by Vicki Essex
“Dammit, Laura, when I get back—”
“Don’t threaten me, Shane. You nearly ruined the deal by getting personally involved with the seller. Who’s to say you weren’t the one who leaked the information? It’ll be your word against mine.” She paused, and then gave a nervous chuckle. “Just relax. The deal’s done. That Podunk town won’t have that kind of liquid cash to fork over to Ms. Bateman, so they’ll have to sell to us. It’s the only way the whole thing could’ve gone down. Anyhow, your girlfriend’s rich now. Isn’t that great? We should all be happy.”
Laura didn’t get it at all. Money didn’t matter to Mira.
“You did a good job tonight. Go and celebrate or something. I’ll be in touch to finalize the property sale.” She hung up.
He stared at his cell phone. He wanted to whip it at the wall, dash it to 2.5 million little pieces. The problem was that he knew Laura was right. The unit prices wouldn’t go up so much that potential buyers would shy away. There might be some tweaking to the designs to balance the books, but it wouldn’t be dramatic. No, the condo would be built. People would still buy the units. Everville would change and grow. And he’d be the guy who’d helped make that happen.
A figure in black slinked out the side door, just as he’d predicted she would. He followed her as she drifted out at speed, a wraith on a mission.
“Mira,” he called. But she kept walking. He called her name again as she exited, her strides lengthening until she was practically running across the hot asphalt. “Mira!”
“Leave me alone.” She didn’t even turn around. Shane caught up to her and grabbed her arm, swinging her to face him. Her blotchy cheeks were wet, and she glared at him through puffy eyes.
“I did the best I could for you,” he said by way of apology. But no, he had nothing to apologize for. He had 2.5 million nothings to apologize for. He straightened. “You have to understand, I couldn’t say anything about the high-speed rail line. It wasn’t even a sure thing. I could’ve gone to jail for disclosing that information to anyone who might have profited, and that means everyone in this whole town. It’s not personal.”
“‘Not personal’?” She clutched her hands in front of her. “What does that even mean to you? You came here and...made me feel something for you. And like an idiot, I let myself believe—” She cut herself off sharply and turned away.
“Don’t run from this. We have to talk. I did what I had to. This is my job.”
“And that’s all you care about. Your job, your career, the condo... It was never about me.”
Shane stared. “How can you believe that? After everything I did—”
“You may have convinced yourself it was because you liked me, but we both know those motives were never pure. I never should have trusted you.”
Heat suffused Shane’s chest. “You’ve never trusted me! You don’t trust anyone. You don’t even try making connections with others. I was the one to reach out to you nine out of ten times.”
“Keeping score. Yeah, that’s real attractive.” The contempt in her critical look had him squirming. “You betrayed me. You let me down. Just admit that it’s always been a game for you. I was something else for you to win. Another prize on top of the Crown.” She shook her head. “You know what? I don’t care. You win, okay? You got everything you wanted. Now leave me alone.”
“Mira—”
Something snagged his arm then, and he whirled around to find Arty Bolton and the florist, Janice Heinlein, glowering at him. “Leave her alone,” Arty said. “She needs space right now.”
“I have to explain things to her. She doesn’t understand what I’ve done for her.”
“Is that how you see it?” Arty shook his head in disgust. “I told you not to hurt her. I don’t know why I bothered. I knew you were nothing but trouble.”
Shane was fed up with the old man’s judgments. “You were never keen on her living there, Arty. I just did what you couldn’t and finally got her out.”
“You broke her goddamned heart.”
“That’s the cost of doing business sometimes.” He wrenched himself away, but Mira had already disappeared, melting back into the shadows.
It wasn’t too hard to figure out where she’d gone.
“Mr. Patel,” Janice called, huffing as she caught up to him before he got in his car. “I’m sorry about Arty. He’s always been very protective of Mira. You did what you came to do—I respect that. Please, let me go talk to her first. She’ll be quite upset, and I don’t know that you confronting her right now is the best thing.”
He ground his jaw, but saw the reason in her argument. “All right. But please, tell her it was never my plan to suggest eminent domain. It’s all very complicated.”
“I’m not sure any of that will do you or her any good at this point.” Janice’s parting look straddled the line between pity and contempt. She walked sedately back to a fuming, glowering Arty.
As Shane got into his rental, he caught a few more dirty looks from people leaving the meeting. Someone shouted, “Get out of our town!” and he flinched—he’d never been met with such hostility before.
All he’d ever wanted was to help make Everville a better place.
He’d never expected they wouldn’t want his help.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
MIRA RIPPED THE stubborn ivy vines clinging to the trellises and stuffed them into garbage bags. No sense in holding on, she thought angrily. This’ll all be gone soon. Maybe it would’ve been better to set the whole thing ablaze, give the Crown a proper funeral pyre. But the last thing she needed was to be charged with arson or fraud or whatever. She was already a vagrant. A millionaire vagrant, but a homeless unloved orphan nonetheless.
She gave a bitter laugh, wiping the tears from her face with the back of her dirt-covered wrist. It was getting dark—she could barely see, except by her lantern and the solar-powered lawn lights jutting from the garden boxes like tombstones, each casting a dim, ghostly glow.
“Mira?” Janice’s voice floated toward her.
“Go away.”
“Honey, where are you? It’s dark up here, and I can barely see.”
“Then go back down the ladder.”
A pause. “You shouldn’t be alone right now.”
“Why? Do you think I’m stupid enough to fling myself off the roof?” The thought had occurred to her. She was angry and hurt and betrayed. Taking her own life felt like the only way she could have control over the situation. Killing herself would make people sorry they ever—
A sudden gust of wind groaned through the garden, sending the pinwheels whirling, the wind chime she’d made for Grandpa clattering like old bones. She exhaled sharply as tears burned in her throat. Of course she wasn’t going to kill herself. She wouldn’t give anyone the satisfaction of confirming their worst thoughts about her.
“There you are.” Janice’s shadow edged into the lamplight. “What are you doing?” She squinted into the dark and gasped.
“If anyone is tearing up all this, it’s gonna be me.” She gestured around at the carnage she’d wreaked so far. “It’s not like any of it was going to be harvested.”
“The council didn’t condemn the building yet—Cheyenne did that to make sure you had time to pack and say goodbye, otherwise the sheriff would be here putting bolts on the doors. No one’s forcing you out tonight. Mira, stop!” The florist grabbed her wrist as she yanked a potted flower out of its terra-cotta hearth and shook its roots violently.
“It doesn’t matter. I can’t take any of this with me.” Fury boiled through her as she glared around the half-ruined garden she’d worked so hard to keep up. Plants won’t do me any good where I’m headed.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know.” Her mind hadn’t been clear enough to formulate any kind of pl
an. The truth was, she’d never been able to bring herself to think about what would come next if she was forced to leave. She’d assumed she’d always live in the Crown. She gave another bitter laugh to hide her despair. “Maybe I’ll drive to LA, live on Sunset Boulevard like Norma Desmond. I could get a house for a cool two mil there, right?”
“Mira...”
“Or maybe I should give my money away. Do something useful with it, like build a church. I could live in the bell tower. Sanctuary, sanctuary!” She mimed a hunch and hobbled around as she grabbed a tomato plant. One of the small, green fruits exploded in her fierce grip as she tore the whole thing out of the box, scattering clods of dirt all around her. Janice cried out.
“Mira, stop!”
“Why? What does it matter? Nothing here is going to live. Not even if we tried to transplant it. At least this way, I can make sure they don’t die slowly.” She grabbed another tomato plant. She could feel the delicate roots tearing as she ripped the plant up easily, their grasp on the life-giving earth tenuous. Several little green tomatoes rolled and bounced off the plant. What a waste. It would’ve been a good crop this year if she’d taken better care of them.
“You want to save something, take the succulents.” She pointed at the greenhouse. “Otherwise, I’m pitching them.” Over the roof, most likely. She’d always wondered what it would sound like, all that pottery crashing to the ground below.
Janice almost seemed afraid Mira would do just that if she didn’t hurry. She opened the greenhouse and gathered an armful of plants, hastily stacking them into a wooden tray. Mira suddenly felt bad for making the older woman work so hard in the dark, and in fear. Mira had never acted out like this—she was admittedly half-crazed, but could anyone blame her? She’d lost everything that meant anything to her because of Shane. She was allowed to freak out. But she didn’t want to inflict her pain on Janice.
Give her the succulents. Get her out of here. Continue with your rampage. That was the coolheaded thing to do. She strode over, and Janice recoiled. “I’ll help,” she said tersely.
Together they emptied the greenhouse. Some of the succulents had been put in there by her grandfather—Janice deserved to keep those. Most of them were Mira’s, though. But she knew she couldn’t keep them. In her mind, she was packing her car, filling it with her movie collection—there wouldn’t be room for much more.
Mira’s chest squeezed as she took out the potted orchids Shane had given to her. They’d flourished under her care. There were even a few new buds dripping from the stems. She touched their delicate shape. One of them snapped off readily, and she moaned.
“Don’t worry, dear, that happens. Those were the ones I—” Janice paused, snapped her mouth shut and went back to straightening the plants in the trays.
“These were the ones you what?”
“Nothing.”
No, not nothing. Mira could see the lie burning in her eyes even in the half-light with all those shadows around her. She felt as though in the dark she could see everything much more clearly, like a film projected on a screen. “Tell me about the orchids, Janice.”
“They were gifts from Shane, weren’t they? I remember them now. I picked them out myself.”
Mira sifted through her words, plucking the lies out like weeds. “They weren’t from Shane at all, were they?”
The florist’s eyes widened. Slowly, she shook her head.
Mira’s hands were already raw, her arms aching, but she didn’t care. She grabbed the first orchid and lobbed it as far as she could over the edge of the roof. It sailed through the darkness and landed somewhere over on the next building’s roof with a tinkling crash.
That building belonged to Shane, to Sagmar and their ilk. She was just sending them a housewarming gift.
She picked up the next orchid, the white egret Shane had brought her from New York. She hesitated only briefly before sending it to its oblivion.
“Orchids are just parasites, anyway.” She kicked the door of the greenhouse.
“You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“No one cares,” she snapped. “Everyone knows I live here. Everyone. And no one said a word to help me save my home.”
“This ain’t a home.” Arty’s voice emerged from the darkness, gruff and unpleasant. He climbed over the edge of the roof, scrambling away from the edge and pushing to his feet. “It’s a tomb you’ve been haunting since Jack’s death.”
She rolled her burning eyes. “Great, now it’s a rooftop party.”
“Don’t use that sarcastic tone with your elders, young lady. Jack would be mortified with the way you’re treating us.”
“The way I’m treating you? I didn’t ask you two to treat me like a child.”
“Well, you’re certainly acting like one. You’re throwing a tantrum when you should be celebrating.”
“Celebrating what? You think money means anything to me? They’re taking the only thing I have left of Grandpa.” The only good thing in my whole miserable life.
Arty’s mouth firmed. “Your grandpa’s dead, Mira. He was a good man who lived a good, long life. He was flawed, too, but he did what he could for others. And he never would’ve wanted you worshipping his ghost. He wanted you to live a rich and meaningful life.”
“I was living a rich and meaningful life!” Why didn’t anyone accept that? Tears of pure frustration edged into the corners of her eyes. All she wanted to do was stomp her feet and scream.
“Come inside,” Janice coaxed. “It’s late, it’s dark and you need to get some sleep. Things will look better in the morning.”
“You two go. I have things to do here.”
“Mira—”
“I don’t need you two interfering with my life. Not anymore. I’m not a lost little girl who needs protecting. And by the way, that thing you pulled with Shane and the flowers? Pretty shitty of both of you.”
Arty stiffened. “We did that for you.”
“No, I think I get it now. You did that for yourself. You wanted to foist me off. You thought Shane would sweep me off my feet and take me away from Grandpa’s theater. ‘Let’s get Mira a man, then maybe she’ll be more normal and we won’t have to look after her anymore.’”
“It was never like that,” Janice said.
“I never needed either of you. No one’s ever wanted me, so I’ve had to learn to be on my own, and I’m doing fine.”
“How dare you say that. Your grandpa Jack wanted you. Show him some respect.”
“Respect? Is that what you’re showing him?” She sneered at Arty through the darkness. “You two carrying on while he’s cold and dead in the ground, even though he loved Janice all his life.”
“What happens between us is of no concern to you,” Arty growled.
“Right, but you think it’s fine to meddle with my life.” She scoffed, trying desperately to keep herself from crumbling. She hated that she was being so nasty and cruel, but she needed everyone to leave her alone. “Get off my roof. For as long as it’s still mine, I don’t want to see either of you around here.” She spun and tromped back into the darkness.
This was why she didn’t let people into her life. They were constantly trying to manipulate her, to find ways to use her. Ultimately, everyone let her down.
The decision was simple then. When they took the theater, she’d leave Everville for good.
* * *
“THAT WAS AWFUL.”
Arty said nothing as he passed Jan her coffee and sat heavily next to her on the couch in her home. He’d always liked her house—a place that’d been made for a small, tight family. Of course, her sons were grown and gone, and he and Janice wouldn’t be having kids. Though Arty had always wanted a dog...
He gripped that dream hard, then let it go on a tired exhale.
“What do we do, Arty? We
can’t just leave Mira on her own.”
“She needs space,” he said pensively.
“But where will she live? What will she do when the town evicts her?”
“I talked to Cheyenne. She’s not so cruel-hearted that the council would turn the poor girl out onto the street without advance warning. But the law is what it is. She’ll eventually be given a notice to vacate. Sheriff McKinnon will have to come in to oversee the whole thing, make sure she gets out safe.”
Janice ran a hand through her hair. “Oh, what a disaster. This is all my fault.”
“Don’t blame yourself. Nothing we did amounted to more than harmless matchmaking.” Though the words were bitter now. It had been anything but harmless. Mira was heartbroken, and the financial compensation was cold comfort to her. Even Arty recognized that.
“She should stay here with me,” Jan said decisively. “Just until she can find a place of her own.”
“No. She can stay at my place. I’ll move into the motel down near the lake.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. If you’re giving up your space, then you can move in here with me.” She gave him a small smile. That tiny upturn of her lips made Arty swallow thickly. He’d only just kissed those lips, and now it felt like poison was taking hold, wending its insidious way through his system.
“Jan...” He sighed. “There’s no easy way to say this. But I think Mira’s right. We shouldn’t be together.”
She was quiet a moment, her thoughts flickering in her eyes. “We’ve been through this before. What’s changed your mind?”
“Don’t you see? We failed Jack. We were supposed to help Mira, but instead we got caught up in each other, and all we’ve done is hurt her. Jack would be mad as Hades to know what we did.”
“So you’re punishing us both for something you yourself admit wasn’t wrong?”