by Leena Clover
Jason Stone and his baby girl Emily had become the talk of the town. Jason had told Jenny the whole story after he had come out of his initial shock. There wasn’t much to tell. His doorbell had rung early in the morning. He opened the door to find a baby on his doorstep. His baby.
There was a small note tucked in the baby’s blanket. It was from Kandy, a city lawyer who had unceremoniously dumped Jason and disappeared from his life. As it turned out, Kandy had been pregnant. She decided she wanted to have the child on her own. A few months after Emily was born, Kandy had come to a new decision. There was no room for a baby in her life. She had left the baby on Jason’s doorstep, probably believing he would take care of her.
Jason had come out of his daze after a day or two. He was overjoyed. In his late forties, Jason had given up all hope of ever becoming a father. Emily was a gift he cherished with all his heart. His aunt Linda had taken one look at the baby and declared she was 100% Stone. Jason had turned his home office into a nursery.
The old biddies in town wondered how a single man, a confirmed bachelor, could raise a child on his own. But Jenny believed in Jason.
“Of course he can,” she said supportively. “He’s going to be the best father you ever came across.”
“But can he do it alone?” Molly asked. “You know what they say. It takes a village to raise a child.”
“And we have that village here,” Jenny said brightly. “I have signed up for babysitting duty. I can’t wait to wrap that little munchkin in my arms.”
“Jason’s out of town a lot,” Star reminded Jenny. “Who’s going to take care of the baby then?”
“He can hire a full time nanny,” Heather said.
“Or he can reduce his workload,” Jenny said. “I’m sure Jason will figure it out.”
“It’s been a while since I bounced a baby on my knee,” Betty Sue sighed. “I wouldn’t mind looking after that little one sometime.”
“I’m not changing any diapers,” Heather groaned, wrinkling her nose. “But I can play with her.”
“I can read her a story,” Molly joined in.
The group broke up after a while and Jenny started making lunch. Two hours later, she collapsed into a chair in the kitchen, exhausted.
The café had been busy and they had sold out of everything.
“I saved a sandwich for you,” her aunt said, pulling out a plate covered in plastic wrap from the refrigerator. “There’s half a cup of soup left.”
Jenny took a big bite of the sandwich and warmed the soup in the microwave. Something had been niggling at the back of her mind all day. The fog in her mind cleared suddenly and she almost choked on her sandwich. Star patted her on the back as she started coughing.
“What’s the matter, sweetie?”
“How could I forget that?” Jenny chided herself and cleared her throat.
“Why don’t you finish eating first?” her aunt suggested calmly.
Jenny took a couple of minutes to finish chewing her sandwich.
“Ada had an argument with Kelly on the night of the party,” she explained. “I was going to talk to Ada about it but I completely forgot.”
“You can do it now,” Star said.
“Do you want to go with me?” Jenny asked.
Ada Newbury was a snob. She only talked to a small bunch of people in town. Star wasn’t one of them.
“I have no wish to be insulted by that monster,” Star smirked. “You go ahead.”
Heather was busy working at the inn so Jenny set off for the Newbury estate on her own. The security guards waved her through, and the maid who greeted her at the door led her into Ada’s parlor.
Ada’s mouth twisted in a grimace when she saw Jenny.
“Have you considered calling ahead?” she asked haughtily. “I’m afraid I have a golf lesson in fifteen minutes.”
“We need to talk,” Jenny said, ignoring Ada’s thinly veiled rebuke.
“I’ll be back in a couple of hours. You can wait here until then. But it might be better if you came back with an appointment.”
Jenny sat down on a sofa and looked up at Ada.
“Do you want to find out what happened to Kelly?” she asked calmly. “I don’t have to do this, Mrs. Newbury.”
Ada rolled her eyes and sat down opposite Jenny.
“I suppose I can cancel my golf lesson.”
She picked up a phone and dialed someone. She turned her back on Jenny and talked softly into the phone. She hung up a couple of minutes later.
“I postponed my appointment,” she explained. “I’m lucky my coach agreed to move some things around.”
Jenny got to the point.
“People saw you arguing with Kelly on the night of the party. Can you tell me what that was about?”
“Just wedding stuff,” Ada said.
“Can you be more specific?”
“Brandon doesn’t know about this,” Ada said softly, looking over her shoulder.
“I’ll try to keep this to myself.”
“That girl wasn’t right,” Ada complained, back in form. “I was giving her the wedding of a lifetime. A poor orphan like her, getting married at the country club? Any other girl would have been grateful.”
“What did Kelly do?”
“She didn’t want the club wedding. She was happy with a civil ceremony. She wanted me to take the money I would spend on the country club wedding and give it to her.”
“But why?” Jenny asked, perplexed.
“She said she needed it for a down payment on a house, the house she and Brandon would live in after they got married.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Jenny shrugged.
“Brandon already has a place of his own,” Ada dismissed. “There was no need to go buy another house.”
“Didn’t Kelly know that?”
“Of course she did,” Ada cried. “I think she just wanted my money. She would have taken the money and run.”
Jenny wondered if Kelly had been that calculating.
“Leaving Brandon at the altar?” Jenny asked.
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” Ada said strongly.
“I need to find out more about this argument,” Jenny told Ada. “I’m going to talk to a few more people.”
“Do that,” Ada said curtly. “And call before coming next time.”
Jenny wandered through the house, hoping to run into some of the staff that had been working the night of the party. She gravitated toward the kitchen. The cook greeted her like an old friend.
“Got more questions for me?” she asked.
“It’s about the fight Ada had with Kelly. I want to find out more about it.”
The cook picked up a wall mounted phone and pressed a button. She asked the person at the other end to come into the kitchen. Jenny guessed it was an internal line.
Jenny recognized the maid who walked into the kitchen a few minutes later.
“This is about the night of the party,” Jenny began. “You saw Mrs. Newbury arguing with Kelly, right?”
“Those two were ready to gauge each other’s eyes out,” the girl said with a grin.
“Do you know what happened?”
“It was about money,” the girl said, climbing up on a tall stool next to the big kitchen island. She picked up a carrot from a pile and started peeling it. “I think the boss wanted her to go away and leave Mr. Brandon alone.”
Jenny could imagine Ada doing that.
“Are you sure about that?”
The girl became defensive.
“Kelly was saying she didn’t care about the money. She just wanted to make Brandon happy.”
“What else?”
The girl’s voice dropped as she leaned toward Jenny.
“The boss got all red in the face. Told Kelly she better listen to her or else. Then she pushed Kelly.”
“I can’t imagine Ada doing that,” Jenny said skeptically.
“Talk to the others,” the girl said. “They will tell you the sa
me thing.”
Jenny spent the next hour talking to other members of Ada’s domestic staff. All of them had watched the altercation between the two women. Each of them had their own theory about what the fight was about. They all seemed to agree on two things. Money had been mentioned. And Ada Newbury had pushed Kelly.
Jenny felt confused on the drive back home. She knew Ada was a snob and loved talking down to people she didn’t consider her equals. Jenny could well imagine Ada looking down her nose at Kelly, calling her names. She could even imagine Ada offering the girl a bunch of money to leave Brandon alone. But was Ada Newbury capable of physically assaulting someone?
Chapter 11
Jenny had a surprise waiting for her when she got home. Her son Nick sat dozing on the sofa, his feet up on the coffee table.
“Nicky!” Jenny cried joyfully. “When did you get here?”
She had no idea he had been planning a visit home.
Nick sat up and rubbed his eyes. His youthful face broke into a smile. He leapt up and wrapped Jenny in a tight hug.
“I missed you, Mom,” he said. “I just wanted to spend some time with you. Is that okay?”
“Of course it’s okay,” Jenny said, planting a kiss on his cheek. “You don’t need permission to come home.”
“You sure I’m not upsetting any weekend plans?” Nick asked with a grin.
“Don’t be silly,” Jenny dismissed.
Nick was a junior in college. He wanted to be a lawyer like his father.
“Why didn’t you warn me you were coming?” Jenny asked as she walked into the kitchen. “I would have stocked up on your favorite stuff.”
“I’m not here for the food, Mom,” Nick grinned. “I mean, not just for the food,” he said with a wink. “Whatever you cook is going to be great.”
Jenny inspected the refrigerator, noting its meager contents.
“How about meatloaf for dinner?” she asked. “We will get fresh fish at the market tomorrow.”
Star arrived and exclaimed over Nick.
Dinner was a lively meal, with Nick regaling them with anecdotes of his campus life.
Jenny and Nick sat out on the patio later, sipping coffee. The salty air was a bit chilly, but pleasant enough to sit outside. A large stone water fountain gurgled a few feet away and a gibbous moon rose in the sky.
“How’s Adam?” Nick asked his mother. “Is he behaving himself?”
Jenny punched her son in the arm.
“Don’t get fresh.”
“Seriously, Mom,” Nick said. “Is he treating you well? I know he tends to fly off the handle sometimes.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Jenny assured him. “Adam’s changed a bit. For the better.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Nick nodded, sounding decades older than twenty. “When are you getting married?”
Jenny blushed.
“We haven’t set a date yet. What’s the rush?”
“You know you have my blessing?” Nick asked her. “I’m with you whatever you decide to do. You can dump the guy or marry him tomorrow. It’s your call.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jenny said lightly. “Now let’s talk about your grades.”
Nick groaned and launched into a lengthy explanation of why he had dropped one class and was barely scraping through in another.
Jenny woke before the sun rose the next morning. She had a big smile on her face as she got ready to go to the café. Having her son home really made her happy. She drove to the café as the sky lightened and an orange glow crept over the horizon.
Adam surprised her by coming to the café for breakfast. Jenny stood by his table as he tucked into his crab omelet.
“Have you found anything new?” she asked, topping up his coffee.
“I have,” Adam nodded. “We got back Paula’s phone records.”
Jenny waited for Adam to go on. He ignored her and got back to eating his omelet.
“What do the records say?” Jenny asked, refusing to back down.
“They belong to someone called Paula Briggs, okay?” Adam said, sounding exasperated. “And the phone was in the vicinity of Kelly’s phone.”
“So whoever Paula is, she wasn’t far away,” Jenny summed up.
She thought over the different people she had met at Ada’s, focusing on girls she had seen Kelly talking to. She immediately thought of Megan. Could Kelly have been talking to Megan?
Jenny didn’t voice her suspicions to Adam. She was sure he would forbid her to do anything. She planned her next move and sat down to have a cup of coffee with Adam.
“Does Jason really have a kid?” Adam asked.
“He sure does. You have to meet Emily. She’s the cutest baby you ever saw. We should all have dinner sometime.”
Adam muttered something under his breath.
“Kind of weird, huh?” he said, looking dazed. “At his age.”
“What’s wrong with his age?” Jenny demanded. “Jason’s going to make a great dad.”
Adam finally left. Jenny rushed to the phone and called Heather.
“Can you come over?” she asked.
The two girls headed to Megan’s. Jenny purposely didn’t call ahead. She didn’t want to give Megan any time to prepare herself.
Megan seemed a bit tired. She didn’t look too happy to see them.
“You were around Kelly a lot, weren’t you?” Jenny asked directly.
“We were both at the same party,” Megan said. “Just like you.”
“Were the two of you up to something?”
“We were planning to go shopping in the city,” Megan said, looking bewildered. “Didn’t we talk about this before?”
“What I mean is, were you hiding something from Brandon?”
“Why would I do that?” Megan asked wearily. “Brandon is my friend, not Kelly.”
Heather tried to help Jenny.
“What she means is … maybe Kelly wanted to surprise Brandon or something. She could have asked for your help. You see what we are getting at?”
Megan shook her head.
“Kelly and I didn’t talk about Brandon at all. We just discussed some girl stuff. Fashion, work stuff, life in the city …”
“So you two hit it off?” Jenny murmured.
Megan shrugged.
“I guess you could say that. I thought I made a new friend. It gets pretty lonely in the city, you know, living on your own. It’s hard to find someone who understands what you are going through.” Megan’s voice sounded hoarse with emotion. “Doesn’t matter now. Kelly’s gone.”
Jenny and Heather took their leave. Megan made it clear she was happy to see them go.
“What do you think?” Heather asked as soon as they got into the car. “Was she lying?”
Jenny said nothing for a while.
“Could Megan and Kelly have been plotting something together?”
“Like what?” Heather asked, raising her eyebrows. “I don’t believe Megan would ever do anything against Brandon.”
“Don’t forget she was a woman scorned,” Jenny reminded her. “We don’t know what happened between them. Maybe they had a really bad breakup.”
“You haven’t seen Megan mooning around Brandon like I have,” Heather argued. “She’s had her eye on him for years. It’s easier to believe she was working on getting him back.”
“So you don’t think she was really friendly with Kelly?”
“Would you be?” Heather asked. “Brandon is the love of her life. Why would she want to go shopping with the woman who’s taken her place?”
Jenny was quiet while she processed what Heather said.
“Maybe I’m looking at it all wrong,” she said. “What if Megan was hounding Kelly? Forcing her to do something for her?”
“We’ll never know that now,” Heather pointed out.
“The whole idea is farfetched anyway,” Jenny sighed. “We need to talk to Brandon.”
“Let’s go see him now,” Heather said
. “Star can take care of the café.”
“She’s been helping me a lot lately,” Jenny said. “She barely has time to paint. I feel bad, imposing on her so much.”
“She’s doing it because she loves you,” Heather said.
Jenny reflected over her good fortune. When her husband left her for another woman, she had been alone and forlorn. Coming to Pelican Cove had been the best decision of her life. She had reconnected with her aunt and met the Magnolias. The group of women provided a strong support system for Jenny and she felt touched by their unconditional love.
Jenny called the café on her cell phone and spoke to her aunt. She drove to the Newbury estate, hoping Brandon would be in a better mood.
Both girls heaved a sigh of relief when they learned Ada Newbury was out. The maid led them out to the beach. Brandon was out for a run. They could see him in the distance.
“Looks like he’s getting back to normal,” Heather said.
Brandon spotted them and waved. They waited until he jogged up to them. Brandon picked up a towel from a chair and wiped the sweat off his face and hands.
“Nice day for a run,” he said, picking up a glass of juice and draining it in a gulp.
The maid came back with a tray loaded with refreshments. Brandon played the gracious host and insisted they taste the assortment of cookies before them. Jenny sipped the freshly squeezed lemonade and felt energized.
“What brings you here, ladies?” Brandon asked.
“More questions,” Jenny said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“You can ask me anything you want.” Brandon was solicitous. “I hope you will find out what happened to Kelly. It won’t bring her back but at least it will give me some closure.”
“It’s about Megan and Kelly,” Jenny explained. “Did you find it odd that they got along so well together?”
Brandon looked surprised.
“Why would I?” he asked. “Kelly knew Megan before she met me.”
“What?” Heather and Jenny cried out together.
“I met Kelly at a party thrown by Megan,” Brandon said. “We hit it off right away. Megan had already dumped me at that time, so I was free to see whoever I wanted. We went on our first date the next day, Kelly and I.”
“Did you ever ask Megan how she knew Kelly?”
