Slightly Off Balance

by Kaylie Hunter

  “And forty-five pounds later,” I laughed.

  “Not for me,” Reel said, slapping his waistline.

  “Yeah, that’s what Uncle Mike used to say.”

  “You wouldn’t love me if I got fat?” he joked.

  “Donovan would fire your ass,” Bones laughed.

  Reel continued to grin at me as I tried to imagine him overweight.

  “You can’t see it, can you?”

  “No,” I laughed. “Maybe it’s the perfect hair. Maybe when you start to lose the hair, I can imagine you with a big gut.”

  “I’m not going to lose my hair,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Your father has a combover.”

  “He lost his hair because of the alcohol, though.”

  Bridget turned in her seat and looked at me, then at Reel.

  “Right?” Reel asked, sliding a hand through his thick dirty-blond hair.

  “Alcohol can contribute to hair loss,” I nodded. “Sure.”

  He expelled a big breath of air and relaxed into his seat. Bridget quickly turned to face forward again, but I could see her shoulders shake as she silently laughed.

  “The house at the end of the road, the big colonial, is my grandpa’s,” I directed Bones.

  “The house hasn’t been maintained. The yard either,” Reel said, leaning forward in his seat.

  “It seems to look worse each time I visit. I keeping calling the damn attorney, but he’s not calling me back. I’m worried that the medical bills are depleting Grandpa’s accounts. I hope he doesn’t have to sell the house.”

  “I’ll make a few calls and see what’s what,” Reel promised before slipping out of the SUV and getting out the wheelchair.

  I opened the door on my side, but when Reel came around, Bones was carrying the wheelchair, and Reel lifted me out of the seat.

  “What are you doing?” I asked startled.

  “Carrying you up the front porch.”

  “But the ramp is still out back, from when Grandma needed it. Surely you remember; you helped build it.”

  “I remember,” Reel said and walked across the drive to the front porch.

  “You’re going to hurt yourself. I weigh too much.”

  “I bet Reel can bench-press twice your weight,” Bridget giggled. “Look, his muscles aren’t even flinching.”

  Sure enough, I looked, and Reel’s biceps seemed completely relaxed. He grinned down at me as he climbed the stairs, two at a time.

  Grandpa abruptly answered the door before we knocked. He was wearing a pair of pink boxers and an oversized Metallica T-shirt. Both must have come from the spare bedroom where I kept some clothes.

  The final touch was his old-fashioned tube socks with the thick red stripe at the top. The socks were stretched nearly to his knees.

  “Vince,” Reel nodded, carrying me past Grandpa and into the house.

  “Reel,” Grandpa said. “I was hoping you’d visit. But you shouldn’t have brought Tweedle with you. It’s not safe.”

  Everyone froze and looked at Grandpa.

  “Why isn’t it safe, Vince?” Reel asked, still holding me.

  “Well, the Martians, of course,” Grandpa snapped, before stomping up the main staircase.

  “He’s not supposed to go upstairs anymore. Where the hell is his nurse?” I grumbled, as Reel settled me in the wheelchair.

  “I’ll go check on him and see whether I can get him to come back downstairs.”

  “I’ll look for the nurse,” Bridget said, wandering off toward the kitchen.

  “I’ll stay with you until one of them comes back,” Bones offered.

  “I have my gun. I promise to shoot someone in at least a kneecap if they try to hurt me. I’d rather you walk through and make sure all the first-floor windows and doors are locked before someone has a chance to figure out where we went. Or, worse, my grandpa decides to run away.”

  “The kneecap?”

  “Don’t ask,” I sighed.

  I pulled the gun out of my purse, resting it on my lap. Bones nodded and started with the front door, following along the wall and locking all the windows and patio doors. From the living room, he entered my grandpa’s office. When he came out again, he shook his head but didn’t say anything. He walked back to the foyer and turned down the hall.

  I was curious, so I rolled my chair to the office doorway. Grandpa’s office, always immaculate without a scrap of paper out of place, furniture shining so bright it would blind you, was utter chaos. Papers littered the desk and floor. Filing cabinets were emptied with the drawers still open. A desk lamp lay shattered on the floor.

  “What the hell?” I said to myself.

  “How long has it been since you’ve been in the office?” Reel whispered from behind me.

  “I was in here Tuesday. I spent the day cleaning the house. Everything was perfect when I left.”

  “Were you upstairs?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I was too exhausted by the time I finished downstairs to see what kind of mess was up there. Why?”

  “Dee,” Reel said, walking around the chair and squatting in front of me. “It looks like someone’s been taking things from the house. Furniture, paintings, your grandmother’s jewelry.”

  “No,” I said, not wanting to believe it. “But we hired a nurse.”

  “I found the nurse,” Bridget said, walking into the office and looking around. “She’s passed out drunk in one of the upstairs bedrooms.”

  “Either drag her down here, or I swear I’ll crawl up the stairs to get her myself.”

  “Give me a minute,” Bridget said, turning out of the room.

  “I think we need to call the lawyer again,” Reel said.

  I nodded and pointed to the rolodex laying on the floor. “Scott Barons.”

  As expected, when Reel called the number he was prompted to leave a message. He did. Next, he called someone else and asked them to run a background on Scott Barons.

  “He’s been my grandpa’s lawyer for decades.”

  “But your grandpa used to be a man whom most feared and everyone else respected enough to never cross.”

  I nodded my agreement but still hoped that whatever was going on, Scott Barons wasn’t involved.

  A loud scream echoed from the upstairs, and Grandpa came running down the stairs.

  “I didn’t do it. I didn’t hurt anybody,” he said, shaking in fear, his eyes begging me to believe him.

  “It’s okay, Vince,” Reel said. “A friend of ours was just waking up your nurse. Your granddaughter wants to have a word with her.”

  “Oh,” Grandpa nodded, trying to understand. He scratched his head, thinking hard.

  When Bridget dragged the alcohol-reeking, soaking-wet nurse into the living room, Grandpa went running toward the kitchen. Bridget had either dumped a bucket of water on the woman or dunked her in a lake. Water was running off her like it was raining, pooling around her.

  “What the hell is going on around here?” I yelled at the woman.

  “Vince was taking his nap, so I took one too,” she tried to explain as she rubbed her eyes, smearing her mascara across her face.

  “You’re drunk. And the house is a disaster. And my grandpa is running around unmonitored.”

  “You fired me,” she shrugged. “It’s not my job anymore.”

  “What do you mean you were fired? I didn’t fire you. Who told you that?”

  “Yesterday the man in the fancy suit showed up. He said I no longer worked here and to pack up and leave. Then he went in the office and started going through all the papers. Made a real mess of things, too.”

  “What man in a suit? What was his name?”

  “I put the card in the drawer,” she said, walking back to the entranceway table.

  I rolled my chair over so I could watch her as she opened the drawer.

  “It’s gone,” she said, pulling the drawer all the way out and looking in the empty cubby. “But who would have taken it?”

&n
bsp; “Do you remember his name?”

  She shook her head no.

  “You said ‘the man in the fancy suit,’” Bridget interrupted. “Not ‘some man’ in a suit. Had you met him before?”

  “Sure,” she nodded. “He started coming around a few months ago. That’s when I put his card in the drawer. At first, he’d just walk through the house and check on Vince. Said he was checking to make sure that everything was in order. About a month ago, he showed up with some moving guys and had them haul out some of the furniture from the upstairs. Said he was liquidating some of it to cover Vince’s new medicine.”

  “What new medicine? Grandpa isn’t on any new medicine.”

  “The yellow pills,” the nurse said. “He gave me a bottle of pills and told me to give them to Vince three times a day. I tried to look them up, but he said they were from a medical trial and you already signed off. He showed me the form with your signature.”

  I handed Reel my gun and dumped the contents of my purse into me lap. I barely heard the knock at the front door as I pulled my phone out and called my grandpa’s doctor. My hand shook as the phone rang on the other end. I watched Wayne and Aunt Carol walk through the door as Bones held it open for them.

  I felt Reel’s hands rub back and forth on my shoulders. I took a deep breath just as the receptionist answered.

  “Yes, I need to speak to Dr. Wilson,” I said.

  “He’s with a patient right now. Can I take a message?”

  “No. It’s Deanna Sullivan calling regarding my grandpa. Please interrupt him and tell him it’s an emergency.”

  “I can wait for him to come out if you like and see if he can take your call.”

  “Go pound on the damn door and get him on the phone!”

  I was promptly put on hold, but it didn’t last long.

  “Tweedle?” Dr. Wilson answered.

  “Dr. Wilson, did you prescribe my grandpa new medication without speaking to me?”

  “No. I couldn’t if I wanted to. You have his medical proxy.”

  “Someone showed up and told the nurse to start giving him some type of yellow pill.”

  “I don’t know anything about yellow pills. Is he okay?”

  “No. I thought his dementia was accelerating. But what if it was from the drugs?”

  “I’ll cancel my appointments and be there as quick as I can. Try to track down those pills.”

  I nodded but couldn’t say anything before he disconnected the line.

  “Dee,” Reel whispered from beside me.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. I couldn’t afford to break down and cry. My grandpa needed me. “Aunt Carol, can you get Uncle Mike over here?”

  She nodded and dug out her phone. The groceries that Wayne had helped her carry inside were already forgotten. Looking back at my own phone, I took a deep breath and called my mother.

  “Why are you calling me? I thought you said you never wanted to see me again,” my mother said, by way of answering.

  “I just called to apologize, Mother. It’s been a rough few days, and they had me on all these drugs. I’m sorry I was acting so selfish. I was hoping you could join me for lunch at my grandpa’s house. We’re having filet mignon for lunch.”

  I saw Reel roll his eyes and heard Aunt Carol choke on a snort.

  “Well, that does sound lovely. I suppose I could squeeze you in. What time?”

  “An hour? Does that work?”

  “Have I taught you nothing? Do you know how rude it is to invite someone for dinner on such short notice? Oh, never mind. You will never understand. I’ll be there. Tell the cook that I like mine cooked to medium. And some red wine would be lovely,” she said, before disconnecting.

  I stared at the phone.

  “It’s not her, is it?” Reel asked, studying my face.

  “She said to have the cook fix her steak to medium and to pull a bottle of red wine.”

  “I was in the wine cellar. It’s almost empty,” Bones said.

  “So it’s not her, right?” I asked Reel.

  “It doesn’t hurt to still question her. Maybe she hired someone to drug your grandpa, but they are raiding the house without her knowledge.”

  “Maybe,” I nodded.

  “Is Vince alright?” Aunt Carol asked.

  “He’s running around saying it’s dangerous, that the Martians are coming. He’s wearing my pink boxers.”

  “Oh dear. Which direction did he go?”

  “Toward the kitchen,” Reel answered.

  Wayne followed Aunt Carol to the kitchen, carrying the groceries.

  Reel’s phone rang, and he stepped away to answer it.

  Bridget leaned down in front of me and grabbed my hand. “Don’t do that.”

  “Don’t do what?”

  “Blame yourself. You are not at fault. You didn’t know.”

  “He’s my grandpa,” I said, my lower lip trembling.

  “And playing the blame game will make you an easy target.”

  “Who should I blame? I was the one responsible for him,” I said, glaring back at her.

  “You tell us who’s to blame,” she shrugged. “You’re the one who knows everyone. Figure it out. That’s how you protect your grandpa.”

  I nodded but didn’t say anything.

  “That was the background check on the lawyer, Scott Barons,” Reel said. “He died three months ago.”

  “What? Why wasn’t I notified?”

  “Apparently, all the clients were notified by letter. They must have sent the letter to Vince directly.”

  “Is your uncle a big, pissed-off cop?” Bones asked, looking through the sidelight window.

  A loud banging on the front door echoed through the foyer.

  “Yup,” I answered.

  Bones opened the door, and Uncle Mike barreled past him straight to me.

  “Are you okay? Carol called and said to get over here. She wouldn’t tell me why.”

  “Someone’s trying to hurt Grandpa and steal his money.” My lower lip started to tremble, and I looked down, trying to prevent the tears.

  “What?” Uncle Mike yelled.

  “Move out of the way,” Reel ordered, as he lifted me out of the wheelchair.

  He held me close as I wrapped my arms around him. He sat us on the couch and extended my leg cast onto the next cushion.

  “It’s going to be okay, Deanna,” he whispered into my hair as he rocked me back and forth. “I’m here.”

  I clutched him tighter, afraid that he’d vanish if I didn’t. I wasn’t sure how much more I could handle. I was a simple baker, living in a simple town. The craziness surrounding me seemed unreal.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Your mother just pulled up,” Uncle Mike said, shaking my shoulder gently. “How do you want to handle this?”

  During my mini-cry fit, I must have dozed off. Releasing my grip on Reel, I turned back to the room. At some point Tansey and Rod had arrived, and Tansey sat dutifully on the floor, waiting to see if I needed her. I reached down and grasped her hand. She was crying too. Rod sat on the floor behind her, with a comforting arm wrapped around her.

  “What happened to the nurse?”

  “I questioned her and then had her transported to the precinct,” Uncle Mike answered.

  “Good. I need everyone to go into the kitchen. I need to face my mother alone,” I said, turning and moving my cast under the coffee table so I could face forward on the couch. “Bridget, can you pretend to be the nurse and let her inside?”

  “I like that,” Bones said to Bridget. “Later you can pretend to be my nurse.”

  “Only in your dreams,” she said, walloping him in the gut before she turned to me. “For you, I’ll play nurse or maid or whatever. But won’t she recognize me from the hospital?”

  “My mother would have considered you beneath her attention. If you had a green wart growing off the end of your nose, she wouldn’t have noticed.”

  “My mother’s just as bad,” Bridget snor
ted.

  Everyone except Bridget, Uncle Mike, and Reel moved toward the kitchen. Bridget moved to wait by the front door.

  “I think one of us should stay,” Uncle Mike said.

  “No,” I shook my head. “She won’t drop her guard with either of you in the room. I need to talk to her alone.”

  “She’s right. I don’t like it, but she’s right,” Reel said. “We’re not going to the other side of the house, though. Mike and I will be in Vince’s office. She won’t see us, but we will be able to hear everything.”

  “Fine, but hurry up.”

  “Ten seconds,” Bridget called as they both hurried into the den.

  When the doorbell rang, Bridget winked at me before answering.

  “Mrs. Sullivan?” Bridget said in a horrid imitation of a British accent. “Ms. Deanna Sullivan is waiting for you in the main living room. Please come in.”

  Bridget stepped back and waved her arm with a great flourish in my direction. I had a hard time watching her without laughing. Mother didn’t even look at Bridget as she raised her head and walked into the living room like she owned every square inch of the place.

  “Deanna,” Mother nodded at me. “The lawn is atrocious. Your grandpa needs to hire a new landscaping company.”

  “I’ll be sure to mention it. Please, have a seat. Lunch will be a few more minutes.”

  “Is Vince joining us?”

  “No. He was feeling tired and went to rest.”

  “Good,” mother said, taking a seat in the Queen Anne chair. “That man drones on about the most useless things.”

  My grandpa in his heyday could talk about finances from sunup to sundown. I agreed it could be a bit boring to listen to, but it was far from useless.

  “Would you like some tea, ma’am?” Bridget asked me in her fake accent.

  “Yes, please,” I smirked. “Mother?”

  “I’ll have a glass of chardonnay. One of the better bottles, please,” my mother said, addressing me, not sparing a glance at Bridget.

  Bridget rolled her eyes and turned toward the kitchen.

  “I’m glad you could join me on such short notice. I was hoping to ask you some questions.”

  “What sort of questions?”