Chapter 6 #3
Big double pocket doors were wide open and Emily cautiously went out into the house’s equally ornate entryway. It was textbook grand, complete with a sweeping staircase going up to the second floor.
From the back of the house, she could hear a television playing—an old-time comedy with an obnoxious canned laugh track.
She followed the sound—mindful of the fact that she wasn’t supposed to be here.
But also certain that she wouldn’t have gotten this far if she’d gone to the front door and rung the bell.
“Hello?” she said again, but again didn’t raise her voice very much at all. Her heart pounded as she mentally practiced her defense. The door was wide open, so I came in. I kept saying hello...
As she headed down the hall toward the sound of that TV, she adjusted the heavy bag she was carrying over her shoulder.
She hadn’t wrapped the enlarged photo that she’d framed—a drone shot of this very estate with a late afternoon swirl of gorgeous clouds in a breathtaking sky.
It hadn’t seemed appropriate to adorn it with bright paper and a bow, because it wasn’t a gift.
It was more of a... presentation. Or, more accurately, it was graffiti that she hoped to leave behind, like writing I was here on the wall.
It would be proof that she existed—although if her son had killed someone’s mother, she’d think about them constantly, endlessly.
But from what she’d read, it was highly unlikely that Milton Devonshire had spent the past ten years haunted by thoughts of her.
As Emily got closer to that room where the TV was playing—from the open door it looked to be an old-fashioned library with walls that were covered floor to ceiling with books, books and more books—she almost turned and ran away.
But she forced herself forward, part of her in a sheer panic, part of her watching almost impassively as if from a distance, and all of her not quite knowing where she’d gotten the sheer audacity to come here in the first place.
She’d recently graduated from college and spent four months in Alaska—got some crazy great photos of Juneau and the intercoastal waterway, made some good friends, too.
With that breathtaking adventure still singing in her blood, she’d returned home and bought that sweet little house on Columbus Avenue—because she wanted to be close to Carlotta and her grandfather without moving back into her childhood home.
Then she’d bought the drone and was expanding her website and her business, Emily Johnson Photography.
She’d even designed a logo and gotten a rubber stamp to mark her photos.
It was pretty silly and whenever she used it she felt a bit like she was eight years old and playing office as—cah-chunk—she stamped the bottom right corner of each printed photograph with her name and web address.
I was here.
And here she was. At the door of what definitely was this estate’s library.
A big, ornate wooden desk sat in the middle of a room that was dominated by stacks and stacks and stacks of files and papers.
Big wooden filing cabinets lined the one wall that didn’t have built-in bookshelves, and they were clearly overflowing, with more stacks of paper piled atop them.
There were even piles of paper on the mantle of a big fireplace, piles atop the comfy-looking sofa and chairs placed around it as if arranged to be a cozy, fire-lit, winter reading area.
But the giant desk was the true focus of the room.
The TV that was playing was off to the side of that desk—where an impossibly ancient man was sitting in a huge leather swivel chair.
She didn’t see him until he moved, reaching for the remote and muting the television. Because he’d spotted her there, in the doorway.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” Milton Devonshire said rather crossly in his reedy, old voice. “You’ve already interrupted me, you might as well come in.”
They were scripts, she realized as she went into the room and up to that big desk. Those stacks of paper that were everywhere were bound together. They were movie and TV scripts, some scribbled with notes in blue and black and bright red ink.
“People still send me their shit,” he said, clearly noticing her wide eyed gaze. “And it is shit. Most of the time. But the joy of finding a diamond in the dung heap? Can’t beat that.”
His eyes were sharp in his wrinkled face as he looked her over, with obvious judgment that found her lacking. She was tall and awkward—definitely neither pretty nor skinny enough for most of the world, of which he was clearly in agreement. “Who are you, and what do you want?”
“I’m Emily,” she said, watching him closely for any sign of recognition. “Johnson.”
Nothing. Not a clutching of his chest, not a wince or a grimace, not even a blink.
“Did Helen send you for my approval, for this night-shift nurse bullshit she’s been going on about?
Tell her I say if you’ve passed the background check and won’t murder me in my sleep, you’re fine.
I won’t see you, my eyes will be closed when you check to see if I’m still breathing, so I don’t care what you look like. Stop wasting my time.”
He picked the remote back up to unmute the TV. Obviously she’d been dismissed.
Emily sat down in one of the green leather chairs positioned in front of his desk. “Your son killed my mother,” she said, her voice shaking only a little. “I think you can give me a few more minutes.”
She’d certainly gotten his full attention back, although his gaze shifted uneasily from her to the door to the phone on his desk. Clearly his first thought was to call security. Assuming he had any, which it sure seemed as if he didn’t, since she’d made it this far unchallenged.
“I’m not here to murder you in your sleep,” she threw his own words back at him, “or while you’re awake for that matter. I just thought it was time for us to meet.”
“Why?” he asked bluntly. “If you want more money—”
More money? Her grandfather, wanting the circus to stop, had intentionally never pursued a civil suit against Milt Devonshire Junior, a fact that continued to irk Carlotta to this very day.
“I don’t want your money.” Emily let herself get affronted and let it show. How dare he? “This isn’t about money.”
“Oh, it’s always about money.”
“Well, congratulations, Mr. Devonshire. You’re a million years old and still having brand new experiences.
Because I absolutely do not want any of your money.
I just wanted to meet you. To sit here, like this, and talk.
We have a lot in common, you know. Your son didn’t just hurt me and my family, he hurt you, too. ”
The old man laughed a little. “So, what? Your therapist convinced you that I’d wanna join your sad little support group?”
“That’s not why I came—”
“No, thanks.” He cut her off. “I haven’t seen my son in years. As far as I’m concerned, he’s dead to me. He stole from me—five million dollars—and that was that. I have no desire to think of him, ever. Or you, for that matter.”
Damn, he was a nasty, unpleasant, angry old man whose ire was focused on the money he’d lost, rather than the death of an innocent woman. “Wow. You can’t even bring yourself to say I’m sorry my son killed your mother?” she asked.
“Oh, is that what you want?” he asked. “Sure. I can do that. Sorry he killed your mother. Although shouldn’t he be the one saying that to you?”
“I haven’t been able to find him,” Emily said.
“Well, don’t look at me,” he said. “I have no clue if he’s even still alive. Good riddance if he’s not. Are we done here? Good bye.” He picked up the remote again.
“Wow, you really are an asshole,” she said, reaching down into her bag and pulling out the huge photo she’d framed at not an insignificant expense. She put it onto his desk in front of him with a bit more force than she’d intended, making him jump. Good. “This is for you. Asshole.”
He looked at the photo of his estate, looked back up at her. “Where did you get this?”
“I took it. With a drone. I’m a photographer.”
“Do you spy on me often?” he asked as he frowned down at the framed photograph.
“No,” she said sharply. “God damn you’re a piece of work.
I was curious about you, and I was trying out some new equipment, and.
.. your stupid estate is a freaking work of art, all right, plus that incredible sky.
..? I just... I wanted you to have it. A little piece of me.
And of you. Interconnected in a much better way than we’ve been before this.
” She stood up. “I know you don’t care, but I do.
So yeah. Now we’re done. Goodbye, Mr. Devonshire. ”
She turned to leave, but he stopped her.
“Emily,” he said.
She turned back, hope leaping alive in her heart for... what she didn’t know. An invitation to stay for lunch? A budding friendship started in bitter acrimony? A hint of kindness and humanity in his watery blue eyes?
Instead he gazed up at her coldly, his wrinkled face harsh. “Emily Johnson?”
“My name’s on the bottom right of the photo,” she told him. “And stamped on the back of the frame.” Her web address was part of her logo. If he wanted to find her, he could. Hopefully not to have her arrested, but with this son of a bitch, you’d never know.
“Thank you,” he said almost flippantly. “That’s all.” He waved her away with a few flips of his hand. “You can go.”
He’d only wanted to get in the last word, to be the one to dismiss her.
She stomped away, but then stopped at the door and called back to him. “Hey, asshole.”
He looked up because of course he knew she was talking to him. He was the only asshole in the room. She smiled sweetly as she flipped him the bird and walked out.
And that was it. He’d never reached out, never apologized further, never thanked her for the photograph. For all she knew, he threw it in the trash.
And try as she might to find his son, she’d failed there, too. Which was probably for the best, because anyone raised by that awful man had to be seriously damaged goods.
Her phone swooshed with a text message, and she braced, thinking it was Carlotta, but instead it was Mick.
Dear, sweet Mick.
How’s it going? he asked. He must’ve arrived at his meeting, because Mick did not text while he drove.
She smiled as she texted him back. I already miss you, but this book is SO GOOD. Will you do me a favor and when you swing past my house to pick up my fleece—the desert nights were colder than she’d expected—can you also grab the books from my bedside table?
He answered almost immediately with the dancing man emoji.
She’d mentioned in passing that, to her, the dancing man looked like Cary Elwes, who played Westley in The Princess Bride. And now Mick used it all the time. It was his emoji for As you wish, and it made her melt a little inside.
She sent him a heart in reply.
The past was so clearly in the past, and here at the pool, with the man of her dreams thinking about her despite the miles between them, the present was pretty darn good.