LITMIR.BIZ

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and disinterested.

      “How long can a man go without?” she asked.

      His forehead wrinkled for a moment, then smoothed. “Eighteen months, two weeks and three days. And counting.”

      She gazed at him a long time, while he sampled the mashed potatoes, dipped a forkful of dressing into the gravy, then cut another piece of chicken. Finally she shook her head and started toward the rear wall. “Can I use your back door?”

      “You gonna slink back down the alley to the diner? Coward.” But he gestured toward the door with careless approval.

      She let herself out the door with a wave, then stood underneath the roof overhang while pulling the slicker hood into place. Hands shoved into her pockets, she turned left toward the deli, but after a dozen feet, turned around and headed along the sidewalk in the other direction instead. Shivering more than the weather called for, she turned at the next block and headed aimlessly out of the business district and into a neighborhood of lovely old homes.

      Five years ago Ellie had chosen Copper Lake as her new home based on only one thing: the two-hundred-year-old general store turned restaurant turned hot investment property. Randolph Aiken, her mentor, for lack of a better word, had contacted her in Charleston, where she’d been working for a friend of his in a lush, plush, black-tie restaurant and told her about the space. It would be a great investment, he’d said, for that money she’d been saving.

      Payoff money.

      When she’d driven through Copper Lake that first time, her initial thought had been that it was too pretty, too small-town perfect. She didn’t belong in such a place.

      But she hadn’t fit in in Charleston, either, or Atlanta. She didn’t belong anywhere, so she might as well not belong in Copper Lake, where she could have her own modest restaurant.

      Then something strange had happened along the way. The town and its people had made a place for her. They’d welcomed her, befriended her and treated her like any normal person.

      Tommy’s welcome had been the sweetest.

      A short, sharp tap of a car horn sounded as she was about to cross a driveway. She drew up short, realizing she’d reached the Jasmine, one of Copper Lake’s historic gems, as an elegant gray Mercedes glided to a stop in front of her. The driver rolled down the window, and both he and the passenger, the inn’s owners, smiled up at her. “Look at this, Jared. It’s the middle of the afternoon, and Ellie Chase is out taking a stroll,” Jeffrey Goldman said.

      “Let me mark this date on the calendar. I do believe it’s a first,” Jared Franklin replied.

      Ellie couldn’t help but smile at both men. Like her, like Joe Saldana, they’d come to Copper Lake to make a new start. Unlike her and Joe, everyone knew the basic facts of their lives. They were open and unashamed; they had nothing to hide.

      “I’m not at the deli all the time,” she protested.

      “No, of course not,” Jeffrey agreed. “You have to sleep sometime.”

      “You’re not still sleeping on that couch in your office, are you?” Jared asked.

      “One time. And it was just a nap. I’d worked late the night before for…What was it? Oh, yeah, your birthday party.” Ironic that a birthday party for a retired lawyer had turned into the largest and most boisterous private event the restaurant had ever hosted. The sheer number of people who’d made the drive from Atlanta had been astounding—lawyers, judges, criminals. She’d spent half the night in the kitchen, afraid she would run into someone who’d known her from before.

      That was no way to live, but if she gave in to Martha’s blackmail demands, she would live the rest of her life just like that.

      “Why don’t you let us give you a ride to wherever you’re going?” Jeffrey asked.

      She was about to say no, thanks, when another car approached. It was black and looked so unlike a police car, she had once teased, that of course it was. The turn signal was on, the driver—Tommy, of course—preparing to turn into the Jasmine’s other entrance, the one that circled around to the small guest parking area. In the passenger seat, a glimpse of sallow skin and tufty gray hair proved that Martha was still with him.

      It was hard to walk off your problems when they kept showing up.

      Turning her gaze back to the men, Ellie smiled. “If you’re not worried that I’ll ruin your upholstery, I would like a ride back to the deli.”

      “Upholstery can be cleaned,” Jeffrey said with a negligible wave.

      The electric locks clicked, and she opened the rear door before either man could get out to do so for her. As she slid onto the buttery leather seat, the Charger disappeared behind a hedge of neatly groomed azaleas.

      “Do you have a guest named Martha?” she asked, striving for a conversational tone as the Mercedes began moving again.

      Jared’s nose twitched subtly. “Yes, we do.”

      “She came to the restaurant last night. Wow. I couldn’t afford to stay at your place unless you hired me as the live-in help. I guess appearances really can be deceiving.”

      Jeffrey ignored Jared’s snort. “She has money. We have rooms. And you know, we’d always cut you a deal, Ellie. You’re our favorite restaurant owner in town.”

      “She has money, all right,” Jared said. “She paid for a week from a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills. Said she’d never stayed in a place quite so fancy.” He put a twang on the last few words that should have made Ellie smile, but didn’t.

      Where had Martha gotten a stack of hundred-dollar bills? Had Oliver had life insurance enough for her to bury him, pay her usual bills and allow her to splurge on a two-hundred-dollar-a-night bed-and-breakfast? Maybe she hadn’t wasted any money on a burial. After all, he was no use to her dead.

      Just as her daughter had been no use to her.

      It didn’t make sense. If Martha needed money—and she must; how else would she survive with her aversion to work?—why wasn’t she staying at the Riverview Motel? One night at the Jasmine would cover nearly a week at the Riverview.

      Thinking about it made her head hurt. Thinking about Martha with Tommy made it hurt worse.

      Staring out the window, she listened to Jeffrey and Jared’s idle chatter until they reached the restaurant. She thanked them for the ride and climbed out into heavier rain.

      “Next time you need a break from work, come on over,” Jared invited. “I’ll fix you my special Long Island iced tea, and we’ll dish on all the guests. I could tell you things…”

      Politely she said she would, then hurried along the sidewalk and up the steps to the porch. As she shrugged out of her slicker, she remembered that she’d forgotten to pick up her chai tea at A Cuppa Joe.

      Too bad. She could have used it.

      

      Tommy didn’t feel guilty for taking care of personal matters on department time. He put in way more than his forty hours a week, routinely getting called out too early in the morning and too late at night, to say nothing of spending more than a fair amount of his evenings writing and reading reports, studying notes and trying to figure out why people did the things they did.

      The rain had stopped after he’d dropped Martha Dempsey off at the Jasmine, and now the sun was making a so-so stab at breaking through the clouds in the western sky. Finding no space on the square, he parked in Robbie’s law office lot and jogged across the street, careful not to spill the still-warm chai tea in the cup he carried.

      Ellie’s Deli sat fifteen feet back from the sidewalk, the path to the steps flanked on both sides with beds of yellow and purple pansies. Those had been his mother’s favorite flowers, back in the days when she’d found the energy to plant anything at all, and his father had continued to plant them for years. The autumn he’d

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