by Jessica Beck
“I highly doubt it,” I said as I pulled away. I hurried outside, with Jake close on my heels.
“Would you like me to drive us home?” Jake offered.
“I can do it,” I said. I shook my head and resolved to stop crying, at least until we got back to the cottage.
Jake was silent on the short drive home, and it was so quiet in the Jeep that I heard his stomach rumbling. “I didn’t mean to cheat you out of my mother’s pot roast.”
“I’d rather eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with you than dine on the finest meal someplace else alone,” he said.
“I appreciate that, and I promise you, giving up Momma’s pot roast is the biggest sacrifice I’m ever going to ask you to make.”
He was silent for a few more moments before he spoke again. “Suzanne, your mother has to do what’s right for her, no matter how hard it is for us to accept. You know that, don’t you?”
“Of course I know it,” I admitted. “I just don’t know what I’m going to do not having her five minutes away from me.”
“We could always move there, too,” he suggested timidly.
“Jake, I can’t take my donut shop with me,” I said, “and I’m way too young to retire. So are you, for that matter. You’re just on a break, but I know you. You won’t be idle for very long. Besides, our lives together are here. This is where most of our friends live.”
“I know you have deep roots in the community, and it won’t be easy leaving for you, but all I care about is being with you,” he said. “Sell the donut shop to Sharon and Emma. We can start another business at the beach if that’s what it takes. I don’t want to see you miserable, and if you can’t see your life without your mother in it, we need to make a change, too.”
“You’d really do that for me?” I asked him. I realized for the millionth time that I’d won the lottery when it came to husbands. Though my first choice had turned out to be a dud, the second one had exceeded all expectations.
“I’d walk through fire for you,” he said solemnly. “Besides, a move east would get me closer to my sister and her kids in Raleigh. I’d never demand you move for that, but it would be a nice bonus. I’ll stay here, or I’ll move tomorrow. You just need to decide what you want.”
“I don’t know what to do,” I answered. I’d never even considered the possibility that my mother might not be close by for the rest of my life. Losing my father had been painful enough. In a way, this felt as though I was losing my mother as well. I knew that I’d been spoiled having her nearby for my entire life, but that didn’t make me want to be near her any less.
“Why don’t you take your mother’s advice and sleep on it. She might be right; things might look clearer in the morning.”
“I can do that,” I said, “but in the meantime, what are we going to feed you tonight? I can’t stand the thought of going out to eat and being around other people.”
“Why don’t I make us something at home?” he suggested.
My husband’s specialty was chili, something that a great many men made, oddly enough, but I didn’t think my digestive tract could take it tonight. “I appreciate the offer, but I’m happy to make us something. How about eggs?”
“Could you make me a frittata?” he asked me.
“The fancy kind, or something I just throw together at the last second?” I asked him with a grin. I didn’t know how he was doing it, but Jake was getting me outside my own thoughts and the gloom I’d embraced, something I never would have believed possible just a few minutes earlier.
“Your choice. We don’t have to even stop at the store, because I know for a fact that there’s green pepper in the fridge, two or three kinds of cheese, and maybe a little prosciutto left over from my last sandwich.”
“I can make that work,” I said. “Are you sure you don’t mind eating something so simple?”
“It’s not simple to me,” he said with a grin. “Plus, there’s an added bonus. This way, I get you all to myself, so it’s a win-win in my book.”
After we ate a delicious meal, there was enough chill in the air that I suggested Jake make a fire while I did a quick cleanup. By the time I came out of the kitchen, he had a nice blaze going.
As my husband patted the couch seat beside him, he said, “Come join me.”
“I’d love to,” I said.
“We can talk more about it, if you’d like to,” he offered.
“Thanks, but there’s nothing more to say at the moment. I know I’m being a selfish and spoiled brat, and I hate it, but I already miss my mother, and she hasn’t even moved away yet.”
“Maybe nothing will come of it,” Jake suggested.
“You don’t know my mother. Once Momma makes up her mind about something, it’s set in stone.”
“Okay, then we’ll just figure out a way to make the best of it,” Jake answered.
“Even if it’s selling the donut shop, putting our lovely home on the market, and following her?” I asked him.
“All that is comprised of material things, including Donut Hearts,” Jake said. “If I’ve got you with me, we could be stranded on a desert island and I’d be a happy camper.”
“With nothing to eat?” I asked him, forcing a smile.
“Oh, there’s plenty to eat on my pretend island.”
“And hot running water? You know how I love my shower.”
“Of course. We’ll have hot water, and a nice restaurant nearby, too.”
“I thought this was supposed to be a desert island?” I asked him with a grin.
“It is. Things just magically appear when we want them, but we aren’t around other people unless we want to be.”
“This is starting to sound more and more like a magical island,” I said as I nestled my head onto his shoulder.
“That’s exactly what it is. It’s whatever we want it to be,” he said.
We sat in silence for a while, and before I realized what was happening, I somehow fell asleep.
When I woke up nine hours later, I’d been miraculously transported to our bed. Had Jake picked me up and carried me, or had I awoken and walked into our bedroom half asleep? I was about to ask him which had happened when I noticed that he was gone.
“Jake?” I called out, but there was no response.
I got out of bed, still in my T-shirt and jeans, and padded through the place looking for him.
“There you are,” I said when I found him sitting at the kitchen table. He was eating the leftovers from our dinner the night before, and he looked a little guilty as I came in.
“Want some?” Jake asked as he offered the plate to me.
“No, thanks. I’m good,” I said as I grabbed a bowl of cereal and joined him.
“How’d you sleep last night?”
“Evidently deeper than I thought. How did I get to bed? Did you carry me there?”
“Not unless I did it in my sleep,” Jake said with a grin. “I woke up in the middle of the night and you were gone. I kind of panicked until I found you already in bed. You still had your jeans and T-shirt on, but I didn’t want to wake you. After all, you nap in them all of the time, so what could it hurt sleeping in them once?”
“I don’t nap all that much,” I protested, though I knew that he was right.
“Hey, if I worked your hours, a nap every day would be a requirement. You’re off for the next few days, aren’t you?”
“It’s sweet that you remember my schedule,” I said as I took a bite of cereal.
“Are you kidding? I live for your days off. What can I say? I pay attention. That, plus the fact that you write every day off you get in big red letters on our calendar.”
“I’d hate to forget and just show up at work one day unexpected,” I said. “What’s on tap today?”
“I have a few ideas,” Jake said. “First of all, I have a q
uestion for you, though.”
I had a feeling where he was going with that, and I wasn’t ready to discuss it. “You can ask me about anything but my mother.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” he said. “My question is, who cleans Teresa’s office? I’m assuming she didn’t do it herself.”
“She has one of my donut customers do it,” I said. “Why do you ask?”
“I’m wondering when it was cleaned the last time,” Jake said. “I’d love to know how long that label was on the floor, and the red clay dust we found there, too.”
“I don’t know, but I can call her,” I said as I reached for my phone.
“You actually have a customer’s number stored in your phone’s memory?”
“Every last one of them,” I said as seriously as I could manage, and then I laughed. “I’m just kidding. Miranda’s husband left her for his secretary a few years ago, and she’s got three kids in elementary school. She takes whatever odd jobs she can get around town so she can be there for them when they get out of school. I like to recommend her whenever I can, and when Teresa asked me for some names, I gave her Miranda’s.”
“That’s sweet of you,” Jake said.
“Hey, if I can help a friend out, why wouldn’t I?” I asked as I dialed Miranda’s number.
“You’d be surprised. Not everyone feels that way,” Jake said.
“Hey, Suzanne,” she said after picking up on the second ring. “Do you have another job for me?”
“No, sorry, it’s about something else.”
“That’s okay. I’ve got just about all that I can handle at the moment as it is. I was sorry to hear about Teresa Logan, though.”
“I know. It’s a real shame. You were still cleaning her office for her on a regular basis, weren’t you?”
“I took care of it two days ago,” Miranda said. “I hate to say it, but I’m glad that my visit wasn’t supposed to be yesterday morning. I heard that you and your husband found the body. That must have been just awful for you.”
“It wasn’t fun,” I said. “Would you mind if I ask you something while I’ve got you on the line?”
“Sure, go ahead,” she said.
“Did you ever notice anything odd while you were cleaning her office?”
“Like what?” Miranda asked a little cautiously.
“I don’t know. Anything out of the ordinary at all, I guess,” I answered.
There was quite a long pause before she answered. “Suzanne, I’m grateful for all you do. You know that, don’t you?” Miranda asked in a hesitant voice.
“I know that. Listen, if I made you uncomfortable with my question, I take it back. I didn’t mean to press you on it.”
“No, it’s okay. I’m probably just being silly. I just don’t want anyone to think I talk out of turn about them. There is one thing that I thought was odd the last time I cleaned for her. It’s probably nothing, but it did make me wonder at the time.”
“What was it? Remember, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“I found a letter in her trashcan when I was emptying it this week. I wouldn’t have dreamed of reading it, but it fell to the floor when I tried to toss it, and when I picked it up, there was something in it that caught my eye.”
“Do you by any chance still have it?” I asked her.
“I wish now that I’d kept it. I’m sorry, but it’s long gone now.”
“Do you remember what it said? What was the gist of it?” I asked.
“It said something like, ‘Teresa, you’re dead wrong about us. We belong together, and I’m going to make you realize what you’re missing, whether you want to face the truth or not. I’m not taking no for an answer, so you might as well give up now. There’s only one way this is going to end, and we both know what that is.’ I’m not doing it justice. You’d think it was from someone who loved her, but the words just chilled my heart when I read them.”
I wished she still had the letter, but maybe there was something else we could learn from it. “Was it signed, by any chance?”
“It just had an A scrawled on the bottom.”
“Did you happen to glance at the envelope? I’d love to know if there was a return address, or maybe a postmark.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t check. Should I call Chief Grant and tell him about it? I would hate for it to look like I was snooping through the poor woman’s garbage just before she was murdered.”
“Call him,” I said without having to consult Jake. “If it helps the police, you’ll be doing Teresa the last favor you could do for her, and if it doesn’t matter, the chief won’t mind the interruption. Better to err on the side of caution.”
“Okay. I’ll call him right now. Thank you for the advice.”
“Thank you for the information,” I said.
I was about to hang up when she asked, “When I call the police chief, should I tell him that we spoke about this?”
I wanted to say no, but I knew that I couldn’t do that. It wasn’t fair to put that kind of burden on my friend, a woman who had enough weight on her shoulders without me adding to it. “Sure, tell him that we spoke. It’s okay with me.”
“Thanks. I hate keeping anything from him, you know?”
“I completely understand,” I said.
After we hung up, I gave Jake a brief rundown of what Miranda had told me. It was clear that he’d picked a lot of it up just from listening closely. Miranda didn’t believe in using her indoor voice, ever, and I was certain that he’d been able to get everything that had been said without my report, but I still felt better giving it.
“That’s interesting on so many levels,” Jake said after I finished.
“One thing we know for sure is that dust was left there the day she was murdered, and so was the label,” I replied. “Miranda’s a fierce cleaner. I can vouch for that.”
“I’m interested in that, too, but who is this mysterious A?”
“I don’t know. Teresa never took me into her confidence, and to be fair, I never asked her about her personal life. Whoever it was, I’m guessing that she rejected him at some point in her life, and he was ready to force his way back into it, no matter what it might take.”
“If Miranda’s memory is good, it’s not exactly a love letter, is it?”
“There seemed to be a lot of implied threats in it, but bear one thing in mind. Miranda went through a pretty nasty divorce, and her view of the men in this world might be a bit tainted,” I said. “She gave us her interpretation of that note by memory. It’s not something we can take at face value without seeing it for ourselves.”
“Maybe not, but we still need to discover who this A character is,” Jake said.
“You’re right. Somebody needs to,” I replied, reminding Jake that our investigation was secondary to Chief Grant’s inquiry.
“Just not me, right?” Jake asked with a grin.
“Don’t worry. There are plenty of other things we can do with our time,” I said.
“Like what? I’m open to suggestions.”
“Let me grab a quick shower and change my clothes, and I’ll see what I can come up with.”
Chapter 8
“Jake, where did you go?” I called out after I took my shower and put on clean clothes. The cottage we shared wasn’t that big, but even after I checked out the upstairs where I used to sleep, I still couldn’t find him.
Then I noticed that the front door was unlocked. I looked out the window and saw Jake standing on the porch speaking with someone I didn’t recognize. It was a man in his late twenties; he was wearing a nice suit, and judging by the BMW in our driveway, he had money and wasn’t afraid to spend it. I grabbed my jacket and walked outside to join them.
“Hello, I’m Suzanne,” I said as I introduced myself.
“I’m Alexander Rose,” he said. “I
’m sorry I can’t stay and chat, but I really must go. Thank you for the information, Jake.”
“Sure thing,” my husband said. “Will you be in town long?”
“I’m staying in Union Square at the Marriott,” he said. It was the nicest chain hotel within thirty miles of us.
“Good to know,” Jake said as Alexander got into his car and drove away.
“What was that all about, and why didn’t you invite him in?” I asked Jake as we both stepped back inside the cottage.
“I offered, but he didn’t want to stay. He heard that we were the ones who found Teresa Logan’s body, and he wanted to hear all about it.”
“Did he know her?” I asked.
“According to him, they were engaged at one time,” Jake said.
“But not still, right?” I asked incredulously. It was hard to believe that Teresa would have agreed to marry anyone, based on the way she flirted on a wholesale level.
“No. They went to law school together, and he always assumed that they’d get married when they graduated. According to him, that had been the plan all along, but she’d broken it off the night before they marched across the stage to get their diplomas.”
“So, he’s got to be A. He had to have written the note Miranda found in Teresa’s trashcan,” I said.
“That’s how I figured it, too,” Jake said.
“It’s kind of odd, him showing up like this right after she’s been murdered.”
“He told me that he heard the news when he got back to his office, and he took time off work immediately to hurry up here. He admitted to me that he’d been trying to get her back, and he claimed that just when he thought she was warming up to him again, this happened. He seemed heartbroken enough about it.”
“Do you believe him?” I asked my husband.
“The truth of the matter is that if Miranda hadn’t read that letter and shared its contents with you, I would have completely bought his story. He made a very compelling argument that everything he said was true, and I found myself giving him the benefit of the doubt. He must be one heck of an attorney, I can tell you that much. I’m not that easy to sway.”