Flirting With Pete: A Novel (43 page)

“She can’t still be there,” Casey said, because the days of endless hospitalizations, even for suicidal patients, were long gone.

“No. She stayed for three months. She had intensive one-on-one therapy, and when she was stable, they added group therapy to the schedule. She’s a bright woman. She’s a
strong
woman. She came along really well. Like I said, fear of Darden has been the hardest part of her recovery.”

“If the fear remains, how could she handle leaving the hospital?” Casey asked.

He smiled gently. “I wish I could say there was a great psychotherapeutic breakthrough, but the change was pretty circumstantial. I sent local papers to the hospital, so she was able to read about her death and the funeral that Darden put on. Time passed, and he didn’t come after her. That gave her courage. Then she changed her looks.”

Casey took in a sharp breath. “I
liked
her looks,” she said, though the words were no sooner out when the therapist took over. “But she didn’t. She must have felt they were a beacon. Covering up all that red with hair dye would be easy. But the freckles?”

“Dermatologists have remarkable techniques at their disposal. Her freckles aren’t completely gone, but the shadows that remain are easily covered with makeup. And the scars on her legs are visible only if you go looking for them. She felt better when those things were done. When she was discharged from the hospital, she went to a halfway house not far from there. She continued seeing her therapist and worked part-time at a diner. It was the perfect job for her. She was in the kitchen cooking, so she wasn’t visible to the public. By the end of the year, when Darden hadn’t come after her, she was ready to move on.”

“Where did she go?”

Wearing an indulgent look and a small, expectant smile, Jordan sat back.

It took Casey all of one minute to come up with the answer. Then she put a hand to her chest and cried a soft, astonished, “Meg?”

He nodded. “Jenny thought Meg Ryan was cute and lovable and funny, all the things she wanted to be, so she chose that name.”

“Meg?
My
Meg?” Right under her nose, and she hadn’t guessed. But it made total sense— hair so dark and auburn that it could have been dyed, skin that was pale, even the limited scope of Meg Henry’s world and the simplicity of her enthusiasm. There was her jumpiness at sudden sounds, and the poker she had been carrying that first day. She hadn’t been cleaning the fireplace— she had been frightened that Darden had found her out. And
then
there were the questions Meg asked, questions that came a bit too fast, seemed a bit too odd.
Did you ever wish you had dark hair? Do you like your freckles? Do you worry about your biological clock? Do you have a boyfriend?
Meg Henry wasn’t all that much more socially adept than Jenny Clyde.

“My Meg,” Casey repeated, embarrassed that she hadn’t seen then what seemed so obvious now. “But she hasn’t been my Meg for long,” she reasoned aloud. “Before me, she was Connie’s Meg. Clearly, Connie knew who she was.”

“Yes.”

“Did he hire her for that reason?”

“Yes. His longtime maid was retiring. Jenny knew how to cook, and she knew how to clean. He liked the idea of having her close.”

“Because she’s kin,” Casey said, and addressed another piece of the puzzle. “What’s the connection?”

“Your great-grandparents,” Jordan answered. “Their name was Blinn, and they were from Aroostook County, way north in Maine.”

“Blinn? As in Cornelius B.?”

Jordan nodded. “The senior Blinns had two daughters, Mary and June. The daughters were separated in age by more than a dozen years, and were never close. Mary was the older. She married Frank Unger, moved to Abbott, and gave birth to Connie. Years later, June married a local boy, Howard Picot, and gave birth to Jenny’s mother, MaryBeth. That made Connie and MaryBeth Picot first cousins. MaryBeth met Darden Clyde at a county fair, moved to Walker to marry him, and gave birth to Ethan, who died, and then to Jenny.” He took a breath, let it out. “That makes you and Jenny second cousins.”

Casey might have had trouble repeating the lineage, but she got the key points. Connie and MaryBeth Clyde were first cousins. Casey and Jenny were second cousins. Casey and
Meg
were second cousins. Amazing.

“But Connie was a visible guy,” she said. “Didn’t it occur to Darden that Jenny might take refuge with him?”

Jordan was quietly apologetic. “Connie might have been visible in your circles, but in Walker? They didn’t know the name Unger, and they didn’t know psychology. Besides, Darden thought Jenny was dead.”

Thought. Past tense. Casey didn’t want to think she might have changed that.

Setting the possibility of it aside for now, she said, “Connie hired Jenny, knowing she was his cousin. Did you come to work for him before or after that?”

“Before.”

“You got him to hire her?”

“I told him about her. He hired her himself.”

“How did he come to hire
you
?”

“Daisy’s Mum had been doing his plants for a while. I recognized his name on the roster and started doing the work there myself.”

“Why would
you
recognize the name, and not Darden?”

Jordan’s smile was dry. “I was a cop, and the son of a cop. I grew up hearing the kinds of background information most people never hear. When MaryBeth died and the trial took place, family names were the kind of trivia that we busied ourselves with. So I knew who and what Connie was. Then, when I came here and met him, he and I clicked.”

“Did he know where you were from and what your connection was to Jenny?”

“I told him. He was comfortable with it.”

“And you own the shop,” she said, unable to keep a thread of accusation from her voice.

Jordan nodded. “I bought it when I moved here.”

“From Daisy?”

“She wanted to work there without the responsibility of ownership.”

“You didn’t tell me you owned it.”

“You didn’t ask.”

No. She hadn’t asked. “Why did you buy it?”

“Because I love plants. Because I wanted a steady source of income. Because I needed to put down roots somewhere. Beacon Hill was a good place. Daisy’s Mum was a good fit.”

“But you’re an artist. I saw your work at your parents’ house.” She didn’t tell him she thought it was wonderful. She was still peeved to have been kept so completely in the dark. “How can you do both?”

“I plant by day and paint by night.”

“Where do you paint?”

“I have a studio upstairs.”

“And you sell your things?” In galleries in Boston and New York, his mother said.

“I also do illustrating.”

“Illustrating?”

“Of plants, for things like Audubon publications.”

Casey was thoroughly impressed. “Why didn’t you tell me you painted?”

“You didn’t ask.”

“Did you have to parade as a
gardener?”

“I
am
a gardener,” he said without apology. “I love planting things and helping them grow.”

Casey had a sudden awareness. “The police station in Walker. All those vines. And the roses near the house. You did those!”

He turned hesitant. “The roses aren’t dead?”

“Not at all. The ivy could probably use a pruning.” When he seemed relieved, she asked, “Haven’t you gone home to look?”

“Not lately.” He sat back, the image of resignation. “You met my dad. What do you think?”

Casey smiled. “I adore your mom.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

Diplomatically, she said, “I think that you and your dad are very different people.”

“That’s for sure. He wouldn’t be pleased if he knew my part in Jenny’s escape.”

“Not even all these years later?”

“No. He’s a by-the-rules kind of guy.”

“But Jenny escaped Darden. Wouldn’t he appreciate that?”

Jordan gave a doubtful shrug.

“Did you write the journal?” Casey asked.

“No. Connie did.”

“Connie.”
She hadn’t suspected that. “When? Why?”

“When Jenny— Meg— came to work for him, she was still edgy and unsure. He wanted to help her without actually treating her as a client, so he encouraged her to write out her story, but she wasn’t a writer. She couldn’t fill blank pages. So Connie agreed to do the writing himself if she told him her thoughts. She got into that. Connie may have held the pen, but the words are mostly hers.”

“But you worked with Connie on the section about you.”

“Yes.”

“Did he ever consider having it published?”

“No. He considered it confidential. It was therapeutic for Jenny. Once the whole thing was down on paper, she could let it go.”

Casey understood that. Journaling had come into vogue as a therapeutic tool for just that reason. Still, she was disappointed thinking about the letter C and the note Connie had scrawled. If he had written the journal himself, they might have been notes to himself.

“Did he mean for me to see the journal?” she asked now.

“He never mentioned it to me. But if he left it in his desk, I’d say he did. Connie didn’t do things by chance.”

“He died by chance,” Casey pointed out. “He didn’t plan that. He didn’t have advance warning. It was a sudden, massive heart attack. There was no history of heart problems.”

Coming forward, Jordan put his elbows on his knees, linked his hands, and smiled sadly. “There was, Casey. He had a mild heart attack before I ever knew him, and he hadn’t been feeling well in the months before his death. Ruth knew, although I doubt anyone else did. He put up a good front, then kind of sagged when he got home. I saw him at home, so I knew. He sensed what was coming. He left his affairs neatly arranged.”

Casey felt an odd relief. She did want to think that he had deliberately left the beginning of the journal in his desk drawer for her to find. That did, though, remind her of Jordan’s concern when she had shown up there earlier that evening. Connie had written,
How to help?

She sighed. In a cautious voice, she asked, “Have I messed up bad?”

Jordan didn’t answer— which, as far as she was concerned, was an affirmation loud and clear.

“Meg’s in danger?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know. Darden’s living with another woman now. Maybe he won’t care.”

“Fat chance,” Casey declared. “Pathological people don’t just let go. He’ll come after her if only to let her know that he’s still in charge. He’ll stalk her. He’ll lurk in the shadows. He’ll intimidate her to the point that all the progress she’s made will be reversed.”
She’s kin. How to help?
“She told me she lives on the flat of the hill. Is it a safe place?”

“There’s no doorman, but the front door is locked.”

“Well, that’s lovely,” Casey muttered sarcastically. “He just has to wait nearby until someone else opens the door, then slip in with a smile, saying he’s visiting his daughter. No one’ll suspect that a man his age is a threat. Aeeeyyyy.”

“He won’t get to Meg’s place unless he learns her name. Meg Henry means nothing to him.”

“Casey Ellis does. I introduced myself by name any number of times. I said I was from Boston.”

“The phone book will give him the address of your condo, but there’s nothing to connect the condo with the townhouse, and the townhouse is where Meg works.”

Casey swallowed. She squeezed her eyes shut in a telling way.

Jordan understood. “Ah, Christ,” he murmured.

Without opening her eyes, Casey said, “I gave my business card to the editor of the newspaper. It’s my brand-
new
business card, the one I just did up at Kinko’s with the address of my brand-new office.” She opened her eyes and wailed softly, “I was trying to help. I didn’t know where Little Falls was, so I went looking, and I didn’t know Jenny was supposed to have died”— she stared hard at Jordan—“because I hadn’t been
privy
to the last set of pages.”

“Hey, it’s not
my
fault. I didn’t know he was leaving
any
pages for you to see. When he gave the last chapters to me, I assumed he was breaking the journal up for safekeeping. He never told me I was holding them for you.”

“And I didn’t ask what you had and what you knew,” Casey droned. Bending forward, she pressed her face to her knees. “I wanted to help— I mean,
really
wanted to help. He’d never asked me for anything before. I wanted to do it right.” Sitting up again, she gave Jordan a dismal look. “I have a way of messing things up. I act without thinking. We’re talking mega-impulsive. There I was, up in that luncheonette, asking in a big loud voice how they could be sure Jenny was dead if there was no body. I suggested she might have been carried downstream, gotten out, and walked away. I asked who might have given her haven. When
they
asked if I thought she was still alive, I said yes in my big loud confident voice. So where does that leave us?”

“On alert,” Jordan replied.

“Maybe no one will tell Darden,” she said hopefully, but his expression told her otherwise.

“Talk of your visit will spread around town, but so will talk of Darden going on the warpath. If my dad hears that, he’ll call.”

“Does your father know Jenny’s alive?”

“No. But he knows she was the reason I left. He’ll put two and two together— the timing and all— and he’ll call. For whatever faults I found with his style of law enforcement, I never questioned his smarts.”

“Then we just wait?”

“Not much else to do right now.”

“Do we tell Jenny?”

He thought about that for a minute. “Not yet. There’s no sense in frightening her.”

“She’ll hate me.”

“No. She adores you. Right from the beginning, she was telling me how smart and sweet and
beautiful
you are.” He paused. “I didn’t argue with her.”

Casey felt a melting inside. When he looked at her that way, sexy and knowing, he was her gardener again. But now she knew he was much more— entrepreneur, artist, savior of Jenny Clyde. Casey needed time to process it all.

She looked away. Seconds later, she glanced at her watch. It was nearly eight, still light outside Jordan’s window, but growing mellow as the sun lowered. She felt a sudden urge to be in her garden. She needed the comfort it would give her.