by Wendy Tyson
“They’re fine,” she said. “We’re ready to eat.”
Megan sighed. “I know.”
“You were almost killed.”
“But I’m fine.”
“You did a brave thing, Megan.”
“Stabbing Luke…feeling that knife in my hand. I don’t think I will ever forget that, Bibi.”
Her grandmother nodded. “It’s the kind of thing that changes a person. But whether it changes you for the better or worse is up to you.”
Megan looked away, wiping her eyes.
Bibi squeezed her arm. “Mick would be proud.”
“You think so?” Megan’s voice was husky.
“I know so.” Bibi reached up and gave her granddaughter a kiss. “And I’m proud too.”
Forty-One
There was little more depressing than a hospital on Christmas Day. Walking quickly through the building, Megan noticed the holiday decorations—silver menorahs, Christmas trees, holly-studded garlands—that marked the nurses’ stations and the waiting rooms. Like her drive to Sarah’s cottage on that fateful day, the decorations didn’t buoy her spirits. Rather, they reminded her that not everyone was feeling fortunate on such a celebrated occasion.
Megan reached Sarah’s hall. She carried a large bouquet of mixed flowers and a box of chocolates from Bibi, and she hid behind the flowers, trying not to see the desperation in the faces of the other visitors walking the floor. The hospital smelled of disinfectant and sickness, and Megan’s black boot heels clicked their way across the tiled floor. Megan searched for room 522, anxious to see Sarah and get home to Bibi and Denver. To that hot bath and a hot lasagna and her two favorite dogs.
She found Sarah’s room across from the nurses’ station. A red-haired nurse with a pert nose and large bosom flashed her a warm, sympathetic smile. Megan managed to smile back.
“Sarah Birch?” Megan said.
“Right in there. I think she’s sleeping finally.”
Megan thanked her.
“Popular woman. You can go in too.”
Too? Megan nodded and walked into room 522. She was expecting one of the Historical Society members, or maybe Merry. But the woman who sat by Sarah’s bed was a stranger.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Megan said. She placed the flowers and candy on the bedside table. “I’ll come back.” When she looked back at the bed, she noticed the visitor studying her. The woman had black hair streaked with gray. It was pulled into a loose bun and wisps of hair framed a broad face and full lips. Her cheekbones were high, her skin creamy-pink.
“Megan?” the woman whispered.
Megan backed to the door. She looked from the bed to the woman and back again. Sarah was asleep. She would forgive Megan’s cowardice.
But Megan’s feet rooted her in place.
The woman stood. Megan noticed wide hips, narrow shoulders. A black dress that was both modern and modest. A tight smile and eyes so sad they looked like pools of deepest regret.
“Megan.”
Megan’s heart raced, her breath slowed. She felt light-headed and euphoric at the same time. She’d waited her whole adult life for this moment. So many things ran through her head. Some kind, most not. Where were you when I needed you after my first breakup? When I got married? When Mick died?
Megan had an entire conversation with Charlotte Birch in the minute that she stood there, mute, staring at the woman who gave birth to her but who hadn’t been part of her life since Megan was a child.
“Megan?” the woman said again. She took a step closer. Held out a hand, took it back. “I’m Charlotte.”
“How is she?” Megan managed.
Charlotte turned back toward the bed. Her gaze was loving as she fixed a blanket, straightened a pillow. “Resting. The man who did this to her gave her a cocktail of Rohypnol and a few other drugs. Her body didn’t react well.” Charlotte smiled. “I heard what you did. Saving her life.”
That man who was now in the same hospital, in a room guarded by police, Megan thought.
Charlotte smiled. “It was very brave.”
Megan managed another nod.
Charlotte picked up a black wool coat from a nearby chair. “Sit, please. I was just leaving. I have a train to catch.”
Don’t go, Megan thought. But her voice had left her a dozen thoughts ago.
As though viewing a movie, Megan watched as her mother pulled on her coat, buttoned it with long, slim fingers, perfectly manicured nails. She was a polished version of Megan. Polished and demure. Sophisticated. Megan looked down at her jeans and vintage gray sweater, at the boots she wore over thick wool socks.
But Charlotte’s eyes were on her face. And aside from the deep green pools of regret, she looked happy to see Megan.
“Merry Christmas, Megan,” she said. She held a square black bag close to her side. “I’d hoped maybe I’d see you. I thought…if I see her, what would I say? How would I explain?” Her eyes beseeched Megan’s. “But now that you’re here, I know some things can’t be explained. Or, perhaps, forgiven.”
Megan stood there, watching her. For someone whose prior career depended on words, they were failing her now.
Charlotte edged toward the door. “Well, maybe I’ll see you again.”
Megan pushed herself forward. She took a step, stopped. Someone in the corridor was crying and the sound echoed through institutional green halls. “I’d like that,” she managed.
Charlotte’s eyes brightened. With a final nod, she left.
Megan wanted to run after her, tackle her, and ask her a million questions. She thought of Becca and the debilitating pain of losing a mother. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe Megan could still have hers.
She sat down next to Sarah. Her aunt’s eyes fluttered but didn’t open. Megan took her aunt’s hand, squeezed gently, and whispered, “Merry Christmas.”
Sarah squeezed back. The crying in the hall stopped. Megan saw the cards on the table next to the flower bouquet. One was addressed to Sarah. The other was addressed to Megan in a script she didn’t recognize. Her mother’s handwriting. Her mother’s card.
Sarah squeezed her hand again. Her aunt’s eyes were opened. She smiled.
Megan smiled back. Perhaps everything would be all right. At least for today.
THE END
(Book #3)
ROOTED IN DECEIT
A Greenhouse Mystery #4
Wendy Tyson
Copyright
ROOTED IN DECEIT
A Greenhouse Mystery
Part of the Henery Press Mystery Collection
First Edition | September 2018
Henery Press, LLC
www.henerypress.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including internet usage, without written permission from Henery Press, LLC, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Copyright © 2018 by Wendy Tyson
Author photograph by Ian Pickarski
This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Trade Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-384-6
Digital epub ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-385-3
Kindle ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-386-0
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-387-7
Printed in the United States of America
For Angela.
I am very blessed to have you as my mother and my friend.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to my fabulous agent, Frances Black, and everyone at Henery Press, especially Kendel Lynn and Art Molinares. Y
ou made this book possible.
A big thanks to Rowe Carenen, Larissa Ackerman, and Claire McKinney for your marketing and public relations expertise—and your inspiring love of books.
A warm thank you to my childhood friend Marnie Mai for going with me to all of those spas over the years. By the time I wrote this book, my vision of the fictional Center was firmly set. (There is no one I’d rather go to a real spa with, Marnie!)
Thanks to my husband, Ben Pickarski, for your gardening know-how and seemingly endless patience with the earth and my questions.
Thank you to my son Matthew for helping me with the logistics behind this fictional murder.
A big thank you to Mandy, Ian, and Jonathan for all of the support—online and offline.
And finally, thank you to my mother-in-law, Ann Marie Pickarski, for the food chats and vegetarian recipe shares. No matter what you make, it’s always delicious.
One
Megan spread stain across the new barn’s fascia with slow strokes, watching the thick Indian Summer red bleed into unprimed wood. The day was hot and humid, a soupy late August afternoon that teased a cooling rain but delivered little more than sweat and sunburn. Megan wiped her hand on her denim overalls. She wished her farm manager, Clay Hand, would hurry. She was impatient to see how the interior of the new barn looked.
According to Clay, Washington Acres Farm already had enough reservations for the next Saturday’s wood-fired pizza event to pay for the pizza oven—an oversized stone monstrosity that Clay had built by hand in his spare time over the course of the spring and summer. Now Clay and his sister Clover, Megan’s store manager, were putting the finishing touches on the serving area while Megan and her farmhand, Brian Porter, completed the last of the exterior painting. Clay and Clover wanted to surprise her with the look of the new restaurant. Seemed it was a week for surprises.
“Ready!” Clover said a few minutes later. The twenty-something wore a pair of khaki cargo shorts and a sage green tank top. Her long, thick hair was imprisoned in a tortoiseshell clip and escaped strands clung to her face and neck. One thing the new pizza farm didn’t have yet was air conditioning, which was being installed later that day, and it showed in Clover’s red complexion and soaked shirt.
Megan quickly washed the brush with cold, soapy water using a bucket and the hose. She dried the brush and placed it next to the can on the lawn to dry, anxious to join Clover. Last she saw the interior, the new barn had still been cavernous and barren, a stark wooden structure with high ceilings, a bathroom at one end, the oven at the other, and a lot of empty space. Before that it contained unused horse stalls that doubled as storage units. The pizza farm had been Clay’s vision for that section of the barn for a long time. It was finally coming to fruition.
“Close your eyes.” Clover took Megan’s arm and led her through the red entry door. She positioned Megan gently. “Voila.”
Megan opened her eyes. She let out a long, slow whistle. “Wow. Just wow.”
The barn had been transformed. The space was filled with cedar picnic tables painted in primary colors: scarlet, lapis lazuli, turquois, and yellow. Atop each one was a Mason jar filled with blossoms—sunflowers, lavender, daylilies, and dahlias—from the farm’s abundant flower gardens. The rafters overhead had been strung with tiny white lights, giving the place a cozy, festive feel. Two paintings, a landscape and a portrait both painted by Thana Moore—a local artist and long-ago friend—had been hung on the walls. While Megan had mixed feelings about the artist, she was happy to see Clover and Clay had found a use for the art, which until then had sat propped against a wall in her office. The stone hearth, on which sat the giant wood oven, rooted the eye, pulling it the length of the barn. A large dinner plate clock and wooden forks and spoons hung on the upper part of the hearth. “Washington Acres” was painted on the clock in red block letters.
“This looks amazing.” Megan wandered around, touching everything.
A new hostess station sat near the barn entrance. Clay had gone over a basic pine frame with milk-white paint. A chalkboard propped against the barn wall listed the pizza menu. A laptop computer sat alongside a Mason jar full of pens, a large bouquet of flowers, and an easel on which Clover had painted “‘Laughter is brightest where food is best.’ –Irish Proverb.”
“I can’t believe it. You did it,” Megan said, clapping. After months of suggestions, hints, and proposals, Megan had finally caved in to their insistence that the town needed a wood-fired pizza venue. She’d used the farm’s meagre savings to fund the new pizza farm amidst promises from Clay that he, Clover, and Porter could build the main structure and oven for a pittance. It hadn’t quite been a pittance—to her and her grandmother, Bonnie “Bibi” Birch, at least—but it had been an impressively low sum of money for something like this.
Megan hugged Clay, then Clover. “I absolutely love it.”
“I told you,” Clay said. “If you build it, they will come.”
“You already have a full house coming next Saturday.” Clover used a parchment paper menu to fan herself. “And you haven’t even opened yet.”
“Want to try out the oven?” Clay asked.
“Are you offering to make dinner?” Megan smiled.
“I am.” Clay scrunched up his nose. “Do you want to invite…everyone?”
“That’ll be a party,” Clover’s words dripped with sarcasm.
Megan sighed. “We should. Can’t exactly exclude one person.” Much as we might like to, she thought. She looked around the barn. It seemed large enough to house everyone’s ego.
Clay wiped his hair back from his face with large, slender hands. Clay was a strikingly handsome man in his early twenties. He looked like a rugged Jake Gyllenhaal with long hair and a warm smile. “We can get streamers and balloons. A homecoming celebration.”
“A homecoming, indeed.” Only Megan wasn’t thinking streamers and balloons. She was thinking ear plugs, Tylenol, and convenient hiding places.
“Megan.” Sylvia Adriana Altamura air-kissed each of Megan’s cheeks with perfectly rouged lips. “Darling, it’s so lovely to be here, at your quaint homestead. This farm is gloriously antiquated. Charming, truly. One would never really know how close to bankruptcy it was.” Sylvia kissed Clay, taking a little longer than seemed necessary. “Edward has said many kind things about you.” She looked from Clay to Clover and back again. “About all of you.”
“I’m sure,” Bibi responded. Megan’s grandmother’s face was curled tight as a newly sprouted fiddlehead fern. “And we’ve heard so little about you.”
Megan shot Bibi a look. While Sylvia was saying all the right things, her flat tone and constant blinking seemed to tell another story. But maybe I’m biased, Megan thought. Bibi certainly was. Megan’s father’s new wife—the woman her father had left Washington Acres and Bibi for—was not exactly the person they’d envisioned her father would choose. Not because of Sylvia’s appearance, certainly. In her mid-fifties, she was tiny—barely breaking five-feet tall—with long, straightened, red hair in a shade nature had never intended, a prominent nose, thin, expertly painted lips, and hooded green eyes. Her look was sensuous, her personality…challenging. She had a way of standing tall, neck and head extended, eyes sharp, surveying everything around her with a judgmental gaze and a quick, biting comment. She exuded confidence and entitlement. So much so that Megan wondered what she saw in her father, Eddie Birch.
Eddie Birch—Megan had called him Eddie since she could remember—was known for many things. His casual good looks and easygoing personality. Being a dreamer. An infectious laugh. Not finishing anything he started. But he was not known for his good judgment or his wealth, so being the husband of a successful Milanese boutique owner seemed a stretch. And while Megan was trying hard to play nicely in the sandbox, Bibi had thrown the toys out with the sand. She and Sylvia seemed to take an instant dislike to one another. Maybe because Bibi sti
ll resented the way Eddie had left the farm on an impulse two-plus years ago to chase after Sylvia and Italy. Maybe because their personalities conflicted. Maybe a little of both. If Eddie noticed, he wasn’t letting on.
“How was your flight?” Clover asked.
Eddie took the cue and regaled them with stories of multi-continental travel woes while Sylvia corrected him at every turn. They sat in the barn around two picnic tables that had been pulled together. Clay had prepared five pizzas, and he brought the first of them to the table. It looked and smelled amazing, a succulent mixture of rich tomato sauce, locally-made cheeses, and Washington Acres spinach, onions, and peppers on a chewy-crispy, smoky crust.
“So this is what all the fuss was about,” Bibi said, digging in. “Now I get it.”
“Amazing,” Clover muttered. “So good.”
“Americans are so enamored with a cheese-heavy version of pizza.” Sylvia picked a pepper off her slice and pushed it to the side with sharp fingernails. “In Italy, the ingredients make the dish. No need for—”
“It’s perfect, sweetheart,” Eddie said to Megan. He glanced at Clay. “Delicious.”
Sylvia pursed her lips, mirroring Bibi’s inverted smile.
“A toast,” Eddie said. He stood, his white linen shirt billowing in the light breeze from the new split-system air conditioner. “To family reunions and new endeavors.” His gazed landed on Megan, and the warmth of his smile made her blush. “You took a failing farm and turned it into a treasure. I feel the love, pumpkin. I feel the Birch spirit. I’m so proud of you and all you’ve accomplished.”
