All Roads Lead Home (Bellingwood) (16 page)

Polly handed him her phone and then stood up. She
hugged him and
he let her. "Thank
you so much,” she said.
“
I do appreciate
this."

"No problem. Give me a
call when you get your phone.”
Aaron went downstairs and they heard the door close.

Lydia said, "Polly, I'm not leaving until you eat
more than one bite of breakfast. So, eat what you can,
then
we'll head in to Boone and get you set up."

Polly obeyed and ate a few more bites of
the breakfast casserole.
She drank her coffee and absentmindedly ate the muffin while Lydia
cleared the table and began putting food away.

"Do you wonder if life will ever be normal
again?"
Polly
mused out loud.

"Life is what you make it,” Lydia replied. “
I know it seems like Joey has had power over you in
the past and is in power right now, but Polly, you can do anything with your
life that you like. You're building a pretty good support group
here
. Take
advantage of us and be strong like your parents taught you."

No more waiting! It was Saturday morning and
Polly was ready to go out of her mind. Thursday had
been fun, traveling around with Lydia. They'd gotten a new phone and yes, Aaron
had taken one call from Joey. He was pretty sure he'd freaked the young man
out. Polly contacted nearly everyone who needed to know what her new number
was, so
now
she was head
ed
back to Boone to get the new number programmed into
her old phone, since t
hey had a seventy-two hour replacement policy for something like this. She
was glad to get all of her contacts back
and
was also glad to quit worrying about
any more calls coming in from Joey. It was time to let that chapter of her life
be finished.

At breakfast, she'd asked Aaron about getting back to
work on the school. He thought they'd be able to have access to most of the
building on Monday and if Polly wanted to move back in, she could. They planned
to keep the bathroom closed off from remodeling until they were
completely
finished.
He didn't know how long it would take.

She really wanted to be
able to get everyone
back to
work, though. Now that
things
were
moving
along, she was chomping at the bit to keep them going.

While she was driving, her phone rang. It was Beryl.

"Are you ready for another sleepover
tonight?" she asked.

"Oh,
good
heavens,
no!" exclaimed Polly.

"Well, that's good. At least I don't have to plan
that. I don't have nearly as many friends as Lydia."

"That doesn't sound like you, Beryl." Polly
responded.

"Oh, trust me, it does. I don't like people as
much as she does and they seem to sense it when we're in a small room together.
They think I'm nuts. They might be right."

Polly laughed. "They just might! So, what's up?"

"Well, Sylvie is free tonight and we found a
babysitter for her. Would you like to come over to my house for dinner?"

"You cook?" Polly asked.

"Of course I cook! I'm a great cook!" Then,
Beryl stopped. "I make a
helluva
salad. I'm
wicked
good
with a knife. Sylvie is bringing dessert, Andy is
bringing vegetables and Lydia is doing something. I have no idea what, but it
will be wonderful, I'm sure. I can heat up an amazing spiral cut ham. I've got
this all figured out.

"So, what are you going to bring, Polly?"

"Oh, Beryl," Polly snorted as she laughed. "I'll
bring
bread and …
" Polly drew the
thought
out for a few moments.

Beryl interrupted, "Oh, and I've got the liquor
covered. I saw you enjoying my red-headed slut the other night."

"You know, Beryl. I looked it up on the internet.
It's also called the red headed princess!"

"Yeah.
I'm never ordering it using that terminology. It's
not nearly as much fun," Beryl retorted.

"You bring bread and anything else you come up
with that might be fun,” she continued. “We're only going to sit around and
fingerpaint
, so be at my house around, oh, say, 6:30. We’ll have
plenty of time to eat and get ourselves in trouble."

"Alright.
Wait.
Fingerpaint
?"
Polly wasn't sure what she was getting into.

"Trust me, you'll have fun. Bring yourself and
your food!
Tra
-la-la!"
Beryl hung up and Polly caught herself staring at her
phone.

"I have the weirdest conversations with
people," she thought and realized she was coming to a stop. If she
remembered correctly,
a
right turn
and then a left turn
onto Story Street would get her downtown and
to
the telephone store.

All of a sudden she realized she had no idea where
Beryl lived. She dialed the number right back and
she heard Beryl’s
voicemail, "Polly, you have no idea where I live do you? My address is 928
North Walnut. It's the cute little brick house on the south side of the street.
Wait, they're all cute little brick houses. Well, anyway. You'll find it. See
you tonight. OH, leave me a message so I know you got this and can erase it."

Polly said, "I got this. Erase the message."

"Thanks girlfriend!" Beryl said.

"You're absolutely insane, Beryl!"

"I know
,
it's my best
quality. I'll see you tonight." and Beryl was gone again.

When Polly got back to her school, she went upstairs
to check on the bathroom. Sure enough, the door was closed and there was a new
lock on the door. Crime scene tape stretched across it and sealed the door
closed.

"Cool," she thought and pulled out her
telephone, shooting several pictures. "This is definitely going in my
scrapbook!"

She opened the door to her bedroom and found
everything as she had left it. Dumping her bag on
the
bed, she flopped
down and looked around. "I've got to get more of this place put together
so
I can bring in more furniture.”
Patience wasn’t her best thing.

Polly poured things out of her bag at the end of the
bed and put the toiletries back in the bathroom. That didn't take long, so she
went downstairs to the kitchen, the only fully finished room in the place. It
was actually in pretty good shape, though she supposed no one had spent much
time in there since Lydia cleaned it up on Wednesday.

First things first.
She measured ingredients into her bread machine and
turned it on. Two hours and then she could shape it and let it rise once more
before baking. She had plenty of time.

Sitting
down at
the table,
Polly
flipped her laptop open and decided to respond to a
few emails. It was a pain to do it on her phone and nothing had been urgent. A
few of her friends out east were asking questions about all of her exploits in
the middle of the country.

No one understood why she had wanted to come back. They
couldn't imagine living without the excitement of the city around them day and
night. Polly wasn't sure she wanted to tell them she'd had more excitement
since she moved back to Iowa than in all the years she'd lived in Boston.

Sal
Kahane
had been her
roommate in college. Sal didn't like Joey at all and if Polly was leaving
Boston to get away from him, she was fully behind the decision, though she told
Polly she missed her like crazy. Things weren't the same out there any longer. Polly
thought about it. They had known each other for ten years and Sal hadn't said a
word when Polly called her and told her she was leaving Boston behind. She came
over and helped her pack her stuff,
and
then hugged her good-bye on the morning she left the
city.

Bunny
Farnam
wasn't quite
as supportive, but then she wouldn't be. That poor thing always needed to be
the center of attention. Polly was fine with letting that happen. Bunny could
draw a crowd and she knew Polly would be there to take care of her, cheer her on
and tell her she was the greatest girl ever. The last email from Bunny had been
filled with all of her woes and tragedies. Her work was so hard, her boss hated
her, her mother had set her up on yet another blind date and he was totally
disgusting!
Nothing new there.

Drea Renaldi was a young professor at Boston College. They'd
met at the library and about five years ago had started going out for coffee. When
Drea introduced Polly to her very Italian family, they all decided the innocent
young thing from Iowa needed a big family. It was Drea’s family who embraced
her after her father died and taught her
that
family was more than flesh and blood.

Drea had two brothers, the older one had promised to
hurt Joey for Polly. She told him she had it taken care of. He didn't believe
her,
but left the boy alone. The
Re
naldis
weren't too happy
with her decision to leave them. That's how they saw it. None of their family
ever left Boston, so how could she? But, Drea told her it would be alright and
was there with Sal to help her pack. Those strapping brothers
of hers and a few cousins made sure everything was
packed into the truck correctly, because no one was messing with their Polly.

She took the time to write chatty notes to all of
them, including pictures of some of the renovation. She didn't want to tell
them about Joey or the murders, so she left that out. Joey didn't have this
email address, so she hesitantly opened the one that he and she had
communicated on during their time together. She'd left it off her phone, not
wanting to even deal with him. There were 94 emails in there. She quickly got
rid of the spam and random junk, leaving sixty-seven from Joey. She hadn't
checked this
account
since late June and was surprised he continued to
send emails even when she wasn't responding.

Polly shook her head. How could he not understand it
was over?

The subject line of the last email read, "I'll
find you." It was dated this morning.

She opened the email and her heart sank.

"Polly I miss you so much. I can't believe you
won't talk to me. I also can't believe you told the Sheriff to answer my call. I've
never hurt you before and I wouldn't hurt you now. I have to find you. I have
to talk to you. We have to
straiten
{sic} this out. I
love you with my whole heart and I only want you to be happy. Love, Joey"

There was a sour taste in her mouth. She closed the
email and then closed the tab in her browser. She sat there staring at the
screen and finally shut the computer down and closed the lid. Dropping her head
into her arms on the table, she shut her eyes and tried to relax.

The door chime woke her up and she glanced at her
watch. It was
3:30,
she'd been asleep for over an hour. She shook her
hair back, fluffed it with her fingers and tried to come fully awake. The door
chimed again and she got up and trotted to answer it.

When she saw it was Henry, she said, "Hi there!
What are you doing here?"

"I was checking to see if I could unload some
flooring. I just picked it up and if I don't have to carry it home and then
back over here, that would be great. I didn't know if the DCI was going to let
you back in until I saw your truck parked out front."