44 Cranberry Point

by Debbie Macomber

  The church was nearly full. Charlotte’s dearest friends crowded the front pews, wearing red hats and purple boas. Olivia and her family took up two pews. So many people had wanted to share in the couple’s happiness. Unfortunately, neither of Ben’s sons had been able to come; both he and Charlotte must have been disappointed.

  Despite the jubilant mood, Maryellen felt a sense of hopelessness and inner turmoil. The church seemed to get hot and stuffy and the room began to sway. Maryellen sat down, taking several deep breaths, fearing she was about to faint.

  “Maryellen?” Grace sat down beside her.

  She offered her mother a feeble smile. “I’m pregnant.”

  Her mother smiled from ear to ear and squeezed her hand.

  “Jon doesn’t know.”

  “I think it’s time for you to tell him, don’t you?”

  Maryellen couldn’t answer.

  The music started then, and Pastor Flemming came to the front of the church. Charlotte and Ben joined him and gazed up at each other with such adoration that Maryellen had to blink back tears.

  She heard footsteps behind her and hope leapt into her heart. She turned around, thinking, hoping, desperately wanting the late arrival to be Jon. Instead, Cliff Harding slipped into the pew beside her mother. She watched as they looked tenderly at each other and then Cliff tucked her mother’s arm in the crook of his elbow and smiled over at Maryellen and Katie.

  Somehow Maryellen made it through the rest of the day. The reception at The Lighthouse was elegant, with vintage wines and the best champagne-neither of which she touched-and a selection of delicious hors d’oeuvres. Several people asked about Jon, and Maryellen invented a convenient excuse. He was busy with a photographic commission and couldn’t come; he sent his best wishes. He had, in fact, given the newlyweds a framed photograph of the lighthouse, one that Charlotte had long admired.

  Knowing her mother wanted to spend time with Cliff, Maryellen drove back to the house on Rosewood Lane. Katie was cranky and hungry by then, so Maryellen hurriedly heated her dinner. She was giving Katie a bath when she felt the first painful spasm. The sharpness of it caught her unawares and she nearly doubled over.

  Kneeling on the floor in front of the bathtub, she watched as her daughter splashed joyfully, unconscious of the turmoil in Maryellen. No, please God, not the baby. Nothing else happened and she breathed easier.

  After a few minutes, Maryellen lifted Katie from the tub. The pain shot through her and she gasped as the blood rushed between her legs. Holding Katie against her, Maryellen sank to the floor.

  The front door opened a moment later and Maryellen sagged with relief. “Mom…help…oh, Mom.”

  Grace was in the bathroom in an instant; Cliff was with her. Her mother’s eyes were wide with alarm.

  Maryellen was weeping by then. Katie was screaming.

  “I’ve lost the baby…I’ve lost the baby,” she wailed in grief and pain, sobbing openly now.

  After that, everything happened so quickly, Maryellen had trouble making sense of it. The next thing she knew, she was at the hospital in Bremerton and a doctor was telling her she’d suffered a miscarriage. As if she hadn’t figured that out for herself. Maryellen barely heard a word he said, crying as hard as she was. He asked about her husband, but she shook her head. Jon didn’t even know she was pregnant.

  It was decided she should spend the night in the hospital and after the D&C, she was wheeled into a private room. A lone figure stood in the shadows. Jon. Apparently her mother had called him. Or perhaps Cliff had; it didn’t matter. He was with her.

  Maryellen looked at him and fresh tears coursed down her cheeks. She turned her head away.

  “Maryellen,” he whispered, moving to the bedside. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She had no answer for him.

  “I am so sorry.” Each word was carefully enunciated.

  Deeply depressed, Maryellen could only shake her head. She was sorry, too. Sorry about everything.

  Jon sat down beside her and after a moment, reached for her hand and kissed it. She realized then that his eyes were bright with tears.

  She started to sob again and stretched out her arms. Jon wrapped her in his embrace and together, with their arms securely around each other, they wept.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Roy McAfee always checked his answering machine when he arrived at the office. There’d been a number of hang-ups recently. In light of the mysterious postcard he’d received a few weeks back, these hang-ups troubled him. He expected a few occasionally-any business got its share of wrong numbers-but his office had received more disconnected calls than usual in the last six weeks.

  Corrie was making coffee after collecting the day’s mail on her way into the office. Sitting down, Roy opened the drawer on the left-hand side of his desk and pulled out the cryptic postcard. He still didn’t know what to make of it.

  He heard Corrie moving around the outer office and realized she was about to deliver his coffee and the mail. Not wanting her to fuss over the postcard, he slipped it back inside his desk drawer.

  Sure enough, Corrie entered his office, handing him a fresh mug of coffee. “There wasn’t much mail this morning,” she said as she placed a stack on the corner of his desk.

  Usually she was the one who stopped at the post office. It was pure coincidence that Roy had collected the mail the day that postcard arrived.

  Corrie remained standing on the other side of his desk; she seemed to be waiting for something.

  Roy anticipated a comment that didn’t come. “Anything else?” he asked.

  “Look it over,” she said, gesturing to the few pieces of mail.

  Roy reached for them and leaned back in his chair while he shuffled through the usual flyers, bills and-he hesitated when he caught sight of the postcard. He stared at the picture of the Space Needle.

  “Read it,” Corrie said.

  Roy turned it over. The message was in the same block lettering as the first one. Only this time it read: THE PAST HAS A WAY OF CATCHING UP WITH THE PRESENT.

  “What does it mean?”

  Roy stared at the card, as perplexed by this message as he was by the first. “I haven’t got a clue.”

  “There’s no signature.”

  Roy set the card down on his desk. “People who send these kinds of messages generally don’t sign their names.”

  Corrie walked over to the far side of the room and looked out the window. “This isn’t the first one, is it?”

  At times Roy swore Corrie should be the private investigator. She had real instincts about people, and a reliable sense of what was true and what wasn’t.

  “Is it?” she demanded, turning to face him.

  Roy reluctantly shook his head. Slowly opening the drawer, he brought out the other postcard.

  Corrie walked quickly to his desk and picked it up.

  He watched her read the short, cryptic message and saw that she was as mystified as he was.

  “When did this arrive?”

  He couldn’t recall exactly. “A few weeks ago.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” she cried, throwing down the postcard. “I’m your wife. I have a right to know.”

  Roy shrugged halfheartedly. “What was the point? Why should you worry because someone’s getting their kicks mailing me silly postcards?”

  “You’re being threatened and you don’t feel it’s important to let me know?” She raised her voice. “I’m not only your wife, I’m your business partner!”

  “Now, Corrie…”

  “Don’t talk to me as if I’m a child.”

  “Then stop overreacting. It’s just a postcard and if you read it again you’ll see it isn’t threatening.”

  Corrie picked up the card they’d received that day and read it aloud. “The past has a way of catching up with the present.” She leveled her gaze on Roy. “That sounds ominous to me.”

  Roy shook his head. “Not necessarily.”

  “I hop
e you’re taking this seriously.” Restless now, Corrie started to pace.

  Roy didn’t want to upset her any more than she already was-but, in fact, he hadn’t taken the threat seriously. Not really. Until this morning. One postcard he could dismiss, but two? The earlier message had been something vague about regrets. Sure he had regrets. Every police officer did. It came with the territory.

  “Think!” Corrie insisted. “This must have to do with one of your old cases. So you should review your old cases and narrow it down to someone capable of…this.”

  Roy shook his head again. “I was on the force for more than twenty years and handled thousands of cases. Do I have regrets about any of them? Damn straight I do, but I always did what I believed to be right.”

  Corrie refused to let it go. “Could it be someone who was released from prison recently?”

  “I don’t have a clue.” Over time he’d helped put quite a few men behind bars. A whole lot of suspects weren’t particularly grateful for his detection skills.

  “What about threats? Did anyone threaten you while you were on the force?”

  There’d been some; convicted felons often looked for someone else to blame for their bad luck. He was a convenient target, but no one case stood out in his mind.

  “Forget it,” Roy urged, snatching up a pen, pretending to get to work.

  “I can’t,” Corrie murmured, but she returned to the outer office.

  Roy could tell how shaken she was. He wanted to reassure her but didn’t know how. He’d wasted time mulling over the first postcard and hadn’t come up with anything. If some nutcase wanted to mail him a message on the back of a postcard every few weeks, what could he do about it? Apparently, whoever was doing this derived a bizarre sense of satisfaction from it. In Roy’s opinion, his mystery correspondent didn’t seem intent on causing him harm.

  After a few minutes, he went to check on Corrie, using the excuse of refreshing his coffee. He found her kneeling in front of the filing cabinet, sorting through old police files. He’d always kept a personal notebook about every major case he’d worked, as well as newspaper articles and other information. Corrie, an inveterate organizer, had made files for each year. She had two or three on the floor beside her.

  “What are you doing?” he asked as he poured coffee into his mug.

  “Checking out our old Cedar Cove cases, plus some of your notes from the Seattle PD.”

  Roy sipped his coffee and turned to take a look at one of the names. “Parker,” he read slowly.

  “Harry Parker,” Corrie reminded him. “Three years ago. He befriended a neighbor, and was supposedly helping the old man with yardwork and such.”

  It sounded familiar.

  “The old man’s daughter, who lived back east, said she suspected Harry of stealing her father blind and asked us to look into it. The woman had good instincts.”

  “I remember.” Roy said. Harry was currently serving time at the men’s prison in Shelton for forging checks and theft.

  “As I recall, Harry swore you tricked him into a confession.”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with his statement to the sheriff,” Roy countered.

  “Nevertheless, Harry blamed you.”

  Roy doubted it was Harry who’d mailed him those two postcards. He suspected this went back to his days in the Seattle Police Department.

  “It’s none of our Cedar Cove cases,” he said.

  “What makes you so sure?” his wife demanded.

  “I just am. Whoever this is, whatever it’s about, it goes way back.” The tone of this latest card said as much. Something from his past was about to hit him square between the eyes.

  They spent the morning looking through old files and journals, some cases going as far back as twenty years. He ended up with a short list of people to check out, but didn’t feel hopeful. This afternoon he planned to make a few phone calls.

  Corrie went out to lunch with Peggy Beldon and came back in lighter spirits. While they were at the mall they’d run into a sale of some sort. Roy had stopped counting all the money she’d supposedly saved them by shopping at sales. Interestingly, she found it logical to spend money in order to save it.

  “Peggy said something interesting at lunch,” Corrie said as she stepped into Roy’s office. “Bob thought someone was following him again a little while ago.”

  This was news to Roy. “He never mentioned it to me.”

  “That’s because after a few blocks, the car went past him. Bob turned around and followed the other car for a short distance, but in retrospect he doesn’t think he was being followed, after all.”

  “I guess that’s why he didn’t tell me about it.”

  “Do you remember the night Bob phoned you in a panic because he was convinced he was being followed?” Corrie asked casually.

  “Sure. He drove over to the sheriff’s office.”

  “While we were at lunch, I realized something else. Something I’d completely forgotten until Peggy mentioned it.”

  “What’s that?”

  Corrie leaned against the doorjamb. “Bob’s car was in the repair shop that week.”

  “That’s right,” Roy whispered slowly. He was beginning to connect the dots.

  “In other words, Bob was driving our car that night and not his own.”

  Roy nodded. That possibility had never occurred to him and he suddenly felt a little foolish. Once again, Corrie had proved herself a natural detective. “In other words, whoever was following Bob might’ve been looking for me.”

  “Do you still think those postcards don’t mean anything?” Corrie whispered.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Grace was meeting Olivia for lunch midweek. So much had happened in both their lives and Grace wanted-no, needed-time with her friend. She was dying to talk about Cliff and the way he’d come to sit with her during Charlotte and Ben’s wedding. The ceremony lingered in her mind; she’d been moved by its simple beauty and by the love Charlotte and Ben so obviously shared. Tears had blurred Grace’s eyes, but she wasn’t the only one who’d reacted emotionally. When she’d been able to look up, she saw that several other people were wiping tears from their cheeks. Even Cliff seemed touched by the vows Charlotte and Ben had written, vows that acknowledged love for their dead spouses and love for each other. Currently the newlyweds were off to Victoria, British Columbia, for a short honeymoon.

  Naturally Will had been there for both the ceremony and the reception, as had Stan. Grace had avoided them as much as possible, but she was more concerned about Will. However, Cliff seemed to understand how difficult the reception would be for her, and had remained close to her side. Several times Grace had noticed Will heading in her direction, but he stopped when he saw that Cliff was nearby. Grace assumed he’d return to his wife after this, which was just as well.

  Grace valued Cliff’s protectiveness at the wedding and, even more, the way he’d helped her with Maryellen. His calm presence had kept her focused as they comforted Maryellen and waited for the Aid Car. Afterward he stayed with Katie until Grace could come home.

  Maryellen had been released from the hospital the next day. Jon had insisted on taking her and Katie home. Grace sensed that things weren’t right between them. Now wasn’t the time to pry, though, not when they were grieving over their loss. Still, Grace had every intention of finding out what had gone wrong in her daughter’s marriage.

  The miscarriage had devastated both Maryellen and Jon, but they were young and there’d be other children. Yet she knew it was difficult to think rationally after such a painful loss, and in her own way Grace grieved for her grandchild.

  Grace was looking forward to her visit with Olivia, who’d just had a new grandchild-her third. When Olivia phoned that morning to confirm lunch, she’d jubilantly announced that James and Selina had a baby boy, born early on September eighth. Mother and son were doing fine, and James was one proud papa. They’d named the baby Adam Jordan. Three-year-old Isabella was said to be excited
about becoming an older sister.

  Grace had good news of her own, most of which had to do with Cliff, of course.

  Before he left her on Saturday night, he’d made a point of letting her know he’d be in town on Wednesday and would come to the library. She was pleased and so relieved that they were resuming their relationship and that he was willing to give her another chance.

  Just after noon, when Loretta returned from lunch, Grace retrieved her purse and small lunch bag. She decided to wait for Olivia by the totem pole outside the library. They each had a limited lunch break, and Grace didn’t want Olivia to waste time looking for her in the library.

  They’d already planned to bring their own lunches and eat in the waterfront park. With the refinancing of the house, Grace’s tight budget was even tighter. In an indirect way, repaying Dan’s loan had been a financial help, however; Grace had gotten a much lower rate of interest and arranged to pay off the house in half the time that’d been left on the original mortgage. She had to keep a close watch on her spending, but she’d manage. The fact was, she’d done a fairly good job of it ever since Dan’s disappearance.

  Grace loved Cedar Cove’s waterfront. She looked out over the marina and across the cove to the Bremerton shipyard. She could see the massive aircraft carrier George Washington in the distance and remembered the joy of the wives and families when it finally returned from the Persian Gulf.

  “Grace.” A man’s voice interrupted her musings.

  A sense of dread struck her and she turned slowly to discover Will Jefferson. She’d assumed he’d left town by now, assumed she wouldn’t see him again, assumed everything had already been said.

  “I had to see you one last time before I went home.” His eyes pleaded with her.

  Grace peered down the hill, hoping to see Olivia. No such luck. She was trapped with Will, and although this was usually a crowded area, there was no one nearby right now.

  “I can’t believe you no longer care about me,” he said in a voice that throbbed with sincerity.