The Evil That Was Done (Secrets of Redemption Book 3)

by Michele PW (Pariza Wacek)

  “Why do you all put up with her then?” I asked instead. I had wondered it for a while, but hadn’t found the right time to ask.

  “Well, she is Barry’s wife,” Mia said. “Although I admit I’m surprised by his choice.”

  “Maybe she makes him happy,” Daphne said. “ Celia isn’t so bad once you get to know her.”

  “If you say so,” I said.

  Daphne made a face at me. “And stop trying to change the subject. Regardless of whether Celia is there or not, it would be good for you to get out of the house.”

  Mia elbowed her. “It would be good for you, too. When was the last time you went out? I’m not taking no for an answer from either of you. Go get ready.”

  Daphne held up her hands. “Far be it for me to resist.”

  “But what if it all goes to hell?” I asked. “What if we run into people who want to fight with me again?” Or worse, I thought, but didn’t add.

  Mia shrugged. “We’ll deal with it.”

  I stared at her. “Just like that?”

  “Of course,” Mia said, surprised. “Becca, what do you think you’re going to do? Hide in this house for the next ten years? If you’re going to live here, you likely are going to run into people who don’t like you or your aunt, and you’re going to have to learn to deal with it. It’s not that big of a deal.”

  Mia had a point. It was starting to look like a night out was in my immediate future.

  Even though I still wasn’t convinced I was ready.

  Mia must have seen something in my face, because she started hoisting me out of my chair. “No more stalling,” she said sternly. “Off to the shower you go.”

  I tried one last time. “But ...”

  “No ‘buts.’” Mia wagged her finger at me. “We’re leaving in an hour. You too, Daphne.”

  An hour? I couldn’t possibly be ready in an hour. I opened my mouth to argue, but the determined expression on Mia’s face stopped me, and I slunk out of the kitchen.

  “Besides,” she called out. “Chances are very likely that nothing is going to happen, other than all of us having a good time.”

  Chapter 2

  “See, this wasn’t so bad after all,” Mia said, clinking my wine glass.

  I gave her an almost-natural smile back. The booze helped.

  This was our third bar, not including the restaurant we stopped in for dinner (to help soak up the alcohol).

  It took that many to finally wear me down enough to end the night at The Tipsy Cow, everyone’s favorite bar.

  I really didn’t want to run into the “old gang,” but (as both Mia and Daphne pointed out), it was bound to happen at some point, so I might as well get it over with.

  “Did you have enough to drink yet?” Mia asked.

  I took a sip. “What do you mean?”

  Mia stuck her tongue out at me. “Because Celia is here.” She stood up and waved at Celia.

  I sunk down in my seat. Great. Just great.

  Celia swept into the booth, wearing a dark-blue top with a sweetheart neckline that strained against her large breasts. As usual, she dripped with jewelry: gold necklaces, oversized gold hoops, gold and copper bracelets. Her black hair was pulled back into a smooth ponytail. She placed her cosmo in front of her. “Well, well, well,” she said, looking me over. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

  “Celia,” both Mia and Daphne protested.

  “What?” Celia asked, widening her heavily made-up eyes, looking like a caricature of someone feigning innocence. “Am I just supposed to ignore the fact that her sleazy cousin is a sexual pervert?”

  “Nice to see you, too, Celia,” I said drily, picking up my wine.

  Mia punched her arm. “She can’t be blamed for what her cousin did. She’s her own person.”

  “They share the same genes,” Celia retorted.

  “You’re not being fair,” Daphne said. “Becca was as horrified as we all were. Probably more so. And, besides, if it wasn’t for her, Brittany would still be missing.”

  Celia muttered something and drained her drink, gesturing to the waitress for another round.

  “In other, unrelated news, how’s your deadbeat brother?” Mia asked.

  Celia shot her a dirty look. “That’s hardly a fair comparison. Tom isn’t a pervert.” But her face had paled except for two red spots of colors on her cheeks.

  “That you know of,” Mia muttered under her breath. Celia made a point of pretending not to hear her.

  The conversation shifted to other things—Mia’s online college preparations, a problem Celia was having with her son (he either was bullying someone or was being bullied, Celia wasn’t being all that clear on the details), an update on Daphne’s mom (her knee seemed to be getting worse, despite all the home treatments they were doing).

  I mostly listened. After Celia’s reaction, I didn’t particularly feel like drawing any more attention to myself. In fact, the longer I sat there, the more I thought it was time to go home. What more did I need to do? I had left the house, visited a variety of establishments, and nothing bad had happened. Even what Celia had said wasn’t terrible. And she was still sitting at the same table as me. I would say the evening was a success.

  It was definitely time to go home.

  I finished sipping my wine, waiting for a break in the conversation to announce my intention to leave, when Mia suddenly said, “Oh, there’s Barry. Who is he with?” she squinted. “He looks familiar.”

  “Oh, that’s JD. He’s new around here,” Celia said.

  It was a good thing I had finished my wine, because I likely would have choked. JD? The guy who hit on me at the bar and then showed up at Brittany’s search party? Here? And friends with Barry?

  I was debating how obvious it would be if I turned around and looked, or if there was any way I could sneak a quick peek without anyone noticing, when Celia sat up and waved her hand, calling them over. “Barry! They haven’t met JD yet!”

  Before I had a chance to decide if I should stay or slip out the back, they had magically appeared beside us.

  “I can’t believe you haven’t met JD,” Barry said, as he introduced Mia and Daphne. When Barry’s eyes fell on me, he paused, and for a moment, my heart stopped. Had I misread our last encounter when he apologized for believing CB over me years ago? But then his face broke into a grin. “Becca! I’m glad you’re here.”

  To my relief, he sounded genuinely pleased. I could feel myself start to relax. “Yeah, Mia decided I had been a hermit long enough,” I said.

  “Ah, yes, Mia, our little homebody… ironic,” Barry said. Mia stuck her tongue out at him.

  Barry grinned at her and then suddenly remembered JD next to him. “Oh, let me introduce ...”

  “We’ve met,” JD interrupted, giving me a slanted smile as he held out his hand. I took it warily. “It’s nice to see you, Becca.”

  He wore a black cowboy hat, the same one I’d seen him in before that emphasized his high cheekbones and narrow, angular face. His dark-brown eyes seemed to look straight through me, like they could see my soul. I squirmed slightly, dropping both my gaze and his hand. I could feel him chuckling at me.

  “Oh, I didn’t realize you’ve met,” Barry said. “Shall we join you? Or is this girl’s night?”

  “Join us,” Mia said, sliding over and giving me a look. I knew what was going through her head, just like I knew she would be grilling me as soon as we were alone. “Slide over, Becca.”

  Reluctantly, I made room so JD could slip in beside me. I squeezed as tightly as I could next to Daphne, not wanting to touch JD, even accidentally. There was something about him that felt ... dangerous. I would have to stay on guard.

  Barry gestured to the waitress, and before I could protest, I found a fresh glass of wine in front of me. Oh well. Might as well drink it.

 
“I think we might have met before as well,” Mia said to JD.

  “Hmmm ...” JD stared hard at Mia. “I don’t think so.”

  “Have you been to Redemption before?”

  “First time.”

  “Really? What brings you here?” Mia asked. As much as she was trying to sound polite, it was like she was fighting the urge to bounce over the table and shake the details out of him.

  “Right now, I’m just doing the touristy thing,” he said.

  Mia cocked an eyebrow. “Right now?”

  “I’m looking for a fresh start,” he explained. “I’ve been traveling around a bit, keeping my options open, seeing what feels good, and I stumbled upon this place. Thought I’d ...,” here, he glanced at me, his eyes unreadable. “... stick around awhile.”

  “How long have you been here?” Mia asked, doing her best not to stare at both of us.

  “Few weeks.”

  “And you’re thinking about staying?”

  He shrugged. “Considering it.”

  “Are you looking for a job?” Mia’s voice was a little too eager.

  Barry groaned. “Are you serious?”

  “Hey, Jack and Todd both quit last week,” Mia said defensively. “Yesterday was a nightmare. We’re desperate for a dishwasher at Aunt May’s.”

  “Since you’re interrogating him anyway, why not just ask him what he does for a living, instead of offering him a dishwasher job?” Barry asked.

  “Well, now that you mention it,” Mia said cheerfully. “What do you do?”

  JD’s mouth twitched. “A little of this, a little of that. I do a lot of work with my hands. Repairs, construction. But I’m not opposed to washing a few pots and pans in a pinch.”

  Mia shot Barry a triumph look. “See?”

  Barry rolled his eyes.

  “Why are you looking for a fresh start?” Mia asked.

  “Jesus, Mia,” Barry interrupted. “Would you give the man a break? I know it’s easy to forget, but you’re actually not a lawyer yet.”

  Mia held up both hands. “Hey. I’m creating win-wins here. I may have solved our dishwasher problem and gotten JD a job. Who knows what I’ll discover with a few more questions?”

  “Oh, is that what we’re calling interrogation now, a ‘win-win’?” Barry asked. Mia punched him on the arm.

  “It’s fine,” JD said easily. “I don’t mind. It’s not really all that interesting. My mother died, and I found myself ... well, it made me realize how short life really is. And how much of it I was wasting. So, I decided there was no better time to reinvent myself. And here I am.” He smiled at all of us as he raised his beer in a toast.

  “I’m so sorry,” Mia said, her words in a rush. “I didn’t mean ...”

  JD waved his hand as he took a drink. “It’s fine. That’s why I don’t talk about it. I don’t need anyone feeling sorry for me. It got me to do what I’m meant to do. That’s all that matters.”

  “I’m sorry, too, for your loss,” I added awkwardly, wondering if I had misread him all this time. Grief can make people do strange things. Maybe all of this was just a big misunderstanding.

  And yet ...

  JD gave me a slanted smile. “Thank you. But honestly, we don’t have to make a thing of it.”

  “So, if we’re done grilling JD, maybe we can move on to other topics of interest now,” Barry said. “Like Daniel.”

  I spilled my wine.

  “Oh, clean up on aisle ten,” Barry said, as JD handed me his coaster napkin to mop it up. “Maybe we need to get a refill.”

  “I’m good, really,” I said. The last thing I needed was more wine. Or to talk about Daniel.

  “It’s not a big deal. Daniel can bring it over when he comes.” Barry started signaling with his hand.

  Wait a minute. Daniel was here? He was supposed to be working. That’s why he canceled our date. Did he lie to me?

  A part of me wanted to march over to wherever he was and give him a piece of my mind. I had asked him straight out if he really wanted to do this, to try dating. I had already told him I would understand if he thought it was going to be too complicated for him to date me and be a cop in this town.

  He assured me he wanted to try.

  I believed him.

  And, here he was, standing me up again.

  A small voice inside me immediately wanted to argue—fifteen years ago, Daniel didn’t actually stand me up. It was CB, meddling. And, regardless, Daniel wasn’t standing me up right then, because he had called to cancel.

  Yet it somehow still felt like I was sixteen again, standing alone in the woods, wondering where Daniel was … and feeling like a total fool.

  Of course, I couldn’t say any of that in front of all our friends. Maybe I should just leave. That would kill two birds with one stone. Not only would I avoid seeing Daniel, but I could also get away from JD and his strange, intense energy.

  Before I could figure out how exactly to sneak away, there was Daniel, doling out drinks—including another glass of wine for me. He was wearing a blue tee shirt that brought out the blue in his eyes. His blonde hair was getting a little long, curling around the back of his shirt.

  Speaking of his eyes, they darted between me and JD, but he didn’t say a word. Not only that, but his face was completely unreadable—a professional mask. His cop face. He pulled a chair over and turned it around before he sat down, so he was straddling it backwards. He was careful not to look at me, but I could still feel the sparks dancing between us. I was having trouble breathing, something that happened often when I was near him.

  “So, since you’re here, does that mean Ellen is safe and sound?” Mia asked.

  He took a pull from his beer. “No, but there’s not much we can do right now.”

  “What happened?” Daphne asked. On the surface, her voice sounded neutral, like she was simply inquiring about an acquaintance, but I could hear the confusion and worry swirling beneath the calm.

  He shrugged. “No one seems to know. She didn’t show up at work today, which is unlike her. They had tried calling her home and her cell, but there was no answer, so they called her mother. Her mother was the one who came in to file a missing persons report, but since there’s no sign of foul play, there’s not a lot we can do right now.”

  I felt a shiver run down my spine, like I had just been blasted by air conditioning.

  “What about putting an alert out?” Mia asked.

  “We can, but she hasn’t even been missing for a day. It’s not a crime for an adult to disappear. We’re in wait-and-see mode.”

  “And, Ellen has been known to just take off without telling anyone,” Daphne said darkly, pressing her lips together so hard they turned white.

  “Not to mention it’s pretty common here for people to leave quickly, making it seem like they’ve disappeared,” Mia said, after a quick glance at Daphne.

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that,” JD said. “Something about how, if the town doesn’t like you, it makes sure you don’t stay?”

  Celia rolled her eyes. “It’s all a bunch of nonsense.”

  “It is NOT a bunch of nonsense,” Mia said. “Weird things DO happen here. And, they have for years. Over a hundred years.”

  “Weird things happen in every town,” Celia said. “It’s no different here.”

  “I don’t know, we sure seem to have more than our share of weirdness,” Daphne said.

  “In fact, tomorrow we’re going to a memorial service for one of the people this town didn’t seem to want,” Mia said.

  “Actually, for two people,” Daphne corrected. “Jesse, too.”

  “Oh God, that’s right,” Mia said. “How could I forget? And that doesn’t even include Jonathan.”

  “Wait,” I said, my head spinning. “Who is Jonathan? I thought this was about Jessica.”

>   “It is,” Mia said. “But there’s Jesse, too. Jessica’s uncle who disappeared.”

  “Then who is Johnathan?” I remembered Jesse. Jessica had been named after him, but this was the first I’d heard of a Jonathan.

  “Jesse’s friend,” Daphne said, but she didn’t quite meet my eyes. “He disappeared, too. About a week or so after Jesse.”

  “It all happened before we were born,” Barry said. “There were, well, at least a few people who disappeared, all in this short span of time. Jesse, Jonathan, Rosie...”

  “Oh God, Rosie,” Mia said. “That waitress. I forgot about her.”

  “So, when Jessica disappeared,” Daniel said. “There was this total panic that it was all starting again. Another cycle of people just … disappearing.”

  “There was someone else, too,” Mia mused. “I’m sure of it. I just can’t remember now.”

  “Did anyone else disappear with Jessica?” I asked, feeling like I had just walked an episode of The Twilight Zone.

  “No, Jessica was the only one during that time,” Daniel said.

  “Thank God,” Daphne added.

  I stared around the table in disbelief. “How have I never heard about this before?”

  Celia rolled her eyes. “Maybe because they didn’t really disappear?”

  “How can you say that?” Mia asked.

  Celia picked up her cosmo. “Easily. It’s called ‘moving.’ People do it all the time.”

  “Without telling anyone?”

  “They probably did tell someone, but that part has been conveniently forgotten, because everyone wants to think there’s something more ‘sinister’ at play.” Celia wiggled her fingers as she said the word “sinister.”

  “How do you explain Ellen?” I asked. “She didn’t tell anyone anything.”

  “Maybe she just needed a break.” Celia said. “She probably just decided to get out of town for a bit. Take a vacation. Can you blame her?” She gave me a hard look. “It’s been a difficult few weeks.”

  What, this was my fault? I bit my tongue, deciding it probably wasn’t a particular helpful thing to say, and instead asked, “And not tell her boss? And leave her coworkers in a lurch?” I asked.