Missy sighed. “I haven’t done anything. Noreen is in serious trouble and…”
“And what?”
“The worst part is that’s not the only thing I’m down about.”
“What’s going on?”
Missy took a deep breath. She’d opened the door, so she might as well tell Mom what else was bothering her. If she couldn’t tell her mother, who could she tell?
“Noreen and Tyler dated.”
“Oh.”
Missy was expecting more of a reaction than that. “It was after high school, sometime during college. My guess would be it happened over the summer.”
“That upsets you.”
“Well…yeah. It kind of does. Neither of them ever told me.”
Mom was quiet for a moment. “I can see how that would bother you.”
“I just don’t get why they would keep it from me…and on top of that, Tyler is…”
“Is what?”
She hadn’t admitted this yet. Not out loud. But she had to say it. She had to tell someone and face it head-on.
“I still have feelings for him.”
“Yes, I know.”
Missy was taken aback. “You know?”
“Yes, dear. I know you better than anybody, probably better than anybody ever will. I’ve watched you your whole life and I can tell what you’re thinking sometimes before you think it.”
Missy smiled. It was nice to have somebody like that, when she thought about it. Someone who would always be watching you, who’d be ready to help you with whatever you needed. Someone who knew you completely but never judged.
“I guess I’ve never stopped having feelings. Our relationship ended strangely…I never really understood what happened. We just drifted apart even though I didn’t want it to happen…it was as much my fault as it was his but by the time I realized, it was too late.”
“He was madly in love with you, Missy,” Mom said.
She laughed. “He had a funny way of showing it.”
“He was a boy. It scared him. Emotions scare a lot of men, your Tyler was no exception.”
Missy didn’t agree. Tyler in high school had been full of confidence. Nothing intimated or scared him, and he was always very open with her.
Except about dating Noreen later.
Maybe he hadn’t told her everything…the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. He’d drifted away, never really explaining in terms she understood the break-up. He swore left, right, up, down, sideways that he still loved her but that he needed room.
“You were both so young,” Mom said. “You weren’t ready to be in love. But I guess nobody is the first time it happens. It’s hard the second time, and the third.”
Missy nodded. “I’ve told other men I loved them, but it wasn’t the same. It was never the same thing I had with Tyler.”
“Yes.”
“And after all these years he came back and I thought…when we see each other there is all this tension and I know he still has feelings, I just know it, but his wife is in the picture and I don’t want any part of that.”
“Right. You can’t come between them. Whether Tyler moves on or not, it has to be his decision. He has to be sure. That’s how men are.”
“What am I going to do?”
“The same thing you’ve been doing. You should try to date more. There are a lot of nice men in town.”
Missy couldn’t even think about dating at a time like this. Starting a relationship with another man seemed so daunting and so…unimportant right now. Noreen was about to go to prison.
“Thanks for listening, Mom.”
“You don’t have to thank me, dear. I’m just blessed we have this relationship where you feel like you can talk to me. A lot of parents I know aren’t so lucky. I love you, Missy.”
“Love you too, Mom.”
***
The day wore on. A handful of customers came and went, but that was it. Missy hit the motherlode with one man. He came up to the desk with about twenty books in his arms, complaining about how they didn’t have any old Lawrence Sanders novels. Missy knew there were some in the back and told him as much. When he left the store, he needed a couple shopping bags to carry the thirty-five books he’d purchased.
It had been slow for an hour and she’d spent that time thinking about the case, coming up with nothing. She couldn’t take any more of the what-ifs and spinning her wheels. Missy finally relented. She just needed an hour to recharge. So she turned on her Kindle and opened the book she’d been reading for Book Club.
At first she could barely concentrate, reading the same sentences over and over again. The words practically bounced off her mind. But finally, she got back into the flow of the story and was enjoying it. The book was well-done and certainly didn’t deserve the ribbing that Anne had ceremoniously given it. She was getting close to the end and had decided to give it a four-star rating on Amazon and a nice review, hoping that would encourage the author to keep going. The climax was right around the corner and Missy was about to thumb to the next page when her breath caught in her throat.
The words she’d just read had sounded familiar.
She backed up a few sentences and re-read them.
It’s like waking up and finding out gravity stopped working.
Missy shook her head, not believing the first thought that came to mind. “No. No way. There’s no way.”
She read the words a few more times, convinced it was word-for-word what Ruby had said the other night. Exactly the same phrasing. It was an expression she’d never heard before, so she didn’t think it was a common saying. But that meant…
“No way.”
Missy thought back to what else Ruby had said that had stuck out in her mind.
Something about an ant on a balloon in a hurricane.
Missy activated the search feature on her Kindle. She typed in the word hurricane. It appeared only once in the manuscript. Missy jumped to the spot and read:
…like a flea on a leaf in a hurricane…
Missy nearly dropped the Kindle. She could understand one phrase popping up inside the book, but not two.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Missy made the last turn with one hand on the wheel. The other was holding the cell phone up to her ear. She was close now.
“Tyler, it’s not a coincidence.”
“Missy, don’t do anything rash.”
“Too late,” she said. “You know me. I’m only a few minutes away.”
“Missy! Wait!”
“If Noreen’s guilty, then you have nothing to worry about, do you?” Missy said.
“Melissa, don’t—”
Missy hung up and put her phone in her pocket. For a moment her foot moved off the gas pedal and hovered over the brake. But she decided to keep going. She’d come this far and she kept thinking about Noreen.
Missy reached her destination two minutes later. The nearest neighbor was probably ten seconds up the road. She parked on the street, next to the mailbox. She looked out the passenger window of the ranch house she’d parked in front of. She thought of calling Lee and Paul too, but the front door of the house opened and Ruby stepped onto her porch. In the twilight she squinted and, realizing it was Missy, waved excitedly at her.
Missy took a deep breath. She really should have brought Cody with her, but she’d left the dog home today and had wanted to get to Ruby’s house as soon as possible.
“Hi, Missy,” Ruby said once Missy got out of the truck. “How long has it been since you’ve been here?”
Missy looked at the ranch house. She had babysat Ruby in this house all those years ago. Ruby’s parents had moved south and given it to her. Missy saw two cars in the driveway, which meant Ruby’s fiancée, John was around.
Missy just looked at Ruby for a moment. A small part of her thought there was no way. This was totally crazy. Ruby was so small.
“Ruby, why did—”
The front door opened again, and Missy stopped what
she was saying. Ruby’s fiancée had come outside. He was a pretty big guy and broad. He had a belly but that didn’t mean much when it came to strength. Missy was instantly on her guard.
“What were you going to say?” Ruby asked, and something like recognition passed through her eyes. She knew why Missy was here.
And now Missy knew Ruby had killed Anne. She just hoped her phone call had worked.
Ruby’s eyes didn’t leave her as her fiancé stepped off the porch and made his way across the lawn. Missy instinctively took a step backward. This was a mistake. She should have gone to Tyler and forced him to come with her. He would have listened. She should have trusted him.
“You’re Missy, aren’t you?” John asked. Obviously, Ruby had been talking about her.
She took another step back. “I just remembered, I have somewhere to be.”
“She knows,” Ruby said.
John took two big steps and latched onto her arm. For his size and belly, his speed surprised her. His fingers dug into her arm.
She struggled against him but could tell it was useless. He was much stronger than her, and she was still weak and sore from her workout at WiredFit.
“Let me go.”
“Did you call your boyfriend?” Ruby asked. “Does he know?”
“Tyler’s not my boyfriend,” Missy said. She knew it was a ridiculous thing to say at a moment like this, but the words just came out.
“Come on inside,” John said. “We can talk about this.”
“Let go of me!” Missy screamed.
John pivoted and covered her mouth to muffle her shout. She thought back to some half-remembered advice from a self-defense course she’d taken a long time ago. Missy brought a foot up and stomped as hard as she could on John’s toes. The man was surprised by the attack and she must have struck home, because his grip momentarily loosened. She twisted and elbowed and kneed till she connected with something. Missy got loose of him and tried to sprint to her truck, but Ruby got in her way. She crashed into the smaller woman. Ruby wasn’t much physically, but they both went down. Ruby grabbed onto her so she couldn’t get away, while John gathered himself and came over.
“Missy, you should have just stayed out of it,” Ruby said. “Now we have to—”
Headlights hit the ranch house and lit up the lawn. Both Ruby and John froze for a moment, uncertain what to do.
Missy craned her head to see a police cruiser pulling into driveway. She breathed a sigh of relief as both Ruby and John let go of her. Scrambling away, Missy put some distance between herself and them as Tyler got out of the police car, gun in hand.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Missy stopped at Noreen’s house right on time. Of course Noreen was running late.
Missy waited patiently for her friend to come out of her house. Sitting there behind the steering wheel, she reflected on everything that had happened. Part of her still couldn’t believe it. Only a couple days ago, Noreen had been set to go to trial for the murder of Anne Baxter. Since then she’d been completely exonerated.
Finally Noreen came out of her house. Only five minutes late today, which actually was an improvement.
“Hey.” Noreen jumped in and gave her a hug.
“You look better.”
Noreen nodded. “I finally got rid of jail hair and jail face.”
Missy laughed and put the car in gear. She headed for the bookstore. They were both on today.
“Ruby Kellogg,” Noreen said. “What a little bitch.”
Missy shook her head. “I never, in a million years, would have thought it.”
Tyler had arrested Ruby and her fiancé that night, and Missy hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to him since. She had no details yet even though her theory had been correct.
Missy had been wanting to talk to Noreen about something else ever since she’d been released, but it hadn’t seemed like the right time. Now that they had a few minutes, she figured she could at least broach the subject.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
Noreen knew exactly what she was talking about.
“It was a long time ago, not that that’s an excuse. It was the summer you didn’t come home from college. Tyler came home unexpectedly, it was because his Dad had that heart attack. Remember that?”
Missy did. She’d only heard about the heart attack after the fact of course. Tyler hadn’t called her. If he had, she would have come straight home from her job at the coffee shop to be with him. Tyler had a great relationship with his parents and almost losing his father was a difficult blow. But when he hadn’t called her personally, she’d let her pride get in the way.
“Anyway, he was home and I was home, and we were both just not ourselves.”
“Was it just sex?” Missy asked.
Noreen took a long time to answer. “I want to say yes. But honestly, it’s never just sex. You know?”
Missy did.
Noreen continued. “We were together less than a month. We talked a lot. I was kind of drifting at college. Okay, not kind of. I’d totally lost my way and had no idea what I wanted to do. He was there for me, and I was there for him.”
“How did it end?”
Noreen swallowed. “It just kind of ended. We didn’t need to put too fine a point on it. We both knew what we were doing was temporary.”
Missy nodded. She knew Noreen was telling the truth. She thought back to that year she’d stayed at college for the summer, between sophomore and junior years. She remembered thinking that Noreen had been distant, slow to respond to her emails. Now she knew why.
“You could have told me.”
“It was over as quickly as it started and…we didn’t purposely not tell you. I don’t think you and Tyler were even speaking at that point.”
“You and I were,” Missy said.
Noreen nodded. “I deserved that. The God’s honest truth was I didn’t know how to broach the subject with you. After awhile, it didn’t seem to matter anymore. It was over so quickly and…I’m sorry, Miss. I should have told you.”
She nodded, accepting the apology then looked at her friend.
“It was a long time ago, Noreen. Let’s forget about it.”
“Thank you, Missy.”
They rode the rest of the way in silence to the bookstore. Missy pulled into a full parking lot. Brett hadn’t opened yet because it was still a few minutes shy of nine. But there was a crowd outside.
“Oh here we go,” Noreen said.
Missy laughed. “It’s your turn this time. If you’re lucky, you can hold a press conference in the back.”
The same thing had happened to Missy when Albert Switzer had been murdered. Customers flocked to the store to see her because she had been a suspect. Now it was Noreen’s turn.
They got out of the truck and the crowd converged on Noreen.
“See you inside,” Missy said.
“Oh no, you don’t!” Noreen pleaded.
“I think I’ve done my part,” Missy said. “You’re on your own.”
Missy headed for the entrance, where Brett was waiting for her with a sour expression on his face. She didn’t understand. She would have expected him to be happy about all the customers.
“Missy, we need to talk.”
“Sure. What is it?”
“Inside.”
She followed him back to his office and he shut the door. She felt cramped in the tiny space.
“I’ve gotten a few complaints about the store being closed while I was away and about your customer service.”
Missy felt her stomach bottom out. She had a horrible feeling that Brett was going to fire her.
“I shut down for a few hours the one day—”
“And you were late the next day.” Brett pursed his lips a moment. “I know I said you could close in the middle of the day for a little bit, but it sounds like you took advantage of that and then were late the next day. And someone also complained about your service.”
Missy told herself to c
alm down. Relax. Brett was right. But she had a good reason for all this.
“Brett, I was…you know what I was doing last week…if I hadn’t then—”
“Noreen might be in prison by now. I understand that. You chose your friend over the store. I get that. But this is my store. It’s all I have. And I’ve done everything in my power to keep this thing going and keep two people on. I’ve told you before we’re struggling. I can’t afford to lose customers at this point. I’m going to have to make some difficult decisions soon.”
Missy said nothing. If he was going to fire her for helping Noreen, then to hell with him.
Brett let that hang in the air for a moment.
“Brett, I’m sorry. But you’re right. I chose Noreen over this bookstore. And if you have to do something about that, then I’ll certainly understand.”
For a moment he didn’t move. Then Brett slowly nodded and drew in a big breath before speaking.
“Well, I’m having trouble making ends meet and paying two full-time employees.”
“Fire me, then,” Missy said. “Keep Noreen.”
He held out a palm. “I won’t fire you outright like that. You’ve been a good employee over the years and I’d be a jerk if I didn’t recognize that.”
Brett leaned back in his chair and folded his hands on his tiny beer belly. He looked up at the ceiling.
“That’s all for now, Missy. I just wanted to share that feedback with you.”
She didn’t move. Missy had been expecting to get fired, but Brett hadn’t gone that far, leaving things open-ended.
“Brett, I’m sorry about last week.”
“But you’d do it all over again if you had to.”
She was about to say yes, absolutely, positively. But then thought better of it. He already knew the answer, and by voicing it she was just rubbing it in his face. He’d shown considerable understanding by not firing her. There was no reason to pollute the relationship.
“I’d try to think of other ways around it. Maybe next time I’ll call Mom and see if she can fill in. She needs more hobbies in her life.”
Missy DeMeanor Cozy Mysteries Boxset Page 26