Ugh, Grandma’s gossipy church-lady friends must have met him on the docks.
I said to Dillon, “We’re in the middle of something. Your dog’s in the back. You’ll need to take him for a swim before you let him in your truck.”
Dillon chuckled as he looked me up and down. “Maybe you’d like to go for a swim, too.” He sniffed at me. “You smell like bacon. I better ask you to the prom before other guys get a whiff of you.”
“Very funny,” I said.
My mother rushed between us, clicking off her phone. “Honey, come with me to the lighthouse. Now.”
At first, her urgency was lost on me. Kelsey and Piers were arguing again while cleaning up the slippery floor, and the dog was barking from the back. Cody had come back into the main shop to boss Kelsey and Piers; Cody obsessed about germs and cleanliness in the fudge shop.
Lloyd, with his salt-and-pepper mustache wiggling, rubbed his bald head with one hand in confusion. He held up an envelope in the other hand. It had to be my rent reimbursement. “Should I hang on to this check and come back another time? This doesn’t look like a good time for a meeting.”
Grandma was on him like flies on fish left too long in the sun. Shaking a finger under his nose, almost touching his mustache, she said, “This is your fault, Lloyd. You’re ruining my granddaughter’s life. Why?”
Dillon said, “Hold on there, Sophie. The man’s an upstanding citizen.”
My grandmother muttered Belgian words under her breath as she advanced on Dillon.
My mother and I hustled Grandma Sophie out the door before another fight started. I felt bad that my ex was such an object of scorn because he was a decent enough guy; he’d just been too eager to fall in love when he was too young to handle the concept. Me, too. But Florine and Sophie blamed Dillon for whisking me away to Las Vegas eight years ago to marry him in one of those youthful, stupid indiscretions that, looking back on it, not even I can believe I did.
I put thoughts of Dillon aside as Mom was driving erratically ten miles over the speed limit through the back streets of Fishers’ Harbor and then even faster on Highway 42 outside of the village. We were heading southwest, with glimpses of Lake Michigan going by like flipped pages in a book.
“Mom, slow down. There are tourists all over the place.” Tourists often stopped their vehicles at the oddest times to gawk at the spectacular scenery of the lake or to find the quaint art shops tucked away in the woodlands.
Grandma gasped when Mom hit the horn and swerved around a slowing car ahead of us on the two-lane highway. “Florine, what the hell—?”
Mom veered into the entrance to Peninsula State Park. We went through the park gates, then headed down Shore Road, which went to the Eagle Bluff Lighthouse.
I told Mom, “I forgot Libby’s fudge.”
Mom barely missed a hen turkey and her poults, which were strutting across the blacktop. Before I could complain again, I noticed the sheriff’s car with its red and blue lights swirling in front of the lighthouse.
The lighthouse was made of Cream City brick with a red roof on top of its main house and atop the cupola tower. In the morning sun, the four-story tower had a yellow glow but with red and blue striations.
“What’s going on, Mom?”
Her knuckles were white on the steering wheel. “The sheriff said Libby found something that he wants you to look at.”
“Me? Why didn’t you tell me?” I knew why. My mother did not handle stress or my adventurous life very well.
We parked next to the cruiser. Before we got out, my mother had a shaky hand on my arm. “Honey, are you in some kind of trouble again?”
“No,” I said, though I always seemed to be in trouble and not know it. I searched my brain for something that would require a sheriff but came up with nothing. The fighting confectioner chefs was the only issue that came close to needing law enforcement interference as of late. “Is Libby all right?”
She paled. “I forgot to ask. When I called the sheriff, he just said something had happened out here and he needed you.”
By then Sheriff Jordy Tollefson had come out to greet us. He was about six feet, four inches tall; he had six inches on me. Jordy was in his early forties, lean, a runner, with the demeanor of a Marine—perfection and precision. He escorted us inside, into the small room that served as the gift shop. A window had been busted.
Libby was sitting on a stool by the register counter, sniffling into a tissue. When she saw us, she rushed over to hug Grandma.
“Oh, Sophie, I’m so glad you’re here. And I’m so sorry it has to involve your granddaughter.”
A tiny bomb went off inside my stomach. I looked up at Jordy’s stern face and steady brown eyes and said, “What happened?”
Jordy picked up a Baggie off the counter. It held a rock. “Somebody sent this through the window.”
Then he picked up another Baggie with a piece of ruled paper in it. In perfect orange crayon, the note said,
Somebody will die if you don’t convince Lloyd to throw the contest. Miss Oosterling must not win.
Blood drained from my head. I looked at Libby wrapped in my grandmother’s arms and said, “Who would do such a thing? It’s a silly fudge contest. I’m so sorry, Libby. Somebody’s threatening you and Lloyd?”
My mother said to me, “Honey, you don’t seem to get it. Somebody’s threatening
you
.”
