by Rhonda Bowen
“Please, as if you ever listen to anything we have to say,” Hayden muttered as he went back to the stove.
“Sydney, it’s nice to finally meet you.” Staffine pulled Sydney into a more delicate embrace than her husband’s. “I’ve heard so much about you from your father when he was alive, and from Hayden over the past few weeks, that I feel like I know you already.”
“We also heard about your brother,” Dalton said, his tone taking on a serious quality. “He’s been in our prayers every day. How is he doing?”
“A little better,” Sydney said, appreciating their concern. “They were able to take him off the ventilator a couple days ago and he’s breathing on his own. It’s a good sign.”
“God be praised,” Staffine said. “I just know God is going to bring him to a full recovery.”
“Thank you for all your prayers and concern,” Sydney said. “It means a lot. Now I know why Dub speaks so glowingly about you. It’s great to finally put a face to the name.”
“So tell me, Sydney, did you cook all this and then sneak out to make it look like Dub did it?” Dalton asked. “You don’t have to lie to me. I know my son.”
Sydney chuckled. “Then you should know that he’s an excellent cook. He doesn’t need me.”
“Thank you, sweetheart,” Hayden said. They both smiled as their eyes met. “But I do need you. Would you grab the potatoes out of the oven for me?”
Just as Sydney was pulling the oven open, the doorbell rang. “That must be Christian and Jennifer,” Hayden said as he set the salad on the countertop.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get it,” Dalton said, heading toward the door.
“Is that the gravy?” Sydney asked, resting a hand on Hayden’s back as she peered around him to see what he was stirring on the stove top.
“Yeah,” he said. “Want to taste?”
He dipped a spoon into the pot, then held it close to Sydney’s lips.
“Mhmm, babe, that’s good.”
“I know, right?”
Staffine chuckled and they both turned to look at her.
“What?” Hayden asked curiously.
“Nothing,” she said with a smile. “Just young love.”
Sydney’s eyes met Hayden’s and she couldn’t help but smile. Is that what this feeling was?
“Sydney, I don’t think you’ve met my other son before, have you.”
“I’ve heard lots about him, but I don’t think I have met him,” Sydney said, wiping her hands on a towel.
“This is Dub’s younger brother, Christian, and his fiancée, Jennifer,” Dalton said. “Christian and Jennifer, this is Sydney.”
“Hey, are you the girl who wanted to marry my brother?” Christian teased.
Why did everyone remember that? Oh yeah, because her dad and Dalton had kept telling the story.
“I was seven!”
That started a round of laughter, but it didn’t make Sydney feel out of place. In fact, it made her feel like she was part of them—like they had already accepted her into their family. That feeling stayed with her the rest of the night as she talked and laughed with Hayden and his family. And when Hayden grabbed her hand under the table and intertwined his fingers with hers, she knew that he felt like she was part of them, too.
They had just cleared the table and were about to bring out the apple and rhubarb crumble that Sydney had brought for dessert, when Hayden’s phone rang. He excused himself to take the call as Sydney and Jennifer finished carrying the last of the dishes to the kitchen.
“I’ve got to tell you, I’ve heard nothing but amazing things about the desserts from your shop,” Jennifer said. “Last time Dub came over, he brought your red velvet cake. Girl, it was gone in two days.”
Sydney laughed. “I bet he ate most of it. That man does love some red velvet cake.”
By the time Hayden returned to the room, the crumble as well as the dessert plates were already on the table.
“Don’t let me keep you waiting,” he said, taking his seat beside Sydney. “Dig in.”
The conversation started up again as the dessert moved around the table, but something was different.
“Everything OK?” she whispered to Hayden when no one else was looking.
“Fine.” He kissed her briefly on the forehead, but didn’t meet her eyes. “Everything’s fine.”
Everything was not fine. But she would get to that later.
She was about to take the first bite out of her dessert when her own phone started ringing.
“So sorry,” she apologized, as she scrambled to get to it. “I thought it was on vibrate.”
“You young people and your twenty-four-hour access,” Dalton said. “In my day, if they didn’t catch us from nine to five, they didn’t catch us at all.”
Sydney was about to end the call and turn off the ringer when she saw who it was from. With a glance behind her at the table, she took the phone to the bathroom and closed the door behind her. “What’s going on?” she whispered.
“She just called him.” Essie’s voice came with an urgency that caused Sydney’s muscles to immediately tense. Even though her breaking heart already knew the answer, she still had to ask.
“Who called him?”
“Sheree.”
Chapter 23
The temperature in Hayden’s guest bathroom felt like it went up a notch as Essie began to give Sydney the details of Sheree’s call to Hayden.
“It was less than five minutes ago,” Essie said. “And it doesn’t sound good. It sounds like she’s getting ready to move, but she left something important at her brother’s house that she needs to get first. Why are you whispering? Where are you?”
“At his house. I’m having dinner with his family. Did she say what she left?”
“No, but it was important enough that she wasn’t willing to leave it behind.”
Sydney sat down on the closed toilet lid and tried to think. Through the door she could hear the sound of Hayden’s family laughing and talking. It wouldn’t be long before they started wondering where she was.
“Look, she didn’t say when she was coming,” Essie continued. “But she said it would be sometime this week. It sounded like she was mad about your boy Hayden changing his locks so the key she had wouldn’t work. She’s planning to come by one day when he’s there, but she wouldn’t say when. Sounded like she didn’t trust him to not turn her in.”
“Did you get the number she called from?”
“Phone booth.”
Sydney scraped her fingernail against the ribbed fabric of her dress. “That doesn’t give me much to work with. What should I do?”
“Find out what she’s coming back for before she comes back for it. If it’s that important, maybe you can use it to bargain with her.”
Sydney squeezed her eyes shut. How was she supposed to do that?
The sound of footsteps in the hallway raised the urgency.
“Gotta go, call you later.”
Sydney ended the call, then flushed the toilet and washed her hands in the sink.
When she opened the bathroom door, Jennifer was standing on the other side.
“You OK?” she asked looking at Sydney curiously. “I thought I heard you whispering in there.”
“Yeah,” Sydney said. “Just on the phone with one of my sisters. Everything’s an emergency with them.”
Conversation swirled around Sydney once she reclaimed her seat at the dining table, but she barely heard any of it above the noise of the questions in her mind. What had Sheree left behind? Money? Travel documents? Information about where she might be headed? Where would she have put it? Did Hayden know what it was? Was he hiding it for Sheree?
Out of the corner of her eye, Sydney watched him as he chatted with his family. Other than the kiss on the forehead, he hadn’t touched her since he had come back to the table. She wondered if he remembered the promise he had made to her, and whether he planned to tell her about the call.
At Dalton’s su
ggestion, the group moved to the living room, but Sydney stayed behind to help clean up the table with Hayden.
“Hey, you go ahead and sit with your family,” she said. “I’ll put these in the dishwasher for you.”
“I can’t let you do that,” he said. “You’re a guest.”
“And you spent all day preparing this.” She took the dish from his hand. “Let me do this for you.”
He looked at her a long moment, then removed the dish from her hands and replaced it with his hands. They were so warm and strong and welcoming. She wanted to trust them. She wanted to trust him.
“Syd, there’s something I have to tell you.” His brow had furrowed and he stared at her with such intensity that she felt a chill run through her.
Her heart beat faster. She prayed that he was going to tell her about Sheree. She didn’t want to believe that he was lying to her. And if he told her now, then they could do this together. Sydney wouldn’t have to go to the plan that her mind was already formulating.
“What is it, babe?” She squeezed his hands in encouragement. “You can tell me.”
He let out a deep breath. “It’s about . . .”
“Dub, come talk some sense into your brother,” Dalton’s voice came from the living room. “You believe this boy really thinks that Boston will make it to the play-offs this year?”
Hayden glanced up at the hallway to the living room, then back at Sydney as he debated what to do next.
“Come on, Dub, tell him that Boston is the best defensive team in the league,” Christian shot back.
“I’m coming,” Hayden threw over his shoulder.
“Dub . . .”
“We’ll talk later,” he said, squeezing her hands.
“Dub, wait,” she pressed. “What do you need to tell me?”
He gave a forced smile. “You know what? It’s not even important.”
Then, before she could protest, he kissed her forehead and made his way to the living room. As she watched him walk away, the truth sank into her. He wasn’t ever going to tell her.
Her phone buzzed again. This time it was Lissandra.
“Essie told me about the call,” Lissandra said. “Did he tell you about it?”
“No,” Sydney said with a sigh.
“Can you talk?”
Sydney glanced at the hallway. “Not really.”
“Then I’ll make this quick,” Lissandra said. “You need to take a photograph of his key.”
“What?”
“Use your phone and make sure you get in close. It needs to be clear, so use the Macro focus function. You have to take the picture beside something with a scale. Check the kitchen or bathroom; there must be something in one of those rooms with a ruler on it.”
“How are we gonna get a copy from a photograph?” Sydney whispered, not believing that she was even having this conversation with her sister.
“Don’t worry, I know a guy.”
“I can’t believe I am even considering this,” Sydney said as she began loading dishes into the washer.
“You better consider it. If Sheree gets what she needs from that house, we may never be able to find her again. This is our only window,” Lissandra said. “Look, just get the picture. You can decide later if you want to actually use it.”
Sydney hung up the phone and finished loading the washer, then began her search for the keys. She found them hanging on a hook near the kitchen cupboards. There were three bunches: one for his car and the other two she guessed were for the house and the clinic. She was about to panic when she noticed that one set of keys had an East York Athletic Clinic key ring attached, and the three keys were labelled “office,” “Exam Rm,” and “Main.” That only left the last bunch of two keys. It was almost too easy. With her heart pounding, she rummaged quickly through the kitchen drawers until she found millimeter markings on the back of a box of nails. Grabbing the box of nails and the keys, she slipped into the bathroom once more and took pictures of both keys and forwarded them to Lissandra.
She had just put the keys back on the hook and placed the nails in the drawer when Hayden walked back into the kitchen.
“Hey, what’s taking you so long?”
Sydney gripped the edge of the counter to steady herself. Her heart was beating so fast that she thought it would explode out of her chest.
“What were you looking for in there?” He pointed to the open drawer.
“Oh, just some Saran wrap to cover the rest of the crumble,” Sydney lied.
“Oh. It’s in the bottom drawer.” He paused. “You could have just asked.”
Sydney closed the drawer and opened the bottom one. “I didn’t want to bother you.”
She pulled out the box of plastic wrap, but when she straightened to set it on the counter she found Hayden watching her. The temperature in the room seemed to drop a degree as they stared at each other, and an odd sensation began to creep through Sydney. A sadness she couldn’t describe began to fill her, so much so that she was almost sure she saw it reflected in his eyes.
He stayed with her as she covered the crumble and put it into the refrigerator. Then they joined the others in the living room. She was sure no one else noticed it, but something had changed between her and Hayden. Though he was sitting with his arm around her, she had never felt more far away from him. And as she thought about the moment in the kitchen, the moment when they seemed to see right into each other, she couldn’t shake a single disturbing thought:
She was losing him.
Chapter 24
Sydney waited a whole day for him to come clean. Despite the fact that the copies of the keys were sitting on her dresser; despite the fact that every passing day increased their chances of not finding Sheree; despite the fact that Lissandra was wearing out her last nerve, she waited a whole day before doing anything. Though she knew in her heart that he had chosen to protect Sheree, she hoped that he would change his mind and tell her what he knew.
In that day, she went to see Dean. When she arrived at the hospital, she found Jackie and JJ talking with a group of doctors. Whatever they were talking about wasn’t good, because Jackie was crying and leaning on JJ.
“What’s going on?” Sydney asked, coming up to her mother and sister moments after the doctors had left.
“Mom, why don’t you go back and sit with Dean. We’ll be right in,” JJ said, opening the door to the room so her mother could shuffle inside. Sydney watched her mother move slower than she had in a long time. The last few weeks had changed her mother. The youthful look that she usually carried effortlessly was slipping away.
“Dean’s regressing,” JJ said once Jackie was out of earshot. “A couple days ago, they noticed blood clots forming, so they put him on blood thinners temporarily. Unfortunately, the thinners caused him to start hemorrhaging in the brain.”
“Oh my God.” Sydney gripped her sister’s hand tightly.
“They’re doing all they can, but that’s not the only issue.” JJ rubbed her eyes. “Dean’s bills are piling up. You know he had no insurance, and he’s too old to be considered Mom’s dependent, so everything has to be paid out of pocket. Every day he’s in here, it’s more and more debt. Mom’s thinking of taking out a second mortgage on the house. . . .”
“No.” Sydney shook her head. “She can’t afford to do that. If she loses the house . . . no.”
“Well, do you have a better idea?”
“We have to take out a loan against Leroy’s house,” Sydney said, letting out a deep, despairing breath.
JJ bit her lip. “You know, all three of us have to agree.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll deal with it,” Sydney said.
JJ looked at Sydney in concern. “Are you sure about this, Syd? I mean, you and Lissandra are pretty much in the hole, and things aren’t that great with me either, with business slowing down at the dress shop since Mom and I are here so often. How are we going to manage the payments?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Sydney said. �
�I’ll take care of it.”
“All right.” JJ sighed. “But do it quick, ’cause I think the hospital is dragging its feet on treatment until part of the balance on Dean’s medical fees is taken care of.”
“As soon as I get Lissandra’s agreement, I’ll call the bank to get the paperwork done up.”
“You have my OK,” JJ said. “Anything to get Dean through this.”
“Anything” was right. And as she stepped away from her sister to call Lissandra, she knew exactly what “anything” had to be.
“Speak to me.”
“All right, I’ve decided,” Sydney said. “No more waiting. It’s time for Plan B.”
Chapter 25
Sydney’s stomach was in knots and her nails were suffering. A spot on her pants was beginning to wear away, and a fingernail beginning to chip because of how long she had been scraping it against her jeans-clad leg. The sweat trickling down her spine despite the frigid air outside was enough to let her know that she was not OK. This was not OK. In fact, it was plain wrong. And she was woman enough to admit to herself that she was having second thoughts. Stealing Hayden’s cell phone and breaking into his voice mail was one thing. But breaking into his home? Now she was entering felony territory. This was the kind of business that could get a sister sent to prison. And it wasn’t like Hayden lived in some seedy apartment downtown. This was a two-story townhouse in Leslieville, where a desperate housewife, soccer mom, or recession-unemployment victim could be behind every sheer curtain.
“You ready, Syd?”
Sydney took a deep breath and scanned the street from the front seat of Lissandra’s heavily tinted rental sedan.
“Syd, did you hear me? I asked if you were—”
“Yeah, I heard you,” Sydney snapped. “Can you just give me a minute?”
Lissandra squinted at her sister from the driver’s seat. “Look, if you were thinking of backing out, I’m not going to argue with you. This is a whole new ball game. And we don’t know what the deal is with his alarm system. . . .”
“It’s OK,” Sydney said. “I got the code.”
All it had taken was a forgotten watch at Hayden’s place. She’d had to time it right. If she had gotten to his home five minutes after he had arrived, then she would have missed spying over his shoulder as he punched in the deactivate code. But everything had worked out well. As long as he hadn’t changed it in the past twenty-four hours, they would be fine.
