“Nothing wakes Mare up when she’s sound asleep.” Darren sounded amused. “Thank you for going to all the effort of carrying her here.”
“What else could I have done? Left her to wake up on the station platform?”
“I did a couple of times. I know how heavy Mare is, Alex, so you did well to have carried her all this way. Now I’ll put her to bed and you can talk to her in the morning.”
“Tell her to call me before she goes to the coffee shop to meet Jessica. I want to make sure my officers are in place, because Rob wouldn’t forgive me if I let anything happen to her.”
“She doesn’t need that much protection. She can look after herself, but I do appreciate what you do in order to make sure she’s okay when she’s helping you with these investigations.”
“After what I did to her she deserves it.”
“You know she’s forgiven you for that. Robert explained things to her and she’s not the sort of person who holds a grudge. Sometimes I’ve thought she should, because there are people who were once a part of her life who deserved it, but nothing I’ve ever said has convinced her of that.”
“Good.” Alex sounded like he was smiled. “If she did start holding grudges she wouldn’t be Mary-Ann any longer and I like her as she is. So does Rob.”
***
Morning came sooner than Mary-Ann wanted it to. She forced herself out of bed. Fortunately there was coffee waiting for her on the counter in the kitchen. “Alex said to ring him before you went to meet Jess.”
“I know what he said. I was half awake.” She looked at Darren. “Have you moved in?”
“No, I’m just looking out for you while Hannah’s working. You need someone around to make sure you don’t do anything very stupid.”
“She was angry with me for going to New York.”
“When she found out Alex had gone with you she wasn’t as angry as she would have been if you’d gone alone. She’s not happy, though, because she hates you putting yourself in danger.”
“It’s for Jess.”
“That doesn’t make it any better. The first, at least, was because you were the main suspect, but now you can stop.”
“Can I?” Mary-Ann sighed. “Alex needs me. The people of Green Springs need me. I can’t walk away.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Maybe. I’ll see how things go.”
“Mare…”
“You should know better than to think you’re going to be able to convince me you’re right. I will do what I think’s right.”
“I know, but this… it’s changing you. I could tell that when you were so determined to have Alison arrested, and then it turned out to be someone else entirely, so you could have made a huge mistake.”
“I could, but I didn’t, because Alison was willing to talk to me. That’s why Alex needs me. People are more comfortable talking to me than they are talking to a police officer.”
***
“Four of my best officers are already in place, Mare. If Wendy makes one move they’ll arrest her, but I want you to try to get her to admit to what she’s done and explain how she did it.”
“Alex, I know what I’m doing. I’ve done this before.” That had been with people she knew, so it was easier. With someone she didn’t know she wasn’t as certain she would be able to get Wendy to admit to anything, but she was going to do her best, for Jessica. “Jess, I think, is going to want to be with me. She’s not going to listen to me if I tell her she’ll be safer elsewhere, because she wants to know the truth.”
“The officers won’t let anything happen to her. They won’t let anything happen to either of you.”
“Wendy won’t be willing to do anything to me.”
“You don’t know that. In cases like this I want to be careful, because of the choices Wendy made in the past, and please don’t drink anything she gives you. She might have poisoned it.”
“I know.” Mary-Ann shook her head. “I’m going to fine. Just stop worrying about me, okay? Jess needs me to find out who killed her husband, so that’s what I’m going to do, and then my life can go back to normal, again.”
***
Jessica was already in the coffee shop when Mary-Ann arrived. “Hi, Jess.”
“D.I. O’Connor called me to say there were officers watching over us.”
“He’s protective.”
“That’s because you’re dating his brother.”
“Yes, it is, and sometimes I wish he didn’t worry quite so much. I don’t think Wendy will do anything to us while she’s here. She’s not that stupid.”
“I hope you’re right.” Jessica stirred her coffee. “I just want to know who killed Kyle. Once I know that I can start putting my life back together, although I am certain I’m going to stay here. New York… Kyle and I called it home. Now that I don’t have Kyle I don’t think I can call it home. I’m going to start again in Green Springs.”
“What’s Ben going to do?”
“We haven’t talked about it. To be honest I’m not certain I want to know what he’s going to do. We had a long conversation when he first arrived and since then he’s been keeping his distance. I think he thinks it’s easier for me that way, and he might be right, but I just… sometimes all I want him to do is give me a hug.”
“Tell him. He’s not a mind reader, so you have to be honest with him. If you don’t he’s not going to know you want a hug. Right now he’s here because Kyle died. He knows you loved Kyle and he doesn’t want to overstep the boundaries of the friendship you have left. To change those boundaries you have to talk to him.”
“I will.” Jessica smiled. “Thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me.”
“Yes, I do. You’ve done so much for me.” Their eyes met. “From the very beginning you believed in me and I don’t know what I would have done without you. If it wasn’t for you and Darren we wouldn’t have access to Kyle’s other email account, Alison wouldn’t have come here to talk to D.I. O’Connor, and I’d be doing this alone.”
“Alex would have asked me for help no matter who was involved. I’m glad it was you, and not glad at the same time, because it gave me a reason to focus as hard as I have on this.”
“How’s the shop doing?”
Mary-Ann smiled. “After last time I made the decision it would be a good idea for me to have a helper, so she’s in charge at the moment. I need her on a normal day anyway, because it gets so busy there, and Sally’s made the decision to stop selling pies, because she wants me to get the pie business, while she focuses on everything else.”
“Last time I went to Sally’s she was selling bread. She said she got one of her best selling recipes from you.”
“The banana bread.” Mary-Ann nodded. “We worked on it together after Kevin died, because we needed some time to ourselves, so technically it’s our recipe.”
“You and Sally are still close now?”
“We were close before. Losing Kevin changed both our lives in ways we never thought possible, so we made the decision we’d get through it together. Now we’ll meet up every couple of weeks to go to his grave and tell him how things are going. Having her by my side does make it easier, even though I think we’re always going to miss him, which is something you’re going to have to learn to deal with yourself.”
“I know. The last couple of mornings I’ve woken up believing Kyle was going to be sharing my bed with me, but he isn’t. I’m just glad we made the decision to put off the honeymoon until we were both a little more sorted out. If we hadn’t we would have lost a lot of money.”
“Kyle’s parents…”
“Yeah, I know. They came to me yesterday and tried to convince me to turn myself in. When I said I had nothing to do with Kyle’s death they weren’t pleased, because they truly do believe it was me, so I could get my hands on his money.” Jessica shook her head. “I don’t think they understand how little I want the money. I want Kyle back, even though he did lie to me about everything, rathe
r than the money, but that’s never going to happen. Kyle is gone for good.” A tear trickled down her cheek. “That’s why I’m going to stay here. It will be easier for me, and it will be easier for them.”
Chapter 10
“I didn’t expect you to have company, Jessica.”
“Sorry, but I don’t trust you, Wendy.” Jessica shrugged. “This is my godmother, Mary-Ann. She’s been helping me to come to terms with what happened.”
“Kyle’s death.” Wendy nodded. “I didn’t appreciate you emailing me.”
“That I understood. What I don’t understand is why you made the decision to talk with me now.”
“Honestly, this would be much simpler if we were alone.”
“No, it wouldn’t. I know you were engaged to Kyle. I don’t know when it was, or why you decided to stay with him after that, and I was hoping you’d be willing to explain it to me.”
“He loved me in a way he was never going to love anyone else. That’s why I stayed with him. You were nothing more than a fling, and he would have worked that out eventually if you hadn’t trapped him, the same way Alison did. What did you do? Get pregnant?”
“I’m not pregnant. We were talking about the possibility of babies, but it’s not something either of us wanted straight away.”
“I don’t believe you.” Wendy shook her head. “When I tried to convince him the best thing he could do was leave you he started talking about leaving me, and I wasn’t going to let that happen. I’d been by his side since he was eighteen. The two of you has been together for no time at all, and yet he was going to marry you, even though he should have known better. I fixed things with Alison. I made her so insecure he dumped her, because she knew all about me. You, on the other hand, were more difficult.”
“Why did you poison the wine, Wendy?” Mary-Ann studied her. “If you loved him so much surely you would have been willing to wait for as long as it took to get him back.”
“When he said he was going to leave me I made the decision I wasn’t going to let that happen. During the entire process of planning the wedding I did everything I could to convince him his life would be easier if he didn’t get married, but he kept telling me he loved Jessica. He loved her more than he thought possible, and he wasn’t going to lose her the same way he lost Alison, which was when I went to her. I thought she might be able to push him out of Jessica’s arms. That didn’t work. Nothing I did worked. All he wanted was to have his life the way he wanted it to be, and I was still going to be second best.
“As the wedding got closer I accepted I was never going to make him leave Jessica for me. I thought I might be able to get Jessica to dump Kyle, but that didn’t work either. I couldn’t get through to her. Alison couldn’t get through to her. So I bought a bottle of wine I could give the happy couple as a gift and carefully uncorked it. I couldn’t buy anything too obvious, so I made my own poison, using a mix of things I was certain would kill them both. Only I didn’t know Jessica didn’t like red wine, which meant Kyle was the only one who drank it. To be honest I’m glad. You’re hurting as much as I did when I realised he was going to leave me for you.
“I know the two of you would like to get me arrested for what I did, but that’s not going to happen. You are the only people who know what I did and no one’s going to believe either of you if you go to the police. I’ll simply tell them a nice story about how Jessica already knew all about me, because the two of us had met up a couple of times before. Then Jessica will be arrested and have to spend the rest of her life in prison. What a wonderful end.”
“No, she won’t.” Mary-Ann breathed a sigh of relief. “There are four police officers in this room listening to every word you say. I don’t doubt one of the has recorded it and you’re the one who’ll be going to prison, the way you deserve, because you were willing to take the life of a man who didn’t deserve to die that way.”
“Yes, he did. You have no idea how much he hurt me.”
***
Alison looked at Mary-Ann. “Hello, Marie.”
“Did you know it was me from the beginning?”
“I had a feeling it was. Wendy had managed to convince me she had nothing to do with Kyle’s murder, but I should have known better than to think she was innocent. If it hadn’t been for her I never would have known about their relationship. She didn’t want to have to share Kyle. She thought she deserved him all to herself, and, to be honest, I don’t think she’s wrong about that. He shouldn’t have made us share. That doesn’t mean she was in the right when she killed him, but I can understand why she did it.”
“Come with me.” Mary-Ann held her hand out to Alison. “I think there’s someone who can help you deal with what you’re going through.”
When Alison took Mary-Ann’s hand the two of them made their way towards Polly’s house. Jessica was waiting in the doorway. “Alison.”
“Jessica.” Alison nibbled her bottom lip. “You don’t hate me.”
“No, I don’t.” Jessica smiled. “Kyle was the one who hurt us and I’m going to put that all aside, because I know this is going to be hurting you as much as it’s hurting me.”
“I miss him.”
“So do I.”
Before Mary-Ann could do anything Alison was in Jessica’s arms. “We’ll get through this together, Jessica.”
“Yeah, we will, because we’re the ones who truly loved him.”
***
Green Springs was quiet again. Life was back to normal, and all Mary-Ann had to do was wait for Robert to get home. Having something to do had helped more than she realised until she was spending most of her time trying to fill her time with something, other than work, which, strangely, ended up meaning spending far more of her time with Alex than she ever had before. When Robert walked through the door of the apartment she was in the kitchen cooking as Alex talked to her about one of his new cases.
“Now isn’t this domestic.”
“You’re home.” Mary-Ann glanced between Robert and the food. Shaking his head, Alex moved over to where she was, so she could go over to Robert. “I missed you.”
“Is that why you moved in with Alex?”
“Just killing time.”
Robert wrapped his arms around her. “I’m glad this is working out. I don’t know what I would have done if the two of you hated each other after what happened.”
“Mare doesn’t hate anyone, Rob. She’s too good a person to feel hate of any kind, which is why she’s still visiting Henry Thompson, even though he really doesn’t deserve it.”
“He shouldn’t be alone. He’s an old man, who’s in prison, and I know I’m doing a good thing.”
“You are.” Robert kissed the top of her head. “Alex kept me up to date with the most recent excitement.”
“I’m not going to get involved next time.”
Both of them laughed. “Green Springs is too important to you. You’re not going to be able to keep out if someone you care about is hurt, or killed, and I think you care about everyone in this town.” Mary-Ann looked over at Alex. “I care too, which is why I took this job in the first place.”
“I just own the pie shop.”
“Yeah, you do, which means everyone knows you. They trust you. They know they can talk to you about anything and you’ll do anything you can to help them.” Alex shook his head. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that for you to understand how important someone like you is. You’re in the same position as Sally, or Rachel at the coffee shop, because you’re… I don’t know how to word it. Robert?”
“The three of you have an interesting place in the hierarchy of Green Springs. Due to the fact you run shops everyone uses at some point in time people see you are someone who’s a part of the background of Green Springs. You’re trusted in a way very few other people are. If someone came to talk to you about a birthday party, for example, they’d know for certain you’d keep that secret and do everything you could to help with the plans. If someone asked you for
help of any kind they know you’d do anything you could to help them. You, because you’re close to us, find yourself in an even more interesting position. People know they can talk to you when something unusual does happen and I don’t think that’s ever going to change.”
“Maybe not, but everyone tells me this is changing me.”
“Personally I don’t think it’s changing you in a bad way. You see things other people don’t. You get to listen to the lies people tell and try to see past them. You have helped to solve three murders and that’s always going to affect you.”
“Darren said I wasn’t compassionate enough with Alison.”
“You can’t always be compassionate. Sometimes you have to let yourself be hard, Mare, and it’s not a bad thing if you are. Just don’t become someone who’s hard all the time.”
The Alpha Billionaire's Unexpected Baby: A Billionaire BWWM Pregnancy Romance Page 75