Elementary, My Dear Watkins

by Mindy Starns Clark

  Finished talking to Rick for now, Danny was desperate to search the grounds for Jo. Fanning out with several cops, he headed toward the garage and past it into the yard, praying that God would guide him to Jo. Far in the back, he heard a sudden sound, a deep, thunking crunch, followed by a cry for help.

  It had come from way out in the back pasture. Danny and the cops took off running in that direction. As they got closer, Danny could see someone standing in the distance, but he couldn’t tell which of the women it was. As they drew closer, he called out, realizing that it was Jo, just standing there next to an old well.

  She spotted Danny, waited until he reached her, and then threw herself into his arms. Chewie was bouncing against him nearby, almost frantic with energy.

  “Where are the others?” Danny cried.

  “Alexa made it over the gate and ran for help,” Jo said. “Misty’s in there.”

  The cops bent over the opening of the well to look down inside, shining a bright flashlight.

  Danny was afraid the woman might be dead, but when he looked in he saw that the fall wasn’t far enough to have killed her. There was a wide brick shelf about seven feet down, and she was lying there on it, looking dazed but very much alive.

  “Jo!” a voice yelled, and Danny and Jo turned to see someone running toward them from the house.

  The voice sounded like Alexa’s, but all Danny could see, moving up and down in the dark coming toward them, was a pair of neon green socks.

  Behind her, more flashlights suddenly appeared, and Danny knew that even more cops had arrived, and that everyone was going to be okay. He pulled Jo in more tightly than before, and closed his eyes, thanking God that the woman he loved was so brave and smart and resourceful.

  Jo had survived.

  27

  Alexa sat in the study, wrapped in a blanket, her eyes so swollen from earlier crying that she could barely see. Her throat also burned from the screaming she had done when she first realized what her mother had done. Now she just felt numb, like a piece of her had died inside.

  “Here you go, honey,” Jo said, coming into the room with a wet washcloth.

  Jo sat at the end of the couch and Alexa laid down, resting her head on Jo’s leg. Jo gently folded the washcloth and placed it over Alexa’s closed eyes. Then she stroked her hair, the repetitive motion quite soothing. Out front, they could hear Danny still talking with the last of the cops, who were just wrapping things up.

  Alexa couldn’t believe all that had happened, that her mother had tried to kill Jo and apparently had nearly killed Bradford a few days before. In the end, she had been put into handcuffs and driven away in a police car.

  The worst part was that the whole time the cops were working to get her out of the well, she kept crying and saying, “I did it for you, Alexa! I did it for you!”

  Alexa knew that wasn’t entirely true. Her mom had also done it for herself. According to Rick, it was all about drugs and money, as everything in Misty’s life had always been about drugs and money.

  At least Dr. Stebbins and his wife, Nicole, had agreed to come out to the house as soon as Jo called them. They lived in Bergen County, New Jersey, about an hour away, but they’d made it in 35 minutes. Once there, they had been a huge help. Besides getting her to calm down, they talked to her about what might happen next.

  Alexa had been shocked to learn that they wanted her to come and live with them. Much to Alexa’s surprise, they said they had already been discussing the details of eventual custody and guardianship, both with the old lady and with Alexa’s mom.

  “Alexa, we’ve always hoped that you would eventually live with us,” Dr. Stebbins said, “as long as it was something you wanted too. This whole incident will merely speed that process along.” According to him, though the full legal details would have to be ironed out later, they already had the necessary permissions they needed to take her with them tonight, if she wanted.

  Did she?

  Did they even have to ask?

  “But what about the old lady?” Alexa had said, feeling bad for abandoning the woman who had provided so kindly for her in the last year.

  “Mrs. Bosworth knows that a girl your age shouldn’t be rattling around this big place by yourself,” Nicole had said. “You may be fourteen, Alexa, but you still need parenting. You also need some friends your own age, not to mention a more normal, more realistic life. We’ve got a great youth group at our church, and there’s a school for the gifted in our area where we think you would fit right in.”

  “But I’m not really gifted,” Alexa said. “It’s just the Fibrin-X that made me smart.”

  The doctor and his wife had looked at each other and back at her.

  “Is that what you think?” he asked.

  “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “No, not at all. The drug merely took away your problem, freeing you to realize your own potential. Fibrin-X doesn’t make people smart. It just gets rid of the ADHD that stands in the way.”

  Alexa was stunned, but what he said made perfect sense. That’s why Ethan Finch was so stupid, even though he’d received the drug too. He’d been dumb before, with ADHD. Now he was just as dumb without it.

  “I was smart before?” she ventured.

  “Early tests indicated a genius-level IQ,” Dr. Stebbins said. “That’s why we wanted to give you all of these opportunities, to see how much you could accomplish once the ADHD was gone.”

  “Why didn’t anybody tell me?” she asked, feeling something whole, something complete, click into place inside of her.

  “An oversight, I suppose. I’m sorry, Alexa. I thought you knew.”

  No wonder they wouldn’t mind if she came to live with them. She wasn’t a freakazoid at all. She was just a kid who’d been cured of a disorder.

  “If I live with you,” Alexa had said, “do I still have to call you Dr. Stebbins?”

  He and Nicole both laughed.

  “Just until the symposium,” he replied. “After that, you can call me anything you want.”

  Now, the Stebbinses were upstairs, packing up some of Alexa’s things so they could go. The thought of going with them was scary and sad and happy and thrilling all at the same time. At least they promised her that she could have all sorts of visitation privileges: out here with the old lady, at prison with her mom, even with Rick, wherever he ended up. Jo had added that once she and Danny were married, Alexa was welcome to come and visit with them anytime she’d like.

  “Chewie would be thrilled,” Jo added, “as would we.”

  Now even Chewie had begun to calm down. He was settled nearby, licking from his paws the remains of his favorite treat, a pack of cream cheese. The police had taken away his bone as evidence from the crime scene, so Jo had rewarded him with the white gooey stuff instead.

  The biggest concern Alexa had was for her mom. She knew she would go to prison; she just wasn’t sure for how long. Jo said that the silver lining in all of this was that at least Misty would be forced to stay sober while in custody. Jo had prayed with Alexa, asking God to turn this whole mess into a blessing in the long run, the first step toward Misty changing her life for the better.

  Just as Alexa’s life had changed in the last year in so many ways, for the better. Hearing the Stebbinses come down the stairs, Alexa pulled off the washcloth and sat up.

  “You okay?” Jo asked.

  “I’m okay.”

  She was thinking about the old Alexa, the one from before, that she used to picture looking in at her through the window. Maybe she was supposed to embrace that girl inside of herself and love her…and forgive her.

  “Just remember that everything you’ve ever been through has worked together to make you who you are now,” Jo said, almost as if she could read Alexa’s mind. “And who you are now is one very special person.”

  Dr. Stebbins appeared in the doorway, holding a big cardboard box in his hands.

  “You ready?” he asked Alexa with an encouraging smile.
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br />   “I guess,” she replied.

  Tearfully, she hugged Jo and told her goodbye. Then she walked out of the door between her new foster parents. Nicole reached out and took Alexa’s hand, and even though she was too old for that, it felt nice.

  As they walked toward the car, Alexa couldn’t help but wonder if Nicole really did have any secret family recipes.

  28

  Jo stood at the back of the church, listening to the music and wondering how they had ever managed to pull this off. A full church wedding in Mulberry Glenn, coordinated in little more than twenty-four hours? They had done it only through the grace of God and the help of countless family and friends, especially Chief Cooper, who had somehow pulled strings in Pennsylvania and obtained them a legal marriage license in record time, much as her grandmother had done in New York. It seemed that everyone wanted Jo and Danny together, and they were willing to do what they could to help make that happen as soon as possible.

  Even Danny’s mother, who had probably dreamed of a big church wedding for her only son his whole life, had finally acquiesced and gone along with everyone’s enthusiasm. She had made it her personal mission to find Jo a wedding dress, and by the time she was done calling her friends and scouring the local consignment shops, she had managed to collect five different choices all in Jo’s size. The one Jo picked, a circa-1948 duchess satin with a flared skirt and fitted waist, turned out to be a loaner from Jo’s very own across-the-street neighbor, Jean White, which made it even more special to her.

  Jo couldn’t believe that, just a little more than one day ago, she had fought off her attempted murderer and knocked her into the old well. It had taken a while for the police to get Misty out of there, take her into custody, and finish all of their business at the estate. Misty confessed to everything almost right away, including the train incident and the toaster, and she incriminated Rick and Bradford in a shocking drug ring besides.

  As it turned out, once Winnie had been told that Jo’s pursuer had been arrested and that it had turned out to be Alexa’s mother, Misty, Winnie had finally revealed her own motive for what she had done with her mother’s thyroid pills.

  According to Winnie, when she first learned that someone was trying to kill Jo and that it probably had to do with the family trust and the announcement about Fibrin-X, Winnie had concluded that the person most likely responsible was her own son, Ian. In an attempt to protect him from himself, Winnie had decided to do something that would cause her mother to become incapacitated, as quickly as possible, so that there would no longer be any reason for Ian to kill Jo.

  Jo couldn’t imagine how Ian must feel now, knowing that his own mother thought he was a murderer. No doubt Winnie’s suspicions were going to affect their relationship, but at least Winnie had cared less about the division of shares than she cared about her own son.

  Jo couldn’t say the same for her parents. Throughout this whole mess, Kent and Helen had consistently acted out of their own best interests. Last night, after Alexa was gone, Jo and Danny had made the decision to pull together a quick church wedding the very next day. They had gathered their stuff, locked up the empty estate, and driven all the way to Mulberry Glen. On the way, after calling friends and family to enlist their help in pulling together a ceremony, Jo had called her parents and told them that she wanted them to know about the wedding. She said that they were welcome to come if they so desired, but that their relationship from here on out would be greatly modified.

  “I know where I stand in your priorities,” Jo had told them before hanging up. “Maybe I should have figured that out a long time ago.”

  Now in her own church, as the music started and Marie and Anna stood poised to head down the aisle in matching dresses that they had somehow managed to scrounge up in such a short time, Jo was grateful that Chief Cooper had volunteered to give her away. He’d been making plans to get married soon himself, and he joked that he needed the practice.

  Then Jo heard her father’s voice behind her.

  Jo and her friends turned to see both Kent and Helen standing in the doorway, all dressed up and looking strangely subdued.

  “Can we talk to you for a minute?” Kent asked Jo.

  Jo told Marie to motion to the organist that they weren’t quite ready to start. Then she stepped outside of church with her parents, letting the heavy doors fall shut behind her.

  “What?” she asked, ignoring her mother’s exclamations about how beautiful Jo looked.

  Without speaking, Kent handed over a piece of paper to Jo, some sort of legal document.

  “What’s this?”

  “Your wedding present.”

  Jo unfolded it and started reading, realizing right away that it was notarized statement from Kent Tulip to the board of directors of Bosworth Industries, stating that he had reconsidered his position on the matter of the Fibrin-X and he was now fully supporting the announcement of information at the symposium.

  “I don’t understand,” Jo said, looking up at them.

  “It was what you said last night about priorities,” Helen told her, and Jo was shocked to see that there were actual tears in the woman’s eyes. “We knew the only way we could make up for what we did was by proving to you how sorry we were. About everything. This was the grandest gesture we knew how to make.”

  “And trust me,” Kent added, “it was pretty grand. That promise right there is going to cost us millions, if not billions, in the long run.”

  “Maybe not,” Jo replied. “If I know you, Daddy, you’ll find a way to make it work. Besides, cost effective or not, this is the right thing to do. People with ADD and ADHD need that cure.”

  Jo knew that she held in her hand proof that her father had chosen her over the company and his money. Considering that the Fibrin-X could help millions of people for many years to come, she thought it was a fair price to pay.

  It was also a strange way for a parent to show love to a child, but then her parents had always been strange. She nodded finally, tucking the paper into her bouquet and thanking them both for what they had done.

  “So may we walk you down the aisle?” Kent asked.

  Jo looked at her father, thinking of all the hurt and pain his greed had caused her. She said no thanks, that she already had someone to do that, but she would like it if they’d take a seat in the front row, in the place of honor reserved for the bride’s parents. As they went, obviously humbled, Jo was glad that eventually they would be able to put this entire episode behind them and move forward.

  Full forgiveness might take a while, but at least this was a start.

  “Are you ready?” the pastor asked Danny and his groomsmen.

  “More than you can imagine.”

  The pastor led the way out of the antechamber and into the church. Danny took his place up front, astounded at the number of people who had shown up considering the amount of notice they’d given. It looked like half of the congregation was there, along with Danny’s entire extended family, and even a handful of Jo’s relatives as well—including her Uncle Neil and cousin Ian. (Winnie was now out on bail, but apparently she had chosen not to come. Danny didn’t blame her.) The biggest surprise was to see Helen and Kent Tulip sitting in the front row. Danny was glad. That must mean that somehow Jo’s parents had made an effort to heal the rift been them and their daughter.

  Anna and then Marie started down the aisle, and Danny could see Jo moving into position in the doorway, her hand linked in Chief Cooper’s arm.

  Danny focused on his bride, his heart swelling with a greater depth of love than he had ever known. Then the music shifted, the Wedding March began, and the congregation stood and turned.

  Thank You, God, for this wonderful woman, Danny prayed as Jo started up the aisle. Make me a husband worthy of her.

  Jo walked down the aisle, her eyes locked on Danny, her heart so full she thought it might burst. What a different experience this was, to be walking toward the man she knew God wanted her to be with forever.

>   Thank You, Lord, for Danny. Help me to be the wife he deserves.

  As she got closer, Jo took a moment to look around at all of the people who had come here to share in this last-minute affair. Jo knew that she and Danny were blessed to have so many people who loved them and wished them well. Her only regrets were that her grandmother was still in the hospital and that Alexa wasn’t there. But Danny’s sister Denise was videotaping everything, so later, at the reception, Jo and Danny planned to record special hellos to them both and send them copies of the tape.

  For now, Jo wanted to focus on her surroundings and enjoy the moment. The church looked amazing. Anna and Marie had decorated the sanctuary with hundreds of white flowers and candles, and now that the sun had set, the room glowed with warmth.

  Jo and the Chief reached the altar and stopped there as the pastor welcomed the guests and opened the ceremony with prayer. After that, Jo was given away and then found herself standing face-to-face with her beloved, holding his hands in hers.

  She thought about how silly she had been to let her dislike of travel be the thing that might keep them separated for the next seven weeks—or cause Danny to give up his internship completely. Late last night, after the police were gone and she and Danny had been talking about what might happen next, Jo had realized that maybe her desire to hole up at home where it was warm and cozy and safe was more about leftover baggage from her childhood than any personal preference she might have. She decided that maybe she needed to see the world again, this time not by being dragged by her parents against her will, but hand in hand with the man she loved. When she suggested that they get married right away and get themselves back to Paris by Wednesday, so he wouldn’t lose the internship after all, the look on Danny’s face told her all she needed to know. After that, he had surprised her by pulling a small velvet box from his pocket, opening it up, and sliding the most beautiful ring she’d ever seen onto her finger.