A Cute Little Murder

1

Present Day

McGillis Point, Wisconsin

Lainey Piper knew three things to be true. One, she needed to get out more. Two, messages from her credit card reps had recently transitioned from passive-aggressive to downright threatening. Three, grown adults should not have their mommies drop them off for cute little murder getaways.

Lainey should have just risked extended parking in the abandoned lot and left her car to rot in the scrabbly weeds and badly patched blacktop. The McGillis Point Marina was beyond the edge of the proverbial map. Here there be dragons, and possibly a meth lab.

"Mom? You really don't need to get out of the car, I can get my own bag," Lainey huffed as she climbed out of Helen's sensible Volvo. Parking for the marina was practically empty. There appeared to be several possibly derelict RVs near the tree line surrounding this little corner of Lake Michigan. If Helen hadn't been willing to drive four hours, Lainey probably would have returned from Bantam Island in two weeks to find her aging Kia rehabbed and occupied by a van-lifer.

"I am not an Uber driver. Pardon me for wanting a look at the strangers who will be sharing an isolated location with my daughter," Helen drawled, her accent dripping with guilt-inducing sarcasm. Her mother was from western Kentucky, something that had always set her apart in Tallen River, and not necessarily in a good way. People had always treated Helen as if she were one step out of the trailer park, while happily making use of her hospitality and natural warmth to benefit the town's tourism bureau.

"You make it sound way tawdrier than it is," Lainey grumbled. She shut the door behind her, blowing her wind-frizzed auburn hair out of her face. She really should have had Sophie drop her off. But her neighbor was under an illustration deadline and had already taken on cat-sitting Lainey's fastidious tabby during her absence. Additional transportation felt like too big of an ask.

The sagging dock barely stood against the ripples of the brown-gray water. Lainey could see people milling around the Acheron-four men of varying ages and a slim woman who appeared to be securing several large bags in the boat's hold. The aging day cruiser would take them on this hop-skip-jump from McGillis Rock, around Washington Island, and then another few nautical miles to their destination.

"Let Robin help you with your suitcase," her mom commanded. "Robin, help her with her suitcase."

"Got it!" No-longer-a-deputy Robin Wintrout sprang out of the passenger seat with his usual enthusiasm and practically yanked the hatchback open. Lainey followed him, the strange weight of the inevitable settling on her shoulders.

"We just want you to have a good time, Laines," he told her, giving her his best hopeful smile. It faded quickly as he hefted the battered old black canvas suitcase she'd had for years. "What in the hell did you pack?"

"Same thing I always pack when I'm going somewhere new. Flashlight, pepper spray, digital voice recorder, backup flashlights, first-aid kit, batteries, lock-picking kit, backup pepper spray, protein bars, extra-large bottle of bright purple superfine craft glitter, backup first-aid kit." She paused when he gave her a knowing stare. "I have my reasons!"

"Your adolescence shaped you in ways that other people's did not," he told her.

"I'm just saying that if I'm attacked, can't make the pepper spray work, and don't make it out, you tell the cops to look for the guy covered in purple glitter. That stuff won't come off for months," Lainey said.

She glanced down the dock and saw that two figures on the Acheron had stilled and were staring at her family. She was grateful that, given the sound of the boat engine warming up, the strangers on the boat probably couldn't hear them.

"I know your mom is being a lot right now, but she worries about you," Robin confided quietly. "No matter how old you are, you're always going to be our little girl."

Lainey snorted, smiling despite herself. "Robin, buddy, we've discussed this. No matter how you mean it, that sounds creepy."

Robin chuckled, throwing up his hands. "I know, I'm just excited to be a dad figure."

Robin was all smiles for Helen as she joined them at the tailgate. He wrapped his arm around her mother's shoulders. Helen grinned at her daughter, adding, "Well, if you didn't want me marrying Robin, you shouldn't have brought us together so often."

"Yeah, it was your idea for your mom to give me a job working under her!" Robin exclaimed, making Lainey scrunch up her face.

While he hadn't been directly attached to the college admissions scandal, Sheriff Pleasant's reelection bid had failed in the wake of GradeGate. His newly elected replacement had fired every deputy hired by Pleasant, including Robin. Meanwhile, the school district had privately awarded Harlow's and Lainey's diplomas two weeks early and asked them not to come to the graduation ceremony "given the circumstances." The circumstances were that most of their classmates had, as predicted, lost their scholarships or had their admissions withdrawn after the official investigation into Mr. Burnham's actions. Lainey and Harlow didn't have their admissions canceled because the universities seemed to think it would be a bad look to punish the whistle-blowers.

"Please don't say 'under her' in reference to my mom." Lainey groaned, making Robin cackle. "The boundary is blurry but it's still there."

She supposed it was worth the indignity of having a stepdad a handful of years older than her to see Helen Piper-Wintrout aglow with happiness. Or at least happiness that had her keeping a skin-care routine and a SoulCycle schedule that would be the envy of any internet celebrity.

Tourist traffic to Tallen River had exploded after the GradeGate scandal, which had made it a popular stop for true-crime enthusiasts' road trips. That, of course, increased the demand on Helen at the tourism bureau, giving her the budgetary space to hire Robin as her assistant. Their Hallmark Channel age-gap romance movie plot had played out very quickly, much to Lainey's personal horror.

"At least she convinced you to shave off the mustache," Lainey said with a sigh.

Robin adopted a more serious tone to say, "Your mom and I think this is going to be really good for you. Meet some new people."

"I know people," she insisted. "I talk to people all of the time."

"Keeping up with former coworkers through group texts doesn't count," Robin told her.

"I also keep up with former coworkers over social media," Lainey objected.

"And make the most of this opportunity," her mother added. "You never know. This could lead to a new job-"

"I have a job!" Lainey objected.

"You work in your pajama pants."

"At my job," Lainey reminded her.

"Honey, you hall monitor the hall monitors," Helen shot back.

Lainey's lips pinched together. Helen had never understood Lainey's job as a freelance forensic accountant. Poring over corporate financial documents, seeking out signs of malfeasance, double-checking other accountants' work-it wasn't quite the career Lainey had dreamed of, but it was a challenge. It kept her out of the spotlight and out of danger. And up until recently, it was a career that kept Lainey and her cat, Locard, in the luxurious accommodations to which they'd become accustomed at the Orchard View Apartments. She was not prepared to admit to her mother that she was on the verge of losing one bedroom and a galley kitchen's worth of decadence. So instead, she stuck with the pajama-pants conversation.

"Why would I wear real pants to work at home?" Lainey asked.

She'd said that a little louder than she'd intended. Lainey realized she could hear her own voice much more clearly than before . . . because the engine noise had died down. And the people on the boat had heard.

Great.

The Acheron's passengers seemed to realize they'd been spotted in their spying and returned to their business-or at least the appearance of it.

"OK, I love you both, but I'm going to go now," she told them.

Helen frowned. "Wait, don't I get to meet your new coworkers?"

"No, you do not," Lainey told her. "Because this is not sleepaway camp. And I am thirty-two years old."

"I know, I know, you sent me all the emergency contact information for the network reps, but I would just feel safer if I had faces to connect to the names," Helen insisted.

"And I would feel like I had a lot more professional standing if my mommy didn't want to introduce herself to said coworkers and regale them with tales about my unreasonable childhood bias against raw tomatoes and my occasional hay fever."

Helen gave her a long-suffering look. "Well, do they know about your hay fever?"

"Mom, I know I've given you trouble over the years." Lainey paused to gesture at Robin, as if to include him in the consequences of said trouble. "But I've learned from my mistakes, made better choices, reduced my risks."

"I'll say," Robin muttered, even as Helen said, "But you're rushing right back into Harlow's orbit and I just-"

"You can't tell me to take advantage of a situation while simultaneously fretting over that situation," she said. "Pick a lane."

"She always picks her Laine-y," Robin said, grinning, then added, "See? Dad joke."

Both Piper women groaned as if tortured. Lainey sighed and hugged them both. "OK, I'm going to go before that happens again." Lainey pointed toward her stepfather. "You chose this man."

"Yeah, I did." Helen beamed up at Robin before taking Lainey's face in her hands. She leveled her with the same green-on-brown hazel eyes Lainey saw in the mirror every morning. "Please be careful, baby."

"Believe it or not, I usually am," Lainey replied.

"I do not believe that," Helen told her.

Lainey dragged her suitcase down the dock to where the Acheron was idling again. A potbellied deckhand took her bag with embarrassing ease and pointed at the bench seat. The man, his shaggy iron-gray hair sticking out at all angles under a threadbare West Michigan Whitecaps hat, was a fairly typical character around the less glamorous lakeland ports. He carried Lainey's suitcase back to the boat's storage area, carefully tucking it behind several black canvas bags-all embroidered with the True Crime 24/7 logo.

Another man with thick silvery blond hair took her hand and helped her step into the boat without tumbling into the drink. He offered her a conspiratorial grin. "Vern works for the hotel and is a man of few words. I'm Gordy, sound guy extraordinaire."

"Thanks." Lainey fanned her face with her hands as she plopped down on the bench seat next to a younger guy wearing what could only be called "vacation-business wear"-a white shirt and gray dress slacks that were somehow crisp and detergent-commercial bright despite their surroundings.

He was the type of guy you met at a conference in Vegas, only to end up making a lot of bad decisions involving misspelled tattoos. He had wayward dark hair begging to be tamed by an affectionate hand. Sharp jawline. Dark blue eyes a girl could drown in. She took a minute to very sternly lecture herself about travel safety and impulsive decisions.

She would not end up with a misspelled tattoo.

Not today.

Probably.

Lainey wrinkled her nose as Vern loosed the ropes from the dock cleats and tossed them aside. They gave off a waft of mildew and gasoline as he dragged them into place. Vegas Decisions helped Vern and Gordy secure the ropes without being asked. She watched him move, a rangy figure with broad shoulders and a waistline that tapered down to long legs.

Did his unprompted helpfulness mean he was an employee of the hotel? If so . . . why was he wearing such fancy shoes? On a decidedly nonfancy boat? Why wasn't the deckhand yelling at him for not wearing more sensible boat shoes?

Vegas Decisions glanced toward her as if he could sense her watching him. She froze. He stared. She arched her brows in response. He seemed to think better of whatever he was about to say. Probably for the best, for both of them.

Lainey pulled her phone out of her beloved shoulder bag-not the same bag from high school but version 15.0, a durable brown leather specimen that included multiple zipping pockets inside and out, and even more elasticized pockets to store all the things she needed to keep up with life in general. If she was going to see Harlow again, she would need all of its pockets and maybe more.

Vern took his place behind the pilot's wheel while Vegas Decisions sat down next to her. Vern goosed the engine into a dull roar. Lainey wondered if it was big enough to propel the worn vessel around Washington Island, about twelve miles farther into the lake, to their destination.

Lainey leaned back against the fiberglass lip of the gunwale as the Acheron lurched away from the dock. Given the clouds of exhaust billowing from the back of the boat, Lainey was starting to get a dreaded three-hour tour vibe. She glanced around at the other occupants of the little vessel.

Gordy's seatmate seemed a little more cheerful-a long-limbed, doe-eyed brunette telling a story about her boyfriend ruining an entire batch of Bellinis during the brunch rush. The brunette's head was pillowed on a backpack as she reclined on the seat, talking loudly enough to be heard over the engine. Gordy occasionally chuckled but mostly just listened to the harrowing tale of lost Bellinis and disgruntled, caviar-less society ladies.

A less audible presence down the bench was the heavyset man about Lainey's age who was gazing at the sky as if it owed him an explanation. His rounded face was red under his thick dark beard. And she imagined he had to be hot under that True Crime 24/7 cargo jacket. People underestimated how warm it could get on Lake Michigan with the sun reflecting off the water, even in September. She wondered what he did for the network.

Was Vegas Decisions with production? He looked like he could cart around a camera if he wanted to, but given the outfit, she was going to guess he was a producer of some sort-not that he wasn't handsome enough to serve as on-air talent. Hell, he ticked off a lot of Lainey's boxes with the eyes, broad shoulders, and damn . . . those were some big hands.

Why was she thinking about this now when she was getting farther and farther from the shore? She turned to see Helen and Robin waving at the departing boat. She waved back but quickly turned away, gripping her shoulder bag to her chest.