Tangled Webs: An Eastern Shore Mystery (The Eastern Shore Mysteries Book 7) by Cheril Thomas

Author:Cheril Thomas [Thomas, Cheril]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tred Avon Press
Published: 2024-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“I’m sorry things are so hard eight now,” Mac said. “Want to tell me the rest of your troubles?”

They were rocking on the patio glider watching the stars emerge in the clear twilight. Grace had managed a quick grocery run and Mac had gotten home early enough for playtime with the kids. Over dinner he’d filled her in on the calls and visits he’d had from concerned citizens, and she’d told him Lily was hitting a dead end in her attempt to find Laura Lassiter. They had forwarded the case to one of Lily’s contacts and spent the rest of the day clearing up work for other clients in preparation for the office reopening on Monday.

“My troubles?” Grace wondered what he’d heard, then she got it. “Marjorie called you, didn’t she?”

“Daily.”

She considered reminding him that The Bat wasn’t related to him anymore, but she knew it was a moot point. When Mac had married Meri Battsley, her sister had claimed him as a brother. Neither Meri’s death nor the intervening decades had changed anything. His marriage to Grace was just another of life’s irritants to Marjorie.

They watched Rocky run about chasing fireflies and she described the current office tension. Mac made her laugh at the silliness of it all, and she was grateful that most of her evenings ended this way. Until he asked about Stephanie.

When she didn’t answer immediately, he said, “Bingo. That’s why your beautiful eyes aren’t sparkling tonight.” He hugged her closer. “What’s she done now?”

“She wants to talk.”

“You going to stand up for yourself?”

“I think I’m going to let them go.”

He stopped the glider and looked at her. “You didn’t do anything to deserve this, Grace. You’ve deferred to Stephanie at every turn, trying to keep her happy. She has no right to keep you from seeing your father.”

This was exactly where she didn’t want to be—stuck in the middle between an angry husband, a vengeful sister, and a father who didn’t remember she existed. “It’s okay. I don’t mean that in a pitiful way. This isn’t what I wanted, but Stephanie’s having a hard time, and I don’t need to make it worse for her. But I also don’t need to be a punching bag. I found my father and I know what happened between my parents. I’m ready to let it go.”

“When you want to revisit that bull⁠—”

“You’ll be the first to know.” They rocked for a while in silence, each lost in thought, until Grace said, “Do you have any guesses about who died out in that field?”

He laughed. “Spoken like a true criminal defense attorney. Honey, no one just dies out in a pasture and accidentally gets covered up with three feet of soil and grass.”

“It’s possible,” she insisted. “And he—or she—may have fallen in the cistern and hit their head and drowned.”

“And then accidentally got covered up?”

“Oh, knock it off. So do you? Have any guesses, I mean.”

“Well, the easy answer would be that it’s one of the transient farm workers Robert used back when they had a dairy herd out there.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.