Cold River - Carla Neggers [43]
“He’s a stonemason, Beth. He knows cellar leaks. If you’re worried, which I’m not, Devin and Toby will both be here.”
“All right, I’ll stay out of it. I just hope what happened up at the cemetery was an accident.” Beth grabbed her jacket off a hook by the door. “Have fun at dinner. You and the judge can go off on one of your tangents about Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. It’ll take your mind off things. Dom, you want to join Jo and me at the lake?”
“Not tonight, but thanks,” she said.
It was Dominique’s standard response when she was invited anywhere in the evening. She rarely went out after work, saying she preferred to stick close to the little house she was renovating in the village and the café provided most of the social contact she needed. She and Beth left together. Hannah wrapped the rest of the cupcakes, got fresh ice and a fresh towel and locked the café for the night. She went out into the center hall and stared out the side windows at the Christmas lights twinkling on the trees across the street on the common. Dominique was a stickler about keeping decorations fresh. The wreaths, lights and baubles they’d put up in the café would be down by New Year’s Day.
As if on cue, Jo Harper’s car angled into a parking spot in front of the building and she and Elijah got out. Hannah wondered if they could see her standing there in the hall or if she could run upstairs and lock herself in her apartment and refuse to talk to them.
Best to get this done, she thought, setting the plate of cupcakes on the curving stairs to the second floor. She held her ice pack in one hand and opened the front door. “Elijah, Jo,” she said as the pair mounted the stone steps. “I’ve been expecting you. Beth and Dominique have gone home. We can talk in the café.”
Even as a senior in high school, when Hannah was a freshman, Jo Harper, the eldest of the town police chief’s three children, had been direct and uncompromising. Her one weakness had been the man across the café table from her now—bad-boy Elijah. Their days holed up together in a cabin on the lake were probably her only departure from the straight-and-narrow.
Fate in the form of the sixteen-year-old son of the vice president of the United States had brought her to Black Falls in November. While assigned to protect Marissa Neal, the eldest of Preston and Holly Neal’s five children, Jo had become the victim of one of Charlie Neal’s infamous pranks. Charlie was the youngest and the only boy. He’d hosted an airsoft battle at the vice president’s residence. Jo believed one of the guns was in fact real and jumped into the teenage fray, intercepting what turned out to be a barrage of airsoft pellets.
The incident, captured on video by one of the boys, ended up on YouTube. The subsequent media sensation and Jo’s disgruntled boss had landed her back in her hometown until things settled down.
Hannah had heard rumors that Charlie, who had a genius IQ, had played a role in discovering the existence of the network of killers-for-hire. It wasn’t anything Jo was willing to discuss.
Regardless, Jo had always had a knack for rubbing Hannah the wrong way.
Elijah had walked over to a riverside window while Jo stepped behind the glass case and poured herself a mug of coffee as if she owned the place. She brought her mug to a small table overlooking Elm Street and pulled out a chair. Her jacket was open, a black scarf hanging from her neck.
She nodded to Hannah. “Have a seat.”
Hannah tried not to bristle and sat opposite Jo, her back to the street window. She reminded herself that Jo was in a difficult position and she and Elijah had saved Devin’s life. Devin had said she’d been good to him on the mountain, careful with him, putting herself at risk to make sure he and Nora Asher were as safe as possible when the bullets had started flying. Jo had stood up to the pressure of a life-threatening situation and hadn’t taken care of just herself.
“Can I get you anything else?” Hannah asked. “Soup, a sandwich—cupcakes?”
“Not for me. Help yourself