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July 11 - July 25, 2025
PopPop was all about his independence. Although he hadn’t run the ice cream shop since my grandma took sick with early-onset Alzheimer’s and couldn’t be left alone, he always reminded us that even at his age he still could. He said his date of birth wasn’t a hindrance to anything other than the draft, and, he noted, they didn’t even have that anymore.
Riya’s olive-colored skin was flushed with frustration. She had a hair-trigger temper. She’d started running and taking tae kwon do to channel her energy and keep a level head. But sometimes Maisie could test her nerves.
“Steve what?” I shrugged. “He didn’t say. But he’s coming back to get ice cream. Mud pie ice cream, so I have to find the recipe.” I started to open the box, but she put her hand over it. “What did this guy look like?” she asked suspiciously. “I don’t know.” I hunched my shoulders. “He had graying hair. Deep blue eyes—” “And dimples!” Her words came out with fire. “Uhm . . . yeah. Dimples. Because why?” “Stephen Bayard! That’s who that was. That no-good scoundrel.” “What?” I asked, confused. “His name is Stephen Bayard. He didn’t eat mud pie ice cream here. What he did was drag us through the
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“He is the one who preyed on your grandmother’s illness and had her sign over the store to him. We had to scramble to get into court to have her deemed incompetent, something that broke your grandfather’s heart, so the contract wouldn’t be legally binding. And before we could do anything about him, he disappeared! With Dan Clawson’s wife!”
“Because if he shows up”—she yanked her purse down from the rack and started rummaging through it—“your father might just kill him.”
My mother had a habit of sitting in parking lots. Whenever she was feeling low or depressed, if she was out, she’d pull the car over and sit there. She said that sometimes to get clarity you just had to be still.
My father hadn’t been dressed like that when he left for work this morning. I’d seen what he had on when he was making omelets. And I’d never known him to wear anything but a suit to work. Never a pair of sweatpants. I didn’t know why he said he’d been at the hospital, but I did know that Glynis Vale wasn’t the only person tonight not telling the truth.
I didn’t know if I’d ever felt “homesick” while I was away, but it took my being sick to realize I needed to be home.
I huffed and hunched my shoulders. “I don’t know, Maisie. You’re beginning to sound like that detective.”
I tried to understand Stephen Bayard. Why had he come back to Chagrin Falls? Why had he been roaming the streets at five thirty in the morning? Why had he told me all those lies? Had he really known who I was and done it to taunt me? Or my family? And what had he been doing coming down by the falls, in a snowstorm, getting himself killed?
“I know you don’t think that I think you’re strong. But I know that you are.” “Sometimes I wonder,” I said.
I glanced over at her. “It felt like I didn’t even know you in there,” I said. “In where?” “The restaurant,” I said. “You going into emails, talking tough to that woman. And what kinds of faces were you making to Ari?” She smiled. “Someone has to stand up to him.”
Maisie overlooked my sarcasm. “Well, you never told me why they suspected him,” she said. And I hadn’t told her. I hadn’t had to. I’d asked for help, and she’d blindly come to my rescue. No questions asked. I needed to be nicer. “Sorry,” I said. “This is so frustrating.”
If he knew Glynis and he was inside of a pharmacy cabinet that belonged to the emergency department, then there was a good chance that he might have been the one to give it to her.
It annoyed the shit out of me how long it took her to reach this conclusion 😒 You see him together with your suspect, and before Riya jumps on him she literally tells you what he forged her name to get. And yet she was clueless until this very second 😭😭 i like this book but the stupidity of the characters at times is soooo stressful 🙄
