by M. S. Parker
I just hoped it would be for the better.
Chapter 4
It was a strange thing, going from friends to lovers, or at least it should’ve been. With Jasper though, it felt natural. He woke up next to me on Sunday morning and it wasn’t weird. Maybe it was because he didn’t let it get that way. He didn’t rush out or try to snuggle closer. Instead, he climbed out of bed, pulled on the clothes he’d discarded at some point during the night and went into the bathroom.
After that, he made me breakfast. Like a for-real breakfast of pancakes and bacon and scrambled eggs. After breakfast, he helped me bring in the pictures from his car and salvage what frames I could. We talked, but not about what us having slept together – again – meant, but I didn’t feel like we needed to talk about it. Whatever this was between us was good, and if not defining it meant it stayed good, then I was going to let things be.
Then it was Sunday evening and we both knew that he had to go home. It had been nice having him at the house, but he didn’t live here and asking him to stay another night would lead to a place I wasn’t sure either of us were ready to go. So I didn’t ask him to stay. And he didn’t offer. What he did do was remind me that if I needed anything, he was there for me to call.
When I went back in to work on Monday morning, I actually felt better than I had in a while. Now, when I thought about Allen’s letter, I could almost see why he’d done it. It still hurt, of course, but there was something different when I thought about it now. I could see what Jasper meant about Allen not wanting me to see him like that. I could understand it on an intellectual level, and for now, that was enough to keep me sane.
It was a typical day at school and I hoped that meant things were going to be typical, normal, from here on out. Sure, there was still the hearing about Allen’s trust and figuring out what I was going to do about the insurance money, but I hoped this was the point where things would turn around and my life would start getting back on track.
I didn’t know how I could be so stupid.
It took all of an hour after getting home from school for me to see that things weren’t going to be normal, maybe not ever again.
Mixed in with the rest of my mail was a plain white envelope with my last name scribbled on it. No address, nothing else.
I should’ve just thrown it away with the rest of the junk mail. I should’ve left it alone. I didn’t need to open it because I knew it wasn’t going to be anything nice. Nothing nice ever came in a relatively blank envelope.
But I opened it anyway.
It was short and to the point, brutal in its content and delivery. I was glad I was sitting down when I started to read it because if I hadn’t been, I would’ve ended up on my ass.
Allen Lockwood wasn’t a good man. He was a liar and a bastard. The world is a better place without him.
I read it three times, each time hoping that it would somehow say something different. That those horrible words would somehow be changed into something that reflected the man I’d known. Yes, he’d lied to me about being sick and what he’d done had been awful, but as much as his actions pained me, I knew they’d been done out of love. No matter how angry I was at him, I couldn’t imagine the world being better off for him having died. He hadn’t been perfect, but he’d been a good man.
Who would send a letter like this to someone’s widow? It was impossibly cruel.
Once I’d recovered enough to start thinking, the Lockwoods were the first people to pop into my mind. Maybe they thought if I was upset enough, I’d want to get away from any place that reminded me of Allen and I’d either give or sell them the vineyard. After all, the letter hadn’t come right away. Allen had been gone for nearly four months. Why else would whoever this was wait so long before sending it?
I didn’t have proof though. There was no postage on the envelope, which only meant that it hadn’t been mailed. The Lockwoods had enough contacts in St. Helena that delivering a letter wouldn’t be a big deal, especially since I wouldn’t be around to catch anyone doing it.
If I’d thought it’d do any good, I would’ve taken it to the police so they could test it for fingerprints or DNA or whatever else they could find with their various toys. I knew, however, that no one would care. It wasn’t a threat on my life or even against my property. Nothing that could even be interpreted as intimidation. There was no law against being mean and therefore no reason to run expensive tests.
I could have argued that the person who’d written it could’ve been involved in the arson, but based on the way I’d been treated during the investigation into Allen’s death, I didn’t trust the St. Helena Police Department to take anything I said seriously, especially since the lead detectives in both cases were the same. Detective Reed didn’t even try to hide his low opinion of me and even the “good cop” of the two, Detective Rheingard, most likely believed that I’d had something to do with either Allen’s death or the fire, perhaps even both, but he was at least polite about it.
I wanted to crumple it into a ball and throw it away. Tear it into tiny pieces and burn it. I also wanted to hit something, so I knew that giving in to any impulses I currently had would be a bad idea. I carefully folded the letter and put it back into the envelope. I didn’t want it out where I could see it though. It was going to be hard enough to get those words out of my head. I didn’t need them coming back to me every time I saw the envelope. I went to the office and tucked the letter into one of the desk drawers where I wouldn’t accidentally throw it away. It would be available if I needed it for some reason.
I took a slow breath and counted to ten. I couldn’t let this letter get me off track. I had some curriculum to look over to see if I wanted to change books the next year. I also had to go over the schedule Jacques Rohner – the foreman at the vineyard – had sent over. The harvest was approaching fast and, as always, it would be a race between ripening and the frost. Between that and the arson, we’d had to take on extra hands to keep an eye on the crop around the clock. I trusted Jacque implicitly and would never have dreamed of telling him to make changes to the way he did things, but he insisted on having me go over anything that required money or had to do with people being on my property.
I had enough on my mind that I didn’t need one more thing to worry about. As I headed into the kitchen to get something out to thaw for dinner, I pushed all thoughts of the letter and its author from my mind. I was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked and I didn’t think about the letter again until two days later.
The landline was ringing as soon as I walked into the house Wednesday afternoon. I didn’t rush to answer it, assuming it was someone from Allen’s family. They were the only ones who called that number anymore. It could’ve been one of the few former clients I hadn’t bothered to contact after the accident, but I didn’t really want to talk to them either, so I let it go to the answering machine.
I felt a pang as Allen’s voice filled the air.
“You have reached Allen and Shae Lockwood. We’re unable to come to the phone at this time. Please leave your name, number and a brief message and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”
It was the same trite greeting that most answering machines or voicemails had, but it made me smile. That was pure Allen, concise and polite, no matter how ordinary something sounded. We’d sometimes joked that if Allen hadn’t kept on his uncle’s marketing team, he would’ve sold bottles with just “Red Wine” on the label.
I frowned as a full minute passed after the beep with no one speaking. We’d had sales calls on the house phone, but never an obscene phone call. I wondered if this was going to be the first. I wasn’t worried about it though. Most of those perverts did it to get a rise out of people, so they wouldn’t get much of anything out of a call like this. Maybe they’d get off thinking about someone listening to it, but that seemed a bit far-fetched.
“Mrs. Lockwood.”
The voice was raspy, impossible to tell if it belonged to a male or female. What it di
d do, however, was make all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
“I know you’re there.”
Another pause, as if waiting for me to admit that I was home and go pick up the phone.
“No matter. I know you’re listening.”
I shivered, suddenly feeling like someone was watching me.
“Your husband wasn’t who you thought he was.”
Every muscle in my body tensed. The person who’d written the letter. I knew it had to be the same person. It couldn’t be a coincidence.
“He wasn’t a good man, and you’re not a good woman. People like you deserve whatever you get.”
I sank down onto a kitchen chair as I heard the click of the line going dead and the machine stopping its recording. I stared at the machine, half-expecting the phone to ring again, to keep ringing until either I answered or the person on the other end drove me insane.
Maybe that’s what they were trying to do, I thought. Drive me crazy. Again, I thought of the Lockwoods. It would work to their advantage if I was nuts. They could have me declared incompetent and step in to “take care of me.” The only person who’d stand against them would be my brother. And Jasper. I’d have two people against the experts I knew the Lockwoods could provide.
I frowned as the realization hit me. It couldn’t be the Lockwoods. Not because they wouldn’t do something like that to me. No, this was exactly the kind of thing I could see either May or her son Marcus hiring someone to do.
If it hadn’t been for the fact that Allen was being bad-mouthed alongside me. More than me, actually. May and Gregory would never have allowed their precious Allen to be spoken ill of, not even to try to deceive the authorities into discounting them as suspects. Marcus might’ve done it, or even Alice. Both of them despised me, but I knew that they had both been jealous of Allen and how happy we’d been together. But, neither one of them would’ve risked their parents’ wrath by talking bad about Allen.
But if it wasn’t the Lockwoods, who could it be? Allen hadn’t had any enemies. Even the competition in the wine industry had been friendly. And if there had been someone who’d wanted to hurt Allen or tarnish his reputation, why now? Why hadn’t they done it while he’d been alive, or right after he’d died? Why four months later?
I shifted uneasily. I knew there were workers stationed around the vineyard keeping an eye on things, and that I had a state-of-the-art alarm system, but I still had the sudden and overwhelming feeling that I wasn’t safe in my own house.
Jasper.
I reached for my cell phone, needing to hear his voice. I needed to feel safe and he was the one who did that.
My finger hovered over his name for a moment before I set down the phone. I couldn’t call Jasper every time I got a bit spooked. Yes, I felt better when he was here but things were already moving so fast between us. I didn’t want to ruin what we had by pushing things even faster.
I gritted my teeth and forced myself to my feet. I could do this by myself. I would do this by myself.
My resolve lasted until the next night when, at nearly midnight, the phone rang again. I’d been up finishing a few papers and could hear the answering machine from where I was sitting.
“I know you don’t want to hear this, Mrs. Lockwood, but your precious Allen was a liar and a cheat. He used people and discarded them. Maybe you knew that. Maybe you just turned a blind eye to how he treated people. Or maybe you liked it. Did you? Did you like watching him treat people like shit?”
The voice was still rough, but the longer he or she spoke, the louder they got.
“Did it get you off? Do you fantasize about it? Touching yourself when you think about him walking all over people to get what he wanted?”
I picked up my phone, my hands shaking as the caller kept going. I wanted Jasper with me so badly, but I couldn’t do that. There was someone else I could call though. Someone who’d drop everything to help me.
“Shae?” Mitchell’s voice was thick with sleep. “What’s wrong?”
“I need you to come over.” I wrapped my arm around my middle as I began to shake. The machine had finally cut off the call, but the words were still echoing in my head. “Please, Mitchell. I can’t stay here alone.”
“I’m on my way.”
Chapter 5
Mitchell went with me the next morning when I took the answering machine and the letter to the police station before school. He wasn’t as big or formidable as Jasper, but he was my big brother. The same one who’d looked after me all my life. The one who’d made it virtually impossible to date. Even when he was at his most annoying and overprotective, he’d always had my best interest at heart.
Not surprisingly, my favorite detectives took down all the information and promised to look into it even as they were turning away. For a moment, I saw Mitchell’s temper flash across his blue-green eyes, and I put a hand on his arm. He collected himself and followed me out, but not without first telling the detectives that if anything happened to me while they were sitting on their asses, he’d make sure they lost their jobs.
While I appreciated the sentiment, I couldn’t help but wonder if Mitchell had just made things even more difficult for me with the police. Still, he promised that he’d stay until the cops caught whoever was doing this or the calls stopped, and that made me feel better.
By the end of the week, I was thankful Mitchell had stayed. Friday night, I got another call. He picked up the phone and went off on the person on the other end, or at least he tried to. They hung up as soon as they heard his voice. On Saturday, I met Jasper for lunch and when I got home, there was another letter. Mitchell took that one straight to the police station and spent nearly an hour there making threats about what he would do if something happened to me. He didn’t say it, but I got the impression that he’d nearly been arrested.
Still, it was only calls and letters. No one tried to get onto the property and I wasn’t even bothered at school or when I was with Jasper. I couldn’t really relax though, never sure if the person who was doing this was just biding his or her time before launching an assault away from home.
Mitchell stayed in the guest room, not leaving for work until after I did and returning home early enough so that he was there when I arrived. We ate dinner together and then sat in the living room, watching television until we went to bed. Sometimes he went first, sometimes I did, but either way, he always made sure to do a full check of the house to ensure that everything was locked down.
We didn’t talk much, but then again, we’d never really been big talkers anyway. We said what we needed to say and we meant it. No games, no pretending. If we didn’t want to talk about something, we said it, and we respected the request. I liked that about Mitchell, that he didn’t try to pressure me for information or tell me what I should do.
Well, at least he didn’t try to tell me what to do most of the time. He wasn’t happy that Jasper and I talked to each other every night before bed or that I’d gone to lunch with him both Saturday and Sunday. He definitely didn’t like that I wasn’t trying to hide that what was going on between Jasper and me was more than just one good friend checking in on the other to make sure everything was okay. The only thing that kept Mitchell even slightly mollified was the fact that he knew I hadn’t told Jasper about the calls or the letters. I didn’t want to worry Jasper or make our time together be about that, and Mitchell liked that I’d come to him. He hadn’t said it, but I knew it. When I was with Jasper, though, it was the only time I felt normal again. The calls and letters had taken away what little ground I’d gained since Allen’s death.
After the second week of the cops doing nothing, I was only too happy to accept Jasper’s invitation to go out to a nice restaurant on Saturday evening. So far, we’d only been to a couple diners that were close to Jasper’s practice and his house. This would be the first date we’d gone on that would actually feel like a date. Although neither of us commented on the fact, we both knew that Tra Vigne wasn’t a place one typi
cally just took a friend.
In the past four years, Allen and I had come here half a dozen times or so, but it wasn’t a place that held such important memories of him that I felt weird going with Jasper. I smiled when I saw the familiar ivy-covered building and the smile widened when Jasper reached down and took my hand. I knew the gossip was already going around about the amount of time the two of us were spending together. We hadn’t, however, had any real sort of physical contact in public and I knew the moment we walked into the restaurant with our hands clasped together, it’d get ten times worse.
Allen had been the one most people liked. I’d been the quiet one in the background. People hadn’t exactly disliked me, but no one had bothered to really get to know me and I’d always been fine with that. I’d always liked keeping to myself.
The fact that I was on a date with his best friend just four months after his death wasn’t going to win me any popularity contests. That my date happened to be Jasper Whitehall, the local boy with the black past, was going to make things worse. I didn’t think anyone was going to hate me or anything like that, but I doubted anyone would approve.
I hadn’t cared what people had thought of me when I’d moved in with Allen even though the Lockwoods had assured me that everyone would think I was only with him for the money. I didn’t know if that was true or not, but I hadn’t cared then and I didn’t care now. I knew who my friends were and they were the only ones whose opinion mattered. And I knew they’d want me to be happy, no matter who I was with.
“You look lovely this evening,” Jasper said, raising our hands and brushing his lips across my knuckles.
“You said that already.” I smiled at him.
“And I meant it then as well.” He returned the smile, his eyes warm.
It was so easy to walk beside him, to enjoy the feel of his fingers between mine. There was none of the first date jitters or nerves. None of the awkward pauses that came with not knowing what to say. We said what we wanted, when we wanted, and if we didn’t have anything to say, we stayed quiet. We were as comfortable in silence as we were talking. It was almost eerie how at ease we were with each other. I’d worried that things would get weird when we were around other people, that the way we were with each other wouldn’t work in a natural setting.