I’ll Be Watching You
Tina Wainscott
I’LL BE WATCHING YOU
Copyright© 2019 by Tina Wainscott
ISBN: 9781945143748
www.WrittenMusings.com
www.TinaWainscott.com
Cover Design www.AustinWalp.com
U.S.A.
This is a fictional work. All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are solely the concepts and products of the author’s imagination or are used to create a fictitious story and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form by any means, without the prior permission in writing, except in the case of brief quotations, reviews, and articles.
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Contents
DEDICATION
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
EPILOGUE
SNEAK PEEK
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
DEDICATION
To my bud, Doris Geyer. Stay kewl…
PROLOGUE
Elva Lyons closed Southern Comfort after the last customer slid from his barstool and left. She turned off the lighted beer signs, televisions and, finally, the overhead lights. After hours of music and conversation, even the silence was a wall of white noise humming in her brain.
“Ready to go home, Oscar?”
Oscar lifted his head and emitted an assenting grunt.
“I thought so.” After closing the front door, she and Oscar walked to her rusty truck where she helped hoist his large rear end in. “I’m getting too old for this. We’re going to have to install springs on your hooves.” She slid in next to her potbellied pig and closed the door.
Oscar was a by-product of the last moneymaking scheme turned money-losing mistake. She’d given up on the pig breeding venture but kept one of the babies. Her “baby” weighed well over a hundred pounds now.
During the drive through the dark Everglades night, the warning she’d received earlier that day rang through her head: I got a bad feeling about you, Miss Elva. Please be careful.
“Ah, the kid’s strange.” Her friend Smitty swore Tullie Macgregor was psychic; she’d had spooky feelings since she could talk. But Elva had put herself in a precarious situation, and maybe that’s what the girl had picked up on. Elva patted her rifle. “Nothing’s going to happen while we got this, right, Oscar?”
No need to mention that the old Remington Fireball was meant for varmints. Guess she could shoot someone in the leg if it came to that. Maybe take out an eye.
Once she’d pulled into her yard, she surveyed her small home tucked in the middle of a hammock that was far from screaming distance of anyone human. No shadows moved other than the ones she’d grown accustomed to. Just the normal sounds: crickets and frogs and maybe a raccoon sloshing through the water looking for dinner.
She got out of the truck, waited for Oscar to jump down, and hightailed it inside. After setting the gun near her bedroom door, she went about her nightly ablutions. Oscar settled onto his cushion next to the bed with a prolonged snort and seemed to drop right off. After she fetched her glass of water, Elva hoped to be in the same blissful state.
It was easy to see what Elva was doing from the closet. When she picked up an empty glass from her nightstand and headed out to the hall, it was time to slip from the shadows.
Elva returned and came to an abrupt stop. Her glass dropped to the floor with a thunk. Water pooled and then seeped into the carpet. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, I think you know.”
“But…how did you figure out it was me?” Elva stammered.
“Because I’m smarter than you, old woman.”
“How’d you get in?” Elva slid a glance to where she’d propped the rifle. It was gone.
“You never check those windows in the second bedroom, do you?”
Elva was trying—and failing—to look calm. “It’s the fair thing, you know, after what you did to my family—and his family.”
What was fair about Elva buying a box of junk at the church fair and discovering a dead woman’s journal hidden at the bottom? A journal with one entry that could restart an old investigation. Luckily, Elva had been greedy and decided to try some blackmail rather than turning it in.
“I suppose you want the journal,” Elva said, and had the nerve to let resignation color her voice.
“I have it.”
Elva’s eyes widened as they saw the white journal with the pink rose on the cover. “You got what you wanted. It’s over. Go on then.”
“Oh, it’s not over yet.”
Elva didn’t have time to move before the butt of her own rifle slammed her in the head.
CHAPTER 1
“Kim, someday that attitude of yours is going to get you in trouble,” Ray said as he wiped the last margarita glass dry and set it in the rack.
It already had, but she wasn’t going to tell her boss that. “What, I’m supposed to take everyone’s crap with a pleasant ‘Thank you, sir, may I have another?’ I was never good at getting down on my knees.”
He narrowed his beady eyes. “You better learn to kiss some ass. That’s what’ll get you promoted around here.”
“You’d have to be much better looking and pay me more before I’d even think about kissing your fat ass.” She added a smile to temper the words.
“If you weren’t such a damn good bartender—and you know it pains me to say it—I’d fire you six ways from Friday night.”
He would probably have to fire her before she ever quit. She called her stick-to-it-ness commitment; her friend Becca called it too-chicken-to-step-out-of-your-comfort-zone. Kim liked her own explanation better. She wiped down the copper-clad bar top until the muted lights picked up every indent. “I’m your best bartender. Speaking of promotions—”
“Yeah, I know, you finished your degree.”
This time her smile was more genuine. “You promised me a management role when I got my BA in business.” Managing City Lights was a temporary goal. She really wanted to put all those classes at FSU to work by owning her own place someday.
“I’m working up my nerve to let Carrie go without risking backlash.”
“Glad to hear it.” Kim tossed the rag in the bin. “I’m outta here. G’night.”
Ray’s voice followed her as she walked across the lot to her car. “Park in the employees’ section, Lyons! And stop telling the other girls to park in the customers’ section.”
Telling him for the thousandth time about the lack of safe lighting hadn’t worked, so she simply said, “Bite me.”
She ignored his rude gesture and closed her car door. He wasn’t the worst boss she’d ever had, the pay was decent, and the nightclub wasn’t far from where she lived. It
wasn’t the job that dragged at her bones—and her spirit. Heck, she’d grown up in a bar.
That was a long time ago, kid. She ignored the hitch in her throat and pulled into her apartment complex. City life was getting to her. Tallahassee wasn’t the worst place to live; it just wasn’t her.
An old van had taken her designated parking spot. Apartment living was also dragging her down. She hiked from the faraway spot she’d found to her upstairs apartment. Simon would be asleep. He had left the foyer light on for her, as always. She smiled at the thoughtful gesture, but it faded when she saw the bowl where she was to put her keys. Everything in its place or Simon would have fits. He was the same with dirty dishes. God forbid one glass should rest in the sink.
Kim hadn’t really wanted to shack up with Simon, particularly without a marital commitment looming in the near future. But when he’d proposed it, he’d said the magic word: home. It had been a long time since she’d had a home. She had the distinct feeling that Simon was giving their relationship a test run, though, talking her into signing a year’s lease on an apartment “to see if we get along.” Since moving in six months earlier, every time she brought up a stronger commitment, his beeper went off. Every single time.
Still, they were comfortable with each other. Nothing wrong with predictability, right? She knew Simon’s moods, both of them, and because of their disparate hours, they didn’t spend enough time together to get on each other’s nerves.
Becca’s lecture on her choices in men echoed through her mind. You choose emotionally safe men, Kim. Men who can’t give you their hearts, so you won’t be tempted to give them yours.
A nightlight in the kitchen illuminated the anally neat place. Her neon Budweiser lizard sign, Everglades prints, and bottle of tequila she’d bought on a trip to Mexico, complete with worm, were stashed in a closet with the rest of her “tacky” stuff. The place looked like something out of a catalog. Yuck.
After scrubbing off the smoke smell in the guest bathroom, she slid into bed.
“How was work?” Simon asked, surprising her that he was awake.
“Ray says he’s getting ready to let Carrie go.”
“He’s said that before.”
She let out a sigh. “Yeah, I know. I’m afraid he’s going to keep stalling me.”
“Then get another job.”
She felt her smile return. “I want to open my own bar. I wish you could see my grandma’s bar. The whole town revolved around Southern Comfort.”
“You keep talking about these idyllic memories, but you were a kid then. It probably wasn’t as great as you remember. You haven’t been back in ten years, other than your mother’s funeral.”
“But it was great.” Her voice trailed off. Cypress was still inside her, a bittersweet ache deep in her belly. Tucked in the Everglades wetlands, surrounded by the dangerous beauty of nature, the town still sang to her soul. She wanted to visit her grandma, who wouldn’t step one foot past the town limits since moving there in 1957. Kim wanted to soak in the smells of the wild orchids and feel the electricity in the air before a summer storm let loose. She wanted to see black, roiling sky behind a sunlit prairie. She’d never told Simon about the circumstances that made her leave the only town she’d ever known. The only town she’d loved.
“We always make things better in our minds than it was,” he murmured, but his mind was now clearly on other things. He couldn’t relate to dreams and memories. Sex was the only way he knew how to relate to a woman. She had to admit it was easier that way. Easier, but not necessarily satisfying.
They made love in the dark. Kim called it making love, because she did love him. Without eye contact, though, it always fell short. When she insisted on having the lights on, Simon chose a position that allowed no eye contact. In the one and a half years they’d been dating, he’d never once spoken an endearment during the act.
Within two minutes of finishing, Simon disengaged and got out of bed. She pulled up the covers and waited for the inevitable. The shower kicked on a second later. He told her it was just a thing with him; it wasn’t personal. But it was way personal.
We always make things better in our minds than it was. Holy crap. She’d been making this relationship into something better than it was. She pretended to be asleep when he returned to bed and knew something had to change.
Something changed the next morning when the phone jarred her out of sleep. Kim fumbled for the receiver. Simon had long ago gone to work.
Her voice sounded froggy when she answered, “Hello?”
“Is this Kim Lyons?” The voice sounded official, even with the southern accent.
She blinked the sleep out of her eyes and sat up. “Yes.”
“This is Samuel Wharton from Cypress. You may not remember me—”
“I remember you,” she said, her body going rigid. “You helped defend my stepfather.” He’d made a fool of her on the witness stand. Why was he calling her now, ten years later?
“Yes, I did,” he said, drawing out the words with pride. “But has nothing to do with him. This is about your granny.”
“What about her?”
“She’s dead.” He dropped the words like little bombs that shattered her insides.
“That can’t be right. I spoke with her last month. She was fine.” This had to be a cruel joke.
“She died in a way fittin’ of Elva Lyons. Took her skiff out late in the night, apparently tipped it over, and hit her head on a log or cypress knee. The official cause of death was accidental drowning. Everyone in town went to the memorial service.”
Her words stuttered out of her throat. “M-memorial service? It’s already happened?”
“We couldn’t track you down right away. It was right touchin’, too, with everybody wailing into their hankies. Elva was a good woman, and she’ll be missed something awful. Anyway, I called to tell you that your granny left you Southern Comfort, with its land and inventory. She also left you her house, including twenty acres of swampland. You’re the sole heir.”
“The bar…she left me the bar?”
“Yes, indeedy. Now I figure you ain’t gonna be coming down here to run the place, and I also know that no one here is gonna run it for you. So, here’s what I’m proposin’: you sell the bar to a client of mine for thirty grand. It’s off your hands, and you got some cash to roll around in. I told my client—”
“Who’s your client?”
“He prefers to remain anonymous. But don’t you worry, he’ll treat the bar with the same respect your granny did. All the pictures will remain on the walls as a tribute to the history of the place.”
The pictures. She’d forgotten them, all those old photographs from way before her time that used to fascinate her. Pictures of her dad growing up, the old-timers, and even herself. They were her history. Her legacy. So was the bar. She owed that much to her grandma, to not sell out to someone who was too chicken to own up to it. Her chest swelled with resolve and fear and grief. “I’m not selling it.”
“Take the money and run. That’s what you did before, only there wasn’t any money. You just ran.”
His words jabbed at her. Leaving was the only choice a teenage girl had when most of the town hated her, even one with more attitude than two redneck boys put together. But she wasn’t that teenager anymore. She was a woman who longed for her home in the wetlands, who longed for a bar to call her own. The conflict between what she wanted and what she would have to go through to get it burned bitter in her mouth. “Who’s handling the place now?”
“Smitty.” The rascally old fart who’d helped Grandma run the bar since Kim could remember. “If you’re lucky, I may have a buyer for the house and land, too, though it ain’t in good shape.”
Her bar, her house, her land. It had been in her family for generations. Now her family had all but petered out, but she was still here.
“I’ll be down to meet with you. I’ll call later to make an appointment. Goodbye.” She hung up and dropped back on the bed.
Her heart was racing; she could feel the pulse in her throat. Going back to Cypress. She’d never wanted and feared something so badly at the same time.
“Grandma, what do I do?” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry I didn’t visit.”
Tears filled her eyes and spilled down her temples. She had to say goodbye to her grandma, who had been there for her when her mother had betrayed Kim, and then when Kim had betrayed her mother. Even though she’d stayed neutral, Grandma had stood beside Kim during the trial and all the ugliness after that.
It was time to return home and face the ghosts and demons that waited there.
“You’re going to do what?” Simon asked when they met for lunch.
“I’ll only be gone for a week. I need to go down and see what’s what.”
“I can’t take that kind of time off without notice. Unless you can wait until”—he pulled his ever-present laptop computer closer and punched the keys—“the last week of September. Honestly, the thought of spending any time down in the swamps in the summer doesn’t appeal. Maybe in the fall.”
“I can’t wait that long. Don’t worry; it’s only a week.”
She wanted to think that he’d miss her. He might, but he wouldn’t tell her. They didn’t share that kind of thing. They loved each other; they didn’t have to say it regularly. That’s why they got along so well, she figured, because she didn’t need to hear it every day. There were plenty of ways to show affection besides throwing herself all over him; getting carried away by emotions…. she reigned in her thoughts. Despite Becca’s know-it-all-ness, Simon was her perfect mate. At thirty-seven, he was settled professionally and mature, which was why she liked men who were at least ten years older.
She shoved her untouched Caesar salad around with her fork. “I didn’t expect you to come with me anyway. Ray’s got someone to cover for me at the club, so I’m heading out this afternoon.”
Simon stopped mid-chew and stared at her for a moment. “Isn’t there someone else who could take care of this for you?”
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