Footprints in the Sand (10 page)
Read Footprints in the Sand Online
Authors: Mary Jane Clark
W
ith her three children scampering around the small kitchen, Jo-Jo Williams opened the refrigerator and pulled out a gallon container of milk. Almost empty. She made a mental note to get to Walmart as soon as the kids left for school.
Add the milk to a very long list of things they needed. The cupboards were looking pretty darn bare. Try as Jo-Jo did to stretch her dollars, there just never seemed to be enough money to stock the shelves full again.
She hated living paycheck to paycheck and depending on the tips she made at the bar at night. Her credit cards were maxed out, and the bill collectors called on a regular basis now. Even if her baby daddy helped out like he was supposed to but didn’t, Jo-Jo doubted she would ever be able to climb completely out of debt.
As she transferred the store-brand puffed rice into bowls, Jo-Jo heard the weather report coming from the little television on the counter. She was glad it was going to be sunny. It was a pain to lug grocery bags in the rain.
She poured the milk over the cereal, carefully dividing it three ways. The kids sat down and began to hungrily devour their breakfast. Jo-Jo noticed that all three of them needed new sneakers.
“The dead woman was identified as twenty-seven-year-old Shelley Hart, a lifelong Sarasota resident.”
Jo-Jo looked over in time to catch the woman’s face on the screen. She gasped as she realized that she recognized her. It was the woman who had come into the bar the other night and sat with that guy in the back. The big tipper.
W
e’ll have three round tiers: a fourteen-inch, a ten-inch, and a six-inch. That should serve seventy-five to a hundred ten people.”
Piper pushed the shopping cart as her mother reeled off the components necessary to make the wedding cake. Weeks ago Piper and Terri had calculated how much of each ingredient would be needed. Now all they had to do was follow their list.
Pounds of flour, granulated and confectioners’ sugar, and unsalted butter were placed in the basket, followed by a large bottle of pure vanilla extract, a couple of cartons of eggs, and several containers of whole milk. After picking up a box of baking soda, they headed for the produce section, where they selected a mesh bag full of key limes.
“That should do it,” said Terri as she surveyed the contents of the shopping cart.
“Wait, we forgot the toothpicks,” said Piper. “You go get in line, Mom, and I’ll run and grab some.”
As she turned the corner, Piper bumped into a man coming around from the next aisle.
“Oh, excuse me,” she said as she looked up. She was startled to see Brad O’Hara’s face. His expression instantly changed from annoyance to pleasure.
“And to think I was expecting this to be a lousy morning,” said Brad.
Again, to Piper, his mouth seemed to be leering more than grinning. And the tattoo of the crying woman on his arm was really freaking her out.
“Oh, yeah, hi. Sorry, my mother is waiting for me at the checkout,” said Piper as she managed a weak smile. “I’ve got to hurry.”
“You’ve got to relax, Piper,” he said as he reached over and grabbed her arm. “Slow down and enjoy life. Let me take you for a kayak ride today.”
Piper pulled away, shrugged, and managed to say, “I can’t. Remember? We’ve got that cruise on the bay this afternoon.”
As she walked off, Piper could well understand why Shelley hadn’t wanted to have anything to do with him.
I
t took him just over an hour to walk home. His mouth was dry, and his eyes burned. Levi spent the time figuring out how he was going to get everything accomplished. There was so much to do.
First he had to face his parents. He dreaded seeing the bewilderment and worry in their eyes. He had never wanted to cause them any pain. He hated to think they were in for still more.
Then he had to finish the hex sign. With no interruptions he could complete it this morning and deliver it to Piper Donovan after the restaurant’s lunch crowd left. Since this was going to be the last lunch he worked at Fisher’s, Levi wanted to stay and help as long as he was needed.
As he walked along Bahia Vista, Levi was oblivious to the cars speeding by and the sun’s increasing intensity. Instead he noticed the weeds sticking out from cracks in the sidewalk and the scuff marks on the toes of his black shoes. Head down, step by step, Levi mentally composed the letter he was going to write.
That was going to be the most challenging task of all. It had to be carefully worded. How to explain things in such a way that it kept Miriam safe yet ended the nightmare for good?
P
iper dropped her mother off at the front door of the inn and then drove around to the service entrance. As she started unloading the grocery bags from the trunk of the car, she heard a male voice. She looked around but didn’t see anyone. The voice seemed to be coming from the side of the building.
Paying little attention, she lifted two bags from the trunk and began walking toward the door to the kitchen. She stiffened when she thought she heard the voice say, “Shelley.”
Piper stopped and strained to listen. She couldn’t hear clearly. Many of the words were muted by distance and the wall. Quietly she put down her bags and edged closer to the corner of the building.
“She was complicating everything.”
A pause followed. Piper assumed that the man was having a phone conversation.
“I’m just glad she’s out of the way,” he said. “I don’t appreciate being threatened.”
Who was that? Piper wanted to peek around the corner, but she held herself in check. What if whoever was talking saw her? He certainly wouldn’t be pleased that she’d overheard his conversation.
She decided to go back to the car and continue as if she was unloading it. If she waited a bit, he would finish his phone call and should pass right by her.
P
iper glanced up to see Isaac Goode coming around the corner. He looked happily surprised to see her. If he had anything to hide, it wasn’t apparent in the bright smile he directed her way.
“Let me help you with those,” said Isaac when he saw the packages.
“Thanks,” said Piper.
Between the two of them, they carried everything into the kitchen in three trips. Isaac assisted in emptying the bags, putting away the things that needed to be refrigerated and organizing the dry ingredients on an empty counter.
“You know, this is the first time I’ve encountered this situation,” said Isaac.
Piper looked at him quizzically. “What situation?”
“Guests making the wedding cake. I like to patronize the bakery I always use. I know they’re dependable and do a wonderful job. When Kathy told me she wanted you and your mother to make her cake, I wasn’t exactly thrilled.”
“You don’t have to worry,” said Piper. “My mother has been doing this for years.”
Isaac nodded. “That’s what Kathy said. And then she showed me the picture of the cake you made for that star of
A Little Rain Must Fall,
and I felt better. I adore that show. I’ve been watching it since I was a kid. I used to have a friend of mine tape it for me, and then I’d sneak over to her house to watch. I grew up in an Amish family. Nobody was into television.”
Piper imagined a young Isaac hiding his interests and proclivities. Growing up must have been rough for him; she felt a pang of empathy. He didn’t seem like somebody who would kill anybody.
“What was it like anyway?” he asked. “You know . . . being with all those soap people?”
“It was fun,” she said. “I wish I could have spent more time with them.”
“I remember when you were on there for a while,” said Isaac. “Mariah Lane. I hated when they killed you off.”
“That makes two of us,” said Piper.
She watched as he turned to stow a carton of eggs in the refrigerator. Piper noticed Isaac’s hand trembling as he reached in—the carton slipped and tumbled onto the floor, its contents spilling out.
“What’s the matter with me?” he asked as he surveyed the cracked eggs. “What a klutz I am.”
“No problem,” said Piper, glancing around for a roll of paper towels. “We can always get more eggs.”
As they wiped up the gooey mess together, Piper thought Isaac seemed harmless enough. Still, she’d heard him saying he was glad that Shelley wasn’t around. What could Shelley have been threatening him with?
T
he elevator doors opened at Sarasota Memorial Hospital. A woman with a cloud of dark brown hair and very pale skin, wearing a black sweater and slacks and carrying a large designer handbag, exited the elevator and scanned the wall in front of her for a clue as to which way to go. An arrow indicated that her mother’s room was to the right.
Roberta Golubock winced as she saw the frail woman lying with her eyes closed in the hospital bed. A bandage covered her forehead, there were abrasions on her cheeks, and her lip was swollen to three times its normal size. Her mother’s thin arms rested on top of the cotton blanket. They were mottled with angry bruises.
Quietly Roberta lifted a chair and placed it next to the bed. Glancing at her watch, she sat down, took out her iPad, and began reading. Half an hour later, her mother still hadn’t opened her eyes.
Walking out to the nurses’ station, Roberta waited until one of them looked her way.
“Hi, I’m Roz Golubock’s daughter. Has the doctor been in yet to see my mother this morning?”
“Room 321, right?” asked the nurse as she steered the mouse and focused on the computer screen. “Yes, Dr. Robbins was in and saw her earlier.”
“And?” asked Roberta.
“He ordered a CT scan, which she’s already had. It was normal.”
Roberta exhaled with relief. “Oh, that’s good news. So now what?”
The nurse looked at the screen again. “Well, he hasn’t ordered her release yet.”
“How can I talk with him?” asked Roberta.
“I’ll page him,” said the nurse.
Turning away from the station, Roberta peeked into her mother’s room again and saw that she was now sitting up in bed.
“Hey there, sleepyhead.” Roberta gave Roz a kiss on the forehead. “How are you, Mother?”
Roz squinted. There was a puzzled look on her face.
Roberta sat on the edge of the bed and gently took Roz’s hand. “Mother? It’s me. Roberta.”
The older woman pulled away. “I don’t know you,” she said firmly. “Who are you?”
I
n the hall outside her mother’s hospital room, Roberta listened intently as the doctor explained the situation.
“It seems as if Roz is suffering from a retrograde amnesia,” said Dr. Robbins. “It’s the loss of preexisting memories, starting with the most recent ones. The fact that your mother didn’t recognize you or me would seem to suggest that she has a more severe case.”
“Is this because she hit her head during the accident?” asked Roberta. “I thought the CT scan was normal.”
“It was,” said Cryder, “but amnesia can occur without any anatomical damage to the brain. We call that a psychogenic amnesia. A traumatic situation that the individual wants to consciously or unconsciously avoid can trigger it.”
Roberta’s brow wrinkled. “So the accident was so traumatic for my mother that her brain is blocking it out?”
“Perhaps,” said Cryder. “Either the accident or something else. It’s hard to say.”
“How long does this sort of amnesia last?” asked Roberta. “And what can be done about it? Should I try to remind her of people and events?”
“You can if you want,” said the doctor, “but that hasn’t been shown to have any scientific bearing on recovering memory. Fortunately, memory usually returns on its own.”
Roberta digested the information. “Okay, so this is just going to take some time, right?”
“Yes, other than the amnesia, Roz is doing remarkably well, especially for someone her age. She’s in very good health.”
Roberta nodded. “She’s always taken care of herself. I guess that’s paying off now. When can she go home?”
“Let’s keep her here another night, just to be on the safe side. But when she goes home, she should really have someone with her.”
“I’ll be able to stay through the weekend,” said Roberta. “After that I’ll get someone to come in if she needs it. Nevertheless, who knows? Maybe the amnesia will be gone by then.”
“Let’s hope so,” said Cryder.
Roberta extended her hand. “Thank you, Dr. Robbins. I appreciate your taking such good care of my mother. She’s told me how you help so many people in the town houses. I’ve always been glad that there’s a doctor so close by. Especially now. I was reading on my iPad about that horrible thing on the beach. Between that and the fact that it looks as though my mother was run off the road, I’m very worried about what’s going on down here.”
P
iper knocked on the door of her parents’ room. Her father answered, with his finger to his lips. She looked inside and saw that her mother was on the telephone. By the expression on her mother’s face, Piper could tell that something was wrong.
“Is this a temporary thing, Nora?” asked Terri. “Or does the doctor think the amnesia will last?”
Piper assumed that her mother was talking to her aunt about Roz Golubock. She watched as Terri nodded and listened to the answer.
“I’ll go over to the hospital with you,” Terri offered. She paced across the room while listening to the response.
“All right, if that’s what you want, Nora. I’ll talk to you when we get back.”
Terri hung up and looked at her husband and daughter. “Roz has something called posttraumatic amnesia. She doesn’t remember what happened right before the accident, and she seems to have lost knowledge of who people are. Her daughter flew down from New York this morning, and Roz didn’t even recognize her.”
“Well?” asked Vin. “What did Nora say?
Is
it temporary?”
Terri shrugged. “Everybody hopes so, but who knows? Nora is driving over to the hospital in a little while to talk more with Roz’s daughter. But she wants us to go ahead with the bay cruise this afternoon as planned.”
“Man, the guy who ran Roz off the road should be turning cartwheels,” observed Piper. “The woman he almost killed can’t give the police any info to help find him.”
