Sharon Sala - Cold Hearts

“Let me help you inside,” he said, as he took the keys from her hand and quickly opened the door.

Lissa entered reluctantly. Once he was inside, he was difficult to get out.

“I’m not up to visitors today, T.J.”

He ran a finger down the side of her cheek as his voice softened.

“I know, Liss. I heard what happened. I’m so sorry you were the one who found the body. It must have been awful for you.”

Lissa pushed his hand aside. She hated the nickname he persisted in using and didn’t intend to talk about what had happened with anyone, especially him.

“I don’t want to talk about it. Please go, T.J. I just need to be alone.”

T. J. Silver wasn’t used to women refusing his attentions, and this only reminded him how pissed he was that she had ended their very new, very tenuous relationship after just a handful of dinner dates.

“I understand how you feel, but I just want to help. I assume your car is going to be unavailable for a while. Could I give you a ride to school tomorrow?”

The last thing she wanted was to owe him any favors.

“No, I have that covered,” she said. She then went to the door and stepped aside, waiting for him to leave. “Thank you for checking on me. It was very kind.”

T.J.’s eyes narrowed angrily, but he managed a smile as he slid a hand beneath her hair and cupped the back of her neck.

“I didn’t do it to be kind, Liss. I did it because I care about you.”

She stiffened beneath the familiarity, and she knew he felt it.

“So you have my number,” he said. “Call if you need anything, okay?”

“Thank you again,” she said.

He gave in and walked out, and the moment he crossed the threshold she shut the door and turned the lock.

His fingers curled into fists when he heard that click, but he kept on walking.

Lissa leaned against the door until she heard him drive away. Only then did she abandon her post and go to her room to change.

* * *

Being around women made Louis Parsons nervous. He would never have volunteered to take Melissa Sherman home on his own, but the principal was his boss, and he’d asked if Louis would take her home, so he had.

He kept glancing at the floorboard and the seat of his truck as he drove away, making sure she hadn’t left anything behind. His identical twin brother, Reece, used the truck at night, and he made a big deal of keeping it clean, which Louis thought was stupid because Reece’s dog, Bobo, shed like crazy and Reece was always taking Bobo for a ride.

He got back to school and slipped right into the routine as if he’d never been gone, hauling the oversize trash cans from the school cafeteria to the Dumpsters and sweeping up the floor after the last lunch shift had ended. He stayed busy all afternoon and then went to work cleaning up the rooms after school was out, thinking all the time of the comfort waiting for him back home. Even though he and his brother shared a house, they didn’t share their lives. Louis worked days, his brother worked nights and, even though they shared a vehicle and sometimes the dog, their paths rarely crossed.

His steps were dragging as he locked up the building and headed to the parking lot. It was almost supper time, but he was going home to take a nap. He’d always taken a nap after school when he was little and he did the same thing now because routines and schedules were how Louis Parsons rolled.

The house he and Reece rented was on the far side of the park in the old part of Mystic. The houses weren’t shacks, but they were a little run-down, most of them in need of a coat or two of paint or minor repairs. Louis had fixed the front steps when they’d moved in, and painted the porch so the outside looked neat. The interior was a work in progress. He liked to stay busy during the day, even on weekends, but that meant quiet projects because Reece slept days.

He unlocked the door and entered quietly, wrinkling his nose at the doggy smell of the house as he headed for the kitchen with his to-go coffee mug. He rinsed it out to refill tomorrow, wrote a note to Reece telling him what food was available in the refrigerator for his nighttime meals and headed down the hall to his room.

He took off his work clothes without looking at his body, and slipped between the sheets and closed his eyes. Silence engulfed him as he fell asleep.

Four

Trey finished writing up the report, and then printed it out and filed it. It was almost noon before he got the schedules rearranged and his officers back on duty. And he still hadn’t checked in with Dallas. He went back into his office and shut the door, then dropped into his chair and made the call.

* * *

Betsy was still sleeping when Dallas’s cell phone signaled a call. She’d put it on vibrate so it wouldn’t disturb Betsy and was relieved to see that it was Trey.

“Hi, honey,” she said, careful to keep her voice low.

“Hello, sweetheart. How are things going? Was Mom all right?”

Dallas looked over her shoulder to make sure she was still alone.

“I thought so at first. She was making bread when I got here, but she looked so tired...almost old. I’ve never thought of your mother as old before. We went into the living room to sit down. She leaned back and closed her eyes, then for no obvious reason jumped up so fast she knocked her coffee off the table. The mug broke and coffee went everywhere. I went to get something to clean it up, and she started screaming. I ran back and found her on her knees in the middle of the spilled coffee. It was the most frightening sound I’ve ever heard.”

Trey’s heart skipped a beat. “Oh, my God, did she fall?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Dallas said. “But she acted like she didn’t know where she was. I tried to get her up to go change her clothes, and she kept looking down at the floor telling me she couldn’t leave yet because she’d just thrown up in the floorboard of the car and she had to clean it up.”

The hair stood up on the back of his neck.

“The floorboard of a car? She said she threw up in the floorboard of a car?”

“Yes. It makes no sense,” Dallas said. “I was afraid she’d had some kind of seizure, because she went right to sleep after I got her cleaned up.”

Trey frowned. “I’m coming out. Don’t leave, I’ll be there soon.”

“Oh, I’m not leaving. I have to bake the bread dough she has rising. Have you talked to Trina?”

“Not yet. As for Mom, don’t tell her I’m coming,” Trey said.

Dallas felt sick. Would this turmoil never end?

* * *

Trina Jakes was taking inventory on the number of radiator hoses they had in stock and comparing it to the computer readout of stock on hand to make sure the numbers matched.

Freddie Miller, her boss at Miller Auto Parts, was beginning to suspect someone was selling inventory at a cut rate to certain customers and pocketing the money because he kept coming up short on parts when the computer said they were still in stock.

There were only three other employees besides her who could be doing it: Tony, Elton or George, and she had to guess that since she was the bookkeeper and never waited on customers, Freddie didn’t suspect her. That and the fact that he’d asked her not to mention what she was doing made his suspicions fairly obvious.

She was down on her knees in the aisle when someone tapped her on the shoulder. She looked up.

“Hey, Red, what are you doing?”

She frowned. Not only did she not like that Elton called her Red, but she’d just been confronted, something she’d hoped wouldn’t happen. She had to come up with an explanation fast.

“Oh, I’m checking some stock numbers against an invoice I got the other day. They don’t match, and I can’t cut a check to pay until I know for sure we got the right merchandise.”