Be My Valencrime

by Amy M. Reade

  “Of course it’s not going to make you fat,” Lilly said. “You could eat three plates of this and not gain an ounce.”

  “Not true,” sobbed Laurel.

  Lilly’s phone buzzed, but she ignored it. She convinced Laurel to eat a little bit of both the pasta and the chicken while she and Hassan shared the rest of both meals. For the second time that evening, the phone buzzed twice within the space of a minute and Lilly sighed with exasperation.

  “What now?” She reached for her phone.

  It was Harry.

  “I’ll let that go to voicemail,” she said. The last thing she needed tonight was to have a conversation with a jubilant Harry about his upcoming marriage to Alice while Laurel was in the throes of misery.

  Chapter 11

  Laurel went upstairs after dinner. Hassan was about to leave when he turned around and reached into his coat pocket. Lilly smiled broadly when he withdrew a small chartreuse box embellished with brown ribbon and a sprig of greenery. She recognized that box.

  “I was going to give this to you after dinner at the restaurant, but it didn’t work out,” he said.

  “These are my favorite chocolates in the whole world.” She kissed him. “Thank you.” Then she gasped. “I forgot about your gift!” She had taken a photo of the XO template and she had planned to show it to him at dinner and explain the gift.

  But before she could suggest showing him the picture, he smiled and said, “Spending the evening with you was gift enough.” Could this guy get any better?

  “Tell you what. Come to the shop tomorrow and I’ll give you your gift,” she said.

  “Deal. See you tomorrow.”

  Laurel asked Lilly to lie down with her in her bed until she fell asleep that night. Lilly obliged, of course, because that’s what mothers do when their children are upset. Even their teenage children.

  When Laurel was finally sleeping, Lilly tiptoed into her own room and finally remembered to check her voicemail.

  “Hi, Lilly. This is Harry. I just wanted to tell you that Alice stood me up for dinner. I don’t want to talk about it, so I thought I’d tell you now so that you don’t ask any questions about it tomorrow at work. See you in the morning.”

  His voice sounded raspy and tired. Lilly knew he had shed tears that evening, too.

  This had been the worst Valentine’s Day ever.

  The next morning Laurel begged to stay home from school, but Lilly refused to let her give in to her emotions.

  “You go into school with your head held high and you don’t even look at Nick,” she told Laurel. “Find Vanessa and Karley and Bella and the three of you hang out together. Eat lunch with them today.”

  Laurel’s eyes were red and puffy from crying that morning, but she put on some makeup and went to school with a scowl. “I hate Nick,” were the last words she uttered before walking out the door.

  Lilly didn’t like to see Laurel upset when she left for school, but angry was better than sad under the circumstances.

  Now to face Harry, she thought. It was going to be awkward with his unspoken catastrophe hanging over them at work, but she supposed they could both be professional about it.

  Harry looked terrible. He obviously hadn’t slept at all the night before, and it looked like he might not have showered that morning, either.

  “G’morning, Harry.” He had gotten to the shop before her and it looked like he had stopped for fast food and was already on his second cup of coffee, judging from the detritus on one of the display cases.

  “Morning.”

  “Thanks for getting the displays set up already.”

  “Welcome.”

  She couldn’t think of anything else to say, so she went back to her office. She left the door open and could see Harry moping around the front of the shop as if his shoes and his heart were filled with lead. She couldn’t bear to see him like that.

  When she went to the front of the shop to unlock the front door, he was standing still, staring out the front window as if in a trance.

  “Harry? You okay?”

  He closed his eyes and shook his head like he was clearing the cobwebs. “Yeah. Sorry, boss. I just hope we get a lot of customers in here today.”

  Lilly didn’t have the heart to tell him that the day after Valentine’s Day was always one of the slowest days of the year, since people had spent so much money on Valentine’s Day gifts. He would figure it out for himself soon enough, anyway.

  There were a few stragglers who came into the shop to browse during the day, but it wasn’t until late afternoon that two people came in and caused Lilly and Harry to take special notice.

  They were police officers, dressed in uniform and clearly not there to look at jewelry.

  Lilly walked up to them. “Can I help you, officers?”

  “We’re looking for Harry Montrose.”

  Harry, who had been standing off to the side, stepped forward. “I’m Harry Montrose. Is something wrong?”

  “Mister Montrose, do you know an Alice Davenport?” one of the officers asked.

  Harry glanced sideways at Lilly, who glanced sideways at him. “Yes,” he said, a little bit of hesitation in his voice. “Is she all right?”

  “That’s what we need to find out, sir. Her family has reported her missing.”

  “Missing?” Harry spoke the word as if it were unfamiliar to him, as if he didn’t understand its meaning.

  “Yes, sir. We understand that you were supposed to have dinner with her last night. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did you have dinner with her?” the officer asked.

  “No. She stood me up,” Harry replied. He still seemed to be utterly confused by what the policemen were saying.

  “So she did not meet you for dinner?”

  “No.”

  “Were you supposed to pick her up?” the officer continued.

  “No. She was going to meet me at Treetops.”

  The first officer nodded to the second, who wrote something down in a notebook. “We’ll have to confirm that with the restaurant.”

  “Are you saying that no one knows where she is?” Harry asked. It seemed like the situation was finally beginning to dawn on him.

  “Her family doesn’t know, so they filed a Missing Person report. Do you know where she is?” the officer asked. He seemed to be doing most of the talking.

  “No. I don’t know. I called her to see if she had forgotten our dinner, but her phone went right to voicemail.”

  The officer nodded to the partner again. “Let’s get the phone records, too.”

  “Check my phone records?” Harry asked.

  “Yes, sir. We’ll also be checking Miss Davenport’s phone records.”

  “Am I in trouble?” Harry asked. “I don’t know where Alice is.” His eyes widened as the realization finally hit that the police were questioning him in connection with a missing person.

  The officers chose to ignore his question and instead the first officer asked more of his own. “Do you know where she might have gone? Do you know of any other plans she may have had last night?”

  Harry shook his head. “As far as I know, she was going to spend the entire evening with me.” He paused. “I was going to propose to her.”

  Lilly winced inwardly, thinking that Harry probably shouldn’t have offered that information.

  She was right. The officer pounced on it.

  “So you were going to ask her to marry you and she didn’t show up. You must have been upset. What did you do when she didn’t show?”

  It was obvious that Harry immediately recognized his mistake in telling the police about the proposal. He closed his eyes and ran a hand over his forehead.

  “I went home,” he said dully.

  “Do you live with anyone?”

  “No. I live alone.”

  “Can anyone confirm that you went home after Miss Davenport didn’t show?”

  Harry shook his head. His eyes wore a frantic look. L
illy supposed his feelings were at war with themselves. For one thing, he must have been worried about Alice’s whereabouts. He also might be feeling just a little bit of relief that he might not actually have been stood up. And finally, he must be afraid that the police wondered whether he had something to do with her disappearance.

  Harry finally looked at Lilly. “Should I call a lawyer?”

  Lilly watched the police officers exchange glances. “Probably,” she said quietly.

  “I don’t know any lawyers.” His voice was becoming higher and more strained.

  “I’ll call my lawyer,” Lilly said in a soothing tone. “She’s good.”

  Chapter 12

  Harry nodded. “What else can I tell you to help find Alice?” he asked the policemen.

  Then, without waiting for a response, he continued talking. “I can’t believe this. I don’t know where she could be.” He raked his hands over his face. “Now I’m sorry I was upset with her for standing me up. What if she’s in trouble somewhere? What if her car broke down and she’s stuck in snow? What if her phone is dead and she can’t call for help?” His voice rose with every “what if” until he had to stop and take a deep breath. The officers were just watching him, not saying a word.

  “The first thing you need to do is try to calm down, Harry,” Lilly said gently. “I know that’s easier said than done, but you won’t be any help to anyone if you’re so upset you can’t think straight.”

  He nodded and took another deep breath.

  Finally the first officer spoke. “Okay. Now you need to concentrate, Mister Montrose. Do you remember Alice telling you anything about what she was doing yesterday? Was she going to school? Was she staying home? Anything at all that you can remember?”

  Harry looked up as he thought.

  “I can’t even think straight,” he said finally.

  “That’s okay. If she told you anything, it’ll come to you. Just give it some time.”

  Harry snapped his fingers. “Wait. I remember now. She told me she had a class and then she was going to the library on campus to study for her midterms. I don’t think she said where she was going after that.”

  “That’s a good start. We’ll check with her professor to see if she was in class yesterday. And maybe there are security cameras at the library, so we can find out if she went there afterward.”

  “What should I do?” Harry asked.

  “Try to think of anything else she might have told you,” the officer said. “And stay local.” With that, he and his partner left. Harry pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and called Alice’s parents. Lilly couldn’t hear what they were saying to Harry, but she wondered why they hadn’t called him to ask if he knew where Alice was before contacting the police.

  Finally Harry hung up and heaved a long sigh. “Alice’s mother is a piece of work,” he said, shaking his head. He didn’t elaborate and Lilly didn’t ask.

  She did, though, decide to give voice to her thoughts. “Why didn’t her family call you before they called the police?”

  Harry looked sheepish. “I don’t know them very well. I’ve only met them once or twice, and it was quick both times. Alice says they’re very strict and don’t approve of our age difference, which is five years, so she doesn’t want them to know the extent of our relationship. They didn’t have my phone number.”

  “But you have theirs?”

  “Yes. Alice gave it to me once in case I couldn’t get in touch with her.”

  “So why didn’t you call them when she didn’t show up last night?” Lilly knew she sounded nosy, but she also knew the police would be contacting him again to ask those same questions.

  “And tell them she stood me up? No, that would have been embarrassing. Plus, like I said, she’s trying to keep our relationship off their radar.”

  “But they obviously know about you, since they knew where to send the police to look for you.”

  Harry sighed again. “It’s complicated. They know about me, of course. But they only know the basics, like how old I am and where I live and where I work.”

  Lilly nodded, grateful once again for her warm relationship with Hassan’s parents. She and Hassan were older, of course, but even her white skin and her Christianity didn’t matter to his parents. They were open and welcoming to her.

  It was then she remembered Hassan was supposed to visit the shop to see her Valentine’s Day gift for him. She texted him, asking him not to come and promising to explain later.

  “I’ll call Bill and see if there’s anything he can tell me,” Lilly said. “Do you want to come over and have dinner at my house? It’s just me tonight. Laurel is watching a play practice at school.”

  Harry thought for a moment. “Thanks, Lilly, but I think I’d rather just be by myself tonight. I need to think this through. I mean, what if she left because she suspected I was going to propose and she couldn’t handle the pressure?”

  “I don’t know Alice all that well,” said Lilly. “But she doesn’t really seem like the type to be scared off by much. She’s sweet, but she’s strong, you know?”

  Harry nodded. “That’s what I love about her, among all the other things.”

  Lilly put her hand on his arm. “You could probably use some rest, Harry.”

  “I know. I didn’t sleep at all last night because I was so upset. I have a feeling it’ll be more of the same tonight.” His shoulders were slumped and his eyes were bloodshot. He really needed sleep.

  “Don’t bother coming in tomorrow if you feel like you’d rather sleep,” Lilly told him. “I can manage just fine here.”

  “Thanks, boss. But I think coming to work will be good for me. I’ll call you if I hear anything or if I decide to sleep in tomorrow morning.”

  “Okay, Harry.” After putting away all the jewelry, they left the shop through the door in the back office and each drove off in separate directions.

  Once Lilly got home she called Bill.

  “I know why you’re calling,” he said in greeting.

  “Alice?” she asked.

  There was a momentary silence, then Bill spoke. “No. I meant Mom.”

  It was Lilly’s turn for silence. She gripped the phone a little harder. “What about Mom?”

  “She wandered off today.”

  “Is she back home? How did that happen? Where was Nikki?”

  “She’s back home. She left when Nikki ran upstairs to make the bed,” Bill said. “We’re going to have to do something. Maybe something as simple as telling Nikki not to bother with any work around the house. Her whole job needs to be to keep an eye on Mom.”

  “You’re right. Nikki doesn’t need to be doing those things, anyway. That’s not why she’s there.”

  “She just does them to be helpful.” Bill said.

  “I know. I’m not blaming her. I’ll just talk to her and tell her that I can do those things. I’ll just make a stop over there before or after work each day and do a little light housework.” Just what I need in my life, thought Lilly. More stuff to do.

  “I can help you,” Bill said. “We can split the work. That house doesn’t get very dirty.”

  “Let me call Nikki right now. I’ll call you back after I’ve talked to her.” Lilly hung up and called her mother’s house.

  “I’m so sorry about your mother wandering off this morning,” Nikki said when she answered the phone. “I should have known better than to leave her alone downstairs.”

  “That’s why I’m calling. Bill and I want you to know that we don’t blame you for anything. But we think you should probably just stick to Mom like glue from now on. Let us worry about doing the dishes and making beds and cleaning the house.”

  “That sounds like a good plan,” Nikki said. “I’d love to help her out around the house, but I agree that she can’t be left alone.”

  “How’s she doing this evening?”

  “She’s in a great mood,” Nikki replied. “We’re watching a game show and she knows most of the answer
s. She amazes me.”

  Lilly chuckled. “She’s a trivia queen. How her mind can be so full of useless information but not realize where she is when she leaves the house is beyond me.”

  “Speaking of leaving the house, I’m a little concerned about her going out when I leave for the night. I think I’ll stay tonight, if that’s all right with you.”

  “That would be great. But the alarm is on at night, isn’t it?”

  “It is, but what if she opened the door to leave, the alarm went off, and she ran off because she was spooked? There’s no telling where she might go. That’s the scenario I’m worried about.”

  “You’re right. Feel free to stay whenever you want. And thanks, Nikki. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  They hung up and Lilly called Bill back.

  “Everything’s straightened out. Nikki is going to make Mom her only priority and she’ll stay there tonight. You and I are the new cleaning crew.”

  “That’s okay. Thanks for calling. I feel much better knowing Nikki is not going to let Mom out of her sight.”

  “Me, too.” Lilly said.

  “Why did you call me earlier?”

  “Oh. Once you told me Mom went missing, that’s all I could think about. The police came to the shop today to talk to Harry about his girlfriend, Alice. No one knows where she is. She stood him up last night for dinner and no one has talked to her since then. Well, at least Harry and her parents haven’t talked to her. I was wondering if you know anything about it.”

  “I haven’t heard anything, but I’ll check around.”

  “Thanks.”

  Once Laurel came home, Lilly went to bed, exhausted. The last thing she did before falling asleep was to call Hassan. She explained everything that was going on with her mother and Alice and apologized for not giving him his Valentine’s Day gift.

  “I told you, just being here in Juniper Junction with you is enough of a gift for me,” he said.

  How did I get so lucky? she wondered as she drifted off.