Dinner with the Blakemores (The Blakemore Files Book 5) (8 page)

It was a quiet ride to the bank as Grandma Patsy clutched her purse while staring out of the window.  Odessa was careful as she watched her speed and obeyed all the laws to arrive at the small bank in one piece. She quietly followed Patsy into the bank and took a seat in one of the waiting chairs.  A young man who spotted them walking in began to trip over himself to get to Patsy.  Odessa rose in defense and moved closer to her Grandmother-in-law.

“Ms. Sterling.  I wasn’t expecting you today.  I see you have a new driver,” he looked at Odessa, then at her belly, his brain obviously trying to comprehend why a pregnant black woman was driving the bank’s best customer around.

“Harold, you insipid ass, that is my granddaughter-in-law.  She is Saxton’s wife, and she is carrying my great grandson,” Patsy said with far more pride than Odessa expected.  The look on her face said as much.  The same look was on Harold’s face.

“Stop dawdling, Harold, I need to get to my safety deposit box,” she said as he led her away.

As Odessa went back to the waiting area, she was flanked by bank workers offering her sodas, water, fruit, and snacks.  “Is there anything you need, Mrs. Blakemore?”

“What can we get for you, Mrs. Blakemore?”

“I will be honored to be your personal banker and assist you with managing your assets and credit cards, Mrs. Blakemore.”  A business card was shoved into her hands.

One young lady even brought out a pillow as she lifted Odessa’s feet from the floor to slip it under her heels. Odessa’s hands went up. “Please stop.  I am fine, thank you,” she told the workers.  She even handed the young lady back her pillow.

That wasn’t the weirdest portion.  A young Mexican girl came out and asked her, “May I please have your autograph?”

“No,” Odessa told her in disbelief.  The odds of her signature being used in all sorts of ways were too innumerable for her to count.  There was no means to calculate the probability of it being used for something else.  “I am not famous. You don’t need my autograph,” she said softly to the young lady.

Harold sidled over. “I am so sorry for mistaking you for someone else….”

“You mean mistaking me for the help?” she said flatly.

“I am so sorry, Mrs. Blakemore.  Saxton and I went to school together, I don’t want him to take any offense.  Please don’t tell him I inadvertently insulted you,” Harold said.

“Honestly, I don’t even know who you are other than Harold at the bank,” she told the shaking little man.

“I am the branch manager.  I mean, I am so sorry. I meant no harm.  I don’t want to disappear, too,” he said with fear in his eyes.

“What are you talking about, Harold?” Grandma Patsy said as she returned from the vault.  “Stop pestering her and go and lock my stuff back up!”

Harold was still mumbling his apologies as Grandma Patsy was walking out the door, her purse clutched tight to her chest.  It was a weird interaction between her and Harold, but it got stranger at the mercantile store.  It was as if everyone in the bank had called ahead, and no matter which street she turned down, people were waving at her, shouting,
Hey there, Mrs. Blakemore
. 
How are you doing today, Mrs. Blakemore
?

Odessa hated it.

Everyone knew who she was yet she knew none of these people. It also didn’t help to be driving a candy apple red Cadillac with the Busy B brand on the license plates. The weirdness worsened as she entered the mercantile and people were snapping photos of her like amateur photogs.  She moved to the back of the store while she waited for Patsy.  Odessa noticed a bluegrass basket on a top shelf.  In her mind she was tall enough to reach it. In reality, she needed a step stool.

“You shouldn’t reach over your head that way.  I am told it increases the chances for the cord to wrap around the baby’s neck,” she heard a man say. He was a good-looking guy with a guitar on his back.  “Here, allow me,” he told her. 

The basket was full of dust and probably had been on that shelf for years, but it was solidly crafted and would be great for holding baby towels in the nursery. “Thank you,” Odessa told him.

“You are welcome, Mrs. Blakemore,” he said to her with a smile. It could not come as a shock to her that he knew her name.  Everyone in the store seemed to know her damned name. Hell, everyone in the little town knew her name.

“Please call me Odessa,” she told him.

He extended his hand for a shake. “I am Eddie, musician extraordinaire.” He flipped her hand over to kiss the back.

Odessa took the basket to the counter while she waited for Patsy. “I would like this basket, please.  Can you clean it up a bit for me?”

“Oh you can have this one, Mrs. Blakemore,” the clerk told her.

“No, the price says $35.  I will pay the asking price,” she told the girl, who seemed surprise.

Eddie was watching her. “You could have gotten the basket for free, yet you did not accept it.”

“Nothing in the world is ever free, Eddie. Besides, I am not that kind of a person,” she told him.

“What kind of a person are you, Mrs. Blakemore?” he asked.

It was a weird question coming from a stranger, but eyes were watching and ears were listening. “I am a hard worker, Eddie, and so is my husband. I treat others as I wish to be treated.”

She could hear Patsy wrapping up in the background.  The clerk came back with the basket as Odessa paid the price along with tax. The clerk seemed disappointed. “I wanted to give you that as a baby shower gift.”

“Finding this basket in the back was a treat.  You cleaning it up so nicely is gift enough,” Odessa told her.

This woman is nothing like I imagined
. Eddie found her intriguing, but to him, Ryanne was prettier. Odessa possessed a quiet power that radiated through her pores, but her sister was the type of woman you could lose yourself in. “Mrs. Blakemore, I am a traveling musician.  I like to take selfies with people I meet along the way to show my kids.  Would you be so kind and indulge me?”

“Of course,” Odessa said as she took the picture with him.

Eddie watched her from the side of his eye. “Maybe you should take one of us with your phone as well. That way, when I am a famous musician, you will have a photo to show your little one,” he told her.  Odessa pulled out her phone and snapped a photo of the two of them.

“Odessa, it’s time,” Grandma Patsy told her as she walked over to hand the keys to the Caddy back to her. She looked Eduardo up and down, frowning in distaste.  He stood beside the old woman and snapped a picture with her as well. The look Patsy gave him changed his facial expression.

It was the countenance on his face that made Odessa look at his hands.  There were no visible snake tattoos. The feeling of danger came over her as she linked her arm into Patsy’s.  “Let’s head home, Ms. Patsy. The family will wonder what has happened to us if we’re gone any longer.” 

Odessa nodded her head to Eddie and said goodbye to the store clerk.  She cranked up the Caddy and pointed it towards the Busy B.

“Odessa, you should not interact with the public in such a way.  It is simply common,” Grandma Patsy said.

It may have been, but Eddie was not.  Patsy’s dismissal of him sparked an anger in the man that was anything but the normal reaction of a traveling musician.  His response was uncommon, which meant he was someone of importance. Patsy had treated him as a peasant and he didn’t like it.

He wasn’t randomly in that store to buy something.

He was in that store to meet Mrs. Blakemore.

He was there to meet me
. 

Eddie intentionally took pictures with me
.

She started to calculate the usages of such a personal photograph.  A random stranger in such close proximity to her.

It was taken as a threat.

The photo would be used as a threat to Saxton.

Shit
.

She had walked into a trap and she was also going to be the bait.

There was one thing that niggled at her more than anything and kept flooding into her mind as she broke the speed limit getting back to the ranch.  The easy ride into town was replaced with an 80 year-old woman holding the oh shit bar as Odessa rounded the curb on two wheels coming up the inside lane to the house.

How the hell did Eddie know she was going to be in that damned store?

Something else was troubling her as well. 

There is no such thing as random.

By the time she dropped Grandma Patsy off at the front door and went to park the car, most of the guests for the baby shower had arrived, along with Agent Roget and many of Saxton’s cousins. Agent Roget tipped his hat before handing it to the butler. People she didn’t know were hugging her while bestowing felicitations and touching her belly. Odessa needed to speak with her husband, but Dusty yelled, “All the fellers follow me!”

Saxton waved goodbye as he was pushed down the hall and Odessa was ushered into the front parlor, plopped into a chair, and handed something that tasted like fizzy lime sherbet.  One sip was all it took before she handed it to her sister.   A fleeting thought flashed across her mind of the stranger in the store having something to do with Dwight….

“I’m sorry, what did you say, Ms. Lucy?” Odessa found herself repeating. Lucy was passing out pens and paper.  Belva was serving up more of the horrible punch.  Her mother was greeting guests as they came through the door. Everyone seemed like they were ready to have a great time.  Everyone but Ryanne.

Dwight is dead
.  She didn’t know whether she was angry that he was dead and she didn’t get her revenge, or that someone had killed the bastard before she had a chance. 
I had my chance and let it go. I can’t complain, but I am a widow
. That was the part that she could not wrap her mind around.

Well, that was until Odessa started to open presents. Each present was grander than the last.  Someone gave the child Microsoft stock shares. Another gave him stock shares in Coca-Cola. There were envelopes stuffed with money. There were large envelopes stuffed with checks.  Some lady had hand-knitted a blanket out of Mohair.  There were silver rattles.  Gold pacifiers. Silk burping cloths. There was even shit she couldn’t pronounce. Ryanne thought it had gone too far when some lady in a stuffy suit presented the child with a seat in the kindergarten class at some poo-poo chi chi school, when the child turned six! 
Dear Jesus the child isn’t even here yet and he is more relevant than I am
. The final blow for Ryanne came when Grandma Patsy presented her gift.

The child was given an oil well.

A what
?

An oil well
?

An oil well set to start production the day he inhaled his first breath of air.

“Are you frickin’ kidding me?”  Ryanne yelled aloud.  Everyone in the room looked at her in disbelief.  “AAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHH!” she screamed as she started kicking loose pieces of wrapping paper.  Odessa stood up.

Her sister didn’t do outbursts.

“I have got to get the hell out of here before I lose my goddamned mind!” Ryanne screamed.

“Somebody hand me some car keys and something with a GPS so I can get the fuck out of Southfork!”

Lucy handed her the keys to her Caddy. “Please do not bring my car back on E.” Odessa’s mother-in-law, forever the consummate hostess, gently pressed Odessa’s shoulder to sit back down in the chair. She did not miss a beat as she drew everyone back into the party and away from Ryanne’s meltdown.  “Okay, so I think my mother’s gift topped everyone’s in the room,” Lucy laughed as she made eye contact with Dora. “Let’s continue with the gifts, then we’ll have cake, and there are more games to play with gifts to win.”

Dora was already half out the door, trying to catch Ryanne. “Baby, wait, please wait.”

“Wait for what, Mama?  I have been waiting for something all of my life.  I finally get married to a nice guy … or at least I thought he was, and he turned out to be the worst person on the planet.” She looked at her mother as she grabbed her purse. Her coat she was struggling to put on so she opted to wear it like a cape. “And now he’s dead. Murdered by someone who …” she stopped talking.

Ryanne turned her back to her mother. “I need to breathe.  I will get back before we … I’ll be back!”  She stormed out the back door and found the garage.  There had to be 20 cars inside the building, everything from antiques to modern marvels.

“How much money do these fucking people have?” Lucy’s Caddy was up front. She climbed into the car, turned on the GPS.  She plugged in the word bar and hit GO.

The voice on the system began to speak. “Drive one mile down Blakemore Lane.  Make a right on Blakemore Boulevard.”

“Are you fucking joking?”  The tears were threatening to overrun her common sense when her phone chimed.

It was a simple message. 

The Carriage Suites.  Room 427. – Eddie
.

She added the hotel address into the GPS and followed the instructions.  She didn’t know what she was doing.  It didn’t matter, either, because she was going to do it anyway. She would deal with the consequences later.

Little did she know how vast and longstanding her actions, for this night would be.