Worst Laid Plans (A Maddox Storm Mystery Book 1) (2 page)

“Rain check?” I was dying to meet the new man in Jenna’s life, but I didn’t want to buzz kill their second (or was it third?) date. “I’ll be around for a while.”

“Did Joe come up with you?”

“No,” I said, a little too sharply.

Jenna never missed a thing. “Everything okay?”

“Not really,” I sighed.

“That’s it,” Jenna declared. “I’ll ditch Jack and—”

“No, don’t,” I said quickly. “I’d like to at least meet the poor guy before you blow him off and seriously, Jenna, I’m just going to crash early. It’s been a long day.”

It had been a long week.

“Oh, of course,” Jenna said, clearly thinking I’d just driven all the way up from New York.

I hadn’t. I’d been staying at a motel outside Syracuse these last two days, but I didn’t correct her.

We arranged to catch up over breakfast the next morning. When Jenna suggested the Silver Boat, a diner on the edge of town, I slyly countered with The Terrace at Hollow House to ease the cat halfway out the bag.

“Ha ha,” she snorted, with good reason.

Rumor had it the famous (around here, anyway) terrace restaurant had been closed since the French cordon bleu chef had departed in a snit last year. We couldn’t know for sure, since the restaurant had never been open for day traffic. No one was allowed past the reception desk at Hollow House unless you checked in for the night and the going rate was exorbitant.

“Did you hear,” Jenna went on, “George Hollow went to Little & Little in Syracuse, looking for outside capital? He probably wanted to do it on the hush hush, but how did he not know Miss Crawley’s niece works as a legal secretary for the brokerage firm?”

“Yeah, my mom mentioned something about it,” I said vaguely. “Anyway, I’m staying at Hollow House. I can’t promise you French cuisine, but I’ll see what I can do about breakfasting on the terrace. See you at about seven?”

“Wait… Back up. Say what?”

“I’ll explain everything tomorrow.”

“Don’t I get a hint?”

It wasn’t really a hint kind of thing, but that didn’t stop Jenna from making up her own hints as I cruised down the valley road.

“Your house has termites.”

“You’ve had another fight with your mom.”

“You’re down here for a dirty weekend with a delicious co-star.”

“No, no, and hell no.” I slowed down for the Brewer intersection on the edge of town. “Stop obsessing. Everything’s fine, I just needed my own space. Have fun with Jack and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I ended the call and turned inland from the lake to skirt the town square, a pretty green that backed up onto the restaurants and quaint shops of the tourist zone. On the opposite end of the lawn stood the white-washed town hall that housed the mayor’s offices, the small library and even smaller police station.

The weather was unseasonably warm for this early in spring and folks were taking advantage of it before the sun blinked out completely for the day. An impromptu baseball game was in play, a handful of parents chatting or texting as they fielded, while their little tigers and tigresses exhausted their energy with an impressive record of home runs. The Blue Rinse Ladies were taking their evening turn around the green; I was surprised to see Beatrix Salmer without her walker.

The bandstand in the middle of the green drew my attention and a wave of nostalgia swept over me at the memory of my first kiss on a wintry evening. Snuggling up to Billy Dover with his coat wrapped around us both and a million diamonds twinkling down on us from a crisp black sky. The kiss had been a horrid mess, but everything else had been quite romantic.

I shook off the nostalgic feeling at my little detour down memory lane. Stupid. I’d been back for plenty of visits since I’d left. But I guess this was the first time I’d returned home with the intention of staying a while. Maybe the first time I’d allowed myself to admit how much I’d missed the place.

I’d never wanted to leave Silver Firs.

Not really.

I’d even taken an on-line drama course after graduation. But the community theatre that leased the Presbyterian Church hall on Thursday evenings wasn’t going to launch my name in bright lights and that was the only showbiz in town. So I’d jumped onto a bus and chased my dreams. To Broadway, not Hollywood. They say cameras put on ten pounds and who needed that?

Anyway, I’d bussed tables at Caffe Laffe, attended proper acting classes and auditioned until my feet stained the streets of New York City.

Then one day Joseph McMurphy walked into my coffee shop, sandy hair flopping all over his cute puppy-dog face. I was struck, there and then. My heart stopped dead and never beat quite right again after that.

Back then, Joe was still a professor of English Lit although if you asked, he’d tell you he was a struggling writer. It took three weeks of dating and half a bottle of cheap whiskey before he’d finally admitted he had a legitimate job that paid the rent.

Six months later, we were married and I’d moved into his two-bedroom rent stabilized apartment. The year that followed had been utter bliss. We could do no wrong. Joe’s crime thriller got noticed and went to auction on a three-book deal. I landed a part on Broadway, a dramatic play called The Rambler about an abused husband, although the star of the show was his shrewish wife. I was only the understudy to Chintilly Swan, but she played the lead role and it was my first paying gig.

And then…

And then I walked in on Joe and Chintilly in her dressing room after that backstage party last Friday night and
Ka-Boom!

So there it was, more than you ever wanted to know about me.

And here I was, my life packed up into a lumpy suitcase, my heart a barren wasteland and dry as a bone.

That wasn’t me being my usual dramatic self.

I actually hadn’t shed a single tear, not once since Friday night.

There was obviously something seriously wrong with me, but I wasn’t looking to fix it anytime soon. If I could make it through the rest of my life without crying a single tear over Joseph McMurphy, that would be better than chili corn dogs dipped in vanilla ice cream.

I spotted my dad as I pulled up beside the curb outside our house. He was kneeled over a bed of churned ground, probably whispering sweet nothings to the bulbs he’d planted last autumn. He didn’t have a green thumb, but you had to give him a big thumb’s up for perseverance.

He glanced over, saw me stepping onto the sidewalk, and slowly pushed up from his knees. The worry creasing wrinkles around his eyes and his crumpled smile told me he knew exactly how bad my life sucked.

Without a word, I walked into his wide open arms and pressed my cheek into the comforting hollow of his shoulder.

He patted my back, his voice gruff, “I’m going to kill that Joe of yours.”

“Oh, daddy,” I said with a ragged laugh. “And here I thought not even you could make it better this time. But…”

I stood back to give him a warning look, because one could never be too sure when it came to Dad getting all protective over his baby girl. “You do know you can’t actually kill Joe? And you can’t kill Chintilly Swan either,” I thought it wise to add.

He tipped his head, scratching his beard. “What’s your co-star got to do with this?”

“I’m the understudy, Chintilly’s the star,” I explained for about the hundredth time. “I only get to go onstage if she’s run over by a bus.”

“Sounds like a co-star to me,” he insisted stubbornly.

I don’t know why I bothered. Besides, that wasn’t the part about Chintilly that needed explaining right now.

I folded my arms and grimaced. “She’s the one Joe’s having an affair with.”

“Sweet Mary.” The tan slid off my dad’s leathery face. “Joe’s having…” his voice dropped and I swear he aged a couple of years before my eyes “…an affair?”

Oh, okay… Crap! This was precisely the problem with small towns. You automatically assumed everyone knew everything and the next moment, everyone
did
know everything.

“I don’t understand.” I gnawed my lower lip, my voice growing squeaky as panic set in. “You said you’d kill him. Why would you want to kill Joe if you didn’t know?”

“He phoned here last night, looking for you,” Dad said. “Your mother talked him in circles until he finally confessed you’d left him. He didn’t say why and it didn’t matter. Whatever he’d done was bad enough to chase you off.”

“Well, that it certainly was.”

“Come here.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and we walked up the path. “Maybe it would be better if we kept this to ourselves, huh? Your mother doesn’t need all the gory details.”

I nodded and my spirit lifted for the fraction of a second it took me to remember that this was dad. He meant well, but the last time he’d kept a secret for more than two minutes was, like…never.

The rest of the evening proceeded pretty much as I’d feared it would.

Mom was impeccably attired, as always, in a flared daisy-print skirt and chintz blouse, modest two-inch heel pumps and an elegantly coiffed bun.

She took one look at Dad’s knee-soiled trousers and ordered him upstairs to change for dinner. She looked set to do the same to me, but finally only huffed a small sigh of disappointment and greeted me with a peck on the cheek.

I glanced down at my over-sized tee, faded jeans and beaded flip-flops as I followed her into the kitchen and kind of saw her point. But my tee hid the multitude of sins I’d indulged in this past week and the jeans were my favorite pair.

“You know, honey,” Mom said as she took the hotpot out the oven. “Marriage is all about compromise. Give and take.”

“Hmm…” I rummaged through the drawers for place mats and cutlery.

“Bless your father, but it’s a woman’s lot in life to give a little more and let men do the taking. It’s in our nature.”

I thought of how much Chintilly had been giving out and couldn’t disagree, so I bit my tongue and set three places at the pine kitchen table before plonking my butt into my usual seat.

The landline trilled in the hallway.

My eyes widened on Mom. “If that’s Joe, I’m not here and you haven’t seen me.”

“That’s not the way to handle it.” She stripped her oven gloves and started for the door. “You can’t resolve anything until you talk it out.”

“Mom!”

The trilling cut off to the sound of Dad’s voice as he answered.

Mom turned back to me. “The problem with you kids nowadays is you’re too stubborn and proud to just have it out. A good old fashioned fight is like a colon cleanse, unpleasant but it does wonders for unclogging the marriage pipeworks.”

“Now there’s a picture I’ll never be able to un-see.”

Mom gave me a nonplussed look that made me wonder what pipeworks she thought she’d been talking about. Curiosity got the better of me and I was about to ask when Dad popped into the kitchen, freshly spruced in a pair of clean brown corduroys and a blue and white checkered shirt.

“That’s Miss Crawley on the phone, dear,” he told Mom. “She wants to know if you’ll be skipping Bridge Club tonight on account of Maddie’s unexpected visit.”

“The nosy bat.” Mom’s hands went to her hips. “You can tell Miss Crawley I won’t be coming, but I’ve already made the lemon meringue pie so she may as well stop by to collect it on her way. Not before seven, mind you, it won’t be set till then. And while you’re at it, you tell Miss Crawley she needn’t get any ideas about—” she noticed Dad had zoned out and threw her hands up. “Never mind, I’ll go tell her myself.”

She arched a brow at me, as if to say
See, I give and give and never expect any help in return
and marched out into the hallway.

Dad came over to the table with a wink and a half-fledged smile. “If we hurry, we can make it through to dessert before your mother gets back. Once those two get started on each other, there’s no stopping them.”

I chuckled at my co-conspirator and dished us each a generous portion of casserole. The tangy aroma of salsa hit my nostrils. My mouth watered and I grinned at Dad as we tucked in. Who said you couldn’t eat your troubles away?

I was considering the pros and cons of a second-helping versus dessert when Mom returned.

“That was quick, dear,” Dad mumbled around his final mouthful.

“I don’t have time to blabber with Miss Crawley when our poor Maddox is falling to pieces,” Mom said primly.

I pushed my plate aside and opted for a drastic change in subject matter. “What happened to Beatrix Salmer’s bad hip?”

Mom snorted. “The silly goose only went and got a hip replacement.”

“That doesn’t sound silly at all,” I said. “Life doesn’t end at the age of seventy.”

“But it is an indecent age to start new fashion trends.” Mom served herself a bird-like portion of chicken sans any layers of rice. “It won’t be long before they’re all prancing around like spritely teenagers and then where will we be?” She gave a little shudder and raised a dainty forkful of chicken to her lips.

I didn’t point out that I’d been a teenager not all that long ago and I’d never have been caught dead in a sprightly prance. “Last I heard, hip replacements weren’t contagious.”