Scarlet Nights p.5 Read online

  Frowning, Sara opened all three of the drawers in the chest. They were empty, as were the bedside table drawers, and nothing was under the bed. She even pulled the bedcovers back and looked under them, but there was not one thing of his in the room.

  As she left, she thought about his note and that he’d said he needed to run errands. What secret assignations did he have in Williamsburg?

  Sara had just closed the door behind her when she heard a car drive up and instantly knew it was her mother. It was, no doubt, some primal instinct that told her when her mother was near, and when she looked out, she saw that she was right. Before Sara could think how to escape, her mother was at the front door. When she saw Sara, she said through the glass, “I need some help.”

  “Don’t we all?” Sara muttered as she opened the door. To her surprise, her mother had eight canvas—never plastic—bags of groceries on the little porch. All Sara’s bad thoughts and feelings left her. Her mother knew how hard Sara was working to get the alterations done before the wedding, so she’d taken on the job of cooking for her. Armstrong’s—Eleanor Shaw’s maiden name—Organic Foods had grown since her mother opened it out of her kitchen in 1976. Now she ran three stores, one in Edilean, one in Williamsburg, and in the summer, a big fruit and vegetable stand on the highway to Richmond. She employed nearly a dozen women to cook food that sold out as fast as they could make it, plus another fifteen to handle the stores. That her mother would take the time in her very busy life to care about her daughter’s needs made Sara forget any complaints she’d had. She really did have the most wonderful mother in the world.

  Sara put her arms around her mother’s neck and hugged her tight. “Thank you. You are the best mother … the best friend … anyone ever had. How did you know I was practically starving?”

  When Eleanor was released, she handed Sara two bags of groceries. “Sorry to disappoint you, sweetums, but Mike bought all of this.”

  Sara’s face fell. “Mike? Tess’s brother?”

  “You have more than one Mike living with you?”

  Sara put the groceries on the counter by the refrigerator. “All right, so what heroic deed of monumental importance did he perform for you today?”

  As Ellie opened the refrigerator door, she raised an eyebrow at her daughter. “What’s got you so riled up? The fact that your husband-to-be went off and left you practically at the altar, or that he hasn’t called?”

  “How did you know—” Sara glared when she realized her mother wasn’t sure Greg hadn’t called until Sara’s outburst told her. “All right, out with it. Say what you have to, then go. I have work to do.”

  “You always do.” Ellie put a bunch of dark cavolo nero in the crisper and adjusted the humidity level. “In fact, it seems that now you have so much work to do that you don’t have time to even feed yourself, much less spend time with your friends and family.”

  Sara had heard it all before. Reaching into the bag, she withdrew a heavy chunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. “I don’t have—”

  “A grater for that?” Ellie said. “Don’t worry, Mike took care of it. He bought one from me. Paid for it with a debit card. You know, the kind of card that takes money out of his bank account instantly?”

  Sara didn’t have to be told what her mother was referring to. Not long after she introduced Greg to her family, he stopped by the grocery and got a cart full of expensive, premade food—then wheeled it out without paying. When the store manager went after him, Greg said he could have whatever he wanted with no charge because his “girlfriend” owned the store. It took the manager a few minutes to understand that Greg was talking about Sara, not Ellie. Later, it had been Sara who’d had to deal with Greg’s anger because his future mother-in-law wouldn’t give him everything he wanted from the store for free. Since then, Sara had done the shopping and paid for everything, even though she did get an employee’s discount. She didn’t tell Greg because she didn’t want to spend more hours explaining, but she was given many items without charge.

  Now, as Sara unpacked more food—none of it ready-made—she thought about how to get her mother on her side. The praise for Mike Newland was getting out of hand. “Look, Mom, I know he seems like a nice guy and all, and he is Tess’s brother, but there’s something about him that I don’t trust. Wait until you hear how he broke into my apartment in the middle of the night. He—”

  “I know. He came up through the old tunnel.”

  Sara paused, her hand on a small, reusable canvas bag full of chili peppers. “How do you know about that?”

  “Aunt Lissie told me about it when I was a kid, but it’d been closed up. Luke rediscovered it the year before he met Joce. You know, that time when he was so depressed he wasn’t talking to anyone. He got my father to help him shore it up. Do you think Dad could do something like that and I’d not know about it? I was the one who washed his filthy clothes and rubbed liniment on his sore back.”

  “Who else knows about the tunnel?”

  “Alive or dead?”

  Sara shook her head. “Okay, so lots of people of your generation and older know about it, but that doesn’t excuse how he—this stranger—used it. I think he wanted to scare me.”

  “I guess he should have knocked on the door of what he thought was an empty apartment.”

  “If he and Tess are so close, why didn’t he know I was staying here? And why is his room empty? He showed up here at night with nothing. Don’t you think that’s a bit odd?”

  Ellie looked up from the refrigerator. “Not if your apartment burned down and all you had left was what you were wearing and your car.”

  Sara stared at her mother, speechless.

  Ellie straightened up, her hand on her lower back. She was sixty-two years old and a handsome woman—due, she said, to not eating the poisons that were in commercially grown foods—but she didn’t look anything like her daughter. Sara’s delicate prettiness came from Ellie’s mother’s sister, Lissie, a woman of alabaster beauty. “I thought he might not have told you why he showed up during the night and why his room—which it looks like you’ve been snooping through—is empty. The poor man has nothing. I ordered kilts for him.”

  “You what?”

  “I measured him, called the shop in Edinburgh, and ordered two complete Scottish outfits for him, one for dress and one to wear to participate in the games at the fair.”

  “Games? At the fair? Are you talking about the Scottish games? Throwing a cable? Shot putting? The mock battles?! The Fraziers will slaughter him.”

  Ellie gave her daughter a sharp look. “What, exactly, is it that you have against this man? He’s certainly better—”

  When her mother seemed on the verge of saying more, Sara gave her a warning look. “If you’re planning on saying anything bad about Greg, don’t do it.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “Only because you can’t think of anything you haven’t already said.”

  “Think not? Give me three hours and I could fill them up.” At Sara’s look, Ellie put her hands up in surrender. “All right, no more fighting. It’s none of my business. So how’s your work going?”

  “Fine.” Sara wanted to get the subject away from Greg. “What are all these groceries he bought for? Is he planning to open a rival store?”

  “It’s what Mike needs to be able to cook.” Ellie’s face took on a look of enchantment. “I’ve never met a man who wasn’t in the business who knew so much about organic foods. We must have spent ten whole minutes talking about the benefits of flaxseed.”

  “That sounds fascinating.”

  Ellie ignored the snide remark. “Mike gave me a recipe for parsnip soup that I’m going to try on your father tonight, and they have a golf date this Saturday.”

  “Who does?”

  “Mike and your father.”

  “My father is going to play golf with a man half his age, someone he doesn’t even know? A policeman?”

  “I’ll tell Mike to leave his guns at h