“I don’t know, Dad,” Brynne answered patiently. “Freddie was involved in some fairly extensive criminal activities before any of this stuff happened. They’re probably tying up some loose ends. Checking to see if any of the people Freddie ran with had reason to force him into hanging himself.”

“Awful,” Alice said, with distaste. “This is just awful.”

Mike had his own theory. “Looks to me as though Freddie struck out with that Tiffany gal. Maybe he did that thing you hear about online—catfishing. She got here, didn’t like his looks, and when she rejected him, he killed her. Wouldn’t be the first time something like that happened.”

Brynne frowned, puzzled. “Catfishing?” she asked.

Mike was obviously pleased to fill his daughter in on modern lingo. “That’s when you bait somebody online—use somebody else’s photo for your profile, pretend you’re a whole different person. That’s catfishing. No big surprise that it ends badly most of the time.”

Brynne recalled the young man she’d heard in the restaurant one recent morning, referring to Freddie as an incel.

An involuntary celibate.

Talk about sad.

She laughed softly, just to soften the mood. “Thanks for that, Dad. I might have gone my whole life thinking catfishing was a means of catching supper.”

Mike chuckled. “We’d better get off the phone,” he said. “Let you get back to running that restaurant. Your mother and I shouldn’t have stuck you with the whole job.”

Strangely, Brynne’s throat tightened. She liked running Bailey’s. Even loved it.

“I’m doing fine,” she said. “Have you checked the Excel sheets I sent after the New Year’s Eve party? We made a fortune.”

“You made a fortune,” Mike corrected her. “After taxes and expenses, Brynne, that money is yours.”

“I have all the money I need,” Brynne said.

Her mother clearly wasn’t listening. “I just realized that there have been two deaths in the community,” she said, sounding worried. “There is bound to be a third one, and soon.”

“That’s superstition, Mom,” Brynne told her mother, echoing what Eli had said. “This is a small town and the brain looks for patterns. That’s all it is.”

Eli would have laughed if he’d overheard that. She’d absconded with his argument, which was priceless, since she didn’t quite believe the theory herself.

They’d had it several times, in fact, at her table when they shared a meal—alas, usually breakfast—or snuggled up on Eli’s couch, between movies on Netflix. They’d ended up throwing popcorn at each other, much to Festus’s delight, and laughing like a pair of fools.

And afterward?

Well, that was even more fun than throwing popcorn.

“I hope you’re being careful,” Alice fretted.