas movie,” Pippa says.
I sip my coffee in agreement. “But I thought Miles Cromwell wasn’t my problem?”
She throws me a sour look.
“He’s not. But everybody loves a good mystery and you’re already in this one too deep.”
I laugh. “Piper, you’re bad.”
She’s silent while she taps furiously at the screen, then looks up with her mouth pulled into an O.
“Look at this. Michelle Wickes and her mom are on a weekend getaway to the Olympic Peninsula. Only an hour and a half from here.”
My stomach flips over.
Oh, no.
Is she thinking what I think she is?
“Hold up. You went from 'we can’t dismiss anything' to proposing we stake out complete strangers?”
“I mean, you said it and not me. But there’s enough smoke hinting at a huge flipping fire here.” She smiles while I fold my arms. “Aw, c’mon. You know the inn’s in good hands, and do you really have anything better to do today?”
“Dogs to walk.”
“Bring them with! Or Fyo will run them out a few times. Pretty sure he’s already best friends with Coffee. Andouille’s gonna be so jealous when we get home.”
I crack up, hoping I see the day when I introduce Coffee and Cream to the Winthropes’ overgrown sausage dog.
