Safely Home Read Online Free Page B

coat in her hands felt good. Warm. Safe. Like a cozy blanket on a winter’s night, or steaming hot chocolate after weaving Grandpa’s wood-slatted toboggan through tree-dotted, snow-covered hillsides.
    Cress blinked. Last night’s cooling temperatures must have gotten to her. Cozy blankets? Sledding? Little boy clothes?
    Detective Crescent Dietrich didn’t get moony-eyed, much less over something small, vintage and beyond the realm of current reality. “Here.” She handed the coat to Audra. “Set this on the bed. I need to grab my pain meds.”
    She felt their combined stare as she pushed to her feet, then wobbled a second before feeling terra firma beneath the right leg. Ignoring whatever looks they might exchange, she moved toward the door. “I’ll be back. Whatever you do, don’t stop on my account.”   Maybe she’d be lucky and they’d have the chest done before she made it back.
    Doubtful.
    Right now she needed air. She’d left the small-town claustrophobic antics of Watkins Ridge purposely as a teen. She’d made her way up the ladder of criminal justice with the same rigor.
    Old feuds, cast aspersions, town gossip...
    The combo stirred up too much. Watkins Ridge was a Miranda Lambert lament, a town where everyone dies famous. She’d headed to bigger and better, wanting anonymity. Needing it.
    Now?
    She was here for the duration, shelving her own secrets, weighing choices, facing a crossroads of her own doing.
    The ping of a soft bell drew her attention as she filled a half-pint jelly jar with water. The melodious sound grew, a chant of tones marking the hour, old-time charm filling the moment. The soft chorus soothed in simple note cadence, sweet and wholesome.
    She’d lost both qualities while gone. She wasn’t a bit sweet and she’d given up wholesome years before, but something in the bell’s notes said she could start over, begin anew.
    Shep padded onto the porch. She swallowed the pain pill and walked through the door to join him. She settled onto the step, staring at nothing. That was all the invitation the dog needed. He curled beside her, not bothering with a three-circle spin. She stroked his fur as the music wound down, the final notes a longing of pling... pling... plong.
    “Cress, that you?” The neighbor’ s voice ended her short seconds of peace on Earth, good will toward men. “I heard you’d come back to help your Grandma! You girls are just what she needs, a sight for sore eyes, and just look at you!” Ginny Dumerese climbed the back steps with an ease Cress envied. “How’s Norma? How are things? I meant to get over the past few days, but your grandma ain’t one to want a lot of attention, now is she? And isn’t this just the way, how it takes tragedy to bring folks back together? At least it’s not a funeral, though, that’s what I said to Harold before I left the house, so that’s good!”
    She beamed as if her words brought balm, but Cress understood the scolding behind the smile. Still, Ginny wasn’t a bad sort. She just knew too much, like so many, and unafraid to speak her piece. No wonder she and Gran got along. “Families need to stick together. Did you want to go see Gran? She’s upstairs sorting things, but I bet they could all use a break.”
    Ginny considered, then nodded. “Well, I know your Grandma and she’d go all day and night if need be, but I bet you girls could use a minute to breathe something other than mothballs and cedar.”
    She’d nailed Cress’s sentiments with enviable acuity .
    “ I’m not a keeper,” she continued as she crossed the porch. “I toss things I probably should save, but it spared me what you folks are up against right now. Sorting decades of maybes and if-onlys. Yes, I’ll go bother her a bit, it’ll be good for all of us, and it will save her facing Sylvie to plan the fall festival. Sylvie’s got it in her head that Norma shouldn’t be allowed on the committee. As if I’d stand by and let such a thing happen.