Chapter Two
Jo, Mel, and Zoe sat in the parlor of Miss Gina’s Bed-and-Breakfast for their weekly girls’ night. Most of the time they had to use Jo’s house for their gatherings due to the B and B having a full house. But Tuesday nights and even the occasional Wednesday this early in the spring meant the inn had one, maybe two rooms occupied.
Miss Gina entered the room carrying a red pitcher of her famous lemonade. Her worn Birkenstock sandals made squeaky noises against the floor as she walked, her ever-present tie-dyed skirt swishing at her ankles.
Mel stood. “I’ll get the glasses.”
A tray of guilty pleasures sat on the table: chocolate, cheese, and fruit that Zoe had thrown together. Anyone else would have put a bowl of Hershey’s kisses and small chunks of cheddar, but not Zoe. Jo could identify two of the four cheeses, and the chocolates looked like the gourmet category that one picked up at the mall in Eugene. Even the fruit had been prepared with some kind of cutesy knife that offered deckle edges to the melons.
“You’ll be happy to know my cookbook is now in production.” Zoe picked up a small chocolate and nibbled.
“What does that mean?”
Miss Gina spoke first. “It means Felix and his crew are coming into town by the end of the month to start filming.”
“Did I know about this?” Jo tried to place the information inside her head and came up blank. “I remember talking about the possibility—”
“Probability.” Mel set the glasses on the table and started to pour. “Felix set everything up, right, Zoe?”
Zoe was dressed down to jeans and an oversize shirt, her long black hair pulled back in a simple ponytail. “Felix put together a small team—”
“How small?” Jo was more interested in the safety of large truckloads of film equipment sitting around for long periods of time.
“I’m not sure.”
“Guess.”
Zoe glanced at the ceiling. “No less than ten people, probably more like a dozen.”
“And trucks? How many trucks?” The size of the town and simple politics meant there weren’t permits needed for filming, but if someone wanted to cause problems, there was county-wide red tape that could be pulled.
“Just one, probably,” Zoe answered.
“Why do you ask?” Mel sat back, her bare feet tucked under her bottom as she made herself comfortable.
“So I can head off any issues before they become a problem.”
“You think there’s a problem?” Miss Gina asked.
Jo shook her head. “No. Most of the people in town love it when Zoe’s people are around. It makes everyone feel like they are the famous ones.”
“I’m not famous.” Zoe rolled her eyes.
Jo shook her head. “Who here has not been on TV multiple times with celebrities all over the world?”
Miss Gina, Mel, and Jo raised their hands.
“Who here doesn’t have a zillion frequent flyer miles on their airline of choice for filming said TV spots?”
Three hands went up.
“Who here doesn’t have fan mail, has to dodge autograph requests, or has an agent—”
“Okay, okay . . . so I’m a little famous.”
Jo laughed. “Anyway, if I know what’s coming, I can give a heads-up to those who might need to know, and maybe the few busybodies in the area, to avoid any trouble.”
“If there is any trouble, we will sic Felix on them. He’s great at making everyone get along.”
Jo took a sip of her drink and decided to not finish the glass. She wasn’t on duty, but the thought of not being able to jump on an issue if needed didn’t sit well with her.
“Hope can’t wait to see the crew.”
Hope, Mel’s nine-year-old daughter, was blossoming into quite the prima donna of Miss Gina’s Bed-and-Breakfast. With her innocent smiles and fluttering of her eyelashes, the crew handed her the keys to their hearts the minute they arrived.
“She wants to make some money off that swear jar you have in the kitchen.” Miss Gina groaned. Her pocket had grown empty in the two years Hope had lived in River Bend, and her language had cleaned up considerably.
“Smart girl,” Jo said.
Mel took another swig of her drink. “The high school has managed to lure me into the alumni committee,” she told them.
“For the reunions?” Zoe asked.
“Yep.”
“How hard can that be? How many kids were in our graduating class, fifty?”
“Ish,” Jo said.
“Yeah, but this year’s ten-year reunion is going to be triple the size.”
Zoe found another chocolate, kept nibbling. “Baby boomers of River Bend?”
They laughed.
“No, Waterville High had a fire during the holidays that year,” Mel told them.
Jo narrowed her eyes.
“I forgot about that,” Miss Gina said.
“I don’t remember anything about it,” Jo mumbled.
Miss Gina patted Jo’s knee. “You had a hard year.”
She sure had. Before her father’s death, she was working odd jobs in Waterville and renting out a bedroom from a divorcée who needed the extra money. When Jo would come home, she’d often stay with Miss Gina. She and her father had just started talking without massive fights right before his death. Jo attributed the peace to the distance.
“I can’t believe it’s been ten years.” Mel’s voice softened.
“Feels like forever.”
Miss Gina made a humming noise as a slow smile inched across her lips. “Your dad liked his beer, but he had a soft spot in his heart for my lemonade.”
“My dad never kept beer in the house.”
“That’s because you’d drink it!” Miss Gina never minced her words.
“And when did he have a chance to drink your lemonade?” Jo asked.
“Joseph made the trip out here a few times that last year you girls were in high school.”
“He did?” Jo didn’t remember hearing about him going to Miss Gina’s except for the occasional drive through and checking on people when the weather was bad and the power was out. Which, where they lived, happened quite a bit.
“To check on you, mostly.”
“How come you didn’t tell me?”
Miss Gina tipped her glass back. “I told him I wouldn’t. Besides, if I told you back then that your dad and I talked, you wouldn’t have come to me when things were hard for you.”
“I came to you for just about everything.”
“We all did,” Zoe added.
Mel removed her honey blonde hair from her ponytail and ran her fingers through the ends. “I remember the day we had that counselor come to the school to talk about teenage pregnancy. We all came here to get the facts from you.”
Miss Gina nodded with a grin.
“You told us abstinence was what the preachers tell their daughters to practice about six months before their illegitimate babies were born.” Zoe’s words brought back the memory.
“Then we had a road trip into Waterville and came home with condoms and the number to the family planning clinic for pills when we needed them.”
“I used that number,” Jo told them.
“I didn’t have to. Miss Gina handed me three months’ supply when she heard that Luke had asked me out.”
“You didn’t have sex with Luke for, like, six months,” Mel protested.
“Seven, but I started the pills sooner.”
Jo laughed. “That’s because you thought you’d get pregnant by just thinking about sex.”
Zoe rolled her eyes. “I did not.”
“Did, too,” Mel said.
“You were paranoid, Zoe.” Miss Gina waved her glass in the air.
For a minute it looked like Zoe was going to protest; instead she nodded.
“So what did my dad and you talk about? Not birth control pills, I hope.”
Miss Gina shook her head. “He never flat-out asked about that part of your life, but I did remind him that you were smart and didn’t want to be a teenage mother.”
“He probably knew I was having sex.”
“Oh, he knew . . . he just couldn’t figure out with who. Bugged the crap out of him that you didn’t date any local boys.”
“Which is exactly why I didn’t date anyone in town.”
“You didn’t date anyone here because they all knew your dad,” Mel corrected her.
“It’s a good thing as it stands. It’s hard enough policing River Bend, imagine if it were filled with exes.”
“I would laugh my ass off all the time.” Zoe chuckled.
Miss Gina tucked a long strand of silver-speckled hair behind her ear. “Your dad wanted to know you were safe and getting by. He offered to give me money once in a while to help you out so long as I didn’t tell you about it.”
This was news to Jo. “And did he . . . give you money?”
“Yep, and I took it, too. You kids emptied my pantry every time you showed up.”
Jo had no idea. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before now?”
“You weren’t ready to hear this right after your dad died. Would have made you fall even deeper in your grief. But your dad loved you. He didn’t always know how to handle you, and that summer after high school he had to put his boot down or risk losing you to the wrong crowd. Especially after Zoe left and Mel was in California.”
“I was with the wrong crowd,” Jo said, remembering the party lasting for months.
“Yes, but you called me to pick you up when things were a little hairy, and you never ended up in jail.”
“Dad locked me in his more than once.”
“Not the same.” Miss Gina looked beyond them in her memories as she spoke. “He did that to scare you.”
“All it did was piss me off.”
“It scared you or you would have ended up in someone else’s holding cell.”
Neither of her BFFs offered a protest.
Mel refilled her glass and topped off Zoe’s. “So Jo’s dad came here often?”
“The year Jo was living in Waterville. He’d come by after you’d visit.” Miss Gina nodded toward Jo. “He wanted the real story . . . did I approve of your friends? Had I met them? Were you getting enough to eat? He was a worrywart, your dad.”
“He never showed that to me.” Jo wasn’t sure if she should be relieved to know how much her father thought of her back then or distressed to know he didn’t tell her directly.
“He had to keep it from you, JoAnne. You needed to be on your own two feet in order to realize how much you had with him. The harder you had to work, the less time you had to party.”
“It’s no different than you telling Billy Ray to run with you at the school,” Zoe said. “That’s hard to do sober, forget about it if you’re hungover or drunk.”
“He still checked on you. Kept in contact with the sheriff in Waterville, enjoyed a glass on the back porch with me.” Miss Gina waved her half-empty glass. “He knew you were turning your life around.”
Yeah, but he didn’t live to see it.
Jo winced.
The weight of all the eyes in the room silenced the thoughts in Jo’s head.
Mel offered her a soft smile and Zoe changed the subject. “Luke and I have decided on the first weekend in September for the wedding.”
The conversation turned to dresses and color choices, tents and food. Luke and Zoe were officially engaged the previous Christmas.
Jo weighed in on the conversation where she could, but her thoughts kept rolling back to her father. How was it possible she knew nothing about his trips to visit Miss Gina? His knowledge of Miss Gina’s vodka-infused lemonade?
What else didn’t she know?
The graduating class the year her father was murdered put triple the amount of people in the town during the days around his death. Something she’d never considered while she attempted to find his killer.
All these years she’d studied the town, the people . . . the gossip. The reports on her father’s death that pointed to “accidental.”
“Hey, Jo . . . you still with us?”
“I am . . . but I just thought of something.” She stood. “I gotta go check . . .” She left the lie on her tongue.
“Jo?” Mel’s unasked question was left unanswered.
Jo grabbed her keys off the table, smiled, and promised to see them all the next day.
“I’m worried about her.” Mel watched the taillights of Jo’s Jeep leave the driveway.
“She isn’t happy.” Zoe’s words put an exclamation point on Mel’s thoughts. “She isn’t even faking it anymore.”
“She didn’t even drink tonight.” Not that Jo needed liquor to make her happy, but she’d always have at least one cocktail with them on girls’ night.
“All that talk about her dad got her thinking again,” Miss Gina said. “She pulls into a ball when she reflects back. I don’t think she’s ever forgiven herself for being a rebellious teenager.”
“She wasn’t that bad.”
“She really wasn’t,” Mel agreed with Zoe. “But her dad didn’t see it that way.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
Both Mel and Zoe looked at Miss Gina.
“Joseph knew more about what you kids were doing than he let on. He didn’t always show his cards.”
“Are you kidding?” Zoe protested. “He helicoptered Jo and the two of us all the time.”
Miss Gina shook her head. “He watched over you because he knew of the trouble in your house. He watched over Mel because she was the straight-A student that pulled Jo back every once in a while.”
“I didn’t pull her back,” Mel denied.
“You did. You just didn’t realize it,” Miss Gina said. “You both anchored her when it was possible she’d spin out of control. Joseph watched all of you and made sure her circle of friends in town were the good kids.”
“He didn’t control that.”
“He fostered it.” Miss Gina sighed. “You both were kids, you didn’t see him as a man or realize why he did the things he did. Raising a daughter by himself, being the sheriff . . . it wasn’t easy for him. The stick up his ass didn’t help, but I did my best to wiggle that free.”
“Did you?” Zoe asked.
Miss Gina picked up her glass and winked. “I managed.”