Page 8 of The Fixer

“No, I was trying to find his website, and Google sent me to the company’s Facebook page instead. Yowser!” Estelle fanned herself with a notepad.

“As entertaining as this conversation is, I need to call my sister while I still have the strength.”

“All right, boss. Good luck with that. Don’t forget to take time off tonight, and watch where you put the girls. Maybe you can find a pair of man hands to hold them for you.”

Estelle was still laughing when Joy hung up. Joy wasn’t nearly as amused as her assistant, but the call she faced right now made even the tiny sliver of humor dry up and blow away.

She stared at her device, snippets of dialogue spooling through her head as she weighed her plan of attack. As an M&A consultant, she could high-power her way through a meeting with the CEOs of billion-dollar corporations and have them eating out of her hand, but she couldn’t figure out how to talk to her older sister.

She wasted another few minutes admonishing herself for not getting the call to Mary out of the way first. Had she planned better, she could have ended her day with Estelle’s cheer instead.

Pulling in a steadying breath, she tapped her sister’s number. When her call immediately went to voicemail, that same breath whooshed from her lungs. She raced through her voicemail. “I met with the contractor about Mom’s place. Sounds like it’s going to be a little more complicated than I’d hoped, and he’s working up some estimates now. I should have an update in a few days, and I’ll call you then.” Hopefully, Mary got the underlying message: “I’ve got this. You don’t need to call me back.”

Thirty minutes later, with makeup reapplied and dressed in “Fall River appropriate” clothing—white silk tank under a blue-and-white striped shirt tied at the waist, designer denim capris, and lace-up sneakers—Joy struck out for a brisk walk along the main drag, Bowen Street. It was the only road in town with sidewalks, and they were cracked and uneven. She didn’t want to mess up the perfect milky-colored leather of her shoes, but she also didn’t want to slow her stride and project anything but absolute confidence.

“If people are even paying attention,” her mother’s voice sounded in her head. “Honestly, Joy, you believe you take up way more space in people’s heads than you actually do.”

One of her mother’s jewels Joy had been force-fed as a child. A tiny voice piped up and whispered that maybe it was true, while another one told it to shut up.

I am turning into Sybil—who turned out to be fake. Does that make me and my split personalities fakes too?

Vowing to put the noisy voices and hurtful memories aside—again—Joy pulled in the crisp mountain air and strolled down one side of Bowen, trying not to bump into the visitors thronging the sidewalks while simultaneously averting her gaze from the cute shops and their window displays. The more emotional distance she kept between herself and everything Fall River, the saner she’d be … although handmade body care was another of her Achilles’ Heels, and the little soaps shop called for acircle-back when it wasn’t packed. The charming coffee-combo-bookstore that was currently closed was definitely a stop she’d need to make. Maybe the proprietor would be interested in buying her next book.

She squelched an inner smirk at her dirty little secret. No one knew about her naughty alter ego, Lacey Dewinter. Not Sterling, not Estelle, not even her therapist.

Three blocks into the walk, Joy was sucking wind in the thin air, so she crossed to the other side and doubled back toward the hotel. Wonderful smells of grilling meat wafted toward her, pulling her to a brick building with a sign spelling out “Miners Tavern,” and she realized she was famished.

Stepping inside its cozy, Old World interior, she was greeted by the burble of diners crowded around tables and along an antique wooden bar with an ornate backdrop that rose to a pressed tin ceiling. Evenly spaced chandeliers added a “wow” factor to the bar’s historical elegance.

A woman who was either in costume or a throwback to 1980s Texas greeted her with a smile. “How many?”

“Just me.”

The woman mumbled something about pretty single women eating alone and what the world was coming to before announcing, “It’s a forty-minute wait for a table, hon, or we have a seat at the bar available right now.” The hostess was swathed in a caftan-style top in psychedelic orange and pink, big hair the color of a brass candlestick, and electric-blue eyeshadow. Her curved, painted fingernails could have doubled as weapons. A little ore cart attached to her top said, “Dixie.”

“Could I sit at the bar and have a glass of wine while I wait for one of the tables to open up?”

“Of course you can. And if you change your mind and decide to take your meal there instead, either bartender can fill your dinner order.” Dixie gave her an appraising sweep from her tennies to the crown of her head. “You look like you could use a meal or two and right quick. Put some meat on them bones.”

Joy’s mouth closed, opened, and closed again. Was that an insult? Sure, she was on the thin side. Between the work stress and the meds she hated taking for her ADHD, her appetite had been MIA for years. But hey, shelikedher svelte style. The latest styles hung better. No bumps to hide—including her boobs, but that was a different story. She had the money to buy those, if she chose to.

Dixie pointed to an empty barstool, and Joy made a beeline for it. When she slid onto the seat, a woman with honey-blond hair and light blue eyes buffed the shiny bar top and dropped a coaster on it. Everything about her screamed healthy, natural, and beautiful. She beamed Joy a smile. “Hi! Welcome to the Miners Tavern. What can I get you?” She wore an ore-cart name tag too, and hers declared her to be “Hailey.”

Joy scanned the bottles lining the tidy glass shelves. She had a hankering forgoodwine, which was probably nonexistent in this town. “Do you have a wine list?”

A tall, dark-haired, ripped hunk—theotherbartender, apparently—handed Hailey a menu, and she turned a smoldering version of her smile on him. “Thanks, barkeep.”

He sent her a sly wink. “I aim to please, surfer girl.”

Oh, these two weredefinitelydoing the dirty. The charge between them was so powerful one might get blown off one’s stool from the bolts of electricity, and a story kernel popped in Joy’s head. Those ideasalwaysstarted with a sex scene—probably because that was as close to sex as Joy got these days.

Sex on the bar. Oh, that would be hot! Wonder if these two have done it there?

Focus, Joy!Shit! She’d forgotten her meds again. No wonder she was hungry and scattered.

She perused the short list of wines, pleasantly surprised to see labels she recognized and actuallyliked.The selection, though small, wasn’t what she’d expected for a tavern in a rundown mining town.

She placed her order, and Hailey delivered the pale yellow liquid in a chilled glass.

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