Authors: Liv James
Clara sighed. “Think about what you just
said, Meg, and try it again. You know Josie as well as anyone.”
Meg considered Clara thoughtfully. Finally
her eyes lit up with understanding. “Oh,” she said.
“Yeah,” Clara said. “I’m surprised Josie
didn’t go with Rebecca on the tour.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“Is Josie around?” Clara asked.
“No, she’s at a meeting with your dad
interviewing some local investor,” Meg said. “They want to have them all lined
up before the retreat.”
The retreat. She’d forgotten. Rebecca’s
return would surely throw a monkey wrench into that. Maybe they wouldn’t have
to go.
“When is that again?” Clara asked.
“We leave on Friday.”
“Right. If it’s still on I’ll need to buy
hiking boots.” She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten to pick a pair up with all
the shopping she’d done.
“It’s still on as far as I know. We’ve
already paid Karen Glass and Foster’s Glen so I don’t think there’s any backing
out of it,” Meg said. “Hey, I forgot to tell you yesterday that you had several
calls on Monday,”
“Monday?” Clara asked, surprised. “I wasn’t
even back here yet.”
“Only one gave his name,” she said, rifling
though the papers on her desk. “Jon Griffin. But he told me there was no
message. Not for you anyway, he wanted to talk to Bill.”
“About investing, my dad told me,” Clara
said, keeping her voice steady at the reminder that Jon had called.
“Anyway, Mr. Griffin didn’t leave a message
for you but he seemed awfully concerned about your well-being,” Meg said
gamesomely.
“What do you mean?” Clara asked, suddenly
embarrassed by how pleased she felt to hear that he’d asked about her.
“He said he was going to send a search
party out for you if I didn’t tell him you were back here.”
“Really?” Clara asked, a smile crossing her
lips.
“He said he saw you in Tulsa and then you disappeared.”
“I’m sure it seemed that way to him,” Clara
said, wishing she’d been able to reach him to let him know she was okay.
“He also told me not to tell anyone else
you were home.”
Clara looked at her, puzzled. “He said
that?”
“He said he thought you preferred to be
left alone.”
“That’s interesting,” Clara said, considering
this latest piece of information. “What did you tell him?”
“I told him he was too late, that two other
people had already called and asked for your address.”
Clara stared at Meg. “They had?”
“A man and a woman. Neither of them left a
name. They both said they needed to mail something to you.”
“So what did you do?” Clara asked.
“I gave them your address out at the
bungalow,” Meg shrugged. “What else would I do? They seemed harmless.”
“And you don’t have any idea who they
were?” Clara asked. She was surprised that her father hadn’t instituted a
policy about not giving out personal information over the phone. She didn’t
want to get Meg in trouble but she’d have to talk to her father about that. Of
course, before this business with David she probably wouldn’t have cared.
“They were both from Tulsa. Different numbers. They may still be
stored in my caller ID,” Meg said, scanning through the numbers. “Here. Here
they are.”
She read the numbers out to Clara. The
first one was the gallery. The second was her home number at David’s.
“Hey, Meg?” Clara said, a worried look
crossing her face.
“Yes?”
“I think I agree with Jon on this one. If
anyone else calls for me who isn’t a customer don’t give them any information,
okay?”
“Are you in some kind of trouble?” Meg
asked. Clara could see the potential problem starting to register with Meg.
You’d think as a cop’s wife she’d be more suspicious, Clara thought.
“No. I don’t think so,” Clara said aloud.
“But it pays to be cautious.”
“Okay,” she said, studying her face. “If
I’d known there was something going on I wouldn’t have given out your
information. Did something happen?”
“I got a package last night from David,”
Clara said. “It was the negligee I bought to wear on our wedding night and he’d
cut it up and dripped blood on it.”
“He did what?” Meg asked, appalled. “You
need to call Grady and report it.”
“I thought about it. But what good will it
do? David’s in Tulsa
and I’m here. Grady doesn’t have any jurisdiction down there and it’s not a big
enough deal for the Tulsa
police to get involved. I think David was just trying to get the last word in.”
The truth was, Clara now realized, that Grady was going to find out about this
from Meg anyway, whether Clara wanted him to or not.
“I’m sorry Clara. I swear, if I knew he was
a psycho I never would have given him your address,” Meg said, her hand
fluttering to her chest in a horrified gesture.
“Don’t worry about it. He’s not a psycho.
He’s just mad. I’m pretty sure it’s over now. He got his final jab.”
“Keep me posted, okay?” Meg asked.
“I will,” Clara said. “And don’t worry
about it. Everything is going to be okay.”
Clara went into her office and closed the
door, tossing the file folders onto her large wooden desk. At least now she
knew how David had tracked her down at the bungalow.
She considered calling Josie about Rebecca
but sat down and turned her computer on instead. She scanned the emails on her
screen. She clicked on one from Karen Glass, the leadership consultant who was
running their corporate retreat.
Prepare
yourselves for an enlightening, enriching encampment in the beautiful Pennsylvania mountains!
Provisions will be provided. You need only bring yourself and enough clothing
for three days out-of-doors. We will emerge from the retreat with a roadmap for
growth and success at Spritzer & Spritzer!
Clara rolled her eyes and hit delete. She
wasn’t sure she’d be able to survive three days in the woods with her mom and
dad, let alone Karen. She felt bad for the rest of the staff who were getting
dragged along to witness the latest Spritzer family love fest. She briefly
considered calling Marcy to see if she could hook her up with a nice public
company to work for, where the CEO
hadn’t changed her diapers.
As she clicked on the next email, she heard
a knock on the door. She glanced up to see Josie walking in, her long hair
flowing softly behind her.
“Tell me again why we’re going camping,
Mom?” Clara asked, not yet ready to face off with her about Rebecca.
“It’s a retreat,” Josie corrected her,
taking a seat across the desk from Clara. “You make it sound so unimportant.
It’s a little getaway. A chance for the team to connect. So many of them are
new so we want to make them feel like they’re part of the family.”
“You mean our family?” Clara asked, raising
her eyebrows at her mother. “At a campground?”
“Technically yes,” Josie admitted, “but
you’re going to love it honey, just love it. There will be fresh air and
sunshine and aromatherapy …”
“Aromatherapy?” Clara asked skeptically.
Her mother appeared to be more free-flowing than usual this morning, with her
hair hanging in loose waves over a long, pale yellow sundress. She hadn’t
bothered with make-up, but her cheeks were touched with sun, giving her a
gentle radiance.
“Well, yes, you know, the great outdoors,”
Josie was saying, “pine trees, flowers,
waterfalls.”
“Any chance you and Dad have been hitting a
little too much of your own aromatherapy if you know what I mean?” Clara asked,
unable to control the smile that spread across her lips.
“You need to relax, honey,” Josie said,
reaching across the desk and massaging Clara’s hands. “You’re very uptight. I
can tell. It’s not good for your health to be so wired. I promise you that if
you give it a chance this retreat will help you find yourself and figure out
how you’re going to fit in here.”
“I found myself a while ago,” Clara said
gently, surprised at how good the hand massage felt. As she watched her
mother’s expert fingers massage and stroke it dawned on Clara that her left
hand looked naked without David’s ring. She pushed the thought aside and
offered a polite, “But thank you.”
“Then allow the time with your new
colleagues to help you open up to all the possibilities we have,” Josie said.
“The work we’re doing here could someday save the planet, Clara. Don’t you see?
You’re going to be part of reversing the abuse that the huge energy companies
have perpetrated.”
“The retreat’s supposed to be about the
business, right?” Clara asked skeptically.
“Yes, it will be,” Josie replied, finishing
the massage with a slight squeeze. “We’ll emerge from the weekend invigorated
and ready to take on all the challenges of our growth.”
“You’ve been spending too much time with
Karen,” Clara said. “You’re starting to sound like her.”
“You’ve been spending too much time alone,”
her mother countered. “You need a new man in your life to take your mind off
your troubles.”
Clara was so surprised at her mother’s
assessment that she actually laughed out loud. “I’ve only been alone since
Thursday! I’m not exactly on the hunt and definitely not taking relationship
advice from you,” she said, holding up a hand to stop her mom from going
further.
“You should take advice from me,” Josie
said, seeming to be genuinely taken back at Clara’s reaction. “After three marriages
I’m an expert on relationships.”
“I’m sure you are, Mom,” Clara said. “I
just wish you would have become an expert a little sooner. Who’d have ever
imagined you’d be back here working with Dad after twenty years. You would have
saved us all a lot of trouble if you’d just stayed with him in the first
place.”
“I had to find myself. I don’t expect you
to understand,” Josie said, clearly offended. “We can’t all be model citizens
like you, Clara. Some of us take risks.”
“So did you?” Clara asked.
“Did I what?” Josie asked, confused.
“Find yourself?”
“Yes, of course I did,” Josie replied.
“Your father and I were meant to be together, just not meant to be married.
It’s much better this way.”
“Okay, so if you’ve found yourself, and
he’s found himself, and I’ve found myself, let’s cancel the camping trip,”
Clara suggested.
“You’re insufferable.”
“It’s a waste of hours -- productive hours
-- that the staff could be working,” Clara said, knowing before the words even
left her mouth that they would fall on deaf ears.
“I don’t know why you’re being so difficult
about this. It’s a corporate retreat, not a camping trip,” Josie scolded. “And
it will be good for morale. We’re not canceling.”
“We’ll see,” Clara said, leaning back in
her chair and folding her arms. She was vaguely aware that she was acting
childish, but she felt driven by some adolescent ghost to watch her mother
squirm a bit. She supposed it had to do with the deep-seated fear that once
Josie knew Rebecca was back Clara would once again revert to second chair.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Josie
asked.
Clara looked at her and said nothing.
“You have that little glimmer in your eyes
that you used to get when Rebecca did something wrong and you were the only one
who knew …” Josie started.