by Clare Hexom
“She would need a motive.” I said.
“Jealousy. Ronnie’s good lookin.’”
“As is Dana.”
“Ronnie says Dana never liked her. They were friends ’cause Ronnie was your friend first.”
“She had those feelings about Dana back in high school and college. I thought she was too self-conscious, so I told her to get over it.”
“Maybe she was on to somethin’.” Sam brought his hand to his chin and paused a moment before continuing. “The driver of that vehicle wanted her dead.”
I knew what he meant. Dana drove that SUV. Where she got the vehicle was anybody’s guess. I shook my head, considering the possibilities.
“I’m finding few people like Dana, or Erik, for that matter. Even Lance was suspicious.”
“How so?”
“He called them insensitive and selfish. He suspected she poisoned the dessert I ate the night of their soirée. An uncommon sedative showed up on one of my lab tests, except I never took a sedative.”
Sam smiled consolingly. “Too early to know how he died, I guess.”
“I do know there was poison in his system. Don’t know which one.” I stared down at my hands. “I can’t ask his parents about the details, which they might not even know yet. I’m hoping Dana’s neighbor Jillian will let me know if she and her husband find out. They’ve been kind to me. Like you.”
“You’re kind, too, Mallory Bain. But you pay close attention around Dana. Keep your eye on the ball in case Ronnie’s right. If Dana poisoned Lance, you run as fast as you can and never look back.”
The double doors opened again. After the nurse called our names, we followed him to Ronnie. She glanced up when I slid open the glass door, her eyes droopy. Sam bent down to kiss her.
She lifted her hand supporting the IV and touched his cheek. “You guys are here.” She spoke barely above a whisper.
I moved away from the door to the side of her bed opposite Sam and held her free hand in mine. “Your pain must be off the charts.”
“If I move, I hurt, so I don’t. Their X-ray table needs memory foam,” Ronnie grimaced.
“I’ll see about pain pills,” said Sam. He stepped out of the room.
“They told us you’re staying overnight,” I said.
“I’m moving upstairs if the scan shows I’m free of any ‘immediate life-threatening injuries.’”
“I hope.”
“Thank God I’m alive. No internal bleeding, only the pelvis fracture.”
“I hope you noticed details about the car.”
“Dark red SUV. Tinted glass. I think a man, but the driver wore a cap. I saw dark gloved fingers on the steering wheel. He drove like a drunk, which is probably why he missed me. My gym bag took the brunt of the impact. It’s destroyed.” She laid her arm across her forehead. “The impact spun me around and I fell hard on the pavement.”
“Too bad you didn’t see his face.”
Ronnie shook her head. “I told the police, when I saw the SUV back up and stop, I figured I was dead. I was too far from the front door of the gym, and the SUV was between me and my car. That’s why I went behind the building.”
“What’s behind the building?”
“The cleaning guy sometimes forgets to lock the service door. There were people inside the gym who would help me.”
“You must have been in excruciating pain.”
“I was. Had to limp. I was too far from the service door when I heard the SUV, so I dropped to the ground and slid under a parked truck. Lucky for me, my phone was in my pocket and not my gym bag.”
Sam opened the glass door and stood at the foot of her bed. “The nurse’ll be a minute. He’s getting pain medicine.”
Ronnie smiled and held out her hand for him. “Thanks. Like always, you’ve got my back.”
He kissed her again. When he stood upright, there were tears.
“Did the SUV go behind the building?” I asked.
“It did. I pulled my hood over my head when I saw the headlights. I prayed the driver would give up and go away.”
A nurse with papers in hand entered the room. Ronnie’s nurse brought in a syringe. We were welcome to accompany Ronnie upstairs.
Sam stopped me when the elevator door opened. “We’ll be along in a minute,” he said to the nurses. He pulled out his phone. “I’m callin’ a cab for you. I can’t leave.”
“You think whoever ran her down will come back.”
He finished ordering the cab. “That’s exactly what I think.” He shoved his phone into his pocket. “They’ll be here in ten.”
“Tell the police what you think. Maybe they can guard her room.”
“Otherwise, I will.” He pressed the elevator’s up button. “Sorry about doin’ this to you, Mallory, especially after the shitty day you had.” He shoved a wad of folded cash at me.
I pushed his hand back but he grabbed my hand and slapped the money against my open palm.
“Thanks.” I gave him a hug and patted his back. “Take care of her, Sam. Keep my friend safe.”
“Sure thing. Thanks for bein’ here.” He pulled me in for one of his bear hugs. “You stay safe, too. And call Ronnie’s phone when you get home.”
“I will.”
The elevator door opened, and when he stepped inside, his eyes were flooded with tears.
CHAPTER
TWENTY
Ronnie was discharged from the hospital on Sunday. We visited often that week. Her mother and mine worked out a schedule for caregiving and housework, each of them spending alternating days with her until Sam got off work.
Caleb grew restless spending time indoors at school, at the King’s house, or ours. We tossed around ideas, seeing a movie or shopping for his Halloween costume, but movies and stores were still indoors.
By the next Saturday morning, a week after Lance’s funeral and Ronnie’s hit and run, we were both ready for a few days with clear skies and warm autumn sun before winter set in.
Caleb nagged me until I made good on my promise to rescue my bike from the garage, although rooting through the recesses of Mom’s garage was no easy task. Decades of accumulated stuff, usable but old, obstructed my path to our old bikes. A croquet set tipped over, spilling mallets and balls onto the garage floor. I snatched up a pair of worn hockey skates and flung them across the garage before I realized they were Tony’s.
The skates hit the snowblower and I let out a groan as I plowed a path through the discarded items to retrieve them. I cried as I consoled my brother’s skates in my arms as though comforting a baby. I brushed off the gritty dust before gently setting them on Dad’s hobby-bench.
My self-pity dissipated when Caleb burst through the side door from the backyard. “Mom! Come on! You’re wasting time.”
“I’m getting my bike.” I pushed my way back to my buried ten-speed.
“No, you’re not!”
“I am. I see flat tires.”
I pulled Tony’s hockey stick out from between the spokes, and with a sticky bit of cobweb clinging to my fingers, I raised my dusty bike up and out. I slipped on a croquet ball and landed on an old, oily lawn mower with my bike on top of me.
“Mom! You hurt?”
“No.” I pushed my bike off of me with a moan and stood up. “Grab a rag for me from that box beside the grandma bike. Please.” After a lot of banging and scrounging noises, he shouted, “I found one!” He staggered through the mess and handed me a ratty T shirt. “It’s got paint on it.”
“It’ll do.”
While he played pretend hockey with Tony’s stick, I used the ratty shirt to clean off the dirt and cobwebs from my bike and my clothes. Bits of dried leaves and curled-up dead spiders stuck to the brake cables and spokes. The chain was intact. The pedals rotated. The brakes worked. Cables seemed fine.
Caleb leaned the hockey stick against the backyard door and walked over to me. “Does Grandma got a tire pump?” He pinched the back tire.
“We have a tire pump in ou
r trunk. I bought it before we left Memphis in case we had a flat on the freeway. Car keys are in my purse.”
“I’ll get ’em!”
“Hey! Lock that side door.”
“Uh-huh.”
I knew he didn’t but instead of checking, I hobbled my bike down to the end of the driveway, where I’d parked my car because Carl’s van and Mom’s car blocked the front of the garage. After hanging draperies in the den, Carl planned on giving the cars one last washing before the landscaper shut off the outside water and blew out the sprinkling system before winter.
Caleb returned with the keys and popped open the trunk. “I wanna ride my bike ’til you ’flate your tires.”
“Inflate. Fine, but no crossing streets. Down Grandma’s block and back. And thank you for being helpful.”
He grinned like Ben again. “I wanna go around the corner.”
“Only go where I can see you. And tighten your helmet!”
He hopped on his bike and pedaled hard, speeding toward the stop sign at the end of the block.
With the portable compressor plugged inside the car, I knelt down beside my bike’s front tire and connected the cord. A short time later, over the compressor’s hum, I heard the rumble of a motorcycle. I caught a glint of chrome in the corner of my eye, turned and saw the glimmer of red.
Caleb had ridden halfway between Mom’s house and the Egger’s near the corner. He stopped and waved. The rider waved back.
“Caleb!” I shouted.
He kept on riding. He knew the stranger danger deal. He knew better than to wave to a stranger because his dad once rode a motorcycle, too.
The bike idled after the man backed up and parked on the street in front of our house.
That’s right. He knew one of my brothers, I remembered.
Getting to know him would mark him for death, but I was interested in knowing which of their friends he was. He removed his helmet, hung it on the handlebar. My heart stopped.
Golden hair filled my vision. My pulse raced; my palms iced. I knew this man head to toe. Seconds passed in slow motion until he turned around. His eyes. Even at a distance, I knew they were blue.
Blue.
I could not blink.
Ben’s brother.
My head muddled. I’d forgotten the pictures. There’d been no resemblance.
“Mallory.”
His voice was familiar. I’d heard it thousands upon thousands of times before. “Ben?” I stepped slowly toward him. “Is it you?” My voice trembled.
“It’s been a long time.”
This man is alive.
My body weakened. He was still handsome. The timbre of his voice—Ben. I hadn’t forgotten. I marshalled my strength to speak.
“You’re not dead.”
He strolled a few steps toward me and stopped, his arms folded tight against his chest—those blue eyes glaring.
“Dead. That’s a stupid remark.” He laughed contemptuously. “No, I am not dead. Am I supposed to be?”
I stammered; he interrupted.
“You know, for months now I’ve talked myself out of stopping to talk with your mom.” He looked askance. “Then one night after teaching my class, I came around the corner and all the outdoor lights were on.”
I tried to speak—he kept talking.
“I pulled in and let my headlamp shine on that out-of-state plate on this car. Your mom got in it, right there in the driveway.” He pointed toward the garage. “Then I saw somebody watching me from that corner window up there. I figured it was you. I hoped you recognized me and were ashamed of what you did.”
He’s not dead.
“I kept seeing this car around the neighborhood. I assumed you were here for an extended visit. Then I started seeing your mom and that kid on the bike back there, too.”
He never died. Gone over seven years. Dana said.
“When I saw him riding his bike just now and you out here by the car, I said to myself, Go on, Holland. Go ahead and have it out with her!”
“Have what out?”
“Walking out on me! You might’ve given me the head’s up Powers meant so damn much to you.”
“No!” I shook my head. “Don’t ever think that!” I struggled to put two and two together.
Dana told me he died. Dana!
I gulped in a few breaths of air and steadied myself.
He’s angry.
I scanned the area around me.
I can’t breathe.
I pulled my collar away from my throat.
I needed to sit down. Dana.
His words skimmed past my ears, barely taking hold in my mind.
“You said yes when we talked marriage, Mallory. You were the most important person in my life. You owed me an explanation. A few words to let a guy down would have been the honorable thing to do.” He furrowed his brow and hardened his face. “But no. Dana told me how you ran off like a bitch in heat.”
“She said that about me?”
He nodded. “That’s right.” His icy stare fixed on me, his lips pinched with revulsion.
Each beat of my heart pounded with pain from him glaring at me with loathing. Me, the girl he once loved, whose eyes he once gazed into with such tenderness and longing.
In a rush of tears, I cried, “No! It was never that way! Dana lied! She said you were killed riding your bike in Canada! I never left you! I never would have left you! Especially for Chad!”
He tipped his head and wrinkled his nose. “Killed?”
“Yes. She said you were dead and I believed her.” I took a step toward him.
“Is there any truth to you and Chad?”
“I married him months after you died. We married to give the baby a good home.” I dropped on my knees, rocked back on my heels and cried.
“Baby?” He looked down the street at Caleb. “Right. Great. You had a baby.”
I heard Caleb calling, “Mommy! Mommy!” I looked sideways. He stood beside his bike facing us. I waved and he waved back.
“Ben, I am so sorry you believed I hurt you.”
He lowered his head and his expression softened. I saw that I was finally getting through to him. “Dana told me you ran off to Tennessee and eloped when I was in Canada visiting my family.” He paused a moment. “She lied to me, too.”
I nodded and wiped my eyes with a tissue from my pocket.
“Mallory, you never called.”
I balled up the tissue in my fist. “I can’t call dead people.”
“Before she said I was dead.”
“My phone was lost. I trusted her to tell you where I’d gone. She promised Erik would call you.”
“He never did.”
“I was in Duluth because my grandma was dying. Everybody’s numbers were in my phone. The only one I remembered was Dana’s.”
Ben watched Caleb pedaling toward us.
“Dana was waiting here for me when we returned from Duluth. She said Erik knew you were dead. He was her pet dog. Still is. There was no one else for her to tell but Ronnie and Chad. The Jacks were long gone.”
Ben looked devastated. He paused and kept his stare focused on Caleb. “I can’t believe this happened to us.” He walked over to me and helped me to my feet. “Lying to a couple of gullible kids.”
I stood inches from him, close enough to hear him breathe. His face had matured. I touched his slight receding hairline, laid my hand against his warm chest and felt the strong pounding of his heart.
“Hold me.”
He pulled me against him.
“I never abandoned you.” I slid my thumb beneath his lower lip like I’d done many times years ago. “I never ran off. You must know how much I loved you.”
He circled his arms around me. His kisses were warm, alive, and as loving as they once were. I pulled back gently and glanced down the street at Caleb watching us.
Ben gestured to my car. “You were living in Tennessee.”
“Seven years last June. I accepted Chad’s proposal after crying
for months.”
Caleb parked his bike on the sidewalk two doors down from the Kings. He knelt beside his bike and spun the pedals.
I laid my cheek against Ben’s. “You never called me.”
“Sure did. All my calls went straight to voicemail. I left message after message, and then nothing. I even camped out on your veranda a few nights.”
“Messages on a lost phone.” I pressed the tissue against my eyes. “My dad cut off the service. I wish you’d called our friends.”
“Did that too, eh, including Chad. Nobody knew where you were, not even Ronnie. You must have been in Duluth already.”
“Ronnie lived in Wisconsin. She didn’t know what we did day to day. What did Chad say?”
“We kept missing calls. I left messages asking if you were with him and he called back claiming you weren’t.”
“When was that?”
“Late May. Once or twice in June.”
“You didn’t believe him?”
Ben shook his head. “You know, typical Chad, arrogant as hell. Couldn’t ever trust the guy. You were gone, and Dana was convincing.”
“I’d keep calling around if it had been me.”
“Put yourself in my place. I’ve got my pride. Losing you cut like a knife. Dana, she started in the minute you were gone.”
“Started in how?”
“Coming on to me. She had invented this elaborate fantasy and believed her delusions too much to let go. She wanted to replace you. Like anybody ever could.”
My stomach hardened. A flash of anger spread through me. As much as I wanted to hear more about Dana, I needed a change in subject or I’d explode from rage.
“Tell me what happened to Brian Hayes.”
“I moved back to Canada to escape Dana. I guess Hayes never renewed the lease. We had two months left on it. My dad lent me my share of the rent for June and July to help out Brian. It would’ve been unfair to stick him with all of the rent for two months, eh?” I stepped back to take in the man’s face Dana cheated me out of seeing.
“She did one helluva job splitting us up,” said Ben. “I guess she figured if she couldn’t have me then no one would, especially you.”
