“Was it hard to transition to being on the outside?”
“Of course it was,” she said. “I had to learn how to think for myself again. I was used to somebody telling me what to do and when to do it all day every day. I had got used to being part of a noisy crowd of angry people, watching my back all the time, while guards with guns watched us every minute.”
“What was it like for you here, after you got out? What were your challenges?”
“One of the hardest things at first was how quiet it was at night. It made me jumpy. I wasn’t used to a soft bed; I had to sleep on the floor for the first few nights. Food tasted so good I gained ten pounds working at the bakery. Bonnie didn’t say anything, either; she just let me eat everything in sight. Wearing clothes washed in fabric softener, long, hot showers, and privacy. Oh, Lord, to have privacy. I never knew how important that was. Then there was grocery shopping, all the choices. Cold beer, Dairy Chef ice cream, PJ’s pizza. Just everything.
“The first time I drove somewhere by myself in a car I was so nervous; I felt like any minute I was going to be pulled over and put back in prison. I felt like everyone was watching me, waiting for me to make a mistake; I still have that feeling sometimes.”
“How was your relationship with Tommy?”
“Harder for him, probably,” she said. “I wanted things right back the way they were, but he had got used to living with you. I cried about it, but whatever he wanted I wanted.”
“He didn’t love you any less.”
“I don’t want to talk about Tommy anymore,” she said. “I miss him so much I can hardly breathe when I think about it.”
“You couldn’t work at the bar because of your parole.”
“Bonnie hired me back to work at the bakery.”
“But you weren’t satisfied with that.”
“I love that family,” she said. “I owe them more than I could ever repay. Claire got me this job working for Sean, or I would never have left the bakery, just out of loyalty. Here I can use my brains and my education, and I’m still helping the Fitzpatricks.”
“Sean’s a good boss, I take it.”
“The best. He encouraged me to go to Pine County Community College, and then to get my paralegal license. He helped me pay the tuition. He believed in me even when I didn’t think I could do it. He was all the time asking me test questions. By the time I took the big test, it was not exactly easy, but I knew enough to pass it.”
“So now you’re helping him with his cases.”
“I still answer the phones and do the secretarial stuff; we can’t afford another person just yet. I do the research related to his cases; I keep it all organized; I get the paperwork filled out and filed on time. Eventually, he’s going to make me a partner, so I got something to work toward. I mean, I have something.”
“You’ve accomplished so much,” Ed said. “Is there anything else you’d like to do?”
“There is, but I don’t want it in the paper.”
“Off the record, then,” he said and ended the recording.
“Miranda’s mom left me and Tommy some money; Tommy’s was for his college education, and mine is invested. I can’t touch the principal, but I’ve been saving my dividends. I’ve got me a big nest egg.”
“That’s great,” Ed said. “What are you going to do with it?”
“That’s just it,” Melissa said. “Patrick wants to buy the building next door to the Rose and Thorn, and expand the business. He hasn’t asked me to help, but I think he’d accept if I offered.”
“What do you want to do with it?”
“I want to buy the trailer park.”
“The Foxglove?”
“Yep,” she said. “The owner died last year, and the estate is just about to settle. I’ve talked to his son, and he’s agreed to give me first refusal. They got it appraised, and I have enough to buy it outright. The son wants me to buy it, rather than some real estate developer. Somebody else would just put expensive condos on it, and it’s one of the few places left in Rose Hill where poor folks can afford to live. He grew up here, and he wants other low-income families to have that same opportunity.”
“What will you do with it?”
“Fix it up, take care of the old folks and the decent people who rent there. I’ll keep out the drug dealers and the no-accounts who trash up the place.”
“I think that’s a great plan,” Ed said. “When you do that, I want to write about it in the Sentinel.”
“Keep it just between us right now; don’t even tell Claire. If I for sure decide to do it, I gotta pick my moment to talk to everyone else about it. They’re not going to be happy about it.”
“Surely they’ll support you in pursuing your dreams, not just theirs.”
“That’s wishful thinking, but I appreciate you saying it.”
“Well, I wish you the best of luck,” Ed said. “I won’t say a word about it.”
“Thanks,” Melissa said. “And if I haven’t already, I want to thank you for all you’ve done for Tommy and me. I haven’t forgotten. I owe you big time.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Ed said. “Getting to be a father to Tommy was a gift no one else could have given me.”
“And now you’ve got four little girls to run after.”
“It was kind of an instant family and for sad reasons,” Ed said. “I’m grateful, though, and Claire is so good with them, it’s just overwhelming sometimes. There’s a lot of princess paraphernalia. I wouldn’t tell just anyone, but my toenails regularly get painted, and right now they are bright pink.”
“Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me,” Melissa said. “As soon as the maternal grandparents sign off on the consent to adopt, it won’t be long before it’s official.”
“I figured Pip’s mother wouldn’t want them,” Ed said. “She was just disappointed there was no life insurance for her to collect. Jessie’s parents are certainly taking their time deciding.”
“They don’t want those kids,” Melissa said. “They’d just hire nannies to raise them if they did take them. They like to travel all over the world on their private jet.”
“All we can do is hope they want what’s best for the girls and not what they think makes them look the best.”
“As soon as we hear anything I’ll call you,” Melissa said. “Sean was going to wait another few days before calling their attorney again.”
“Keep your fingers crossed.”
“I’m not much of a prayer, but I’m doing that, too.”
Ed prepared to leave, and Melissa, who had been debating internally, gave in to her need to know.
“Hey,” she said. “You know anything about that accident in front of the Thorn last night?”
“The driver says he swerved to miss an SUV driving on the wrong side of the road,” Ed said. “Nobody saw it happen, there was no SUV anyone could find, and I guess the driver blew a point-one-five on the breathalyzer.”
“I heard he killed somebody.”
“Yeah, that’s a mystery,” Ed said. “The victim had no ID, no car that anyone can find; nobody seems to know what he was doing on the street at that time of night. They’re going to run his prints, circulate a photograph, and check missing person reports.”
“I know Patrick was there,” Melissa said.
“I read that in the police report,” Ed said. “After we’re through here I’m going to the Thorn to interview him.”
Melissa hesitated, agonized, but finally spoke.
“My neighbor Maxine said her husband saw a woman there,” Melissa said, and couldn’t look at Ed.
“A woman?” he said. “I talked to Malcolm and Skip, and neither mentioned a woman being there. It wasn’t in the police report, either.”
Malcolm Behr was the fire chief and Skip was a deputy policeman.
“Bruce is old and maybe doesn’t see too well,” Melissa said.
“Are they the type to make up gossip?”
“Yeah,” Melissa said
. “I reckon they are.”
“I wouldn’t put too much stock in that, then,” he said.
“Do you think Malcolm or Skip would lie for Patrick?”
“Have you talked to Patrick about it?”
“Not yet.”
“Melissa,” Ed said. “I can’t imagine Patrick doing that to you. Maybe you’re just feeling insecure about things right now?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Anyway, don’t ask Patrick about it.”
Ed hesitated.
“Please,” Melissa said. “As my co-parent. As my friend.”
“I won’t,” he said. “But you should.”
After work, instead of walking home, Melissa crossed Rose Hill Avenue and then took a left down Pine Mountain Road. At the intersection where the road crossed Marigold Avenue, she looked across the Little Bear River. It was almost dark now, and the trees had lost their leaves, leaving a forest of white, gray, and brown trunks sprouting out of a blanket of dark, damp fall color.
Through the woods, she could see lights on in Ava’s grand house on the hill, and Melissa wondered if she was in there and if she was thinking about Patrick.
Chapter Three - Wednesday
M elissa yawned and rubbed her eyes. It had been a long time since she’d stayed up until Patrick got home from work. She had tried watching television, but every show irritated her. They all seemed to be about selfish rich people’s problems, and she didn’t have the patience for that. Banjo, the beagle, was trying to sleep, but Melissa’s fidgeting was interfering; she could tell by his deep sighs.
She had taken up the book Patrick’s sister had given her, titled “Wuthering Heights.” After a slow start, it had gotten interesting, even though it seemed as if on every page she had to use her phone to look up the meaning of a word she didn’t understand. Now her eyes were watering as she repeatedly yawned, blurring the words on the page.
She must have dozed off because the sound of his key in the door startled her awake. He came in and looked at her, and Melissa could tell by his expression that he was both surprised and a little scared.
“What are you doing up?” he asked.
He shrugged off his coat and sat down at the kitchen table to untie his boots. His face was lined, and there were shadows under his eyes. Melissa was tempted to put off the confrontation she had intended to have, but the thought of going through one more day not knowing was unacceptable.
“I haven’t seen you in weeks, it seems like,” Melissa said. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“That can’t be good,” he said. “What’d I do now?”
The expression on his face was wary but also closed down, as if Melissa were the enemy, not an ally. Up until that moment, Melissa hadn’t realized how far apart they had drifted.
“I wanted to ask you about the wreck,” she said.
“Oh, that,” he said. “The driver was high as a kite, ran into the utility pole outside of PJ’s. Killed some dude, they don’t know who; he didn’t have an ID on him. He said he swerved to avoid a white SUV driving down the middle of the road, but if there was one, he was long gone by the time I got out there. I think he probably passed out and lost control of the truck. The electric was out for everybody east of Rose Hill Avenue and north of Sunflower Street. They just got it back on around noon today.”
Patrick got up and looked in the refrigerator.
“How come there’s never any food in this place?” he asked. “Where’s that pizza?”
“It was a week old, so I threw it out,” Melissa said. “If you want there to be food in this place you could always buy some.”
He huffed at that.
“That’ll be the day,” he said. “I work fourteen hours a day, and you work eight.”
“I heard Ava was there last night,” Melissa said.
Patrick froze, but then turned to the pantry and rifled through its contents.
“Where’d you hear that?” he said, but he wasn’t looking at her.
“People saw her, Patrick,” she said. “I know she was there.”
“People also lie, Melissa,” Patrick said, and then looked right at her. “She wasn’t there.”
“Have you been seeing her?”
“I see her,” Patrick said. “She’s a citizen of this town, and sometimes our paths cross. She’s the mother of my brother’s children, so she sometimes brings the kids to visit members of my family.”
“Are you still in love with her?”
“No,” he said. “Is that all you wanted to know? Can I go to sleep now? God, I’m starving.”
“I’m countin’ on you to tell me the truth,” Melissa said. “We’ve known each other a long time. We’re friends, Patrick. I knew she was the love of your life. I just thought it ended when I came back.”
“Melissa, I’m tired. I was up all night last night. I’ve got a lot on my mind,” he said.
“What’s on your mind? Tell me. You used to tell me things.”
“It’s just the tea room next door. I want to buy it, but it’s complicated. The owner has stipulations I can’t agree with.”
“You’ve been talking about buying that thing for years,” Melissa said. “You’ve got the down payment, you’ve been pre-approved by the bank, why don’t you go ahead and buy it?”
He sat down on a bar stool by the kitchen counter.
“Mom wants me to buy the bakery,” he said.
“She does? Since when?”
“She has to have knee replacement surgery on both knees,” he said. “She’s almost seventy; she wants to retire.”
“But you don’t want to run the bakery.”
“This isn’t about me,” he said. “This is about my mother wanting to keep a family business in the family.”
“You already run a family business.”
“The Thorn is Aunt Delia’s,” he said. “If I buy the tea room and expand the place, we’ll be partners, but it will never be all mine unless I can come up with the dough to buy it from her.”
“Then that’s what you should do.”
“Except I need you to run the restaurant side,” he said. “That was the plan, I thought, until you decided to play office with Sean.”
“You supported me going back to school,” Melissa said. “You supported my decision to get a degree.”
“But I thought you would eventually want to work with me, not my brother,” he said.
“If you had bought the tea room three years ago, when you could have, we’d already be in there together,” she said. “What was I supposed to do, sit around and twiddle my thumbs while you couldn’t make up your mind for three years?”
“I waited for you,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “And I’m grateful. I love you, Patrick. Isn’t that what’s important, not whose business I work in?”
“I can’t believe you like doing that job. Isn’t it all paperwork and suing people?”
“The paperwork is a big part of it, but I like it. I’m using my brain, my education, and we don’t just handle lawsuits, we help people do all kinds of things. We’re helping Claire and Ed get custody of Pip’s kids.”
“You’re the one who’s changed,” he said. “You used to want to help me.”
“My life is bigger than just you,” she said. “Why can’t I have what I want, too?”
“We had a plan.”
“You couldn’t commit.”
“I’ve proposed to you a thousand times,” he said. “Don’t say I can’t commit.”
“To the restaurant plan, I meant.”
“You’re never going to marry me, are you? How can you say you love me when you won’t marry me and you won’t help me achieve my dream? It’s you that can’t commit.”
“If I believed you were really done with Ava, I’d marry you. You’re not, though, are you?”
“Why are you so obsessed with Ava? She’s married to a gazillionaire, living in a mansion. What would she want with me, anyway?”
“She was there, wasn’t she?
Swear she wasn’t on your mother’s life.”
“You’re crazy,” he said.
“Swear Ava wasn’t with you last night,” Melissa said. “Swear it on your mother’s life.”
“I’m going to Mom’s,” he said. “I need to get some sleep.”
He stuck his feet down in his boots, grabbed his jacket, called the worried-looking Banjo off the couch, and left the trailer, slamming the door behind them.
Melissa was momentarily paralyzed by what had just happened. The atmosphere in the room was still buzzing from the tension. Her heart began to pound, and tears welled up in her eyes. She didn’t know what she had expected, but what she had always feared would happen, just had.
That morning, Melissa did her best to cover up her swollen eyes and red nose with makeup, but she didn’t fool Sean.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Just a fight with your stupid brother,” Melissa said. “I’ll be fine.”
“All right,” Sean said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
Melissa knew Sean well enough to know he was relieved not to find out more about what was going on. Sean didn’t like drama, didn’t like emotional scenes, and sure didn’t want to get involved in Melissa’s personal life if he could help it. Sean went back to his office, and Melissa looked at her to-do list for the day. There was plenty to keep her busy, and she was glad. She didn’t want to think about anything else.
At nine o’clock realtor Trick Rodefeffer came in.
“Hey, jailbird,” he said. “What’s up?”
“The sale documents for the B&B are ready and Will can do the closing at 2:30 tomorrow,” she said. “I called your buyers, and they will meet you for a final walk-through at 1:30. Be sure to bring the keys to the house, garage, and apartment with you when you’re through.”
“I was just over there, and the keys to the garage and apartment are gone. I guess you don’t have them.”
“No, Trick, I don’t have them,” she said. “You want me to call a locksmith?”
“No, they’re probably in my office somewhere,” he said. “I’ll keep looking.”
Pumpkin Ridge (Rose Hill Mystery Series Book 10) Page 5
