Wind Chime Wedding (A Wind Chime Novel Book 2) Page 13

  “He was running away.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Jimmy scoffed.

  “He was right,” Colin said, shaking his head at the man in front of him in disgust. “He said you wouldn’t even notice.”

  “Christ,” Jimmy said, scrubbing a hand over his puffy face. “I can’t keep tabs on the kid all the time.”

  “He’s your nephew. It’s your responsibility to keep tabs on him when his mother’s at work.”

  Jimmy narrowed his eyes. “How is this any of your business?”

  Colin’s hand shot out, grabbing the front of Jimmy’s shirt. “It became my business as soon as I found him walking along the side of the road this morning.” He pushed the contractor back against the wall, holding him there. “Don’t you even want to know why he was running away?”

  Jimmy said nothing.

  “He overheard the fight last night, the one when you told his mother you wouldn’t go to school with him on Friday.”

  “I’m not his father,” Jimmy spat, struggling to get free.

  “Maybe not,” Colin said, continuing to hold him in place. “But you’re the closest thing he’s got right now.”

  “It’s just a stupid school thing.”

  “You’re going.”

  “I’m—”

  Colin’s hand twisted tighter into his shirt. “You’re going,” he repeated, and there was no mistaking the threat behind the words this time. “Do you understand me?”

  That brief flicker of fear returned and Jimmy nodded, slightly.

  “Good.” Colin released his grip and lowered his arm back to his side.

  “Jimmy?” a female voice said from the doorway.

  Colin turned, taking in the wisp of a woman with dirty blond hair in her late thirties. Her blue eyes widened when she saw the glass on the floor.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Nothing, sis,” Jimmy said, stepping over the glass and digging through the blankets on the sofa for his cigarettes.

  Sis, Colin thought, turning to face the woman in the door. Jimmy didn’t have a sister, so this must be his sister-in-law, his brother’s widow—Luke’s mother.

  “I just came from the school,” she said. Her face was pale, her expression frazzled. She was wearing a bleach-stained T-shirt, loose fitting gray sweatpants tied with a string around her thin hips, and a pair of battered sneakers. She held a bucket filled with cleaning supplies in one hand. “Shelley said Luke ran away this morning.”

  Jimmy lit a cigarette and exhaled a long stream of smoke. “He’s fine now.” Without another word, he walked across the room and into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

  Courtney stared at Colin from across the room. “Shelley said you found him.”

  Colin nodded.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  She stepped into the house timidly, like she was a little afraid of him. She set down the bucket of cleaning supplies and started gathering up the empty bottles on the counters, dumping them into the already full trashcan.

  He picked up the ashtray overflowing with butts on the coffee table and carried it over to the kitchen. She took it from his hand, stiffly. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll take it from here. You’ve done enough.”

  His hand dropped back to his side, but he didn’t leave. He stood by the door, watching her quick, efficient movements as she picked up bottles, carried dishes over to the sink, and folded the musty blankets on the sofa, like she’d done it a hundred times before.

  “You’re not helping,” he said quietly.

  Her gaze flickered up, then dropped back to the floor, where she was scooping up fallen ashes.

  “You’re not helping by cleaning up after him, by protecting him. You’re enabling him.”

  “We’re doing the best we can,” she said tightly.

  Colin watched her carry the dustpan of ashes over to the trash, then twist the bag up, lifting it out of the plastic bin, as if it weighed nothing. She wasn’t a stranger to hard work, Colin realized. And she was too proud to ask for help. She probably thought if they kept moving forward, putting one foot in front of the other, they’d both make it through to the other side of their grief eventually.

  He used to think that grief could be buried in hard work, that it didn’t really have to be dealt with, that it didn’t have to be faced head on.

  He knew better now.

  “How long has this been going on?” Colin asked.

  She set the bag by the door, walking back into the kitchen to start on the dishes in the sink. “It’s no big deal. He’s been drinking a little more than normal since his brother passed away. It won’t last forever.”

  “It’s a big deal if he’s numbing his grief in an entire bottle of whiskey every night.”

  She turned on the water, squeezing in a bit of soap. The dishes clinked together as she stacked them, one by one, into the sink. “We all deal with grief in different ways.”

  “Yeah,” Colin said bitterly, thinking about all the former service men and women who were back in this country now, struggling to process what they’d seen during back-to-back deployments in two of the longest wars in U.S. history—many of them turning to alcohol when they couldn’t find the support they needed in their communities.

  “You’re right,” he said, turning to let himself out. “We all deal with grief in different ways. And this is the worst way.”

  Becca kept a close eye on Luke throughout the rest of the day. He didn’t appear to be in any distress. If anything, he seemed oddly pleased with himself, which worried her. She didn’t want him to think that running away was a good way to get attention. She knew he needed attention…desperately. But what if he had gotten hurt? Or lost?

  Or picked up by a stranger who had no business giving a child a ride?

  Standing at the window of her classroom while her students read the assignment she’d passed out a few minutes ago, she wondered for the hundredth time that day what would have happened if Colin hadn’t spotted him from the road. How far would he have gotten? How long would it have taken them to find him?

  Outside, the wind pushed at the swings on the playground, the metal chains creaking as they swayed back and forth. She wished Colin had come to her when he’d dropped Luke off at school that morning. She wished he had told her what had happened instead of going to Shelley.

  Why hadn’t he come to her?

  It didn’t make any sense.

  The last time she’d seen him had been at her house two days ago. He’d been so intense, so interested in her. And now…what? He was avoiding her?

  Wrapping her arms around her midsection, she tried to soothe the hollow, aching emptiness that had begun to grow inside her, as she’d lain awake last night next to Tom, unable to sleep. She needed time to think, to process, to try and make sense of everything that was happening.

  But she didn’t have time. She was supposed to be getting married in two and a half weeks. She was supposed to be delirious with happiness and excitement. Instead, she was beginning to wonder if she was about to make the biggest mistake of her life.

  How had everything gotten so complicated?

  Reaching out, she adjusted the cotton ball dangling from the tail of a construction paper bunny one of her second graders had made during their Easter party the week before. Sunlight slanted in the window, reflecting off the silver heart dangling from the charm bracelet around her wrist.

  She wanted to like it. She wanted so badly to like the bracelet Tom had given her, the bracelet he’d been saving for their wedding night. But every time she looked at it, all she could think about was how heavy it felt, how big and thick the chain was around her small wrist, and how she wished more than anything that she could have her mother’s bracelet back.

  “Miss Haddaway?”

  “Yes?” Becca turned away from the window, grateful for the distraction.

  Audrey Morris pointed to a word on the handout in front of her. �
��What’s this word?”

  Becca walked over and knelt beside Audrey’s desk. She glanced down at the word, ‘escape’ and lowered her voice so she wouldn’t disturb the other fifteen students who were still reading. “Can you sound out the syllables for me?”

  Audrey bit her lip, shaking her head.

  “Okay,” Becca said, covering the letters, ‘es,’ with her thumb so Audrey could only see the word ‘cape’. “How about just the second syllable?”

  “Cape,” Audrey whispered, her eyes lighting up. “Like what Superman wears.”

  “That’s right,” Becca said, smiling and moving her thumb to reveal the rest of the word again. “Now, put the two together.”

  “Es-cape,” Audrey said, slowly sounding out each syllable.

  “Exactly.” Becca nodded. “It means to get away or break free from something that’s trapping you.”

  Audrey furrowed her brow, looking back down at the story. “Why would the kitty want to escape?”

  That, Becca thought, was one of the questions she was planning to address with the class once everyone had finished reading the story. She had chosen this assignment specifically for Luke, hoping he might draw some lessons from it. Looking around the room, she saw that most of the kids were almost done writing down their answers to the questions on their worksheets. “Is everybody finished?”

  When they all nodded and chorused, “yes,” she pushed to her feet.

  “Jennifer.” Becca walked to the front of the room and called on an outgoing blonde in the front row. “What’s this story about?”

  “It’s about a kitty that runs away from home,” Jennifer answered confidently.

  Becca nodded. “Why does the kitty run away?”

  “Because its owner, Emily, left the door open by mistake.”

  Becca lifted her gaze to where a red-haired boy sat in the back. “Travis, what happened when Emily realized her cat was missing?”

  Travis set down the pencil he’d been doodling with. “She tried to find it.”

  “Did it take a long time?”

  Travis nodded.

  “How long?”

  “All day.”

  Becca walked down one of the rows, pausing beside the desk of a black-haired girl who sat by the wall of cubbies. “Where did she finally find it?”

  “In a tree,” Jill Showalter answered.

  “Then what happened?”

  “She had to call a fireman to come and rescue it.”

  “That’s right.” Becca looked back out at the rest of the class. “She had to call a fireman to bring a ladder and climb up the tree and carry the cat back down.” Her gaze lingered on Luke, who was sketching a tree into the margin of the assignment. She felt a pinch of frustration, and briefly considered telling him to pay attention, then reconsidered. “So,” she said, clasping her hands behind her back, “who can tell me what the moral of this story is?”

  Travis raised his hand.

  “Yes, Travis?”

  “If your cat runs away, you should call a fireman.”

  Becca smiled and a few of the girls giggled. “I think there’s a little more to it than that.”

  “You shouldn’t leave your door open,” another student guessed.

  “That’s closer,” Becca said encouragingly, waiting for another hand to go up.

  Taylor finally raised her hand.

  “Yes, Taylor?”

  “You should take care of your animals or they’ll run away,” she said.

  Becca nodded. Yes, that was definitely part of the lesson she’d been hoping to impart on her students today. The other part was that running away could be dangerous and it could cause a lot of worry and stress for everyone who cared about you.

  When Luke raised his hand, Becca glanced up, surprised. Maybe he had been paying attention. “Yes?” she said, as she walked back up to the front of the room and tried to appear casual, like she hadn’t been waiting specifically to hear what he had to say. “What do you think the moral of the story is, Luke?”

  Luke’s plastic chair creaked as he shifted in his seat. “If no one takes care of you, you should run away and someone brave will rescue you.”

  Becca stopped walking, and fifteen pairs of eyes followed hers, swinging back around to stare at Luke.

  Instead of shrinking in his seat, trying to disappear like he usually did whenever he had to answer a question in class, he sat up straight, looked her right in the eye, and beamed.

  Tom Jacobson could feel a migraine coming on. Digging through his briefcase for a bottle of aspirin, he wondered how much longer he was going to have to wait for the client his partner had asked him to stay late to meet. He’d been called into the office in Baltimore that morning to work on a fraud case. It was close to 10PM now, and he still needed to stop by the D.C. office before he went home to pick up some files for court tomorrow.

  He rubbed a hand over his eyes, which were starting to throb from spending the past three hours crosschecking one of the prosecution’s key witnesses’ phone records with her testimony from the week before. It was bullshit work that could have been done by any paralegal, but the staff had gone home hours ago, and he couldn’t afford to make any more mistakes in front of the partners.

  He’d lost a few cases recently. Easy cases. Cases he should have won. And he’d heard rumors that the firm was thinking of downsizing—cutting back on some of the practice areas they’d built up to diversify after the recession. As one of three fourth-year associates specializing in financial law and vying for partner this year, there was a good chance that he would be laid off if he didn’t make the cut. Bailey, Stromwell, and Goldwater didn’t waste time cultivating mediocre talent. They only wanted the best.

  The phone in his pocket vibrated, and he pulled it out, blinking against the stars edging his peripheral vision as he checked the name on the screen. When he saw that it was Becca, he hit ignore. He didn’t have the energy to deal with her right now.

  The only reason he’d driven all the way out to the island to see her the night before was because he’d felt like he’d needed to do something to get things back on track between them. A few of his co-workers had mentioned recently that it looked better for a man to be married—to be settled down with a wife and a couple of kids—when it came time for the partners to make their final decision about which associates would become permanent members of the family at the firm.

  He was only a couple of weeks away from checking that marriage box, but Becca had been so distant lately, he’d wanted to make sure she wasn’t having second thoughts. He’d stopped by Tiffany’s on the way out of the city to find a piece of jewelry to soften her up. He’d hardly been able to believe his luck when he’d seen the charm bracelet in the display case. Telling her that he’d been saving it for their wedding night had been the icing on the cake. Becca was far too sweet, far too trusting, to realize it had been a lie.

  He wasn’t sure what her problem was lately. She was usually so supportive, so understanding. But over the past few months, she’d been making comments about how she wished he didn’t have to work such long hours, how she wished he could find time to drive out to the island on the weekends. He thought she knew what he’d signed up for, what they’d both signed up for. Yes, he was busy. Yes, he worked long hours. But that’s what he had to do to work his way up in the firm. And he needed her by his side—attending the events they were invited to in the city, socializing with the right people, getting to know the partners’ wives. Every decision they made, including how they spent their time on the weekends, reflected on his commitment to the firm.

  He hadn’t told her that his job was in danger. He knew she would try to talk him into working at one of the smaller firms on the Eastern Shore, so she wouldn’t have to move so far away from her father. He couldn’t let her think that was an option. She needed to let the island go so they could begin their lives together. Their future was in D.C.

  When the elevator dinged—finally—he chomped down a few more aspir
in and rose, making his way out to the reception area. He’d never personally met the woman who was coming in tonight, but the firm considered her one of their most valuable clients. If he could make her happy, it might make up for some of the other mistakes he’d made recently.

  “Ms. Vanzant,” he said, offering the woman his most charming smile and holding out his hand. “I’m Tom Jacobson. I understand you have a few questions about the paperwork for setting up your new LLC.”

  Lydia Vanzant took his hand, but she didn’t return his smile. “Where’s Richard?”

  “Richard had to step out at the last minute for a family emergency.” Actually, that was a lie. Richard Goldwater, one of their three name partners and original founders, had been systematically offloading his clients as his campaign had picked up steam. Six months ago, he had shocked everyone at the firm by throwing his hat into the race for governor.

  No one had thought the defense attorney would stand a chance in the primaries, but his platform had gained momentum with help from an enthusiastic base of supporters and a campaign manager who had a reputation for transforming even the most unlikely candidates into frontrunners. Richard currently held a double-digit lead in the polls and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that he would soon be the chosen candidate for the party that would challenge Nick Foley in the general elections later this year.

  “I’ll reschedule,” Lydia said coolly, turning to leave.

  “Wait,” Tom said, knowing it was his job to smooth out the ruffled feathers of any client who would have preferred to meet with a partner, especially one as important at Lydia Vanzant. “I work closely with Richard on all of his cases. He asked me to personally see that you were taken care of tonight. Can I get you a glass of water? Some tea?”

  She looked back at him, sizing him up. “How old are you?”

  “Thirty-two.”

  “You don’t look thirty-two.”

  He smiled again, trying to put her at ease. “I have a young face.”

  Her light green eyes narrowed as they swept over his tailored suit, silk tie, and Italian leather shoes. “Where did you go to school?”

  “Georgetown.”