by Tara Meyers
Nodding in understanding, Mel took her mug of coffee and sat on the couch. “Chalk it up to years of conditioning.”
“I don’t understand.” Ember sat down beside her.
“When I was fifteen and Cody was thirteen, we served as acolytes together in my father’s church.”
Ember couldn’t hide her surprise and failed to cover her smile in time.
“Hey, you asked for it!” Mel retorted. “This story has deep roots.”
It was good to have the old Mel back. Ember found her easy sarcasm strangely comforting. “Go on, then,” she encouraged.
“Our families had been friends for years. Sheriff Walker and Cody drove to Refuge for church every Sunday and bible study on Wednesday nights.”
“Walker at church?” Ember had a hard time imagining him as the religious type.
Mel scratched at her jaw. “Well, you can thank me for their fall from grace.”
Ember raised her eyebrows.
This ought to be good.
“Cody and I were best pals up until that summer. That’s when he had a sudden interest in girls and seemed to have an epiphany that I was, in fact, one of these creatures.” Taking a long sip of coffee, Mel got a far-off look as she remembered. “I put him off for several months because, you know, I was too cool at fifteen to let a kid hit on me. But then puberty arrived with a vengeance, and he quickly grew bigger than most of the kids in my class, so I started looking at him a little differently. Anyway, long sordid story short, we got caught making out in the vestry mid-service by a deacon. Don’t laugh,” Mel scolded. “It was actually pretty horrible. I mean, all we were doing was some light kissing, but to hear both of the towns talk about it, we’d desecrated the church.”
When Ember saw that Mel was serious, she stopped laughing. “Wait, you mean that’s the reason for the tension between you and Walker? The source of all your little pokes at him? He still holds a grudge from ten years ago when you were kids?”
Mel nodded, looking miserable. “Walker and my dad had a huge falling out over the whole thing, and he left the church. Needless to say, Cody and I were forbidden to see each other, but we went to different schools anyway, plus I was older. He soon forgot about me, but we started talking online again last year.”
“Cody was at college then, right?” Ember didn’t want to ask directly about the college situation.
“Yup. Full-ride scholarship for football to the University of Washington. Following in his father’s footsteps. But―well, you know the rest.”
“Mayor Gomez was right about the DUI?”
“He wasn’t over the legal limit, but he still got slapped with one since he was involved in an accident. He challenged it and got the charge lessened, but by then, it was too late with the college. The sports department has a zero-tolerance policy. So, that was it.”
Ember struggled not to judge Cody too harshly. But her own mother had been killed by a drunk driver earlier that year, so she also had zero tolerance.
Mel turned to her when she remained silent. “He’s not asking for sympathy or forgiveness,” she explained. “He knows he messed up, and trust me, he’s paying for it in many different ways. But he’s a good guy, Ember.”
Taking Mel’s hand, she smiled. “If you’re so crazy about him, he has to be.”
Relief replaced the angst in Mel’s eyes, and she teared up. “It feels good to be able to talk to you about it.”
“Look,” Ember said. “I understand why you didn’t tell me about this before. I’m sure you get why I didn’t tell you everything that’s going on with me either. But I think we can both agree that life’s a lot better when we include each other in all of it.”
In answer, Mel threw her arms around Ember and gave her a big hug. “Absolutely!” she agreed, her voice muffled by Ember’s hair.
Returning the hug, Ember felt like a huge weight had been lifted. She’d come to rely so much on her friend’s candid advice and easy company and didn’t realize how much she’d been missing it. Good friendship was a rare gift, and she promised herself to work harder at nurturing it.
The front door chimed, announcing the eleven o’clock appointment.
“I’ll go get them set up in the room!” Mel offered, jumping up from the couch with a big smile on her face.
Retreating to her office for a moment, Ember first checked on Daenerys, who was sound asleep in a comfy dog bed. She then grabbed her cell phone that was charging and noticed she’d missed a call. Pulling up the voicemail, she was surprised to hear it was from Delilah. Apparently, the autopsy report had just arrived in the mail, and she asked for Ember to call her back.
I’ll do better than that.
Ember needed answers. She’d go to Delilah’s during lunch to go over the report. It wasn’t a matter of clearing the other woman’s name anymore. Now it was personal.
FIFTEEN
“I thought they were going to arrest me!” Delilah threw a big ball of dough onto the counter, causing a cloud of flour to billow out around her. The stove was on, the dishwasher running, and the sink had various used utensils spilling out of it. Pies, cakes, cookies, and an assortment of pastries once again filled the kitchen.
Ember took in the scene, as well as Delilah’s disheveled appearance, and wondered if the other woman had even slept the night before. Not that she could blame her.
“I told them that you obviously wouldn’t have used your own knife.” Once the words were out, Ember wished she could take them back. It was meant to be a statement of support, but instead, it only caused Delilah’s shoulders to sag further.
“I really liked that knife.” Shaking her head, she began rolling out the dough. “You shouldn’t be here, Ember. For whatever reason, someone sees you as a threat because you’re talking to me. Coming here again isn’t a good idea.”
Sweetheart chose that moment to rub against Ember’s leg, and she was thankful for the distraction. She wasn’t ready to tell Delilah the real reason she was a target.
Kneeling down to pick the cat up, she rubbed the spot between her ears, eliciting a content purr. “I got a call from the lab late yesterday,” Ember said while looking the cat over. “Just like we suspected, she’d been exposed to the same type of inorganic arsenic as Allen. But, obviously, it was a small amount, so there shouldn’t be any lasting damage from it.”
Delilah turned around and wiped her hands on the well-used apron she was wearing. “That’s a relief.” Her voice was almost monotone, and her eyes had a glazed look.
Concerned, Ember set the cat down and approached Delilah. “When was the last time you slept or ate?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on.” Ember led the resort owner over to the table and guided her into a chair. After filling a glass with water, she prepared a sandwich with some meat she found in the fridge. “Here. You need to eat this.”
“How can I eat?” Delilah looked up at Ember, and the torment on her face was indescribable. “I’m being accused of killing my own husband. And that poor man. They’re out there gathering ‘evidence’ and probably writing reports and affidavits as we speak. How can I eat?” she repeated, staring back down at the food. A small sob escaped her.
“Because we know you didn’t do it, and we have to have faith that the legal system is going to work.” Ember wasn’t sure if she believed her own words, but she had to say something. “How are you going to defend yourself if you’re so tired and weak that you can’t even put a coherent sentence together? Come on,” Ember urged, picking up a sandwich half and forcing it into Delilah’s hand. Eat it.”
Slowly and mechanically, Delilah began to eat. Once she’d started, it seemed to become easier for her as her hunger kicked in, and she had the whole thing finished in less than ten minutes. The water followed, and Ember set out some grapes and refilled the glass.
“Thank you,” Delilah said when she was done. Her voice was stronger. “You were right. My blood sugar was pretty low.”
“I don’t mean
to rush you,” Ember said, “but I have to get back to the clinic soon. Your message said that you’d received the report?”
“Oh!” Jumping up, Delilah went to a side table and retrieved several sheets of paper. “Here.” She held them out to Ember and then went back to the abandoned pie. “I don’t know what half of that says.”
Ember sat down with the report and silently began to skim over the first page. It was a summary of the exam, detailing nothing remarkable. The suspected COD, cause of death, was listed as sudden cardiac arrest due to an irregular rhythm.
Ember skipped ahead to the second page, which contained lab results. Not much had been ordered. A basic CBC, complete blood count; a CMP, comprehensive metabolic panel; and a cardiac workup, including the troponin level, an enzyme used as a marker for when the heart muscle is damaged. Those results were also pretty normal, other than the expected elevated troponin level and some other metabolic fluctuations.
“Were you there?” Ember asked.
Delilah looked down at her hands. “Yes.”
Ember hated to bring up such horrid memories, but she needed to know what happened. “There isn’t enough to go off of in this report,” she explained. “I need to know what his symptoms were leading up to his heart stopping.”
Delilah sat back down across from Ember and drank some more water. “He was perfectly fine that morning. We even went for a walk along the shore of Crystal Lake. He was in the family room, watching football, and called out. I thought he was upset about a play, but then he shouted again and it was…off. When I went to check on him, he was swatting at the air at something I couldn’t see. He was flushed and staggering like his balance was off.”
“Did you describe this to the coroner?”
Shaking her head, Delilah looked back down at her hands again. “I remember telling someone―maybe one of the medics that responded. The police never asked me any questions. I guess because it wasn’t considered an ‘unattended death,’ since he didn’t die until after the paramedics arrived. They attempted CPR, but―”
Ember reached out and placed a hand over the top of Delilah’s. “Can you remember anything else?”
“He had a headache.” Delilah stood and began pacing the floor of the kitchen. “After I got him to sit down, he came to his senses and was confused about what he’d been doing. He said his head was killing him and then rubbed at his eyes and complained that he couldn’t see me very well. He asked for water. That’s when I called 911. I was afraid he was having a stroke or something. But by the time I came back from the phone, he’d lost consciousness. He was still breathing when the ambulance arrived, but right after they hooked him up to the monitor, everyone started yelling about his heart rhythm. They shocked him. It was horrible.”
Ember tried to remain objective and began writing out the symptoms Delilah described on the back of the report:
Hallucinations
Blurred vision
Headache
Thirst
Irregular rhythm
Loss of consciousness
“And no one ever questioned you about this?” Ember was having a hard time believing that there hadn’t been a more thorough investigation. But then again, it was an even smaller town seventeen years ago, and who knows who the coroner was. If Doug Huntsman was dead on arrival at the hospital and that’s how the physician signed off on it, a small-town coroner without a medical background may not have thought to ask more questions. Especially if the widow was distraught.
Delilah shook her head. “I had a breakdown. I was a mess for months. I don’t even remember who I talked to or what I said, except that I was told he’d had a heart attack, and who was I to question it? I didn’t know any better, and at the time, I didn’t care. All that mattered was that Doug was gone.”
Their conversation was interrupted by a loud knocking at the front door.
Delilah’s head jerked up, and the fear in her eyes was palpable. “I can’t go to jail!” she gasped.
Ember tiptoed to the front room and eased around the wall to peek out the large front windows. Also expecting the police, she was surprised to see her Aunt Becky. She wasn’t sure which was worse.
“It’s okay,” she assured Delilah. “It’s not the sheriff.”
Delilah frowned when she saw who it was. Without a word, she marched to the front door and swung it open. “What are you doing here?”
“Why would you come here?” Becky ignored the question and glared at Ember.
“I was going over Sweethearts lab results with Delilah,” Ember offered somewhat lamely. She hadn’t expected such venom from Becky, and it threw her off for a moment.
“Why would you come here?” Becky repeated, turning to gesture toward Delilah. “Knowing what you do about your father!”
Ember took a step back, not sure how to respond as Delilah looked back and forth between them. Confusion clouded her face.
“What do you mean?” Delilah asked.
Becky glared at Delilah. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Why you aren’t sitting in jail already is beyond me, but you stay away from my family!”
Delilah flinched as if she’d been slapped. “Ben called a couple of hours ago and asked me if I’d known your dad,” she mumbled to Ember. Tilting her head in thought, she squinted her eyes. “Why? What is this about?”
“It’s the date,” Ember said without preamble. “It was the same day, Delilah.”
As understanding washed over Delilah, the color drained from her face. Reaching out a hand, she nearly fell back into the nearest chair, her mouth open in a small O.
“I remember it was winter when your dad died,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I was, what…sixteen? I didn’t know you, Ember, other than to babysit you once or twice, but our mothers were friends. She wanted to take you and your mom some cookies. Cookies. I thought it was an insult to act like giving you cookies would somehow help make things better.”
A heavy silence hung over the room for a moment as the three women stared solemnly at each other.
“What’s happening?” Delilah’s voice was haunted.
SIXTEEN
Snow crunched beneath Ember’s boots as she did her best to keep up with Daenerys. The labradoodle was happily running from tree to tree with her nose to the ground. Daenerys paused when she heard a sound and looked up at Ember, chunks of ice stuck to her snout.
Laughing, Ember slapped at her thighs, beckoning to the dog. But before Daenerys could respond, a black cat leaped from the nearest tree to bat the dog on the back and then run away. At first she acted surprised, but then she gave an excited yap before chasing after Peaches. The cat often followed them on walks, and the swat-and-run was a favorite game between the two animals.
“I know both you and Cody believe Delilah, but I’m not so sure.” Mel was trailing behind. Her short stature made it more difficult to plow through the snow, even though it wasn’t as deep under the trees.
Ember looked back at Mel and waited for her to catch up. They were at the far end of Crystal Lake, walking a familiar route from her front porch. Their four o’clock appointment canceled on them, and it was an easy decision to get some fresh air while the sun was still up.
“If you’d seen her face today, you’d understand,” Ember replied. “And like I said earlier, I called Walker to share the information she told me, but she’d already described the scene to both him and Sheriff Carpenter. Now, if she was the only one to have known those somewhat suspicious details of her husband death and she was guilty of killing him, why would she have told the investigator?”
Mel stared out over the frozen end of the lake for a moment, gathering her thoughts. “Maybe she wasn’t sure if anyone else knew about his symptoms. She told you herself that she couldn’t remember who she’d spoken to about it. She might have figured it was riskier to not say anything and then look guilty because of it.”
“Maybe.”
Ember picked up a rock from the edge of the i
ce and tossed it out to where the water still rippled. She missed being able to skip rocks while on their walks. Daenerys loved to run along the shore in the evenings, but it got dark out so early now that they hadn’t been out there for over two weeks. The sun was already dipping down behind the mountain range to the west. The shadow it cast blanketed Sanctuary and was rapidly approaching them. They’d need to turn back soon.
“What about Carl Hathaway? Didn’t you say Walker was going to talk to him about that cow and the fertilizer stuff?”
“He didn’t say much, other than to let it go.”
“Sounds like Walker,” Mel grumbled.
“Apparently, the MSMA was a newer version of it and not nearly as potent as what used to be sold,” Ember explained. “I guess it’s pretty common stuff. As for the missing calf, Carl wasn’t too forthcoming on the details. Walker said he can’t investigate something that hasn’t been reported.”
Mel had wandered off while they were talking, and when Ember heard her grunting in effort, she involuntarily ducked at the expected snowball. Spinning around at the same time, she discovered that instead of building an icy arsenal, her friend was working on the bottom portion of a snowman.
“Jumpy?” Mel giggled.
Laughing at herself, Ember grabbed at a dead branch from a nearby pine tree and broke it in half. “It’s going to need arms.”
They busied themselves for the next ten minutes with their creation, and Daenerys and Peaches continued to chase each other back and forth. As the gathering shadows began to make it difficult to see what they were doing, Ember stood back to examine their work.
“I think it’s rather respectable,” Mel proclaimed. “Except any reputable snowman needs a top hat.”
“Or at least a scarf.”
Ember jumped at the deep voice from the darkening woods and was relieved to see Nathan walking toward them. He even had a flashlight.
“Hey!” Happy to see him, Ember rushed to give him a hug and was pleasantly surprised when he pulled her back in for a kiss when they started to part.