This Bitter Treasure: a romantic thriller (Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series Book 3)
Page 3
“’Cause I don’t talk right.”
“You talk fine. It’s just…nonstandard.”
“So this class is to help me talk white?”
“No!…Well, maybe. Kinda.”
Ty grins and the smile spreads to his big brown eyes. “Marcus can turn it on and off. When he’s out with us, he talks regular. ‘Yo, whattup…let’s chill with some Stoli’ Then when he’s with his friends from work, he’s all, ‘Nice to see you again. Would you care to partake of a cocktail?’ I ain’t goin’ there.”
I crack up. Ever since Ty’s cousin Marcus got his first job at a Wall Street bank, he’s gotten a little pretentious, and Ty busts him for it. “I promise I’ll never ask you to utter the phrase ‘partake of a cocktail.’ But you want to learn the business, right? Meet with clients, negotiate with dealers. You don’t want to be still hauling heavy furniture when you’re forty.”
“I guess.” Ty sighs. “Will you tell me when I make a mistake? But just you. I don’t want to hear it from her.” He points to Adrienne’s empty desk.
I rest my hand on his arm. “Just me.”
Ty turns his back and busies himself straightening some boxes in the corner. “I think I did something stupid,” he mutters into the cardboard.
“What? Tell me.”
“In the English class, I wrote about stuff that I shouldn’t have. She asked us to write about why we decided to enroll in college this semester. I should’ve just written something basic, like I want to go to college to do better at my job. Instead, I, I…”
“You told the truth?”
That he had gotten bored with high school and dropped out. That he had fallen in with older guys he wanted to impress. That he drove the car when they robbed a convenience store. That his misadventures had brought him a felony conviction that would shadow his whole life.
“So now she knows a lot about me. Too much.”
I’m curled up on Sean’s couch researching prices for Mrs. Eskew’s nymph sculpture and paintings while he cooks our dinner: salmon and couscous with some kind of greenish sauce. Roasted Brussels sprouts, which I never even knew I liked. If he went to the farmer’s market, maybe there will even be an apple tart. My lonely days of eating carry-out Pad Thai straight from the box are over.
I resisted being taken care of, resisted mightily. But now that I’ve surrendered, I’ve discovered being in love is nice. Really nice.
I offered to help cook, but Sean says I slow him down. So I lean on the island that separates the living room from the kitchen and tell him about my new job. “The people aren’t so nice, but the house is loaded with great stuff. This job will finally get Another Man’s Treasure on track to meet my profit projections for the year. We could actually be up five percent over last year if those books and paintings are as valuable as I think they might be. I’m researching prices right now.”
Sean reaches across the counter and strokes my arm. “You’re so sexy when you talk numbers.”
”You’re so sexy when you sauté.”
I love watching Sean cook. His big hands move with amazing dexterity, the chef’s knife flashing over a pile of herbs. His sandy eyebrows draw together as he examines something simmering in a skillet. He is as intense about our meal as he is about every crime he investigates for the Palmyrton police department.
I’ve turned my attention back to my laptop when Sean speaks. “Have you checked your email? Has Isabelle sent us any listings to look at?”
My throat tightens. “Uh, no—nothing today. She says this is a slow time for new listings.” I feel terrible for lying, but I can’t show Sean the links to the houses that our real estate agent sent me this afternoon. They’re awful little split-levels and Capes with tiny boxy rooms and dismal 1970s kitchens and baths. We’ve been searching for weeks, so I know Sean will insist on going to look at them. And they both have four bedrooms, which he wants. And they both have big yards, which he insists upon. All this for the prospective kids that he can hardly wait to have and I am terrified of.
I’d be perfectly happy with the adorable renovated two-bedroom carriage house with a secluded patio and no lawn whatsoever that Sean firmly rejected in late July. I still fantasize about that place—a perfect little love nest for two.
“Audrey, we’ve got to find a place to live.” He looks up from stirring and his blue eyes meet mine. “I hate never spending the entire night with you.”
My heart melts and I get up to give him a hug. I can’t spend the entire night at Sean’s place because of his building’s no-dogs policy and he can’t get a decent night’s sleep at my place because my bedroom is only big enough for double bed. So we pawn my mutt Ethel off on my dad when we can, and when we can’t we fool around like teenagers and then I go home to my place or Sean goes home to his.
“Maybe we need a different Realtor,” he murmurs as he wraps his arms around me.
“No!” I pull away. “Isabelle said she’d have some places for us to look at soon. She has first crack at new listings coming on the market.” The truth is, after I passed on her latest listings, Isabelle suggested that maybe, just maybe, I ought to run the listings past my partner before rejecting them out of hand. “Darling,” she’d said, “he might see potential there that you’re missing. Is he handy?”
In fact, Sean is handy. And he’s tapped into a network of moonlighting cops and firefighters and building inspectors who know how to do just about everything. But I know how anxious Sean is for us to get settled. I don’t want him to talk me into a place that we’ll regret just for the sake of having our housing problems resolved. I’ll know “our” house when I see it. And it won’t be some dreadful Disco era bi-level on the far edge of nowhere.
Dinner is delicious, and as Sean presents me with a slice of fruit tart and a cup of decaf, my phone rings.
I glance down, unwilling to take a call from anyone annoying who will kill our mellow mood.
It’s Jill!
“Hi, honey! How’s school?”
“Oh, Audrey, I’m so upset. My friend, she died. I can’t belie-e-e-ve it.” Choking sobs come through the line, loud enough to make Sean stop stirring his coffee and take notice.
Her friend died? She’s only been at NYU a few weeks. How good a friend could have died? And of what? The crying escalates. Maybe a fellow student got hit by a car? “I’m sorry, Jill. Were you there when it happened?”
“What? No, of course not. I’m here, at school. I would have stopped her if I’d’ve known.”
Hmmm. Sounds like a suicide. Just like Jill to feel responsible for everyone’s stability. “Don’t blame yourself. There must’ve been other people she could have turned to for help.”
“Not the friends she has now. I’m the one who’s known her since kindergarten. We were best friends all through middle school. But in high school….” And the rest of the sentence disappears in tears.
“Wait, who are you talking about? This isn’t someone from NYU?”
“No-o-o. It’s Amber. Amber Pileggi.”
Amber? Why does that name sound familiar?
“Didn’t you hear? It happened right in Caffeine Planet. People in Palmyrton are posting all the RIP messages on Facebook and Twitter, but no one will say exactly what happened.”
“Oh. That girl.” The words slip out involuntarily, and instantly I regret them.
“What do you mean? Do you know something.”
“I don’t. I just heard someone got sick there this morning.” Yes, I’m lying to Jill. But if she finds out I was on the scene, she’ll pester me for every little detail. And honestly, what do I know? I saw her foot. I saw the needle. This gory detail will only make Jill more emotional. “I heard it might be drug-related.”
“Augh! That’s what I was worried about. Amber had a problem with pills.”
Let Jill believe that. She doesn’t need to know the truth is even worse. “Honey, I’m sorry about your friend. But don’t let this bring you down, okay? You need to stay focused on school.”
“You can always flip out on me.”
“Thanks, Audrey. You’re the best.” Jill gives one last sniff. “I feel better now.”
“What was that all about?” Sean asks after I hang up. “Is Jill okay?”
“Do you know what happened to the girl who died in Caffeine Planet this morning? I was there when we found her in the rest room.”
Sean fixes me with his penetrating stare. “You were there? Why didn’t you mention it?”
“I wanted to call you when it happened because I was kinda freaked. But I hate to bother you at work. And honestly, by dinner tonight, so much else had happened that I forgot about it. Why? Is it more than an accidental overdose?”
He stabs a forkful of tart and chews methodically.
“Sean?”
“I can’t discuss it, Audrey.”
“I saw the needle. It was heroin, right? Are you involved in the investigation?”
Sean places his silverware carefully on the plate and keeps his eyes focused on his coffee.
“C’mon, Sean. Can’t you just confirm what she died from?”
“So you can tell Jill and she can tell the immediate solar system? No, Audrey, I cannot tell you.”
Like a kid who’s told she can’t have a cookie, I now really, really want the cookie. “Is the investigation a big deal? I mean, sad to say, but overdose deaths aren’t that uncommon anymore, right? So why is Amber’s death unusual?”
“Audrey!”
I see our happy dinner heading south. My curiosity over Amber’s death isn’t worth a fight with Sean.
I stand up and clear the plates. Clean-up is my job when Sean cooks. “Okay, Mr. Confidentiality. But I’ll remember this next time you need a tip.”
Sean slips his arms around my waist and nuzzles my neck. “What I need is a tip on a bedroom that can hold a king-size bed.”
I twist to face him. “There’s one about twenty steps from here.”
“What time do you need to leave?”
“Ethel should go out by eleven.”
Sean backs me out of the kitchen. “Forget the dishes. I’ll do them in the morning.”
Chapter 6
The next day, I return to the Eskews’ house ready for a full day of inventorying.
I ring the front doorbell twice, but no one answers.
The home health aide is supposed to be here to let me in. I’ll be really ticked if I came all this way for nothing.
I try the doorknob and it turns in my hand. Apparently Darlene simply left it unlocked.
Armed with my research, I’m eager to resume work on the book collection. I tap lightly on the sickroom door. Darlene pokes her head out. “I see you got in. Mornings are hard. I have my hands full with her, so I’m just going to leave the door open for you. Give me another half hour and you can work in here.”
I busy myself in the foyer until Darlene reappears. She nods me into the room as her fingers fly over the screen of her cell phone. As she types, she clucks and sighs and moans so much that I know something must be going haywire in her personal life. Is it possible to eavesdrop on someone’s texting? Finally she slams the phone down. “Oh, for God’s sake!”
Surely, I’m meant to respond to that. “Is there a problem?”
“My youngest. He’s telling the school nurse he’s got a stomachache, and now she expects me to drop everything and come get him. What does the damn school even have a nurse for if they can’t handle an upset stomach?”
She looks at Mrs. Eskew, who lies comatose, barely breathing, then glances at me. I hastily turn my attention to the books.
“I’ve gotta go outside to make a call,” she says to my back. “I’ll be right back. Don’t worry. She won’t wake up.”
I open my mouth to protest, but Darlene is not paying attention to me. Before she’s even out of the room, I see her phone pressed to her ear and hear her say, “You have to get him and stay with him. You know he can’t stay home alone.”
A few moments later, I can see Darlene’s hot pink smock through the crack in the Venetian blinds as she paces back and forth on the patio talking into her phone and gesturing emphatically with her free hand.
She must be trying to get someone else to pick up the sick kid. I try to imagine myself in such a bind—trying to manage my kids’ problems from a distance, always worrying about what’s going on at home while I’m at work. My hands stop flipping through the book I’m holding. I worry so much about Jill and Ty and Sean and they’re adults. How will I ever cope with being fully responsible for some tiny person’s life? My father never knew how to cope with me. What if it’s genetic?
I shiver.
Below me, I hear a voice. “I always knew it would come to this.”
My hand freezes on a book. Darlene is still outside. Who spoke?
I look down at the bed. Mrs. Eskew’s eyes are wide open. “How have you managed on your own?” she says, looking intently at someone in front of her. But the room is empty.
Slowly, I descend the ladder and creep toward the bed. “Mrs. Eskew? Are you all right?”
“Jean-Claude? I will meet him finally. How does the boy amuse himself? Have you told him….” Her voice had been surprisingly strong, but now it trails off.
I stand over her. Her eyes, intensely blue in her colorless face, lock with mine. “Put that book down,” she says quite distinctly.
I look at my hand, surprised to see that Tender is the Night is still in my grasp. I set it on the bedside table.
Mrs. Eskew’s eyes track my motion. “I despise Fitzgerald.”
“Overrated,” I agree. Should I be talking to her? Will she be frightened of this stranger in her room? She’s suddenly remarkably alert. I was under the impression that even when she was awake she wasn’t aware of her surroundings. But clearly that’s not true.
“Where’s that woman?”
“Darlene? She just stepped out to make a call. I’ll go get her.”
I turn and a claw-like hand reaches out from the covers and latches onto my arm. “Forget that fat bitch. Who are you?”
“My name is Audrey, Audrey Nealon. Your daughter hired me to…” I can’t say dispose of your estate. “…organize your book collection. You have some very fine volumes.”
“Huh. I’m surprised Kara didn’t haul them all out to the curb. The girl hasn’t read a book since Nancy Drew.” She relaxes the iron grip on my arm. “Have you come across The Grapes of Wrath yet? My husband bought a first edition for seven dollars in 1955. Now it’s worth thousands.”
“Twelve thousand, five hundred actually. I’ve done the research.”
“It’s just as well to sell it. My remaining children are philistines, all of them.” Her breathing becomes shallow and ragged. “Jean-Claude would have appreciated these books.”
Her hand clutches the blanket, trying to wring strength from it. I look toward the door. Surely Darlene should be back by now.
“Mrs. Eskew, I’d better go get your nurse.”
“No. That cow, she doesn’t listen. She won’t give me…”
Then, as suddenly as she awoke, her eyelids flutter and her hand falls limp onto the blanket. My God, is she? No, no—her chest is moving and the raspy breathing has returned.
I back away from the bed and nearly step on Darlene. I didn’t even hear her come back.
“There you are! She woke up. She was talking to me.”
“Yeah?” Darlene clearly doesn’t share my amazement. She places her fingers on Mrs. Eskew’s wrist to take her pulse. “She does that sometimes. Wears her out though.”
“I thought she was totally out of it, but she talked to me about her books. She made perfect sense.“ I don’t mention the old gal’s focus on her most valuable volume.
“Mmmm. Sometimes she’s totally clear, sometimes not.”
&nb
sp; “At first she didn’t even know I was in the room. It was like she was looking straight at someone and having a conversation.”
“Was she asking about Jean-Claude?”
“Yeah! Who’s that?”
“Her grandson who never got born. She talks to him and his mother, Leonie. They’re waiting for her on the other side. I tell her, ‘Just go ahead and let go. They’ll show you around’.”
I look at Darlene uneasily. Is she serious?
“That’s why I know she’s close to passing. When they start seein’ the ones who went before, it’s definitely time.”
I cough. “You’ve experienced this…phenomenon…before?”
“Sure. All the time.” Darlene bustles around straightening the bedding, then plops into her bedside chair.
“So you believe that’s true? That our dead relatives are waiting for us in—” I don’t want to say heaven. I’m not sure I believe in heaven, certainly not one with angels and clouds. “—on the other side.”
Darlene shrugs. “Guess no one really knows what happens after we die. No one’s lived to tell about it. Ha! But I can tell you this—when it comes close to the end, I’ve seen my patients start talking to their dead husbands and parents and sisters and kids. Even their dead dogs. I’ve seen it time and again. So I guess someone’s there.”
I can’t help but think of my mother, dead since I was three. Will I see her when I’m ready to cross over? What if I don’t want to?
“Do they only see the people they cared about? What if…?”
“Your relatives are assholes? Yeah, I worry about that. I sure don’t want to run into my old man again. I had enough of his beatings and bullshit here on earth. I don’t need to have it again in eternity.”
This conversation is totally creeping me out. Time to change the subject. “Did you get everything worked out for your son? Is he okay?” I ask as I climb back up the library ladder.
Darlene makes a sound that’s half groan, half laugh. “My youngest, Kenny, he was born with cerebral palsy. Damn doctor didn’t notice the cord was wrapped around his neck until he already had the oxygen to his brain cut off. So he’s got some learning disabilities and bad fine motor skills. That means he can’t tie his shoes or cut his meat or pour his juice. My other sons think I baby Kenny. They think he oughta be able to stay home by himself, take care of himself. But he can’t. He really can’t.”