Cutting Ties

by Jeff Shelby

  And I was just about to when my cell phone buzzed. My pulse raced when I saw the number on the screen. It was Anne.

  Probably wanting to know if I’d found a suspect yet.

  Only problem was, I had.

  “Are you going to answer that?” Aidan asked, his eyes on the phone still buzzing in my hand.

  I blinked. “Oh. Um, not in here.”

  I would call her back when I got to my office.

  And I would take my sweet time walking back there.

  Maybe I’d stay and give manicures. Then help with cleanup. By then it would be time for lunch. Theoretically, I could put off the return call to well into the afternoon.

  And, by association, any more discussions with Denise.

  My phone rang again.

  Aidan frowned. “It looks like someone really needs to get ahold of you.”

  I sighed in defeat. I had a feeling Anne would just keep calling until I picked up.

  “It appears that way,” I muttered.

  I scanned the room one last time, satisfied everything was taken care of, and then said a quick goodbye to Aidan. He still didn’t look entirely convinced that everything was okay.

  He knew me well.

  I answered the next incoming call as I made my way down the hall and back toward my office.

  “Where have you been?” Anne hissed.

  “Supervising an activity,” I said coolly. “Since that’s my job and I’m currently at work…”

  “Well, I have news.”

  “News?” I echoed. So she wasn’t calling to grill me on my progress?

  “Yes.”

  “About Jacksonville?” I had to admit, she was working fast on keeping her promise.

  “No,” she snapped. “News about the accident. About what happened to me.”

  Of course. The fact that she’d called repeatedly should have been my first clue that this attempt at communication was all about her, not me.

  “You have news?” Briefly, I wondered if Denise had just decided to get it over with and confess directly to Anne.

  “What is wrong with you?” she asked, irritation coating her words.

  It was the second time in five minutes that someone had asked me that question.

  I took a deep, steadying breath. “I’m sorry. I’m a little distracted. What did you find out?”

  “Distracted?” Anne asked. “By what? What’s happening there? What am I missing?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “I promise. What is going on?”

  She was quiet for a minute and I could almost picture her beady eyes staring at me, trying to force me into answering her question.

  “My mechanic called,” she finally said.

  “Your mechanic? Why?”

  “My car was towed to the shop to see about fixing the body damage,” Anne said. “Ace Motors. They’re the best in town. Anyway, while he was looking at the car, he found something.”

  “Okay…” I waited.

  “Something unusual,” Anne said.

  “What did he find?”

  Her words sent a chill down my spine.

  “Someone tampered with the brakes.”

  FOURTEEN

  “Tampered with?”

  “I didn’t get specifics,” Anne said. “But he made it very clear that someone had messed with the brakes.”

  My pulse was back to racing at breakneck speed. “And does he…does he think that’s why you crashed the car?”

  “Well, it certainly wouldn’t have helped the situation,” she said stiffly.

  My office was only a few feet away and I headed toward it with renewed purpose. Because something else had just occurred to me.

  “Do you think the brakes had more to do with the accident than the sleeping pills?” I asked.

  “I have no idea.” Her impatient sigh was like a gust of wind in my ear. “That’s what I’m hoping you can figure out, remember? I’m just giving you information.”

  I nodded. “Alright. Let me do some digging, see what I can find.”

  We hung up just as I stepped into my office.

  Denise was still sitting in the chair.

  I stared at her in surprise. “What are you doing?”

  “Sitting.” Her eyes were a little less puffy, a little less bloodshot.

  “Why?” I asked. “Why haven’t you left yet?”

  Her mouth dropped open. “Already?”

  “Back to the dining room, Denise.”

  “But I thought I was done here. You’re going to call Anne and she’s going to fire me. I was just waiting for it to be official.”

  Sympathy bubbled up inside of me.

  “I haven’t called her yet,” I said as I sat back down in my chair.

  Hope flickered in her eyes. “You haven’t?”

  I shook my head. “But she called me.”

  “Oh.” Her shoulders slumped. “So she knows.”

  “She called to give me a little information,” I said.

  Denise darted a glance at me.

  I took a deep breath. Did I tell her what Anne just told me?

  I decided to go for it. “Someone tampered with her car.” I kept my gaze locked on her to gauge her reaction. “Her brakes.”

  Denise’s eyebrows lifted. “Someone messed with her car?”

  I nodded.

  She let out a soft whistle. “Man, that’s not good. Who would do something like that?”

  “That’s what she wants me to find out,” I said. “To see if that’s what caused the accident.”

  Her eyes widened. “Wait a minute. If someone did something to her brakes, then that means…”

  She was coming to the same conclusion I’d arrived at.

  “You still drugged her,” I reminded her.

  Her shoulders sagged once again.

  “But that doesn’t mean that was the cause of the accident,” I added. “It might have contributed but I would think the brakes were what caused her to lose control of the car.”

  Denise’s expression was decidedly less hopeful but she still nodded.

  “So now the question is, who would have done something to her car?” I picked up a pen and tapped it against my desk, thinking. “It didn’t necessarily have to happen here. It could have been anywhere.”

  Denise stayed quiet and I wondered if she was thinking through possible scenarios or if she was just relieved that the spotlight had shifted off of her.

  “Obviously, whoever did it would have had to be in close proximity to her car,” I muttered, almost to myself.

  Denise made a strangled sort of sound.

  I looked up. “What?”

  “Her car,” Denise said. “Someone touched her car. Here at Oasis Ridge.”

  I cocked my head. “Who?”

  Denise swallowed. “Aidan.”

  FIFTEEN

  “Aidan?”

  I chuckled at the thought.

  But Denise wasn’t laughing. Instead, she was just sitting there, looking like she’d seen a ghost.

  My laughter faded.

  “When in the world would he have done something like that?” I asked.

  Denise had an immediate answer. “When he fixed her tire.”

  I tensed, because I remembered exactly what had happened. She’d marched into the activity room during pie making and had practically dragged Aidan out to her car.

  But that was to fix a flat tire.

  Not to cut her brakes.

  “Why would Aidan damage Anne’s car?” I asked. “That makes zero sense.”

  Denise wouldn’t look at me. Instead, her eyes were trained on the floor, her hands gripping the sides of the seat she was sitting on.

  “Denise?” I swallowed. “Do you know something I don’t know? Why would you think Aidan would do something to Anne’s car?”

  She still didn’t look up but I heard her murmur, “Lots of reasons.”

  “Tell me,” I demanded. “What do you know?”

  “He’s not her biggest fan.”

>   I rolled my eyes. “She doesn't have any fans.”

  “I think lots of people were happy to see her gone,” Denise said.

  She wasn’t wrong about that.

  “Being happy someone is gone doesn’t mean you were the one who made them disappear,” I pointed out.

  “Sure,” Denise said. “But when someone threatens you, that sort of helps develop a motive, don’t you think?”

  I wasn’t sure I was following. “Anne threatened Aidan?”

  She nodded.

  “How?” And why?”

  She looked uncomfortable. “I’m not sure I should say anything.”

  “Oh, please.” I rolled my eyes. “You already have. So tell me what else you know. All of it.”

  Denise fidgeted. “All I know is that Anne was upset over Aidan’s potential availability next semester.”

  “In January?”

  “He told her that he had a few classes that were only being offered during one section next semester, and they were classes he had to take. Something about being well into his major now.”

  I nodded. I remembered those days from my own experience, the stress of managing a schedule where two or three required classes might actually conflict with one another. I could only imagine how hard it was to juggle a job, too.

  “I guess some of them fall right in the middle of the day, so he mentioned wanting to switch his schedule up a little.”

  “He already does that,” I pointed out. Aidan often would work afternoon into evening shifts, or even on weekends, because of his class schedule.

  “Well, I guess next semester is different. He said something about a 10 am class three days a week, and then a 3 pm class on those same days. He wanted to know about piecemealing a schedule together, but Anne wasn’t having it.” Denise’s expression hardened at the memory. “She told him if he couldn’t work the hours she needed him to, he’d be out of a job.”

  I drew back in surprise. That felt like a really harsh response, even from Anne.

  “There aren’t any other options?” I asked. “For classes, I mean?”

  “I don’t think so,” Denise said, shaking her head. “When he talked to her, he said he’d see what he could do. But he told me that his hands were pretty much tied. Those were the classes he had to take.”

  “Did he tell her that yet?” I asked. “Confirm what was happening with his schedule?”

  “I’m not sure,” Denise said. “Because he was worried she would just fire him right away and not even wait for the semester to start. You know how Anne can be.”

  I did know, but that didn’t mean I thought she’d just fire him out of hand when he delivered the news.

  “He doesn’t want to lose this job,” Denise said.

  “I guess he must really like the residents.”

  I could relate. As much as the thought of moving to the new facility in Jacksonville excited me, I knew I’d very much miss the residents I’d grown close to. And my fellow employees.

  I swallowed. The full impact of what was happening walloped me like a sledgehammer. Denise might be hours away from her last day there—if I reported what she’d done. And Aidan was most likely gone, too, at least if Anne had anything to say about it. There were other people I liked—Jackie, the yoga instructor, Becky and Connie, the two other health aides, and even Lindsay, the new receptionist. But Aidan and Denise were the people I would miss the most.

  Especially Aidan.

  “The residents?” Denise snorted.

  I brought my attention back to her. “What?”

  “You think he likes the residents?” A smile forced its way to her lips. “Oh, honey, they aren’t the reason he wants to stay.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Her gaze became pointed. “He wants to stay because of you,” she said bluntly.

  “Me?” I squeaked.

  She folded her arms across her ample chest and nodded. “That boy is half in love with you and you are too blind to see it.”

  My mouth dropped open.

  Denise, sensing my shock, nodded emphatically. “Yep. And you want to know something else?”

  She didn’t wait for me to respond.

  “The more I think about it, the more I think he’s the one who might have done it. He had reasons to want to keep Anne away from here. And he had direct access to her car.”

  I shifted uneasily in my chair.

  The dots didn’t connect perfectly, but even I had to admit that there might be some truth to her words.

  I didn’t think Denise was making those connections just to clear her name. After all, we’d already established that finding the person responsible for sabotaging Anne’s car didn’t exactly absolve her of blame.

  I closed my eyes and tried to process everything.

  I knew I needed to talk to Aidan, to see if he really could have been responsible for what happened to Anne’s car. I hated to admit it, but there did seem to be motive. And access.

  But I couldn’t help thinking about the other piece of the conversation I’d just had with Denise.

  The part about Aidan and how he felt about me.

  SIXTEEN

  I couldn’t talk to Aidan until the next day.

  Which was fine with me.

  I’d spent the better part of yesterday mulling over what Denise had told me, trying to wrap my brain around the idea of Aidan doing what she’d suggested.

  It was almost impossible.

  I knew Aidan. He was one of the nicest people I’d ever met…and I wasn’t just saying that because we’d tried going out on a couple of dates. I said it because I’d been on the receiving end of his kindness, and because I’d witnessed firsthand how he interacted with the residents. Heck, he was even unfailingly nice to Anne, which even I struggled with more than I cared to admit.

  There was no way he could have purposely sabotaged her car. He wasn’t that kind of person.

  But then I remembered that I didn’t think Denise was that kind of person, either.

  And she’d slipped sleeping pills into Anne’s vitamin regimen.

  Maybe I wasn’t as good of a judge of character as I thought.

  As soon as I got to my office, I dropped off my purse and headed to the dining room to grab my morning cup of coffee. Denise would most likely be there and I braced myself for any awkwardness that might ensue. She was probably looking at me like an executioner these days, waiting for me to swing the hammer and announce her involvement in what had happened to Anne.

  I hated knowing.

  And I wished that I didn’t.

  But Denise wasn’t in the dining room. I poured my coffee as quickly as possible, hoping to get in and out before she returned from wherever she was.

  Instead of going back to my office, I made a quick turn up the stairs to see if I could find Aidan. I wasn’t any more ready to confront him over the allegations Denise had made, but I wanted to make sure he was at least on site today. I had a hard time keeping track of his schedule.

  I didn’t find Aidan upstairs but I did find Bryce.

  He was in the hallway just outside the activity room, clad in a pair of black basketball shorts and a white muscle t-shirt. He had his hands pressed flat against the wall as he stretched out his legs, one at a time. I couldn’t help but notice the bulging calf muscles, the tautness of his abdomen, the way his shoulders flexed as he pushed against the wall.

  He glanced in my direction and smiled. I quickly averted my gaze. The last thing I wanted was for him to think I was staring at him.

  Even though I absolutely was.

  “Morning, Sunny,” he called.

  I offered a weak wave.

  He removed his hands from the wall and began doing some lunges.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Lunges.” His hands were settled on his hips. “It’s a stretch for your leg muscles.”

  “I know what a lunge is,” I said, feeling a little flustered. “I just meant what are you doing exercising in the hal
lway?”

  He grinned. “Oh, gotcha. I’m doing some stretches before the morning yoga class. I thought it might be fun to do it with the residents. I’d like to experience all aspects of life here at Oasis Ridge. The food, the activities, the interaction with our health care providers…everything that makes this place what it is.”

  I had to admit, I was impressed. I didn’t think Anne had taken part in a single activity since I’d come on board as activity director, and I knew she only ate in the dining room because the food was free.

  “You do know it’s chair yoga, right?” I asked. “The residents sit in chairs and do it.”

  “Oh, sure,” he said, nodding. “I can sit in a chair or be on the floor. Whatever works best.” He smiled. “You know, I just realized that I never got to talk to you about your weekend.”

  “My what?”

  “Your weekend.” He switched legs and bent deep at the knee as he pressed forward. “I asked yesterday but then I think we started talking about other things.”

  “Oh.” I honestly couldn’t remember.

  “So did you have a good time with your friend on Friday night?”

  I frowned. “My friend?”

  “You said you were meeting a friend…”

  The conversation I’d had with him last week suddenly came back to me. “Oh, right. Yes, it was fine. We, um…it was very productive.” The words came out a jumbled mess, but I didn’t know how else to describe my evening with Anne.

  “Productive?” His eyes twinkled. “Now that’s an interesting way to refer to a night out.”

  “It wasn’t,” I said. My cheeks felt warm and I took a quick sip of the coffee I was holding, hoping the oversized mug would help hide any color blooming in my cheeks. “A night out, I mean. I just stopped by a friend’s house.”

  Bryce finished with his lunges and then moved to touching his toes. I watched in awe as he leaned down and wrapped his fingers around his ankles. He was at least six inches taller than me and I could barely touch my knees in that position, much less my ankles.

  “You know, I was thinking about something this weekend,” he said. He slowly straightened.

  “Oh?”

  The smile on his face was a little wistful. “Yeah.” He paused. “You wanna know what?”