Third to Die Read online

  Aiden popped open his briefcase and retrieved some documents which Clyde would need to fill in.

  “I know you were expecting Edmond,” Aiden began, “but sadly he’s not in today so you’ve got me instead.”

  “Well aren’t I the lucky one?” Clyde noted flatly.

  “You’re looking to amend your present will?” Aiden passed some paperwork across to Clyde.

  Opening a drawer in his desk, Clyde pulled out some fashionable reading glasses. Aiden didn’t remember him needing them before. He watched the older man as he scrutinized the paperwork.

  “You just need to highlight what needs amending,” Aiden prompted him. “Or I can help you with it, if you like?”

  Clyde sighed and placed the paper he was holding flat on his desk and looked squarely at Aiden.

  “Says here I’m leaving everything to Brandon. Guess that needs to change.”

  Aiden coughed awkwardly.

  “I’ve been meaning to update this for ages,” Clyde continued. “Kept putting it off. Felt too painful, too final.”

  The pain Aiden had originally seen in Clyde White over his son’s death still existed behind his eyes, infecting his whole demeanour so that he physically wilted when he spoke about his son.

  “I’m sorry this is difficult for you,” Aiden offered kindly.

  “No, you’re not,” Clyde replied bluntly. “You thought my son was a monster. You did everything you could to destroy the legacy he had here in this town.”

  “That wasn’t my intention,” Aiden quickly corrected him. “I was just searching for the truth.”

  “And now a man of God sits rotting in prison,” Clyde sighed, referring to the real killer of his son, Father West, the man who had almost let Brandy take the fall for a crime she didn’t commit, had Aiden not intervened.

  “No jury in the land is ever going to convict him.”

  Aiden was silent. He knew better than to overly engage with Clyde regarding what happened with Brandy’s murder trial.

  “I suppose you think I should leave everything to her,” Clyde asked heatedly. “She is, after all, my son’s widow.”

  “Whoever you state as your benefactor is completely up to you.”

  “She doesn’t deserve a dime,” Clyde seethed as his eyes misted behind the lenses of his glasses.

  “Perhaps you want some time to think it over,” Aiden suggested helpfully. “I could leave these here and collect them at a later date.”

  “No need,” Clyde raised his palm to Aiden and with his other hand picked up a pen and swiftly began amending the document before him.

  “I know who I need to make my will out to,” he explained.

  “Oh,” Aiden tried to not sound surprised. “Good.”

  Once Clyde was done writing, he slid the piece of paper back to Aiden.

  “Everything in order?” Clyde asked.

  Aiden glanced over the paperwork and felt his body stiffen in shock when he saw that Clyde was now leaving his entire estate to Edmond Copes’ next of kin.

  “You look surprised,” Clyde smirked slightly as he spoke.

  “I didn’t realize you and Edmond were so close,” Aiden admitted.

  “Edmond Copes is a good man,” Clyde declared sincerely. “Terrible thing what’s happening to him. I’ve no family left of my own to have to support so the least I can do for him is to help his loved ones after we’re both gone.”

  “What terrible thing?” Aiden asked, leaning forward.

  “Don’t tell me you don’t know?” Clyde looked delighted by Aiden’s obliviousness.

  “Know what?”

  “Edmond hasn’t been in work for several weeks now, correct?”

  “That’s right, he’s off sick.”

  Clyde shook his head slowly, a forlorn expression casting a shadow across his chiselled features. The line around his eyes seem to deepen as he looked across at Aiden.

  “He’s not sick, Mr. Connelly. He’s dying.”

  “What?” Aiden gripped the arms of the leather chair for support.

  “Cancer. He was diagnosed at the start of the month but they caught it too late,” Clyde explained, his voice becoming brittle.

  “Not many people know. He started chemotherapy last week and, well, it’s taken it out of him. The doctors aren’t hopeful for his prognosis.”

  Aiden was speechless. Clyde White had to be wrong. There was no way that Edmond Copes was dying. When Aiden had last seen the old man a few weeks ago, he’d been his usual, jovial self, there was no indication at all that anything was wrong.

  “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.

  “C
hin 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 sco
tch 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.