I looked past him to see that Jackson was in handcuffs and Michelle was reading him his rights.
Nick followed my gaze. “I need to talk to Michelle,” he said. “You sure you’ll be all right for a few minutes?”
I nodded. “I’m fine. Go.”
He leaned over and kissed my cheek and walked away.
Mac had been standing a few feet away. Now he came over to me. “I’m sorry,” he said.
I shook my head. “No. You don’t have anything to be sorry about. But I’m sorry that Jackson . . . that he wasn’t . . .” I didn’t know how to finish the sentence.
“I should have known.”
“Don’t do that,” I said.
He made a move to touch me and then, maybe thinking better of it, yanked his hand back.
I pulled the blanket a little tighter over my shoulders. “Mr. P. and I talked to Stevie. Leila loved you. She did. I can promise you that.” I believed it and I wanted Mac to as well.
“She wasn’t the person I thought she was,” he said. “And maybe part of that is because I put her up way too high on a pedestal.” He was clenching his teeth, the muscles tight along his jaw.
“I have to go see her,” he went on. “And I have to talk to her parents. I’m leaving tonight. Michelle said the charges against me will be dropped.”
I nodded. My chest hurt all of a sudden. Mr. P. had joined Nick and Michelle but mostly he was watching Mac and me.
Mac looked away for a moment. “I . . . I’m resigning, Sarah. Please thank everyone for their help and for believing in me.”
“Tell them yourself when you come back. Take as much time as you need but I’m not taking your resignation.” I swallowed down the lump in my throat, leaned over and kissed his cheek. “We’ll all be here when you’re ready.” I hesitated. “Me included.”
I turned then and headed across the weathered wooden walkway. Mr. P. came to meet me. A uniformed officer was leading Jackson away.
“Trixie Belden,” I said to Mr. P.
He frowned. “I’m sorry, my dear. I’m not following you.”
“I read Trixie Belden when I was a kid. Not Sherlock Holmes. They were my mom’s books from when she was young.” It suddenly seemed important that I get that out there.
He nodded. “Good to know,” he said. He offered his arm and I took it and I didn’t look back.
I gave Michelle a brief statement. The microphone I’d been wearing had captured all my conversation with Jackson. I peeled it off my skin and handed it to her. “I’m sorry it got wet,” I said.
She smiled. “I’m sorry you did.”
Mr. P. and I headed for Charlotte’s. “Once again I owe you,” I said.
“You owe me nothing, my dear,” he said. “I’m just glad you’re all right and Mac has been exonerated.”
“You called Nick.” I shot him a quick glance.
He shook his head. “No. Mac called Nicolas when he figured out why you had gone to meet Mr. Montgomery for dinner. I just tagged along for the ride.”
“Where did you learn to pick pockets?” I asked. “Or is that something I’d be happier not knowing?”
I saw him smile from the corner of my eyes. “Did I ever tell you that I spent some time working in a carnival?”
I shook my head, not even trying to hide a smile. “Alfred Peterson, you never cease to amaze me,” I said.
We drove in silence for a couple of minutes. “I could teach you,” he offered.
“I was beginning to think you weren’t going to offer,” I said.
“So that’s yes?”
“That’s yes.”
I walked into Charlotte’s kitchen still wrapped in the soggy gray blanket, wearing a pair of flip-flops that had been in the backseat of my SUV. Avery was leaning against the counter feeding a bit of cheese to Elvis. Liz, Charlotte and Rose were sitting at the table having tea—with my grandmother. She turned and smiled at me. “Hello, sweetie,” she said.
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Elvis regarded breakfast with disdain. “Oh, c’mon,” I said, leaning my elbows on the countertop. “It’s not that bad.”
He narrowed his eyes at me and I think he would have raised a skeptical eyebrow if he’d had real eyebrows instead of just whiskers—which he didn’t, since he wasn’t the King of Rock and Roll or even a person. He was just a small black cat who thought he was a person and as such should be treated like royalty.
“We could make a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich,” I said. “That was the real Elvis’s favorite.”
The cat meowed sharply, his way of reminding me that as far as he was concerned he was the real Elvis and peanut butter and banana sandwiches were not his favorite breakfast food.
I looked at the food I’d pulled out of the cupboard: two dry ends of bread, a banana that was more brown than it was yellow and a container of peanut butter that I knew didn’t actually have so much as a spoonful left inside, because I’d eaten it all the previous evening, with a spoon, while watching Jeopardy! with the cat. It wasn’t my idea of a great breakfast, either, but there wasn’t anything else to eat in the house.
“I forgot to go to the store,” I said, feeling somewhat compelled to explain myself to the cat, who continued to stare unblinkingly at me from his perch on a stool at the counter.
Elvis knew that it wouldn’t have mattered if I had bought groceries. I couldn’t cook. My mother had tried to teach me. So had my brother and my grandmother. My grandmother’s friend Rose was the most recent person to take on the challenge of teaching me how to cook. We weren’t getting very far. Rose kept having to simplify things for me as she discovered I had very few basic skills.
“How did you pass the Family Living unit in school?” Charlotte, another of Gram’s friends, had asked after my last lesson in Rose’s small sunny kitchen. Charlotte had been a school principal, so she knew I’d had to take a basic cooking class in middle school. She’d been eyeing my attempt at meat loaf, which I’d just set on an oval stoneware platter and which I’d been pretty sure I’d be able to use as a paving stone out in the garden once the backyard dried up.
I’d wiped my hands on my apron and blown a stray piece of hair off my face. “The school decided to give me a pass, after the second fire.”
“Second fire?” Charlotte had said.
“It wasn’t my fault.” I couldn’t help the defensive edge to my voice. “Well, the sprinklers going off wasn’t my fault.”
“Of course it wasn’t, darling girl,” Rose had commented, her voice muffled because her head had been in the oven. She was cleaning remnants of exploded potatoes off the inside.
“They weren’t calibrated properly,” I told Charlotte, feeling the color rise in my cheeks.
“I’m sure they weren’t.” The corners of her mouth twitched and I could tell she was struggling not to smile.
Tired now of waiting for breakfast, Elvis jumped down from the stool, made his way purposefully across the kitchen and stopped in front of the cupboard where I kept his cat food. He put one paw on the door and turned and looked at me.
I pushed away from the counter and went over to him. I grabbed a can of Tasty Tenders from the cupboard. “Okay, you can have Tasty Tenders and I’ll have the peanut butter and banana sandwich.” I reached down to stroke the top of his head.
He licked his lips and pushed his head against my hand.
I got Elvis his breakfast and a dish of fresh water. He started eating and I eyed the two dry crusts and brown banana. The cat’s food looked better than mine.