Page 6 of After All The Wreckage
Why was she in town? Was she visiting her friend Shay, whose family owned the Tea Spot across the street? Or was she visiting her grandmother? Regardless of why she was there, I didn’t have any more time now to let my thoughts dwell on her than I had a year ago.
I signed the receipt from the delivery and walked toward the tavern’s office. I pushed open the antique wooden door with its beveled glass to find Ivy at a claw-foot table that had been there probably since the tavern had first opened. She was on her knees in a burgundy brocade armchair, draped in a mosaic of color from the stained-glass window that made her seem like one of the paintings of our ancestors hanging on the walls in their gilded frames.
When I got up close to her, the mirage broke, and a chuckle rumbled through my chest. She was covered in chocolate from forehead to chin. It never failed to surprise me how quickly andabsolutely she could become a mess when eating. She’d need a full body scrub before dinner.
Which reminded me, I needed to call our babysitter and beg her to come over. I’d expected Monte to be home to watch Ivy, which only reconfirmed I hadn’t known my brother would be at India’s. Unease settled in my chest once again—a worry I couldn’t shake. I was an Olympic champion at worrying these days.
I pulled my laptop from the old captain’s desk on the other side of the room and brought it over to the table. I kissed the top of Ivy’s head as I set it down in front of her. “Give me a few minutes, Ives, then I’ll take you upstairs for dinner. Do you want to watch something while you wait?”
She nodded. “Scooby-Doo?”
Her addiction to the cartoon made me smile. “Sure.”
I loaded the streaming service, started an episode, and then looked at her chocolate-covered face and hands. “Don’t touch the computer. And wash your hands when you’re done with the cookie.”
She nodded absently, already watching Scooby and the gang as they scurried over the screen in the opening song. I stepped away, watching her with regret curling through me. She was loved and cared for, but she didn’t have a normal childhood. Then again, none of us had been allowed one. Not with Demi in and out. Not with the abilities she’d branded us with.
But we had each other, and that was all that really mattered.
CHAPTER THREE
Rory
NO ONE
Performed by Aly & AJ
My first stopon returning to Cherry Bay was the police department. The building was several hundred years old, sitting at the edge of Main Street and butting up against the acres of green that made up the Bonnin University campus. Even after it had been retrofitted multiple times, the station still had a moody, Gothic vibe with its original stone, brick, and iron mixing in with high-tech cameras, computers, and bulletproof glass.
Harriet sat at the front desk where she’d been for as long as I could remember. Her dark hair was cropped short. She had a lean, toned frame and dark eyes in a narrow face. One of Mom’s best friends and the department’s dispatcher, Harriet was the first to know everything that happened in town. It tugged hard on my heart that she might have been hiding the truth from me.
“Look at what the cat dragged in,” she said with a smile that faded once she saw my glower. “Is it Hallie?”
“Not in the way you’re thinking,” I said, and relief coasted over her face. I felt a twinge of guilt before I demanded, “What the hell, Harriet? Her wreck wasn’t an accident, and you kept it from me?”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “What? No!”
Her reaction seemed genuine which meant she hadn’t known either. My teeth gritted as I headed for the swinging half door that led to the desks in the back. “Where is Baloney-Muloney?”
She shook her head, reaching out to stop me. “Muloney isn’t here, Rory. He drove to New York to bring his daughter home for Thanksgiving.”
My emotions swung back and forth. A part of me wanted to storm into the bullpen, tear up the detective’s desk and his computer, and get what I’d come for. Except that wouldn’t win me any favors with anyone in the department. It would likely ban me from the precinct forever. The smart course of action was to pull out the Bishop family charm and win him over when he returned. With the way my anger was bubbling and growing, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to channel it when he returned.
“When will he be back?”
“Sunday,” she said.
Another two days wasted. I was already too far behind on Mom’s case. Almost a year too late. Why hadn’t I demanded more from him sooner?
“He lied, Harriet. He lied and kept the truth from me. He’s lucky I haven’t put out a hit on him yet.”
“I haven’t heard even a whisper of it being anything but an accident. I would have told you.” She squeezed my arm again, and we shared a tormented stare before she patted my cheek. “Come to the house on Thanksgiving. Please. I told Kora Iwanted you both there. Hallie wouldn’t want the two of you sitting alone in a room at the recovery center.”
That was the thing no one seemed to understand. My grandmother and I weren’t alone. We were with Mom. And I wasn’t much for holidays these days. It felt wrong to celebrate while Mom was lying there, but the hope in Harriet’s eyes had me swallowing back my automatic no. Instead, I told her I’d talk to Nan about it and said goodbye.
It was a short drive from the station to Shady Lane Rehabilitation and Recovery Center across from the hospital. Both were square buildings built in the fifties, but they’d kept the charm of the town in their stone and plaster facades. Shady Lane was the second facility Mom had been in since the D.C. hospital she’d been airlifted to had kicked her out. Nan and I had moved her here, not only because the staff knew us, but because it didn’t require Nan and me to commute in the horrendous beltway traffic. The downside was it cost even more than the last place.
I signed in at the front desk and made my way along the sterile hall to Mom’s room. The quiet hum of the machines and the antiseptic smell were almost unnoticeable to me after eleven months of practically living in similar facilities. My grandmother was there, sitting in the same chair she always was, knitting a creation that wouldn’t be straight and wouldn’t fit right. It was a hobby she’d picked up to fill the long stretches at the side of a hospital bed.
