Written in Stone (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

Rawlings had just taken a sip of beer when his pocket buzzed. He pulled out his phone, examined the screen, and frowned.
    “What is it?” Olivia asked.
    “The deputy texted me the cause of death. He wrote: ‘Docs weren’t sure. Are calling it arrhythmia. Sister was taken back to her hotel by lady chief.’”
    Olivia rubbed her temples. “Arrhythmia? That’s twice I’ve heard that word today. Shelley Giusti’s husband died from arrhythmia. What is it exactly?”
    “Let me pretend to be Harris.” Rawlings typed on his phone’s tiny keypad and then squinted in order to read the results. “It’s an irregular heartbeat that messes with the heart’s electrical signal. Many people have this condition and still lead normal lives, but it can kill healthy people. According to this website, too much stress, exercise, nicotine, or caffeine can cause premature or extra beats. Those throw off the heart’s electrical signals.”
    “Willis smoked like a fiend,” Olivia mused quietly. “And his stress levels have probably been elevated since the Foodie Network rolled into town. But he was so young, Rawlings. It seems unbelievable to me that the heart of a twenty-one-year-old kid can just . . . wink out.”
    Rawlings scrolled his phone screen. “It’s not common, but it happens. Oh, wait, here’s another text from the deputy. He says Talley’s agreed to an autopsy. The doctors want to be sure the cause wasn’t genetic.”
    “They’d like to protect Talley from the same fate.” Olivia gazed at the saffron- and persimmon-colored sky. After a moment, she pushed back her chair. “I need a drink. Be right back.”
    She wove her way around the tables, stepped inside, and walked past the crowded bar and into the kitchen.
    Steam billowed in clouds around Hudson’s head as he upended a deep stockpot filled with crab legs into a metal colander. He looked up as Olivia entered, and wiped his hands with a dishtowel. Plucking one of the sous-chefs on the sleeve, he gestured at the crab legs and then led Olivia into the walk-in.
    “Hey,” Hudson said, always a man of few words.
    Olivia gestured at their surroundings in confusion. “Did you really need this level of privacy?” she teased.
    Hudson looked at his shoes. “You’re going to think I’m crazy as it is. I don’t need them to think it too.” He jerked his hand in the direction of the bustling kitchen.
    Crossing her arms against the cold, Olivia studied her brother. When he wouldn’t meet her eyes, her befuddlement changed to concern. “Did something happen at the campground today?”
    He nodded but wouldn’t speak.
    “You went to view the site where The Bayside Crab House tent will be, right?”
    Hudson grabbed an orange from the shelf and began to work at its peel. “Yeah, and when I was there I saw . . . I don’t know . . . a ghost. A hallucination. I don’t know what.”
    Olivia had been expecting Hudson to say that he’d had an altercation with another vendor or was irate about the tent’s location, but his statement took her completely by surprise. Her mouth opened and then closed again.
    “It’s crazy, but I know that I saw . . .” He began to separate the peel from the fruit in one long curl. He still wouldn’t look at her.
    “What?” Olivia put her cold hand on his arm and drew a little closer. “What did you see, Hudson? What’s got you so rattled?”
    He looked at her now, his dark eyes wide and frightened. Her brother, who was tough as nails, was trembling. “I saw him, Olivia. I saw our father.”

Chapter 11
    In gambling the many must lose in order that the few may win.
    —G EORGE B ERNARD S HAW
    T he cold seeped into Olivia’s bones. She shook head in denial, but the movement did not lessen the chill or alter the expression on her brother’s face.
    “That’s impossible, Hudson. We watched him die. He’s gone.”
    “I know!” Hudson growled. “That’s why I can’t make sense of it. I thought that if you could . . . arrrrh!” He slammed his elbow into a cardboard box on the shelf behind him. “If only you’d seen him too! If only you’d been there!”
    Olivia had seen Hudson this agitated only once before, when he’d been told that his newborn son had come into the world with a birth defect and needed emergency heart surgery. He’d reached out to her then, pleading for her to intervene on behalf of his family. He was reaching out to her again now.
    Olivia knew that there was nothing fanciful about Hudson