“Ava loves how you make her feel. She loves that star-crossed lover's story she tells herself, but it’s financial security and status that matter to her, and as hot as you Fitzpatrick boys are, you’re none of you rich enough. After Brian died, she used Scott to fight her battles for her until Theo’s money came, and then she was done with him. Were you seeing her while she was with Scott?”
He nodded.
“They never slept together,” he said.
Hannah snorted.
“Like she’d tell you if they did,” Hannah said. “I get how in love you are with Ava. I can even understand you continuing to sleep with her while you were shacked up with Melissa. The heart wants what the heart wants, and all that stupid crap. But now that you know what she really is, now that you know there is nothing she wouldn’t do, including murder, how can you continue to have anything to do with her?”
“I haven’t had sex with her since that night,” he said. “I looked at the video after the accident, and from then on, I couldn’t do it.”
“But you saw her last night.”
“I let her come thinking we would do what we usually did, but instead, I made her talk about what happened that night.”
“And she expects you to keep her secret, I guess,” Hannah said. “Did she ask for the video? Or does she think you destroyed it?”
He shook his head.
“I can’t talk about the video,” he said. “Don’t ask me why. I just can’t.”
“Okay, okay,” Hannah said. “What’s supposed to happen next?”
He shrugged.
“It’s over. I’m not going to see Ava anymore.”
“But you want to?”
“Of course I do,” he said. “When you feel like we do it’s hard to let go.”
“And Melissa?”
“She’s done with me. I think she called the sheriff last night. Three cops showed up at the bar, and then someone stole Ava’s clothes. It seems kinda funny now. It almost gave me a heart attack last night. I thought they had come for Ava.”
“It sounds like something I would do,” Hannah said. “Good for Melissa.”
“Hannah, I just don’t know what I’m going to do without her.”
“Without Ava.”
“No, without Melissa. She’s always been there for me. She’s the one who cheers me up and says I can do anything and makes me laugh. No matter what happens, she’s always on my side. I miss that.”
“Who wouldn’t?” Hannah said. “It must be exhausting being your one-woman cheerleading squad, though, don’t you think?”
“She loves me,” Patrick said. “Or at least she used to. What can I do, Hannah? What can I do to get her to forgive me and take me back?”
“I don’t know, buddy,” she said. “If I were Melissa I wouldn’t be too quick to forgive you. It may take a while.”
“I hope not too long,” he said. “A man needs sex, Hannah.”
“Don’t I know it,” Hannah said. “You shouldn’t have any trouble finding someone for that.”
“I don’t want to start over with someone new or bang a bunch of skanks. They create so much drama; it’s exhausting. I’m even honest with them; I tell them this leads to nothing. They say just sex is fine with them, but they never mean it. Then they cry and call and hang around, and I’m getting too old for that. I want Melissa. I know her, and she knows me. It’s easy with her. She gets me. I want back what we had.”
“Of course you do,” Hannah said. “Here’s your problem, though.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re kind of a prick,” Hannah said. “I don’t know whether to hug you or kick your ass.”
Maggie and Scott arrived, and Patrick went upstairs to take a shower, Banjo following behind. Scott sat down in the living room to talk to the now semi-alert Fitz while Maggie started a new pot of coffee.
“Where is everyone?” Maggie said. “What’s going on?”
Hannah tried to look innocent.
“What’s the matter?” Maggie asked. “Cat got your tongue?”
“My husband kept me up late last night,” Hannah said. “I’m exhausted.”
“You two,” Maggie said and rolled her eyes. “It’s unnatural to be married as long as you have and still be having so much sex.”
“What can I tell you?” Hannah said. “He brought me donuts.”
“You’re easy,” Maggie said.
“And cheap,” Hannah said. “What would Scott have to bring you?”
“Jason Momoa,” Maggie said.
“What’s going on in here?” Scott asked as he entered the room.
“Nothing,” Maggie said. “Just girl talk.”
“Ew,” he said. “Spare me from that. Where is everybody?”
When Hannah and Maggie, along with Sammy, arrived at Ava’s, Claire met them in the courtyard.
“Where have you been?” Claire said. “Will’s freaking out. Everything’s ready, but Ava’s missing, and the kids are eating all the cupcakes.”
“We’ll just see about that,” Hannah said. “If there are no cupcakes left when I get inside there are going to be some legendary time-outs at this party.”
“Is it all girls in there?” Sammy asked.
“Ernie’s in there,” Claire said. “But you like Bluebell, don’t you?”
“She’s all right,” Sammy said. “But Ernie likes Pokemon and Bluebell doesn’t.
“All of you like to play guns, though,” Hannah said.
“Ernie doesn’t have any toy guns,” Claire said. “Ava won’t allow it.”
“That’s okay,” Sammy said. “I brought mine.”
While Sammy retrieved his arsenal from Maggie’s Jeep, Claire lowered her voice and said, “Ava is missing, for real. Will says she forgot to take her phone with her so he can’t track her. She was going to run some errands, but that was hours ago.”
“Well, we know she’s not with Patrick because we spent all morning with him at Bonnie’s,” Hannah said.
“Will tracks her through her phone?” Maggie said. “That’s pretty controlling.”
Sammy returned with his arms full of plastic firearms, and they went inside.
Delia, Bonnie, and Ava’s housekeeper Gail were gathered in the kitchen, gossiping. Nanny Siobhan and Ava’s husband, Will, were in the grand foyer, trying to interest the smaller children in a game, but they were already wild, with sugar coursing through their veins, hitting each other with balloons. The cousins skirted the melee and went to the kitchen.
Hannah poked Maggie and pointed upwards.
“Go on,” Maggie said.
“Where’s she going?” Claire asked.
“Snooping,” Maggie said.
Hannah casually walked around the grand entryway, ostensibly looking at artwork and architecture, keeping her eye on Will and the nanny. She made her way over to the north wing stairway, and as soon as they were not looking, she darted up to the second floor.
She poked her head into rooms until she found Ava’s dressing room and bathroom. She slipped a pair of latex gloves out of her back pocket and put them on.
She looked in all the drawers of the dressing room, feeling underneath the contents to find anything hidden. She thoroughly searched every drawer but found nothing out of the ordinary.
In the bathroom, she found a bottle of pills with a prescription label made out to Will. Underneath the sink, in a tampon box, she found another bottle of pills with a prescription label made out to Ava. Ava’s prescription was for an opioid painkiller Hannah had heard of people getting addicted to. Hannah tipped out one of the pills and compared it to one of Will’s; they were identical. She took out her phone and photographed both labels and both pills before she put them back where she found them.
In the bathroom garbage, Hannah found three pregnancy tests, all positive.
“Oh my,” she said to herself. “I wonder whose this one is.”
Back in the dressing room, Hannah opened the door to the huge walk-in clo
set and flipped on the light. It was as big as Hannah’s bedroom at home, and every inch was taken up with clothing, handbags, and shoes.
“Great gobbly goobers,” she said. “How could one woman need so many clothes?”
A thorough search of the closet finally yielded a camera and a cell phone with a cracked screen hidden in a leather tote bag with a scarf covering the contents. Hannah picked up the camera, and water trickled out of it. She removed the memory card and had just slid the card down into her jeans pocket when she heard a sound out in the dressing room. Quickly, she stowed the loot just the way she’d found it, slid her small body behind a hanging wardrobe bag big enough to hold a wedding dress, and held her breath.
From her hiding place, she watched as Ava came in, went directly to the tote bag, removed the contents, wrapped them in the scarf, and put them in a garbage bag. She then randomly pulled clothing off hangers and stuffed them in the bag until it was full. She tied the top and carried it away.
Hannah waited until she was sure Ava was gone, and then she quietly left her hiding place. She peeled off the latex gloves and stuffed them in her back pocket.
From the top of the stairs, she could hear the kid’s party seemed to have moved out of the foyer to another room. She tiptoed down to the bottom of the stairs and was turning the corner when she ran into a man.
He looked to be in his mid-fifties, with a graying military brush cut, wearing a suit and tie.
“What were you doing up there?” he asked her.
His tone was authoritative, accusing, and hostile.
Hannah put her hands up.
“You caught me! I was snooping,” Hannah said. “This may be the only chance I get to see the place and I wanted to have a good look. They’re sure loaded, aren’t they? Ava’s certainly done well for herself. The first baby daddy was my cousin, Brian, and he was as poor as a dirt farmer. She’s traded up a couple times since then.”
He stared hard at her for a few moments and then relaxed his mouth into a smile.
“You must be Sam’s wife,” he said.
“Guilty as charged,” she said. “How do you know my husband?”
“Through mutual friends,” he said. “He’s a good man.”
“He has his moments,” Hannah said. “What friends do you both know?”
“You better go on,” he said. “The party’s starting in the formal dining room.”
Hannah was trembling, the stolen memory card seeming to burn a hole in her pocket. When she entered the dining room, Ava was standing at the head of the table with Will’s arm around her.
“Oh good, Karl,” Ava said, and Hannah realized the man who had busted her was standing right behind her.
“I brought down a bag of clothing I want to donate, and I left it by the door to the garage,” Ava said. “Do you mind to put it in my car? I’m going to the church later to help them set up the rummage sale, and I want to take it with me.”
Karl went off to do her bidding, and Will cleared his throat.
“Even though my wife swears she hates surprises, I knew she would enjoy this one. You must forgive us for taking so long to invite you here to our house, but we wanted to have it completely finished and looking its best before you saw it.
“Ava doesn’t like a fuss made over her birthdays, but I say if anyone deserves a fuss it’s her. She takes care of the children and me and this house, plus she’s been essential in assisting me in taking over my father’s business concerns. I don’t know what I would do without her.
“You’ve had the privilege of knowing Ava her whole life, and I’ve only had a little over four years. I’m jealous of you, but I’m grateful for how much you’ve loved and supported her over the years before we got together. So it’s only fitting that you be here for this milestone birthday, her fortieth.”
Hannah caught Maggie’s eye, and Maggie rolled her eyes. They both knew Ava’s fortieth birthday had been two years ago.
“I’m lucky, and I know it,” Will continued. “I look in the mirror every day and ask myself what did I do to deserve this beautiful, brilliant woman. I know it’s not my looks, for obvious reasons, or my money, because she had plenty of that when I met her. So I can only conclude that it must be love. Raise your glasses, everyone. Happy birthday to the love of my life, the mother of my child, and my reason for living. I love you, honey.”
Hannah didn’t have a glass in her hand, so she just watched as everyone else raised theirs to Ava. Ava looked around the room with a broad, fake smile and trepidation in her eyes, seeming not to want to meet any critical glances. Her focus flitted over Hannah, stopped, and then returned. Their eyes met. Hannah felt the memory card in her pocket and smiled.
‘I’ve got you, my pretty,’ she thought to herself.
Ava refocused on the flaming-candle-covered cake Gail brought from the kitchen, and everyone sang the birthday song. At the end, Hannah sang “for she’s a great gob of green Jello,” but no one seemed to notice.
After the cake was eaten and the children were bundled up and turned outside to run off some of the sugar, Maggie sidled up to Hannah.
“What’s the word?” she asked.
“Good job with the security guard,” Hannah said. “I got busted at the bottom of the stairs.”
“The first time I saw him was when he came in behind you,” Maggie said. “How’d you fare?”
“Good, I think,” Hannah said. “But first, somebody needs to get down to the church and snag the bag Ava drops off.”
“We’re way ahead of you,” Maggie said. “Claire’s mother is going straight there from here.”
Hannah spied Ava as Will assisted her in putting on her coat.
“She doesn’t know what she’s up against,” Hannah said.
“Nope,” Maggie said. “But she soon will.”
As the party guests assembled in the driveway in preparation to depart, Hannah noticed a pallet of construction supplies, including cinder blocks and deck boards, on the north terrace.
“Whatcha building?” she asked Will.
“A covered boat dock,” he said.
“Nice,” Hannah said.
“It was supposed to be completed for Ava’s birthday,” he said, “but we’ve been so busy I couldn’t get to it in time.”
“Where was she?” Hannah asked.
Will gave Hannah a look that was equal parts fear and surprise.
“What do you mean?” he said.
“Today,” Hannah said. “Where was she earlier when you couldn’t find her?”
“Oh, that,” he said, with a look of relief. “Ava took my Rover to get some work done on it. While she was waiting she fell in love with the new model, so she ended up trading it instead.”
He gestured to a brand new white Land Rover parked on the far side of the wide driveway.
“It’s her birthday, but she bought me a gift,” Will said. “That’s just the kind of woman she is.”
“Yes, very thoughtful,” Hannah said.
“Kind to a fault,” he said. “Ava’s always thinking about other people.”
“Oh, there’s no question about that,” Hannah said. “Ava always knows what other people are thinking, and acts accordingly.”
The weather on Halloween was always cold in Rose Hill, and sometimes the children had to traipse through deep snow to get from house to house. This year featured a beautiful, clear night with temperatures in the low fifties.
The Fitzpatrick families had gathered at Delia’s house for a Halloween party before the kids went trick-or-treating. Everyone, that is, except Delia, who hadn’t returned from the rummage sale set up at her church.
“Do you think we should check on her?” Claire asked.
“She’ll be here any minute, I’m sure,” Bonnie said. “Those Methodists are so disorganized. Everyone wants to be the boss, but no one wants to work. They don’t have Sister Mary Margrethe to keep them in line.”
“Do you think this is enough candy?” Claire asked.
&n
bsp; “If Hannah would quit eating it,” Maggie said.
“I am not,” Hannah said, through a mouth full of candy.
Bonnie and Claire were making last minute adjustments to the costumes. Ed, Scott, and Sam were watching football on TV in the living room.
“Just what these children need is more candy,” Maggie said.
“I think they should all go to Aunt Maggie’s house for a slumber party afterward,” Claire said.
“I will not be at home,” Maggie said. “I can assure you of that.”
Melissa came in the front door and shrugged off her coat. It was not until she entered the kitchen that they realized her son Tommy was right behind her.
“Look what the cat done dragged in!” Melissa said.
Everyone hugged Tommy, and then Hannah jumped on his back and rode him around the kitchen table a few times, but eventually, they released him to join the men in the living room.
“That must have been a surprise,” Claire said.
“Sean arranged it,” Melissa said. “I didn’t know nothing about it. He just turned up around noon and surprised me. He’s flying right back tomorrow.”
“That was sweet of Sean,” Bonnie said. “He’s a good boy.”
“It did my heart good to see him,” Melissa said. “I didn’t know how much I missed him until he came through the door. I cried like a baby.”
Her eyes teared up again at the memory.
“He’s a good boy, too,” Bonnie said as she hugged Melissa. “He has a good mama.”
“She never hugs me,” Hannah said.
“Me, neither, and I’m her daughter,” Maggie said, and then evaded the pinch her mother aimed in her direction.
“How was the party?” Melissa asked.
Hannah gave the thumbs up, her mouth full of caramel corn.
Quietly, Maggie got Melissa caught up on what had happened.
Pumpkin Ridge (Rose Hill Mystery Series Book 10) Page 16