Free Final Call by Terri Reid Page B

wondering if this piece of evidence could have helped Bradley
solve the crime years ago. “So, did anyone know who the guy was?”
    He shook his head. “No, every so often,
we’d catch a glimpse of him through the window,” he said. “Nothing
real clear. But we knew it wasn’t Bradley. Besides, when a woman looks
like Jeannine, you know she would never be satisfied with just one man.”
    Okay,
well, now we can see where the rumors started , Mary
thought.
    “That’s a real surprise,” she said. “I
always thought they were pretty devoted to each other.”
    “Devotion only last as long as
pre-nuptial agreement requires,” he snickered at his own joke. “That’s how I
got the house. My ex didn’t read the fine print on our contract. She messed
around before our third anniversary and I got it all. Course, I never told her
I set her up. Bye-bye, baby.”
    “Well, wow, good for you, I guess. Thanks
for your help,” Mary said, slowly backing away from him. “Happy
New Year.”
    “Yeah, to you too,” he said, going back
to his snow blower.
    She walked back to her car and sat in
it, looking at the house for a few minutes. “What an ass.”
    “That’s what I always thought too.”

Chapter Fourteen

 
    Mary turned to see Jeannine sitting in
the passenger seat of her car. “Where have you been?” she asked.
    “What? Are you my mother?” Jeannine
replied.
    Torn between relief and anger, Mary
took a moment before she spoke. “No, I’m the person whose life has been on hold
while you take some kind of extraterrestrial vacation.”
    Jeannine shrugged and absently looked
out the window. “I had to visit someone.”
    She started to respond when she saw the
tear trail down Jeannine’s translucent cheek.
    Well,
good going Mary , she thought. Pick
on the murdered wife. I bet her life right now isn’t a piece of cake, either.
    “I’m sorry,” Mary said. “You’re right.
I’m not your mother...”
    “I visited her and my dad too,”
Jeannine interrupted, turning and looking at Mary. “I decided, you know, since
it was the holidays, I’d like to see them.”
    She looked out the window again.
“They’ve gotten so old. They don’t smile, they don’t talk to each other,” she
whispered. “Mom vacuums and dusts my old bedroom every day. And every time the
phone rings...”
    Her voice cracked and she inhaled a
deep shuddering breath.
    “Every time the phone rings, they jump
up and run for it. They want it to be me.”
    She turned to Mary, tears running
freely down her face now. “And it will never be me,” she said. “I’ll never see them
again.”
    “Jeannine, you know as well as I do
that you will see them again. It’s just not going to be in this life. You’re
going to have to wait a little while, but you’ll all be together some day.”
    She nodded and wiped the tears from her
face. “But what about...”
    “They do need closure, though,” Mary
interrupted. “They need to know you won’t be calling them and you won’t be
walking through the door. They need to be able to grieve for you and then move
on.”
    “How do we do that?”
    “We solve your murder. We find your
body.”
    “I can’t remember what happened
anymore,” she said anxiously. “I don’t know if I can help. And it’s been eight
years.”
    “That’s okay,” Mary insisted. “We
already know more than we did when Bradley was searching for you.”
    “You know I’m dead.”
    Mary nodded. “And we know the neighbors
thought you ran away with another man, so they didn’t tell the truth.”
    “There was no other man, Mary,” she
said. “I was never unfaithful to Bradley.”
    She lifted her hands to her mouth. “Bradley,”
she whispered. “You’re going to have to tell him about me.”
    “I think we both should tell him about
you,” Mary said. “I think he has a right to see you.”
    “I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,”
she agreed. “And he does need to know.”
    She looked at Mary and saw the