Mourning Routine (The Funeral Fakers Book 1) Page 5

  Why he’d still chosen to work in a job such as construction was beyond me. That type of work couldn’t be for the faint of heart. I pushed the door closed behind me and stepped farther in.

  His bed was still unmade, the sheets rumpled and the top cover pushed toward the footboard. There was a small desk lamp turned on. Dim light cast deep shadows over everything in his room. I hesitated to turn on any more lights so as not to disturb Emma or remind her what I was doing. I headed over to the desk where a closed laptop and a large pile of messy paper rested. I flipped through the stack of papers and, at first, didn’t find anything interesting. I moved it out of the way and found a small spiral bound journal sitting beneath everything. It was open to a To Do list.

  At first, it all seemed innocent. Chase needed to stop by the store and pick up soap, get another pair of work boots and file his taxes. It was further down the page where I felt my heart skip a beat.

  Break up with Candy.

  Whoa.

  I skimmed the note again just to make sure I wasn’t seeing something that wasn’t there. The words almost shimmered on the page.

  Break up with Candy.

  My mouth went dry as the ramifications of what I was seeing took hold. If he didn’t want his girlfriend around, should I be here right now? Had he told anyone else? I couldn’t imagine he told his mother, otherwise she probably never would have gone to Ruthie.

  I carefully put the journal back where I found it and put the pile of papers back over it. I would sit on this information for at least a day until I figured out what to do. As I was straightening up, a file tucked underneath the computer keyboard caught my eye. Just the corner was sticking out and the label appeared to be hand typed. I tugged it out and opened it.

  It was Chase’s medical records. A lot of them. I looked back over my shoulder, guiltily. This was something I should not be doing.

  But again, curiosity got the better of me. I was the cat in this situation. I flipped through only for a note to fall out signed by Chase’s doctor. It was a recommendation for him to pursue an indoor office position.

  The stress of construction work was too much for Chase’s heart. I gently placed the note back into his file and put it back where I’d found it. An unbidden thought came to me as I walked over to his closet.

  How many people knew Chase had a weak heart?

  The thought stopped me in my tracks. Why did that matter? I chuckled to myself. There was nothing suspicious about a weak heart. I opened the closet door and was hit in the face by the smell of cedar.

  I flipped through a few shirts that looked very similar - most were flannel or long-sleeved shirts with funny sayings on them. His jeans were all stained or had holes in them but were clean. He had a couple of pair of work boots in the closet, a pair of dirty tennis shoes, and a pair of dress shoes that had seen better days.

  I stepped out of the closet feeling like a voyeur. I looked around the room one more time, yet still couldn’t get a sense of the man Candy was supposed to have loved. He had little in the way of personal touches. Almost as if he were forced to stay here and not as if it were his home. There were no pictures of friends or family or even Candy. I couldn’t see any books or cologne or anything that made him someone with a personality. It was all sort of strange and didn’t sit very well with me.

  I walked out of his room with only a couple of pieces of knowledge. Chase McCormick was a casual dresser and he no longer loved Candy Harper.

  I had trouble sleeping that night, wondering about what I had gotten myself into.

  6

  I had one day before the wake and two more days before I could go home. I’d still have to attend the funeral, but I wouldn’t be required to stay here anymore.

  I dressed quickly in a pair of skinny jeans and a tunic blouse. Slipping out of the room quietly, I was hoping to get a cup of coffee and walk around the land for a while, but Emma was already up. I could smell breakfast and hear the sizzle of something in the kitchen. A sense of disappointment hung over me for a moment but...breakfast.

  I could never be angry where breakfast food was concerned.

  Emma greeted me with a wide smile and her tired eyes. “Kitty! So happy to see you awake.” She poured a glass of orange juice from a pretty glass pitcher and handed it to me. “There’s coffee in the pot, freshly made if you want some.”

  I accepted the glass and gave her a grateful nod. “Thanks so much.” I took a seat at the table. “What’s on the agenda for today?”

  She ladled out some pancake batter onto the hot griddle. “Today I figure I need to tell you more about how Chase and Candy met and their future plans.”

  I stilled in the middle of a swallow. So, Emma didn’t know Chase was planning to break up with her.

  Why hadn’t Candy mentioned it when Emma had called her to come back?

  Curious.

  I swallowed the juice, nodded, and offered a forced smile. “Sounds good.”

  Emma expertly flipped the pancake over. “I know. Boring stuff, but it’s important. There will be a lot of family here tomorrow. Some of the family have seen pictures, but it’s been a long time. I don’t think any of them will bat an eye at you stepping in. But they might ask you questions, so I want you to be prepared.”

  I grabbed a mug and poured a huge amount of coffee. I was going to need more fortification for the day. Ruthie hadn’t called me or checked in or anything. I was surprised by that. Either she was an extremely trusting person or there was something else going on. Since Ruthie didn’t seem like she was the kind to immediately befriend someone, I couldn’t help but be suspicious about it.

  Emma shoved a plate of pancakes and bacon in front of me, so I put those thoughts to the back of my mind. I was going to kill this job and make Ruthie like me, darn it!

  After I helped Emma clean up the kitchen and drank a couple more cups of coffee, she led me outside to a surprisingly nice patio area. I pulled out a chair, set my mug on the glass patio table, and waited for her to sit down.

  When she did, she didn’t speak right away. Instead, she gazed off into the distance at the dense trees lining her property. “Chase used to come sit outside here sometimes.” She shrugged. “It was more often right before he died. It seemed like something was wrong, but when I asked him about it, he always said all was right with his world.” She glanced at me. “But moms usually know when their children are lying to them.”

  I wondered if he’d been out here trying to figure out what to do about Candy. “How was his relationship with Candy?” I ventured. I had to be very careful how I pried here.

  Emma’s expression turned contemplative. “Same as anyone’s, I suppose. They fought sometimes, never over anything major from what I could tell.” She looked away from me. “But toward the end I kind of got the feeling they had argued about something pretty big. Candy looked constantly angry and Chase...he looked haunted.” Emma took a sip of coffee and sighed. “But he was in his thirties. The last thing he wanted was someone getting involved in his love life. When I tried to ask Candy, she snapped at me. She left two days later.”

  “They were still together?”

  Emma turned sharp eyes to me. “Yes,” she said slowly. “Unless you found something last night.”

  I swallowed hard. I didn’t think it was a good idea to tell her right now, but she was asking me a direct question and if I didn’t answer it, I would be moving from the territory of withholding information to flat out lying. It felt dishonest, but I chose to deny.

  “Nothing much,” I said. “He needed some new jeans.”

  Emma huffed in amusement. “He would tell me no every time I asked him.” She stared off into the distance for a few moments. “So,” she said finally, “let me tell you some things about my son and his girlfriend. If you have any questions, it’s best to ask them now. We don’t have much time until the wake.”

  I nodded and drained my last cup of coffee.

  “They met at the airport when their suitcases got mixed
up. It was a pretty funny story actually. They were both standing in line at the airline check-in desk when Candy accidentally grabbed Chase’s luggage by mistake. He had to chase her down.”

  I smiled but a strange emotion had settled into my veins. “Did the suitcases look alike?”

  She nodded. “Weirdest thing. You’d think a girl like Candy would have something pink and bright. Instead, she had a Swiss Army suitcase almost identical to Chase’s!”

  “How odd,” I remarked as I forced a chuckle. Something wasn’t quite adding up about this woman.

  “Anyway, Chase had to run her down and get his suitcase back. But he thought she was so pretty he asked for her number. When I first met her, I was surprised by how pretty she was.” One of her thin shoulders rose then fell. “But Chase always had a way about him. His personality was hard to resist.”

  I shifted in my seat, uncomfortable.

  “It took him a while to get her to go out with him. She was always at airports traveling here and there. But when they finally did go out, they were joined at the hip.”

  “And how long were they together?” I inquired.

  “Oh,” she said as a thoughtful expression crossed her face. “Maybe a little over a year. Long enough for Chase to think about settling down.”

  “Marriage?” I asked. I couldn’t help the note of surprise in my voice.

  “Of course,” Emma said, staring at me strangely again. “Chase didn’t plan to live here forever. He’d socked quite a bit of money away.”

  I filed the note for future reference and decided to turn the conversation to safer areas, just so I could stop rousing Emma’s suspicion.

  “Favorites?” I asked. “What did they like to do together? Favorite colors or rituals? Anything like that?”

  Emma rattled on for a little while, though she didn’t have too much more information. She was mostly concerned about the story of how they met because that was the one she felt the family would ask the most. She gave me free rein to fill in anything else.

  “You don’t think Candy is going to show up, do you?” The thought had been in the back of my mind ever since I got out of my car here. That would be very bad.

  Emma’s expression turned sour. “From our last conversation, I’m going to have to say no.”

  “Not good?”

  She shook her head. “Her last words were ‘I hope I never see any of the McCormick’s again. Enjoy the flowers.’ Then she hung up on me.”

  Enjoy the flowers? That was an odd thing to say.

  Inside I was itching with a hundred questions, the main one being why was Chase planning to break up with Candy? The next important one was wondering if I was being overly paranoid about the timing of his death versus his desire to break up with her?

  Emma stood up, cleared her coffee mug, and headed back into the house. She told me to come in when I was ready and take a few hours off.

  I stayed behind, my gaze unfocused as I tried to convince myself I was being ridiculous. It was quite a while before I went inside. The house was quiet but I noticed after a peek out the window that Emma's car was still there, so I assumed she was taking a nap.

  I headed back to my room to try and find a suitable outfit for tomorrow.

  Several hours later, Emma found me in the kitchen doing my best to make a broccoli cheese soup. She rubbed her eyes and blinked at me. "You didn't have to cook," she announced as she peered down into the pan full of sizzling onions.

  "Let me guess. Candy would never have cooked?"

  She offered me a wan smile. "You guessed it. What is it?" she asked just before she headed to the refrigerator.

  "Soup. Broccoli and cheese. Hope you like it."

  Her expression brightened. "Oh! I love it. Thank you so much, Kitty." A speculative light entered her eye. "You're going to make someone a good wife one day."

  I turned my focus back to the pan and said nothing. I was probably going to be a terrible wife, but it was nice to hear her say it. Although I had basically zero desire to get hitched. To anyone. At least for the next fifteen years.

  "Too bad Chase isn't here," she mused. "You look a little like Candy. He would have been hot on your heels."

  I wasn't sure how I felt about dating someone with a reality tv addiction but since I already had terrible taste in men, I wasn't sure what it would have hurt.

  "Not sure my heels are high enough," I said with an awkward chuckle.

  She poured herself a glass of water from a pitcher she took out of the fridge. "Candy's were high enough for everyone."

  She stuck it back inside and sat down to watch me, sipping her drink every so often.

  "I'm going to go to bed right after dinner," she said. "I'm tired and tomorrow is going to be a very long day. We have at least fifty people scheduled to be here tomorrow afternoon. I have the caterers coming in at 9." She checked her watch. "I'll need you up and dressed by 9:30 so we can start greeting people around lunchtime, okay?"

  I tapped the wooden spoon on the side of the pan and turned to face her. "Of course. Is there anything you need me to do before then?"

  Emma gave me a tight smile. "No, dear. Just be Candy as well as you can be and pretend you loved my son as much as he thought she did."

  It felt like someone punched me in the solar plexus. I swallowed hard and jerked my head once. "I'll do my best."

  Silence fell like a pall over the room after that. I focused on the soup and I couldn't help but wonder if Emma was focusing on her broken heart.

  Later that evening, a gruff man wearing a John Deere hat and a dirty flannel shirt plowed through the front door like a bull right before it was forced to run through the streets of Spain. He took his hat off and hung it on the rack next to the door, grumbled something to himself and yelled for Emma. When she called out to check the kitchen, he clomped his way in only to stop when he saw me.

  "Candy?"

  I shook my head, but Emma gave me a warning glance not to say anything else. "Gary, this is Kitty Crawford. She's standing in for Candy."

  Gary's glance narrowed as he tried to process what his wife was saying. It was like I could see the wheels turning in his head. "What do you mean standing in?"

  I opened my mouth to explain, but Emma beat me to it. "I hired her, Gary. She's here to pretend to be Candy tomorrow at the wake and then at the funeral."

  His mouth gaped as he took me in. "Where's Candy?" he asked, confusion and something like anger starting in his tone.

  "She said she wasn't coming back."

  Gary sank into one of the chairs across from us. "I don't understand. You hired what, an actress or something?"

  Emma nodded. "Just for a couple of days."

  Gary scrubbed a hand over his stubbled chin. "I can't say I know why," he muttered.

  "Because this is Chase’s last opportunity to be respected," Emma said.

  It was the wrong thing to say. Gary's face reddened and his eyes darkened. "Chase had every opportunity to be respected. You know what he chose? To live with his parents for the rest of his life and get fat in front of that television!" He stood so abruptly from the chair, it knocked over. “So, you do what? Hire someone to pretend he was perfect? His girlfriend was far from perfect, too! She snubbed all of us, Emma!" Without a glance at me, he turned and left the room, not bothering to pick up the chair that had fallen.

  Emma shut her eyes for a moment. I was mortified for her, for this family.

  I stood up.

  "Don't leave," she pleaded.

  My shoulders fell. I really wanted to run out of the room. Maybe even out of the house.

  "He’ll come around."

  I wasn't sure I agreed.

  "I can leave at any time, Emma. Just say the word."

  She tilted her head and studied me. "Just two events, Kitty. Then you're free of us."

  Silence stretched between us. I nodded. Just once. "Two events." I left Emma sitting there and went back to my room.

  The next morning, I rolled out of bed and got d
ressed before I even tried to hunt down coffee. I had to laugh at myself. Emma had recommended a Candy appropriate outfit was a clingy black dress. I looked like a sitcom mistress who rolled into the funeral at the last moment to make everyone furious. But this time I wouldn't be the one looking for a handout from the will. I was just channeling someone who might.

  I put on my brightest red lipstick, though I kept the other makeup minimal. A lot of mascara, a little blush, and a little bronzer, and I was ready to face a room full of strangers while I pretended to be someone I wasn't.

  "Woo!" I quietly cheered myself in the floor length mirror. I bent down to grab the ridiculous high heels I'd brought but decided against it until I absolutely had to put them on. I was going to be miserable wearing them, so I slid my feet into flip-flops. Hopefully, Emma wouldn't mind. As soon as it got close to the arrival time for everyone, I'd put the torture devices on.

  I opened the door to my room, listened for sounds of Chase's father, and when I didn't hear anything, I stepped out.

  "Kitty?" Emma called.

  I made a beeline for the kitchen, the place Emma seemed to live. She pushed a cup of coffee at me and smiled.

  "You look positively lovely, Mrs. McCormick."

  "Emma," she reminded me, though her smile brightened.

  Her silvery hair was put up in an elegant chignon, and she wore makeup today. Her tired eyes looked a little less so, though grief still shone through, and her lips were painted a pale nude. She wore a black shift dress that hit the top of her knee, showing off surprisingly slim and shapely calves.

  "You look...like Candy would," Emma said and we both snickered.

  I'd hot rolled my hair until it fell in voluminous curls. My nails were painted the same color as my lipstick and personally, I wouldn’t be caught dead in the jewelry I had on. A long, chandelier necklace fell down to my waist, glittering every time the light hit it. I wore hoop earrings covered in cubic zirconia, super out of place in this area, but apparently these were the things Candy wore all the time.