by D. L. Wood
As she whipped up pancakes from the meager groceries she had purchased, she made a plan for the day. The reunion wasn’t until six thirty. Until then, she would sort as much of the house as she could. Today she would be moving on to the bedrooms that used to be hers and Nikki’s, and if she had time after that, the dining room, bathrooms and linen closet. If she made it through those, it would be a very productive day.
It wasn’t lost on her that she was saving the most difficult rooms for last. Her father’s office and her parents’ bedroom. Difficult, not only in terms of the most belongings in a single space, but also because they were the most personal areas of the house. The most sentimental. The most emotionally racking. Even though she and Nikki weren’t close, it would have been nice to have her sister there for that part of the process. Someone to lean on. Someone who understood the loss, because they too had lived it.
But Nikki wasn’t there, and although Sasha and Peter had both offered to come help today, she had refused them. Sasha had enough to deal with, being in charge of the reunion, and Peter—well, she didn’t really have a good excuse for not letting him help, except that, if her sister couldn’t be there, she would just rather do it alone. When the time came to move boxes around, she would take all the help she could get. But the packing was simply too intimate and too heart-wrenching to undertake under the watchful, worried eyes of others.
Dani stabbed the last bite of fluffy, vanilla-laced pancake, wiped up the maple syrup pooling on her plate, and washed it down with the rest of the orange juice in her glass. After depositing the dishes in the dishwasher, she marched off to get ready, resolved to get through at least two rooms before lunch.
It was nearly noon before Dani started feeling hungry again. Sitting back on her heels on the floor of her old bedroom, a growing sense of accomplishment filled her. She had stuck to her plan, working relentlessly to get through Nikki’s old room first—a fairly easy task given that Nikki had cleared it of anything she wanted when she was there in March.
Dani’s own room had proven more difficult, wringing more than one bout of tears from her as she pulled memorabilia from her closet and dresser drawers, long forgotten, but riddled with memories. In this room there were more boxes marked “Me” than in any of the others. After two hours of work, she held the last of it in her hands—a stuffed green frog with a felt crown that had been her childhood favorite, its much-loved fuzz now worn and perpetually flat. She gingerly placed it into the last box and closed the top, patting it as she rose.
She was headed down the hallway, trying to decide what to do about lunch when the doorbell rang. Once again through the peephole, she saw Chris Newton, this time standing there with a grin and a pizza box.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, swinging the door wide.
He shrugged. “You said you’d be working in the house all day. I thought you might be able to use a break. You’ve got to eat, right?”
Dani gripped the edge of the door, trying to keep her face from reflecting the mild annoyance she felt. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate the gesture, but she had specifically turned down Chris’s offer of help the night before for good reasons, and thought she had been pretty clear about that. Yet, here he was, intruding on the very activities she had barred even her oldest and dearest friends from sharing with her.
Why the persistence? Had Sasha sent him over? And was he really that interested in her?
Would I mind if he was?
She stopped that thought in its tracks, because, once again—Boston vs. Skye. She shifted her weight, glancing at the ground, stalling for a second before meeting his gaze.
“Look, this is…so nice,” she said. “But, I really meant what I said last night, Chris. This is something I need to do by myself.”
His eyes widened. “Dani, no…I’m not here to help. You were pretty clear about that. I genuinely just figured you might be working too hard to take a lunch break. I didn’t know what you had in the house so I brought this for you. I’m not staying.” He held the box out to her. “I took a chance. You seemed like a supreme pizza kind of girl—er, woman.”
The delicious scent of oven-baked crust, tomato sauce and oregano wafted up from the box, which displayed a Tagalini’s Pizza logo, her favorite pizza place in town. Dani’s stomach rumbled audibly and she clutched at it.
“Sounds like I wasn’t wrong,” Chris said with a smirk.
Dani narrowed her eyes. “You took a chance, or has somebody been talking to Sasha?”
He eyed her roguishly. “Are you going to take it or not?” he asked, his timbre dropping.
She tossed him a playful frown, grabbed the box and stepped aside. “Come on in,” she said, adding an exaggerated sigh of concession. “I mean, since you went to all this trouble…”
He slid by her and she followed him inside, wondering where this was headed. Wherever that was, one thing was certain.
Sasha was going to get an earful the second he left.
16
“So, I chased the kid into the alley,” Chris said, continuing the story he’d been telling for the last five minutes, “the one by Carrington’s Cleaners on Second Avenue—”
“Yeah, I know it,” Dani said. They sat across from each other at the kitchen table, the pizza box opened before them, the ice in their tea half melted.
“—and, there’s this ten-foot-high chain-link fence at the back and he just runs up and scales the thing.”
“Impressive.”
“Exactly. So I get there and grab on, figuring he’s going to be long gone if I don’t follow him over, only, then I see that he isn’t running anymore. He’s just standing there on the other side, watching me. And he says, ‘Ain’t no way you get over that before I take off, old man. See you, loser.’ And he turns on the speed. Well, there’s no way I’m having that—”
“Of course not,” Dani said, finishing off her third slice.
“Exactly. So I pull myself up and over, but my jacket gets caught on the top and I lose my grip, fall eight feet and land on my ankle. Broke it. And the little monster’s disappeared. For six months I was the guy who got outsmarted by a ten-year-old rolling houses. They actually called me ‘Charmin.’”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. Didn’t end until another guy got a concussion from a confused little old lady who called 9-1-1 about a break-in, then whacked him in the head with a bat when he showed up to investigate.”
“What did they call him?”
Chris grinned wryly. “Mrs. Doubtfire.”
“Nice.”
“Okay,” Chris said, rubbing his hands together, shedding any stray crust crumbs. “Your turn. Your most embarrassing moment on the job.”
Dani squeezed her eyes tight and groaned. “All right. First day. Straight out of the academy. I’m in the car with my partner and we’re not on patrol for more than ten minutes when this woman comes up to my window at a red light, taps on it and tells us some guy stole her purse just up the block, then ran into a store. My partner pulls over in the only free spot, leaves the keys in—”
“Oh no,” Chris interrupted, his face twisting into a pained expression.
“—and tells me to give him a minute and be ready to follow in the car if the guy makes a run for it. He hustles into the store, and I walk around the front of the car to the driver’s side—a little slow, right, because I’m watching for him the whole time. Then I hear a door slam. I look and there’s some college-aged kid in the driver’s seat, with a stupid grin on his face. I’m yelling at him to get out, yanking on the door handle, which he has of course locked. He pulls out of the space and drives away just as my partner walks out of the store, with the perp handcuffed.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. They recovered the car just six blocks away, but still. The damage was done.”
“How long did it take you to ride that one out?” He grinned smugly. “No pun intended.”
“I got a remote-control patrol car from my Secret Santa for f
our years running.”
“Yikes,” he said, then popped the last of his crust into his mouth. He chewed for a moment, then swallowed. “How far have you gotten today with the packing?”
“It’s coming along.”
“Must be hard.”
“It is. I’ll be glad when it’s done.” She rose, picking up the pizza box. “You want any more?”
He patted his stomach. “Nope. Couldn’t eat another bite.”
Dani deposited the box in the fridge while he put the plates in the dishwasher. She turned back before he looked up, and found herself watching the way he moved. Her initial annoyance triggered by his unannounced visit had long evaporated. He was easy to talk to. Funny. And he was a cop, so he understood her on a level that non-cops didn’t. Plus, he wasn’t doing that thing Sasha and Peter tended to do—watching her uncomfortably closely, looking for signs that she wasn’t handling it all well—or at least he didn’t seem to be. It was just lunch, pure and simple.
He looked up and caught her staring, at which she awkwardly backpedaled a few steps.
He smiled, but graciously avoided looking too ‘cat-that-ate-the-canary’ about it. “So, um, don’t be too mad at Sasha,” he said, leaning against the counter, crossing one ankle over the other.
“About what?” Dani asked, attempting an innocent inflection.
“Oh come on, you know as well as I do that she’s match-making here.”
“So she did tell you to come by! I knew it.”
“No, she called and…hinted…that you might forget to eat.”
Dani offered him an apologetic smile. “Look, Sash thinks it’s her responsibility to see me…involved again. I’m really sorry you got wrapped up in it.”
“Well, I’m not,” he said evenly.
His forthrightness made her uncomfortable and she snorted softly, deflecting her self-consciousness.
“She just wants you to be happy.”
“Yeah. I know she means well—she and Willett, both,” Dani said, “but she doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to this sort of thing.”
“Really?”
“When I was a freshman at Boston College, Sash came to visit over her spring break. She met this guy at a party and was positive he was the one for me. Did her thing, pushed us together.”
“What happened?”
“Three years later Finn and I got married.”
Chris expelled a throaty laugh. “So, she got it right.”
Dani shook her head. “Couldn’t have been more wrong. Married at twenty-two, divorced at twenty-six.”
“What happened?”
She huffed a tired sigh. The story never got easier to tell. “He decided he wanted something—someone—different. I loved him and he loved her.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever been through, next to my parents, obviously,” she said, waving a hand at the room vaguely. “So, you can understand why I’m reluctant to let Sasha play a guiding role in my love life.”
Dani’s phone went off, the ring a short recording of the theme from The Office. It wasn’t a number she recognized.
“Hello?” she answered, and held up a finger to Chris, mouthing the word, sorry.
“Is this Danielle Lake?” The voice was deep, male and older.
“Speaking.”
“Ms. Lake, this is Larry Holmes, Dr. Thomas Beecher’s attorney.”
A jolt of electricity zinged her. “Of course! Mr. Holmes! I, um, didn’t expect to hear from you until Monday at the earliest.”
“Normally, you wouldn’t have. But I’ve received some news that required my attention and when I opened my email to deal with it, I saw your email and thought I should get in touch, seeing as how you and Dr. Beecher were close. He always spoke very highly of you.”
“Well, I’ve always thought a lot of him too. That’s why—” She cut herself off as a cold stone slipped into her stomach. “What do you mean ‘spoke’ highly of me?”
Mr. Holmes paused, clearing his throat. “That’s just it, Ms. Lake. Dr. Beecher is dead.”
“I can’t believe it,” Dani croaked hoarsely, sitting on the couch with her head in her hands. Chris sat beside her, his eyebrows drawn together as he watched her.
“What exactly did he say?”
“He was stabbed by one of the inmates with some kind of shank.” A timid sob escaped her lips as she sucked in a staggered breath. “I just saw him yesterday morning,” she said, her voice pleading. “He was doing so well.”
“Do they know what happened?”
“Apparently three inmates cornered Dr. Beecher’s cellmate after breakfast and started pushing him around pretty hard. Dr. Beecher saw what was happening and tried to intervene. One of them whipped out the shank and—” Her sharp intake of breath cut off her words.
He’s dead. Dr. Beecher is dead. The day after I brought him the diary, he’s dead.
Another gale of nausea assaulted her as she lifted her gaze to meet Chris’s. He must have seen the panic in her eyes, because he started shaking his head forcefully.
“No. No, Boston. I know what you’re thinking, but, no. You didn’t cause this.”
“How do we know that? I bring him the diary and less than twenty-four hours later he’s dead? That can’t be a coincidence!” The desperation in her voice rang in her ears.
“This wasn’t directed at Dr. Beecher. You said they were starting in on his cellmate, right?”
She nodded.
“So, he just got in the way. Stepped into the wrong fight. It had nothing to do with you.”
Her face was hot and wet and she roughly dragged a hand across her cheeks to wipe away the tears. “I wish I could believe that.”
For a moment they sat in silence, Chris apparently at a loss for any other encouragement. “What did his attorney say about the diary? Did they recover it?”
Another pang of sadness struck her. “It’s there. They’ll send it to his family along with his other belongings, but Mr. Holmes said the diary and whatever might be revealed in it doesn’t matter now that Dr. Beecher’s dead. There’s no one to pay him to pursue it. At best he’d be attempting to clear Dr. Beecher’s name. If it had been a matter of getting Dr. Beecher out of jail, he said he would have helped even if Dr. Beecher couldn’t pay him. But now, he just doesn’t see the point.”
“Wouldn’t the family pay him?”
“He doesn’t think so. It’s just the ex-wife and the kids down in Florida. I can’t see her paying for it and anything Dr. Beecher will have left the children, if he has anything at this point, will likely be held in trust for them. Dr. Beecher told me himself when I saw him that he was essentially broke.”
“So, it just ends?”
She nodded and sniffed. “I guess so.” She straightened in her chair and dropped her shoulders. “Look, I’m really sorry. I’m not the weepy type. It’s just a real blow.” She shot up, suddenly feeling a need to be alone again. “Thanks for lunch and everything, but I should probably get back to work.”
“Sure, of course,” he said, following her to the front door. He walked through as she held it open, turning back toward her when he reached the bottom of the front steps.
“I get how you feel, Boston, but it’s really not your fault. It’s just an awful coincidence.”
Though his words didn’t change anything, for his sake, she smiled weakly. “Thanks.” He returned the smile, then started down the front path.
A burst of something reckless over and above her grief exploded within her as she watched him go. The feeling surprised her almost as much as what she did next.
“Um, Chris?” she called out.
He paused mid-stride and swiveled back. “Yeah?”
What am I doing? Have I completely lost my mind? Stop it!
“Oh, um, I, uh…just thanks.”
He nodded. “You already said that. I’ll see you later, Boston. Try to have a good reunion.”
“You too,” she r
eplied, immediately feeling like an idiot.
“You too?” What is wrong with me? But if he heard her, he didn’t say anything.
He drove off before she managed to do anything else embarrassing, and she went back inside, berating herself.
I can’t believe I nearly asked him to go to the reunion with me.
It was the grief. And the shock. Had to be.
Dr. Beecher. Dead. Just like her parents. And Jennifer. And any hope of finding the truth.
This incredible, unforgivable miscarriage of justice hadn’t just taken Dr. Beecher’s freedom, it had killed him. And with cruel irony, only one day after he had finally been offered the tiniest sliver of hope.
According to Mr. Holmes, the funeral plans in Dr. Beecher’s will allowed for a small service and burial, but that wouldn’t take place for a couple of weeks, as his children lived in Florida with their mother and needed time to make travel arrangements. So Dani wouldn’t even get to do that small thing to honor him—to be present for his funeral, to say a proper goodbye.
Pushing down a heavy sense of failure, she headed to the dining room, hoping to bury the feeling in busyness.
17
The thumping sounds of Backstreet’s Back filled the civic center’s event hall as two hundred-plus people danced, ate, and caught up with old friends. The neon beams projected from the lights on the DJ’s table cast alternating hues of pink, green, yellow and blue across the room, giving a club-like feel to the space, while the flickering candles on the tables added a contrasting touch of coziness.
Dani stood off to one side with Sasha and Willett, nursing a glass of white wine and chatting with people she hadn’t seen in ten years, many coming over to congratulate Sasha on the evening. Dani wore a simple, fitted black cocktail dress with spaghetti straps, hemmed just above the knee with a little ruffle at the bottom that fluttered as she moved. She smiled and hugged and looked at pictures of children and met spouses, all with a smile on her face that she didn’t really feel. The news from earlier had just hit too hard.
