I drew myself up as tall as I could manage, which was hardly impressive given my short stature. “I take pride in my work. Fiona has nothing to worry about...from me.” I left those last two words hanging in the air between us and took a step forward, inviting him to move aside and let me pass. He complied with a chuckle.
The bus was practically empty on my ride home. I stared out the window, scarcely noticing the profusion of mountain laurel bushes throughout the upscale neighborhood. All I could think about was Randall, reappearing in my life when I’d finally succeeded in moving on.
I seized my unexpected afternoon off to work on Fiona’s wedding gown. I spent almost three hours assembling the buttons for the back of the gown. Rather than using ready-made satin buttons, I was using fabric from Fiona’s dress, so the buttons would match perfectly. This process involved cutting a small circle of satin, placing it over the metal button head, and snapping it into the shank to form a custom-made button. The thickness of Fiona’s satin made it hard to stretch such a small piece over the tiny bit of metal with no wrinkles. Every single one of the fourteen buttons took two or three tries to get right. By the end of the afternoon my fingers tingled with the effort. But I was glad of the need to concentrate, so I couldn’t dwell on the sight of Professor Burbridge sprawled on the floor of the library, dead.
The late afternoon sun was flooding into my workroom by the time I finished up the final button. I piled them all into a small box on my worktable and headed downstairs to look into dinner.
Pete, Aileen, and I tried to eat together at least once a week, just to foster a sense of community in the house. Often we found ourselves at the table at the same time on other nights, but Fridays were the official “family meal” nights of the week. It was a little inconvenient for Pete and me, but Aileen insisted on Friday so she could have a decent meal before her inevitable gig. Whatever Aileen wanted, Aileen got. We didn’t have a formal schedule as to whose turn it was to cook, but Pete and I always tried to get to the kitchen before Aileen. Last time she cooked we had to eat gefilte fish on freezer waffles slathered with chocolate marshmallow sauce and topped with carrot shavings. Thanks, but no thanks.
I served up a perfectly ordinary meal of sautéed chicken and vegetables with a hint of curry. I refused to let Aileen get a rise out of me when she dumped a massive pile of curry powder on her plate.
She shoved a huge forkful into her mouth and mumbled through the food, “Either of you two know a guy with dark hair, tall and slim, who goes around in a fancy three-piece suit and carries a brown leather briefcase that’s too big for him?”
I almost choked on my chicken. I remembered that briefcase. I’d given it to Randall on his graduation from law school, after saving for six months to be able to afford the real leather model. He’d scoffed at the unstylish size of the thing, and refused to carry it to the office. What surprised me most was the fact that he still had it, if indeed he were the one Aileen was describing.
“Why do you ask?”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Is he a friend of yours? Or should I say, ‘was’? He came poking around the house today. Jerk tried the door, even. I hollered out the window and ran him off. He won’t be back anytime soon.”
My hands went cold at the thought of Randall trying the door. He wouldn’t know that I had changed the locks after he left me, disappearing with the balance of our joint bank account. What made him think he could come back now?
“He tried the door?” Pete frowned. “Do you think he was trying to break in?”
Aileen snorted. “Either that or he was the rudest jackass alive.” She snagged the bottle of curry powder and dumped on a fresh layer.
“Did he say anything when you hollered at him out the window?” I asked.
“Yeah, sure. He professed his undying love for you while strumming on a mandolin. What do you think?” Aileen stopped in midstream, noticing the blush on my face, no doubt. “Wait—you know this guy?”
I nodded. “I’m guessing it was Randall Flint, a guy I used to know.”
“Randall, as in the guy you were going to marry?” Pete said.
“Yeah, that guy.” I glared at Pete. Nothing like a big brother to blurt out all the painful details of one’s life.
“So the ‘undying love’ wasn’t so far off.” Aileen couldn’t resist. “What, the wedding seamstress was a jilted bride?” She turned to Pete, “Did you run him off, Moron?”
Pete shrugged, unfazed by Aileen’s habitual nickname for him. “I never met the guy. I understand he was a jerk, though.”
“Of the highest order.” I sighed. It looked like Randall was back in my life. I needed to fill Aileen in. “I met him at a wedding, when he was in law school. We went out. He moved in. Then he ditched me. Anything else you want to know?”
“Touchy, aren’t we?” Aileen scowled at me. “Yeah, there’s a lot I want to know. If this jerk’s gonna be coming around trying to get into the house, I want to know what he’s after. I want to know if he’ll be sneaking into my bedroom in the middle of the night, or setting fires in the basement. I want to know if you’re planning to get back together with him or if I should keep running him off. I think I have a right to know.”
I got up from the table. “Okay, you made your point. I went out with him for four years. He lived with me here in this house while he was in law school, to save money. I thought he loved me, but he was just using me for free rent. While I was making my wedding dress, he was making sure we had a joint bank account, which he then cleaned out before he split. As a matter of fact, Aileen, you can thank Randall for your opportunity to live here, because I wouldn’t have had to take in a renter if he hadn’t stolen all my money.”
I didn’t mention the fact that I had missed the classic signs of manipulation as Randall distanced me from my friends and family and surrounded me with his unrelenting attention that morphed from showering me with flowers and candy to demanding to know exactly where I was at all times of the day or night. And through it all, I had loved him, fool that I was. I didn’t need to mention that, either.
“So, no, Aileen, I don’t intend to get back together with him, especially since he happens to be engaged to marry my lovely client, Fiona.”
Pete let out a low whistle. “You never told me all that stuff.”
“Well, what good would it have done me? You didn’t have any money to help me pay the bills. Plus I didn’t want you to judge me for getting sucked in by such a con artist.”
He smiled at me. “I wouldn’t do that. You didn’t judge me for getting sent to jail for drugs.”
I smiled back. “Yes, I did. That’s what sisters do.”
Aileen rolled her eyes. “Okay, so what you’re saying is, this Randall jerk is going to be hanging around our house while you make his fiancée’s expensive wedding gown.” She grimaced at me. “I have the feeling that the band is going to need a lot of extra rehearsals. Too bad they might happen whenever that jackass is around.”
Pete laughed. “He’ll probably want to call the whole thing off by the time you get done with him.”
“You got something to say about the band, Moron?”
“No way! I love the Twisted Armpits, as long as I have my trusty earplugs handy. Without them, the noise might make me want to end it all.”
I gasped, catching Aileen in midsnort. She and Pete stared at me.
“All this talk about Randall—I forgot to tell you. Professor Burbridge died today. I found his body in the library.”
If I were trying to rival Aileen in the shock category, I hit the jackpot. Pete dropped his fork with a clatter, and Aileen swore, “What the hell?”
“You