“What I want is to stay—”
“I know, but we’re running out of time. Everyone has to leave the inn in five days, when the new owner takes over.”
“Oh, all right, I’ll look, but I won’t like it.”
Of course she wouldn’t. “If you don’t like it, we’ll find another place, or you can go back to the nursing home.”
As they walked inside, Mattie snapped at an old man sitting near the front door. “What are you looking at?”
The manager showed them through the facility and then took them upstairs in an elevator to the second floor. Mattie stepped into the apartment and looked around, and Jenna held her breath. It wasn’t as nice as the one-bedroom in Tacoma, but it was nicer than the nursing home.
“Where’s the kitchen?”
There was a little alcove with a microwave, an apartment size refrigerator, and a single cabinet. “This is it, Aunt Mattie. It’s big enough for snacks, and they serve hot meals downstairs in the dining room. With the elevator you wouldn’t have to walk down the stairs.”
“I don’t like it.”
“I’m sure it’ll take some getting used to.”
“Then you live here. I’m going home.”
Mattie had ended the tour as if she’d slammed a door, and Jenna had just about had enough. She rode the elevator down with Mattie, who looked quite pleased with herself, and strapped her into the car. After Jenna started the engine, she said, “I thought you’d like this better than the nursing home, but I was wrong. We don’t need to look any more.”
“No, we most certainly don’t, because I’m staying home at the inn. You get my clothes and my chair and television back.”
“Get it yourself. Take care of yourself. Live in a tent if you want after the police throw you out of the inn. I no longer care what happens to you.”
“You ungrateful bastard. I took care of you.”
“I earned my keep. I worked every day I lived at the inn, and you got Social Security payments for me every month.” Jenna drove down the highway toward Gig Harbor. She tried to hold her tongue, but she was upset, and she couldn’t keep quiet when she was upset. “I was wrong about my parents buying a half-interest in the inn. They wrote the check, but Uncle Charlie used it for something else.”
“Whatever for?”
“To take care of his other bastard.”
Mattie gasped. It was a cruel thing for Jenna to say, but at that moment she didn’t care. “His name was Tom. He was older than me, and he had cancer. Uncle Charlie sent him all the money my parents had saved and invested. It all went to the boy’s mother or to the hospital for his cancer treatments.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Oh yes she did. She was just surprised because she didn’t figure it out for herself. Jenna pulled into the drive at the inn. “I wonder how many more brothers and sisters I have out there somewhere. Maybe you could go live with one of them.”
“Don’t you dare make up stories.”
“I wouldn’t think of it.”
Katie ran out to the car to meet them. She had something purple dripped down her shirt and her lips were the same color. Jenna smiled. “Hi, Katie Bug.”
“Mommy, ’Sandro gave me a popsicle.”
“Was it good?”
“Yeah.”
Jenna opened the door for Mattie and released her seatbelt. And then she walked inside with Katie. Mattie could help herself from now on.
Mattie followed them inside. “Jenna, get me a cup of tea.”
Jenna ignored her, so Mattie grabbed a handful of hair. Jenna cried out and Alessandro came on the run. He pried Mattie’s fingers out of Jenna’s hair. “That’s it, Mattie,” he said. “Your week is up. You’re going back to the nursing home. If you want a better place to live, your attorney will have to take care of it, because Jenna is finished helping you.”
Jenna went upstairs rubbing her head and blinking back tears. Mattie nearly tore the hair out of her head. Alessandro followed with Katie while Mattie raged downstairs.
“We have to get her out of here,” Alessandro said. “I don’t care if I have to call the police. I don’t want her here any longer. The woman has lost her mind.”
Jenna touched a sore spot on her head and came away with a spot of blood where Mattie’s fingernail had dug in.
Al did his best to calm Katie, who was crying, and Jenna, who was still smarting from the unprovoked attack. And then he called Gerry. “I want Mattie gone today. She attacked Jenna again, and I’m not putting up with it any longer.”
“Did she find a place?”
“Hell, no. She doesn’t like anyplace, she won’t go without her cats, and she orders Jenna around like a slave. She tried to hit me with a ceramic horse when I tore the fireplace mantel off, and she nearly ripped Jenna’s hair out a few minutes ago. That’s it, Gerry. If the nursing home won’t take her back, we’ll have her arrested for assault and the sheriff’s department can deal with her.”
“I’ll call Phillip and see what we can come up with. Is the room still available at the nursing home?”
“Yes, Jenna told them to hold it.”
Gerry blew out a breath. “This is turning out to be a major headache.”
“It sure is. I tried to do something nice for an old lady and look where it got me.”
<>
Mattie turned on the burner under the kettle and found a cup and a tea bag. Spying the little box of matches on the counter, she slipped it into her pocket. They might come in handy later on.
The kettle boiled and she poured the water into the cup. She sat on a stool at the bar and blew on it until it was cool enough to drink. Charlie’s bastard and that young man had no right to treat her like this. The inn was her home, and he said she could live here.
Jenna had lied to her about Charlie having another bastard. If he had another kid, she would have known about it. He’d always had a wandering eye, but the only woman he’d ever cheated with was Kate Madison.
Kate worked here one Thanksgiving weekend when she was in college, but they were so busy there was no time for hanky-panky. That was years before she spent a week at the inn and seduced Charlie. The little slut. She knew Charlie was a married man and she went after him anyway. And then she and her husband and her little bastard had the unmitigated gall to move into the inn –
her
inn – and leave Charlie’s bastard here. She wanted to send the girl off somewhere, and Charlie wouldn’t hear of it.
Now Charlie was dead, and if Mattie had her way, the girl would be dead, too.
<>
Brian called Jenna and asked if he could take Katie for dinner. “Take her where?” Jenna asked, but she knew.
“My dad promises not to smoke around her this time.”
“No. She’s not going there until she’s big enough to tell him to go to hell.”
“But my mother—”
“Your mother lets it happen, Brian. She’s as bad as your father.”
“Then I’ll take her to McDonalds.”
Sure he would, and then he’d take her to his parents’ house. “If you want to visit Katie, you’ll have to come out to the inn.”
“I thought you didn’t live there anymore.”
“It’s temporary, until we send Mattie back to the nursing home. Push the button on the gate and I’ll let you in.”
“Why is there a gate?”
“To keep you and your parents out.” She disconnected and looked up at Alessandro, who was smiling.
“You are one tough broad.”
She sat near Alessandro’s computer, with Katie standing between her knees. “It’s easy with Brian. He’s a wuss.”
“He used to talk about you in the locker room at school, about how hot you were and how many guys you’d slept with, but he got there first.”
Jenna took a deep breath and blew it out. She’d suspected as much, but it was more about Brian than about her. He’d wanted all the other kids to think he was special. Brian had always acted like he was better than anyone else, but his parents had him so beaten down, he was as insecure as a little boy inside. That insecurity was what had drawn her to him in the beginning. She knew he needed her, and nobody else had ever needed her.
She’d calmed down from Mattie’s attack, and it was quiet downstairs. It was time to start dinner, but she wasn’t anxious to go down there. Mattie Worthington had always been surly and unappreciative, but Jenna had never known her to hurt anyone physically until recently, when she learned that Mattie had killed Charlie. Was age playing games with her reasoning, or had she always been this dangerous?
The buzzer for the gate sounded and Mattie yelled, “What’s that noise?”
It was probably Brian. Ignoring Mattie, Jenna walked down the stairs and pushed the button to open the gate. Brian’s car was followed by two others. It looked like a sheriff’s deputy had arrived with Mattie’s attorney.
Brian came in first. “What’s with the cops?”
“Mattie attacked me and tried to attack Alessandro.”
“I most certainly did nothing of the kind,” Mattie yelled. “You’re lying.”
Jenna sighed. “Katie is upstairs. I don’t want her down here right now.”
“My parents are waiting.”
“I don’t give a shit what your parents are doing, Brian. She’s not going to that house again.”
“She’s my daughter, and I have a right to see her.”
“Yes, you do, but not at your parents’ house. If you want to take Katie and your parents out for dinner in a restaurant where smoking isn’t allowed, be my guest, as long as you don’t take her inside their house.”
“Come on, Jenna,” he said in that wheedling tone she hated.
“Katie is waiting for you upstairs.” Jenna turned away. She didn’t want to deprive Brian’s parents of their granddaughter, but she didn’t want her little girl sick again. Brian would have to deal with it. He didn’t have custody, she did, and she was the one who made the decisions about what was best for Katie.
The deputy stayed outside talking with Mattie’s attorney, and Jenna wondered what was going on. Were they going to take her or not? And then another car pulled in. A man got out carrying a doctor’s bag. Now she understood. If Mattie wouldn’t go willingly – and she wouldn’t – they might have to sedate her. All three men walked toward the door, and Jenna let them in. Mr. Collier introduced the nursing home’s doctor, and the men all went into the living room, where Mattie sat muttering to herself.
Jenna walked upstairs, where Brian asked, “What’s going on?”
“They came to take Mattie back to the nursing home. She’s attacking people and acting irrationally.”
A loud wailing came from downstairs and Katie wrapped her arms around Jenna’s leg. “It’s okay, honey. Aunt Mattie is sick, and the doctor is giving her a shot.”
“Do I hafta get a shot?”
“No, not today.”
Jenna sat on Katie’s bed with her while Brian sat in the rocking chair. Alessandro had made himself scarce. Mattie screamed and cried, and Katie sobbed. “I want ’Sandro.”
“Let’s go find him.” Jenna took her daughter’s hand and they walked into Alessandro’s study.
He sat staring out the window. “I wish to God I’d never agreed to let her stay here. I knew she was old, but I didn’t know she was obsessed with this place.”
Brian walked in the door behind Jenna. “She’s wacko. She always was, even when we were in high school. Charlie was an okay guy, but the old lady is nuts.”
Something crashed and shattered downstairs and then Jenna heard footsteps on the stairs. The deputy called her name, and Jenna met him at Alessandro’s office door.
“Miss Madison, it’ll be a few more minutes. The doctor thinks she’ll be better off in the hospital where she can get psychiatric help. He said the nursing home wasn’t equipped to deal with a person who was a danger to herself and to others.”
“She killed her husband five years ago and she’s so angry now I don’t know how to deal with her.”
“I can see that.” The deputy went back downstairs.
Brian gaped at Jenna. “The old witch killed Charlie?”
“Stuff it, Brian.”
Jenna’s stomach growled. Alessandro said, “If Mattie was gone, we could go out to eat, but we can’t leave now. Can you eat pizza?”
She nodded. “No pepperoni, or you can get two and Brian can eat here with Katie.”
“My parents are expecting us.”
“Then go, Brian, but Katie stays here with me.”
“If I don’t take her there, my old man will be here asking why.”
“He knows why,” said Alessandro. “Go ahead, but this little girl is not going to end up in the emergency room again. She stays with her mother.”
“This is none of your damn business.”
Al stood to face Brian. “I’m making it my business.”
Brian took a step back, no doubt remembering the last time they’d tangled, and Al knew he had him. “Would you like to have pizza with your daughter, Brian?”
“Yeah, sure, but don’t be surprised if my parents show up here.”
Jenna shook her head. “Leave, Brian. Go have dinner with your parents. If you want to come back later, you can read Katie a story and tuck her in bed.”
Al took a step toward Brian, and Brian galloped down the stairs.