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D oreen woke early the next morning. She stared around her bedroom in slight confusion for a moment. Then all the memories slammed into her. She bounced out of bed in excitement. Mack had promised to send her the cold case file that the captain suggested she take a look at. To even be offered the opportunity was a huge honor, and she wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the relationship she had with the captain, or the faith that Mack had in her. It would be a tough case though, and that in itself would be a challenge, but she was definitely up for it.
She called out to Thaddeus, who was perched on the roost in her bedroom. Thaddeus opened his eyes, glared at her while ruffling his feathers, then sank back into sleep again. “What’s with you?” she chided, as she walked into the bathroom.
A long hot shower later, she came out, wrapped in a towel, bubbly and happy. There was just something about having found her place, her people, and her purpose in life. After everything that had happened in this last year, it felt very much as if that’s exactly what she had accomplished. She quickly dressed, then leaned over and kissed Mugs, who was stretched out on her bed, not impressed with the early morning start. As usual, Doreen saw absolutely no sign of Goliath.
She walked down the stairs, whistling, then laughed. “Look at you,” she said out loud. “Somebody gives you a cold case on a dead child, and here you are happy. What’s wrong with you?”
Other than giving those loved ones some closure, Doreen had no good answer to that question. So she ignored it, went to the kitchen, and put on coffee. It was still freezing cold outside. Yet this had been an unseasonably warm winter, and she was okay with that. A nice way to experience her first full winter in Kelowna. With the coffee dripping, she wandered back into the living room.
Now that some of her money issues would soon be resolved, she wondered just what she wanted to do with this place. All the auction money from Christie’s hadn’t hit her bank account just yet, and she needed to figure out what to do with it when it did, so she never had to worry about paying bills again. Her husband’s estate would go to probate eventually, once the lawyers got through with it all. Plus, there was Robin’s estate. So more paperwork.
Doreen shook her head at that. One windfall would have been enough, but all three of them ensured that she would never again find herself in such a desperate situation as she had been in last spring. From her husband’s refusing to share any assets with her at all—while separated or during the divorce proceedings—to losing everything, including his life, was just so sad.
Many people might see it as karmic justice, but she refused to look at life that way. Everything in her world was just way too good these days. She had Mack, and she had to smile as she held her ring finger out for the morning sun to twinkle on the diamond. She had Nan’s house, and she still had Nan—all of which, for Doreen, was an absolute blessing. Plus, now she had a purpose in her life too, something else she couldn’t have imagined prior to separating from her husband. Back then she didn’t have a life. She had been his showpiece, and that was it. Now she looked nothing like arm candy and couldn’t be happier. She was so much more comfortable in her own skin that it was hard to envision her old life.
When the coffee finally finished, she turned on her laptop and sat down to see if she had an email or anything from Mack yet on her new cold case. Frowning, she didn’t see one. She quickly sent him a text, asking when to expect it. She got a text back from him, saying as soon as he got to work. He was still having breakfast. She checked the clock and realized it had just turned seven in the morning.
She groaned at that and sat back with her coffee. Only so much she could do until he sent her the file, and it wouldn’t be anywhere near fast enough for her. It was too cold to walk down the river, so she headed back over to her living room, wondering what she should do with this space. Of course that just brought up a discussion she needed to have with Mack.
After they married, she presumed they would live here in Nan’s house, but Doreen hadn’t talked to him about it. She couldn’t imagine leaving this place. It was so perfect now that they had the deck and patio and everything outside set up. Not to mention that she absolutely loved living alongside the river. It just reminded her how they still had more to talk about, but she didn’t think she would be very willing to budge on this house issue. Still, he seemed to like her house just fine, although it could use some renovations, and it certainly needed some furniture.
Blindly she started going through the possibilities of what she could do for furniture, only to realize that the bathrooms needed updating first, and the master bedroom could certainly use a facelift. Furniture really needed to wait until after that.
With a sigh, she surfed on the web for fifteen minutes but couldn’t sit still for long. She got up, went to her bedroom, and stripped down the bedding, then started the laundry. She might as well do something useful while up at seven in the morning. She also didn’t know if there would be any physical files to hand over. It sounded as if there wasn’t much to go on because, if there had been, someone would have dealt with the matter by now. Mack didn’t share much of anything about it, so she didn’t know if he had even looked at the case file himself.
The fact that the box with the bones of the dead baby still sat in the morgue said a lot too. It appeared to be something that could never quite be forgotten, yet never solved. That just meant Doreen really needed to step up to see if she could put a name to those bones, maybe even create a face, something she didn’t have any experience with. She’d certainly found lots of bodies around Kelowna, but, in this case, they were talking about a baby, found in, of all things, a patch of yams. Yams . Kind of weird, yet in a way it made sense because she always thought of yams as baby food. She didn’t know why except that she’d seen a catchy ad for some years ago. It just stuck with her, even after all this time.
She remembered having some baked yams with her husband and had found them very sweet, but then they had been cooked with marshmallows and brown sugar and maple syrup. Her husband had been very disapproving of the dish, deemed an item to make her gain weight. That reminder just made her roll her eyes. She was trying hard to keep her memories of him decent and nice, instead of always worrying about how negative life with him had been. In order for her to move on to a happier life, she had to let him go, which was easier said than done.
She returned her attention to her computer and checked through her compiled list of Solomon’s files to see if any of his research mentioned finding a child’s body in a box. She did a keyword search of her notes on Solomon’s files but didn’t get a hit. Confused and frustrated, she got up and poured herself a second cup of coffee. Just as she sat down again, she got a text from Mack. She opened it quickly.
Hope you have a good morning. I’m off to work now.
She smiled and sent him a thumbs-up. She didn’t want to say anything too pushy about the delay because he would just get his back up and would probably tell her to wait until he got his morning together or something—which was fair enough. Just because she was eager to have another case didn’t mean that he would have the time, energy, or attitude to deal with this one, even if it involved her. While he was all about seeking justice and closure for a family who lost someone long ago, that didn’t mean it wasn’t a real impact on both his workday and his personal time, since they spent a good share of it together. It was all about give and take, and she would need to learn a little bit more about that, especially when she would soon be wed to Mack.
She frowned, realizing that she felt more than a little bit nervous about the whole upcoming marriage thing. Not a comforting thought. She’d barely even had a chance to get her head wrapped around her morning when Nan contacted her.
“Good morning,” Nan greeted her in that bright, cheerful voice.
“Good morning, Nan.” Doreen smiled. “You’re up bright and early.”
“I always am,” she declared, with a laugh. “I wondered if you wanted to come down and have breakfast with me.”
“Sounds good to me. I just poured a cup of coffee though.”
“Ah, you and your coffee.”
“Yes, me and my coffee.” She laughed. “As you very well know, my coffee is a major joy for me.”
“And there’s no reason not to have things that bring you joy. Didn’t some woman make a whole career about finding things to create joy in your life and getting rid of everything else?”
Doreen laughed. “Yes, and I agree with it in part, but, like everything that other people say, it has to be the right thing to do for you.”
Nan chuckled. “And the right thing for you to do is put on a coat and come on down here and get some breakfast.”
“Is there a special occasion?” Doreen asked, as she got up, sipping the coffee from the cup in her hand. “I am hoping to finish the cup of coffee I’m currently drinking.”
“That will take you all of five minutes,” she muttered. “Other than that, no, there’s no particular reason to have you come, except that I would love to see you.” Then she chuckled. “And I’m not saying that just because I’m feeling old and blue.”
“That’s good, because I would hate to think you are feeling old and blue.”
“It happens, and unfortunately it happens a little too often sometimes,” she muttered. “Otherwise everything is good. I think we’re getting some new people in today too. Don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.”
“You could look at it as new friends.”
“I could,” Nan muttered in a dark tone. “Or maybe they’re here because they’ve heard about all our detective work.”
At that, Doreen wanted to laugh, and she wanted to question that our detective work comment but realized it had become an important part of Nan’s life. So no way Doreen would take that away from her grandmother.
“You could also look at it as a friend you haven’t met yet,” she reminded Nan. “Even if they aren’t interested in solving cases or just how much goes on at Rosemoor, maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe they need something to liven up their lives too.”
Nan sniffed. “It depends.”
“Here’s another thought. They may like gambling,” Doreen pointed out.
After a moment of silence, Nan replied in a slightly mollified tone, “That would help.… These people around here have become a bunch of old fuddy-duddies about placing bets.”
“Maybe because they’re tired of losing.”
“They should change their bets then, shouldn’t they? Why would you continue to place losing bets?” she asked, as if it made no sense to her. “Change them to winning bets.”
For Nan, placing losing bets made no sense, but a lot of people didn’t necessarily know which side to bet on. Her grandmother seemed to have one of those innate abilities to place a bet and to know exactly what it should be at any given time. Not everybody had that same sense, and maybe that’s how it should be. At times Nan had definitely been warned to behave herself, to stop the betting even, though she didn’t take kindly to it. Now she had more notoriety than anything, and Doreen couldn’t imagine anybody prohibiting Nan from her fun.
“Hurry up and finish your coffee,” she ordered, with a chuckle. “I can hear the brain cells running through your head. We don’t want to miss out on whatever is there, as it could be something important.”
Doreen chuckled. “I’m getting the animals ready,” she muttered. “I’ll be down there in a few minutes.”
She quickly disconnected and smiled as she looked around, considering the life she had created for herself. “You did good, Doreen. You did good.”