<< Go Back

Wreathed in Disgrace

By Robin Patchen

Order Now!

Denise Masters watched from where she sat on a picnic table far from the action, not exactly afraid to approach, but not ready, either.
When she was a kid, this “festival” had consisted of a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony, a snowball fight—if there was snow—and hot chocolate for the kids whose parents had been smart enough to bring a thermos. 
Coventry had changed over the last eight years. Maybe as much as Denise herself had. 
Christmas music carried across the park, blasting from speakers set up around the activity. 
On an ice-skating rink, lovers twirled. Toddlers wobbled. Teenagers raced. Plenty of them landed on their rumps, usually laughing. Denise itched to show them how it was done. She’d been a good skater in her past life. She’d loved it, gliding across the ice like a bird in flight, the feel of the wind in her hair. 
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone ice skating. 
Games had been set up throughout the grassy area—corn hole, horseshoes, giant Jenga. A couple of teens played volleyball on the sand despite the fact that the weather wasn’t exactly fit for the beach. Fortunately, the clouds weren’t too thick, and the weather hovered in the low fifties, warm for November in the New Hampshire mountains.
There was a food truck—a food truck!—with the name of a local coffee shop emblazoned on the side. Denise would never have guessed that tiny Coventry could support a couple of restaurants and a coffee shop, much less a food truck.
Santa Claus had come for the event and was chatting with little ones perched on his knee while a photographer snapped photos. 
The year before, Ella had scrambled onto Santa’s lap. Would she now, or would she claim that, at eight-and-a-half, she was too mature for Santa? 
Denise hated that she had no idea. She hadn’t seen her daughter since their month-long visit that summer, though she’d thought of her daily. Hourly. 
Scanning the faces in the crowd, she caught sight of the first man she’d ever loved. Maybe, if she were honest, the only man she’d ever loved, even if her love had proved pretty paltry in the end. 
Not that she wanted Reid back. He loathed her. Sure, they’d come to a truce of sorts a couple of years before, but it had been a tenuous truce quickly forgotten when she demanded more time with Ella and he argued that she deserved less. He’d agreed to a visitation schedule but then tried repeatedly to wiggle out of it. He considered Ella his daughter, and he didn’t like to share. 
And then Denise would threaten to get lawyers involved. And then they’d fight. 
The pattern had repeated more times than Denise wanted to count. She and her ex were cordial to each other now only when Ella was nearby. 
Denise hoped to change that.
Reid’s pretty redheaded wife prompted not a twinge of jealousy. Jacqui’s parka was pulled snug around her middle. Either the slender woman had put on weight, or she was expecting. 
The second, no doubt. And nobody had bothered to tell Denise. Maybe they didn’t think it was her business, but Ella was her business, even if Reid didn’t want to admit it. That her stepmother was having a baby seemed like important information. Why hadn’t Ella told her? Had Reid asked her not to? 
Where was Ella? 
Finally, Denise saw her daughter, and her heart flipped. She was proud of the girl her baby had become, with her dark brown hair so similar to Denise’s, Reid’s brown eyes, a spattering of freckles across her nose. She was proud of Ella’s wide smile, her kindness, her contentment. 
Not that Denise could take credit for anything beyond the DNA. 
She loved Ella, loved her in a way she’d never known one person could love another. Those first few months after Ella’s birth had been so hard, with depression suffocating her, coloring everything with a film of gray, but even then, Denise had loved Ella. Now, with the depression and the events that had chased her from New Hampshire so small in the rearview mirror, her love for Ella had only grown and expanded.
And yet…and yet she’d left. What kind of mother leaves her baby? 
No wonder Reid hated her. No wonder the rest of Coventry wasn’t proud to claim her as their own, at least not the people who’d really known her. Ella, precious, loving girl she was, forgave Denise for her long absences from her life, but Reid never had and never would. And their old friends… Most were only Reid’s friends now. 
Love, pride, and shame. That was the cocktail that filled her stomach as she watched her daughter walk between her father and her stepmother, chattering like a squirrel and beaming with joy. Denise’s daughter was always beaming with joy. 
Reid had raised her well. 
The happy family went to the little playground, and Ella climbed up on the swing and pumped. She was big enough to swing herself, of course. Already halfway through her childhood and, except for a few weeks here and there, Denise had missed it all. 
She’d achieved success, but every acting role, every award, every paycheck got lost in a haze of regret. If only she’d done everything differently. 
If only she’d told Reid the truth from the start. He believed, everybody believed, that she’d left Coventry—left him and Ella—because she’d wanted to chase her dream. She’d led them all to believe that because that was what she’d ended up doing.
But it wasn’t why she’d left.
Now, all she wanted, all she wanted, was to be a part of Ella’s life. 
If that meant she had to tell them all the truth… 
One step at a time. Right now, she needed to take literal steps. She hopped off the picnic table and started toward the crowd, thankful for the waterproof boots that kept her feet warm in the moist grass. At least there wasn’t snow yet. 
She could do this. 
If she wanted to fit in among the people of Coventry, if she wanted to make a home here, if she wanted to be with her daughter, she had to start somewhere.
And if Reid turned on her, if Ella wanted nothing to do with her, then she’d deal with that too.
Father, give me the strength and courage…
A loud bang reverberated across the water. 
She turned that direction in time to glimpse a speedboat. In November? Who would…?
She was tackled. 
Hit the grass, facedown. A man on top of her.
Long-buried memories flashed, and she struggled to free herself, desperate to get away. She pushed at his arm propped beside her, but it didn’t budge. She shifted, tried to get close enough to his wrist to bite him, but he moved to protect his skin and keep her in place. 
“Ma’am, I’m trying to protect you. Please stop.” He hovered over her, not crushing her but allowing enough pressure that she couldn’t move. 
She got one leg free and whipped it back, catching flesh with her heel.
“Oomph.” He lowered himself on top of her. “Stop fighting me.”
The words a demand. His voice, deep and terrifying. 
A scream crawled up her throat, tried to claw its way out, but she couldn’t seem to make any noise. 
“Ms. Masters.” The man’s voice was calm. “My name is Jon Donley. I’m a bodyguard. I’m trying to keep you alive.”
A bodyguard? What was he—?
“There’s a shooter. Stay down.” 
Shooter? 
She was still processing that when the man said, “He’s gone.” He popped off Denise, and she crawled away, desperate to put space between them. 
“Whoa, whoa. Stay here, ma’am.” He grabbed her wrist. “Come on. Let me help you up.”
Confused, she tried to get away, but he didn’t let go. His grip was surprisingly gentle. 
She didn’t have bodyguards, certainly not here. She was trying to remain incognito. 
“Ma’am.” A blond woman approached from the other side. “You need to go with Donley to the car. We have to get you out of here. My name is Lake. I’m his partner. There’s been a credible threat, and somebody just took a shot—”
“Not at me.” Denise’s voice was high, almost screeching. She lowered the pitch and started over. “That had nothing to do with me.” There, that sounded better. “It was probably a hunter.” 
“In town?” The man crowded her, too close. Was he trying to intimidate? “At a festival?”
She tried to back away, but he gripped her other shoulder. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Just to be safe, we’re going to protect you.” He kept his voice level, though she heard a hint of frustration. “Please, come with me.”
She tore her gaze away from the stranger’s to look at the crowd just a hundred yards distant. Was Ella all right? It seemed the music was loud enough that nobody had heard the shot, or if they had, they’d discounted it as inconsequential. Written it off as a car backfiring, or maybe a firecracker somewhere. A few people were staring toward the lake, but most had returned to their activities. People still skated on the rink, still stood in line at the food truck.
Ella still swung in the playground. Safe, thank God.
Reid was looking Denise’s direction, though. Did he see her?
This was not how she’d wanted the day to go. This was exactly the opposite of what Denise had planned. 
As long as Ella was safe. That was all that mattered.
“Ma’am,” the bodyguard said. “We need to go.” 
This was crazy. Was Denise in danger? Had somebody taken a shot at her? 
Just a few hundred feet from her daughter? 
“Come on.” He wrapped an arm around her back and started walking. 
Denise was too stunned to argue. She let herself be led across the grass. He didn’t walk toward her Tesla, though. 
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she said. 
He didn’t falter or slow, just continued in the same direction. 
“Where’s the woman you were with?” Denise asked.
“Talking to the police.”
“Sure she is. Let me go.”
The man didn’t comply until they’d crossed the street and reached an ice cream shop. Despite the cold temperature, people stood in line at the counter inside. 
When Denise and her assailant or bodyguard or whatever he was stood beside the brick building, he situated himself between her and the lake—either to protect her or to hide her from somebody who might rescue her. She figured the odds were fifty-fifty. 
He angled to point back toward the park, where the tall blonde was indeed having a conversation with a uniformed police officer. She waved toward the water, and the cop spoke into the little microphone on his jacket, then jogged away. 
“See.” The man let her go and lifted both arms. “I’m just trying to keep you alive.” He shoved a hand in his back pocket and came out with a leather case, which he opened to show her a private investigator license from Massachusetts. 
“Take a picture of it and send it to somebody who loves you. Somebody who’ll check to make sure you get home safely. Do it now.” His voice was deep and commanding. “You have ten seconds, and then you’re getting into my SUV.”
“Who hired you?”
“Bruce Taggart.”
Denise’s agent. 
She should have guessed. 
She pulled her phone from her jacket pocket, snapped a photo of the man and another of his ID. Then, she walked to the rear of his vehicle—he kept in step with her the whole way, blocking her from the park and lake—and snapped a photo of the license plate. 
“In the back.”
“My car—”
“We’ll take care of it.”
“Your partner—”
“Get in the vehicle. Please.” 
It was insane. She didn’t know this person, had never seen him before. But it would be just like Bruce to hire security for her against her wishes and without her knowledge. 
The man opened the rear door of the Lincoln Navigator, and she slid inside. She selected the three photos on her phone. He’d told her to send them to somebody who loved her. 
There were her parents and Ella. Obviously, she wouldn’t send the information to an eight-year-old. Denise’s parents were in Florida. She’d caused them enough worry. 
She could send the pictures to one of her church friends, but they were in LA. They had lives and families. Better things to do than worry about her. 
She could send them to Monroe, her house-sitter, someone else she’d met at church. But, though he was a friend, she wasn’t sure she wanted him quite that involved in her business. 
She sent the photos to Bruce. Her agent might not love her, but he could be trusted, and he had a vested interest in keeping her safe.
Plus, he was always available. She tapped out a text. If you didn’t hire this guy, then I’m being abducted. 
The bodyguard sat in the front seat, slammed the door, and started the car, but he didn’t move.
If he was abducting her, he was sure taking his time about it. 
“Are we going somewhere?” she asked.
“Waiting for Lake,” 
Lake? What kind of a name…?
Denise’s phone vibrated, and she read Bruce’s response. I hired him.
Why?
Call me when you’re safe, and I’ll explain. 
He’d better. She’d left Hollywood to escape the craziness. The last thing she wanted was for the craziness to follow her home. 
“You want Lake to drive your car,” the man asked, “or do you want to leave it here?”
“I’ll drive it.” She reached for the door handle, but he locked the doors. She tried to disengage hers, but it was a child safety lock. 
“Sorry, ma’am. After we get you home, we’ll discuss what to do next. For now, you’re going to have to trust me.”
Trust him? She didn’t even know him. Before she could say that, the passenger door opened, and the blonde slid in. “Cops are searching for the driver of that boat. So far, nobody knows anything.”
He turned to Denise. “Keys?”
It seemed she had no choice. Typical. She had all the money she could ever want, but money didn’t buy the things she desired most. Like her daughter’s affection. Like the freedom to go to a small-town Christmas lighting ceremony without bringing chaos with her.
Whatever. She pulled the keys from her pocket and handed them over the seat to the blonde. 
“See you at the house.” She stepped out and jogged away. 
The man shifted gears and pulled onto the street that ringed the lake. 
Denise stared at the crowd as they passed it. If she’d had any doubt that Reid had seen her before, the way he was watching the SUV now confirmed her worry. He looked furious. 
Of course. 
All the courage it had taken her to show up here, to walk toward the crowd, to try to fit in with her old friends, and this was how it turned out? 
“I’m sorry I frightened you.” The bodyguard stopped at the intersection and met her eyes in the rearview mirror. “I hope I didn’t hurt you.”
She did a quick survey and was surprised to find she didn’t feel a single ache. Cold, sure. The grass had been damp. But he’d somehow managed to tackle her without causing injury. She had the vague memory of the man’s arm around her middle when he’d taken her down. He’d supported her and protected her. 
Maybe she could trust him. 
His eyes narrowed. They were gray and serious beneath dark brown eyebrows. “Are you hurt?” 
Was she? She didn’t think so. “What is your name?”
“Donley. Jon Donley.”
“Okay.” She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say now. If somebody really had taken a shot at her, he’d likely saved her life. But she didn’t want to believe anybody had been trying to kill her. In which case, this guy had ruined her plans.
“You didn’t hurt me, Jon. Scared me, but didn’t hurt me.”
He nodded and turned onto Main Street. 
Leaving Ella, Denise’s ex, her old friends—and maybe a killer—behind.


Order Now!

<< Go Back