Cutting Ties Read online

  Cutting Ties

  By Jeff Shelby

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cutting Ties

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright ©2018

  Cover design by Alchemy Book Covers and Design

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the expressed written consent of the author.

  Books by Jeff Shelby

  The Joe Tyler Novels

  THREAD OF HOPE

  THREAD OF SUSPICION

  THREAD OF BETRAYAL

  THREAD OF INNOCENCE

  THREAD OF FEAR

  THREAD OF REVENGE

  THREAD OF DANGER

  THREAD OF DOUBT

  The Noah Braddock Novels

  KILLER SWELL

  WICKED BREAK

  LIQUID SMOKE

  DRIFT AWAY

  LOCKED IN

  IMPACT ZONE

  WIPE OUT

  The Moose River Mysteries

  THE MURDER PIT

  LAST RESORT

  ALIBI HIGH

  FOUL PLAY

  YOU'VE GOT BLACKMAIL

  ASSISTED MURDER

  DEATH AT THE DINER

  SCHOOL OF MURDER

  DEAD IN THE WATER

  The Rainy Day Mysteries

  BOUGHT THE FARM

  WHEN THE ROOSTER KILLS

  CRACK OF DEATH

  PLANTING EVIDENCE

  ONE BAD EGG

  BALE OUT

  LAST STRAW

  CUT AND DIED

  SOUR GRAPES

  TYING THE KNOT

  The Sunny Springfield Mysteries

  DEAD BY DINNER TIME

  BEAUTY AND THE THIEF

  CUTTING TIES

  The Capitol Cases Mysteries

  DEAD ON ARRIVAL

  NATIONAL MAUL

  DARK HORSE

  The Elizabeth Tyler Mysteries

  WHAT SHE LOST

  WHAT SHE FOUND

  The Deuce Winters Novels (Under the pseudonym Jeffrey Allen)

  STAY AT HOME DEAD

  POPPED OFF

  FATHERS KNOWS DEATH

  Novel for Young Adults

  PLAYING THE GAME

  Short Story Collections

  OUT OF TIME

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  ONE

  I was wearing a Santa hat.

  To work.

  In October.

  It was a soft red one with a fluffy white band of fur…which was currently sticking to my sweat-dampened forehead.

  Yes, I was aware that it wasn’t quite the holiday season. Yes, the Florida heat hadn’t quite abated. And yes, my hair was threatening to turn into a disgusting, matted mess if I kept the hat parked on my head for one minute longer. But none of that mattered at the moment.

  If wearing a red sundress and Santa hat helped get Anne Engle’s eyes on my December activity calendar—and, more importantly, if it helped secure her approval—then I was just fine. Heck, if donning an entire Santa suit would ensure my calendar got through, I’d do that, too. I’d ride into Oasis Ridge on a reindeer. Bring her a stockingful of candy. Anything.

  The woman I was trying to convince—my boss, and the shooter-down of basically every single idea I ever brought her—was sitting across from me, parked behind her desk. Her eyes, magnified behind the lenses of her glasses, studied me.

  “Why are you wearing a Santa hat?” she asked.

  I smiled. “Because I’m already planning for the holidays!” I tried to keep my voice upbeat and positive, despite the dour expression on Anne’s face.

  “Already?” She wrinkled her nose. “It isn’t even Halloween.”

  Of course it wasn’t. But as the activity director for Oasis Ridge, the small assisted living facility where I worked, it was my job to put together the activity calendar at least a month in advance. And because the holiday season afforded so many opportunities for special activities and events, I knew I needed to get things nailed down sooner rather than later.

  Which meant I needed Anne to sign off on the calendar I was currently holding in my hands.

  The December schedule wasn’t too over the top, as far as calendars went. If it were up to me, I’d have dozens of activities planned, but I had a small budget to work with, along with a boss who thought daily sessions of bingo were enough stimulation for the residents. Each month I’d worked there had been a battle to add more enrichment opportunities, and each success felt like a hard-won victory in and of itself.

  No, I’d come up with a good balance for December, I thought. Some art activities, of course, and some Christmas-themed events that I knew the residents would love and that Anne would be hard-pressed to veto: Christmas cookie decorating and carol sing-alongs and a Christmas-themed scavenger hunt. But I’d tossed some other things on the calendar, too; things that required a bit more planning and coordinating. I wanted to bring in a local ballet school for an abbreviated showing of The Nutcracker. There was a women’s choir that had contacted me about coming in to perform. A local preschool that wanted to “adopt a grandparent” for the holidays. A Boy Scout troop that wanted to work with the residents to assemble wreaths for their doors. None of these things would bust my budget; they were all free. All they required was Anne’s approval.

  Which I knew I would be hard-pressed to get.

  Anne reached for her coffee and took a sip. “Well, what are you waiting for? Show me what you’ve got.”

  I slid the stapled pieces of paper across the desk, keeping a copy for myself so I could refer to it as we talked. “I emailed you a copy, as well,” I told her.

  She glanced at the papers but made no move to pick them up. Instead, she popped open a compartment on the oversized pillbox sitting on her desk and dug out a handful of capsules and tablets.

  “How’s the vitamin regimen going?” I asked, staring at the sizeable pile on her desk.

  She dumped all of them in her mouth and washed them down with her coffee. “So far, so good,” she said. “I have loads more energy.”

  I didn’t understand the program Anne was trying—if it was an established health program or one she’d cobbled together on her own—but I did know that it required her to take several pills a day. She’d rattled off the names of them a week or so earlier, when she’d first started the program. The only name I remembered was glucosamine.

  She glanced at me, her brow furrowed. “You should give it a try.”

  “Maybe,” I said, keeping my voice noncommittal.

  Anne scraped one last pill out of the compartment and swallowed it. Rubbing her hands together, she looked at me from behind her neon green glasses, a shade of green that was mirrored in the multicolored blouse she wore, and then reached for the calendar I’d just slid in her direction.

  Her frown was almost immediate. “This is a very full calendar.”

  “I know.” I upped the wattage of my smile. “But as you can see, most of the seasonal events add nothing to the budget. These are volunteers who are willing to come in and donate their time to run the events.”

  Anne’s frown remained firmly in place. “Boy Scouts? Preschoolers? Do you have any idea what kind of mess they’ll make? How loud they’ll be? Our residents live here because of the peace and solitude. The last thing they’re going to want is a bunch of unruly kids wreaking havoc in their sanctuary.”

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Oasis Ridge was far from a sanctuary. More importantly
, though, was just how out of touch Anne was with that statement. I’d had several conversations with residents who lamented not being closer to their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. When families visited residents, it didn’t matter whose children were in tow; nearly all the residents beamed smiles their way and watched delightedly as those kids scampered down the halls and into the common areas.

  “I think the residents would love the opportunity to have kids visit,” I told Anne. “And the children will be fully supervised at all times.”

  “What about germs?” she countered. “Kids are like walking petri dishes. Our residents are susceptible to illness and kids carry everything under the sun. Colds, the flu, strep throat, hepatitis.”

  “Hepatitis?” I thought that was a bit of a stretch.

  Anne’s mouth pinched tight and she reached a hand into her top desk drawer. I knew instinctively what she was grabbing, and my hopes deflated like a popped balloon.

  Her red pen.

  By the time she was done slashing that ink across the paper, I knew exactly what would remain.

  Bingo.

  Chair yoga.

  Water aerobics.

  Movie night.

  The same events that had been on the calendar for months. Nothing new, nothing exciting.

  That was how Anne operated, despite my best efforts to change things. Sure, I’d managed to sneak a few new options onto the calendar, but by and large, it had remained almost exactly the same as it had appeared when I first started my job just over a year ago.

  Boring.

  Unexciting.

  For both me and for the residents.

  “Now, let’s see,” she said, uncapping the pen with her teeth.

  I flinched and waited.

  There was a knock on the door and Anne glanced up. I looked over my shoulder to see who was there.

  “Good morning.” Bryce Barton said.

  He strolled through the open door and parked himself halfway between the entrance and Anne’s desk. Bryce Barton was probably in his early thirties, with sandy brown hair that was just long enough that it flirted with being shaggy. His brown eyes were just as warm as his smile.

  She recapped the pen. “Morning.”

  Bryce turned his attention to me, flashing a friendly smile. “How are you, Sunny?”

  “Just fine,” I lied.

  “I like your hat. Makes me think I've got some shopping to do.”

  My hand flew to my head.

  The Santa hat.

  Duh.

  “Oh,” I said, patting the soft fabric. “Thanks.”

  “Let me guess,” he said. His eyes twinkled. “You’ve got the December calendar ready and are feeling the holiday spirit.”

  I nodded and he clapped his hands together. “I love it!” he exclaimed.

  I felt a surge of satisfaction, knowing that he’d pegged exactly what I was doing—and that he approved. It wasn’t the first time I’d wished Bryce Barton were taking over as director of Oasis Ridge as opposed to simply training with Anne.

  Bryce had been on the job with her for just over a week, but the residents and staff had come to love him. He was everything Anne wasn’t: friendly, charming, gregarious. His enthusiasm for his job—for life, it seemed—was infectious. He was always smiling, always laughing, always ready to help lend a hand or strike up a conversation.

  He wasn’t hard on the eyes, either.

  I stole one more glance at him before turning back around to face Anne.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt,” Bryce said. “I thought I’d stop by to go over the report you sent my way.”

  “Which one?” Anne clipped. “I sent several you haven’t responded to.”

  Bryce remained unflappable, even with her barbed comment. “The dining room proposal.”

  There was a dining room proposal? This was news to me.

  Anne nodded and reached for a manila folder shoved to the side of her desk. “I think it’s a really good plan,” she said as she opened up the folder. “Would save the company quite a bit of money.”

  Bryce’s only response was to move closer to the desk. “There are certainly a lot of things to consider,” he offered.

  I took this as my cue and jumped to my feet. “Sounds like you guys have some things you need to go over.”

  Bryce’s eyes widened. “Oh, we don’t have to do it now. I didn’t know you were in a meeting with Anne. It…it wasn’t on her calendar.”

  “Sunny came over unexpectedly.” Anne’s tone held a note of complaint.

  I frowned. She’d explicitly told me to plan on going over the December calendar that morning. It wasn’t my fault she hadn’t penciled it in on her calendar.

  “It’s fine,” I said. I snatched the stapled set of papers from Anne’s desk and stacked it on top of my copy. “I…I need to make a couple of quick modifications to this, anyway. We can go over it later. Can’t we, Anne?”

  She gave me a frosty look before acquiescing with a nod.

  “Are you sure?” Bryce asked. “I can come back…”

  “No.” My voice was firm. “You go ahead.”

  I backed out of the office, clutching the papers to my chest.

  “We’ll go over the calendar later,” Anne said to me.

  I just nodded. The Santa hat slipped a little, covering my right eye, but I didn’t push it back up. I just wanted to get out of there.

  Leaving Anne’s office wasn’t going to solve anything, not in the long run. We’d still have to look at the calendar. She’d still get out her red pen and render it an undecipherable mess. And I’d still be left sad and upset in the aftermath.

  But it wouldn’t happen today.

  And that was reason enough to revel a little in the postponement.

  I’d gotten a brief reprieve.

  At least for the moment.

  TWO

  “You sure you don’t want a slice?” June Wyndham asked.

  We were in the community kitchen upstairs, a smaller room attached to the activity room. Several residents had just participated in a baking session and the fruits of their labor were now cooling on the counter. An assortment of pies—apple and pumpkin and what looked like some kind of mixed berry—were lined up in a perfect row, their crusts golden brown, the scent from each of them comingling in a mouthwatering aroma.

  “I’m sure,” I said to June.

  It wasn’t exactly true. I did want a slice…from every single type of pie. But I also knew that wolfing down flaky, butter-filled pastry loaded with sugar-laden fruit would result in pounds that would take weeks to take off. I wasn’t dieting, but I certainly wasn’t going to be eating pie with abandon any time soon.

  “No pie.” She made a tsking sound. “And how are you doing on your oils and creams? Need any refills?”

  As a thank you for helping to get her beauty product business relaunched after someone had destroyed all of her product, June had decided to gift me a year-long supply of beauty creams and oils, free of charge. I hadn’t wanted to take her up on the offer but she’d insisted. But I certainly wasn’t going to ask her to give me free refills.

  “I’m good,” I said with a smile. “On both the pie and the beauty product fronts.”

  She shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she said as she slid a knife into the center of the apple pie and began to cut it into slices.

  The room had filled up considerably since the last time I’d walked by, and I realized that several residents had joined the bakers, hoping for a chance to sample the results. I didn’t blame them. Lola, our cook, made a decent chocolate cake, but every other dessert definitely left a lot to be desired.

  Connie, one of the health aides, was deftly slicing the mixed berry pie, transferring generous-sized pieces onto thick paper plates. She topped each slice with a dollop of whipped cream before handing them off to Ethel, another resident, who then shuffled off to the tables filled with residents anxiously awaiting their samples.

  “Something sure smells good in here,”
a voice said from the doorway.

  I didn’t have to turn around to know who it was.

  But I did anyway.

  Aidan Yates was pushing a wheelchair into the room. Dexter, one of my favorite residents, was the one occupying the chair. He’d had foot surgery recently, which meant he’d had to switch from his walker to a wheelchair, something he wasn’t particularly happy about.

  Aidan wheeled Dexter to a table and Ethel immediately plopped a piece of pie down in front of him.

  “That should make your day,” Aidan said to Dexter. To me, he said, “He’s been a little grumpy with the surgery.”

  “Pie fixes everything,” I said.

  Aidan smiled. “How have you been? Feels like I haven’t had a chance to talk to you in a while.”

  Heat crept into my cheeks. It was true; we hadn’t had much time to talk, but not because I was purposely avoiding him. His class schedule affected when he was at Oasis Ridge, often keeping him there well into the evening hours when I was heading home.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “How are classes?”

  He made a face. “Hard. Homework load is unbelievable.”

  “Hopefully next semester will be better.”

  His lips thinned. “It’s not looking like it.” He sighed and rolled his shoulders, as if the physical act of doing this might somehow make him feel better. “I’m sorry about the other night…”

  I shrugged. “It’s fine. Those things happen.”

  Aidan and I had tried to go out three times in the last couple of months. Just a simple dinner date. But nothing ever went according to plan.

  The first time had resulted in Aidan being a no-show. I’d gotten a frantic phone call fifteen minutes after our scheduled meeting time at a local steakhouse, with Aidan telling me his car had overheated and he was waiting on AAA. With no idea when help would arrive, we’d decided to reschedule.

  Which we did. The second time, we’d gotten as far as meeting at the restaurant. And then Megan, my roommate, had called.

  Sick with a stomach bug, she’d begged me to go to the store for 7-Up and Saltines. With Dylan, her boyfriend, out of town, I knew I was the only other person she would ask to do this. I couldn’t say no.