A Justified Murder (Medlar Mystery 2)

Smiling, she followed him outside. He seemed to be recovering from his shock. When she saw that he’d brought her dressy gold sandals, the ones coated in rhinestones, she didn’t comment.

He carried the metal cooler while she got a blanket.

“We’ll go across the path Sara and Granddad used. It’s still worn down after all these years.”

In the months that she’d been there, Kate had been able to piece together some of the story of her aunt and Jack’s grandfather. Born the same year, lived next door to each other, best friends from birth, then lovers in high school. But at graduation, there was a breakup. Whatever happened, Sara had left Lachlan to go to college, while Cal stayed behind to run his father’s auto shop. He soon married a local girl and they had a son, Jack’s father.

They made their way across an old path that could hardly be seen for the encroaching plants. Palm trees and spiky palmettos, with lizards darting everywhere. A tropical jungle.

Under their feet was a serpentine walkway made of rocks, broken pieces of granite, and—“Are those flattened hubcaps?”

“Yup. One of Granddad’s first construction projects.”

“Made so he could get to Aunt Sara.”

“So they could get to each other. There’s an old concrete slab through the trees. Maybe it used to have a roof and they met there, in the middle. They needed to get away from his father and her mother.”

“My grandmother,” Kate whispered.

The Medlar house was in as bad a shape as the Wyatts’. But the rooms had been swept, the cobwebs brushed away. Next to the living room, which had a fireplace, was a dining room with big windows flanking French doors. The doors with their broken glass had been boarded up, but through the windows she could see the rotting framework of a pergola. Rampant growth hid the land. Inside, along the back wall was a table made from a quarter sheet of plywood set on concrete blocks. Big plastic bags were in the corner, pillow edges sticking out.

“For our dining.” He was looking at Kate for approval.

“You’ve done a beautiful job. Thank you for inviting me.” She could see that her praise pleased him.

“Go on, nose around while I set up.”

When it came to houses, her curiosity was insatiable. As she walked through, she realized that both houses had a forlorn air to them. It was as though she could feel the unhappiness that had been inside them. The two young people had clung to each other in an attempt to escape their lives at home. Aunt Sara had made only a few remarks about her mother. “She couldn’t stand me” had been one of them.

As for Cal, he believed there was a demon in the Wyatt blood that came out every other generation. Cal’s father had been a raging tyrant who drank too much. The family hex had skipped Cal and gone to his son—Jack’s nasty-tempered, drunken father. Sara once said that Jack believed in “the curse” so much that he was afraid to have kids.

When Kate got back to the living room, Jack had set it up. A pretty cloth covered the plywood and a long throw rug was on the floor between the wall and the table. Sara’s good china and silver, with lit candles, were on top. Big pillows provided seats. He had done some serious planning for this evening and she smiled at him. “It’s lovely. Really. It’s beautiful.”

Smiling, Jack opened the champagne and filled their flutes.

She raised her glass toward him. “Congratulations. I know it was a long, hard struggle to get the owner to sell and I’m glad you did it.”

“Me too,” he said and they drank.

For the next hour, they gave themselves over to the feast he’d prepared—with help from his mother.

There was ropa vieja, beef with olives and capers, and rice made with toasted cumin. Everything was delicious and Jack kept filling Kate’s plate until she ate too much. When he pulled two pretty little molded pumpkin flans out of the cooler, she groaned. But she ate every bite of it.

By the time they’d finished, it was dark outside,

but the candles made the room glow. Jack handed her an icy pineapple mojito made with coconut rum, a sprig of mint at the rim.

In any other circumstance she would have complained that he was trying to get her drunk. But after what she’d seen and heard in the last few days, she needed something to relax her.

Kate was sitting on a pillow, leaning back against the wall, drink in hand. Straight ahead was the big window. It was dark out, not even a flicker of light. It was time to start talking. “Who is Charlene?”

“Tayla’s niece. Her sister Diane’s daughter.” He glanced at Kate and saw that she was waiting for him to continue. “Charlene is mid to late thirties, married, has two little boys. Smart kids. Husband is a lawyer at a firm in Plantation.”

“Do you know her well?”

“Yes and no. She’s very pretty and I had a crush on her when I was a kid. She moved away for a few years, but came back, met her ugly husband, and that was it.”

“Ugly, huh?”