“I was jealous, all right—couldn’t help it!”
“Oh, come here, you big lug,” she said, and then they shared a long-overdue hug. She placed a smacking kiss on his cheek, and the Chief’s face flushed a pretty pink, his grin something to behold.
“Finally,” said Angel with an eyeroll. She rubbed her dad’s back. “See what a nice little kidnapping is good for, eh… Dad?”
Father Reilly winced, but then rallied and said,“Absolutely… daughter.”
And then the three of them hugged it out.
“Aww, isn’t this nice?” said Harriet. “Just like in a movie!”
“Yeah, only Father Reilly won’t be a priest anymore,” said Shanille, “so where will we live?”
“You can live with us if you want,” Dooley suggested. “We have lots of space.”
Harriet looked up in alarm.“We don’t havethat much space, Dooley.”
“Oh, don’t get your knickers in a twist, Harriet,” said Shanille. “I’m sure we’ll find something.” But she didn’t look entirely happy about this unexpected turn of events.
But then it was time to leave the cabin to the forensic investigators, and leave this latest adventure behind us. And so soon we were on our way home again.
Epilogue
“So what’s going to happen to Shanille now, Max?”
“I don’t know, Dooley, but I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
“But if Father Reilly isn’t a priest anymore, he can’t live in that big house next to the church, and so they’ll have to find another place to live.”
“They can go and live with Marigold and Angel,” Harriet suggested.
“Shanille said they live in a small apartment,” said Brutus. “I don’t think there’s enough space for three people and a cat.”
“Like I said, they’ll figure it out,” I said.
We were on the porch swing, while a barbecue was in full swing in the backyard. We’d all been fed to our satisfaction and now enjoyed that postprandial drowsiness that is so enjoyable.
“And if Father Reilly isn’t a priest anymore,” Dooley went on, “then how are they going to pay their bills? Because Marigold will be out of a job, too.”
“Why?” asked Brutus. “Marigold can keep her job, and they’ll still have an income.”
“But she can’t. She’ll fall in love with the new priest, and then what is Father Reilly going to do, and Shanille?”
“Marigold isn’t going to fall in love with the new priest,” I said, closing my eyes to enjoy a nice little nap.
“Yes, she will! That’s what she does. She falls in love with priests!”
“What are you talking about, Dooley?” asked Harriet.
“Well, Angel always falls in love with the boyfriends of her girlfriends, and Marigold always falls in love with priests. It’s something mother and daughter have in common: a fixed pattern for falling in love.”
“Have you been watching amateur psychology documentaries again?” asked Brutus.
“I’m just giving you my analysis of the situation as I see it.”
“Your psychoanalysis,” Brutus corrected him.
“Amateur psychoanalysis,” Harriet added.
“Well, I still think they should all come and live with us, until they decide what to do.”
“And I’m putting my paw down on that,” said Harriet. “Shanille living with us—what an idea!”
Shanille and Harriet don’t always see eye to eye, both possessing the diva gene. And as everyone knows, two divas living under the same roof is simply asking for trouble.
“So how did Max figure it out?” asked Gran as she enjoyed a nice helping of leafy greens.
“I think it’s the McDonald’s thing that decided him,” said Odelia.
“What McDonald’s thing?”
“Well, Angel has always been a big fan of those nights out with her friends, and more specifically the meal they all share at McDonald’s at the end of it. In fact it had become something of a ritual for the girls, and so when Carmel told us that Angel had decided to leave early and skip McDonald’s this time, it struck him as odd.”
“And he was right,” said Chase. “Because that never happened. What happened was that they put something in her drink to knock her out. And when that didn’t work, Carmel instructed her boyfriend and his brothers to snatch her.”
“Oh, and also,” said Odelia, “Max felt that when Carmel told that story about Matteo Drews, she told it with a little too much fervor. He felt that she was probably in love with the guy, and didn’t like it when Angel stole him—or at least that’s how she saw it.”
“It’s also important to know that Carmel and Mariko had stayed friends, and Mariko had told Carmel the story of how Angel had stolen her boyfriend. So Carmel got so upset that she convinced the other girls that Angel was a threat to all of them: the kind of girl who stole her best friends’ boyfriends. So they didn’t feel safe from her either. And from there to deciding they needed to teach her a lesson was a short step.”
“But I thought this boy Angel was seeing was gay?” asked Scarlett.
“He wasn’t. That’s just a story Carmel invented out of spite. A story Mariko loved to spread.”
“Damn,” said Charlene. “Angel’s friends sound nasty.”
“Mainly Carmel,” said Odelia. “She was obsessed with Matteo, and when Angel started dating him, she had a complete meltdown, and dragged the others down with her.”
“And to think we thought Angel had run away from home,” said Charlene. “That’s the assumption you worked from at first, right?”
“Yeah, that’s how it looked to me,” Uncle Alec confirmed.
“Chase and I actually thought Angel had been grabbed by a serial killer,” said Odelia. “Isn’t that right, babe?”
“Yep,” said Chase as he buttered a piece of French toast, then placed some Brie on top and ate it with relish. “We saw a distinct pattern, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, we figured that the skeleton that was found in Blake Carrington’s field was put there by a serial killer—the same serial killer who’d targeted Angel as his next victim.”
“So who did put it there?” asked Charlene.
“Flint Dibbert and Bart Stupes,” said Uncle Alec with a flinty glint in his eyes. “And their buddies. Turns out they thought it would be a good idea to dig up a body and dump it in that field. All part of a so-called ‘zombie challenge’ that’s been doing the rounds on social media.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” said Marge, placing a large pot of mayonnaise on the table—there were lots and lots of pots to choose from, after all. “But I thought the remains that were found belonged to a girl who disappeared five years ago? And was never found?”
Chase nodded.“Serena Kahl. Went to a party and never arrived home in Hampton Cove. I talked to her parents, and turns out Serena had drug issues. She did arrive home, only for her mom to walk in on her in the morning with a needle in her arm, stone-cold dead. And since her folks didn’t want their daughter’s reputation shot…”
“Not to mention their own reputation,” Odelia added.
“… they decided to report her as missing, and in the meantime arranged for a discreet burial. Money changed hands with two gravediggers, no questions asked, and Serena was entrusted to the earth. And since those same gravediggers figured they could make another extra buck at the Kahls’ expense, they decided to pocket the money for the nice expensive coffin they ordered and put her in the ground without one.”
“Which explains why she was in the state she was found in,” said Odelia.
“So turns out Odelia and I were wrong,” said Chase. He glanced over to me, then raised his glass in a salute. “And that Max was right. You did it again, buddy.”
“Yeah, Max always gets it right,” said Odelia with a smile.
“Only you almost got it wrong this time, didn’t you, Max?” said Brutus with a grin. When I pulled a face, he thunked me on the shoulder. “Just kidding! You got there eventually—with a little help from your friends!”