Early the next morning I crouched behind the bakery display filling it with donuts, muffins, cinnamon rolls, and a number of other pastries courtesy of our baker—who by the way just loved to take the ten minutes before opening everyday to bitch about whatever was bothering him at the time. I sighed when I heard the door to the kitchen squeak open behind me.

     "I looked up the culinary program at the community college," I heard him say over my shoulder.

     I already knew where this was going. "Mm hmm."

     "Did you know you can't get in without a high school diploma?" In his hands was today's special, a peanut butter mousse pie. He sat it on top of a pie tray and sealed it under a shiny glass cover.

     I made a gamble and spoke. "Or the high school equivalency." He turned around and gave me a look of frustration. "Jackson, just sit for the G.E.D."

     "I'm not good at school shit. If I was I would have graduated the first time."

     "It's probably not that hard."

     "How do you know?"

     "I don't. But—"

     "I checked out the classes they want you to take and the first semester is full of writing and math and hospitality and shit. Why I need writing to cook?"

     I shrugged. "You're probably going to have to write an essay at some point." I adjusted the labels in front of the pastries, making sure the price was clearly visible from the other side of the glass.

     "Why?"

     "That's just what you do in college."

     "Got nothing to do with cooking."

     "I know, but—"

     "Looks like they just wasting my damn time."

     "And your money. Don't forget that." He scowled at that, almost like he'd forgotten that nothing in life was free. "Jackson, you haven't even sat for the G.E.D. yet. One mountain at a time, please."

     I tried to end the conversation by walking toward the coffee machine with purpose, but my cousin wasn't the kind of person to take hints that weren't frank, loud, and to the point.

     "I don't know. I probably won't even pass the test, why waste my time?"

     I sighed and turned to him with as much sympathy as I could muster so early in the morning. "Don't psych yourself out of doing this. Even if you change your mind about culinary school, there's still value in the G.E.D."

     He thought about that. "You right."

     "And I've done the college thing, remember? If you need help, I'll help. Just ask."

     He nodded and turned his attention back to readying to start the day. No less than three minutes later he said out of nowhere, "So, how's your cop?"

     I restrained myself from rolling my eyes. "He's good."

     "That's too bad."

     "When you gonna let it go?"

     "Motherfucker tried to throw me in jail for a crime I didn't commit, Evie."

     I paused over the coffee filter, the smell of dark roast coffee wafting up from the can I'd just opened. "No, he didn't."

     "Yeah. He did."

     "I mean..." I turned away from him and went back to brewing. This accomplished two things: actually working and keeping my hands busy so I didn't snap and strangle him for beating this dead horse. "There was a dead body in the middle of my floor. You threatened him right before he dropped dead. You have a record which includes assault—"

     I heard him slam down a box full of coffee stirrers harder than necessary. "So, you think it was justified then?"

     "No! I didn't say that."

     "You didn't have to."

     "Jackson, all I'm trying to say is that the situation was complicated."

     "So if you had to choose between him and me?"

     I turned to face him. "What? Why—"

     "We family, Evie."

     "I know we're family. If I had to choose between anything and the family I'd almost always choose the family. Just like I always have," my voice grew strained. "All I mean to say is that in that particular situation I understand why someone who didn't know you like that thought you were capable of murder."

     "Wow," he had the audacity to sound betrayed. "I guess I should get back to work then, boss-lady." He spat the word boss-lady like I was the cause of all the oppression he'd ever suffered.

     I stopped myself from sighing at him. "Yeah, I guess you should."

     What did he want me to say? Sorry my boyfriend arrested you that one time, at least it wasn't worse? I'm sorry that when bad things happen in your general vicinity people usually blame you? Sure, I'll break up with my boyfriend, who I really like, because it'll make you feel better? Who did he think I was, his mother?

     And why couldn't anything in life be easy? Jackson hates Manny for arresting him. Manny hates Henry for how close we are. Manny dislikes Jackson because of his criminal past. All I need is for Henry to declare Jackson his mortal enemy for...I don't know, fuckin', overcooking his strudel or some dumb shit like that. It seemed all the men in my life were working overtime to complicate it. Except, amusingly, for Johnny, who was for once content if not completely happy.

     Oh, never mind it! It was time to open so I checked my feelings on the matter, plastered a smile on my face, and went to flip the sign that hung in the front window from closed to open.

     Jackson gave me the cold shoulder for the rest of his shift—not that I wanted to talk about it anymore after that. Around two, I stepped into my office to deal with the Peter Bergman situation.

     I wish I could say there was some clever technique to finding a missing person, but the social media age had ensured that most people existed in plain sight. Even the ones who were AWOL. I checked in with the usual suspects; Facebook, Linkedin, hell, even the outdated MySpace.

     When that didn't work I tried multiple online directories. I searched for him using his date of birth, age, high school, and last known residence. Nothing turned up for Peter Bergman.

     However, the name Peter Daugherty came up more than once. Peter Daugherty had been born on the same day, gone to the right high school, and lived at Trudy's address. Most likely, it was an alias. It barely took ten minutes for me to find the most recent phone number.

     I dialed it. If it wasn't the correct Peter then it didn't hurt much. Someone answered on the third ring.

     "Hello?" he said in a distracted voice.

     "Is this Peter Bergman?"

     "...Yeah." He sounded like he was unsure.

     "I'm calling on behalf of Trudy Bergman—"

     "I don't know that person. Sorry," his haste betrayed him.

     "Wait! This is on behalf of your son."

     The line was quiet for a moment as he let my words sank in. "Son?"

     "Ms. Bergman would like to arrange a meeting between herself, you, and your son."

     "I don't have children."

     "You don't?" I looked over the info I'd collected on Trudy. "Ms. Bergman said she was raising the child in your stead. The mother's name is listed as Chelsea Greer."

     "I did know Chelsea," he murmured. "What does she want from me?"

     "She just wants to talk."

     "Talk? What is there to talk about?" he sounded angry all of a sudden.

     I kept my voice calm as I said, "I don't know what happened between you, but she seemed to want to make amends."

     "...I don't know."

     "Mr. Bergman—"

     "Daugherty. "

     "Mr. Daugherty, understand that you are under no obligation to meet with Ms. Bergman. If you want, I'll tell her that you don't want to be found. It's as easy as that."

     He went quiet again, the wheels in his head spinning. "And if I did want to meet with her?"

     "Then I could help you work out a place to meet on neutral ground at your convenience."

     "Neutral ground?"

      "I highly recommend that for something this...delicate, you two meet in public."

     More silence. I was convinced he would say no and that would be the end of it but to my surprise he said, "Alright. I'll do it."

     "Okay. Then, we'll set it up. What day is good for you?"

     He took a deep breath. "Soon as possible. I need to do this."

     Something was off. His voice was all over the place, at once sounding dismissive and aloft, then sad, then irate.

     "Are you sure? You can back out of this at any time."

     "Yeah. It's overdue."

     I left Peter with Trudy's phone number and a dinner date scheduled for the four of us this Friday.

     I was about to get back to work when Jackson poked his head in the door. "I prepped the dough for tomorrow's special."

     "Great." I didn't bother looking up from the monitor of my desktop, which was conspicuously in sleep mode.

     "And I cleaned both bathrooms."

     "Okay."

     "So, I'm gonna go."

     "Bye."

     He stood in the doorway, fidgeting with the sort of expectation one has when they're waiting for an apology. I continued to ignore his ass. "So...will you help me or not?"

     I looked up at him coolly. "With what?"

     "You know what," he sighed.

     I was still mad, but damn it, he was family. "Fine."

     "Fine. When we gonna—"

     "Sundays. You're off and I'm always here. You can come in for a couple of hours and we'll prep for your test."

      "Cool. Bye." He broke eye contact and turned to leave.

     "Don't slam the—"

     But of course, he slammed the door. What-the-hell-ever. I've got enough on my plate without having to worry about him acting like a big baby. I had a business to run, people to interview for a job, a meeting to set up between two estranged family members, a mom trying to purge our house of all her junk, and a boyfriend and best friend that I needed to mediate before they killed each other. Jackson could wait...until Sunday at least.

     In four hours Taste Teas would close and I would fly home to change for tonight's double date with Manny, Henry, and Henry's not-really-girlfriend...whatever her name was. And if all went well, that'd be one less thing I had to worry about.