Flipped Out (32 page)

Derek and I spent the rest of the day alone, tying up a whole lot of loose ends with the renovations. He finished the porch swing and hung it, and it did look pretty cool, if I do say so myself. I couldn’t wait to show it to Kate, whose idea it had been.

We hung the batten board shutters Derek had nailed together and I had painted, and we planted flowers in the window boxes after hanging them, too. I arranged pillows on the new porch swing and in the Swiss cheese Adirondack chair, and I painted borders and “Welcome” on the prickly doormat Derek had brought from the lumber depot, and put it in front of the freshly painted door. We stepped back to look at the front of the house.

“The curb appeal is great,” Derek said. “The house looks really good.”

I nodded. “As long as Wilson doesn’t film the sides or the back of the house, nobody will ever know that we only spruced up the front.”

“And the inside. Don’t forget that.”

I shook my head. No chance of that. “We’ll finish that up tomorrow, right? On the surface, anyway. And then we’ll do the rest next week. Paint the back door to match the front and put a planter back there, too? Make it look nice for when Melissa puts it on the market?”

“If Melissa gets to put it on the market,” Derek said. “But sure.” He put his arm around my shoulders. “I’ll hook up the kitchen sink and install the waterline to the freezer then, and do all those other little things that aren’t gonna show up on camera tomorrow if they aren’t done.”

I nodded. We’d been cutting corners left and right this week, focusing on making things look good on the surface while planning to go back and actually do them right once the crew had left. The new kitchen sink was one of those. Right now it was where it should be, looking pretty, with faucets and everything in place, but nothing worked. There was no water line hooked up to the kitchen, and no sewer line going out from the sink, either. It looked beautiful, but only until you started trying to use it.

But the camera wouldn’t know that, and it was one less thing we had to do before the crew did their final shoot tomorrow night. The job—at least this week—was all about slapping lipstick on the pig and making it look pretty for the camera.

And all in all, I didn’t think we were doing too bad of a job, even with the time constraints. Sure, we were running a little short on sleep—and a little long on stress—but we’d found time to eat, and the cats were taken care of, and even if we had precious few moments to ourselves, we had managed to sneak in some personal time here and there. And we’d still gotten a whole lot done over the past couple of days. Thanks to our friends—Kate and Cora and Bea, Josh and Shannon—who’d pitched in and helped, but also thanks to our own hard work. We’d done good.

I said as much, and Derek grinned down at me. “Told you we could do it.”

“I know you did. Although we’re not done yet.”

“What could go wrong?” Derek asked expansively.

I arched my brows. “A whole lot. Someone else could get murdered, or almost murdered. The house could burn down overnight. . . .”

“Don’t even say that,” Derek said with a shudder. He turned toward the street, his arm still around my shoulders. “Nothing more is going to happen. Wayne’s got Fae and her uncle under wraps. Nina’s safe. So is Fae, in the event that Nina was actually trying to kill her and hurt Shannon instead. Nobody else is in danger. Josh is fine and Shannon’s getting there. . . .”

“Can we go see her?”

“Sure,” Derek said, and let the garden gate slam shut behind us. “Bet we’ll find Josh at the hospital, too, even if he’s been released.”

I shook my head as he opened the truck door for me. “No bet.”

Josh
was
at the hospital, and so was Kate. “He’s been sitting here all day,” she confided to me in the hallway as the two of us took a walk for some fresh air. “Not that I’m surprised. He’s always been devoted. But he hasn’t stirred from her bedside all day. They released him this morning, and instead of going home, he went to Shannon’s room. He’s been there ever since.”

“He loves her.”

Kate nodded. “He’s not trying to hide it, either. Before, he’s always been friendly toward her more than anything else. I could always tell he felt more—we all could, including Shannon—but he never acted on any of it. Now it’s in everything he does and everything he says.”

I glanced at her. “Does that worry you? I mean, I know you love Josh. . . .”

“He’s my stepson,” Kate said. “And Wayne’s son. I’d love him because of that. But I met him before I met Wayne, and I loved him because he made Shannon feel at home in Waterfield when we first moved here. He stood by her when her father died. He introduced me to Wayne. He’s family on a whole lot of levels, even apart from the fact that he’s in love with my daughter.”

That didn’t actually answer my question, and I said so.

Kate shrugged. “It could be awkward. If he’s in love with her and she isn’t in love with him. Our whole family dynamic would be affected.”

“But . . . ?”

She glanced at me. “This whole situation with Fae seems to have affected Shannon. I think she assumed Josh would always be there. Even though she didn’t want him, I’m not sure she ever considered that he’d find someone else. It was always the two of them and Paige. Josh took Paige to prom, and Shannon knew there was nothing between them. This was the first time Josh had gone on a date with someone he might actually fall for, and I think it shocked Shannon. I don’t think she ever considered that she might lose him.”

I nodded. Shannon had essentially told me the same thing.

“And then the accident happened,” Kate said, with a barely suppressed shiver. “It could have been so much worse, Avery. Either of them—both of them—could have died last night. Josh saved their lives. And I think they both realize it. That they could have lost each other, in a much more permanent way.”

“So you’re OK with it? With them?”

“They haven’t asked me,” Kate said, with a shrug. “I’m not even sure they’ve talked about it. Mostly they just sit there and chitchat. They’ve played cards and watched TV and talked, but not about anything important. Just the things they usually talk about.”

“You can tell that something’s different, can’t you?”

I had been able to tell just in the minute or two I’d spent in the room with them both before I whisked Kate off for some air and a conversation. It was in the way they looked at each other. And I thought Kate was probably right: The fact that they’d almost lost one another permanently last night had been a shock and a wake-up call for both of them. Josh had decided to stop pretending, and Shannon . . . well, Shannon’s wake-up call might have happened earlier, when Josh went out with Fae, and last night’s accident simply brought the possibility of losing him home with even more of a vengeance.

“They’ll be all right,” Kate said. And added, “I won’t be surprised if we end up with another wedding in the family within the next year.”

I nodded. I wouldn’t be surprised, either.

We went back into the room and spent thirty minutes chatting with Shannon and with Josh, who did not take the opportunity to get himself some fresh air while we were there. It seemed he’d rather be next to Shannon than anywhere else, and who could blame him? She looked at him with absolute adoration in her eyes, and that had to be a nice change.

She didn’t look bad at all. A little pale, maybe, and with a big, white square of gauze on her forehead, but otherwise not bad. “Five stitches,” she told me when I asked what had happened to the gash on her head. “The doctor said it wasn’t too bad. Clean edges, easy to sew. I might end up with a scar, although I guess I can just wear bangs for the rest of my life.”

“What about everything else?” I wanted to know. “Any other injuries?”

Shannon shook her head. “Just the concussion. My head hurts when I don’t take pain pills, and I get dizzy when I try to get up. But it’ll go away.”

“You were lucky.”

She shook her head and reached out to take Josh’s hand. “It wasn’t luck. It was Josh. He saved my life.”

“Does that make it mine now?” Josh wanted to know, grinning. He twined his fingers through hers. Shannon blushed.

“That was sweet,” I said to Derek when we were back in the truck on our way toward home again.

He grunted.

I looked at him. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“It doesn’t sound like nothing.”

He shrugged.

“Seriously. What’s the matter? You’re happy for them, aren’t you?”

“Ecstatic,” Derek said.

“You don’t sound ecstatic.”

He shot me a look. “They remind me of me and Melissa. Really young and crazy about each other, but with no clue about anything.”

I shook my head. “It isn’t like you and Melissa. They’ve known each other for seven or eight years. Josh has probably been in love with her for six of those. It isn’t anywhere close to the same situation.”

“Maybe not,” Derek admitted, “but just the way they’re looking at each other . . .”

“It isn’t the same. Josh and Shannon will be fine. They know each other. She’s not going to decide, five years down the line, to divorce him because he decides he wants to change careers.”

Derek opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, his phone rang. Instead of continuing the conversation with me, he pulled it out and looked at the display. “Speak of the devil.”

“Who?”

Derek answered the phone, and then quickly turned it to speaker in time for me to catch the last of Melissa’s statement. “. . . might be able to give me a ride home.”

Speak of the devil. Right.

“Wayne’s letting you go?” I said.

There was a second’s pause, and then Melissa’s voice came back. “Avery?”

“Derek put the phone on speaker,” I said. “He’s driving.”

“I see.” Melissa sounded pissy about that. Or maybe it was just my imagination. She could have been upset about the situation in general and not the fact that she wanted Derek’s undivided attention and didn’t get it. “Apparently he doesn’t have enough evidence to charge me.”

“That’s . . .” Lucky for Melissa, but too bad for Wayne.

“I was wondering if Derek might swing by the police station and pick me up,” she said now, smoothly. “It wouldn’t be out of his way at all. After all, he lives just across the street from me.”

As if I wasn’t already too aware of that.

I opened my mouth to tell her what she could do with her apartment right across the street from Derek’s and with her need for a ride, but before I could, Derek spoke over me.

“We’ll be there in ten minutes.” He shut the phone off.

I turned to him. “Why did you do that?”

He spared me a glance as he turned the nearest corner. “What?”

“Why did you agree to go pick up your ex-wife from jail and take her home?” To her apartment right across the street from his?

“She needed a ride?”

Well, duh. “Why couldn’t she call someone else?”

“Like who? She doesn’t have any family here. Her fiancé is dead. My family doesn’t want anything to do with her, and she’s not good at making friends. . . .”

No kidding,
I thought. Derek added, “She doesn’t have anyone else.”

“That doesn’t mean
you
need to run to the rescue! She could have taken a cab, for God’s sake. Or asked Wayne for a ride. He would have given her one.”

“Probably too prideful for that,” Derek said. “You would be, too, if the situation was reversed.”

He might be right. Not that I’d ever find myself in the situation Melissa found herself in right now—God willing—but even if I did, it would still be different. I’d have no qualms about asking Wayne for a ride. We were friends. He’d probably offer, because he wouldn’t want me to find my way on my own. And the realization that Derek was right—Melissa might not have anyone else—did make me feel just a twinge of sympathy for her. It couldn’t be much fun being all alone in the world, or in Waterfield, surrounded by her ex-husband, his family, his new girlfriend, and a bunch of people who all thought she might have murdered her fiancé.

And it would only take a few minutes. We’d drive her home and drop her off and that would be it. I sat back and prepared myself to be nice.

Melissa was waiting outside the police station when we got there, still looking just as glamorous as the night before, in the same jeans but another shirt and sandals with high heels, with her makeup firmly in place and her hair sleek and moonlight pale. She had an overnight bag at her feet, so obviously Wayne had been courteous enough to let her pack a few necessities for her stay at the police station. Or perhaps she had barreled right over Brandon Thomas, if he’d been the one to pick her up, and had insisted he let her gather what she needed before he hauled her off to jail. Either way, she didn’t look anything like a released prisoner. She looked more like we were picking her up from an overnight trip to Boston.