by Lee Hollis
“Even if it means you’re a target for murder?” Hayley challenged.
“That’s a risk I’m just going to have to take,” Liddy said, spinning on her heels and marching out the back door, down the side porch steps, and to her car.
Hayley watched her get into her loaner from the insurance company, a sleek black Audi, back out of the driveway, and peel away.
“I have such a bad feeling about this,” Hayley whispered.
Gemma put a comforting hand on her mother’s shoulder. “You can’t force her to go into hiding, Mom.”
“I know . . .” Hayley said, her stomach flip-flopping.
Every intuition was screaming at her that Liddy’s life was in imminent peril.
And yet, if Liddy refused to listen to her sage advice or adhere to her severe warnings, there was very little she could do to stop her from plowing ahead, attempts on her life be damned.
“So what are you going to do?” Gemma asked.
“What I always do when I’m worried,” Hayley said, grabbing the large knife off the counter and cutting herself a big piece of Gemma’s delicious, moist wedding cake. “Stress eat.”
Chapter 26
The following day before work, Hayley met Mona for breakfast at Jordan’s Restaurant, which was known for its mouthwatering blueberry pancakes. It was eight in the morning, and Mona had already been out on her boat hauling traps for hours, so this was essentially her lunch break, even though Hayley had yet to even start her day at the Island Times.
Mona always ordered a king’s breakfast after working up an appetite on her lobster boat, and today was no different. She scarfed down scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, a short stack of pancakes, and a side of sausage, washing it all down with enough cups of coffee to fill at least two pots.
Hayley brought her up to speed on how worried she was about Liddy and her suspicions that she was now the target of someone, still to be revealed, who was out to do her bodily harm.
“It could be just about anyone,” Mona cracked. “Liddy’s got enough haters to fill a phone directory.”
“I know she’s not the most popular person in town,” Hayley said, taking a sip of orange juice. “But it’s hard to believe anyone would hold such a grudge against her, or that he or she would go to such lengths to try and kill her.”
“Believe me, I’ve thought about it a few times,” Mona said, upending a bottle of maple syrup and drowning what remained of her blueberry pancakes.
“Mona, be serious,” Hayley admonished, sprinkling a small paper cup of brown sugar on top of her oatmeal with strawberries and bananas, a temporary attempt to eat healthier in the morning.
Mona clearly didn’t get the memo, as she stopped the waitress and ordered another short stack before turning back to Hayley.
“So if you’re right, and there is someone out to get Liddy, who the hell could it be?” Mona asked, slathering butter on her piece of white toast and stuffing it in her mouth.
“I don’t know. I’m at a loss . . .” Hayley said, her voice trailing off.
“Could be someone Liddy pissed off on one of her shopping trips to New York or fancy European vacations—somebody we don’t know, a complete stranger, like the woman who came into my shop the other day.”
Hayley slid a spoonful of oatmeal into her mouth and then swallowed quickly. She set her spoon down on the table. “What woman?”
“Some lady. She came in to buy some lobsters. Said she was a tourist and was planning a cookout with her family. She mentioned to me that she knew Liddy.”
“What did she look like?”
“I don’t know. Kind of pretty, I guess, but not in an overly made-up way like Liddy. She was natural-looking, brunette, around our age, maybe a few years older.”
“Did you get her name?”
“No, I didn’t ask and she didn’t tell me.”
“Did she use a credit card?”
“Nope. She paid cash.”
“Well, what else did she say? Did she tell you how she knew Liddy?”
“Nope. She just said they were old friends, and that she hadn’t seen her in a long time, and thought she might look her up while she was here in town on vacation just to say hello.”
“Then what?”
Mona chewed on a piece of bacon, trying to remember. “I took her to the tank to pick out some lobsters, and that’s when she started hinting around, trying to find out where Liddy lived. She told me she was thinking about just showing up on her doorstep and surprising her.”
“Did you give her Liddy’s address?”
“I didn’t have the chance. When I told her I just happened to be a close friend of Liddy’s, and that I could call her up right there on the spot and get her over to the shop for a reunion, the woman got this panicked look in her eye, like she was afraid I was actually going to do it.”
“I wonder who it could be,” Hayley said, her mind racing.
Mona shrugged. “Beats me.”
“Then what?”
“Well, once I suggested calling Liddy, she got real nervous and made up some lame excuse about being late for a whale watching tour and ran out of the shop without buying any lobsters!”
“Why didn’t you mention this before?”
“Because I don’t have time to think about Liddy and all her hyped-up drama, that’s why!”
“Do you remember anything else about her?”
“No, Hayley! I’m too busy running a business to spend my day trying to investigate some weird lady from Rhode Island!”
“Rhode Island?”
“Yeah, that’s where she was from. I saw her license plate as she was screeching away in her Volvo. She raced off so fast she left a skid mark on my driveway!”
“Did you—?”
Mona put up a hand to stop her. “No, I didn’t get the license number, just that she was from the Ocean State! Now stop interrogating me so I can eat my breakfast in peace!”
The waitress dropped off Mona’s second short stack, and after gulping down the rest of her coffee, she dug in, leaving Hayley sitting across from her, reeling over the fact that there was a stranger in town from Rhode Island who claimed to know Liddy, but had no clue where she lived.
Hayley considered the fact that the woman’s inquiry might be completely innocent, but then after mulling that over for a few seconds, she discarded it, fearing this mystery woman suddenly popping up in town was too much of a coincidence. This was possibly something far more sinister.
Chapter 27
That night, over Hayley’s vociferous objections, Liddy’s bachelorette party went ahead as planned. In the end, after all of Sabrina’s expensive suggestions and Mona’s offer to host the whole thing in her backyard, Randy’s bar Drinks Like a Fish was the chosen venue. About twenty women, a mix of friends and clients of Liddy’s, showed up ready to party.
Randy’s wedding gift to Liddy was providing an open bar for the ladies until midnight, and most of them took full advantage of it. There was lots of boisterous laughter and high-pitched shrieking as the evening wore on, along with embarrassing stories told about Liddy from high school, college, and from her life as one of Bar Harbor’s premier real estate agents.
Hayley, who deliberately remained sober for the whole night, sat at the end of the bar on a stool and kept a watchful eye over the festivities. She still couldn’t shake the sense of dread that had been consuming her ever since the car accident.
Randy appeared and set a glass of Diet Coke down in front of her. “You sure you don’t want something stronger? It’s just going to keep getting louder and louder.”
Hayley shook her head. “No, I want to stay alert, just in case.”
“I don’t think anything’s going to happen here. If there is some kind of crazed stalker out to get Liddy, I’m sure he’s not going to strike in such a public setting.”
“I’m not sure of anything anymore,” Hayley said, taking a sip of her soda.
Hayley glanced toward the back of the bar, where the
women had turned an open area near the dartboard into a makeshift dance floor and were grinding and swiveling their hips to an old Mariah Carey ’90s dance hit playing on the jukebox. Liddy was right in the middle, clapping her hands and swaying from side to side, laughing uproariously as her friends made a circle around her so she could show off her dance moves and rejoice in being the center of attention.
Hayley turned back to Randy. “That moment when Liddy realized the brakes on her car weren’t working and lost control—I’ve never been so scared in my life. I thought we were goners. I keep playing it over and over in my mind.”
Randy shook his head. “I just can’t imagine who would deliberately do something like that.”
Mona strolled into the bar and took a spot on the stool next to Hayley’s. “Bottle of Bud, Randy, if you don’t mind.”
“Coming right up,” Randy said as he scooted off to fetch the beer.
“You’re late,” Hayley said, eyeing Mona.
“I wasn’t even going to come. I hate bachelorette parties. Too many silly, loud, obnoxious women who drink too much and act way younger than their age. Gives me a damn headache. But I figured I’d never hear the end of it from Liddy if I didn’t at least show my face.”
“Liddy will appreciate you being here,” Hayley said. “And it’s the least you can do since you’re now refusing to be a bridesmaid at her wedding.”
“Like I told her, I’m not going to embarrass myself by wearing a dress that makes me look like I belong in a nursery rhyme. I’m better off sitting in the church pew like everybody else. I may even wear a skirt.”
“I won’t hold my breath,” Hayley said.
Mona looked toward the back of the bar, where Liddy was now dirty dancing with Tilly McVety, a petite, bubbly nurse from the Bar Harbor Hospital, who was obviously a lightweight, because she was only on her second cocktail and was already stumbling into tables and the jukebox as she tried to dance. Meanwhile, Sabrina, who was already tipsy by the time she arrived at the bar for the party, was desperately trying to form a conga line—to no avail, because the other women were too drunk to notice her.
“Trust me, I’d rather be at home watching Wheel of Fortune, but I had to come anyway. The stripper needed a lift,” Mona said.
Hayley jerked her head back in Mona’s direction. “What stripper?”
Suddenly the front door to the bar slammed open, and a police officer charged through the door. His blue uniform was skintight, and he wore dark sunglasses even though the sun had set hours ago. On his feet were a pair of shiny black boots, and there was a silver badge pinned to his muscular chest.
Randy slipped out from behind the bar and unplugged the jukebox, bringing the music to an abrupt stop, which finally got the women to stop dancing and look around, confused.
“All right, ladies, you’re all under arrest!” the cop yelled.
The giggly party girls all snapped to attention at the sight of the hunky young police officer who had suddenly appeared in the bar.
Hayley stared at him for a moment.
He looked so familiar.
“What are you arresting us for?” Liddy asked tentatively, genuinely nervous.
“Indecent exposure,” he drawled.
“What are you talking about? We’re all fully dressed,” Sabrina argued, looking around at all the other women gathered around.
“Not you, babe . . . me,” he said, removing his glasses.
Hayley gasped.
It was AJ, Mona’s hot and hunky summer helper from her lobster shop.
At the sight of AJ, Liddy and Sabrina both squealed with delight.
AJ pulled out his phone, and with his Bluetooth, linked it to Randy’s speaker system. Suddenly an electro house dance mix blasted through the speakers, and before anyone could react further, AJ was up on top of the bar, unbuttoning his shirt to reveal his bronzed, chiseled chest.
The women surged forward, pushing and shoving, eager for a closer look. Once the blue shirt was discarded so they could see his muscular biceps, one sporting his American flag tattoo, he slowly removed his black leather boots and tossed them out to the crowd. Tilly caught one in her arms and excitedly clutched it to her chest as she jumped up and down.
Hayley spun around to Mona and tried yelling above the deafening sound of the music. “Did you hire him?”
Mona shook her head. “Nope! Wasn’t me. It was Sabrina. She came by my shop the other day to pick up some more lobsters and hung around chatting with AJ. He mentioned that he was looking to make some extra cash for a few college courses he’s planning on taking in the fall at the University of Maine in Orono, so Sabrina offered to pay him a couple hundred bucks just to show up here tonight and strut his stuff for an hour or so.”
Hayley nodded, then looked up at AJ, who was now in front of her shimmying out of his pants.
The women screamed at the top of their lungs as if they were at that historic Beatles concert on The Ed Sullivan Show way back in 1964.
Mona covered her ears with her hands. “Come on, girls, settle down, the kid’s not that good-looking!”
“I suspect it’s not just AJ’s rocking body, but also the six Jell-O shots they all did earlier,” Hayley said.
AJ, now with only a white jockstrap covering his private parts, finally jumped down off the bar to the floor and swaggered up to Liddy. He took her by the chin with his hand and guided her over to a chair, where he gently pushed her down into the seat.
Liddy clapped her hands, eager to find out what was going to happen next. AJ straddled her and then began giving her a full-on lap dance as the other women howled with laughter and jumped up and down with glee.
Sabrina shoved her way to the front and center in order to get a better look at the young man’s goods. Her eyes were wild with desire. She reached into her purse and snatched a twenty-dollar bill before rushing over and stuffing it in the waistband of his jockstrap. A few other women followed suit, so by the time AJ was grinding his hips deep into Liddy’s lap, he had about a hundred dollars.
Randy returned with Mona’s bottle of beer and just stood there gripping it in his hand because he was so drawn to the hot young stud’s riveting performance.
“It looks like he’s done this before,” Randy remarked, grinning.
Hayley nodded. “It sure does.”
Exasperated, Mona grabbed the beer from Randy.
“Do you mind? I’m thirsty!” Mona wailed as she took a big swig.
As the women’s excitement reached a fever pitch, Hayley was surprised to see another man in a police uniform appear in the doorway.
It was Sergio.
Randy zipped out from behind the bar again to give his husband a kiss on the cheek. “Are you going to strip for us too?”
Sergio was not amused. “No. I’m answering a noise complaint.”
“Are we that loud?” Hayley yelled over the music.
“Let me put it this way. The complaint came from two blocks away,” he growled.
Mercifully, AJ’s show ended shortly thereafter and the party broke up, especially since it was a work night, and most of the women knew they would be nursing hangovers at their jobs tomorrow morning.
It was time to go home.
Sergio let his husband off with a warning as long as he promised to keep the volume down until closing. Once the party girls had all dispersed and Sonny had shown up to make sure his bride-to-be got home safely, the only ones left in the bar were Hayley, Mona, Sabrina, and AJ. Randy was in the kitchen cleaning up.
“Come on, AJ, we have to be up in a few hours to haul traps. Let me drop you off so I can get home for some shut-eye,” Mona said.
Sabrina, who was still rather drunk, slurred, “Don’t be such a buzzkill, Mona, the night is young . . .”
“It’s nearly one in the morning . . .” Hayley said, checking her watch. “And there is no way I’m allowing you to drive home tonight. Come on, I’ll take you.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Sabrina said, eyei
ng AJ lasciviously. “AJ’s going to give me a ride.”
All eyes turned to AJ, who smiled shyly.
“But you came with me,” Mona said.
“I can drive her home in her car,” AJ suggested with a wolfish grin.
“And then how will you get home?” Mona asked.
“There’s no reason we need to decide that now, Mona . . .” Sabrina said, stumbling over to AJ and collapsing in his arms. “Besides, he’s welcome to stay over at my place . . . for as long as he wants . . .”
“Good night,” AJ said, half dragging, half carrying Sabrina out of the bar.
Hayley and Mona exchanged a look.
“He better be on time tomorrow or his sorry butt’s fired,” Mona snapped.
“Well, that’s what I call a scandalous turn of events,” Hayley said, shaking her head.
Hayley had to hand it to Sabrina.
She had set a plan in motion from the moment she first laid eyes on the handsome young man at Mona’s lobster shop, and through her tenacity and aggressiveness, she was on the cusp of successfully accomplishing her single-minded mission.
Getting hot stud AJ with the American flag tattoo into her bed.
Chapter 28
After dropping the bride-to-be off at her house, Hayley drove home. The clock on her dashboard read 12:52 A.M. She was tired from the long night and anxious to curl up in her bed for a solid six hours of sleep before she had to be up and ready for work at the Island Times.
As she approached her house, Hayley spotted a car parked in front of her house. At first she didn’t recognize it, but as she swung into her driveway, she realized it was Bruce’s blue Camry. She could see his shadowy figure in the driver’s seat, his face illuminated by the light from his phone as he scrolled through for text messages or headlines on his news apps.
By the time she pulled to a stop and got out of her Kia, Hayley heard him slam his car door shut. She glanced around and saw him shuffling toward her and instantly noticed a strange look on his face, very serious and full of apprehension.
“It’s nearly one in the morning, Bruce. What are you doing here?”
