Happy Hour

by Anina Collins

  My voice rose with each word as tears threatened to make me look like the emotional mess I truly was inside. Alex stared at me with hurt in his eyes, but all I saw was him letting me down at the moment I needed to be on this case the most.

  He hung his head and quietly said, “I’m sorry, Poppy. I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”

  “Just go. Go do what you have to do,” I said as the first tears began to fall from my eyes.

  As the door closed behind Alex, I broke down and cried over all that had happened that day. Everything I tried had failed and my father was in worse shape than ever in this case. Now Alex and I had fought over this, and I was standing alone in my living room sobbing.

  Every ounce of my being wanted to storm out to find Jared and demand to know why he would lie like this, but what if that just made things worse for my father?

  Chapter Sixteen

  I knocked on the door, hoping he’d be awake and want to talk. After the day I’d had, I needed some of his wisdom, but even more, I needed the strength to go on even as it looked like I had nowhere to turn with this case.

  The door opened slowly, and my father stood looking out at me with concern in his eyes. It had been a long time since I showed up to talk like this.

  “Poppy, what’s wrong?”

  Forcing a smile, I asked, “Why do you think something has to be wrong for me to stop by and see how you’re doing?”

  Of all the people in this world, my father knew best when the words coming out of my mouth were lies. He drew in his eyebrows and gave me a disapproving look for my poor attempt at fooling him.

  “I can see it in your expression. You’re a typical Irishwoman, Elizabeth. You’ve never had an emotion that didn’t cross your face. So again I’ll ask, what’s wrong?”

  Just then as I stood on his porch wishing he’d let me in, I realized he probably thought my bad news meant he would be arrested at any moment. Horrified at my selfishness, I quickly said, “Oh, Dad. It’s nothing about the case. I’m sorry if I made you think that.”

  He simply nodded and stood back so I could walk into his house. “I know. That look in your eyes wasn’t worry about me. I know what that looks like. Whatever’s going on is making you sad, not worried. So what’s up?”

  I collapsed into his dark green recliner and struggled to hold back the tears that wanted to take over again. “It’s nothing. Just a long, bad day. I’m sure you know better than anyone else what I’m talking about.”

  My father sat down on that old brown couch of his that sagged in the middle and reminded me of a chocolate cloud. “I found out they didn’t find any evidence of antifreeze here, at least. That’s good news.”

  Sitting up in my seat, I perked up for a moment. “That is good news. Who told you that? Derek?”

  A look of confusion settled into my father’s face. “No, Alex. Why would Derek be the one to tell me that when it’s Alex’s case?”

  Not wanting my father to see my sadness came from something that had to do with Alex, I looked down at my hands as I folded them in my lap. “No reason. I just thought maybe you saw Derek sometime today. You know, maybe when you went out to get something to eat at the store or something like that.”

  He greeted my comment with silence, but I knew if I looked at him he’d see his mention of Alex had upset me, so I continued to focus on my hands, studying my fingernails and wishing I could be the type of woman who had those long talons that made fingers like mine actually look graceful. Women like that always looked so poised and in control.

  “Do you plan on staring at your hands the whole time you’re here, Poppy, or do you want to tell me what’s wrong?” he said in that authoritative voice I heard a lot of as a teenager.

  I didn’t exactly meet his gaze, but I did stop my examination of my hands and looked around the room as I answered, “Nothing’s really wrong, Dad. I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him smile. Leaning back on that chocolate cloud couch, he folded his arms across his chest and said, “I remember that time you snuck out of the house and I later found out you did it to take clothes to Derek. I was furious when I found out you’d climbed out your window and shimmied down the side of the house, but your mother stopped me from going after you because she said she was sure you had your reasons for doing that. She always tried to think the best of people, you know?”

  Finally, I looked over at him and smiled. “Yeah, she did. I wish I was more like her. I don’t know how she did it. I really don’t.”

  “I think she trusted the people she loved. That’s all it was. Trust. She knew the people she cared about were good people she could believe in, so when they did something out of character or something that went against what she thought should be done, I guess she instinctively knew they had good reasons for their actions.”

  “Do you know why I snuck out to help Derek that night?” I asked, curious to know if he’d gotten the whole story after all this time.

  “Your mother said she heard you on the phone and Derek was in trouble.”

  “Do you know what kind of trouble?”

  My father shook his head. “I can only imagine, but she told me to trust you, so I did. I was still angry as a hornet that you had done that, but I trusted you.”

  With a chuckle, I said, “He needed a set of clothes because some girl had left him naked in the woods.”

  At the word naked, my father’s eyes opened wide in surprise. Or maybe it was horror as the thought of teenage me seeing Derek Hampton buck naked settled into his mind.

  “I’m glad I didn’t know. In fact, I think I don’t want to know any more of this story,” he said, waving his hands in front of him as if to erase the entire thing from his mind.

  “Dad, nothing happened. I got his clothes from his room and gave them to him. He was hiding behind a tree the whole time.”

  Horror turned to curiosity, and my father tilted his head like he was trying to figure out how it had all happened. “How did you get his clothes from his room? Where were Derek’s parents?

  Proudly, I admitted my abilities in that night’s caper. “They were home, but remember how they both loved to watch game shows all the time after work? An entire battalion could march through that house without them ever knowing a thing. The back door was unlocked, so I just crept inside and up to Derek’s room, grabbed jeans and a shirt, and got out of there without either of them knowing I’d ever been there.”

  “I do remember their game show addiction they had for a while. I always thought that was weird, to be honest.”

  “Well, thank God for it because I don’t think Derek wanted them to know he’d been cuckolded out in the woods near the Hotel Piermont.”

  My father didn’t continue the conversation, likely because the image of a naked Derek and adolescent teenage me out in the dark hadn’t completely left his mind yet. I may have been in my thirties and obviously a sexually active woman, but my father’s open mindedness had its limits.

  But then he asked a question that nearly floored me.

  “Why didn’t you and Derek ever date? You clearly care about him, and he’s carried a torch for you since grade school. So why not?”

  For a moment, my mouth hung open. My father’s sudden interest in my love life surprised me, and it took me a few seconds to recover from the shock of his questions.

  “Dad, Derek and I could never be more than just friends. Trust me. We’re definitely not two people who should be dating one another.”

  He smiled and shook his head. “I was just curious. You’ve been close for years, and until Alex came along, I had wondered if you’d given up on men entirely after…”

  His sentence trailed off, but the unspoken words hung in the air between us. What happened with Jared. After what happened with Jared, he thought I’d given up on men entirely.

  I walked toward the kitchen, needing to put some space between me and that idea. “Nice to know my own father had begun to think I wa
s hopeless like the gossips in town had. Wasn’t there a soul in Sunset Ridge who still thought I might not end up alone surrounded by shelves full of creepy dolls?” I mumbled as I opened the refrigerator to search for something to drink.

  “I’m not sure I thought you were as lost as the gossip crew, Poppy. I do know one person who hadn’t given up on you, though.”

  His comment intrigued me, so I closed the door without getting anything to drink and peeked my head around the corner into the living room. “Oh yeah? Who’s that?”

  “Derek.”

  What was with my father’s preoccupation with the Sunset Ridge police chief tonight?

  “Dad, what’s going on? That’s like the third time you’ve brought up Derek since I got here. In fact, it seems like he’s all we’ve talked about tonight.”

  Raising his hands in front of him as if in surrender, my father smiled. “Nothing’s going on, honey. You do seem very touchy about the subject of him, though.”

  “Of all the men in my world, Derek is the one I’m least touchy about, Dad. Trust me. Derek Hampton is a non-issue. You, Alex, and that awful ex of mine are an entirely different story.”

  My father stared at me intently, studying me as I stood leaning against the wall. “So do you plan on telling me what happened with Alex, or should we just argue about Derek for a little while longer?”

  His ability to get right to the heart of what was bothering me didn’t make me want to confess what had happened between us. If anything, it made me remember how sad watching Alex leave my house had made me feel.

  Once again avoiding his gaze, I looked toward the window that overlooked his backyard and said, “Nothing happened, really. We just disagreed about something. Not a big deal.”

  “Not a big deal, huh? Is that why you were practically in tears standing on my doorstep a few minutes ago?”

  I snapped my head around to look at him, unhappy with his characterization of me. “I wasn’t in tears. Why are you being like this with me tonight? I came over because I wanted to see if you were okay after all that went on today, and you’re interrogating me like I did something wrong.”

  My father winced at my mention of interrogating anyone. Damnit, what was my problem? How could I be that insensitive with yet another person I cared about?

  Crossing the room, I sat down across from him and reached out to take his hands in mine. His blue eyes looked at me with that fatherly gentleness that never failed to make me feel special, even after I’d been so thoughtless.

  “I’m sorry, Dad. I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean to bring up what happened this morning.”

  He squeezed my fingers with his rough hands and smiled. “I’m not going to fall apart just because I got hauled into the police station for some questioning, Elizabeth. I told you before. I’m tougher than you think.”

  I knew that. How much I wished I could be as tough as my father.

  “What’s your secret, Dad?” I asked, looking into those eyes for the strength I needed tonight. “How do you stay so calm? All day I’ve felt like I’m spinning out of control after seeing you in that interrogation room.”

  “There’s no secret, honey. I just know I’m innocent, so it wouldn’t matter if Alex had to bring me in for questioning every day for a month. The answers would still be the same because I had nothing to do with what happened to those men.”

  My shoulders sagged as Alex’s last words replayed in my mind, and I leaned back against the chair. “I’ve been thrown off the case, Dad. I hate this. I feel helpless to do anything when you need me most.”

  The announcement didn’t seem to surprise him. “I figured it would be just a matter of time before Derek put his foot down. You know, he doesn’t really have a choice, Poppy, since I’m the main suspect.”

  So that’s what all the talk about Derek was about. Now it all made sense. But my father had it all wrong. I wouldn’t be so upset if he had been the one to tell me I couldn’t be a part of this investigation anymore.

  “He wasn’t the one who threw me off the case,” I admitted sadly.

  That surprised him. “Really?” he asked. “Alex had to make that tough decision? I imagine you gave him hell for it too.”

  Hanging my head, I said, “I wish. He wouldn’t fight with me, as much as I wanted him to.”

  “Thank God for that. You know, Alex isn’t the villain here, Poppy. He doesn’t deserve your anger.”

  I didn’t want to hear a defense of Alex at that moment. I knew he didn’t want to take me off the case, but that didn’t change how angry I felt about being shut out of the most important investigation we’d ever had together.

  “Dad, I know. I don’t need you to tell me he’s not a bad guy. I know that.”

  “And you’re still mad at him for taking you off the case?” my father asked in that disapproving tone he usually reserved for when drunks started problems at the bar.

  Frustrated that I seemed to be on the brink of fighting with yet another person in my life today, I tried to keep calm but my efforts failed miserably. “I don’t want to talk about Alex or this case anymore. Maybe I should leave.”

  I stood to go, but my father grabbed my wrist to stop me. “What’s going on here, Poppy? Why are you acting like this? This isn’t like you.”

  Spinning around, I pulled my hand away and let everything that had been pressing down on me that day finally come out. “What isn’t like me? Having feelings and being hurt when someone stomps all over them? Needing to know I can’t be discarded like some useless piece of garbage at any time?”

  “Do you mean Alex?” my father asked as I continued to let it all out.

  “I’m obviously not really his partner when it comes to solving crimes. I’m just some amateur who tags along with him but doesn’t have the right to be involved when things become serious. So he just pushed me aside like I was nothing and didn’t deserve respect. Like I didn’t have feelings he needed to worry about.”

  With each word, my voice grew louder and shriller as my emotions unraveled right there in my father’s living room. I’d held in my feelings about Jared returning to town since I saw him at The Grounds and then again when I heard he’d accused my father of being the killer. I’d pretended to be okay after all these years, but I wasn’t.

  Jared’s return to town brought back all those days I’d spent wondering if I hadn’t been good enough to marry and all those nights I’d cried myself to sleep wishing I knew why he’d chosen Cicely over me. And now Alex just cutting me out of the investigation after rotten Stephen had treated me like some unwanted outsider made me feel the same way I’d felt back then.

  “Poppy, Alex didn’t discard you. He needs to do his job. You know that as well as anyone.”

  “Yes, he did!” I cried, wishing at least my father could understand how what he’d done made me feel. “He just discarded me. If I was really his partner, he wouldn’t have been able to do that. I’m just someone he tolerates until it’s not useful to him anymore.”

  My father stared up at me in shock. “You are not being discarded, Elizabeth. Stop saying that.”

  I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore, and as they began to roll down over my cheeks, I shook my head. “Then why was it so easy for him to just leave me standing there in my living room? Why didn’t he even try to show me that wasn’t what he was doing? How could Jared leave me like that?”

  The look on my father’s face told me he couldn’t believe what I was saying. He stood up and tried to pull me into his arms, but I pushed him away. He didn’t give up on me, though, and hugged me tightly to him.

  “Honey, did you hear what you said? You said Jared, not Alex. Is that what all this is about?”

  His words filtered through my brain as I cried against his chest, and I realized I had said Jared’s name. After all that time telling myself I’d gotten over what he did to me, he returned to town and within days there I stood falling apart.

  My father held me as I cried, quietly telling me
what he always told me when I got upset like this. “Let it all out, honey. Let it all out.”

  That’s exactly what I did. I sobbed as all the memories of how horrible I felt back then when I learned Jared had left me came rushing back. Left us and all we’d planned to wither away and die right here in Sunset Ridge.

  But I hadn’t withered away. I’d picked myself up and dusted myself off, and then I’d got on with life. Some days it felt like the entire world stood against me, except my father, but I held my head up high and kept living. Now, crying there as my father held me tight, I let go of all of that pain I’d held onto for so long.

  With each passing minute, I accepted that my emotions about Jared’s return to Sunset Ridge were going to remain raw, now more than ever after what he’d done to my father. I also accepted I’d been unfair to Alex. He didn’t have a choice in taking me off the case. My only relative was his main suspect, and in truth, he probably should have told me to back away from the investigation earlier than he did.

  I leaned back away from my father and wiped my tears as he looked down at me with eyes full of concern for his daughter. “I thought I had put him behind me, but I guess I was wrong.”

  “You put him behind you, honey, but not what he did to you,” he said before kissing me on the forehead.

  Sighing, I thought about that. “I’m not sure I can. I was so sure I had gotten past all that with Jared.”

  My father cradled my face in his hands. “Not all men are like him. Alex isn’t like him, Poppy.”

  “See, that’s the problem, though. I acted like he was the same kind of man the first time I got the sense that he was discarding me, just like Jared did. It didn’t matter that it had nothing to do with another woman. I felt just like I did all those years ago.”

  I pressed my cheek against his chest as he wrapped his arms around me, making me feel safe and loved. I knew Alex hadn’t done anything wrong. This problem belonged to me and I needed to solve it.

  “Are you going to be okay, honey?”