by Joanne Rock
“I wish I’d been there.” Wade’s face became fierce.
It made her want to hug him. Or maybe tuck herself under his arm. She didn’t quite know what she felt. It was nice to hear someone else say she didn’t deserve those mean notes.
“I ignored them.” She knew it wasn’t cool to let other people fight your battles. Especially people like Wade, who had bigger, real-world problems than dumb high school crap. “But the last text said that I should do everyone a favor and die, which really put the icing on the cake.”
“That’s bullshit.” The anger in his voice rocked her.
She’d never heard him angry.
“It’s just kid stuff—”
“No. It isn’t. That’s a threat, Meg.” His jaw worked, a muscle in his cheek twitching. “You need to report that.”
“To who? And what would anyone even do about it when—”
“Guys?” The swinging door from the dining room slammed open, Izzy’s red face framed in the opening. “Seriously, I need help getting this order out.”
Megan stood, glad to end the conversation.
Wade got up, too, but he blocked her exit from the booth.
“You have to tell somebody.”
“I’ll think about it. Come on.” She nudged him backward. “We have to go.”
“Don’t let this person get away with scaring you like that.”
“I’m not scared—”
“Anyone would be scared.” He lifted a hand, reaching toward her, then hesitated. When his palm clamped around her shoulder, the touch was awkward, but nice, too. Warm.
“Well, I don’t want to be.” She shrugged, totally out of her depth but oddly comforted.
Finally, his hand fell away and he moved toward the door so they could help Isabel with the fish-fry order.
“We’ll figure out who sent them.” His words were close to her ear as he opened the door for her. “Even if I have to go back to school myself to do it.”
He gave her ponytail a light tug as they walked through the door into the dining room filled with people. Isabel glared at them from a cloud of steaming fish.
Megan’s scalp tingled as her heart squeezed tight. Hard to believe only a few hours ago she thought of him as the sweet, gangly kid she worked with. Now? He sort of seemed like the nicest guy on earth. One of the cuter ones, too.
She didn’t want to bring any more trouble his way, though. So no matter how nice it felt to have him offer to help, she needed to figure her way out of this mess herself. First, she’d interview the mayor and see how close he was to launching his app for catching cyberbullies. If that didn’t work...?
She’d go straight to the source: J. D. Covington. She’d never wanted to speak to him again after breaking up with him, but if that’s what it took to make him call off his dogs, then she had to try.
CHAPTER TEN
LIGHTS FROM TEN different cameras flashed in Zach’s face as he fielded questions about the state of Heartache’s finances, the town’s infrastructure and why it took so long for an “accounting error” to come to light.
Sam was at his side. Most of the town council members were in attendance, although from the shocked expressions on their faces, Zach knew he’d caught them off guard. Only Harlan Brady and Rodney Baker, two of Mayor Finley’s closest advisers, seemed to have known about the missing funds.
Sam pinch-hit for Zach on some of the questions, answering anything that might benefit from the point of view of law enforcement. Zach tried to focus and do his job, but his thoughts constantly returned to Heather and what she must be thinking. She sat with her two brothers and her sister-in-law Bethany in the back of the room. Sam had invited the Finleys in case they wanted to make a statement, and Scott Finley had read a terse “we stand behind our father” paragraph, but did not take questions.
Heather had not met his eyes once, her expression fixed as a mask. Calm, neutral. And it stung to know she blamed him for not giving her more warning. Hell, maybe she blamed him for the investigation in the first place. He didn’t know, since she’d shut down on him last night on the tense ride back to her house.
“We need to hire an outside accounting firm,” Tiffany McCord interjected, her strident voice grating along Zach’s every nerve as she rose to repeat a point she’d already made.
All the camera lenses focused on her. The only benefit of hearing her shrill demand for a fourth time was that—with the cameras off him for a moment—he could swear beneath his breath and roll his eyes while he pretended to look at the floor.
“How can we trust the current administration to investigate something that has been willfully overlooked for over a year?”
Wasn’t she a part of the current administration? He hadn’t expected to be flayed by the town council, especially when he’d lent Tiffany his support for her grand opening just the day before.
“Ma’am...” Sam cut her off. “If you’ll take a seat, we have time for a few more questions from media members only.”
Tiffany did not sit.
“This question is for the mayor.” She tossed Sam an even look. “When I was running a Fortune 500 company, we would have considered it a conflict of interest to allow a town sheriff to investigate the books for the mayor who is his friend.”
Sam tensed. He was probably the only guy in town who hated this kind of drama more than him.
“Heartache is a small town, Mrs. McCord. I’d like to think we’re all friends.”
“Family first.” She repeated Mayor Finley’s slogan with a mocking air. “But at what cost to the rest of the town?”
“Sam and I aren’t related,” Zach reminded her, standing. “If there are no more questions...”
“I have one.” A staffer from the local radio station raised his pen in the air, the only guy in the room taking notes on paper while everyone else thumbed a record button on their electronics. “Mayor, a more pertinent conflict of interest might be your relationship with Mayor Finley’s daughter. Can you tell us the nature of your relationship with Heather Finley?”
Heads swiveled as people turned to look at Heather. Zach carefully did not.
He cleared his throat. “I value Ms. Finley’s volunteer work with the town’s recreation department. I consider her a friend.”
Sam reached in front of Zach to yank his microphone away.
“No more questions,” the sheriff said. “Thank you for attending and we’ll keep you updated as new details come to light.”
More camera flashes. A few observations from around the room that Zach couldn’t help overhearing.
“They looked like more than friends yesterday—”
“It was a mighty friendly fishing outing—”
Zach stepped out of the conference room into his office, Sam close on his heels, while a deputy took care of clearing the town hall and shutting things down.
Damned if Zach’s first instinct wasn’t to go to Heather and see how she was holding up, but he knew that would only add to the flap about their “relationship.”
“I hate this.” He dropped into the huge leather chair he’d inherited as part of the mayor’s office.
“The quicker we find the money, the quicker we’ll put this situation behind us.” Sam checked his phone and scrolled through messages. “At least it’s public knowledge now.”
“No need to worry about my relationship with the former mayor’s daughter, by the way.”
“I wasn’t.” Sam didn’t look up.
“Thanks for that vote of confidence. But if you had been worried, you could stop, because she’s no longer speaking to me.”
“I noticed she’s also no longer looking at you.” Sam glanced his way. “But what did you expect, when you launched an investigation of her old man?”
“When someone investigat
ed my old man, I applauded.” Zach had always been uneasy at the way his father conducted business. It had seemed shady to him even as a preteen.
“Ellie didn’t.” Sam set down his phone and slid aside the window blinds. He peered out.
Zach tried not to flinch from words that shouldn’t still hurt so damn much.
“Heather is not an emotional teenager.” He spun a polished wooden award from the local Lions Club. He had helped them with their computer system. “She’s stronger than that.”
“Right. I’m simply saying, people handle things differently. You were glad for your old man to get caught. Your sister was devastated. There’s no accounting for how people feel about their parents—whether they deserve it or not.”
Zach let that sink in, knowing the words came from Sam’s own shadows and—hence—hadn’t come easily.
“True enough. I guess I’m used to thinking of Heather as the practical one in her family, so I wasn’t prepared for her to react so emotionally.” He’d known she would be upset. He’d understood that she’d want to protect her mother.
But he hadn’t been prepared for her to feel so betrayed by him. Maybe he should have made it a higher priority to let her know about the possibility of an investigation. He’d just been so sure he could avoid it if he could find the right piece of evidence.
“You see why I’m not worried about your relationship with her?” Sam stood, shoving his phone into the back pocket of his uniform. He picked up the hat he’d left in Zach’s office earlier and plopped it on his head. “Tough to get to know someone when you only see what you want to see.”
“You’re full of smart-ass brilliance today, aren’t you?”
“You think so?” He pulled a pair of aviator shades out of his shirt pocket. “Because I was thinking about going over to the Owl’s Roost and seeing if Isabel’s working. I could use a little extra smart-ass in my game.”
“Haven’t you got an investigation to start?” Zach banged the wooden award on the desk like a gavel pounding out order in the court.
“A man’s gotta eat.” Sam stalked for the door. “I’d lie low for a little longer. The deputy will let you know when the media has cleared out.”
He nodded, his chest squeezing with an unfamiliar ache that might have been guilt. Even Sam knew he’d screwed up with Heather, and Sam had about as much knowledge about women as Zach had about fishing. The guy had never noticed that Zach’s sister had been in love with him since they were teens.
“You could try stopping by her place later,” Sam offered on the way out. “Update her on the investigation or something.”
“It would help if I had something to report.” He stared meaningfully at his friend.
“Or you could apologize for whatever you did to tick her off. It would be helpful to have her family’s cooperation.” Sam didn’t wait for an answer before he slipped out of the office, closing the door behind him.
Apologize? For doing his job? For trying like hell to exonerate her father by running data analysis all night?
Clearly, Sam didn’t know what he was talking about, his brain preoccupied with the new waitress at the Owl’s Roost. Zach hadn’t done anything wrong.
Still, it bothered him that Sam had brought up Ellie and how his sister had reacted to their father’s indictment. What if Heather grappled with that kind of emotion—the kind Zach had sworn he wanted his sister to share with him and not keep inside?
Sure, Heather was an adult, and a practical one, at that. But then again, she was used to being the outlet for everyone in her family. Who was her outlet? Where did she go to vent and be upset?
Dragging his feet off his desk, he rose. Maybe he could catch her in the parking lot if she had stayed behind to talk to her family.
He gripped the doorknob at the same time the phone rang. He paused to check the screen, but the caller was unknown.
Frustrated, he swiped the key to answer the call.
“Hello?”
“Mayor Chance?” a young woman’s voice asked on the other end.
“Yes. This is the mayor.” Not for much longer, if he had anything to do about it. He needed to be done with this job and let other people fix small-town dramas.
“Hi. Er. It’s Megan Bryer. My dad is on the town council?” She sounded tentative.
Because she was a high school kid nervous about calling the local mayor’s office? Or because she faced a lot bigger problem than that?
Zach’s thoughts shifted from Heather to the young woman on the phone. A young woman he was worried about, even though he wasn’t even sure he remembered what she looked like.
He lowered himself to sit on the edge of his desk, ready to give her his full attention. If she were in trouble, he would be there for her the way he hadn’t been for his sister.
“Yes, Megan. Of course I know who you are. I’ve been looking forward to talking to you.”
* * *
“YOU CAN’T GIVE up your audition spot because of this.”
Heather held the phone away from her ear slightly. Erin had raised her voice over the din of live accordion music at the Gumbo Fest, where she and Remy had been taking in the sights. Heather had disrupted her sister’s day with the news about the town’s investigation.
“I won’t,” she replied automatically, even though she had no idea if it would come to that or not. “At least, I hope this will all be taken care of before I have to leave for Charlotte.”
She sat in her newly fixed car outside the town’s baseball field. She had a front-row view of the game currently in progress between the fire department and the local teachers’ association. New lights flooded the field, an addition she’d lobbied hard for last spring. They’d been expensive, but a government matching fund had helped. And despite the griping about the increased costs passed onto various leagues who played on the field, they sure did pack the stands now that they had a better place to play. Concessions alone would make a serious dent in paying down the money the town had borrowed for them.
Heather planned to help out in the concession stand tonight as sitting at home and brooding wasn’t doing her a damn bit of good. Besides, Finleys didn’t hang their heads and worry about idle talk. Better to be in the thick of things and prove she had nothing to hide.
“You hope it’s taken care of? Heather, that’s my whole point.” Erin must have taken the call somewhere more private since the zydeco music in the background had faded a bit. “You can’t afford to wait and hope the situation gets taken care of. You know the family runs on drama. Even if the new sheriff figured it all out and Dad’s name was cleared, Mom will be too distracted to take her meds and she’ll go in a tailspin. Or she’ll overcompensate with meds and she’ll need help leveling out again.”
“She can’t help that—”
“I know. I understand her better than I used to, so I’m not suggesting she uses the drama for attention. But we’ve weathered enough episodes where we should realize that any implication of Dad’s involvement in the scandal is going to wreak havoc with her emotions and her health.”
“I asked her to make a doctor’s appointment so we can get on top of that.” Heather tipped her head back against the upholstery seat, watching as Quinton Lee, the owner of Lucky’s Grocer and a fire department volunteer, tapped his bat on home plate. “I want to be with her when she goes. I want to hear what the doctor says firsthand.”
“Let Mack or Scott go with her,” Erin urged. “You’ve waited too long for this chance to follow a dream, Heather. You have to go for it.”
Right. Except with her own appointment now canceled, she didn’t feel quite as motivated to sing her heart out in front of strangers. What if her fingers were stiff that day and she couldn’t play her guitar? She really needed medical help and she’d feel better if she could get on a treatment program before her audition.
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“I can catch up with the program when they do auditions in New Orleans next month.” She’d already checked to see where else American Voice would be scouting talent. “The invitation doesn’t expire.”
Out on the baseball diamond, Quinton Lee connected with a pitch, sending the ball over the fence and into the parking lot nearby.
“Next month?” Erin must have moved again, because the sounds of a fiddle grew louder. “And then you’ll be saying ‘next year.’ Don’t do this to yourself. I’ll come home before I let you miss out on the audition.”
“Absolutely not.” A couple of kids scampered down from the stands to retrieve the baseball. “You’re on your honeymoon.”
“Yes. And that’s how important it is to me that you get to your audition. I would leave my honeymoon early.”
“I won’t let you do that.”
“Well, I won’t let you stick around Heartache to be Mom’s keeper anymore. It’s as simple as that.” A low voice with a Cajun twang spoke in the background on Erin’s end. Remy must have joined her. “You know, you could always call Amy and see if she wants to take a turn overseeing Mom.”
The hometown crowd cheered while Quinton ran the bases. Heather used to play on the teachers’ team, but she hadn’t signed up for the fall league once American Voice had invited her to audition for the show. She had counted on being gone by now.
“If she didn’t want to come home for a fun thing like a wedding, she’s sure not going to run home to cart Mom to doctor’s appointments.” Heather checked her watch to make sure she wasn’t missing her shift at the concession stand. She’d volunteered to take over for Trish, her hairdresser, who’d wanted a chance to watch the fire department guys in action.
“You should stop in Atlanta on the way to Charlotte and see Amy.” Erin’s voice went quiet. Thoughtful.