“Blake didn’t mention that I helped him dig in the trash, put together the invoice puzzle, or did the research on what it meant. He held it up like he’d done it all himself.” I groan and steal a handful of candy, shoveling the whole bunch in my mouth at once. Chewing open-mouthed, I keep telling Holly, “That might’ve been okay, like maybe he was covering for us the way we talked about? But then Mr. Neilhouse basically agreed that Everlife would do anything to not pay a claim. It started to come together then.”

“What makes you think that,” she asks, swinging the spoon left, “includes this whole thing between you and Blake?” She swings the spoon right, a glob of dough flying to the counter.

Rolling my eyes, I huff out, “Duh. It’s me, Hols. Blake was using me so they wouldn’t have to pay out this big claim, and like a sucker, I fell right into the trap. I knew better, I fucking knew better, but I let myself get carried away. By him, by hope.” Pain burns fresh in my chest again, and I shake my head, feeling dumb for not seeing it, for not questioning Blake’s intentions when almost every time we saw each other, it was about this investigation.

That’s not true. This morning didn’t feel like that, my heart tries to argue, remembering the needy growls and heady conversation. Facts are facts, my brain tells my heart. However I thought things were this morning, I’ve since learned differently.

“So, did Yvette really kill Richard?” Holly asks.

“It doesn’t matter. I mean, it matters to Everlife and Blake,” I snipe, “and it definitely mattered to Richard Horne. But that’s the point. If Everlife hadn’t needed me to change the autopsy ruling, Blake would’ve never spent a minute with me. It was all for show. Like you said men do, he was using me, for professional gain and sex.”

I fidget, sorting out the spilled M&Ms into piles by color, and Holly is quiet as she takes the candy from me to add them to the dough.

Once mixed, she scoops it out onto cookie sheets and slides the cookies in the oven to bake.

“Mommy, can I lick the bowl?” Olive begs, dancing her way into the kitchen in a purple tutu and high-top tennis shoes that light up with every step. She was probably listening from the living room, ready to strike when the time was right.

“How about the spoon?” Holly negotiates as she scoops up a little bit of the leftover dough. She’s strict but reasonable. Except I kinda wanted that dough for myself.

“You can get salmonella from that,” I warn.

Olive looks at the spoon in confusion and then shrugs. “I like salmon.”

“Not salmon, sal-mon-nell-a. It’s a bacteria.”