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In some ways, she was still taking care of her mother. She was the person Jan called when something went wrong, or she needed money or any other kind of help.
Talulah poked her head tentatively into the kitchen. “You alone?”
Ellen was still sitting in the chair. Stuart had left nearly fifteen minutes ago, but she’d spent the whole of that time simply watching the second hand on the big clock on the wall gotick, tick, tick. “Yeah.”
An expression of concern replaced Talulah’s open curiosity. “Is everything okay?”
“As okay as I can expect it to be,” she said dully.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’ve had it wrong all these years, and I should’ve known better.”
Leaving the front unattended, Talulah came into the kitchen and hurried over to her. “What is it? What’d he say?”
“That he owes me nothing in the way of child support and never did.” She held up the photocopies of the checks she’d pulled out of the manila envelope after he left. “But he paid it, anyway. He brought me proof.”
Talulah accepted the stack and thumbed through the individual pages. “There are a lot of canceled checks here. But... I don’t understand. What do they mean? Your mother was lying about his support when you were growing up?”
“Among other far more important things.”
The bell went off in the front, signaling a customer. Hearing it, Talulah glanced over her shoulder but didn’t move.
Despite feeling as though she had a dagger in her chest, Ellen summoned the strength to get to her feet. “Go. You’ve got a business to run. I’ll be fine. We can talk about this later.”
“No! You’re upset. I don’t want to leave you on your own. Just...let me tell whoever’s out there that something has come up and I’m going to have to close. Then you and I can hide out back here, have a cup of coffee and a piece of cake, and talk about what your father had to say.”
Tears filled her eyes but, again, she blinked them back. “That’s just it. He told me he doesn’t think he’s my father—and took a swab of my cheek so he can prove that, too.”
The empathy on her friend’s face made it that much harder not to break down. “Oh, Ellen. I’m so sorry. Does Lynn know?”
“He said she doesn’t, that she has no clue he’s ever even wondered, and he thinks it would be best not to tell her until after the results come back.”
“Since the results might not change anything, that’s probably wise.”
“I guess so.”
“Wow. You must feel terrible. I can’t even imagine how much what he had to say must’ve hurt.”
“I feel like I can’t breathe,” she admitted.
“I’m going to close the diner for the day—”
“No, you just opened. I won’t cost you what you could earn. Like I said, we can talk later. Nothing’s going to change between now and then. The only person I need to speak to right away is my mother.”
Talulah’s forehead creased with worry. “You’re going to call her, then?”
Ellen started laying the photocopied support checks out on the desk and taking pictures of them. “You bet I am. But first, I’m going to send her these.”
Hendrix had been dreading this visit. He wished he could wait for dark, so he’d have some cover, but the floodlights in the drive would never allow him to see Lynn’s tires in enough detail, even if he used a flashlight.
It wasn’t as if he could just move on to someone else, though. He’d already checked all the tires of the people on his list—at least the ones he could. The Haslems had allowed the inspection; their tires didn’t match the picture. Although far more reluctantly, Ben and Delia had allowed the inspection; their tires didn’t match the picture. And, as a bonus, he’d managed to check Charlie’s tires without Charlie’s knowledge when he spotted Averil’s brother’s SUV parked in the lot at Hank’s.
He hadn’t truly believed Charlie could be the saboteur. Charlie was a bit too far removed from Ellen. But he’d been aware of where Ellen was drilling, and he was closely related to Averil, so Hendrix had decided to check on the off chance he’d helped her.
But Charlie’s tires hadn’t matched the picture, either. Maybe Averil’s would, but her old rusted-out Nissan Altima was nowhere to be found. Hendrix had driven back to the Gerharts’, hoping to take a peek without her knowledge—as he had with Charlie’s—but he hadn’t found it in the drive, and he hadn’t seen it around town. He’d been looking for it when he stumbled upon Charlie’s Explorer.
Maybe Averil was in Libby, visiting her new boyfriend. Hendrix hoped to check Jordan’s tires, too. Jordan probably didn’t know much about wells—how to find the one Ellen was drilling or how to harm it—but it wasn’t that hard to figure out and whoever did it didn’t do that great a job. With Averil’s help and/or input, Jordan could easily be the one who’d poured cement down that hole. If it wasn’t the weekend already, he’d go to Libby. He didn’t know where Jordan lived, but he’d seen what he drove and could google the location of his practice. That was why he had to wait until Monday—he’d have a much greater chance of finding Jordan at work.
