by Erin Healy
“Grandma’s made me stay off it.”
“Good grandma.”
“Make yourself useful, Lexi,” Alice commanded while smiling at Angelo. “Peel some eggs.” She nodded toward a colander full of boiled eggs by the sink.
“Mind if I have a look at that splint?” Angelo asked Molly. “It’s quite a contraption.”
“I think it looks like a launch pad for a rocket ship,” she said.
“And your leg’s the rocket!” Angelo said. Lexi moved to the sink to wash her hands, feeling Ward’s eyes on her back.
That high-tech splint might as well have been made by NASA, for all that it was going to cost Lexi. This one time, she might have to ask her mom for a loan.
She turned on the water faucet to wash her hands. The water that came out of it was gray, like the water Molly drained off a can of olives. Lexi waited, thinking some minerals had built up in the pipes, although when that had happened before the water came out brown. Instead of clearing up, the gray darkened to a watercolor black, then thickened to the consistency of the tempura paints Molly and she had used for a school project.
When it became the consistency of motor oil and started falling from the faucet in burping bubbles, she shut off the tap and watched the greasy liquid slither into the drain.
“Problem with the water?” Lexi flinched at the sound of his voice. The space they shared was not made for two people.
“No,” she said.
“You have other problems.” His voice was low. Ward’s breath caressed her neck and smelled like eggs. Or maybe it was the pot on the counter. The scent of woodsmoke came off his clothes.
“You’re at the top of my list.”
“That’s right.”
From the corner of her eye, Lexi saw Alice lift bacon onto paper towels. She didn’t seem to notice Ward standing so close. Molly and Angelo continued to chat.
Lexi couldn’t bring herself to turn around in the crowded quarters and face Ward. With so many people in the room, he’d have to back off soon enough.
Her legs were shaking, even though her voice was level.
“If you’re here about Norm—”
“One of many things.”
“I’ll give you my answer in a few days.”
“Mmm. I’ll need to know sooner than that.”
“Why?”
“Five letters: M-O-L-L—.”
“Okay.” Lexi snapped around, holding a boiled egg. Her toes knocked Ward’s. Bitterness toward Norm clogged her throat, but fear for Molly’s safety overcame it. She’d say anything to make Ward leave her life forever. “I’ll testify,” she whispered. “I’ll put in a good word for the snake.”
“No you won’t.”
Confusion made Lexi frown. “What do you mean? I will.”
“You say you will. You’ll say what you want me to hear. But it’s not the truth.”
Lexi swallowed. She’d make it the truth. She would do it, no matter how distasteful. She didn’t know how, only that she would. No matter what she said about Norm at the hearing, she didn’t have to mean it. She would need a way to explain it to her family, though.
“I’d do anything for Molly.”
“That’s what you’d like to think.”
“But you said you wanted me to—”
“I do.”
Lexi stared at Ward. He was not wearing his knit cap today, but his hair would have benefited from one. His greasy black curls made his forehead shiny, and he appeared to have skipped shaving. Ward’s nose was too wide for his narrow face, and his eyes, which she had remembered being clear blue in striking contrast to his hair, were like midnight.
She shoved him out of her way, reaching the living room and a place to breathe in four long strides.
“Eggs, Lexi!” Alice called.
“In a minute,” Lexi said.
Ward followed her, as she expected.
“What are we really talking about?” she asked him. “Is this about Norm, or about Molly, or me, or something else entirely?”
“Yes.” Ward was grinning.
Lexi put her hand on her forehead, then dropped it.
Ward said, “I heard Grant wrote you a letter. A nasty letter. Or was that for Molly?”
“This is about Grant?”
“Everything’s about everything.” His lips formed a smug line.
“What do you know about the letter?”
He laughed, a breathy chuckle. “More than you do.”
She crossed her arms. “Then there’s no need for me to explain it.”
“That’s right. So I’ll explain a few things to you.”
“Please.”
Lexi figured it was possible that Grant and Ward had coordinated this return to Crag’s Nest, that they were still in some kind of business together, but why?
Her mind lit up with sense. So Grant could get custody of Molly. Or kidnap the girl. Or do something just as crazy. That’s why Ward would demand she testify for Norm—he was doing this at Grant’s prompting! He must have found out about the affair. Grant could have his revenge, rub Lexi’s face in her own poor judgment. Lexi felt her heart pounding all the way up in her temples.
Ward said, “Grant still owes me some money.”
Lexi blinked. What did that have to do with anything? “You can restassured I don’t have any of it.”
“As I’ve said, you don’t have to pay me with cash.”
“Shut up, Ward. I don’t owe you anything.”
“You and Grant are still married. Legally, his obligations are yours.”
“Since when did you care about the law?” she challenged. But the walls of Lexi’s living room felt close and thick. In the kitchen, Alice was saying something and Angelo was listening, but the big man’s eyes were on Lexi. His gaze emboldened her.
He got up from his chair and responded to Alice. She laughed. Angelo turned, tilting his shoulder to lean against the wall that separated the kitchen from the hallway and living room, blocking Lexi’s view of her mother and daughter. And vice versa.
Lexi kept the conversation at a low volume. “I don’t owe you anything,” she repeated to Ward.
“That’s a common misconception among people who know me.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Did you ever wonder, Lexi, why the law didn’t come after you when Grant left—why they didn’t see to it that Molly had the chance to be raised in a more . . . privileged home?”
She released the wall. “Because I had nothing to do with Grant’s moonlighting. The ‘law’ never knew about that anyway.”
“Ever wonder why? It’s a small town, and your name was on the title of that sweet little house where Grant built his meth lab.”
“It was your lab.”
“Not the way it looks to an outsider. I’m the reason they never dropped in on you.”
“Am I supposed to thank you for that?”
“It wouldn’t hurt.”
Lexi glared at him. “Maybe my husband would be more grateful.”
“Is he your husband still? After what you did, Sexy Lexi? I mean, I suppose you still have a piece of paper saying you’re still a Solomon, but are you? Do you deserve that title?”
All words left her. The smoky aroma of his clothing hit her fresh, then, and the tones of Molly telling a joke reached her ears. This was the scent that had covered her daughter at the library. Lexi balked.
Ward asked, “Did you see him today, when you visited your friend? Did you see Norman?”
“Were you with my daughter?”
“While you were with your lover?”
“He’s not—!” Lexi controlled her volume and closed the space between her and Warden. “That was a mistake. It was years ago. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Is that permission to tell?”
“Of course not!” Her thoughts went directly to Molly. “What is this all about?”
“Grant owes me money, and you’re going to get it for me.”
The paper-thin
foundation under Ward’s claims infuriated Lexi. She couldn’t lay hands on that money any more than she believed Grant owed it to Ward.
“Do you want a testimony or do you want cash? Because I’m having a little trouble keeping up with all the demands.”
“You’re going to give me both.”
“Get it yourself.”
“The reason you’re going to get it for me is because Grant came back to Crag’s Nest for a reason, and that reason is you. And his daughter. He’ll give what he owes to you far more easily than he’ll give it to me.”
“It’s a bad idea to work with people you don’t know very well.”
“He owes me twenty-five thousand—”
“He never owed you that much!”
“Interest accrues. In exchange for collecting this money on my behalf, you’ll get to keep your daughter. How hard can it be to take money from a man you already despise?”
“You think I can just ask for it on a paper plate?”
“You have until Norman Von Ruden’s hearing to collect.”
The smell of boiled eggs and the confusion of what was happening made a nauseous combination in Lexi’s stomach. Frustration and desperation brought tears to her eyes.
“You tell Grant I’m done with this,” Lexi said. “If he wants money, he’s going to have to get it from someone besides me. And if he wants to rub my face in the Norman mistake, he can come do it himself. I don’t know what he’s talked you into or what you think you’re going to get out of it. Twenty-five thousand dollars to split? Well, you’re the idiots. You can’t steal from someone who doesn’t have anything.”
“You have Molly.”
“You will never, ever get close enough to my daughter again to even touch her. Neither of you.”
“I have been closer than that already,” he whispered. “She’s the point of this fine mess, isn’t she? She’s the prize, the cost, and the consequence all rolled in to one.”
The skin of Lexi’s neck started to tingle where Ward had breathed on it. “None of this makes sense.”
“When the parents have a debt to pay, the party that always, always pays it is the children. I don’t care who you think you are or how you think you’re going to cook the books of your life, Lexi. When it’s time to settle accounts, the money’s coming out of your children’s pockets. Molly’s pockets.”
“Grant is the one who owes you.”
Ward shook his head, a gesture of false pity. “I’m never gonna let you go, Lexi. You’re in debt to the bottom of your soul. You just don’t know it yet.”
{ chapter 16 }
Ward left. Angelo stayed. Molly and Alice seemed unaware of Lexi’s exchange with Ward, and her gut told her that Angelo’s powers of distraction were responsible for that. Powers of protection, she thought. She wondered then if maybe he could protect her family from her past. From Grant. From Ward. Maybe that was why he was really here, sent by God, even though he couldn’t have known it.
Lexi’s anger toward Grant grew after Ward’s departure. He had put her in this mess by abandoning her in marriage even before he left. Her animosity toward Norman intensified too. She blamed him for seducing her, and then her self-loathing expanded as well, for allowing him to. She spent the afternoon in a haze, wondering what she could have done differently to prevent Molly from ending up in so much danger.
She boldly asked Angelo to stay with her mother and daughter while she went to work. The thought of Alice and Molly alone, and Alice being so willing to let Ward in the house frightened Lexi. Angelo reacted enthusiastically, as if he’d been waiting for her to ask because he feared offending if he offered first.
“For all you know, Ward’s a serial killer,” Lexi whispered to her mother so Molly wouldn’t hear. Angelo had left the room to wash his hands before eating.
Alice looked shocked. “He’s not,” she said. “He’s completely decent.”
Lexi’s mind went to Norman. “Killers usually are, don’t you think?”
“For heaven’s sake, Lexi. What would you know about that?”
“You’re the one who spends so much time worrying about what’s going to go wrong, Mom. Just this once, it would have been nice if you’d been completely paranoid.”
“Okay, so tell me what’s wrong with Ward. He must have told me the truth about you guys knowing each other for a long time. He had a photo! Tell me his big bad secrets.”
Lexi looked at Molly, who was fishing around in her salad for the bacon pieces, listening in spite of Lexi’s low voice. There was no good answer to offer up at this moment, no answer that wouldn’t lead to the truth about why Tara had died. Lexi wasn’t prepared to expose her own blame to anyone. There had to be another way.
“He’s bad news, Mom.”
“Now, that’s helpful.” She went to the sink to wash her hands.
“Mom, wait,” she said, fearing the black ooze once again. Alice lifted the lever on the faucet. The water ran clear.
“Seriously, Lexi, I’m more frightened of that Angelo.”
“You’ve got to be kidding!”
“I’m not. He’s huge. Monstrous. He could squash me with his thumb. And he’s not half as good looking as your friend Ward.”
Lexi blinked. Good looking and Ward did not belong in the same sentence together. This was her reason for trusting him? “Well, handsome men have never been responsible for any evil in the world, have they?”
Mom shook her hands dry and reached for a dish towel. The black water in the pipes—gone like the paint on the window. Lexi was quickly learning not to trust her eyes any more than she trusted Ward.
“Don’t be sassy. If we’re going with our guts here, Lexi, I have to listen to mine. That Angelo makes me shiver inside.”
“He saved Molly’s life!”
“By accident. Keep your eyes open. I hope he hasn’t turned your head.”
“Mom!”
“You’ve known him all of what? Two days?”
Either confirming or denying it was a losing proposition. How long had she known Ward? Eight years?
Molly looked at them, and Lexi hoped she didn’t know the phrase “turned your head.”
“Are you going out with him?” Molly asked.
“No!”
Lexi thought her answer might have been too quick, too emphatic, because when Angelo returned from the bathroom, Molly frowned at him.
A pint of blueberries could only do so much.
“Did you and Gina get a chance to watch the movie before she got sick?” Lexi asked.
Molly shook her head and stabbed a spinach leaf.
“Maybe we can watch it tomorrow morning.” That would mean skipping church. There was a time when all of the Grüggens had trooped to church on Sunday mornings, because that was their routine. At some point, they must have decided they preferred newspapers and coffee to church bulletins and potlucks. Lexi still preferred newspapers and coffee, honestly, and she and Molly didn’t get to Freshwater Church of the High Country much these days—9:00 a.m. came early after a 3:00 a.m. bedtime.
Molly shrugged. Lexi sighed.
Besides the possibility that Ward might return while she was gone, Lexi asked Angelo to stay in case Alice got any ideas to invite Grant over. It wouldn’t take much pleading from Molly to talk her into it. Grant was scary enough without Ward in the picture. Now that Lexi believed the two men had never parted ways, she needed to be that much more wary.
Tomorrow, if Molly slept in, Lexi would put her mother on the proverbial witness stand. She intended to find out why Alice was feeling so supportive of Grant. Maybe because he was still so handsome.
Lexi cried all the way to work. And prayed. And when she arrived at the Red Rocks Bar and Grill she sat in her car in the parking lot until the last possible second before her shift started. Her eyes were bloodshot from tears and exhaustion, but she couldn’t rest. If she was late two days in a row, Chuck might fire her.
The wind and the grasses were still that Saturday afternoon, an
d the sky was such a pristine blue that Lexi wanted to float up and away in it.
Lexi had never thought of herself as being good at praying. She didn’t do it regularly and doubted she had the right words. Most of the time she figured God knew what she was thinking and needing without her having to say it. But periodically they did have one-sided conversations.
God, what’s happening?
He tended not to reply, and she thought that was because he didn’t have much to say or because she wasn’t a good listener. In any case, she tried not to demand.
Gina said you’d put my past behind me when I started over. So why is it about to run me over? Why Grant, Ward, Norman, Mom—all here, now, all wanting something from me?
Molly and I didn’t need anything but a fresh start. Was that too much to ask? Was it only a temporary arrangement?
Ward’s remark about Molly paying for Lexi’s debts poked into her thoughts. No child deserved that weight on her shoulders. Though she hadn’t confessed all her sins to Gina, her friend knew a few of them, and Lexi was sure God knew the rest.
I thought that whole bit about you pardoning me meant I wasn’t going to be punished for my mistakes for the rest of my life. I’m not saying I got that right, but if you would set me straight as gently as possible, I’d appreciate it.
And if you have any ideas about how I should handle Ward and Grant, I’ll take those too.
Protect Molly. You’ve got to protect Molly. Please. Do what you want with me, but Molly doesn’t deserve this wreck that’s about to happen.
She didn’t see any way to prevent it.
At 3:59 she locked the Volvo and plodded into the kitchen, head down. The question of how to come up with twenty-five thousand dollars was second only to the question of whether to confront Grant and, if so, how to tell him where to put it.
Lexi paused at the hook in the pantry/closet. Why would Ward demand cash from Grant if he intended to split it with Grant?
She rubbed her eyes and had no answer.
There was so much she needed to ask Angelo that she hadn’t had time for yet, beginning with what he knew about Grant’s incarceration. She also wanted to know about the strangeness that had passed between him and Ward at the house. Did they know each other? If so, how? What was their story?