Third To Die

“You’re messing with me,” Aiden said tersely as he felt his hands start to shake. “Edmond is just sick, he’ll be fine. You’re just trying to get to me as you’re still bitter about everything that went down with Brandy.”

“Oh, I’m bitter,” Clyde confirmed. “I’ll never forgive you for trying to tarnish Brandon’s good name. But I can assure you that I’m not lying about Edmond and I’m affronted that you’d think I’d stoop so low as to make something like this up.”

Aiden used his shaking hand to wipe at his eyes.

“If Edmond was gravely ill he’d have told me,” he said with certainty.

“Would he?” Clyde countered, removing his glasses. “You’re Edmond’s beloved prodigy. I imagine he wanted to protect you from the ugliness of it all.”

Aiden stood up and put a hand to his temple. His head suddenly felt immensely heavy from all the questions it now contained.

“You’re wrong.” Aiden tried to remain composed as he picked up his briefcase and prepared to leave.

“I wish I was,” Clyde moved around from his desk to get the door. “Edmond is a good man, one of the best.”

“He’s not dying,” Aiden insisted.

“Make sure you get that processed,” Clyde said, referring to his amended will. “I told Edmond I’d get it done as soon as I could.”

“So you knew you’d be seeing me today?”

“Of course.”

Aiden sighed in frustration.

“If you’re lying about Edmond—”

“I’m not. I wouldn’t.”

“Do you think telling me this makes us even?”

Clyde chuckled slightly to himself.

“Of course not,” he clapped Aiden on the back as he pulled open the office door. “We’ll never be even.”

*

Aiden sat in his car holding Clyde’s amended will. He kept re-reading the new benefactor. Clyde was leaving everything to Edmond’s family. Surely that meant it was true, that Edmond was actually dying?

Punching the steering wheel Aiden tried to release his anguish. He wanted to scream, to cry, to run until his legs gave way beneath him, but instead he turned on the key in the ignition and pulled out of the parking lot. He knew he was due back at the office but that wasn’t where he was headed. He was going to see Edmond.

*

“Has anyone called for me?” Brandy enquired hopefully as she came down the central staircase of Chez Vous.

“No, honey,” her Aunt Carol shook her head and raised a perfectly styled eyebrow at her niece.

“You need to stop waiting on his call.”

“I’m not waiting on anyone’s call!” Brandy insisted, forcing herself to smile brightly and sound flippant.

“Uh-huh,” Carol rolled her eyes and pursed her lips knowingly.

“We’ve all been there,” Rhonda, a senior stylist, retorted from where she was standing nearby, styling a middle-aged woman’s hair.

“You need to stop waiting on him and move on!” As Rhonda spoke, she pointed her scissors at Brandy.

Brandy liked Rhonda. Like all the other women who worked at Chez Vous, she was stylish and oozed confidence. Brandy had never known women like them before. They were assertive and knew their own minds and didn’t let the men in their life own them. It was a far cry from the life she’d known growing up, where Brandy’s own mother favoured her current man over her own daughter.

“Chin up,” Carol placed her hand beneath Brandy’s dainty chin and physically pushed it upwards.

Brandy tucked a loose strand of long blonde hair behind her ear and turned to head back up to her next client. She paused briefly, a hand on the rail and looked back at her aunt, her deep-brown eyes wide with irrepressible hope.

“If someone does call, you’ll tell me, right?”

“Child, you’re a lost cause!” Rhonda cried heatedly, pointing her scissors back at Brandy.

“Beautiful Southern belle like yourself could have any man in this city eating out of the palm of your hand!”

“Thanks,” Brandy whispered politely, not wanting to point out that the problem was that the man she wanted wasn’t even in Chicago.

*

The only place Brandy was able to find solace was sat at the white piano in the worn-down hotel a few blocks from her apartment. She’d sit at the stool and let her fingers glide effortlessly over the keys and she’d lose herself to whichever melody she decided to play. Lately, the songs she played were sombre and slow, reflecting her mood.

He’d told her he was going to call. He’d told her that he was going to leave his wife and come back to Chicago for her and they were going to be together, truly together. That was two weeks ago. Since then there had been only silence from Aiden Connelly. As Brandy pressed down firmly on a deep chord she tried to push out all her pain, all her hurt and anguish. With each day that passed she came closer to the heart breaking realisation that Aiden was never going to call.

*

“Was he the smartly dressed man who came to Chez Vous a few weeks ago?” Rhonda asked as she walked along the street beside Brandy. The two women were headed out to collect coffees for everyone at the salon, a Wednesday afternoon ritual. Usually Brandy went alone, but this time Rhonda insisted on joining her.

“Who?” Brandy glanced at her colleague, frowning slightly in confusion.

“The man whose call you keep waiting on,” Rhonda said directly.

“Oh,” Brandy looked down at her feet and blushed.

Rhonda placed a comforting arm around her. She stood almost an entire foot taller than Brandy. She had jet-black hair styled dramatically into a spiked style with fluorescent-pink tips and she always wore the latest fashions coupled with her beloved vintage leather jacket. Rhonda oozed originality and confidence and, like Brandy, she relocated to Chicago from her small home town almost ten years ago when she graduated from high school.

“And I’ve never looked back!” Rhonda would declare whenever she regaled someone with her tale of how she came to be in the big city.

“Yeah, I thought something was up, I saw the way you looked at each other.”

“He said he’d call,” Brandy admitted sadly. “He said he’d come back for me.”

“He’s married, isn’t he?” Rhonda ceased walking and looked directly at Brandy. There was no judgement in her eyes, only concern.

“Yes,” Brandy sighed. “He is. Does that make me an awful person?”

“No,” Rhonda shook her head and continued walking. “It makes you human. He’s the awful person in this scenario. That ring on his finger means he can’t go leading someone on. He was your lawyer, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Brandy gave Rhonda a sideways glance and shoved her hands deep into her trench coat pockets.

“Your aunt told me,” Rhonda explained. “She said she recognized him from television. She’s worried about you.”

“She is?”

“She says you’ve not been the same since he came to visit. And she’s right, Brandy. We’ve all noticed. When you first came to Chez Vous you were like this little breath of fresh air that left a smile on everyone you met. Now, you walk around with your head down in this cloud of unhappiness all because he hasn’t called. Don’t let a man have that much power over you, honey.”

“I thought he loved me,” Brandy said sadly, unable to meet Rhonda’s gaze.

“We always do,” Rhonda said sympathetically. “As awful as it is, if he loved you, he’d call. I’m not saying that to be cruel, I’m saying it to set you free.”

Brandy flinched slightly at the bluntness of the comment and also the truth she knew it held.

“I appreciate you being honest with me,” Brandy managed to smile slightly. They’d arrived at the coffee shop and wandered in and joined the moderate queue.

“I’ll sort you out,” Rhonda promised. “I’ll take you out with me and find you a decent man.”

Brandy smiled politely and nodded as Rhonda began to detail her plan for securing her young colleague a new beau. But Brandy couldn’t focus on what she was saying, her mind, as always, had drifted back to Aiden, and Avalon. She just wished she knew why he hadn’t called.

Chapter Two

Holding On

Edna Copes wearily opened the large front door and squinted into the sunlight at Aiden. If she was surprised to see him, she didn’t show it.

“Hi,” Aiden smiled gently at her. “I was hoping I could see Edmond.”

Normally Edna’s face was constantly adorned by a bright, welcoming smile, but her lips were now held in a straight line. Dark circles had gathered beneath her eyes and her skin was pale and lacked its usual lustre.

“I thought you’d come,” Edna sighed, gesturing for Aiden to come inside. “He didn’t want you to know. He thinks so highly of you. He kept fretting about worrying you. But I told him you’re a smart guy; you’d be here soon enough.”

Aiden steeled himself upon hearing Edna’s ominous tone. Clearly, Edmond was as gravely ill as Clyde White had stated.

“How bad is it?” he asked softly.

A shadow crossed Edna’s face as she closed her eyes and shuddered slightly. When she re-opened them to speak they were dull and distant. She recited words she’d heard in a sterile doctor’s office, words she refused to give power to here in her home.

“It was originally just in his bladder but it has since spread and last they checked it was in his lymph nodes.”

“Cancer?”

Edna nodded grimly.

“He’s just through here,” Edna continued through the hallway and led Aiden towards the sitting room. Already he could sense that something was different. The Copes’ household was usually alive with sounds and energy but now the air was still and his footsteps echoed off the walls.

The medicinal scent of antibacterial wash became almost overbearing as it lingered in uncirculated air. Edna opened the doors to the sitting area and it smelled like a hospital ward only without the garish white walls.

The sitting room had been rearranged to accommodate a hospital bed which was nestled in the far corner, surrounded by a web of monitors. The drapes were closed, bathing the whole area in unnatural darkness. Edmond was sat in an armchair wearing blue plaid pyjamas. He had a blanket across his knees despite the oppressive heat of the afternoon.

Aiden felt his breath catch in his throat when he saw his beloved colleague. Edmond was a wilted, watered-down version of his former self. He’d lost a drastic amount of weight so that his pyjamas were ill-fitting. The same dark circles which hung beneath his wife’s eyes were present on his own face, only they appeared denser and more permanent. His skin had become so pale that it was almost translucent.

“He’s being so strong,” Edna whispered to Aiden when they were just beyond Edmond’s earshot.

“Humour him.”

Aiden nodded, though he wasn’t sure what she meant, and carefully approached Edmond. As he neared the older man he suddenly looked up, surprisingly alert and as soon as he saw his young protégé, a huge smile spread across his thinning face.

“Aiden, my boy!”

“So this is where you’ve been hiding out,” Aiden replied, using all the energy he could muster to sound bright and upbeat.

“You found me,” Edmond winked cheekily as Aiden sat down on a nearby sofa.

“Can I get you boys some drinks?” Edna kindly enquired.

“I’ll take a scotch on the rocks,” Edmond chuckled. Edna looked at him sternly, clearly not amused.

“Fine, just water,” Edmond rolled his eyes. “I’ll tell you, it’s like living with the Gestapo having her here!”

Edna glanced expectantly at Aiden.

“Just water for me, please.”

For a moment they listened to her retreating footsteps, which were easily carried in the vast, empty air of the house.

“She just worries,” Edmond wrinkled his nose slightly as he referenced his wife. “I do miss my scotch though.”

“You should have told me,” Aiden eyed his friend sternly and leaned forward, clasping his hands together.

“Told you what?” Edmond feigned mock ignorance. “There’s nothing to tell,” he waved a dismissive hand in front of him.

“I’ll be better soon enough. Once they’ve poured more of that damn poison into me I’ll kick this thing, just you see!”

Aiden was about to enquire about how aggressively the cancer had spread when he instead decided to keep his mouth shut, choosing to heed Edna’s advice and humour her husband.

“So who told you?” Edmond asked, his eyes bright with interest as Edna returned with two long glasses of water.

“Thanks,” Aiden nodded politely at her and then looked back at Edmond. “Clyde White. I was there earlier to amend his will.”

“That old dog never could hold his tongue,” Edmond remarked lightly.

“Did he talk to you about his will?”

“I know he’s leaving everything to the Copes’ dynasty,” Edmond quipped. “Someone should tell him to hold his horses though, he needs to remember that both our beds are still warm!”

“I think he’s just worried about you.”

“He’s just a glory hunter,” Edmond raised an eyebrow as he spoke. “He wants to redeem his family name after all the mess surrounding Brandy’s trial.”

“That seems a little…dark.”

“You’ve met Clyde White, haven’t you?”

“I guess,” Aiden took a sip from his cooled water and glanced around the room. It felt more like God’s waiting room than a sitting area. It scared Aiden how drastically things had changed. It had only been a few short weeks since he’d last seen Edmond and in that time the older man had literally started to fade away.

“I wish you’d told me,” Aiden reiterated.

This time Edmond wasn’t so quick to dismiss the comment.

“I didn’t want to worry you,” he admitted. “Besides, I’ll be back at work in no time. No point making a fuss over nothing.”

Aiden frowned and looked down at his glass, unable to keep his eyes on Edmond. He looked so feeble, so besieged by sickness. Clearly, it wasn’t nothing.

“So how long until you’re back, getting in the way of me actually working?” Aiden pulled his mouth into a wry smile, doing his best to humour the older man.

“Not long, don’t you sweat, young buck,” Edmond chuckled slightly, though his mirth lacked the depth Aiden was accustomed to.

“A few more bouts of chemo and I’ll be back,” Edmond smiled, but it fell away a little too quickly.

“Well, Betty and I are missing you.”

“I bet the old girl is bereft without me there,” Edmond winked. He went to speak again but was silenced by his increasingly laboured breathing.

“Are you okay? Can I get you anything?” Aiden approached him and placed a concerned hand upon his shoulder.

Edmond shook his head but didn’t speak. Footsteps hurriedly entered the room and Aiden looked up to see Edna running over with some pills in her hand.

“Take these,” she urged her husband. Then she looked back at Aiden, “He’s just getting tired. He doesn’t have much energy these days.”

Edmond took the tablets and sat for a moment, waiting for his breathing to regulate itself. Edna hovered by his side, not taking her eyes off him for a second. Aiden, however, was forced to look away. It was too difficult to watch.

“Better?” Edna asked anxiously, stroking Edmond’s thinning hair.

“No energy?” Edmond glanced at his wife, the light returning to his eyes as his chest ceased awkwardly heaving.

“I’ve more than enough energy, I’ll thank you very much!”

Edna sighed and rolled her eyes as she straightened and stood up. The moment had passed and her husband was back to his usual cheeky self.

“Women!” Edmond declared bluntly. “She’s just mad as I’m under her feet all day. She can’t keep popping off to the shops like she usually does.”

Edna didn’t reply, she just headed out of the room, once more giving the men their privacy.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Aiden asked sincerely.

“If I lose any more energy, you may have to service Mrs. Copes on my behalf,” Edmond joked but Aiden was unable to laugh. The gravity of the situation was beginning to weigh him down so that he felt like his whole body was made of lead and bolted to the sofa on which he sat.

Edmond looked across at his young colleague and his smile fell away when he registered his troubled expression.

“I’m doing everything I can to fight this,” he admitted. “But I’m a proud man. I didn’t want you, or anyone, for that matter, to see me like this.”

“You should have told me,” Aiden’s voice cracked slightly as water gathered behind his eyes.

“I know. I just…” Edmond looked back at the draped windows and sighed. “It crept up on me like some monster. One day I was fine, the next I was pissing blood and collapsing on the bathroom floor. She was terrified. I don’t like scaring people, Aiden. The fewer people this monster can scare, the better.”

“I want to help,” Aiden declared, straightening. “It must be exhausting for Edna to manage everything on her own. Let me help. I can take you to hospital appointments, sit here with you at home, whatever you need.”

“I need my company to stay afloat,” Edmond told him. “So that when I return I’ve still got a job to go back to.”

Aiden’s face betrayed him as his eyes misted with pity.

“Copes and May is my legacy,” Edmond continued, his voice becoming light with nostalgia.

“We made that company when we were young, idealistic men. We wanted to change the world. And you helped.”

“I did?” Aiden blinked in surprise.

“You saved Brandy White. Without your intervention an innocent woman would have died. That’s the reason I ever got into law in the first place; to save those who genuinely needed saving.”

“I’m not sure my other cases have been quite so noble.”

“It’s early days,” Edmond said sagely. “You’re making a name for yourself for being a good, honest man. People will seek out your help. You’re going to make Copes and May great.”

“Okay, but I still want to help you.”

Edmond squirmed awkwardly in his chair.

“Ask Edna what help she needs,” he said quickly. “But I draw the line at having you here when she bathes me! I need to retain some of my mystique!”

“I’ll ask her,” Aiden smiled.

“I wish we could sit and chew the fat all day,” Edmond said wistfully. “I want to hear all about what a smug bastard Clyde White was when he told you I was sick. But I’m tired. And as a sick man I get to call it when I’m tired and insist people leave so I can rest!”

“Sounds like a fair perk to the deal,” Aiden stood and fondly placed a hand on Edmond’s shoulder.

“I promise I’ll be back at work soon,” Edmond told him, his eyelids already beginning to droop.

“I’ll hold you to that!” Aiden pointed at him.

*

“I want to help,” Aiden said solemnly to Edna as she showed him to the front door.

“He’s so stubborn,” Edna sighed. “He struggles to accept help from me!”

“Is there anything at all I can do?”

Edna pursed her lips and thought for a moment.

“Could you take him to his chemo appointment next week? I’d take him myself, only some of our family are flying in and I need to get the house straight for having them all coming to stay.”

“Absolutely, I’ll take him.”

“We’re circling the wagons,” Edna admitted woefully. “As much as he wants to bury his head in the sand, the rest of us can’t. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you how bad things were. He insisted I shouldn’t say anything.”

“It’s okay,” Aiden briefly embraced Edna and tried to hold back his own tears.

“You mean so much to him,” Edna wiped at her cheek out of habit, even though she wasn’t crying in that moment.

“If anyone can fight this, he can,” Aiden told her confidently before stepping out into the heat of the afternoon and walking back to his car.

*

Aiden turned the stereo in his car up so that it was distractingly loud. He needed something to distract him from his darkening thoughts. He’d so desperately wanted Clyde White to be wrong but it truly did seem that Edmond was fading away. It was so cruel a fate for such a vibrant, charismatic man.

Drumming his hands against the steering wheel in time to the music, Aiden forced himself to hum along, to focus solely on the garish rhythm of the pop song being filtered through his car’s speakers. He became so hypnotised by the overly produced record that it took him a second to notice the flashing lights in his rear-view mirror. Lowering the music, Aiden realized with dismay that the lights were accompanied by the stringent shriek of sirens. Slowing, he pulled up on to the side of the road and cut his engine.

“Dammit,” he grumbled angrily to himself. He was certain that he hadn’t been speeding. He’d admittedly been distracted but he’d still managed to adhere to the laws of the road.

As Aiden glanced up into his mirror he noticed a familiar figure exit the squad car, which was now pulled up behind him. The pointed boots of Buck Fern stepped out into the gathered dust on the roadside and began to approach Aiden’s car.

“Dammit,” Aiden uttered again, opening his car window and then carefully placing his hands at ten and two on the wheel.

He could hear the old sherriff’s prolonged, deliberate steps before he finally appeared at his window, casting a shadow across Aiden as he blocked out the afternoon sun.

“Afternoon, Sherriff,” Aiden tried to sound as amicable as he could.

“Connelly,” Buck replied gruffly, snarling as he uttered the greeting.

Buck placed one hand on the car’s roof and lowered himself to look in at Aiden.

“Mind stepping out of the car?” Even though Buck delivered it as a question, they both knew it was a directive.

“Seriously?” Aiden asked, bewildered but already unbuckling his seatbelt.

“Seriously,” Buck confirmed coldly as he stepped back and waited for Aiden to get out.

The few cars that passed them slowed slightly to observe the encounter taking place, the drivers eager to gather some gossip they could take home and share over the dinner table.

Aiden got out and slammed his door shut and then looked directly at Buck Fern, searching the old man’s grey eyes for some hint of rationality.

“Where you headed?” Buck drawled out the words as though he had all the time in the world to kill.

“Home,” Aiden instinctively replied. Then he realized that this wasn’t entirely true. He had planned to swing by the office and speak with Betty. Before he left Edmond, his dwindling colleague had insisted that he inform his loyal secretary of the severity of his condition.

“But don’t go worrying the old girl too much,” Edmond advised. “Just tell her the basics. Seems word is getting out and if she hears it from anyone other than you or I there will be hell to pay!”

Aiden ran a hand through his hair and felt the stifling heat of the afternoon beginning to penetrate through his shirt and cause his skin to break out in beads of sweat. He yearned to be back in the air-conditioned comfort of his car.

“Did you stop me just to ask where I’m going?” Aiden cried angrily. He lacked the patience for Buck Fern’s games. The old sherriff had picked the wrong time to try and rattle his cage.

“Partly,” Buck admitted, smirking slightly. “I thought you might be skipping town.”

“Skipping town? What? Why?”

“I think you’d do well to skip town,” Buck continued.

“I’m sure you do think that,” Aiden glanced back longingly at his car.

“Your wife received anymore of those strange letters?”

Aiden felt his whole body suddenly chill despite the heat of the day. He looked at Buck with renewed interest. “What makes you ask that?”

“Last time I saw Mrs. Connelly she was real worried about some threatening letters ya’ll had received telling you to leave Avalon.”

“They were just the laments of some bitter crackpot,” Aiden told him sourly. “Nothing to be taken seriously.”

“No?” Buck’s eyes widened and his tone elevated mockingly. “She seemed real concerned by them. And with good reason. People round here, they don’t like being ignored.”

“Look!” Aiden raised a hand towards the sherriff. “If you want to make thinly veiled threats, go ahead, but this isn’t the time.”