by Lacey Baker
Lorrayna all but fell onto the couch next to Mr. Sylvester, waving a hand like a substitute fan over her face. It was cooler in this house than it was outside, and it was pretty cool outside, considering it was still early in the morning and last night’s storm had done a great job of knocking down the temperature and the humidity. The fanning was another part of Lorrayna’s act.
“I just want to see my baby. I want to make sure she’s all right,” Lorrayna said in a baleful voice.
“She’s just fine, ma’am,” Parker told her. “Drew was taking a shower when I left her. She’ll be dressed and out in a few minutes, then she’s going down to the flower shop. Everything’s all right, Mrs. Sidney, I promise you.”
Lorrayna shook her head. “You can’t keep promises, young man. I know all about you. Undependable troublemaker, that’s what they told me, and so far that’s all I’ve seen. Just look what you’ve gotten my daughter into.”
Parker opened his mouth to speak, but Michelle touched his arm, shaking her head for him to refrain. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Sidney,” she said. “Parker and Drew are very happy together. Nobody could have predicted what happened last night.”
Lorrayna continued to shake her head. “Ever since you Cantrell boys came back to town, things have been happening. Sweetland used to be so quiet and so peaceful. Since you’ve been here we’ve had murders and fires and motorcycle accidents. It’s terrible!”
“It’s life, that’s what it is,” Mr. Sylvester interrupted. “Things happen and we don’t plan ’em and we can’t predict ’em. It just is. Sure, there’s been some bad things happening around town lately, but you know what? It’s about time things got stirred up a bit around here. Can’t live in a fantasy world all your life. But I can promise you this, whatever comes with these boys, they handle it right quick. And they don’t mean any harm to anybody. This boy would no more hurt your girl than he would his own sister.”
“Her reputation’s ruined here, just like it was back home. Every time Drew gets mixed up with a man it ruins her reputation. Now she’s going to have this baby out of wedlock and raise it on her own while he gallivants around town like a peacock on that noisy bike or goes back to the big city with those fancy women. It’s just not right.” Lorrayna sobbed.
Michelle looked to Parker, whose frown had deepened significantly. He turned and walked back through the house toward the kitchen, and she let him go.
“What ain’t right is you judging a man solely by what you’ve heard. I suspect whatever ruined your daughter’s reputation in your former home wasn’t true. Especially since I’ve had occasion to meet your daughter and she seems like a lovely gal to me.” Mr. Sylvester took one of Lorrayna’s shaking hands in his. “You didn’t want people judging your girl by rumors, yet you sit here and do the same to my boy. He don’t deserve that, not from you or anybody else. He’s a good man and he’s going to do the right thing by your daughter.”
Now Michelle felt bad for letting Parker walk away. If there was one thing she knew her brother needed to hear, it was another man standing up for him. It was somebody saying that he was as good as Michelle knew him to be.
Lorrayna lowered her head, her shoulders hunching as she continued that fake-cry episode. Then the only other person who could possibly calm the woman down entered the room, and the tension grew so thick that Michelle almost choked.
“Hello, Mother,” Drew said in a quietly exasperated voice.
* * *
“You’re not going to like this,” Ryan began once they were all assembled in the front room of the building that had long since housed Sweetland’s police department.
It wasn’t a large building, and from the outside it looked more like a warehouse than a police station. There was a shield on the front of both swinging glass doors and the sheriff’s name printed in bold block letters beneath it. The front room was like a sitting area, with functional office chairs lined up along the front and side walls. There was a table in the center of the room that held all sorts of brochures, from the local restaurant menus to the town’s event schedule and maps highlighting where to go in Sweetland. Across the room was the front desk, where Esterine Farraway, Kyle’s wife, sat serving as the dispatcher and receptionist for going on thirty-five years. If Parker remembered correctly, that was how Kyle and Esterine had met.
This morning, Kyle had sent Esterine back to his office. Jonah, Ryan, Preston, and the sheriff sat in the room with Parker, all of them looking equal parts exhausted and concerned.
“I already don’t like it,” Kyle replied to Ryan’s remark. “All this shooting and sneaking around in my town’s not sitting well with me or the mayor. I’m meeting with her later this afternoon,” he informed them.
Parker cleared his throat. “I apologize for bringing my troubles to Sweetland.”
“Actually,” Ryan began, “it looks like Sweetland’s been hiding a little bit of trouble of its own.”
“You mean Inez King? Yeah, she was robbing us blind and working with that embezzler guy that they thought Nikki Brockington shot.” Kyle scratched the top of his head, the spot where hair used to be. “We took care of all that.”
Ryan shook his head. “It seems Inez and Randall Davis were connected in more ways than one.”
Preston flattened his palms on his knees. “We already know that. The PI I hired months back to help us figure out what was going on with the past due tax bill reported that Inez King had secret meetings with Randall Davis and that the investment firm Inez was working with was A.W. Investments, owned by Aaron Witherspoon, Randall’s boss.”
“Right,” Ryan said with a nod. “Witherspoon’s just recently been indicted on federal charges of fraud and embezzlement. In the investigation it was uncovered that Witherspoon was working with some lower-level street hustlers. Somehow those lower-level hustlers were tipped off that their names were appearing on our radar and they began to tie up loose ends.”
“Okay, what does this have to do with what’s going on here now?” Jonah asked.
Jonah was around Parker’s age, a good-looking man, if quiet and introverted. He’d lived in Sweetland all his life and for as far back as Parker could remember had wanted to be a cop.
Ryan looked to Parker to continue with his part of the explanation. “The murder I witnessed was of Tyrone Vezina. He was a PG County cop and one of the players in Witherspoon’s franchise. After the murder I pulled some of Vezina’s cases, the ones I could get access to. He was in Narcotics, which sort of confirmed what I’d initially thought about the murder, that it was an ordered hit for a drug deal gone bad.”
“So this cop was selling drugs?” Kyle asked.
Parker ran a hand down his face. “That’s what I originally thought, but then after a few discreet meetings with some of Vezina’s informants, I realized he wasn’t just running drugs. There was an elite operation going throughout the state that included drugs, bribes, forged documents, conspiracy. With this information I had more names and I ran some reports. The next day my apartment was broken into. Then I was suspended from the force. My sergeant said I needed a break, possibly a permanent break.”
It wasn’t easy admitting to that in front of these men, but Parker had chucked his pride at the door the moment Drew and his child’s life had been put at risk.
“So whoever is after you wants to shut you up,” Jonah started. “Then why haven’t they killed you yet?”
When Preston and Ryan looked at him with heated expressions, Jonah backtracked.
“Hear me out here,” he said. “This Vezina guy was a cop, and they killed him in cold blood. You start snooping, they break into your house, then follow you here to Sweetland, run you off the road, and shoot out an entire restaurant you were in. But you’re still alive. It doesn’t click.”
Kyle nodded. “He’s right. If they really wanted you dead, I suspect you’d be in a pine box by now.”
“I think they want to recruit me instead,” Parker said quietly. He’d received another email
when he’d checked his in-box this morning. It had only said: We need to talk.
The men continued to talk, throwing out ideas, suggestions, trying to come up with a plan, a strategy to put an end to a situation that had gotten completely out of control. All because Parker had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, or had it been the right place at the right time? Vezina’s murder had put certain things into motion, events that brought him here, to Drew. He wondered how smart it was to curse the very situation that had led him to the happiest he’d ever been in his life.
* * *
“Your dog’s gone again and your woman’s still at work,” Savannah stated the moment Parker walked through the front door. She was headed up the steps, no doubt going to take her afternoon rest. She’d been trying to squeeze in a lot of naps lately. Parker wondered at that but wondered more about where his damned dog was for the third time.
But before he could turn around and head back out of the house, he was stopped by a voice coming from the living room.
“You gotta wonder why that dog of yours keeps running off when all the others are content to stay right where they are.”
Parker sighed. He’d been talking all morning and a good part of the afternoon down at the police station. The other part of the afternoon he’d been riding around Sweetland. All he’d wanted was to come home, get a hot shower and a nice dinner, then sit and enjoy the evening with Drew. The last thing he felt like was more talking. But his upbringing wouldn’t allow him to be rude, so he walked into the living room to see Mr. Sylvester’s legs propped up on the couch, cane leaning against the side, glass of water on the table beside him, magazines tossed across his lap. He looked as if he were on vacation. Either that or he wasn’t feeling well. The latter had Parker eyeing him suspiciously.
“Hey, Mr. Sylvester. How are you feeling today?”
Sylvester looked at him with eyes that watered naturally and pinned a person fast and hard. “I’m just fine. What I was wondering was how long it was going to take you to come to your senses.”
Parker took a seat, knowing instinctively this would take a while. “I think I’m getting things together,” he replied, admitting to himself that the man had a small point.
When he’d first returned to Sweetland, his life had been turning upside down. His career was uncertain, he was back with a family he wasn’t sure he knew any longer, and his grandmother was gone. Things weren’t good several months ago, and now, well, now they’d seemed to become only more trying.
“One of the first things Janet told me about you was that you were the first of the siblings to walk. You talked early, too, she said. And from that moment on, you were on the go.”
“That sounds more like Savannah than me.”
Sylvester shook his head. “No. She said, ‘Parker’s the one who’s always been going, trying to get to something when he doesn’t even know what that something is.’ I think she was right.”
Parker sat back, recalling the man’s words for a moment. “That sounds like Gramma.”
“Sure it does,” Mr. Sylvester told him, then stopped to cough.
Parker didn’t move, but he raised a brow. Mr. Sylvester was definitely not well. Funny how that thought caused a pang in Parker’s chest. He’d met the man only about six months ago, hadn’t even known there was a man living here with his grandmother before then. Yet he didn’t want him to be sick, didn’t want him to possibly die as Gramma had, not yet.
Mr. Sylvester reached for his glass, took a long gulp, then drew a few steadying breaths.
“What you’ve been looking for is right in front of your eyes,” he said.
Parker smiled. “Right now I should be looking for my dog, I suppose.”
Mr. Sylvester nodded. “Right in front of your eyes, son. All you’ve got to do is open them up and you’ll see everything you’ve been searching for.”
Hours later, Parker would replay Mr. Sylvester’s words in his mind. But for the immediate moment, he slipped out of the living room once Michelle came in to bring Mr. Sylvester a bowl of soup and a glass of tea. He had a good idea where Rufus was and drove his bike in that direction, thinking that maybe Rufus was falling in love with Drew, too.
* * *
It had taken Drew all morning to gather the courage to actually call The Marina in search of Jared. Her mind went back and forth on the reasoning behind this meeting. She wanted closure, that was plain and simple.
There was something more brewing between her and Parker; she could feel it. No, it wasn’t just the baby that she’d felt moving inside her last night—even though she’d felt her move twice today as well. There was an additional something between them now, feelings, caring. Being with Parker now was distinctively different from when she’d been with him that first night. She knew him better, which was a start. She knew what he’d gone through, had a glimpse into the life that everyone in Sweetland had assumed was glamorous and full of fun. For Parker, it had been dangerous and emotionally draining. The entire time he’d been in Sweetland, he’d been struggling with guilt and now had to worry about the lurking danger that the simple act of doing his job had brought on. It couldn’t have been easy for him, and she felt bad that he’d had to go through that and the loss of his grandmother, all while living in the shadow of this bogus reputation.
She’d lived in a shadow herself, for far too long. But now she was going to put that behind her.
While she waited for Jared, she made a few calls, put an ad in the Sweetland Gazette advertising the opening for a shop assistant and/or manager. She’d spent a good chunk of the morning outlining the daily functioning of the flower shop, her small but growing contracted client list, and more details she thought would be valuable to the person coming in to take her place when she went out to deliver. In the next couple of months, she planned to cut her hours to allow more time to prepare for the baby. She was also thinking of looking for a bigger apartment or maybe purchasing a small house for her and the baby; the apartment upstairs was not going to be big enough to accommodate both of them comfortably. Of course, the cost was a little daunting, with her only income coming from the flower shop, but maybe if she rented out her apartment upstairs, that would help.
Her mind was obviously elsewhere when the chimes over the door jingled, signaling someone had arrived. Standing up, she was preparing to get this little meeting over with when she felt a wave of nausea at the sight of Jared again.
She took a deep breath and cleared her throat. “Hello, Jared.”
“Drewcilla,” he said in that deep voice that rubbed right along her skin. The first time she’d heard his voice, it had felt like the warm bubbles of a sauna, relaxing and soothing every nerve in her body. The night he’d had her trapped against a brick wall, his hand thrust into her panties while he whispered crude remarks in her ear, his voice had vibrated through her body like a murderous screech.
Now, there was simply nothing.
“Thank you for coming alone,” she continued, closing the spiral book she’d been writing in and sticking the pen in its side.
“You expected me to bring that simpering Diana with me when you called requesting to see me? I have much better sense then that.” He talked as he moved closer, stopping at the front desk just barely a foot away from Drew.
She sincerely doubted his “smart” remark but declined to comment on it.
“I want to know why you came to Sweetland,” she said, figuring it was best to get this over with as quickly as possible.
Jared leaned over the counter, looking up at her with dreamy blue eyes and a killer smile. “I wanted to see you.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“Come on, Drew, you know how people talk in Stratford. All I had to do was go back home and mention your name. They were more than happy to tell me where you and your mom moved to.”
Drew didn’t doubt that for one second.
“Why would you even mention my name after what happened?”
He reached ou
t then, tried to touch her hand, but Drew stepped back, keeping her hands at her sides.
“I wanted to apologize,” he admitted seriously.
She eyed him suspiciously. How many nights had she lain in her bed all those years ago, wishing Jared would call to say those exact words to her?
“Apologize for what?” she asked, the soft ache of needing that apology having hardened over the years.
“For how things turned out, the misunderstanding. You do know it was all a misunderstanding, right?”
Drew shook her head. “I understand you had a hard time taking no for an answer.”
He stood up straight then, shaking his head as he smiled. Yes, he was actually smiling while this conversation was happening. The thought had Drew’s fists clenching at her sides.
“Things got a little out of hand, I’ll admit that much. But you were really overdramatic about the entire situation. I mean, convincing your parents you needed to go to the police to file a complaint. Who files a complaint about the bad ending to a date?”
He looked incredulous at that statement, as though he really believed that was all that had happened that night. It took three deep breaths to steady herself enough before Drew could speak again.
“You tried to rape me, Jared. You sexually assaulted me. I think that’s pretty damned dramatic.”
“Whoa, there you go with that word and those accusations again. See, that’s why things got out of hand. You don’t know what to say out of your mouth.”
“And you have no idea how to be a real man!” she shouted back, her resolve slipping. She slammed her palms on the counter and leaned forward. “You made a move, I said no. It should have ended there. I tried to get away, but you followed me. You pushed me into that alley and put your hands on me, ignoring my protests. That is sexual assault, you asshole!”
He did have the decency to lose that damned smile. Crossing his arms over his chest, he gave her a deadpan look that said he still thought she was being “overdramatic.”