by JB Lynn
“How’s the road trip going? Snacks and tunes working out?”
“You were right on both counts. It’s been quite the experience. Really good bonding time.”
“I’m glad. When will you head home?”
“She insisted on making more sightseeing stops than we’d planned, so not until Tuesday or Wednesday. I’d hoped to be back in time to help you, but . . .” He trailed off, his tone heavy with regret.
I swallowed hard, realizing the true reason for his call. “You wanted to say good-bye?”
“You could call off the job,” he pleaded. “Just tell Delveccio you couldn’t do it. He’ll believe you. It won’t be held against you.”
“I can’t.”
“What if I take care of Abilene?” he offered desperately.
“After the fight I had with her at the hospital I’d be the prime suspect. It wouldn’t work.”
“But—”
“You promised you’d find homes for God and DeeDee,” I reminded him, my vocal cords stretched to their limit as I tried not to cry.
He didn’t reply.
“Patrick?”
“I promised.” His voice was husky with emotion. “But if you’re careful tomorrow, really careful, I won’t have to. Promise me, Mags. Promise me you won’t get caught.”
“I’ll try.” The promise was weak and we both knew I didn’t believe in it.
“I wish . . .” he began.
“Good-bye, Patrick.” I disconnected the call, grabbed DeeDee, and sobbed into her neck, thinking about all the wishes I had that were probably never going to come true.
DESPITE THE FACT I had two weddings to attend that day, the next morning I got up and went to visit Katie.
Walking through the familiar hallways of the hospital, I fervently hoped that it wasn’t going to be the last time I’d see my niece. When my cell phone rang I almost didn’t answer it, but, worried that it might be Alice with a last-minute bridezilla request, I looked at the display and recognized the number of the prison.
For a split second I considered ignoring the call from my father, but I realized he was probably calling to convey good wishes to Alice on her big day. I didn’t want to be responsible for not passing on his words of wit and wisdom.
“I’m at the hospital,” I said as a way of greeting.
“Miss Lee?” a strange male voice asked.
I stopped walking. “Who is this?”
“I’m calling from the prison.”
“Why?”
“Your father’s been in a fight. He’s in the infirmary.”
A strange, unpleasant feeling niggled at the pit of my stomach. A memory scratched at the edge of my consciousness. “How badly is he hurt?”
“He’ll live. This time.” The last two words were delivered as an ominous warning.
I leaned against the wall for support, the tile cool against my palm. “I’m sorry, what did you say your name was again?”
“When you come to visit, tell the rat bastard to give up the jewels.” The caller’s voice had a sinister silkiness to it now. It made the hairs on the back of my neck dance. “For his own good and that of his family. Otherwise, who knows what might happen.”
The call ended, but I still held the phone to my ear, trying to make sense of the threat.
Before I could regain my emotional equilibrium, I saw her.
A woman dressed a lot like me, in jeans and a T-shirt, walked toward me. Something about her gait or carriage was so familiar that I looked twice at her despite the fact I was reeling from the phone call.
I searched her face, trying to figure out where I knew her from. My heart stopped when I locked onto her brown-eyed gaze. Recognition dawned on her familiar, yet different features. Time had changed her, life had hardened her. But I knew her.
“Marlene?” The two syllables were more barely more than a whisper.
Instead of answering me, my sister spun around and took off at a dead run away from me.
For a moment, I stood, stunned. This wasn’t how I’d imagined our reunion. I’d dreamed of us falling into each other’s arms. I’d had nightmares about her screaming at me that Darlene’s death was all my fault, but I’d never imagined her running away from me. Again.
“Marlene! Wait!” I chased after her. “Come back!”
She might have gotten the jump on me, but I wasn’t about to lose her again. I ran faster, my heart exploding, my lungs wheezing. I closed the distance between us. Reaching out, I could almost touch her. A few inches more.
Hearing my approach, she looked back over her shoulder at me, her expression fear and something I couldn’t identify.
“Marlene, please!” I gasped.
She passed a patient’s room and as she did, a bed was pushed into the hallway, straight into my path.
“Move!” I screamed, but the bed didn’t budge.
Marlene kept running, putting more and more distance between us.
“Marlene!” I wailed, but she didn’t stop.
I lost her. Again.
THE B&B WAS eerily quiet when I got there a few hours later.
“Hello?” I called as I walked in the front door, wondering what fresh hell the silence preceded. “Where is everyone?”
“Loretta and Alice are getting their hair done.” Zeke rounded the corner carrying an embroidered pillow.
Startled, I grabbed my chest.
“Sorry,” he said, eyeing me thoughtfully. “Didn’t mean to scare you. Bob picked up Susan. Leslie left separately. I don’t know where they were going.”
“When should they be back?”
“Alice and Loretta left fifteen minutes ago. You could probably run over to the shop and get yours done too.”
Self-consciously I smoothed my hair. It had been a rough night and a rougher morning. “I look that bad?”
A strange smile played at his lips. “You really don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“Why do you think Alice picked that ugly dress for you?”
“Hormones?” I suggested weakly.
“And why do you think she didn’t tell you about the hair and makeup appointment?”
“Because I’m the worst maid of honor ever?” I pointed at the pillow he held. “Proof. Aunt Loretta entrusted you with her ring bearer pillow.”
“Actually . . .” He stepped closer, holding it out. “She asked me to give it to you for safekeeping.”
Taking it, I stared down at the familiar hearts stitched into it.
Reaching out, Zeke smoothed my hair off my face, in a movement so intimate, my breath caught.
“You have no idea, Maggie,” he murmured seductively. “No idea how remarkable you are. Alice does. She doesn’t want the competition on her big day.”
I threw back my head and laughed. “You are crazier than my mom.”
He reared back as though I’d slapped him. “You don’t believe me?”
“Is that really so shocking, Zeke? That I wouldn’t fall for that line of bull?”
He frowned. “It’s the truth.”
“Sure.”
“I told you the truth and you didn’t believe me.”
The look of shock on his face made me start laughing all over again.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked suspiciously.
I almost blurted out that I’d seen Marlene. I almost revealed that someone had called and threatened me. I almost told him about the rats. But I didn’t. “I’m excited about the day.”
“Unlike me,” he scoffed, “you are a lousy liar, Maggie Lee.”
I hoped he was wrong. The success of the day depended on it.
I DID PRETTY well with the whole lying thing through helping Alice get dressed, posing for pictures, and getting to the place on time. Sure my smile might have wavered slightly and my knees might have gone a little weak when I first saw Zeke looking devastatingly handsome in his tuxedo, but I’d done my best to act like he was just another member of the bridal party, not a guy I wanted to do the dee
d with.
Things were going smoothly until I answered the knock at the door of the bridal suite and found myself facing Alice’s mom.
“Can I see her?” Ellen asked. She’d gotten dressed up for the occasion in a light blue dress and looked ten times better than she had when I’d extended the invitation to attend. She was definitely trying.
“I . . .” I hesitated, having already gotten instructions from the bride that I was not to allow her mother to see her before the ceremony. “Let me go check.”
I felt a twinge of guilt at Ellen’s crestfallen expression as I closed the door in her face.
I went over to Alice. “It’s your mom. She wants to see you.”
“I told you—”
“You wouldn’t have invited her if you hadn’t wanted to see her,” I said hurriedly, calling her bluff.
“What would you do?” she asked Zeke. “If your mom wanted to see you, what would you do?”
He frowned, considering the question.
In that moment, I finally got the connection they shared. I’d never fully understood what had drawn them together when we were in high school, but now I did. They’d both been rejected by their mothers. I suddenly felt ashamed for having been jealous of their bond, knowing it had been forged in pain.
“Maggie’s right,” he said slowly. “Why would you invite her if you didn’t want to see her?”
“But what if . . . ?” Alice’s lower lip quivered.
“You’re going to ruin your makeup if you start to cry,” I teased gently.
“What if she still doesn’t . . . ?”
“No one forced her to come here today,” Zeke said. “She obviously wants to see you too.”
Alice looked to me for confirmation.
I nodded. “She got all dressed up in a pretty dress. She’s sober. She asked nicely.”
“Let her in,” Alice said to me, grabbing Zeke’s hand.
I opened the door. Ellen, eyes downcast, didn’t even look up at me. “Come in, Ellen.”
Slowly she raised her head and I saw that tears had already furrowed their way down her cheeks. I reached out and touched her elbow and offered her a reassuring smile. “Come on in.”
She followed me in with faltering steps. I moved to the side so that mother and daughter could see one another for the first time in years.
“You look beautiful,” Ellen said, her voice shaking.
“Mommy!” Letting go of Zeke, Alice threw herself into her mother’s arms. They both sobbed loudly as they held one another.
Feeling my own eyes growing moist, I looked over at Zeke. Hands balled into fists, he’d turned away from the reunion. My heart squeezed painfully at the sight of his distress.
As though he sensed me watching him, he pivoted to look at me, something sharp and accusing in his gaze.
I took a step back, prepared for him to launch some sort of attack, but then his expression morphed to such extreme regret that I found myself moving toward him. I didn’t know what to say to make him feel better, but I desperately wanted to do something to show him that while his mother might have rejected him, his friends never would.
Throwing my arms around him, I squeezed as tightly as I could.
“Ow!” he exclaimed.
I jumped away.
“My boutonniere stabbed me,” he said, pulling me back to him, and crushing me in an embrace.
“Are you okay?” I whispered after a long moment, ignoring the giggles and exclamations of Alice and Ellen.
“Coming back here was so much more challenging than I expected,” he admitted with a heavy sigh.
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be. You’re one of the biggest complications,” he muttered.
“Me?”
“You’ve got to stop that, Maggie. You’re killing me.”
“Stop what?”
“Looking like you care so much.”
I straightened his bow tie. “But I do care.”
“And that’s a complication.”
Before I could ask him why, Alice said, “Could you find the photographer? I’d like her to take a picture of me and my mom.”
“Sure,” Zeke said a tad too quickly, and bounded out of the room as though he were glad of the excuse to escape.
After the pictures were taken, Ellen went to join the other guests and the wedding party was lined up for the processional.
“Are you sure you know what to do?” Alice asked nervously.
I adjusted her veil. “Yes, and besides, no one will be watching anyone except you.”
“Does this dress make me look pregnant?” She smoothed her hand over her still-flat belly.
“You look beautiful.”
She touched my mother’s necklace where it lay against her collarbone. “You were right about my mom.”
“I’m glad things have worked out for you.”
“I hope they work out for you too.”
The processional began to play.
“Showtime!” I gave her a quick hug and then was a total pro lockstepping down the aisle behind Zeke.
The ceremony was lovely; quick, sweet, and the perfect showcase for two people deeply in love. Watching Lamont’s adoration of his bride made me wonder why she’d ever had second thoughts.
I glanced at Zeke a couple of times during the ceremony. Slight frown lines wrinkled his brow and his jaw was clenched tightly, even though he had a polite smile plastered on throughout. Something was definitely bugging him. I wasn’t sure if it was me or his mother, but I vowed to get to the bottom of it during the reception.
The groom kissed the bride, everyone applauded, and we all walked into the cocktail hour.
“There’s no salmon,” I said as we entered the room.
“What?” the groomsman, a friend of Lamont’s from college, whose arm I was hanging on, asked.
“There’s no salmon.” The room was done in lovely shades of lavender and gray.
Behind me, Zeke chuckled. “Now do you believe me?”
Turning, I glared at him. “So what am I supposed to be? The comic relief in the butt-ugly dress?”
The groomsman sidled away.
“You’re a cliché,” Zeke said, taking my arm and leading me deeper into the room. “Brides have been dressing their competition in ugly dresses since the beginning of time. Consider it a compliment. Champagne?”
I could have really used a drink at that point, but had to stay sharp if I was going to kill a man that night. I shook my head.
“Wine?”
“Seltzer,” I said.
Zeke frowned.
“What? You’re opposed to carbonated drinks?”
“You’re not . . . ?” he asked.
“Not what?”
“Armani said you didn’t drink at Foxy’s either.”
“I was the designated driver.”
“And that’s all?”
It took me a while, but I finally caught on to what he was really asking.
Grabbing his arm, I stood on my toes to hiss in his ear, “Tell me you don’t think I’m knocked up like Alice.”
“Glad to hear it,” he said smoothly, planting a quick kiss on my cheek, disentangling himself from my grip, and moving away. “I really think you’re going to need that drink.”
“I don’t need a drink,” I muttered.
Then I turned around and realized I was wrong.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
EVERYONE’S ALWAYS SAID she’s an ethereal beauty. Maybe it’s her pale, delicate features, or maybe it’s because she seems to glow with an inner light. Or maybe it’s because when you look into her eyes, eyes that seem to shift from blue, to green, to gray, with every thought that passes through her mind, you can see how tenuous the grip the world has on her. And vice versa.
For a second I thought maybe I’d lost my grip on reality. It was bad enough I’d been talking to animals and going around killing people, but now I was seeing someone who shouldn’t be there. Who couldn’t be there.
I closed my eyes, willing the world, the real world, to come back into focus. I held my breath as I reopened them.
She was still there.
Closer now.
Close enough that I could reach out and touch her.
“Hello,” she said in that familiar lilting tone.
I couldn’t speak.
I couldn’t turn away.
I couldn’t run away.
And that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to run away.
“Surprise!” Alice cheered from behind me.
I turned my head slowly.
Alice beamed at me. “You invited my mom, so I invited your mom. Isn’t it great that they’re both here?”
I swiveled my gaze back toward my mother. I’d invited her mom because she’d asked me to. I hadn’t asked her to invite my mom.
“Hello,” Mom said again. “You let your hair grow, Midge. It looks nice.”
Alice pushed past me, dragging Lamont behind her. “I’m so glad you were able to make it, Mrs. Lee. This is my fiancé, Lamont.”
“Husband,” my mother corrected gently with a tinkling laugh. “You’re going to have to get used to calling him that, Alice.”
They all laughed.
The sound seemed to dislodge me from my motionless stupor. I turned to run away and almost plowed into Armani.
“That is one ugly dress, Chiquita,” she said.
I could have said the same about her silver-sequined jumpsuit, but instead I demanded, “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I was invited.” She motioned toward Alice with the glass of champagne she held in her good hand. “She invited me at the bachelorette party.” Noticing the glass, she held it out to me. “Zeke said you need this.”
Snatching it from her, I guzzled it in three gulps.
Armani raised her eyebrows, but didn’t say anything about my drinking. “That’s your mama? Introduce me.”
“I can’t.” I hadn’t seen or talked to my mother in years. I wasn’t prepared to talk to her.
“Is it because of the stump?” Armani waved her disfigured hand in my face.
“Of course not!”
“Well then, why?”
Mom was looking past Alice and Lamont to me. If I didn’t get away soon . . .
