Murder Served Cold (8 page)

“I understand,” I said softly. “You don’t have to feel like you have to win me back, because I’m here to tell you that it won’t work. I say that in the best sense, but I promise you, it won’t work. You don’t have to do something that won’t be productive. I think it will only end up hurting you more, and I don’t want that.”

He dipped his head. “I’m going to head home. Maybe I’ll see you there sometime.”

I slowly shook my head. “I’m not going back.”

Kevin paused. “I can see that.” He held out his hand. “I wish you the best.”

I hugged him. “You, too.”

I watched him leave with no feelings of regret or guilt. I honestly wanted the best for him. He waved when he reached his car and as he grew smaller and smaller in the distance, my heart felt lighter and lighter. I knew I had done the right thing.

A Scoop of Sunshine was crowded to maximum capacity when I arrived. I wouldn’t have been able to squeeze myself inside if I had wanted to. From the outside, it looked like an abundance of teenagers with annoyed expressions and grumpy older ladies who hit a teen with their heavy purses every time they moved.

“I’m working on it,” Jade was saying to a concerned parent. “I’ll resolve this.”

I pulled Jade aside before she could promise something she couldn’t deliver. Jade meant well, but she bit off more than she could chew sometimes. “What happened?”

Jade wiped her forehead. “I accidently scheduled both the ice cream party and bingo at the same time.”

“I thought they were supposed to be later in the week.”

“I told them the wrong dates.” Jade grew more frantic with each word. “I was distracted by the stabbing when I scheduled them, and now I’m done. It doesn’t matter that Rodger’s dead and I might be able to keep my shop. No one will want to come here when everyone’s going to be talking about what a disaster this place is!”

I thought fast. “Here’s what we can do.” I told her my plan and she agreed to put it into action.

We got everyone outside the shop, set up bingo on a couple of tables and left the rest open. I made makeshift ropes by tying red licorice together with twist ties and attached them to a couple of tall boxes, forming a line outside the door.

Jade announced to the waiting crowd that we had one game of bingo inside and another game outside. Only a select number of people would be allowed inside at any time, which was the reason for the ropes. We set up candy outside for people waiting to get inside and had a line to the ice cream counter separate from the line to get to bingo. We also had wristbands for everyone over eighteen and made sure that everything was kept aboveboard and legal for the gambling rules that pertained to playing bingo.

Taryn, who had just finished a game of bingo outside, came up to us with congratulations. “I’m impressed. This is the most exclusive party I’ve been to, while still including everyone. I love it. This way we can have the hip lines with a good party. You know a party’s good when you’re stuck in a line waiting to get in.” Taryn turned to Jade. “I see the use of those athletic shoes of yours. You need to be on the move in order to throw an event like this. You must have been planning for forever! And to trick us in the beginning into thinking that this would be a complete mess… You’re a soul after my own heart.”

“Thanks,” said Jade, surprised. She wisely didn’t let on the real circumstances.

The Bingo Celebratory Extravaganza, as we ended up calling it, was a success. We gave it a time limit of a couple of hours to keep the exclusive feel going and to get as many people as possible there at one time. That way, it really was a large celebration. As Rebecca White ran bingo and scooped ice cream intermittently, I passed out invitations to people on the beach to come by. Jade oversaw everything and made sure she had enough employees on hand for it to run smoothly. Everyone loved it.

Jade and I high-fived and sat back to enjoy our success.

“I can’t believe we did this,” said Jade in awe. “Thank you.”

“Couldn’t have done it without you,” I said. “You made sure everything ran smoothly. I just came up with the plan.”

Jade grinned. “We’re a good team.”

“Do you think we made enough of an impact to keep Scoop alive?” I asked. That was what I really wanted to know. I wanted Jade to keep her shop. It had been her dream for the entire time I had known her to run an ice cream shop.

She calculated it in her head. “I think so. Especially because everyone’s talking about it. We’ll keep getting people coming in. I think I’m going to have a monthly event like this, actually, to keep the interest up.”

“That’s a great idea!” I exclaimed. “You’ll be the most popular ice cream shop in town before we know it.”

“I hope so,” Jade said with an encouraging smile. She pushed a letter toward me. It had my name on it.

“What’s this?” I asked. I recognized it as Kevin’s handwriting.

“Kevin gave me this to give to you before he left. That’s all he told me.” Jade left to clean up the shop for the rest of the customers of the day as I read the letter.

Jade,

I wanted to write this because I don’t know if I will be able to say it. I need a way to organize my thoughts and I think this is the best way to do it.

I’m sorry we didn’t work out. I didn’t get it a couple of days ago and I can’t say I’m over it today, but I’m getting closer to understanding. I don’t blame you for what happened between us. I think you did the right thing by ending it, even if I couldn’t see it until now.

I wasn’t the one for you. I think you could have been the one for me, which makes this difficult. I must keep moving forward and I want you to do that as well.

I want to let you know that I’ll do everything in my power to get your apartment back. I’m sure they’d understand the misunderstanding and let you renew your lease, even if it’s in a different apartment in the building. I’ll also see what I can do about your job. I don’t want to overstep my boundaries, so I’ll ask your friend who works there to find out what she can.

Your life will return to normal when you come home and you’ll find someone else to spend your life with. I’m confident of that. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. I’ve got plenty of sculptures ready to be sculpted. I’m glad I got to see you in Red Palm.

Best wishes,

Kevin

I threw the letter on the table, seething with rage. He’d honestly thought that I was going to go back home when I told him I wasn’t? He’d written the letter before I told him that, so I didn’t understand why he hadn’t said something when I said I was staying.

Who did he think he was to get my apartment back? To try to get my job back? If that was overstepping boundaries, then I needed to revisit the meaning of “boundaries.”

I dialed his number. It went to voicemail, so I texted him to call me. We needed to have a talk.

I scanned through the letter again. I couldn’t believe everything he’d said. It was passive-aggressive to the extreme. How could he say this in a letter and not to my face? If he had a problem, I wanted him to say it. That way we could work on it in a rational conversation instead of me being sideswiped by this letter.

He couldn’t even hand me the letter himself. He’d had the opportunity and everything.

 
I hadn’t left to get away from Kevin. I hadn’t done it out of spite or guilt. I’d done it for myself, to grow as a person. To take a chance and see what happened. I wanted to test my limits and see what I was capable of. That wasn’t running away from my problems. That was taking action and doing something — the complete opposite of the picture Kevin was trying to paint.

My phone rang. “I can’t believe you,” I said into it.

“I have you on speaker,” Kevin said. “So if I break up, I’m under a bridge or have a bad connection.”

“I can’t believe you,” I repeated, furious.

“What? Did you get my letter? I just made an appointment with your landlord and I’ll sort that out, no problem, so you don’t have to worry.”

“No, I don’t want you to do that! I don’t need you to fix my problems — especially when my problems aren’t the ones you think they are!”

“Slow down. I’m confused.”

“I didn’t renew my lease because I didn’t want to. I wouldn’t run away from my problems. Me coming to Red Palm wasn’t me escaping. It was me getting a fresh start, trying something new. It’s not what you think.”

Kevin spoke with a hurt voice. “I’m trying to help you. I just want the best —”

I cut him off. “Then let me do things my way. I don’t need you to get me an apartment and a job. I’ve got that taken care of.”

“You have an apartment and a job?” he asked.

“It doesn’t matter! It’s my responsibility to find them — not yours. Got it?”

I heard Kevin breathing on the other end. “Okay,” he finally said. “I’ll cancel the appointment with the landlord.”

Thank you,” I said.

“You’re sure you don’t want me to look into your job? I can swing by —”

“No,” I said firmly. “I can take care of myself. I sighed. “Look, I came to Red Palm to find myself, in a way. I don’t need your permission to do that and I don’t need you checking up on me or doing things for me as if I’m helpless. That’s not the case. That’s
never
been the case.”

“Yeah, I guess,” said Kevin.

“I think you’re doing this to avoid confronting your own problems,” I continued. “Face your life and stand on your feet. I know you can do that. Helping me isn’t going to help you right now. You’ve got to figure things out for yourself.”

Kevin was silent for a minute. “I think I actually get it now. All right, I won’t do those things.”

“Excellent,” I replied.

“If you ever need anything, let me know.”

“I will.”

We hung up and I felt like a weight had been lifted off of me. He would be true to his word, judging by his past actions. I was relieved that I’d caught him before he could do anything rash.

I still couldn’t believe that he was going to do those things, though.

I was heading inside Scoop to help Jade when my phone rang again.

“Hey,” I said to Kevin.

“I thought of something,” he said. “When you said that you were taking action, does that mean you’re still trying to solve the murder?”

“Of course.”

“Are you crazy? You can’t solve a murder!”

I was flabbergasted. “And why not?”

“You’re not a detective. You don’t know anything about murder and crime. Tell me you’re not going to put your life in danger to find the killer of someone that no one likes.”

“Absolutely not!” I exclaimed. “You have no authority on this matter. I’m going to do what I want.”

“I was afraid of that,” he muttered. “I’m turning around.”

“Don’t do that,” I warned.

“I’m coming to help.”

“No, you’re not. You listen to me,” I said. “You are going to stay on the path home because that’s where
you
need to go. This isn’t about me, this is about you.”

Kevin gave a half-hearted laugh. “You’re telling me that it’s me and not you? Isn’t that the opposite of breakup language?”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I want you to start living your
life. Please stop living mine.”