Wednesday, March 30
5:45 p.m.
The hint of spring that had settled on Ocean Point earlier in the day was gone, the evening breeze a painful reminder that winter wasn’t ready to retire. Not yet anyway. Tightening her hand on the button flap of her jacket, Elise quickened her step as she rounded the corner of Cresting Wave and Second Streets, the brisk ocean breeze steady against her face.
Just one more block . . .
“Mother nature sure is having the last laugh, isn’t she?”
Startled, Elise swung her head to the left as a stocky gray-haired man emerged from a parked car, popped two coins into a meter, and stepped onto the sidewalk just inches away. He was followed closely behind by another man—this one with a wide swath of shiny skin running interference through tufts of coarse white hair.
“Oh, hey, I’m sorry, Elise. It’s me, Al. From class, remember?” The short stocky man pulled a Yankees cap from his back pocket and positioned it over his thick hair with a practiced hand. “That better?”
She grinned, her cheeks warming rapidly despite the persistent cold wind. “Of course. I’m sorry. I guess I just didn’t recognize you without the cap.” She held her hand out to the second man, winced as he shook it with an unexpected strength. “You’re Paul, aren’t you?”
The man nodded. “Yep.”
Al jammed his hands into his pockets, rolling his eyes as he leaned closer to Elise. “Don’t mind him, he doesn’t say much.”
“Thanks for the tip.” She pulled the flap of her jacket closer, her teeth starting to chatter. “Going to Mia’s, right?”
Al tugged the right side of his coat open and chin-pointed at the bifold paper jutting from his inside breast pocket. “Got my assignment right here. I figured if I didn’t bring something I’d pay for it with sore ears.”
She arched a questioning eyebrow. “Sore ears?”
“You heard Madelyn. The woman talks nonstop. And if you get her dander up . . . well, let’s just say it’s not pretty.” Al motioned down the street with his right hand. “Shall we?”
“Please.” She fell into step with the men, eager to seek shelter as quickly as possible.
As she expected, Mia’s place was warm and inviting, an aromatic mixture of soy sauce and teriyaki hovering in the air above the intermittent laughter and hushed chatter.
Mia looked up from the register when the door-tripped bell announced their arrival. “Ohhhh, Ewise. It good to see you.” The woman called out to someone in the kitchen then came around the counter, grasping Elise’s hands in her own. “You cold, so cold.” Mia let go of Elise’s left hand, sandwiching her right one, gently rubbing until some much-needed warmth returned. “Ohhhh, that better. Now let’s take care of the other.”
She could feel the day’s tension dissipating from her body as Mia worked on her hands. It was a comforting feeling, a comforting place. “Thank you, Mia. It’s getting so cold outside.”
The woman nodded quickly. “Yes, it is.” She darted her head around Elise’s shoulder, her gently lined brow furrowing ever so slightly. “Where Mitch today?”
Elise turned her hand inside Mia’s grasp and squeezed gently, reassuringly. “Mitch is fine. He’s in Georgia working at a law enforcement camp for high school kids. He’ll be home on Friday.”
Mia’s shoulders relaxed, the corners of her mouth pushing upward. “Good. Good. I bet you miss him, no?”
She blinked against the sudden sting in her eyes, opted to nod rather than answer for fear her voice would crack. But it didn’t matter, Mia knew. She always knew.
“He miss you too, Elise.”
She inhaled deeply, willed herself to focus on something other than her fiancé. “Mia, I’d like you to meet my friends, Al Nedley and Paul—I’m sorry, I don’t know your last name, Paul.”
Paul shrugged, his voice muffled. “Jordan.”
Al stepped forward, pulled his right hand from his pocket and grasped Mia’s. “Nice to meet you, Mia. I’ve heard amazing things about your food.”
Mia bowed her head quickly, her lips twitching ever so slightly as a flash of color played on her pale cheeks. “I hope you think so, too.”
The woman backed her way toward the line of customers placing orders with a frazzled-looking cook. “I do work now. Elise, egg roll, pepper steak and white rice?”
“You know me too well, Mia.”
“You good girl, Elise. Now, sit. I bring to you. You pay later.”
She mouthed a thank-you as the woman returned to her place behind the register.
“She seems sweet,” Al said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’m sorry Paul is such a stick in the mud.”
“It’s okay.” Elise motioned to the plastic holder on the side of the counter. “The menus are right there. Once you know what you want, you order and pay here, then Mia will bring your food out when it’s ready.”
“Sounds good. Paul? You gonna order something?”
She didn’t stick around to hear the man’s grunted response, choosing instead to head back to the dining room and find a place to sit. The place was jumping, people eating at nearly every table. It was official. Word had gotten out. Mia’s once quiet restaurant was now the place to be. Especially on a cold, breezy night like this one.
It wasn’t hard to pick out the critique group among the regular customers. Four square tables had been pushed together in the front left corner of the room, backpacks, briefcases, and purses lining the nearest wall. Madelyn Conner was in the middle of the mix, her elevated voice and tsking sounds a giveaway to the conversation Elise wasn’t quite close enough to hear.
If they read and critiqued the work of even half the group, it would be an accomplishment. Especially when the murder of their teacher was sure to be on the minds and lips of everyone there.
Her eyes skirted the room, stopped briefly on the table she’d sat at with Mitch last summer—a chance meeting over dinner that had exploded into a relationship neither could live without. A relationship that would soon be for life.
She slid her hands down the front flap of her coat, unbuttoning it as she went, her mental clock counting the hours until he returned. She waved to a city councilmember, smiled at the local librarian, but it was the pair hunched over a computer screen in the back right corner that made her pause.
Dean?
Nah, it couldn’t be. For two reasons. First, Dean’s women weren’t usually quite so cute. Second, Dean didn’t do computers—or, as he referred to them, the Satan of modern society.
Bobbing her head to the side, she squinted across the dimly lit room, confident her eyes were playing tricks, bleary from another night of restless dreams.
It was still Dean, all right. His stringy blond hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, his scrawny body decked out in a black Iron Maiden T-shirt and his face scrunched in confusion.
But who was the girl? And, more important, how did Elise know her?
“Oh, look, Elise is here. Elise! Elise! Over here.”
The sound of her name ricocheted through her brain, pulling her focus from Dean and onto the group she was there to meet. She veered to the left and waved at Madelyn.
“I saved a spot for you right here.” The woman patted the vacant seat beside her own. “Just about everyone is here, except, of course, Al and Paul and—”
“Oh, no, they’re here. They’re up front ordering.” Elise draped her coat over the back of her chair and sat down, greeting each of the other students with a nod and a smile before looking back at Madelyn. “What about Jacob, is he coming?”
“As a matter of fact, he is. That’s not a problem for you, is it?”
Elise looked up, surprised by the unfamiliar voice and the tension it held.
Dean’s friend.
Suddenly a piece of the puzzle was in place. The girl with the shoulder-length blonde hair was the same girl she’d seen in class on Saturday. With Jacob Brown.
“Of course it’s not a problem. It’s why I was asking.” Elise extended her hand. “We haven’t met yet, I’m Elise.”
The girl’s emerald green eyes widened in momentary surprise, her voice raspy and uncertain as it emerged from her lips. “I, um . . .” She glanced down at the floor, shifted from foot to foot, then shyly offered her hand, pulling it back just as quickly as it had been given. “I’m Sierra.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Sierra. I see we have a mutual friend.”
Sierra’s eyebrows furrowed, her nostril flared. “I don’t think Jacob considers you a fr—”
Elise shook her head. “I wasn’t referring to Jacob, though from what I remember of him the few times we met last summer, he’s a very nice guy too.” Elise forced her smile to remain strong despite knowing that all eyes were on them, all ears perked forward waiting for some sort of dirt. “But I meant Dean.”
“Dean? Who’s Dean?” The girl glanced across the room as she spoke, her body tensing. “Forget it, I gotta sit down.”
Sierra moved around the table like lightning, her body sliding into one of two empty seats at the far side of the table.
“What on earth?” Madelyn leaned into Elise’s arm, her voice surprisingly quiet.
But the reason for the girl’s sudden scurry became crystal clear before Elise had finished her shrug. Al and Paul sauntered into the dining room, Jacob Brown on their heels, words like “baseball,” “spring training,” and “pitching staff” permeating the air. This Jacob was happy and animated, as distant from Saturday’s Jacob as one could imagine.
He walked over to the table, stopping behind Sierra’s seat. “Hey there, beautiful.”
Elise tried not to stare as Sierra’s face lit from within, her eyes dancing as she looked up at her boyfriend. Jacob leaned over, planted a kiss on Sierra’s hair, and sat in the vacant seat to her left, Paul and Al taking seats beside him.
She watched as Jacob pulled his backpack onto his lap, unzipped the top, and foraged around inside, finally extracting a dark blue folder before dropping his bag to the ground. “Ms. Daltry is, I mean was one helluva writer. Wasn’t she?”
Everyone agreed.
It was hard to rationalize the enormous change in the personality of the young man sitting at the other end of the table, but maybe he was trying to be civil, to let bygones be bygones. Or maybe he simply hadn’t noticed her yet.
“Isn’t it just awful, what happened to her? I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt someone like that.” Madelyn inhaled dramatically, her hands intertwining with one another. “I sure hope they catch the person responsible.”
Heads bobbed again.
“And to think Al over there actually did his assignment.” Madelyn straightened her back. “That’s kind of why I wanted to get together tonight. I know our class is over now, but I thought maybe we could share our work with everyone this one time.”
“Actually, our class isn’t over. A replacement teacher has been assigned to our class and we’ll meet as scheduled on Saturday morning.” Elise crossed her legs under the table, looking slowly at each student seated around the table, her gaze coming to rest on Jacob.
Bygones were certainly not bygones. One only had to see his eyes at the moment of direct contact to know that. But he was making an effort and an effort was better than nothing. Baby steps and all that stuff . . .
“No one told me that,” Madelyn said, her voice bordering on huffy.
Elise waved her hand quickly. “It was just firmed up yesterday, and I volunteered to tell everyone since we were getting together anyway.”
“Well, who then?”
“Sam Hughes.”
“Who’s Sam Hughes?” Al pulled his ball cap off and reached for a glass of soda. “And is Sam a guy or a girl?”
“Sam is a guy and he’s the—”
“Editor for the Ocean Point Weekly.” Jacob’s voice, firm and clipped, cut her off, completing her sentence. “As in Elise’s boss.”
Madelyn clapped her hands together. “Really? How wonderful. What’s he like?”
She worked to keep her voice steady, to not let Jacob’s attitude unnerve her. “Sam is great. He’s been writing since before I was born. He knows more about journalism than anyone I’ve ever met and his fiction is amazing. He’ll be on the New York Times Best-Seller list one day, I’m sure of it. But most of all he’s a good, fair man.” She inhaled slowly, deliberately, decided to take a gamble with one more thing. “Jacob, I know you were interested in journalism when we first met. Sam is a good guy to get to know if that’s still an interest of yours.”
It worked. The steeliness in the young man’s eyes softened, his clamped mouth loosened.
Sierra grabbed his forearm. “Oh, Jacob, that’s awesome.”
He yanked his arm away, muttered something under his breath that wasn’t audible on Elise’s end of the table. But it didn’t need to be. His movements said it all.
So much for the momentary thawing . . .
She felt sorry for the pretty blonde, who looked as if she’d been struck, her lower lip quivering as she fought the urge to cry. Maybe Elise was the one who shouldn’t be there. Maybe Jacob needed this group more than she did.
“Do the police have anything at all on Ms. Daltry’s murder?” Madelyn took hold of the conversation once more, obviously determined to keep the discussion on the subjects of her choosing. “Do they think it’s tied to the robbery of the computer lab?”
Elise swallowed over the lump in her throat, winced at the way her voice faltered as she spoke. Jacob unnerved her, there was no two ways about it. “It looks that way.”
The sound of wood scraping against linoleum interrupted further conversation as Sierra jumped up from the table, her face still crestfallen. “I need to get a refill.” The girl’s words were hurried and hushed, her breath hitching between each word.
Elise’s heart ached for the young girl, who was obviously still smarting from Jacob’s public rebuke. If she could only talk to her, make her realize it was Elise he was mad at, not Sierra. But it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that her presence was a source of stress for Jacob Brown. And by being a source of stress for him, she was one for Sierra as well. Why else would the girl have gotten so spooked when she realized Jacob might catch them talking?
Elise quietly snapped her cell phone from her waistband and flipped it open in her lap. She needed a Mitch fix, even if it went only one way.
Hi Mitch. Thinking about you. Missing you. Loving you. Can’t wait 2 see U. Yours, Elise.
“Who order spare ribs?” Mia’s sweet voice cut through the tension in the room, her slender hands deftly holding a tray that was twice as wide as she was.
Al’s hand shot up. “That’s mine.” His eyes grew wide as saucers as he reached for his plate. “Wow, looks great, Mia. Thank you.”
“Taste even better. Who had the cashew chicken?” Mia handed the food to Paul upon his grunt. “And pepper steak belong to my Elise.”
Elise reattached the cell phone at her waist and returned Mia’s smile. “Thanks, Mia. It looks and smells wonderful.”
And it was true. The plate of piping hot comfort food looked and smelled delicious. Unfortunately, she’d lost her appetite, the grumble of hunger in her stomach replaced by the flip-flop of raw nerves.
A warm hand on her shoulder made her pause, thoughts of Jacob and Sierra halted for a brief moment. “I’m sorry that young man has such anger toward you. But you are handling him brilliantly. Keep being your friendly self, and I have little doubt you’ll win him over.”
Elise looked up to see Al’s cheerful face looking down at her. “Thanks, Al.”
He squeezed her shoulder once more. “Now, can you hand me the salt and pepper?”
She giggled. Al Nedley was both observant and smart. He had a way of diffusing tension in the simplest of ways. A true godsend at that precise moment.
“Sure.” She reached to the center area of the table, grabbed the salt and pepper shaker and handed them up to Al.
Madelyn leaned into her arm as the man returned to his seat, her voice barely a whisper. “So sweet.”
Elise pulled back just enough to see the elderly woman’s face. “What’s sweet?”
The woman looked over the rim of her glasses, her wide pouty lips turned downward. “Al, that’s who. You saw the way he made Janice feel better after class that first day.” Madelyn stole a sideways glance in Al’s direction. “But beneath that smile is a card shark the likes of which New Jersey has never seen. I suppose there’s not much else to do in Wyoming.”
Visions of Madelyn, Al, Janice, and Paul huddled around a poker table, cigars hanging from their mouths, was enough to turn Elise’s glum mood around. But she stopped herself short of putting too much thought into whether or not they played for money or articles of clothing. There was only so much one could stomach.
While they ate, several of the students shared their assignments. Some were stilted and wordy, writing as much a foreign concept to them as math and science was to her. Others, like Madelyn’s friend Janice, showed real promise. Madelyn herself wrote about a trip to the candy store as a child, her description written in much the same way she spoke, exhibiting an almost breathless quality.
Mia returned to the dining room, her shiny eyes tired and dull. “It nine o’clock. I close up now?”
Elise looked around the room, surprised to see that all the other diners had left, including Dean. They’d all been so absorbed in critiquing each other’s work that three hours had slipped by with barely a notice.
Madelyn made a tsking sound. “Oh, we still need to hear from Al, Paul, Jacob, Sierra, and Elise. I was looking forward to hearing everybody’s. Could you let us stay a little longer?”
Mia’s face dropped a little but recovered quickly, her sunny disposition chasing away all signs of fatigue. “Of course.”
Torn between guilt over invading Mia’s restaurant beyond closing and not wanting to rock the creative writing class boat more than she already had, Elise shifted in her seat, unsure of what to say.
Fortunately, Al took the ball and ran. “You know what, people? Mia has been most gracious in letting us take this many tables for the past three hours. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m bushed. I’m just gonna wait on my assignment until class.”
A chorus of agreement went around the table, everyone ready to call it a night.
“Sounds great,” Elise said, grabbing her coat and bag as she pushed back her chair and stood. “This was really nice, Madelyn, thanks for getting it together. And I really enjoyed everyone’s work. Thanks.”
“It was fun, wasn’t it?” Madelyn wrapped her pudgy fingers around the handle of her paisley satchel and slid out of the seat. “I think we need to continue this throughout the class, what do you guys think?”
Surprisingly, everyone nodded. Including Jacob. Maybe there really was hope like Al said . . .
Elise headed toward the door with Madelyn and Janice, everyone else either just a few steps ahead or a few steps behind. Jacob was at the front of the group, his arm draped protectively over Sierra’s shoulder. She was surprised to realize just how much she’d enjoyed the evening once they’d gotten through the tension at the beginning. Writing had a tendency to do that in her life and it was neat to see it happen for others too, including Jacob Brown.
“Good night, Mia.” Elise gave the woman a quick hug as they neared the front door, thrusting a twenty-dollar bill into her apron pocket. “It was great as always.”
And it was. Once things had settled down and the critiquing had begun, Elise found herself nibbling on her dinner. A little here, a little there, until her plate was virtually empty.
“You bring Mitch to see me when he back.” The woman kissed Elise’s forehead before pulling away. “You hear?”
“Yes, Mia.”
Al pushed the door open, a burst of cold winter air swirling into the restaurant to the sound of gasps, shivers, and shouting. Shouting?
In an instant, a camera was hoisted onto the shoulder of a large man with dark brown hair and a stubbled face. A woman with perfectly coiffed hair shoved a microphone in Jacob’s face as they emerged from the restaurant.
“Jacob Brown?”
Jacob’s body tensed, his hand dropping from Sierra’s shoulder and pulling into a fist at his side. “Yes?”
The woman pointed to the cameraman, who immediately switched to record. She turned back to Jacob, the microphone to her lips.
“Does the recent homicide at Ocean Point Community College bring back painful memories for you and your family?”
The anger that welled inside her at the public humiliation being caused by a fellow journalist was short-lived, the emotion reduced to fear as Jacob Brown turned and looked at her, his eyes filled with a hatred she’d seen just one other time in her life.
Elise looked away, her eyes drawn to the blonde standing next to him, tears running down the girl’s cheeks as she stood hopelessly beside her boyfriend.