Good as Dead(60)

So now, as predicted, we were dangling out on a ledge. But my husband was smart. And my kids didn’t need concert tickets or a trip to Disneyland to be entertained.

“Suddenly, the princess spied something strange and magical,” Andy said. “It was big and red and had three times as many wheels as any chariot she had ever seen.”

“A fire truck!” Tatum bellowed, and we all laughed.

“That’s right! A fire truck,” Andy confirmed. As the girls hung on his every word, something stirred deep in my belly. It had been a long time, but I recognized it as desire.

And I knew—even though times were tough—I had made the right choice.





CHAPTER 32


I had to find out how he died.

Holly said that he’d been killed, and that it was her landlord who did it. I decided not to tell her who her landlord was, at least not yet. The idea that Jack Kimball was a murderer seemed positively insane. And if it was true, did I even want to know? My husband had just signed a life-changing contract with him. If I was smart, I would just keep my mouth shut and forget all about it.

But I couldn’t.

So how was I going to find out how Holly’s husband had died? I didn’t even know his name. Solving puzzles was my husband’s superpower. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell him what Holly had just told me, not with a million-dollar contract on the line. I would have to find out for myself.

I recalled the day when Andy found out Holly was a widow. He had started sleuthing, but I had interrupted and so he stopped. I’m not the jealous type, but Holly was a bombshell, and he likely—rightfully—felt self-conscious taking an interest in her past. I trusted he had abandoned the investigation. Under normal circumstances, any wife would be relieved. But now I wished I’d let him finish the job.

I remembered that he’d been on Savannah’s Instagram, so that’s where I started. Andy had told me Holly’s husband died about three months ago, so I logged on to his daughter’s page and started scrolling backward. After enduring countless mind-numbing selfies, I finally got to her post of May 20 announcing the death of her dad.

I scrolled through the flurry of condolence messages. It was a sea of hearts (Thinking of you) and hug emojis (Sending hugs). I was about to give up when I saw a post from someone called Byline_By_Jed:

We honor your dad in this week’s paper, Jed wrote. Hope I got the deets right, hang in there. He included a link. My heartbeat quickened as I clicked.

And there it was. An obituary for the departed Gabriel Monroe Kendrick in the Valley High Times, Savannah’s Van Nuys high school newspaper. There was a picture of the happy family, arms around each other, smiling at the camera. They were dressed up—maybe some sort of concert? Was Savannah in the chorus? The band? Savannah’s hair looked professionally blown out. Holly was in a black wrap dress. The departed husband wore a dress shirt but no tie.

I read the article, savoring every word so as not to miss any details. Our cherished classmate Savannah Kendrick lost her father in a tragic accident last week. The article was dated May 24. Four days after Savannah’s post. The timeline made sense, but there was one discrepancy—Jed wrote that it was an accident, but Holly implied something far more nefarious. I continued reading.

Mr. Kendrick was struck and killed by a speeding car outside their home on Calvert Street in Van Nuys. I paused to look up the address. Holly had said they’d lived in Van Nuys. This detail checked out.

While by all accounts an accident, the budding reporter wrote, the driver fled the scene and at this writing is still at large.

I pondered the words “fled the scene.” If the student reporter got the story right, it was not just an accident, it was a hit-and-run—which is both an accident and a crime. The wheels in my head started turning. Could Jack Kimball have been the driver? If his identity was unknown to Holly, why had he bought her a house? I couldn’t make sense of it. I was going to need some professional help.

“Andy!” I called out. He was probably in the garage fixing something. He didn’t answer, so I unplugged my laptop and headed that way. If anyone could quash this crazy hypothesis, it would be Andy. He’d figure out what really happened, and then we’d laugh at how my imagination had once again gone completely off the rails.

I opened the garage door to see Andy sanding one of Margaux’s desk drawers. He stopped when he saw me. “She said it was sticky,” he began, and I cut him off.

“You need to help me with something,” I said, flipping the computer screen to face him. At the end of the obituary was a headshot of Gabriel Monroe Kendrick in military blues. Andy looked at it, then up at me. “What is that?”

“Holly’s husband’s obituary,” I said. “It says he was killed in a hit-and-run.”

I read him the short passage about the driver being at large, then announced, “You’re going to think this is crazy, but I think Jack Kimball might have been the driver.”

To my great surprise, my husband didn’t laugh at me. “Because he owns her house?” he asked.

I nodded, then dropped the bomb. “Holly told me the person who owns her house killed her husband.”

“When did she tell you that?” he asked.

“Just now, when I went to visit her.”

“That would be a hell of a coincidence,” he said. Then he asked, “She really said that?”