Third to Die (24 page)

“I didn’t know…” she leaned back to look up at him with tear-filled eyes. “He’s such a good man, Aiden. What happened?”

“Cancer,” Aiden managed to cough out Edmond’s assailant.

“Oh God,” Brandy burrowed her head back into his chest. “This is what you wanted to tell me, isn’t it? That Edmond was sick?”

“Actually,” Aiden placed one hand upon the small of her back and used the other to gently stroke her cheek.

“There was something else I wanted to discuss with you.”

“What?” Brandy sniffed and tried to blink back some of her tears.

Aiden took her hand in his and gently guided her back to the piano bench so that they could both sit down. He continued to hold her hand as he began to talk.

“I wanted to talk to you about me, about us. Brandy, I’m getting a divorce. Isla has already moved back to Chicago.”

Brandy stared at him in amazement.

“Are you serious?” she whispered.

“Yes,” Aiden nodded, smiling lightly.

“But what about your daughter?” Brandy wondered anxiously. This made Aiden’s smile fall away.

“She’s…” he avoided Brandy’s gaze and looked around the neglected space of the ballroom.

Brandy squeezed his hand tightly.

“Meegan will be living with Isla, here in the city. But she’ll come and see me regularly; I’ll still be a huge part of her life.”

“Oh, Aiden.”

“It’s for the best,” Aiden insisted. “Brandy, Isla and I hadn’t been happy for quite some time. Us separating is the kindest thing we could have done for our daughter.”

Brandy nodded though she wasn’t sure she understood.

“But that’s why I’m here,” he turned to look at Brandy, starring deep into her dark eyes. “I want you to come back to Avalon with me. I want us to finally be together.”

“Aiden…” Before she could respond he pressed his lips against hers. He felt soft and warm. Brandy kissed him back. The heat of their embrace made everything else melt away. Aiden’s hands slid up her back and into her hair.

Brandy pressed her tongue against his. Her whole body radiated with desire. But something darkened the moment. She pulled away from him, breathing hard. Avalon.

“You want me to go back to Avalon?” she asked, feeling horrified.

“Yes,” Aiden grinned and planted a secondary kiss upon her cheek. “Come back with me and we can start our life together.”

“But I can’t start a life in Avalon,” Brandy shook her head.

“Why not?”

“Because I had a life there, Aiden. A terrible life which I’ve been trying to escape from. I couldn’t go back there to the town which hates me, to the town which blames me for Brandon’s death. All Avalon holds for me is a handful of unwanted ghosts. I don’t ever want to go back there.”

Aiden paled at her words.

“Why don’t you come to Chicago?” Brandy suggested, brightening at the prospect. “I’ve got an apartment here, you’d easily find a new job. We could start a life here! And then you’d be close to your daughter!”

A life in Chicago made perfect sense. Brandy imagined waking up beside Aiden each morning, sitting beside him on her sofa in the evening watching the rain fall over the city as they curled up to enjoy a classic movie.

“I can’t come to Chicago,” Aiden told her sadly.

“Why not?”

“Because I made a promise to Edmond. I promised him that I’d continue to run Copes and May after he’d…” His voice broke away, unable to finish the sentence. It still felt too finite to refer to Edmond as having died.

“But, Aiden, you can’t sacrifice your life and your happiness for a promise you made,” Brandy told him as she gently tucked a stray hair back behind his ear. Aiden shivered with delight at the intimacy of the touch.

“I wish I could stay here, with you,” he admitted. “Brandy, I want to be with you more than anything. But I have to honour Edmond’s wish, you know that, don’t you?”

Brandy forced herself to smile as droplets of tears began to coat her porcelain cheeks.

“Aiden, you wouldn’t be you if you didn’t feel the need to go back to Avalon for Edmond’s sake,” she told him sadly.

“I’d follow you anywhere, anywhere except there.”

She stood up and went to pull on her coat.

“Please consider it,” Aiden pleaded. “Avalon was once your home, Brandy. It could be again. And I’d be there to shield you from any cruel words.”

“Thank you,” Brandy slid into her trench coat. “But it’s about time I started fighting my own battles.”

She came back over to Aiden and kissed him on the cheek.

“Avalon exists solely in my past now,” she told him sincerely. “I don’t ever want it in my future.”

“Brandy, please,” Aiden felt the heat of his tears warming his face. “I want us to be together, you’re all I think about.”

Brandy gave him a bittersweet smile as she backed away from him.

“I love you, Aiden Connelly,” she whispered. “I love you even more for wanting to honour Edmond’s wishes. A lesser man would just walk away.”

“Brandy!” Aiden hastily clamoured to his feet, preparing to chase after her.

“Don’t follow me!” Brandy held a hand up to him, her palm facing him, acting as a barrier.

“Shakespeare had it wrong,” she tilted her head to the left as she looked at Aiden. “There is nothing sweet in parting, there is only sorrow.”

Aiden watched her leave, struggling to breathe against the lump forming in his throat. He would be returning to Avalon alone simply because he felt compelled to honour the promise he’d made to a dead man. Aiden was starting to fear that rather than being a good man, he was just a stupid one.

Chapter Eleven

Laying to Rest

John and Alex leaned forward expectantly from their side of the booth in the diner. Aiden registered their eager expressions and thumbed the death certificate he was holding nervously.

He felt completely drained. He’d no sooner arrived back in Avalon when he was back on the road, returning to Greensburg.

“So what did you find out?” Alex pressed him for details. “Did you find out what really happened to Justin?”

Aiden ran one hand through his unwashed hair. He hadn’t even had time to shower. He could feel the grime of the city still clinging to him. But a part of him wanted it there. As long as he still smelled of car exhausts and street-side vendors, he was somehow connected to Brandy. He’d felt like a ghost since he walked out of the old hotel where she loved to play piano. He was moving around in a daze of disbelief. He always thought that somehow they’d end up together, that they’d get their happy ending but Brandy was resolute in her decision to not return to Avalon and Aiden couldn’t blame her. No one in their right mind would return to the town which had been so desperate to destroy them.

“Aiden?” John spoke up, looking worried. He peered out at Aiden from beneath the peak of a dirtied cap.

Aiden cleared his throat.

“I did find out what happened to Justin.”

“And?” Alex was growing impatient. He’d come out of work to meet with Aiden on short notice, he was still in uniform and potentially still on the clock. He had little time to waste.

“I got this,” Aiden unfolded the updated death certificate and slid it across the laminated table to his old high school friends. They knotted their heads together as they looked down at it.

“Wait, so Justin did die in a motorcycle accident?” it didn’t take long for Alex to scan the new details on the document. His shoulders sunk with disappointment.

“Yes,” Aiden nodded, inhaling sharply. “Apparently the guy that hit him, some truck driver, was under investigation with the FBI for smuggling drugs, which was why the files were sealed.”

“Jesus,” Alex shook his head despondently. “That’s why they kept it secret all these years? Because the guy that hit him was crooked?”

“They said the file shouldn’t have been left open,” Aiden lied. “Apparently it was an oversight which they were really apologetic about.”

“An oversight?” Alex’s nostrils flared with rage. “We’re talking about Justin’s death here!”

“I know,” Aiden said softly, placating him. “I felt exactly the same way, believe me, I told them how angry I was with how everything had been dealt with.”

“I kept thinking it hadn’t just been an accident,” John admitted sadly, still eyeing the death certificate with caution.

“I know what you mean,” Alex agreed, leaning back in the booth as his anger began to give way to sorrow.

“I thought it would be a more deliberate hand of fate which had killed Justin. An accident just seems so…trivial. He deserved a more grand departure.”

“Yeah…he did,” John clasped his hands together and looked down intently at them.

“Well, we appreciate you looking into everything,” Alex told Aiden politely. The canyon which existed between them had briefly been bridged when they were bound by their common cause in searching for the truth about Justin, but now that issue was resolved the chasm had stretched even wider so that the bridge failed to reach both sides.

“I was happy to,” Aiden smiled thinly. “I’m just glad we could get closure.”

“Mmm.” John pushed the death certificate back towards Aiden. “I thought closure was supposed to feel better than this? I still feel…lost.”

“I think we’ll always feel that way about Justin,” Aiden folded the document back up and placed it back in his pocket.

“I’ll leave this with Justin’s mom before I leave town.”

“She’ll appreciate that,” Alex noted.

“So that’s it, you’re just leaving?” John didn’t even try to conceal his disappointment.

“John, I’ve got to get back to Avalon for work.”

“I just thought, well, we both thought…” John’s voice trailed off and he looked away from his companions.

“No, John, you thought,” Alex corrected him. “I always knew better. Aiden’s moved on from Greensburg, haven’t you? I’m sure coming here was a pleasant walk down memory lane, but I was under no illusion that you’d make being here a permanent thing.”

“I suppose you’ve got that pretty wife and little girl waiting back home for you?” John adjusted his cap.

Aiden swallowed down his emotions. He wasn’t about to tell them that all he had waiting for him in Avalon was an empty house and a bare refrigerator. Just as he wasn’t going to tell them that their late friend had been secretly running drugs into the state. Some truths were just better left unknown.

“Justin would be glad that you got away from here,” Alex told his old friend sincerely. “It was what he was always trying to do.”

“And look where that got him,” John declared sourly.

Aiden was beginning to feel uncomfortable around his former friends. As they talked about Justin he kept being called back to that night when he’d drunkenly left their company. It was the last time Aiden had seen him alive. As they sat in the diner and pondered over the new death certificate, it was like losing him all over again, their decade-old grief had been refreshed and Aiden didn’t like how it felt. He thought they’d be grateful for the closure he offered them but they just seemed hurt by the loss of someone they cared about.

“I wish I could stay longer, really I do.”

John seemed appeased by this as he gave Aiden a half smile.

“I wish you could too,” he nodded. “I liked going out the three of us. It was like old times.”

“But things have changed,” Alex said curtly as he reached for his wallet and dropped several dollars onto the table to cover his cup of coffee.

“Things ain’t what they used to be and we need to accept that,” he stood up and exited the booth.

Aiden still couldn’t get used to the sight of seeing him in uniform. It felt like they were still kids just playing dress-up and that he should be a cowboy and John a doctor. Together they’d spend hours roaming one of the fields outside of town, conjuring up elaborate adventures. Justin always instigated the more daring elements. He’d be the jewel thief they were chasing and he’d run and hide and play until darkness fell. He had been the glue which held them together. With him gone, it was inevitable that they’d scatter away from one another like leaves on the wind.

“Thanks again,” Alex clasped Aiden on the shoulder.

“Don’t just rush out,” John pleaded with his friend.

“I’ll be seeing you.” Alex strode out of the diner and headed into his patrol car and promptly backed out of the parking lot.

John sighed and removed his cap to run his hand through his hair. “He’s just hurting,” he explained. “We both thought there was going to be more to it. I don’t know what we expected.”

Aiden felt the truth press up against his lips as John sighed forlornly.

“I always looked up to him, you know? He had that fast bike of his and he’d go racing around town. I always wished I was like him.”

And there it was. Aiden held his silence. Justin was a hero to them and he wasn’t about to challenge that.

“I’m just glad we can silence the rumours,” Aiden smiled sadly.

“Yeah, but small towns love rumours,” John rolled his eyes. “It’s like currency here. A good rumour can get you free drinks, favours, you name it.”

Aiden understood as Avalon worked exactly the same way.

“The guy that hit him,” John’s eyes suddenly narrowed. “He been brought to justice?”

“Yeah,” Aiden quickly replied.

“Well that’s something, I’d hate to think that the bastard who killed him was still out there somewhere, walking free.”

“Yeah,” Aiden agreed. “That would be shit.”

*

Aiden stayed for another cup of coffee. He sensed that John didn’t want him to go but eventually he had to. Together they wandered out on to the parking lot. The sun had dipped low in the sky, it would soon be night.

“You driving straight back to Avalon?” John wondered.

“After I’ve stopped in on Justin’s mom.”

“Ah, yeah, I forgot you saying about that. She’ll be glad to have the truth.”

“I hope so.”

So far no one had welcomed the truth as eagerly as Aiden had hoped they would. It was as if they wanted the scandal and uncertainty that actually did surround Justin’s death.

“You know, anytime you want to head back to Greensburg,” John shoved his hands deep into his jean pockets.

“Just give me a shout. We can meet for drinks or whatever. I actually liked having you here. I liked remembering high school. Those were good times.”