Comfort Me

by Debbie Viguié

  She kept glancing toward the elevator, waiting for Mr. Cartwright to show up so she’d know what she was doing with her day. Twenty minutes later she decided to start trying to make a filing system for the papers that Rose had left in seemingly random stacks all over the desk and piled in the drawers.

  The morning progressed slowly. She finally asked Leo if he knew when Mr. Cartwright would be in but he just shrugged and swallowed some aspirin. Just before noon he took off to go to lunch and she kept trying to create a workable filing system. She had found a box of file folders in one of the cabinets near the printer and she set about putting them to good use.

  An hour later things were starting to finally take shape in that area. Cindy looked at the clock. She wanted to take lunch a little late, but not quite as late as she had on Tuesday. She had no idea where in the building Beau worked but she hoped to catch him in the lunchroom again. She had some questions that she was hoping he could answer.

  She finally headed down there. She approached the lunchroom quickly, rehearsing what she’d say to him if he was there. She stepped into the room and noticed that the only person in there was a man who was just turning away from the microwave. She wasn’t certain, but thought it might be him.

  “Beau,” she said softly.

  He stiffened and then turned all the way. There were dark circles under his eyes like he hadn’t slept much the night before. That made two of them. He had a cup of ramen noodles in his hand. He looked at her warily.

  “Oh, hi, um...”

  “Hi,” she said, forcing a smile. “It’s Cindy.”

  He cleared his throat. “Cindy, right. Look, I’m sorry if I scared you when I confronted you.”

  “It’s okay,” she told him. “It’s fine.”

  “No, it’s really not. I was in a bad place...not quite thinking straight,” he said with a grimace.

  “I’ve been there,” she said.

  He raised an eyebrow. “You’ve stood there screaming at a total stranger to help you find your missing friend?”

  Cindy shrugged. “Close enough that you might be surprised.”

  “Huh. Okay,” he said, setting the cup of ramen down on one of the tables and pulling out a chair.

  Cindy pulled up a chair at the same table and began to take her lunch out of the brown bag she’d brought it in.

  “Rose must be very special,” she said, having to remind herself not to talk about the woman in the past tense.

  “Very special,” he said. “I’ve never met anyone like her. She was so giving, always looking out for other people. She’d listen to everyone. If you needed to talk, she was there. So many people are only nice if they think they’ll get something out of it. Not her, she was the genuine thing.”

  Cindy noticed that while she wasn’t referring to Rose in the past tense Beau certainly was.

  “You think something happened to her, don’t you?”

  He hesitated then nodded slowly.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, just a feeling in my gut. Like deep down I know that something’s wrong, that I’ve lost...her,” he said, choking back emotion at the end.

  “Do you have any idea what might have happened?”

  “No, but I want to know. I need to know,” he said.

  “You loved her, didn’t you?” she asked softly.

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  “Did you ever tell her?”

  “No. I wanted to, a dozen times, but it was never right.”

  “Why not?” Cindy pressed.

  “She had a lot she was dealing with last year,” he said. “Her grandmother was sick for most of it. She was everything to Rose. She raised her.”

  Cindy thought of the picture of Rose and the older woman that she had carefully packed away in the box.

  “What happened?”

  “She died, toward the beginning of October. Rose was in a lot of pain, grieving. I tried to be her friend, to listen to her, but I couldn’t be that guy.”

  “That guy?” Cindy questioned.

  “Yeah, you know, the guy who takes advantage of girls when they’re grieving. I didn’t want to tell her how I felt because I was afraid either she would think that I was just trying to get close to her or she would react just out of her own pain and not because she cared for me, too.”

  “That’s very honorable of you,” she said.

  “Yeah, been thinking a lot in the last couple of days that maybe I shouldn’t have been so honorable. Maybe she’d still be alive.”

  His voice cracked and he looked down at his food, clearly struggling with his emotions. He looked up again finally. “So, I tried to be there for her, listen if she needed it. She was great at helping others but not so good at accepting it for herself, you know?”

  Cindy nodded. Lots of people had that problem.

  “Then, right around Christmas something changed,” Beau said.

  “What changed?”

  “I don’t know. It was like the light came back on inside her. She started laughing and smiling again. At the Christmas party she was just...glowing. That’s the only way I can describe it. I didn’t know what had changed, but I was so grateful that she was no longer mourning so deeply.”

  A smile touched his face as he remembered and it made Cindy’s heart ache a little for him and for Rose.

  “And then I didn’t want to stress her out. It was like I was afraid that her happiness was this fragile bubble that might break if anything new or different touched it. I was an idiot,” he said.

  “Sometimes we’re too afraid of how things might change if we do speak up, even if the change could be a good one,” she said.

  Heaven knew it had taken her and Jeremiah both a long time to speak up about their feelings for each other. Too long. She sometimes wondered how things would be different if they’d only worked that out sooner.

  She took a deep breath. This was so not about them. She stared intently at Beau. The man was in anguish. She wished there was something she could do to help him. Impulsively she reached across the table and touched his arm.

  “Beau, I promise you I’ll find out what happened to her,” she said.

  Tears welled in his eyes. “Thank you,” he said. “If she’s alive I need to find her, to tell her what I should have told her months ago. And if she’s not...” he shuddered. “If she’s not, I need to know that, too,” he finally finished.

  “You will,” she said, tears beginning to sting her eyes.

  Beau glanced down for a moment and then stood up. “I have to go,” he muttered.

  He left and she set about eating her lunch. Her heart really did ache for him. When her lunch break was finally over she headed back to her floor. She stepped off the elevator and before she could turn and head for her desk Mr. Cartwright loomed over her, his face contorted in menace.

  “What do you think you are doing?” he demanded.

  16

  Cindy nearly jumped out of her skin. “Heading to my desk,” she finally managed to get out.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Lunch.”

  “You’re late getting back.”

  “No, I took lunch late. I waited all morning for you and finally gave up,” she said, not wanting to tell him she’d been hoping to catch Beau at lunch.

  He stared at her sourly, but didn’t say anything.

  “I’ve been creating a filing system for all the papers I’ve found on the desk and in the desk. Apparently my predecessor didn’t have one,” Cindy finally said, feeling the need to break the silence that was stretching between them.

  If anything his glower got worse. “Keep doing that. And be ready tomorrow morning for a lot of hard work.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “I’ll be in my office,” he said.

  “Alright.”

  He turned and went into his office, slamming the door.

  She jumped slightly.

  Wh
at a horrible, horrible man, she thought to herself before turning and making her way back to her desk.

  “Mr. Cartwright seems to be in a bad mood,” she commented to Leo, needing to say something to someone.

  “He often is,” Leo said dully.

  “I wonder why he was so late getting in.”

  “Boss’s privilege,” he said. “The rest of us have to suck it up and get to work on time no matter how hard our heads are pounding. He can just sleep it off.”

  “Was he at the bachelor party, too?” Cindy asked sharply.

  Leo turned to look at her. “Of course he was. It was his bachelor party.”

  “Oh!”

  “Yeah, he’s getting married this weekend. I’m telling you he planned all that out just right. He’ll be set for life.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Leo yawned. “He’s marrying Nita Rayburn.”

  “Rayburn? As in this company? Rayburn NextGen Solutions?”

  “Yup, owner’s daughter. One day, all of this will be his,” he said, sweeping his hand around to indicate the whole place. “As long as he doesn’t screw things up.”

  “Is he likely to? I mean, screw things up?”

  “Not unless he’s stupid. Apparently he used to like to date...a lot...but ever since Nita he’s kept his eyes on the prize. Least, that’s what the best man was saying last night. I think. That sounds right, right?”

  “Um, I guess so. He must have finally found a woman he could love.”

  Leo snorted. “Yeah, sure.”

  “You don’t think he loves her?”

  “Oh, I’m sure he loves her. My great uncle used to say it was just as easy to fall in love with a rich woman as a poor woman. And he was married five times.”

  “Sounds like a real winner,” Cindy said, unable to hide her disgust.

  “I don’t know. He must be doing something right. He’s sitting on a beach in Aruba sucking up martinis and I’m stuck here doing mindless work that I could do in my sleep,” Leo said.

  “Well, at least you have friends, like Mr. Cartwright.”

  Leo laughed again. “He’s not my friend.”

  “Then why did you go to his party?”

  “They needed bodies. I think I got invited because I worked on the same floor. He can hold a grudge, I’ll tell you, so I figured it would be bad for my career if I didn’t go. I’m just grateful he didn’t ask me to be a groomsman.”

  “He must have some friends then.”

  “The best man. They went to college together. Real piece of work. I think they were in the Alpha Sigma Sigma fraternity together.”

  Cindy shook her head, not knowing what that was.

  “You know... A-S-S.”

  “Oh,” she said with a short embarrassed chuckle. Leo was clearly still hung over and Cindy doubted she would have gotten this much information out of him if that hadn’t been the case. He rubbed his head, clearly feeling the effects still.

  “How much did you drink last night?” she asked before she could stop herself.

  He turned to look at her. “I don’t know. Two beers is my limit. I remember starting on the second beer and not much else after that. I can’t figure out what went wrong.”

  “Maybe you didn’t hydrate enough or eat enough?” Cindy guessed. She’d heard those things could make alcohol go to your head faster.

  “Whatever it was, I don’t want to look at another beer again as long as I live.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Probably not. It just feels like that at the moment.”

  Cindy smiled.

  Leo turned back to his computer. She should get back to work, too. Her foot brushed against the box with Rose’s stuff in it and she thought about taking it into Mr. Cartwright’s office. Given the force with which he’d slammed the door, though, and his seeming desire not to see her until the morning she decided it could wait. Besides, she might still find a few things crammed in between all the other papers that should go in the box.

  And it has nothing to do with the fact that I don’t want to have to interact with him again today...right, she thought rolling her eyes at herself.

  ~

  Mark had thought carefully about what Jeremiah told him after he left the hospital. If it was true that one of the officers who had gone to Rebecca’s shop knew Mason then he needed to move quickly and carefully. It only took a phone call to discover that the Bobbsey twins had been on scene. Lou and Frances were two peas in a pod. They talked in similar ways and even looked a lot alike, which explained some of Rebecca’s confusion. She wouldn’t be the first person to mistake one for the other.

  Lou he’d known for several years. Frances had joined the department a little less than two years earlier. All Mark really knew about him was that he had a weird sense of humor. If one of the two was actually friends with Mason, his money would be on Frances. It could easily be a misunderstanding, though. Frances had an odd sense of humor. Rebecca wouldn’t be the first victim Mark would have to explain that to.

  Of course, there had been two active crime scenes within mere feet of each other, one being her shop and the other being the sidewalk where Liam was attacked. It was possible that one of the other officers from outside had come into the shop and made those comments to her and that it hadn’t been either Lou or Frances. A lot of officers had been through that area yesterday. There were only a couple he knew for sure had been nowhere near it.

  He felt bad about doing it but the next thing he did was call Taylor at home.

  “Detective, what can I do for you?” the man asked hesitantly.

  “I’m just checking in on you.”

  “I haven’t changed my mind about quitting yet, if that’s what you’re asking. However, I am taking a few days off to think about it like you suggested,” he said.

  “And I’m glad you’re taking my advice,” Mark said, wincing slightly. “But, I need your help with something.”

  “What?” Taylor asked.

  “I need you to discretely make some phone calls and see if you can find a Mason Dunwoody in the area. He’s former special forces. I can pull up his file and I can send you what I have.”

  There was a pause. Then Taylor asked, “Why are you coming to me with this?”

  “Because there is a remote possibility that someone on the force knows him and I don’t want to show my hand too soon if that’s the case. Can you do this for me?”

  There was an awkward pause before Taylor said, “I don’t think I’m the man for the job.”

  “See, I think you’re the perfect man for the job. And it’s important. This Mason guy is stalking Liam’s girlfriend.”

  “Is he the one who put Liam in the hospital yesterday?”

  “He’s my lead suspect. I just need to find out if he’s in the area,” Mark said.

  “Okay.”

  “Thanks, Taylor. I’ll send you information shortly.”

  As it turned out Mason had been arrested a couple of times for battery when he was younger. There was nothing since he’d left the military, but he might have just gotten better at hiding his tracks or intimidating his victims. Mark sent what he had to Taylor before leaving the precinct.

  Hopefully Taylor would find Mason so they could deal with this whole mess quickly. Helping save a fellow officer and a young lady might also make Taylor rethink his decision to quit the force. Sometimes cops just needed to be reminded of all the good they did, including him.

  As much as possible he tried to clear his head as he drove over to Ruth’s house to see her and Casey. Liam’s attacker wasn’t the only mystery he needed to solve. After getting some sleep he was more convinced than ever that Casey couldn’t have killed their parents. If he could get him to open up, though, it might be that Casey could tell him some vital information that might help Mark figure out who the real killer was.

  Ruth lived in a duplex in a less affluent section of town than he would have expected. She
welcomed him inside. Casey was sitting on an old sofa playing with an iPad. Mark gingerly sat down on the other end of the sofa and watched him for a minute.

  Ruth sat down on a chair close to Mark, nervously smoothing down her skirt.

  “How are you doing?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. He kept waking up in the middle of the night with nightmares. He’s quiet now, but... Sometimes I don’t know what he’s thinking or feeling. Obviously he’s upset, but then he’ll get distracted and it’s like nothing is wrong...” she drifted off.

  “Okay, but that’s not what I asked,” Mark said gently. “I asked how you are doing?”

  She looked at him, clearly startled. “No one ever asks how I’m doing,” she whispered as though compelled to say it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, trying to put as much sympathy into his voice as he could. “How are you doing?”

  “I want to scream. Like a lot,” she said, biting her lip and looking away.

  “It’s understandable. You lost both your parents. I’m hoping you can put all the horror behind you soon and just remember the good times, the love,” he said.

  He hated trying to give grief counseling. He always felt useless, like he didn’t know what to say. Unfortunately, it was part of the job sometimes. He just babbled a bit hoping that whatever he said would be the right thing.

  From the way that Ruth’s face was hardening, though, he suddenly realized that he must have said something wrong.

  “Love?” she asked, eyes blazing. “Love? You know what my parents loved?”

  “You and your brother?” he said even though he realized he should have kept his mouth shut.

  “No! That bat! That stupid, ridiculous bat!”

  “They loved the bat,” Mark asked quietly.

  “Yes! More than their own children. Certainly more than me. Look at this place! They wouldn’t have let the bat live in squalor like this.”

  “It doesn’t seem fair,” Mark said, senses alive as he watched her like a hawk.