"I know we're crowded," Mary answered, "but we had to put all the new stuff somewhere. The back is packed with spring shipments the twins ordered while they could get them at a five percent discount."

"New stuff?"

"Paula and Patricia ordered women's sizes. They thought they were ordering by ones, not by the dozens. So everything they ordered one of, we got a dozen. Two, we got two dozen. Six, we got six dozen."

"I understand the principle, Mary. You don't need to continue to frighten me to death."

Helena could not breathe. She had nothing against women's sizes, those women needed clothes, too, but the larger sizes were not the image she wanted for Helena's Choice. Her patrons were willowy like her mannequin. Many times she did not order even the twelves and fourteen, in a style, because the dress would not hang right on a woman with much meat on her bones.

Helena's heart pounded when she thought of all the large sizes going out of the store in her high-quality Helena's Choice bags.

"Mary," Helena whispered, trying not to frighten her employee. "Would you be so kind as to get my pill box from my purse."

"Of course."

As Mary hurried on her mission, Helena slowly lowered herself to her chair. More than a week ago, she had stopped taking the third pill she had to swallow every day. She told herself she didn't need the digoxin for chest pain. If it go to bad, she had her nitroglycerin. There was no need in using both.

Mary handed her the small box and Helena took the fine pill, placed it beneath her tongue, then relaxed back in her chair.

"Are you all right?" Mary worried over her. "Should I call the doctor, or an ambulance?" People in Clifton Creek rarely called an ambulance; it was easier to get in the car and drive to the doctor. If someone did not have a car, they could always yell for a neighbor to drive them. An ambulance in front of a home usually meant someone died.

"No. I'll be fine in a minute. I've just been a little tired lately, can't seem to get enough sleep."

Mary did not look relieved. "Does your chest hurt? Are you short of breath? Do you have a pain in your arm?" She circled once more. "Or is it your leg? I can never remember."

Helena forced her hand to move away from her heart.

"It's only the angina acting up again. You know how it gets when I overdo it. I thought I was ready to return, but maybe I shuuld stay home a few more days. The holidays seem to be taking a toll on me this year."

Mary handed Helena a cup of water. "Don't worry about store. The twins will help me handle it. I couldn't believe when we put plus sizes out for the first time, but I've been surprised. Women I've never seen in here before are shopping. And I can't tell you the number of men who've been to buy their wives clothes who have never shopped at Helena's Choice before. They don't even want us to wrap the box. They want their wives to know where the gifts came from."

"How are the sales?" Helena took a deep breath, preparing for the worst.

Mary hesitated, then smiled. "The best we've ever done. It this holds, we'll have a record year."

Helena did not respond. Swiveling her chair, she looked out the window into her store. "Wait until I tell J.D.," she whispered as she watched the flow of customers. "He is not going to believe it."


Saturday, December 11

County Courthouse


By one-thirty that afternoon, the tuna sandwich and the drinks Frankie served were at war in Meredith Allen's stomach. The third time she ran down the hallway past Sherrif Farrington's office, she saw him glance up and frown.

A few moments later, with her head an inch above the toilet, she heard the ladies' room door open. If she thought there was any possibility of vanishing by flushing herself she would have tried. No one else was in the building. She knew who it was.

"Meredith?" he yelled. "Meredith, what's wrong?"

For a second she remained completely still, hoping he wouldn't notice her kneeling in the first stall.

"You're not supposed to be in here!" she finally said in her most authoritarian voice. "This is the women's rest room."

His hand touched her shoulder. "Are you ill?" he brushed her forehead with his fingers. "You're burning up. What's wrong?"

Meredith was positive that if wanting to die would get her there, she should at least be in purgatory by now.

Granger stepped to the sink and began soaking paper towels. "How long have you been ill? Do you think you caught something? I could take you to a doctor." He stopped talking while she vomited, then continued as if he had not heard the sound. "Maybe it's food poisoning. The truck deli's been passing that out with the two-for-one burritos lately."

lie handed her the first towel and Meredith wiped her mouth. She rocked back, sitting on the marble floor in a very unladylike sprawl. She did not even want to think about how she looked and knew she did not have the energy to stand.

Granger knelt down to her level. "Meredith! Is there any chance you're…?"

If she'd felt better, she would have laughed. He looked even paler than she felt. "No, Sheriff. No little deputies." She giggled at her own joke, then frowned. "I can't have children."

"Then what?"

Meredith raised her eyebrows and addressed the class idlot. "I'm drunk." She wondered if being drunk in a public restroom was a misdemeanor or a felony. She felt sure it was some kind of crime.

He stood. "You're what?" His voice echoed off the walls of the tile room, making her head pound.

"Anna Montano and I went to see Frankie about the lamp pole Randi knocked over. He was kind enough to serve us his special for lunch."

"I may have to shoot Frankie," Granger said calmly as he leaned down and pulled Meredith to her feet. "But first I need to take you home."

"No, I can work." Before she could issue her declaration, she jerked away and leaned above the toilet once more.

When she finished, he waited with a clean set of wet towels.

"I'm sorry." She flushed the toilet.

He helped her up again. "Meredith, you're not the first drunk I've seen, and you probably won't be the last. Thing you can make it home?"

She nodded. Surely there was nothing left in her stomarh to lose.

He put his arm around her shoulders and walked her down the hall. At his office, he picked up his keys off the desk and the pager from its nest. He flipped a switch on the phone.Then he helped Meredith out the door and to his police car. He opened the passenger door. "I make most drunks ride in back, but if you swear not to mess up my car, you can ride in front."

She looked up at him as she slid in. He showed no sign of kidding.

They were almost to her house when she remembered she had forgotten her purse.

He promised to lock the office and bring her things by later when he made his rounds. If she felt better by then, he said she could ride downtown and pick up her car; otherwise he would have one of the deputies who came on duty at five help him get it back to her house.

"That's not necessary," she replied.

"Adam won't mind. Where are your keys?"

"They're in the car."

He glared at her. "Meredith, you shouldn't leave your keys in your car. That's just asking for a crime to happen "Nobody would steal my car parked at the courthouse and if they did, they'd better be a mechanic or they'll be sorry."

"You need to get rid of that pile of junk."

"It gets me to work and back." She resented him calling her car names. The pile of junk had been hers since college They did not say a word to one another for the rest of the way. He drove and she concentrated on not throwing up on his clean car.

He walked her to her door, but did not offer to come in. She was glad. Meredith had been so humiliated she didn't care if she never saw Granger Farrington again.

Reaching for her house key in the huge pocket of her sweater, Meredith opened the door and faced him. "Thank you, Sheriff. It was nice of you." She had to tell him how she felt. "But you don't have to look after me. You don't have to check on me if you see me in a bar, or start my car, or make sure I'm warm, or anything else. I'm not your responsibility."

Meredith closed her eyes. If he said he was just doing his job, she swore she would club him with her hatchet.

"Get some sleep. You'll feel better."

He acted as if he hadn't heard a word she said. He just turned around and walked back to his car like she was numher 247 on his list of official duties for the day.

Meredith wanted to scream, but her head might explode of the sound. So she went into her house, crawled onto her unmade bed and took the sheriff's advice. She fell asleep.

Dreams haunted her. Not nightmares of monsters and torture. Worse. Dreams of Kevin, burned and calling for her. but she couldn't find him. She could hear him, smell the mixture of oil and burning flesh, but she could not reach him.

In her dream she ran and ran, calling his name, fighting vines and roadblocks and chains, but never reaching him, never able to help.

Suddenly, the dream was over and Meredith found herself alone in her dark bedroom. Her huge sweater was twisted around her as tight as a straitjacket.

She stood and fought her way out of the wool, then stripped off all her wrinkled clothes and headed toward the shower. For a long while, she let the water run over her face and body and wondered if she could have made any bigger fool of herself today. Granger had only been trying to help and she had snapped at him. He was right about her car. li was a piece of junk.

She dried off and put on Kevin's old high school jersey. It almost hit her at the knee.

Wandering into the kitchen, Meredith searched for something to eat… An old apple. Half a sandwich. The bread was hard, but the chicken salad still smelled good. There was also a quart of orange juice that had aged at least one season in her refrigerator.