by Bruce, Lila
“I’m sorry,” Nicole apologized. “I just got caught up in the moment, I guess. I mean, my God, that just shows that she knew how I felt and did it anyway.”
Julie frowned and leveled her eyes at Nicole.
“Are sure you want to do this?”
Nicole nodded and waved a hand.
“Go on.”
“‘I know what it looked like when you walked into the bedroom and saw me standing there with no clothes on, hugging Sundae.’” Julie dropped the letter. “Sundae? Her name was Sundae? What the hell kind of a name is Sundae?”
Nicole laughed and rubbed her eyes.
“God only knows.”
“Wow. Okay…‘And later, what I’m pretty sure you overheard at the restaurant with Megan. All of this has been one big shitty series of misunderstandings. I’ve been thinking of how to explain this to you so that you know what I’m saying is the truth. Finally, I decided to go about it the best way I know how—gather the evidence and lay it all out.’”
Julie stopped reading and opened up the box. She held up one of the baggies and turned it around in her hand.
“That must be what all this is,” she remarked.
Nicole snorted but didn’t say anything.
“‘People’s One—proof that I love you and that you stole my heart the first day we met.’” Julie reached into the box and pulled out the plastic bag marked ‘One’. She squinted at it and then handed the bag to Nicole.
“One of my business cards?” she inquired.
Julie shrugged and looked back to the letter. “It says to look on the back.”
Nicole turned the card over.
“Okay, it’s got my cell number written on the back. What is that supposed to show?”
“‘This is the card that you gave me when we first met’,” Julie continued reading. “‘If you will remember, Samuels and I were investigating the breakins of homes listed for sale in North Chattanooga and one of your properties had gotten hit. You wrote your number on the back of this card and told me to call you if I ever needed anything, day or night.’”
Nicole stared at the card incredulously and then back up at Julie. It had been almost two years since that first meeting.
“She kept this?”
Julie nodded.
“It looks like you’re predictable as well,” she said. Julie continued to read the letter. “‘Yes, I kept this. When the most singularly attractive woman I’ve ever met in my life gives me her number, I don’t lose it.’”
Nicole looked at the card for a long moment and then motioned to Julie.
“Keep going.”
“‘People’s Two—additional proof that I love you.’” Julie rummaged through the box until she located the bag marked ‘Two’ and handed it to Nicole. Nicole narrowed her eyes as she inspected the contents.
“A parking ticket?” she asked, shaking her head.
“‘Notice the date. August fifteenth.’” Julie glanced up from the letter. “What is August fifteenth?”
Nicole smiled in spite of herself. She remembered what this was. Their third date. She and Jamie had gone to Coolidge Park. They’d walked along the river and eaten a picnic lunch. Nicole had accidentally walked through the water fountain on their way back to Jamie’s car and gotten soaking wet. Jamie had laughed hysterically at her and they ended up kissing like teenagers behind the carousal. They’d been late getting to the parking meter as a result, and Jamie had gotten a ticket. Nicole rubbed the plastic between her fingers.
“Our first kiss,” she finally answered quietly, not sure what to make of it. Of all the words she would have used to describe Jamie, sentimental was absolutely not one of them.
Julie looked back at her, but didn’t offer up any commentary.
“‘People’s Three’,” Julie said, clearing her throat. “‘Proof that I was not making out with Sundae that day at my house.’”
Nicole pulled the box to her and reached inside. She retrieved the ‘three’ baggy and held it up, trying to make out what it was.
“A sonogram?” She looked back at Julie.
“‘This, Miss Landers, is the reason we were hugging. I went to high school with Sundae. We ran into each other a few days before and I was meeting her at the house for a reason to be disclosed later. I turned the shower on by accident and got my clothes all wet and I was changing into a dry ones. As I walked out of the closet—’” Julie stopped reading and looked up. “Wait. Jamie has a walk-in closet?”
Nicole smiled and nodded.
“Two actually.”
“What the hell? Then why are you two always here and not a Jamie’s place? Not that your house is a dump, Nicole, but c’mon. If it’s got two walk-in closets?”
“Jamie’s house is done in early Johnny Cash, that’s why.”
“Oh. Oh,” Julie said. “I guess I can see that. Anyway…‘As I walked out of the closet, Sundae told me that after years of trying, she and her husband had finally gotten pregnant.’”
Nicole licked her lips and narrowed her eyes at the sonogram. The date on the picture would be in line if what Jamie was saying was true.
“That still doesn’t explain why she was there in first place. Why was she at her house meeting ‘Sundae’ after she told me she would be at the station?” Nicole asked.
“I don’t know,” Julie said. She glanced back at the letter. “‘People’s Four—proof that I was not professing my love to Megan Riley.’” Nicole reached in the box and pulled out a piece of paper with the number four stamped across the top.
“Really, Jamie? An affidavit?” she muttered, shaking her head at the type-written letter. Nicole noticed it was signed and notarized at the bottom of the page.
“‘If you will read the affidavit, you will see that Megan verifies that we were, in fact, discussing you. I asked her to meet me so that I could, more or less, practice what I was going to say to you at lunch the next day. You, unfortunately, chose that exact moment to walk in and assumed the worst.’”
Nicole ran a hand through her hair and blew out a breath.
“What do you think?” she asked Julie. Nicole leaned back against the couch cushion, trying to absorb everything in the letter. She really wanted to believe it was all true, but at the same time, as much as she loved Jamie, she’d been betrayed and lied to by someone she’d trusted before.
Julie shrugged.
“I don’t know. I don’t think I’m bought in just yet.”
“How much more is there to go?” Nicole asked.
“About a page,” Julie answered, flipping the letter over. “You want me to skip to the end?”
“No, just keep going.”
“Okay. ‘People’s Five—proof that…’” Julie’s voice trailed off as Nicole’s phone began to ring. She and Nicole looked at one another and then over the kitchen counter where the phone sat. Nicole quickly rose from the couch and sprinted into the kitchen. She picked the phone up from the counter and frowned at it.
“It’s Golden Meadows,” she said to Julie, arching one eyebrow. Nicole swiped the screen. “Hello?”
“Miss Landers?” a soft voice said.
“Yes.” Nicole said tentatively, trying to think why the retirement home would be calling.
“This is Brenda, from Golden Meadows. There has been an…incident with your grandmother. We need for you to come down here, if that’s possible.”
Nicole felt her breath catch in throat.
“Incident, what do you mean? What’s happened? Is my grandmother okay?”
There was brief silence.
“It’s a little involved to explain over the phone.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Frances Parker stood by the tiny window looking out from her room at the Golden Meadows Retirement Village. Frances—Nana—as people liked to call her—bit on her bottom lip as she pried at the small but effective lock keeping the window securely shut with the flat edge of a spoon. She’d been working on the lock ever since those bitch nurses had it put o
n the window twenty-seven days ago, and felt that she was finally close to figuring out how to disable the intricate mechanism. Once she was able to break the lock, the rest would be a piece of cake. She’d finally be free of the prison her doctors had stuck her in.
“Whatcha doing there, Nana?” a low voice said from behind her.
Nana spun around—making sure to hide the spoon behind her back—to face the owner of the voice. She narrowed her eyes at the tall, redheaded woman standing in the doorway of the room. The woman looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t quite place her.
“Oh, just this and that,” she replied in as sweet a voice as she could muster. Nana stepped away from the window. “Do I know you, honey?”
The woman smiled down at her and stepped into the room.
“You do, Nana. Remember? I’m Jamie,” the woman said.
Nana frowned and shook her head.
“I don’t think I know anyone named Jamie.” Nana moved closer to the small bed that sat in the center of the room and pretended to fluff the pillow as she slid the spoon underneath the sheet. Later, when she was alone, she would hide it back under the bed’s rock-hard mattress so as not to alert the staff what she was up to.
“You do too, Nana,” the giant woman said. “I’m a friend of your granddaughter.”
“Nicole?” Nana asked, pursing her lips. “No, honey, I don’t think Nicole has ever mentioned anyone named Jamie.”
And where was Nicole? Nana thought. Her granddaughter rarely went more than a day or two without stopping by, and it had been three days since she’d last seen her.
“There’s nobody at the nurses station.” A fat man with thinning gray hair walked into the room and addressed the tall woman. Nana squinted at the man and sucked in on her bottom lip. She was certain that she’d never seen him before, but she didn’t like the looks of him at all. He carried himself like a cop.
“You won’t find any of them there this time of night,” Nana said, edging away from the bed to get a closer look at him. “It’s medicine time, so they’re all out and about.”
“Is that right?” the fat man said. “Ma’am do you know who is in charge around here right now?”
The tall woman placed a hand on his shoulder and shook her head.
“Samuels, I don’t think—”
“You don’t think what?” Nana snapped. She’d heard that tone enough from people coming and going, acting like she didn’t have the sense God gave a goat. “That I don’t know what goes on around this place? You listen to me, young lady. I know everything.”
“Now Nana…”
“Jamie, let the woman talk,” the man said, interrupting the lanky redhead. “If she knows, why not ask? Besides, it might save us from having to get a subpoena for employee records.”
Nana stiffened as he spoke.
“Subpoena?” she repeated, feeling her stomach drop. “You’re a cop, aren’t you?”
The man nodded.
“Yes ma’am. I’m Detective Samuels and this is Detective Tate. We’re with the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office.”
Those bitch nurses, Nana thought. They had called the cops on her. It had to be over that cookie she’d taken off Maggie Neal’s plate at lunch today when she’d thought no one was looking. Nana darted her eyes back and forth between the two cops. She was fairly certain that she could outrun the fat man, but the Amazon would have her on the floor and hogtied before she made it to the nurse’s station.
“I see,” she drawled, weighing her options.
“Are you kidding me, Samuels? No, you’re not bringing an eighty year-old woman into this—even if she wasn’t Nicole’s grandmother. We can wait for whoever is in charge to get back to the nurse’s station and see if our guy even still works here.”
“Who’s your guy?” Nana asked, happy to see that maybe she wasn’t who the cops were after.
“Jerry Reynolds,” the fat man said, earning a nasty look from the tall woman.
Well, hot damn.
“Yeah, he still works here, all right. I’m not surprised you’re here after him. He’s a shifty one,” Nana said and then motioned with one hand. “He was in here twenty minutes ago trying to get me to take those poison pills. He’d be in Charlie Tucker’s room by now. Two-fourteen.”
The two cops looked at one another and then the Amazon pointed to Nana.
“Okay. We’re going to go talk to him, then. You stay here. I mean it.”
Nana smiled sweetly as the woman turned and left the room. She counted to twenty and then went to the doorway, peering down the hallway in the direction she’d sent the cops. Nana watched as they made it to Charlie’s room. Instead of going on in like she thought they would, the two stood out in the hallway. The fat man leaned against the wall and crossed his arms as the Amazon seemed to be whispering angrily at him.
“What’s going on?”
Nana looked across the hall to see old man Hicks looking out from his room. She was about to tell him to go mind his own damn business when she noticed he’d stopped looking down the hallway and was instead staring at her. Leering was more like it. Nana looked down and realized that she had only her nightgown on. Cursing the old pervert under her breath, Nana stepped back inside her room and quickly donned her robe.
She stepped back to the door just in time to hear shouting coming from down the hallway. Nana jumped back as Jerry Reynolds came running past, the fat cop in quick pursuit. She couldn’t help but notice blood running down the fat man’s face and onto his light blue, short-sleeved shirt. The cop tackled Jerry at the knees and the two went down to the floor, smearing blood everywhere as they slid across the white and blue-checkered linoleum. A second later the Amazon came rushing down the hallway and joined in on the fray.
A glint of metal caught Nana’s eye and she looked away from the spectacle to see a set of keys lying in the middle of the hallway. She recognized them to be the same keys that Jerry usually kept hanging off his belt. Nana gingerly stepped out into the hallway and picked up the keys, thinking that they must have gotten knocked off Jerry’s belt when the fat cop tackled him.
Chapter Twenty-Three
After leaving Nicole’s grandmother safely in her room, Jamie followed her partner down the long, narrow hallway, still fuming at the fact they had involved her in the first place. “You’re not going to have to wait for pneumonia to kill you, Samuels. I’m going to do it myself as soon as we get out of here.”
“What? Get your panties out of a wad. You’re just mad because it was your girlfriend’s grandma. If it’d been anyone else, you’d have asked the same questions yourself, and you know it.” Samuels stopped in the hallway. “Here’s two-fourteen.”
“I don’t know it,” Jamie said, trying to keep her voice low. “We should wait for him to come out.” Samuels nodded and leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms. “And for the record, I wouldn’t have asked an eighty-something year-old dementia patient to identify a potential witness,” Jamie continued. “What were you—”
Jamie broke off as the door to room two-fourteen opened and a tall, dark haired man in blue scrubs walked out pushing a tall, metal cart. He stopped as he saw Jamie and Samuels.
“Hi, can I help you?” he inquired and leaned the clipboard he was holding in one hand down against the top of the cart.
“Jerry Reynolds?” Samuels asked, pushing off from the wall. As the man nodded, he continued. “I’m Detective Samuels and this is Detective Tate. We’re with the Hamilton Coun—” He was cut short as Reynolds suddenly threw the clipboard at his head. “Fuck!” Samuels shouted and brought his hands up to his face as the hard edge of the clipboard crashed against the bridge of his nose, sending blood spurting.
Jamie rushed at Reynolds, sidestepping Samuels as he doubled over. The male nurse gripped the handle of the medicine cart and charged at Jamie, slamming it into her side and knocking her hard against the wall. Jamie inhaled sharply as she felt the painful crunch of a rib giving way. She saw a bright flash of white
and then felt the world tilt slightly. Blinking back tears as she struggled to catch a breath, Jamie looked up to see her partner tackling Reynolds and then the two men begin to roll around on the white and blue-checkered floor.
She put one hand on the medicine cart to steady herself and then, ignoring the stinging pain in her side, sprinted the best she could down the hallway. Jamie slid to her knees as she reached the men, grabbing a struggling Reynolds by the hair and pushing his head against the floor. Throwing her knee against his back, she turned to Samuels and wheezed out, “Cuff him!” With her free hand, Jamie reached for Reynolds’ flailing left arm and brought it down to a bloody Samuels.
“Got it,” Samuels growled and Jamie eased off of Reynolds’ back. She rolled over to a sitting position and glared at both men as she exhaled a painful breath of air.
“Goddamn,” Jamie panted.
“So, I think it’s safe to say Jerry Reynolds is more than just a witness.” Samuels grunted and stood, offering a hand out to help Jamie up. She accepted and then, standing, frowned and wiped her hand against her pants.
“Damn, Samuels, you’re getting blood everywhere.”
“Oh my God, what’s happened?”
Jamie glanced over to see a heavy-set woman in dark blue scrubs running toward them from the other end of the hallway. She winced as she unclipped the badge from her belt and held it up.
“Police,” she said in between panting breaths.
“Jerry?” the nurse said, looking down on the ground at a handcuffed Reynolds. She looked back to Jamie and then to Samuels. “Oh my God, you’re bleeding.”
Jamie saw three more nurses come running around the corner and wondered where the hell they had been ten minutes ago. The heavy-set nurse—Brenda, according to the name embroidered on her top—looked at the newcomers and went into take charge mode.
“Tina, you and John start checking the rooms on this hall. Do a headcount and make sure all the residents are okay,” Brenda said pointing. “Lisa, we need to get all this blood cleaned up.” The nurse looked sternly at Jamie and Samuels. “I don’t know what exactly has happened here, but you cannot be in the hallway like this.”