Shaking away the memories, Tommy helped pack away the tools and load them into the bed of a Calloway Construction truck. Russ headed home to see his wife and daughter, and Robbie left, too, planning to meet up with Anamaria for an early dinner at the country club with Sara and Jack.
Tommy picked up a scrap of lumber they’d overlooked and tossed it in a trash can, then hesitated. It was barely a block in one direction to Sophy’s shop, a little less in the other to his SUV in Robbie’s office lot. He could ask Sophy to have dinner with him, or eat alone and watch the History Channel—probably the same plans both his dad and Pops had for the evening.
Or he could…how had Russ put it? Settle this with Ellie. Literally, settle. For less than he wanted, less than he needed.
He was lonely, but he wasn’t desperate. Yet.
Still, as he walked along the sidewalk toward River Road, something just steered him into a right turn through the gate that led to the deli. Something kept him moving along the path, up the steps and across the porch. Just hunger, he told himself as he stepped inside. A craving for a bowl of their prize-winning potato-broccoli-cheese soup and a roast beef sandwich on fresh-baked bread.
Carmen was leaning against the wall, talking with two other servers. The early birds would start arriving within the next half hour, followed by the usual Friday evening crowd, but for the moment business was slow. She pushed away from the wall and met him near the glass counter that displayed an assortment of cheesecakes and pies. “She’s in her office,” she said without a greeting.
He blinked. For the better part of five years, it had been routine for him to come in most nights, for Carmen to say, “She’s in her office,” or the kitchen or the bar, and for him to go wherever. Six months, and the comment had still been second nature for her.
He hesitated before saying, “I, uh, want an order to go.”
Carmen flushed as she pulled an order pad from her apron pocket. “Oh. Yeah, sure.”
He rattled off his order, adding a slice of carrot cake, and Carmen went to the kitchen. Aware of the other waitresses watching him and whispering, Tommy shoved his hands in his pockets and turned to study a painting on the wall.
A moment later, he felt the change in the air as the two waitresses left the dining room. His nerves damn near humming, Tommy crossed to the broad hallway that led to the bar, the kitchen and the rear dining room. The aroma of barbecue drifted on the air as he kept walking to the end of the hall where a window looked out on the kitchen garden. He could see Ellie’s VW Beetle in the parking lot beyond, a flash of lime-green directly beneath the one pole light.
He turned back restlessly, retracing his steps. When he came even with the oak door marked Office, he stopped, went on, then pivoted and returned. He was standing just inches from the door, knowing it would be stupid to knock, clenching his hand at his side to keep from doing it anyway, when her voice carried through the wood.
“Hi, this is Ellie Chase again. Would you please ask Mr. Aiken to call me as soon as he can? He has my numbers. Please tell him that it’s really—” a sound interrupted, sort of a choked cough, and her voice lowered “—really important. Thanks.”
He continued to stare at the door after the phone call ended. Who was Mr. Aiken, and what was important enough to bring that stressed tone to her voice?
Whatever the answers, there was one simple truth: it was none of his business.
Scowling, he walked away from the door.
“Halloween is trouble enough at home,” Carmen grumbled. “I don’t know why we have to make more work for ourselves at work.”
Ellie ignored her friend’s grumbling. Carmen was a complainer by nature, and having five kids didn’t help. Easter, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas were all trouble enough at home, according to her. She didn’t realize how lucky she was to have those kids and a home and a husband, and Ellie knew if she pointed it out, Carmen would snort and say, Take one of ’em, or two or all of ’em—please.
It was two o’clock on a sunny Saturday afternoon, only four hours from the trick-or-treat parade for candy that would kick off the festival. One of the waitresses was in the deli, filling huge plastic cauldrons with so much candy that it would take two people to move them to the porch, and everyone else who could be spared from waiting on the usual Saturday customers was helping out in the kitchen or with the booth.
Which was coming along very nicely. Ellie stepped back a few feet to survey their efforts. The plywood frame was enclosed with black vinyl, orange streamers fluttering from the top and from the counter that ran along two sides. Spiderwebs, with large black spiders anchored on them, stretched from corner to corner, and fake tombstones leaned precariously against the posts. Large glass jars lined the short end of the counter, filled with fake eyeballs, ghostly-looking fingers and hands and a decapitated head that was ghastly green, its white hair floating gently in the liquid inside.
Eww. Ellie liked it.
“Reliving your childhood, I see.”
Stiffening, she slowly turned to Martha, standing a few yards away with a foam cup from A Cuppa Joe in hand.
“My childhood?” she repeated. “You mean, the House of Horrors?”
“Poor thing. You had it so tough, didn’t you? At least in your version of things. The truth of it was, your life was pretty cushy.”
Ellie checked to see if anyone was near enough to hear, but Carmen and the others had returned to the deli. “Cushy?” she repeated incredulously.
“You had a roof over your head, food to eat and clothes on your back. What more could a kid ask for?”
“Gee, I don’t know. Support. Trust. Affection. God forbid, maybe a little love.”
Typical of Martha, she focused on only part of Ellie’s answer. “Trust? You mean believing your lies? Ignoring when you got into trouble? Ignoring what the police and everyone said about you?”
“I told you the truth.”
Martha shrugged as if disagreeing about nothing more important than the weather. “You lied. You whined. You complained. You were an ungrateful brat who was never satisfied with everything your father and I did for you.”
Ellie stared at her before shaking her head in disbelief. Martha had always been good at rewriting history. Oliver hadn’t cared enough to argue with her, and with little family and few friends to disagree, her version of events usually stood.
When it became clear that Ellie wasn’t going to rise to the bait, Martha sipped the coffee. Today she wore jeans and a short-sleeved plaid cotton shirt with worn loafers. Her hair was combed and sprayed into place, and she’d even made a stab at applying makeup. To anyone who didn’t know her, she looked respectable, normal, like any other middle-aged woman in town.
But Ellie knew too well that there had never been anything respectable or normal about Martha.
“Have you given my proposition any thought?”
I haven’t thought of anything else. But Ellie kept the words to herself.
“You really don’t have a choice. You’ve got too much to lose here.” Opening her arms wide, Martha turned to encompass the square and, symbolically, the entire town. “These people won’t even bother to spit on you when they find out the truth. They won’t come to eat at your fancy restaurant. They won’t want you at their merchants’ association meetings. It’ll change the way they feel about you. They might say it won’t, but trust me, it will. They’ll think less of you. They won’t want you anymore.”
Martha knew how to push Ellie’s buttons, knew her insecurities and fears. Hell, she’d created most of them herself. She’d made Ellie feel unworthy, had told her over and over how little she had to offer anyone.
And Ellie had always believed her.
She wanted to argue with her now, to insist that her friends and customers would stand by her. She wanted to believe it herself, but the only person who’d ever stood by her in any way was Randolph Aiken, and his support had grown out of his job.
She’d tried to call him the day be
fore, leaving two messages with his voice mail before finally getting a call back from his assistant. Randolph was on vacation in Europe, Marie Jensen had said, and wouldn’t be back for nearly a month. She would be happy to pass along Ellie’s message the next time he checked in, probably in a week or so.
Too late.
Though, Ellie reflected darkly, it had really been too late from the moment Martha remembered she had a daughter out there somewhere who might have something to lose.
“I’m not asking for a lot,” Martha went on. “Put my name on the deed to the house and on the restaurant papers. Give me keys to both of them and your car. Move my stuff into your house. Oh, yeah, and the money.” She looked at Ellie, and her lower lip curled in a sneer. “It’s no more than I deserve for the life I gave you.”
“If you got what you deserved, you’d be rotting in hell right now alongside your husband,” Ellie ground out. Her chest was tight, and she couldn’t draw enough air to ease the panicked feeling streaking through her. Giving up ownership, even half, of her house and business, having to face Martha every morning and night, listening to her complaints and lies…
It’s no more than I deserve for the life I gave you.
When she was fifteen and desperate, she had begged her parents for the chance to live with them again. Dear God, now she couldn’t bear it. She wouldn’t. It was no more than she deserved for the person she’d become.
“Are you asking for an answer now?” Ellie was so numb inside that everything felt frozen, her lips barely able to move to form the words.
“It would be nice. But I’m paid up at the Jasmine for a few more days, and those two gay guys do know how to spoil their guests.” Martha drained the last of her drink and tossed the cup toward the nearest trash can. It hit the rim and bounced to the ground.
“I’ll tell you what, Beth. Pastor Fitzgerald and his wife are picking me up in the morning for church. You can give me a ride home, and we’ll shake hands on it then. Then you can have a day or two to get the house ready for me. Since I’ve already paid for the Jasmine, I might as well enjoy the whole bit. When my money runs out there, you can move me into your house.” Her smile was ugly. “Our house. We’ll be together again, just like a family.”
Never. By the time church was dismissed the next day, Ellie would be hours away. She would head west, maybe to California or Washington or even Alaska. She would go someplace where Martha would never find her, would change her name and appearance and accent so that anyone who did find her wouldn’t know her.
A sick calm descended over Ellie. She didn’t want to run away, but it was the only realistic choice.
Numbly she walked to the trash can, picked up the coffee cup and dropped it inside before facing Martha again. “All right. Tomorrow, then.”
Despite her earlier certainty—You really don’t have a choice—surprise darted across Martha’s face. Had she thought Ellie would be more stubborn? Had some truly malicious part of her hoped Ellie would refuse so Martha could share her secrets with everyone in town?
“All right,” she echoed after a moment. “See you then, sweet daughter.”
Not if I see you first.
“Oh, look, there’s my new friend, Louise.” Martha stretched onto her toes to wave at Louise Wetherby, coming out of the flower shop across the street. Louise was active in all aspects of the community and, as owner of the steak house a few blocks away, one of Ellie’s biggest competitors.
“Louise, let me help you with that,” Martha called, starting toward her. A few yards away, she turned back and grinned at Ellie. “Later, little girl.”
Ellie watched her cross the street and take an armload of flowers from Louise. Then she sought out Carmen, returning from the deli with an armload of foam cups. “I’ve got to run a few errands. Do you mind?”
“You’re the boss. Just be back here by six. Don’t leave me alone with the little hooligans.”
“I won’t.” Instead of cutting through the restaurant, where someone would surely stop her with some question or problem, she circled around the building, climbed into her car and drove away. Her first stop was the bank, where she made a substantial withdrawal from the ATM.
Her second stop was home. The house was quiet and exactly as she’d left it that morning. She tried to imagine Martha living there, but everything inside her cringed away from the thought.
In the bedroom—the back room, the one Martha wanted for herself—Ellie pulled two suitcases from the closet and began filling them with clothes. It was methodic work: pull garment from hanger, shake out, fold neatly, place in suitcase. She concentrated on it, refusing to let unwanted thoughts into her mind, like where she would go, what she would do, how she would live.
She packed her clothes, shoes and makeup. She dumped her toiletries into a canvas tote bag and her personal papers, along with an inexpensive photo album, into another; then she walked slowly through the house.
Two suitcases and two tote bags. Not much to show for thirty years. But the last time she’d been homeless thanks to Martha, she’d had far less: the clothes on her back and a great terror. Now she knew the worst that could happen; she’d lived through it. Now she had money and job skills. She knew how to take care of herself.
Her thoughts went to the photo album in the bag. Pictures of Tommy, Robbie, Russ and Jamie. Holidays with the Mariccis and the Calloways, day trips from the nursing home with Pops Maricci. Short vacations she and Tommy had taken together.
She’d never had friends to leave behind. How was she going to stand that?
The same way she’d stood getting arrested at fifteen when her supposed best friend slipped her drugs into Ellie’s purse. The same way she’d stood those days in jail, finding out her parents had thrown her out, learning how to survive on the streets of Atlanta, doing what it took to survive.
She was strong. She would turn off her emotions. She would get through it by sheer force of will. She would leave here, find a new place, start a new life.
And she would never be vulnerable to anyone again as long as she lived.
Chapter 4
“Why aren’t you in costume?”
Tommy looked at Anamaria, gorgeous in a lemon-yellow top, a bright African-print skirt that swirled around her ankles, a shawl in another print that should have clashed but didn’t and enough flashy jewelry to add twenty pounds to her pregnant-but-slender frame. “Where’s Robbie?”
“Gone to find me some hot cocoa. Where’s your costume?”
“I’m dressed as a detective for the Copper Lake Police Department.”
She scowled at his jeans, polo shirt and leather jacket. “That’s how you dress every day.”
“As a detective. This is my costume.”
She made another face. “Have you seen Ellie?”
Tommy ignored the tightening in his gut. “I assume she’s somewhere over there.” He gestured in the direction of the deli and its booth. He’d been at the square since before six o’clock; it was now seven forty-five, and he hadn’t yet made it to that corner. There had been no need. There’d been no trouble, the food was just as good at this end and the music could be heard all over.
“Have you seen Sophy?”
Tommy shrugged. He’d run into her and Kiki a while earlier, both dressed like something out of the Arabian Nights. Kiki had hinted that he and Sophy should dance, and he’d deliberately ignored the hints until finally they’d moved on, Kiki in a huff, Sophy quieter. Of course, Sophy was always quieter than Kiki—so was a cement mixer—but this had been in a bad way.
He didn’t want to hurt her, lead her on or take advantage of her. He liked her, he really did, but he wished he’d never asked her out.
When Anamaria started to open her mouth again, Tommy beat her to it. “When Robbie gets back, why don’t you two go dance while he can still get his arms around you?”
She tossed her black curls, looking regally, primitively fierce. “Ha. We can still do a lot more than dance.”
“Yea
h, but you’re like a sister to me. I don’t want to hear about it.”
Unexpectedly, she laid her palm against his cheek. “That’s the sweetest thing you ever said to me.” Then the touch turned into a sharp tap. “Go see Ellie. Talk to her. Tell her you’ve been a fool.”
Because he didn’t want to admit how often he wanted to do just that, he scowled at her. “Why?”
Taking his hand, Anamaria studied his palm a moment, drawing her fingers featherlight over the lines there. “Because you belong together. She’s your future. You’re hers. The sooner you two accept that—”
He drew his hand away. “You’re preaching to the choir, Anamaria. I’m the one who wanted to get married, have kids and spend the rest of our lives together, remember? She’s the one who didn’t.” It hurt to say it aloud, but some things were supposed to hurt for a while. If they didn’t, there was a problem.
Anamaria’s expression turned sad. “I wish I understood why.”
“You and me both.” He gestured. “Here comes Robbie.”
His buddy was dressed in khaki cargo pants, a plaid shirt, an olive-drab vest and a khaki fishing hat, with both vest and hat covered with lures. Tommy recognized the hat and vest as belonging to Granddad Calloway, who’d taught them both the fine art of fishing when they were five or six years old. Robbie hadn’t put on a costume of any sort since the year they were fifteen, so this must have been Anamaria’s doing. The things a man would do for the woman he loved…
Anamaria was smiling at her husband in a way that made Tommy feel like a pervert for watching. They were the least likely match he’d ever known: an illegitimate mixed-race fortune-teller and a lazy, white, shallow, aristocratic Southern lawyer. Stranger, even, than Robbie’s brother Rick, a special agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and his wife, whom he’d met while she was dancing in the strip club where he was working undercover.
But Robbie and Anamaria were a match, and for the long-term. Tommy loved them—she really was like a sister to him, and Robbie had been his best bud all their lives—but he envied them.
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