The Double Wedding Ring (15 page)

I
t was after nine o'clock when Jesse came home. Allie was asleep, and I was worried and furious. I took comfort in two things: he was safe and he was alone. I wasn't going to have to listen to another round of “Nell's not good enough.” I had as much of that as I could stand.

As soon as Jesse walked in the house, Greg stood up from his place on the couch and excused himself with a quick, “See you tomorrow, Chief.” He seemed anxious to get out from under what must have seemed like the beginning of an argument.

Jesse didn't ask why Greg was there. He just let him leave and turned his focus on me. “I'm sorry,” he said as his first words.

“You're darn right you are.” I had to shout in a whisper so I wouldn't wake Allie. “Where have you been all this time? I called your cell about a dozen times.”

“It's been a tough day.” He dropped onto the couch. “I know you're mad and you have every right to be, but sit with me a minute and then yell.”

Reluctantly, I sat. “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine. How's Allie?”

“She's great. Where were you?”

I wanted to give him a rundown on everything that had happened that evening, and I wanted to withhold it as well. Now that I knew he was alive, I resented the fact that he hadn't been here to keep Allie and me safe.

“How was your day?” he asked. There was no interest in the question. He was asking it to avoid answering me. I decided to ignore it.

“Where's your houseguest?”

“Anna's business partner came into town today. He's staying at the bed and breakfast. She went over there with him.”

“For the night?”

“No. I don't think so anyway. She went to help him get settled in. She'll be home in a while, I guess.”

“Is she, I mean, are they a couple?” I remembered what Greg had said earlier about the man, but I didn't know if he was certain or just guessing.

“I think so. He rushed up to be with her, which is a lot for someone who's just a business partner. Anna hasn't said anything, but I mean, why not? She and Roger have been apart for a while.”

It didn't seem to occur to Jesse that the “business partner” was the reason for the separation. If he had one blind spot, it was in his loyalty to his friends. It sometimes didn't allow him to see faults that were so obvious to others.

“Were you at the cemetery this whole time?” I asked.

He put his hand on my cheek and brushed back my hair. His eyes were watery and soft. “No. Just a few minutes. It's freezing out there. We brought some flowers and left them there. I never go. It seems maudlin to bring Allie and I don't know . . .” He trailed off for a moment before speaking again. “After the cemetery, Anna met up with the guy, Ken something, Ken Tremayne, and they went to get some food. I had some work back at the station, and then I took a drive. I didn't realize I was out of cell range. If you drive north on the back roads it gets spotty.”

“Why did you go for a drive?”

“I had to think. I'm sorry I left you with Allie all this time. I'm sure you had a million things to do.”

“I love spending time with Allie,” I said, “but I don't like what's going on with you. It isn't like you to promise to be home in an hour but not come home, or call, for nearly six hours. You scared me half to death.”

“I know. I am sorry. You don't know how happy I am to come home to you.” Jesse kissed my neck, and slowly moved his hand from his lap to my thigh.

“Not if your life depended on it.”

He laughed. “I am a terrible boyfriend and a worse father.”

“You are not, on either count. You're in the middle of a difficult time, so you get to have a bad day here and there. I know you don't want me to help, but do you want me to listen?”

As I spoke I wondered if I'd put Maggie's notes back in the tote bag, and felt relieved when I remembered that I had. The binder was still next to the computer, but that was all wedding-related stuff.

“The investigation is at a standstill. I still have no idea what Roger came up here to do, or why he was killed trying to do it.”

“It obviously has to do with Bob Marshall. He . . .”

Jesse pulled away from me. “Nell . . .”

“Don't ‘Nell' me. I'm an objective ear, a logical, interested person you can talk to. Someone completely on your side, who will love you no matter what. You can say anything about your past, about Roger's past, and I will be a sounding board you can trust,” I said. “Tell me you don't need that.”

I sat and waited while Jesse considered my offer. I didn't know how much he knew about Marshall's conviction and the missing five hundred thousand, but it was hard to believe he knew nothing. Still, it had happened in the last months of Lizzie's life and just after her death. Jesse would have been too preoccupied to care much about the goings-on of his former colleagues in New York.

“I don't want to talk about it,” he said. “It doesn't have anything to do with us.”

“But it does.” I took a deep breath, then told him about my encounter with Marshall earlier in the evening, and the fact that because I couldn't reach him, I'd called Greg.

Jesse leapt off the couch and checked his cell phone. “Four messages. I'm so sorry. I just . . . I have no explanation. I can't believe I put you in this position.”

“Why does Bob Marshall want to talk to me?”

“I don't know.”

“Jesse . . .”

“I don't know, Nell. I swear to you. Look, Marshall's not going to hurt you, but you have to promise me that you'll stay away from him.”

“I can promise that, Jesse. What I can't promise is that he'll stay away from me. It's time you and I talked, and told each other everything.”

Jesse put his hands to his face and rubbed his eyes. “Not tonight,” he said. “I just want a peaceful night tonight, but what do you say we pick up here tomorrow?”

He took my hand and led me upstairs, a comforting and familiar exercise. Except this time the other hand was on his gun.

W
e all have a past. In the sixteen months I'd lived in Archers Rest I'd uncovered things about my grandmother, my friends in the quilt group, even myself. But now Jesse's past and our future were bumping up against each other. It seemed only one of them could win, and I wasn't sure it would be us.

As he checked the doors, windows, and who knows what else, to make sure everything was locked, I called Eleanor.

“You didn't tell Mom and Dad about Allie's call, did you?”

“They were having dinner in town,” she said. “But if there's a reason to be concerned I can't keep it from them.”

“I don't know if there is, but let's just wait and see.”

“Okay.” I could hear the hesitation in her voice, and I hated that anything was worrying her when she should be focusing on her own happiness.

“Were you at the quilt group when Allie called?”

“I didn't make quilt group. Oliver's daughter arrived from Canada this afternoon, so they came over for coffee. They were just walking out the door when my cell phone rang.”

As glad as I was that Eleanor had been there to talk to Allie, I was sorry another member had missed the group meeting. “Did you give Maggie the key to the shop so they could still meet?”

“I didn't have to. Carrie ended up having to go home to a sick child and Susanne was on deadline for a quilt show she entered. Poor Maggie. She said she didn't think it was much of a group to sit in the classroom alone.”

“We'll get less busy after the wedding,” I said, then I remembered that Eleanor would likely be leaving soon after. “I'll see you at work tomorrow?”

“You bet. We have lots to do. I can't wait to show you something.”

Jesse walked into the bedroom, put his gun in the nightstand drawer, and dropped onto the bed. I said my good night to Eleanor, though a big part of me wanted to stay on the phone and find out what it was she couldn't wait to share.

“All locked up tight?” I asked Jesse after I hung up the phone.

He nodded. “I don't want you to be afraid. Nothing will happen to you. I promise.”

“What were you thinking about when you went on that drive?”

His smile was sad. “Nothing.”

“That's not true.” I settled back on the pillow and waited.

“I was thinking about Roger. He was the funniest guy in any room.” He laughed a little. “I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm kind of a serious guy. . . .”

“Really?” I smiled. “You hide it well.”

He rolled his eyes. “Roger was my opposite. I was careful; he was willing to take chances. He saved lives because he went in without backup. I just wouldn't do that,” he said. “I don't know why we became friends, really, but we were friends. And then Lizzie and Anna became friends, and we were like this mighty foursome, together every weekend. When Allie was born, we made Roger and Anna her godparents. And when Lizzie got sick . . .” His voice trailed off. “Roger was there for me in so many ways I couldn't even count them.”

“So why did you stop speaking?”

“Because, I guess, after I lost Lizzie I got even more careful. Roger just seemed reckless to me. It wasn't fair of me. He was a guy who wanted to do the right thing. He just did it differently than I did.”

“Did he have anything to do with the five hundred thousand that was stolen from a drug dealer in New York?”

Jesse looked at me hard and shook his head. “I should have known better than to expect you to stay out of it.” He looked away, stared off into the distance, and I couldn't tell if he was angry or not.

“Jesse, I'm in it. Roger told Carrie that your girlfriend better like heartbreak. Those bullets were aimed directly at Someday Quilts. Bob Marshall came into the shop today for something more than just a gift for his sister. And tonight he was here looking for me. Not for you, for me. He knew exactly where I would be and that I was alone with Allie. You can be mad that you're dating a busybody, but in this case, I'm not sticking my nose where it doesn't belong. This is my life we're talking about, so it is my business.”

He didn't look at me, but he nodded. It wasn't me he was angry at, I could tell that much, it was himself.

“I think there's something about Roger that you're not telling me,” I said.

“I just told you everything you need to know.” He was shutting down, physically and emotionally. He seemed on the verge of collapse. There was no point in trying for more information tonight.

“Sleep,” I said.

“Yes, please.”

We got under the covers and curled into each other's arms. Despite the warmth of his body wrapped around me, I felt a chill.

“You need a quilt,” I said, trying to mend fences.

“My girlfriend must not like me enough to make me one.”

“She likes you plenty.”

He rested his head against mine, and within minutes he was asleep. But I lay there, wide awake, listening for every noise. Just as I started to drift off, I heard one. The door was opening downstairs.

I listened. The person was moving around downstairs, opening cabinets and drawers. Not making a lot of noise, but hardly doing anything to avoid being detected. Anna.

I got out of bed carefully so as not to wake Jesse, grabbed his sweatshirt to keep out the cold, and went downstairs. The light was on in the kitchen, and I could hear more opening and closing of drawers. At this rate she would have inspected every one of them.

“Can I help you find something?” I asked as I walked into the room.

She looked up. “I didn't mean to wake anyone.”

I glanced into the drawer she had open. It was the catchall, with everything from batteries to pizza coupons. “What are you looking for?”

“Matches.”

“Do you smoke?”

She plopped down on one of the kitchen chairs and let out a heavy sigh. “I wanted to light a candle. I thought I might take a bath, and it's more soothing by candlelight.”

I searched through the drawer until I found a book of matches. “Do you have a candle?”

She grabbed a large white-and-pink-striped pillar candle from behind her purse. “I bought one at this cute little store. I can't remember the name, let me find the receipt.”

She grabbed her purse and started fishing through it, placing things on the kitchen table as she searched. Women's purses, including my own, are like clown cars. We fit far more into them than it would seem possible. Anna's purse had a wallet, tissues, a set of house keys, her cell phone, two more sets of identical house keys, a business card holder, and a handful of change from the bottom. I wondered why she didn't just turn over her purse and dump it. It would have been faster. Finally she fished out the receipt.

“Burke's,” she said. “Do you know it?”

“I do.” Burke's was exactly what she had described, a cute little store that sold the kind of knickknacks that no one needs but for some reason, once you see them, you can't live without. “We had a visitor. Bob Marshall stopped by.”

She blinked a few times, slightly bit the side of her lip. “What did he want?”

“You know him?”

“He was on the job with Roger. I barely knew him but, you know, weddings and funerals, that sort of thing. He must have wanted to offer his condolences.”

There was no surprise that he was in town, no questions about how he had known to come to Jesse's house. And she'd assumed he had been there to speak to her. Maybe he had been, and when he found me alone, he decided to scare me instead, perhaps to throw me off guard. And then there was the fact that Bob knew a lot about me. Maybe Anna was his source, and his partner in killing Roger and shooting at Jesse. Whatever the case, I wouldn't get the answer from Anna.

I yawned. “I need to go back to bed.”

“You're spending the night?”

I almost answered, then paused. I knew what I wanted to say, but Eleanor's voice in my head suggested I keep my smart remarks to myself. “Enjoy your bath, Anna.”