Third to Die Read online

  Edmond struggled against his web of wires and arduously leaned forward to place his hand upon Aiden’s arm.

  “I have to go,” he stated factually. “This is my time. But I go in peace if I know your future is secure. If I know that Avalon won’t succumb to its own dark secrets with you here to shine a light on its indiscretions.”

  Aiden closed his eyes to try and stop the flow of tears.

  “Will you take it, Aiden? Will you take the company?”

  *

  “Is that everything?” Veronica asked as she eyed the trunk of her car which was now overflowing with luggage.

  “Yes,” Isla sighed, exhausted from all the heavy lifting. “That’s everything.”

  “Well, we’d better get going then,” Veronica glanced at the time on her designer watch.

  “Are you ready to go the city, sweetheart?” Isla raised her voice so that it sounded buoyant and carefree as she addressed her daughter.

  “Where’s Daddy?” Meegan asked, frowning as she looked around for her father.

  “You’ll see him soon,” Isla promised, planting a kiss on Meegan’s forehead. As she did so she noticed that the spattering of freckles which had appeared in Avalon were now fading.

  “She’s confused,” Veronica stated, raising a dark eyebrow in judgement. “Poor child doesn’t know which way is up.”

  “Mother, she’s fine,” Isla insisted as she lifted Meegan into her car seat and buckled her in.

  “He still has to be in her life, you know,” Veronica warned.

  “I know,” Isla snapped. After spending almost a week living with her parents she’d run out of what little patience she had.

  “I’m just saying.” Veronica waved a dismissive hand through the air, showing off her impressively long nails.

  “Well don’t,” Isla suggested as she shut the car door, sealing Meegan inside.

  “Are you sure this is what you want?” Veronica’s lined features softened slightly. “The life of a single mother is a hard one. Can’t you just go back to Avalon and smooth things over with Aiden?”

  Isla lowered her head as the wind danced through her mahogany curls causing them to drift out in a wayward style.

  “I’ll never go back to Avalon,” she said quietly. “And if Aiden has any sense, he’ll leave there too.”

  “Okay then, let’s go,” Veronica briefly squeezed Isla’s shoulder and then moved towards the car, climbing into the driver’s side.

  “Bye, Dad,” Isla hurried over to her father who was standing in the doorway, watching the women in his life prepare to leave. She embraced him tightly and Harold raised his thin arms to squeeze her back.

  “Just be happy,” he whispered to her. The words were delivered so softly that for a moment Isla wasn’t sure if he’d actually said them or if it had just been a trick of the wind.

  When she pulled away from him, she raised a hand to wipe a tear from her cheek. The tenderness of the moment was disrupted by the garish bark of the car horn. Isla turned and saw her mother smacking down on the centre of the steering wheel.

  “Come on!” she cried when she briefly ceased honking the horn. “Let’s go!”

  “Let’s go!” Meegan squealed excitedly from the back seat. Isla gave her father one last brief hug before getting into the car.

  “Chicago, here we come.” Veronica smiled as she backed out of the driveway.

  “Chicago!” Meegan echoed, the blaring of the car horn had excited her and she bounced manically within her car seat.

  “Yeah,” Isla leaned back in her seat and sighed. “Chicago here we come.”

  *

  “I hate to press you on this but I’m running on borrowed time as it is,” Edmond pressed Aiden for an answer.

  “Sorry, Edmond, I’m just…overwhelmed.”

  Aiden had never considered what it might be like to have his own legal firm. He was content to work with Edmond, to focus on his family rather than his career. But that hadn’t panned out. His family had broken up despite the relocation, despite everything. Some things were perhaps just destined to break.

  But more than anything, Aiden didn’t want to consider a future in Avalon without Edmond. The old man’s optimism had been contagious and Aiden had compelled himself to truly believe that his mentor would get well again, that in a few months he’d be back in the office cracking his usual jokes and sending Betty out for his beloved pastries. If he signed the ownership agreement, it would be like he was admitting that Edmond was past the point of no return, that he’d never be coming back to work and Aiden wasn’t prepared to do that.

  “You’ll come back,” Aiden told him fiercely. “I know you will. You’re a fighter, Edmond. You can beat this.”

  “There’s an old saying in a favourite song of mine,” Edmond leaned back in his chair and looked wistful. His adornment of machines provided a shrill, monotonous beat to his musings.

  “It’s about playing cards,” he continued, “but also it’s about life. They say the trick is knowing when to show them, and when to hold them. It’s all about playing the hand you’ve been dealt as best you can.”

  “Edmond, this isn’t a card game,” Aiden told him tearfully. “This is your life.”

  “I know that,” Edmond nodded sagely.

  “You can’t go!” Aiden insisted. “You’ve been more than a colleague to me here, you’ve been a friend! You are easily the kindest man I’ve ever met and I know that not just Avalon, but the whole world would be a darker place if it didn’t have you in it!”

  Edmond closed his eyes. After several moments he opened them again and he was crying. “Will you take the torch now, Aiden? Will you continue my legacy?”

  Aiden knew the answer. He’d known since before Edmond had even asked the question. There was something about Avalon. Even though he hadn’t been born there, he felt connected to the small town. He thought his decision to move there had been a random one but now he wasn’t so sure.

  Before he responded, Aiden plucked a pen from his shirt pocket and neatly signed his name in the relevant place on the document.

  “Yes,” he said sincerely, passing the paper back to Edmond. “It would be an honour to continue your legacy here.”

  “Good lad,” Edmond winked at him as tears silently trickled down his cheeks. “Now go relieve Mrs. Copes, I bet her ears ache from straining to hear through that thick door of ours!”

  *

  The sun refused to shine on Avalon the following day. It remained locked behind densely packed clouds, chilling the air in town so that people shivered slightly when they stepped outside.

  The weatherman would say that Avalon was on the cusp of the rainy season, that the abundance of clouds littering the sky was completely expected, but Aiden knew better. He knew that the sun refused to shine because Avalon’s brightest light had burned out. Just after midnight, Edmond Copes had taken his final, laboured breaths. Surrounded by his adoring family, he passed on.

  For Aiden the news hadn’t quite settled in. Edna had called him just before dawn. He knew what she was going to say when he saw her name flashing on his caller ID but still he couldn’t quite believe it. How could Edmond be gone? Avalon had undergone a catastrophic change yet when Aiden looked out of his kitchen window at the dew-soaked grass on his front lawn everything looked the same as it always had. His fence still needed painting, his mailbox continued to rust. The only indication that anything was different was the absence of the sun.

  “The sun might stay away for a few days in the build-up to the rainy season,” the smartly dressed weatherman declared with a grin as he gestured across the map behind him in one fluid motion.

  Aiden frowned at the television as he walked into the living room holding his fresh cup of coffee.

  “No,” he thought. “The sun will stay away because, like the rest of Avalon, it is in mourning.”

  *

  Not knowing what to do with himself, Aiden drove to work. The streets were empty and as Aiden stepped out into the
brisk morning he noticed the lack of sound carried on the air. Usually he could hear people chattering in the coffee shop, or the honk of a distant horn greeting a familiar face. But all he could hear was the drumming of his own heartbeat echoing in his ears. Everywhere seemed subdued.

  He unlocked the door to Copes and May and the soft chime of the bell jingled merrily as he walked in. Aiden fought the urge to completely rip it out. He yearned for only silence. But Edmond had always favoured the bell, he said it was useful to know when someone had entered the office.

  “Hide the contraband before Mrs. Copes walks in,” he’d declare with a smile, glancing mischievously at the glazed donut he would be holding.

  Everywhere Aiden looked, he saw Edmond. He was starting to feel like coming to the office hadn’t been such a great idea. But he realized that he had nowhere else to go. It was either sit alone at home all day or sit in the office. Both places held the ghosts of happier times.

  Aiden ran a hand down his face and sighed. He needed to do something, anything, to occupy his mind. He moved towards his office, the office he normally shared with Edmond, and decided to check his emails.

  *

  An hour later and Aiden heard the soft chime of the bell over the door ringing. He glanced away from his computer monitor. Several emails were on the screen, all of them still unread. Aiden just couldn’t focus. Since he’d arrived at the office, he’d just stared into space.

  He stood up when he heard the bell and moved towards his office door. Betty must have come in even though he’d called and left a message telling her not to. She redefined loyalty. Aiden knew that in her mind she’d consider turning up to work a way of honouring Edmond. But she needed time to grieve, they all did. Aiden would just send her back home even though he’d actually welcome the company.

  “You shouldn’t have come in today,” Aiden said gently as he opened the door. But when he looked at Betty’s desk it was empty. He quickly lifted his gaze to take in the rest of the waiting area and felt his jaw clench when he spotted Clyde White standing grandly in the centre of the room.

  “We’re closed,” Aiden told him abruptly.

  “You don’t seem closed,” Clyde noted, gesturing to the unlocked front door. Behind the door Aiden bunched his hands into fists. Why hadn’t he thought to lock the door behind him?

  “Well, we are.” Aiden moved to turn his back on his unwanted visitor when Clyde White spoke again, only this time his voice lacked his usual resonance.

  “I’d just been driving around town since I heard. Somehow I just ended up here.”

  Aiden stepped out of his office and into the waiting area. He could see his own pain reflected in Clyde’s eyes.

  “He was always here,” Clyde glanced around the small space. “He was always happy to see you, no matter what shit you bought to his door.”

  Was Clyde referring to the times his late son had clocked up numerous DUIs that then suddenly disappeared? Aiden decided it wasn’t the time to ask.

  “He was a pillar of Avalon,” Clyde’s gaze dropped to the ground as he spoke and he raised an unsteady hand to his head and began to massage his temple.

  “There was a group of us, Avalon born and raised, and we protected this town. We were like fingers on a hand and when we came together we made a fist.”

  Aiden leaned against Betty’s desk and listened.

  “First Sam Fern and now Edmond…” Clyde rubbed at his head more furiously. “That leaves just me and Buck.”

  He dropped his hand and held it outstretched before him. Then, very slowly, he drew his fingers inward so that he was eventually making a fist.

  “I think we’re all just trying to deal with Edmond’s loss,” Aiden said gently, he could feel a lump rising in his throat, threating to steal his ability to speak.

  “Avalon will not be the same,” Clyde looked directly at Aiden.

  “That’s true.”

  “And what happens to this place?”

  Aiden shifted uncomfortably. He wasn’t sure he was ready for it to become common knowledge that he was now the sole owner of Copes and May. The ink on the agreement was barely even dry; it seemed in poor taste to discuss such matters so soon.

  Clyde’s eyes bored into Aiden as if trying to locate the response from within him.

  “He left it to you, didn’t he?” Clyde correctly interrupted Aiden’s awkward silence.

  “Look—” Aiden started to speak but Clyde briskly cut him off.

  “Do you think you can uphold what he started? Because you can’t. Avalon was in Edmond’s blood, he knew what it meant to live here, to honour the sanctity of it. You’re just some city boy playing house out here.”

  Aiden let the sharp arrows of Clyde’s words bounce off him. The local businessman was hurting; he needed to vent some of his pain.

  “So many good men are gone,” Clyde shook his head in dismay. “I’m starting to fear what will become of Avalon if left to the likes of you.”

  Aiden felt his patience beginning to wear thin. As much as he sympathised with Clyde’s despair, he wasn’t prepared to become his punchbag.

  “You weren’t even there,” suddenly Clyde’s tone sharpened and his eyes narrowed accusingly.

  “Where?”

  “Yesterday, at Samuel Fern’s funeral. We were all there to say goodbye to a son of Avalon, but where were you? You’re so eager to step into Edmond’s shoes, yet he’d have been there!”

  “Yes, he would have been there!” Aiden replied with equal venom. “But he couldn’t get there because he was dying. And that’s where I was, at the side of a friend during his last hours. There was no way I’d have left him to attend the funeral of a man I barely knew.”

  Clyde grimaced at this.

  “Maybe you don’t think I’m up to task of running Copes and May, but Edmond did and that’s all that matters to me! Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do!”

  Aiden stormed back into his office. Several minutes later, the bell above the door jingled as Clyde White departed.

  Left once again in the stony silence, Aiden made a mental note to purchase a digital radio as soon as he could. The office was in dire need of something to distract him from his sombre mood. It was getting close to midday when Aiden felt he couldn’t handle being there any longer. He knew that his empty house would be preferable. Each time he looked up at Edmond’s empty desk, he felt like someone had shoved a dagger through his heart. He half-expected to look down at his shirt and find it soaked in his own blood.

  Standing, Aiden pulled his keys from his pocket and switched off his computer. The soft chime of the bell made him freeze. Surely Clyde White hadn’t returned? What more could he have to say?

  Steeling himself for another unpleasant encounter, Aiden entered the main waiting room. His shoulders immediately lowered when he saw Betty loitering nervously by the door. She was dressed immaculately in a black dress adorned with white pearls.

  “Betty,” Aiden addressed her softly. “Did you not get my call? You shouldn’t have come in today.”

  “I just wanted to give you this.” Betty unclasped her purse and retrieved a small slip of white paper. With a shaking hand she passed it to Aiden.

  “What’s this?”

  “The password to Edmond’s machine,” Betty’s voice crumpled at the end of the sentence. She delved deeper into her purse to find a tissue which she placed tightly against her eyes which looked red and sore.

  “Thank you, but this could have waited.”

  “Edmond loved this place,” Betty sniffed. “He’d hate to think that in his…absence, things slipped.”

  Aiden glanced down at the piece of paper Betty had given him. Edmond’s password contained only four letters:

  ANDE

  It was Edna spelt backwards. Aiden pinched his eyes shut as he felt the fresh threat of tears burning behind them.

  “Did he say what will happen to this place?” Betty asked tentatively. She appeared smaller than normal, diminished by her sorro
w. She continued to hold a crumpled tissue up to her eyes.

  Aiden realized that, like him, she had nowhere else to go. It was either come into an empty office or sit at home alone. Sometimes you just needed to stare at a different set of four walls.

  “We can discuss that another time,” Aiden reached out and tentatively touched her shoulder. “You should go home.”

  “This is my home, Aiden. This place is my purpose, it gave me a reason to get out of bed every day.”

  Aiden felt something in him break when she called him by his first name.

  “Edmond left the company to me,” he told her. Betty blinked rapidly at him, catching any fallen tears in her tissues.

  “He did?”

  “Yes,” Aiden confirmed. “And I plan to continue everything here just as he would have. As long as I’m here, Betty, you’ll always have a job.”

  “Thank you,” Betty trembled slightly. “But it doesn’t seem right, does it? To carry on with him gone?”

  “No,” Aiden agreed. “It doesn’t.”

  Betty left some ten minutes later after Aiden had told her to take the rest of the week off and then together they’d set about getting Copes and May back up and running. As she walked back down the street, Aiden knew she took the news of the new ownership of the company with her. Soon everyone would know.

  Aiden glanced around the waiting area. Clyde’s distrusting words rang in his ears and he asked himself the questions he had been trying to evade; what if he wasn’t up to the task of running the company? What if he couldn’t honour Edmond’s legacy?

  Chapter Ten

  The Truth We Knew

  The plane touched down on the runway with a jolt. Aiden was forced back into his seat as the brakes were firmly pressed and the world beyond his window finally slowed down and eventually stilled.

  “Thank you for flying with Air America today and welcome to Chicago,” the captain declared jovially over the sound system. Aiden leaned forward to look out at the grey skies, at the bleak landscape of the runway.

  Somehow he’d made it back to the city. As he disembarked from the plane and numbly followed his fellow passengers towards the baggage claim, he tried to make sense of the past week. Everything felt as though it had happened in a dream. He remembered sitting in the church where Father West had once presided over the congregation, listening to a new priest list Edmond’s positive attributes and fervently declare what an asset to the community he had been.