Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Holiday
It had been a long day. Made even longer by the persistent ache behind my eyes at the top of my skull.
The pain had been there since I woke up that morning.
I knew what it meant. Years of experience would do that.
A migraine was coming. I’d been getting them since I was a little girl.
I had a prescription for them, but I was bad about keeping it on me.
Any other day, I could have run upstairs and taken it, but it was like the universe had chosen today to point and laugh before throwing one obstacle after another in my path.
The store was incredibly busy, thanks to a book signing we were hosting for a popular Virginia-based author.
The line had started forming early that morning, and kept growing.
On top of that, we’d had a steady stream of people coming in to browse and purchase books.
There was also story hour we hosted in the children’s section every two weeks.
The volunteer we had for that had come down with the flu, and with Denise handling crowd control for the signing attendees, Cara manning the register, and Bethany restocking shelves that were emptying out faster than usual, I was the only one who could step in.
It was that or deal with the mutiny that was bound to happen if the littles didn’t get their story.
And, my god, but those toddlers could be scary when they banded together for evil.
But those tiny words on the pages, along with the brightly colored illustrations certainly hadn’t helped.
Now it was too late. Even though things were starting to die down and I finally had a chance to get my medication, it wouldn’t do me any good.
The light sensitivity had reached the level that felt like needles were stabbing into my eyeballs.
A ring of black had formed around my vision and was steadily getting thicker.
Next would be the stiff neck, nausea, and my pulse banging in my temples with each pump of my heart.
A sheen of clammy sweat formed at my hairline and the base of my spine. The kind of sweat that came with a roiling stomach.
I was squinting at the register’s screen, struggling to make out the numbers and letters on the screen that seemed a million times brighter than usual, when Denise came up beside me and placed her hand on my arm.
“Holly, are you all right?”
I twisted my neck in her direction, the motion making my head swim. “What?”
Concern formed a line between her brows as they pulled together. “Are you okay? You look a little pale.”
“Oh, yeah. No.” I squeezed my eyes closed and reached up to massage my temples, praying for any kind of relief. I’d dealt with this enough times to know I wasn’t long from needing a pitch black room, total silence, and a trashcan. “Migraine’s coming on. That’s all.”
Sympathy washed over her features. She’d been with me long enough to have seen me go through this on more than one occasion. “God, honey. I’m sorry. Why don’t you call it a day? Go upstairs and lie down.”
I looked around the shop, still teaming with people.
“Hey. Don’t worry about this. The signing’s over, so things will be dying down shortly. The girls and I have the rest. You just take care of you.”
I knew it was the migraine, but I found myself sniffling as my eyes grew a little watery. “You guys really are the best,” I insisted. “I’d be lost without you.”
“The feeling’s mutual,” Denise replied as she took me by the shoulders and turned me toward the back. “Now go sleep this off. We’ll see you back here once you’re bright-eyed and bushytailed.”
Reaching beneath the counter, I grabbed my purse and cellphone.
With one last wave to my girls, I headed toward the back of the building, past the stockroom and breakroom, to the door that led to the tiny alcove up to my apartment.
Gripping the banister tightly, I white-knuckled my way up the stairs, desperate for my bed.
Only as soon as I reached the landing, I froze in place at the sight of my open front door.
I knew it wasn’t the best habit, and it was something my siblings and Gypsy’s husband, Marco, gave me constant shit about, but I tended to leave the door to my apartment unlocked.
It wasn’t the safest, sure, but you needed the code or had to buzz through the back door of the building, and the one to that led into the shop locked automatically as soon as it closed. No one should have been up here.
Thinking that maybe one of the girls wandered up for something, I slowly pushed it open, and my stomach dropped to the floor at my feet.
The items that had been on the entryway table were now scattered across the floor and the table itself was knocked onto its side.
A little farther in, I could see more destruction, and the very first thought to jump into my head was Yoda.
“Yoda?” I called out, moving farther into the space. Panic gripped my throat, its long fingers squeezing so tightly I struggled to breathe. “Yoda!”
I raced through my apartment, vaguely noting the destruction throughout as I searched for my little guy.
“Yoda, it’s okay. You’re safe.” I searched beneath the sofa cushion that had been yanked off the couch and tossed around, searching for him.
“You can come out.” I made the kissing sound that usually worked.
The throbbing in my skull was all but forgotten as I grew more frantic with each passing second.
“Please, baby.” My voice quivered, tears filling my eyes and making my vision blur worse than the migraine. “Please. Come to Mommy, baby.”
Standing in the middle of my living space, I gripped my hair in my fists and spun in circles, feeling helpless as the tears spilled onto my cheeks. That was when I heard it. That whispered honking noise that was distinctly Yoda. My heart lodged in my throat. “Call out again, baby. Momma’s here.”
The sound came again, and I didn’t hesitate, moving as quickly as I could through the mess that was my apartment toward my bedroom.
His honking meow came again, and I dropped to my knees at the side of the bed.
The comforter and sheets had been ripped off and thrown around, but I couldn’t have cared less in that moment.
A smile split my face when I spotted him in the darkness beneath the bed.
More tears fell, happy ones as I reached out and wiggled my fingers.
“Hey, buddy. I’m here,” I cooed softly. “Mommy’s here. You can come out now.”
He let out another meow and slowly crawled toward me on his belly. As soon as he was within reach, I scooped him up and hugged him to my chest tightly. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” I repeated the words over and over, more to myself than to Yoda.
With the knowledge that he was safe, the pain in my skull came back ten-fold. Pushing Yoda off my lap, I crawled as fast as I could to the bathroom and emptied the contents of my stomach into the toilet.
The overhead lights made it feel like I was being stabbed in the temple. Once I was sure there was nothing left to come up, I slid onto the floor, thankful I’d just cleaned it as I curled into the fetal position; the cold tile was a temporary relief.
Yoda padded up to me, bumping his head against my arm. “I’m okay.” I gave him a pat and forced myself up. “I’m okay, I promise. Mommy just needs a second to get her bearings.”
It took far longer than it should have, but I managed to get to my feet and shuffle out of the bathroom. As badly as I needed my bed, I needed to assess the damage done to my apartment more. Fresh tears welled in my eyes as I took in the mess.
Broken picture frames and knickknacks, most everything had been thrown around, but at a cursory glance, it didn’t look like anything had been stolen, aside from a little bit of cash and a few pieces of cheap jewelry I’d stashed in the now-shattered bowl on my coffee table.
This wasn’t a burglary. This was a message. And I knew exactly from who.
Only one person in my life would do something so petty and cruel.
One person who knew damn good and well I wouldn’t report their vandalism to the police because that would put the rest of my siblings in jeopardy from her vindictiveness.
Hell, that was probably why she’d done it, because she knew I’d cave, just to keep her the hell away from them.
She knew my silence was my way of keeping them safe from her venom.
There was no other choice, and that killed me.
Reaching into my back pocket, I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my text messages to the thread I had been trying desperately to ignore, hoping she’d go away. It was clearer than ever that wasn’t going to happen.
Instead of typing, I hit the screen to call and brought it up to my ear. The shrill ring was like a knitting needle to my eardrum, and I counted three rings until the voice on the other side finally answered.
“Well, would you look at that. It’s about goddamn time.”
Closing my eyes, I pulled in a fortifying breath. “Mom.” My voice was flat, void of any emotion.
“So my flesh and blood finally deigned to acknowledge my existence. About fuckin’ time, you ungrateful little brat.”
If there was anything that could make my migraine worse, it was the woman who bore me, then abandoned me without a backward glance. “What do you want?” I spit out, cutting right to the chase.
Her maniacal laugh carried through the speaker, the sound coming out gritty, like she smoked two packs a day. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she did. “I’m guessing you got the little surprise I had my friend leave at your apartment, huh?”
I knew it had been her. The only silver lining I could find was the fact that she’d sent someone else to do her dirty work, meaning she probably—hopefully—wasn’t in Hope Valley. “The fact you had one of your thugs trash your own daughter’s apartment is a whole new low. Even for you.”
“Yeah, well, I always get what I want, and what I want is the money I’m owed.”
She wasn’t owed a damn thing, but I’d discovered over the past year it was easier to give her what she wanted.
It kept her from contacting my siblings.
They’d all done so much for me already, this was the least I could do for them.
Keeping this vile woman out of the happy lives they’d built for themselves.
“How much this time?” The words burned like acid coming up my throat.
“Ten grand.”
I nearly threw up all over again. “I don’t have ten thousand dollars. You need to be reasonable.”
“Bullshit,” she hissed. “You got that fancy-ass store. I know you gotta be making money, and I want my cut.”
I nearly choked on my tongue. “I own a small-town bookstore. It’s not like I head a Fortune 500 company or something. I don’t have ten thousand.” The pounding in my skull intensified. I’d officially reached the point where noise was enough to do me in. “The best I can do is five.”
There was a moment of silence. “Fine. I expect to see it in my account tomorrow, or you’ll see what happened today is the least I can do.”
With that, she hung up.
I managed to find the strength to clean up the worst of the mess. Then I turned off all the lights, silenced my phone, and crawled into bed, curling around Yoda and shutting out the rest of the world.