Holly Fever (Mondamin Court #1)

Chapter One: Coming Home (Friday, December 19th)

Lydia Scott poured her tea into a large coffee mug and shut off the kitchen light. She walked slowly through the darkened house, careful to avoid the wood stove and the kitchen table. She could have, perhaps, turned on the lights. But she hated to waste electricity.

Besides, once she crossed the dining room, the TV bathed the living room in enough light for her to find a seat on the couch and place her mug on the end table. Lydia didn't usually watch TV in the evenings. She preferred to read or listen to music while she knitted. But the weather was bad and her only son, Devon, was coming home from college tonight. She had every right to be worried.

He'd hinted on the phone that he had some big news he wanted to discuss. She wondered if he'd met someone, and more to the point, was it a boy or a girl? It was hard to tell with him sometimes. Not that she cared. She would accept him whether he was gay or straight.

The news came up, but it wasn't the weather. They were talking about the flu. Lydia didn't recognize the face or the name, Holly Meadows, but she did recognize Devon's school.

"Holly presented to the University Hospital Emergency Department at five o'clock this afternoon," the newscaster was saying. "She was pronounced dead at six thirty."

How terrible for the family, Lydia thought.

The news station had a medical expert on now. "It's unusual for the flu to kill a healthy adult, or to act this quickly, but Holly's symptoms were definitely consistent with the influenza virus. And we must not forget the Spanish flu of 1918, which not only did act with frightening speed, it primarily affected young adults. So the precedence is there."

"So what should viewers do to avoid the flu?" the newscaster prompted.

Lydia stopped paying attention. It was the same old advice anyway: wash your hands, cover your mouth when you sneeze, get your flu shot. She turned to the window and stared out into the darkness. It was snowing again, big fluffy flakes. Should she text him? Or would he be angry about her overprotectiveness?

She sighed. He wasn't really due home for another fifteen, twenty minutes. She just needed to be patient and wait.

######

The coffee shop door binged three times in rapid succession as customers filed in. The buzz of conversation from the line rose that much higher.

Usually, Holly Wheatsfield managed to convince herself the door's bing was the sound of money. A perky smile, leading to another small tip. With dark hair, a thin athletic body, and a bright face, Holly was reasonably good looking. And she wasn't above putting that to work if it got her tips. But it was five thirty p.m., and the late afternoon rush was in full swing, commuters looking for a quick pick-me-up on the way home. The early afternoon crowd and the evening crowd were both good tippers. Commuters' heads were filled with bills, work, and what they were going to do for supper, not tipping their barista.

Holly pushed the thought down and tried to concentrate on the pile of orders in front of her. It was a hopeless mess. Bill was here helping out. Or he thought he was helping. He'd forgotten to throw out the completed receipts, and now Holly had no idea which drinks had been made and which hadn't.

William "Bill" Frederickson was one of those owner/bosses who thought insisting on first names and showing up at the shop occasionally to help out made him a good boss. But he was hopeless as a barista, and all the staff prayed fervently that he showed up during a quiet stretch and didn't do too much. No such luck today.

She looked up across the counter at the next two women in line. They were both older women with white hair, wearing fashionable sweater tops and pearl necklaces: rich socialites. "Did you order the soy lattes?"