The Darkest Corner (Gravediggers #1)(24)

       
         
       
        

Tess looked up at him and arched a brow. Like the rest of town, he must know about the men who lived out back. "Sometimes I get a roommate who passes through, but for the most part they're nice and quiet." Unless they came back from the dead and tried to grab her, she said to herself.

Cal smiled and then said, "I don't suppose you have a piece of toast or a biscuit you could spare. I missed dinner last night and my stomach is trying to eat itself."

"Sure." She pulled a loaf of bread from the pantry and put a couple of slices in the toaster. She could make toast. Barely. Then she grabbed butter and grape jelly from the refrigerator and placed it all in front of Cal, who nodded appreciatively.

"Okay, I can't stand it anymore," she finally said. She'd spent the last several minutes getting herself worked up. "I'm guessing you're here because of Mama. I'm not bailing her out of jail again, do you hear me?" She wagged the butter knife at him and then set it down in front of him and grabbed him a plate. "She's just going to have to do the thirty days this time and maybe she'll learn her lesson."

Cal's lips twitched and he said, "I doubt thirty days in jail will make a blip on her radar. She'd have all the cells picked clean and the items sold on eBay before we noticed, and then she'd be halfway to Oklahoma and the nearest casino before we noticed she was gone. Last time I saw her she told me to take all my savings and put it on lucky number thirty-one, because thirty-one was how old she was when she won that forty thousand dollars."

Tess smiled, but it was bittersweet. "Yep, the best year of her life was watching all those sevens line up in a perfect row. She never talks about how all that money was gone two days later."

"I've got to tell you. I've never met anyone in the world like your mama. She's a beautiful woman, and she's clever and persuasive. She always seems to land on her feet."

Tess sighed. "You're not the first person to tell me that."

Theodora was beautiful. Her hair was a vivid red and her eyes emerald green. She wasn't shades of pastels, as Tess tended to think of herself. Theodora was Technicolor in every way. A slightly older version of Rita Hayworth, with a little more va-va in her va-va-voom.

"I know it's hard," Cal said sympathetically. "But you're doing the best you can for her. She's got a sickness, that's all. Unfortunately, she's independent and her mind is sound. The state would never intervene at this point. The best you could hope is to get her into rehab for gamblers."

"She won't go to extended rehab," she said with a sigh. "It's a sickness that there's no cure for. She has to want to get better. And she likes where she is just fine. There's always someone there to bail her out. She's somehow miraculously never managed to hit rock bottom. The judge said she just needs to keep going to therapy and she'll get better." 

"Does she go to therapy?" he asked.

"Yes, but only because she's sleeping with her therapist. I don't know many people who can deny Theodora when she sets her mind to something."

Tess poured the coffee into mugs and then passed the blue one to Cal. She doctored hers with a liberal helping of cream and sugar.

Cal winced. "You might as well be having dessert with all that sugar in there."

"Everything should taste like dessert," she said. "Only way I'll even touch a brussels sprout is if it's wrapped in maple bacon. Whoever invented that was a genius."

Cal took his first sip of coffee, and it wasn't until she saw the relief on his face from the hot drink that she realized how tired and overworked he looked. The toaster popped and she put the two pieces on his plate. They were only slightly burned around the edges, which was an improvement over the last time she'd made toast and had to use the handheld fire extinguisher under the sink.

Cal didn't complain. He slathered the toast in butter and jam and swallowed it down in three bites, along with the rest of his coffee. She refilled his mug for him.

"That hits the spot," he said, pushing back his plate. "Thank you. And I can promise you I'm not here because of Theodora. She's been off the radar for the most part. Maybe the therapy really is working."

The relief that overcame Tess surprised her a bit, and she braced her hands on the counter to keep her balance. She'd been mentally preparing herself to go down to the jail and see who Theodora had stolen from so she could pay for her habit. It was a lot easier to lose other people's money than her own. Cal's words had taken the wind right out of her sails.