“Sold.” She grinned happily. “I hate working morning shifts.”
That made two of us. Resigned to my fate, I blew out a sigh and turned my focus back to Bobby. “You’d better be worth all this effort.”
“We should make dirt angels, too. Or ... wait ... how do mud angels sound?”
Like a nightmare in the making. That’s exactly how they sounded.
16
Sixteen
Sobering up Bobby so we could pump him for information wasn’t easy. Finally, under threat of banning him from beer for life (he was drunk enough to believe we had that power), he agreed to drink his water and talk. He rambled from subject to subject.
“Were you this hot in high school?” His eyes roamed my body in a way that made me uncomfortable.
“I was really hot in high school,” Alice announced. She’d never suffered from low self-esteem, something I greatly admired about her.
Bobby barely flicked his eyes to her before turning back to me. “I was talking to Stormy.”
“Oh, so now you remember my name.” I flashed a smile I didn’t really feel. “That’s ... convenient.”
“It just came to me.” Bobby’s expression was glazed and I knew he was probably in that strange limbo where he thought he was perfectly coherent but would spiral fast. It was time to take advantage of that.
“I don’t really remember you from high school,” I started, debating how I wanted to approach the situation.
“That’s because you were in your own little world with Hunter Ryan.” Bobby made a face. “God, I hated that guy. Every girl in the school was in love with him because he was supposedly some great athlete. He only had eyes for you.”
My heart gave a little jump. “We spent a lot of time together.” Why did people constantly feel the need to bring up a high school relationship? It was unnecessary ... and stupid ... and it made my heart hurt. “That’s what teenagers do. They fall hard and then move on.”
Except you haven’t moved on, a small voice whispered. I was brutal when I shoved it back. “We’re here to talk about you, Bobby.” I forced myself to be upbeat. “How is your life?”
“It’s stupid.” Bobby stared at his grubby fingernails. “I mow lawns for a living.”
He looked so morose I momentarily felt sorry for him. “You’re a landscaper?”
“No. I mow lawns.” Bobby leaned back and stared at the sky, as if he was searching for something specific. “I still live with my father and everything. My girlfriend keeps breaking up with me because she says I’m going nowhere. My father agrees. He’s really disappointed in me. He wanted me to become a lawyer, too.”
“Did you have trouble passing the bar?” I asked.
“I never got that far. I couldn’t pass the regular classes to even make it into law school.” He leaned against the log and let loose a wistful sigh. “Whatever, right? It doesn’t matter.”
It obviously mattered to him. I decided to direct him toward a different subject. “Is it hard living with your father?”
Bobby’s expression darkened. “He’s a pompous ass.”
“I bet. I saw him in the restaurant earlier today.”
“What restaurant?” Bobby was distracted by the moon.
“Two Broomsticks. I work there.”
“Oh, right. The family restaurant.” Bobby’s eyes were still full of drunken lust when they landed on me. “You didn’t live up to your potential either. We should totally hang out together. We can be screw-ups together.”
“That’s a lovely offer.” I wrinkled my nose. “I’m not quite ready to admit defeat yet.”
“Yeah. I can see that. You’re pretty ... and you don’t live with your father.” Bobby scowled. “He’s such a jerk. He won’t stop yelling at me to get a proper job and get out of his house. I warned him that I would sue to stay if he wasn’t careful. I saw a guy who did that on television. His parents wanted to kick him out, but he took them to court.”
I’d seen that story, too. I was fairly certain the individual in question had lost ... and rightfully so. “So ... your father was at the restaurant with Vera Axe.” Bobby needed to be led directly to the topic. “I thought it was weird, because he’s a divorce attorney and Vera is a widow.”
Bobby blinked several times in rapid succession and I thought for sure he would go off on another tangent. Instead, he actually managed to focus. “That’s because Vera was trying to divorce Roy before his death. It had been going on for, like, three years. It wasn’t a big deal.”
I begged to differ. “I’m not sure I understand. Why was Vera trying to divorce Roy?”
“You’ve met him. I think the better question is: Why did Vera marry Roy in the first place?”
“If Vera wanted to divorce Roy three years ago, why were they still married?”
“She wasn’t going to get nearly as much money as she thought she would,” Bobby replied, picking at a stray thread on his jeans. “That’s the problem for a lot of women. They watch television and assume they’re going to get piles of money in a divorce. They think it’s true for everybody ... even if that person has zero money.”
I pictured Roy’s office. “I thought Roy was doing relatively well. Are local real estate prices down?”
“It depends on the real estate,” Bobby replied blandly. “Businesses are being snapped up. People have offered your grandfather a ton of money for that restaurant.”
That was news to me. “They have?”
“They want to take advantage of what Hemlock Cove is doing. They’re getting stronger every year because of that witch thing. Your grandfather’s restaurant even has a witch name already established to take advantage of. I always wondered about that name.”
“That makes two of us,” I said dryly, hunkering down so I was on an even level with Bobby. It was obvious he wasn’t going to last much longer before passing out. I had to get my answers now. “Are you saying Vera didn’t file for divorce because she wasn’t going to get any money out of the deal?” That seemed a terrible reason to stay with a jackass like Roy Axe.
“It wasn’t just that.” Bobby started plucking at the grass. “She was angry when she found out he’d been throwing money around on another woman and assumed it was because he was cheating.”
Jackpot! “Who was he cheating with?”
Bobby shrugged. “Some woman who worked in his office. He had to pay her off because she left under suspicious circumstances and everyone assumed it was because of some affair. I don’t know what those circumstances were, so don’t ask. Because I know you’re going to ask. I just heard my father talking and knew Vera was pissed because all the money Roy had put away for their retirement was going to another woman.”
I exchanged a weighted look with Alice. “Do you know who he’s talking about?”
She shook her head. “Roy’s had a bunch of women in and out of that office over the years. I always assumed it was because he was a pervert.”