Bran New Death

Maternal. I cocked my head and watched her. My fu

Nah. Impossible.

“What are you going to do today?” I asked Shilo as I got ready to head to Autumn Vale.

“I’m coming to town with you,” she said.

I was surprised, but glad of the company. She confined Magic to his cage, and we set off in my car. As soon as we hit town, however, Shi headed off alone to “explore,” as she called it.

I had timed my arrival at Bi

For little old moi? I felt like crying. It was like being back in the Village at a favorite coffee shop. Why was she being so nice, especially since her brother and I had had a heated disagreement practically hours before his murder? But I would take whatever I could get.

Once we had steaming cups in front of us, and I had devoured a chocolate croissant, I regarded her with interest. Her hair was flyaway in the steam-bath atmosphere of the kitchen, and her cheeks were red, but she seemed serene, not at all as testy as she had been with Gogi and with me. It was odd, considering her brother had died just the day before.

“You do love baking, don’t you?” I asked, to break the ice.

She nodded. “I call it dough therapy. When I’m baking, I let go of everything: every stress, every pain, every rotten memory.” She paused, then continued. “It’s the one thing my dad really came through on, this bakery,” she said, waving her strong hands around at the kitchen. “He sent me to culinary school, and paid for this place.”

“What about your mom? I hear that she left your dad when you were a kid.” That was a little personal, but I was still trying to figure out what was the best way to deal with someone as prickly as Bi

“I still talk to my mom often,” she said. “She was dying in this little town. I didn’t see it that way at the time, but now I know that she and Dad weren’t getting along, and she had to leave. My dad is a huntin’, fishin’, woodsy kind of guy, you know? Guns and camo and outdoors stuff.”

“I’ve seen the photos of you with your dad, and Dinah with your dad, too. I was surprised Dinah would go hunting. She doesn’t seem that kind of woman.”

“Everyone in this town hunts and fishes . . . well, pretty much everyone, anyway. Even Mrs. Grace. You’d be surprised, but she wins the lady’s target shoot at the fall fair every single year.”

“Wow. Gogi Grace?”

Bi

“I would have taken her for the uptown kind of woman,” I said, thinking of my new friend’s elegance.

Bi

“Me, too!” I said, surprised by some of the weird co

“Okay, so here it is,” she said, rapping her knuckles on the tabletop. “I was wondering . . . I mean, you’re new in town, and I was thinking . . .” She shook her head.

I was intrigued. “What’s up, Bi

“I don’t know what to think,” she said, staring into my eyes. “Tom said he thought Dad was dead, and that Melvyn killed him and buried him at the castle. But that’s dumb. Melvyn Wynter was, like, a hundred years old.” She paused and screwed up her mouth, before saying, “Dinah thinks that Dad is alive, and just took off. But she can’t tell me why she thinks it.”

Her voice had clogged with tears. I thought of all I had heard, and how everyone assumed that her dad was dead. But what if he wasn’t? “So what if Dinah is right, and your dad isn’t dead, just missing?”

“Exactly! What if he’s alive but just staying away from Autumn Vale for some reason?”

It seemed a little far-fetched. “Why do you think Dinah is saying he’s still alive? What is going on that she thinks he might purposely disappear like that?”

Bi

How do you answer a question like that? It seemed to me that faint hope of her father being alive was distracting her from her brother’s death, so I’d play along. “You can trust me to keep my mouth shut unless what you have to tell me is about something illegal, immoral, or fattening,” I joked.

She clapped her mouth shut. And it stayed shut. “You need to use my ovens,” she finally said. “That’s why you’re here, right? You can use them any afternoon, because I do all my baking in the early morning.”

I had clearly put my foot in it. Which was it, I wondered, illegal or immoral? Fattening was clearly not a problem. I took another bite of chocolate croissant, chewed, swallowed, and said, “Bi

She examined me for a long minute. There were so many pauses in our conversation it was the word equivalent of Swiss cheese. “I just don’t know who to turn to,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “It’s all such a mess. Dinah has been the only one . . . I mean, she’s at least someone who cared for Dad. If she honestly thinks he’s alive . . .” She shook her head and clamped her lips shut, though they still trembled. “I think she’s trying to protect me somehow. But from what? And then, I found . . .” She stopped and shook her head again.

“Found what?”

But she was mute, just shaking her head. I was touched and sad for her. When my grandmother died and then my mom, six months later, I was a mess. Virtually the same thing was happening to her now at just a little older than I had been. “What did you find?” I urged again. “Something that leads you to believe your dad is alive? Why don’t we talk about this whole mess?”

The shop door jangled, indicating customers. She grabbed a rag and blotted her eyes, settled her expression, and headed out to the shop. I could hear her talking, and then the door jangled again a couple of times, quickly. I tried to imagine what it was that had suddenly given her hope that her father was alive. When things quieted down, she came back to the kitchen, more composed. I stood, but just then the bells over the door jangled once again. She headed to the door.

“Look, Bi