I figured Ruby was leaving through the back and rushed in that direction. There she was. “Ruby! Hold up! I just want to talk!”
Ruby didn’t even glance behind her. She skidded around the corner at the end of Lombardy toward the bridge over the Founders River, and boy was I winded after three, all right, two and a half blocks. I came to a halt, bent over, and put my hands on my knees. A car pulled up alongside. I turned my head to meet the should-have-been-concerned tough girl glare from Officer Ann Dow. She flicked the overhead strobe to show she was making an official stop. I straightened and looked up and down the street, relieved we hadn’t attracted any attention. Yet.
Now what?
Officer Down got out of her squad. “Miss Preston, I need you to keep your hands where I can see them.”
I held up my paws.
“No need for that. I received a 911 call from Ruby Cook, claiming she feared for her life and was being chased by a woman with dark hair and…” She looked me up and down.
Was I that threatening in my low-wedged sandals and turquois capris? I nervously pushed my hair behind my ears. At her glare, I quickly returned by hands to my sides, then grabbed my elbows, then twined my fingers in front of me.
“Why were you chasing Ms. Cook?” Officer Dow took out her pad and started scribbling notes.
“I just wanted to talk to her.” I had gotten my breath back by then and tried to see what she was writing.
She frowned and tipped the cover closed.
“I went to Fit’r U to talk to her about…uh…joining.”
Dow raised her eyebrow. Seriously.
“I didn’t even get the door open and she took off through the back. It’s not like she could even smell me. I don’t understand why she thought I was coming specifically to see her. I could have just…”
Dow flipped her pad open again. “Did Ms. Cook ask you to stay away from her?”
“No. She didn’t. You can ask everyone at the store who saw us. She didn’t say any—”
“You weren’t threatening her in any way? You haven’t been telephoning or texting her?”
My eyes went wide. “No. Not at all. I don’t even have her number.” Well, that sounded silly. “Has someone been threatening her? About what?”
Dow thinned her lips and flipped her pad closed again. “Good day, ma’am. If you find out anything about any harassment going on…toward anyone under any circumstances…you’ll be sure to let us know. Ms. Cook has not yet filed any injunction against you, but I advise you to keep your distance.”
“Of course.” I gave a lame little salute and watched her take off. As I breathed in and out to shake off the tension, I stared at the darkening sky and the sunset, which I couldn’t really enjoy since I was hungry and had to walk several blocks back to my car, past Fit’r U where I hoped my purse was still in the bushes.
I had some time to think on the way. A new twist...no wonder Ruby ran. Hmm. But if the police believed she’d been threatened, she must have filed a report. What kind of calls and texts had she been receiving? Had she thought they might have come from me? What made her think that?
I had to find out more, but I had to be careful, given Dow’s unofficial warning. The lights were still on at Fit’r U but the equipment inside boasted only one young man on a weight machine. He didn’t even look at me. I pulled out my bag from the scraggly shrubbery, checked my wallet which was still intact, and walked on. For a town with a surprising amount of murders, well, two that I was aware of, it made no sense that petty thievery wasn’t more common. When I reached the T intersection of Lombardy and Main by Tiny’s Buffet, I ignored the incredible aroma for a speculative glance down the block to the flower shop. It was closed, but would Roberta know about her niece’s problem? Moreover, how could I get her to talk to me?
I walked through the alley to my car parked behind Mea Cuppa, forgetting to be scared of the gloomy passageway until I opened my door and the light went on. I looked back, studying the shadows of the fire escape and dumpsters. Then I got in and locked my door and drove toward home. Or should I think of it as my lonely bachelorette pad? Adam wasn’t at his apartment right now, so it would be lonely too, but I’d be home already if I lived above the shop with him. We’d probably buy a bigger house at some point anyway when we had kids.
Parenthood. Why did my every thought end up there? If I wanted to deal with my insecurities about being a fantastic mom, I should do something about it. Next week would be better to think about it—after I figured out what was going on with Ruby.
I reached my driveway without incident despite not paying attention and went inside to enjoy a quiet can of chicken noodle soup supper and Adam’s and my cats.
~*~
Normally someone’s last will and testament was a private thing. But there had been so much speculation and press around Ivanna Pressman’s life and unnatural passing that word of the contents had leaked to the newspapers. “Pressman Estate Surprise” the headline shouted. The Friday afternoon edition of the Apple Grove Gazette had gotten the scoop of the month for sure. I brought it inside to read. Then I stood at the counter of Mea Cuppa, staring at the caption and photo on the front page. My body blinked hot and cold and I couldn’t breathe.
“Hey, Ivy?” Martha came up to me with a page of something in her hand. “Did you see…what’s the matter?”
Her voice filtered slowly to my numb brain. She got on the phone. “Adam! Come quick!” Martha fanned me.
Adam rushed in from his office at city hall a couple of minutes later. By then I was starting to come back to life but shaking. He led me back to his office and brought me a cool drink of water.
“You must have known about this,” I said when the spots stopped dancing in front of my eyes and my wind returned. I touched my stomach, sure I’d been sucker-punched.
Adam folded his arms and looked away. A sure sign of guilt.
“Adam?”
“It shouldn’t have gotten in the Gazette,” he said. “At least not this quick. I made an official complaint to Jim and Yolanda.”
“Hmm,” I muttered. I looked again at the photo of a dazed Stanley Brewer in front of the Law Office of Darren Murphy, JD, LLM, which I thought was a bit presumptuous for little old Apple Grove. Melody Carson, who looked as if she might faint, accompanied by her son, whose face was a study in fury, stood behind Stanley. I squinted. It looked like Elvis’s arm to the right of Stanley.
“Elvis got Stanley out of town after the calls started coming in.”
I just bet he received some calls. “Stanley Brewer named major beneficiary in Pressman will.” Typical Yolanda—direct and to the point. I scanned some of the article.
“‘I’m, I mean I was her fiancé. Of course, we’ll contest the will,’ Jason Clark declared in an exclusive statement to the Gazette. “‘My attorney, Mr. White, said this constitutes unnatural dispossession [sic] and we definitely have a case. I don’t know what that con man said or did to Ivanna to force her to make out such a ridiculous will, but I’ll find out.’
“Darren Murphy, representing the estate of the late Ivanna Lynn Pressman, declined to provide a statement for this story.”
“Adam, you should have told me.” I glanced at his profile, with the clenched jaw muscle. My whole body was one clenched muscle. My heart tried to squeeze a beat. “I realize you were at a meeting of the sanitation board, but still…someone could have told me. Elvis could have called. Stanley…Stanley…” Owed me nothing. What had he done to get named in Ivanna’s will? Skunk! Sneaking around like that, when—
“By the time I found out, which was only a short time ago when I received a phone call from Elvis, there wasn’t anything else I could do. Since Elvis got his own place, and Brewer is staying over there, it’s not as though I track their every move. They’re adults, we’re adults…” His voice caught.
I would not feel sorry for him. “So why couldn’t you have called me as soon as Elvis hung up?”
He put his hands on his hips and hun
g his head. “I can’t tell you.”
I gazed around at the shrinking walls of the office, at the twelve-foot ceiling with the old-fashioned real tin-pressed ceiling and thought about the future with this man who couldn’t tell me things. I twisted my engagement ring. It was loose on my finger. “I’m not a blabbermouth.”
“I know. But if you can’t expect me to keep a promise to anyone else, how could you ever trust me?” His gray eyes pleaded with me when I met them.
“I can’t think of anything I wouldn’t ever trust you with. I understand that some of what you do as Mayor is privileged information, and the rest is public. I could have easily found out about Fit’r U, for example, but I don’t read the tiny print minutes of the council as much as I should. One thing I know. If I had any secrets, I wouldn’t keep them from you.”
Adam tightened his mouth and sent a sideways glance up at the camera above the door. I folded my arms and stared at him. I was pretty sure the security system was on a closed loop that only we had access to. Had that changed too? I shook my head. “I need to go home and lie down. Is that OK if I punch out early, boss?”
I didn’t wait for his response.
~*~
Mom offered her professor look from my sofa where she sat with my copy of the Gazette open. Stanley’s paper eyes watched me from the front page.
“Adam called me,” she said, her nose back toward the inside page. “He’s worried about you. Something about needing a nap?”
I took a deep breath. “Did you and Dad fight?”
She set the paper down and pulled her reading glasses off her nose. She patted the cushion next to her and I obeyed. “What you really mean is, did we fight much over important things?”
“I guess.” Stanley and I had bumbled along, not really communicating much at all. He told me about his day once in a while, but I was sort of blasé about sales. He brought me samples and I was content. I don’t think he paid any more attention to my tech life than I did him. Why were things so different with Adam?
Mom took my hands and smiled. “You and Adam have a vital, living, and growing relationship. It’s natural that you want to be a part of everything he is, and you want to feel he believes the same way.”
I nodded.
“Being able to protect the ones he loves is a burden and a blessing.” She squeezed my hands. “It’s a compliment.”
“What is?”
“Adam wants you to feel the same about him no matter what’s going on in his life—the things he can share with you, and the occasional things that must remain out of the public’s purview for safety and potential misunderstanding’s sake. You, of all people, understand how important it is to keep private business private. You didn’t talk about service clients’ confidential information when they trusted you to handle their technology needs. Sometimes you came across pretty personal information.”
I wanted to say, “That’s different”, but it wasn’t. “I feel as if he can’t trust me.”
“But, darling girl, that’s just what he’s doing. Trusting you to allow him to do his job even when it’s hard. Believing that you will help him carry burdens even when you can’t know what they are.”
“When it might or might not have something to do with me?” I pictured Sisyphus pushing his stone forever uphill, all alone. Then a helping hand appeared when he got close to the top. A hand with an engagement ring like mine on the third finger.
“Especially then.”
I told her about my Sisyphus vision and she chuckled.
“Yes, that’s a good one.”
“So, what did you and Dad argue about?”
Mom appeared momentarily startled, as if she hadn’t expected me to repeat my question. “Oh…well, let’s see. We’d each had time to develop our own routines before we met and decided to get married. Sometimes those routines didn’t mesh very well.”
A memory had her smiling. I sat back and listened to a very short ten-year marriage and stories about my parents I’d never considered asking about. Folding shirts, rolling socks, when to wash the dishes, who had to clean the tub. Whose mother had the right recipe for scaloppini. One thing was certain, she made clear. Time was too precious to waste in doubt and hurt feelings. If I was to truly honor and respect, love and cherish Adam Thompson, I had to let him love me back in his own way. I really did trust him.
Stanley, on the other hand, made me crazy. At least he hadn’t tried to call me about this latest incident. I mashed my twisted sense of entitlement thinking I had a right to know what Stanley was doing under the carpet.
~*~
I texted Adam with an invitation for supper. We usually got together anyway on Friday nights, but with the tension of the afternoon and Mom being here, we hadn’t made a verbal commitment. I wanted to apologize in person. That was part of trust and faith too. I didn’t want my past experiences to control my future relationships. Adam had already demonstrated his trust more than once—the greatest moment had been his urgency to bail me out and stand beside me when I had been arrested for murder.
When he arrived, Mom discreetly mentioned she would get an order for takeout and she’d be back in half an hour.
Adam gave her a grateful smile.
We used that half hour, believe me, to remind each other of why we wanted to marry.
“I love you,” I told Adam. “Mom reminded me that there were plenty of things I have to keep private in my tech services business. Despite what I told you at the office, that there wasn’t anything I’d keep from you, I guess I should qualify that as ‘keep from you on purpose.’”
Adam nuzzled my temple. The roughness of his chin made me quiver. I reached up to touch the raised skin from the skin grafts over the burns on his neck. He put his palm over my hand.
“I will never deliberately mislead you,” he said. “Some information I can’t share—mostly ideas being discussed or deals underway that affect business decisions. Anything I can tell you when authorized, I will.”
“Except for state secrets?” I laughed at him. “FBI investigations?”
He put my fingers against his lips. “When the time is right, you’ll know everything I do. It has nothing to do with trust. I know you would never spill privileged information.” He stroked my palms, thinking. “Timing, Ivy. That’s all.”
“I can be patient.”
He laughed. “Sure.” He kissed me again. “Anything else I need to think about for the wedding?”
“Not since we finally scheduled a meeting with Reverend Gaines.”
“Next Friday afternoon, right?”
“Right. Addy and I will get my dress tomorrow. You’ll arrange the tuxes?”
“Of course.”
Mom interrupted another kiss when I heard the kitchen door open.
I pulled back to whisper, “I want to talk about putting this house up for sale later.”
He didn’t say anything, though his eyes darkened.
We left the cozy sofa and found my mom had returned with several brown paper bags with amazing aromas from Tiny’s, and Virgil in tow.
I moved forward to take some of the bags from Mom. Adam shook Virgil’s hand in greeting and I twisted from setting food on the table when Adam hissed. I glanced at him, puzzled. Then I noticed who came in behind Virgil.
Stanley.
I squinted, sure I was imagining things.
Mom came over and put her hands on my tense shoulders, squeezed a few times, and spoke gently in my ear.
“Listen, dear. Stanley was visiting with Virgil when I stopped to pick him up.”
I studied Virgil. It was none of my business but of course I had to ask. “What’s going on?”
Stanley came out from behind Virg. He had on the same clothes from the picture in the paper, a rumpled white shirt and striped tie. Blue, I thought. I half expected Elvis to come tromping in next.
“I thought you were with Elvis,” I told Stanley.
Mom stepped back as if anticipating…what?
“I w
as,” Stanley mumbled. “But then, ah…he had to do something…um, important.”
Stanley, my Stanley. So eloquent. I crossed my arms. “So?”
Adam stepped behind me.
“Ivy,” Stanley said. “I wasn’t trying to involve you.”
“Again.”
He twitched his lips and studied his big feet in really ugly black deck shoes. “Again. I just…uh, needed…” He turned helplessly to… My. Mother.
“What?” I practically shrieked.
“Ivy, darling. Calm down,” Mother said.
Adam’s hands covered my shoulders where hers rested earlier. His thumbs rubbed circles around my taut neck muscles.
“Stanley’s attorney took ill and so Stanley went to see if Virgil could help,” she said.
“I mean, he helped you,” Stanley mumbled toward his laces.
“Help you what?” I couldn’t stop the murderous tone in my voice.
He peeked toward me. “Protect my rights in the will.”
Virgil spoke up. “I told him I couldn’t.”
Mom took another step backward and sent a chair scraping against the tile floor. “So, I…sort of…agreed.”
I turned on her. “To what?”
“Agreed to help him out. Represent him.” She set her hands on the table. “After all, I’ll need something to occupy my time after the wedding.”
16
“Mom! You’re not a lawyer.” I rounded on Stanley. “How could you even think of asking her to do something like that?” I flipped back toward Mom. “What made you think you could do that? For him?” I pointed. Yes, me, rudely pointed with my forefinger and all. As I’d been taught carefully never to do.
Adam reached out and gently folded my hand in his. He turned my cheek toward his shoulder.
“He didn’t ask me,” Mom said quietly. “I volunteered. I do know quite a bit about estate law, and Virgil said he’d back me up.” She started ripping the stapled brown paper bags and unpacking Styrofoam boxes of food. “I ordered two roast beef and mashed potato dinners and two turkey pot pie. I’ll share some of mine with Stanley.”
“Me, too,” Virgil said. He started filling water glasses.
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