CHAPTER TEN
Help her? I’d rather help Jeffrey Dahmer.
She’s getting exactly what she deserves.
Me help Natasha Keating? Are you joking?
She had it coming to her. The way she treated me? It’s been a long time coming!
She’s where she should have been years ago. Finally this town got something right for a change.
You want me to help Natasha Keating? Me? To help her? I’ll help her alright. I’ll help her straight to hell. That’s how much I’ll love to help her.
If you don’t get away from me with that nonsense. Why should I help that bitch? I despise that woman!
And those were the mildest responses.
She deserves the chair, and I hope she falls and breaks every bone in her body, were the harsher ones.
It all shocked Maude. When she worked for Natasha she found her to be a very nice, caring person.
She was even Maude’s champion while it lasted.
But Natasha only lasted a year as city editor.
She was fired, although Maude never knew why.
But she was a good editor who helped her along the way.
Which was reason enough for Maude to return the favor and try to help her.
But the fact that Maude knew she was innocent of the crime she was alleged to have committed was an even greater reason that Maude felt she had no choice but to help.
But after every single name she called or visited turned her down, that left only one more name. Natasha’s brother. The last name on the list. He’s my ace in the hole, she had said. Save him for last. As if he was Mister Dependable.
But she seemed to believe all the others on the list were dependable, too, and they weren’t even nice with their rejections.
And if he was such a sure bet, why was he last on her list?
Maude didn’t know. And at this point she didn’t care.
A desperate woman asked her to at least get in touch with these people until one of them came through for her, and that was exactly what she was going to do.
And since her brother had not returned her calls or her text messages, it didn’t look good for Natasha.
And Maude might have been wasting her time.
But if she was in jail falsely accused, she’d hope somebody would step up and waste their time too.
She put that list back in her shoulder bag and stepped up, as next in line, to the ticket counter.
She had her own shit to deal with. Her life was upside down too.
But it seemed like the distraction she needed.
And besides, the same people that got Natasha arrested were the same people Maude had been investigating.
And the same people that got her fired from The Post. Which meant this was more than just about Natasha.
This was about Maude finishing the job on what was shaping up to be the biggest story of her career.
Even though her career was on life support.
But the fact that they were trying to pin a murder on Natasha told her all she needed to know.
This story was fire. And she wasn’t letting them quench it.
The Post might try to bury the story if she gave it to them. But if she uncovered the truth, she wasn’t giving it to them to bury. She was going nationwide. And a career boost, she hoped, would follow.
“Round trip?”
“No ma’am.” She pulled from that same shoulder bag exactly one-hundred-and-eighty-six dollars. “One way.”
That cashier glanced up at Maude Drayton as if one way held some hidden meaning she wasn’t privy to.
Then she looked her up and down as if she was assessing her worthiness.
And finally she nodded her head as if she made up her mind.
“It’s the right move. You’re making the right decision.
Get yo’ self out of this town and don’t you ever look back. ”
It sounded like sage advice, but it wasn’t.
Because that woman had it all wrong. Maude wasn’t leaving town for good.
Not even for long. She was not only going to look back, but she was going to come back too!
The only reason she didn’t purchase a round-trip ticket wasn’t because she didn’t plan to return, but because she wasn’t certain how long it would take for her to track down this brother of Natasha’s.
The one she insisted was her ace in the hole.
Why she was depending on the word of a woman like Natasha Keating, whom all of her so-called friends despised, was not usually the way she rolled.
But there she was: Doing the bidding of a woman who probably wouldn’t walk across the street for her.
Yet once upon a time she was kind to Maude and they worked well together.
And now they were in this hole together.
Getting her out just might get Maude out too.
She was willing to go all the way to Baltimore, on her own dime when she had no dime to spare, on that very maybe.
But that ticket lady didn’t care about any of that. She just wanted to trash the town. Which wasn’t unusual in Dillon. People always wanted what they considered better. People always wanted to go where the action supposedly was.
But not Maude. Her life had been tumultuous enough. If she didn’t see any more action for the rest of her life, she’d be happy. Because if her story got published and The Dillon Post-Dispatch offered her her job back with a long-term contract and salary protections, she’d take it in a heartbeat.
Although it wasn’t so much that Maude was all in love with the town she moved to when she was six years old.
It was no better or worse, she supposed, than any other town.
But it was all she really knew, and given the craziness in this world, it was all she cared to know.
She wasn’t anxious to leave. She was anxious to get back home and figure out the rest of her life.
But she had to do this first. She had to make sure that Ross Hampton and his goons didn’t send this lady to prison for the rest of her life for something Maude knew she didn’t do.
But instead of standing there explaining her motives to another stranger who didn’t give a flip either way, she got her ticket, gathered up her shoulder bag, and made her way to the boarding line beside the big bus that would take her far away from her comfort zone.
She gave her ticket to the bus driver and he punched it. But as he was handing it back to her, he began yawning. Which didn’t help her already frail nerves one bit. A sleepy driver? It was one a.m. and they hadn’t even gotten on the road, and he was already sleepy? It was all she needed.
And to make matters worse after she and the other passengers took their seats on the large bus, and the driver slung the doors shut and took off, rain began to pour over Dillon like sheets of tears from heaven.
That was what it always felt like to Maude whenever it rained in what she considered to be her hometown.
A gray dreariness came over the place. And a feeling of deep sadness washed over her.
As if life wasn’t hard enough as it was, but now she had to deal with the tears too.
Tears that she felt she deserved. That she had coming to her. That needed to be shed.
She even felt like crying herself. Because she knew the reason she never wanted to leave that town said more about her than it would ever say about that town.
She was scared to leave. It never embraced her, but it never abandoned her either.
After her parents and sister died, and after her aunt deserted her, and after all her boyfriends betrayed her, it was the only constant thing she’d had in her life.
She could rely on the fact that it would always be there.
Not necessary be there for her. But at least not against her.
And she knew, when she returned, she had her life to map out. A life that wasn’t a bowl of cherries to begin with, but now would be even harder to maintain.
She pulled out that list again. All those people Natasha thought were in her corner didn’t even like her.
Most hated her guts. And her so-called ace in the hole if all else failed, her brother, wouldn’t even return Maude’s phone calls or text messages.
That was why she had to travel all the way to Baltimore just to talk to him.
Did he hate his sister like her so-called friends did?
But what was happening to Natasha was so wrong and so downright corrupt that Maude knew somebody had to step up.
Since everybody felt Natasha got what she deserved and they were offended just to be asked to help her, Maude knew she had to be the one.
She didn’t want to be the one. But there didn’t appear to be anybody else.
As the bus careened through town, she was kind of excited to have an adventure in her life where she didn’t have to do all the work for a change.
Just relay the message. And enjoy the ride.
But it was also filled with grave concern that Natasha’s brother would be just like the rest of her so-called inner circle, and that was the real reason he was at the bottom of the list. It made for mostly a nerve-racking ride.
Because even when she called the main line of the hospital and asked for a direct connection to Dr. Edmund Keating, she couldn’t even get through to him there.
There was no way she was going to be connected directly to a surgeon no matter how serious Maude tried to tell them it was.
In other words, that receptionist implied, are you kidding me?
And that was the fear Maude couldn’t shake as she laid her head back and looked out the window as they left Dillon for places she’d never been before.
Was she kidding herself? What if that brother wasn’t as wonderful as Natasha claimed he was?
What if he didn’t love his sister like she thought?
But Natasha seemed so certain. Once her brother found out she was in trouble, she insisted, he would absolutely come to her rescue.
But he wouldn’t respond to a series of text messages that told him his sister was in trouble.
He wouldn’t return phone messages that told him the same thing.
How on earth did she think he would care if a woman he didn’t know came over seven hundred miles just to tell him his sister needed him when texts and phone calls didn’t do it?
Some families didn’t roll like the lovey-dovey wholesome types and Maude knew it. She came from one.
But as she rode for hours on end on that bus, with twelve stops in between, the bus finally arrived in downtown Baltimore, Maryland right around eight p.m. the next day.
But when she stepped off of that bus in that bustling big city, it felt strange to be there. She felt like the barking dog that ran and ran and finally caught the car. But didn’t know what to do with it once he caught it.
She knew not to go to the hospital. They wouldn’t even put him on the phone. She’d be nuts to think they were going to let her waltz into his office. Besides, it was nighttime. He probably wouldn’t still be in his office anyway.
She, instead, went to the bathroom, brushed and gargled, washed off in the sink and put on a fresh pair of underwear, jeans, and a blouse.
Then she stuffed her old clothes in her shoulder bag and pulled out the address Natasha had given to her for her brother.
And she caught a cab to his house. Say my name, Natasha had told her, and he’ll let you in.
But when the Uber driver got past the gate of the gated community and pulled up to this big, brick, colonial-style, museum-looking mansion of a house, Maude felt so out of her league that the dog finding great use for the car seemed a more plausible bet.
What was she thinking injecting herself into these rich white folks’ business?
Why didn’t she just let Natasha twist in the wind like everybody else, including her own brother it seemed, were more than willing to do?
Why did she always have to be the one to do the dirty work?
But she wasn’t there just for Natasha. She was there because Natasha’s vindication would mean vindication for her investigation into Ross Hampton and all those other elitist crooks around town.
It would mean all that hard work, work that got her fired, wasn’t in vain after all and that maybe, just maybe, it would lead her back to her old job. Or even something bigger and better.
And besides, she was there now. There was no turning back now. And that Uber driver was anxious for her to get out of his car so he could go make more money.
She stared at that enormous home for several more seconds. A Lexus was in that driveway, and what looked like a Rolls Royce. A Rolls Royce! She felt as if she truly didn’t belong there in any way, shape, or form.
But then she steeled herself, got out with her big shoulder bag, and stood there as she placed the strap over her small shoulder. The Uber driver didn’t wait around at all. She had barely closed the door and he was backing out of that driveway and was speeding away.
Not that she blamed him. She wished she could take off too.
But she was there now. And even though her heart was pounding, she knew there was no turning back.
She inhaled and then exhaled. And made her way across his brick driveway to the steps that led up to his front porch with thick white columns on either side.
And then up to his incredibly tall double doors.
So tall that Maude looked skyward to see their end.
And she exhaled again. She was sooo out of her league, and anybody in Dillon’s league, that it made her begin to doubt herself. What on earth was she even doing there?
But she was there now.
Lord help me, she said, and gave a sign of the cross even though she was Baptist, not Catholic. And then she reached out to ring his bell.