Page 21 of A Rose of Steel
I chuckled. “There is something wrong with her.”
“No,” Auntie said, shaking her head. “There’s a lot wrong with her.”
Chapter Eleven
And there seemed to be a lot wrong with Bumper dying.
Auntie’s questioning of Piper about the caterer got me to thinking.
Something just didn’t seem right.
I didn’t know exactly what is was. Something nagging at the back of my mind, I just knew that I had questions, too. I thought about it the entire drive home, and was surprised when I pulled into the driveway and didn’t notice Alex’s rental was gone until Auntie took note of it.
“That’s not good,” she said.
“What?” I asked.
“We weren’t gone that long.”
“And what does that mean?”
“I gave him enough of that staying brew to hold him down much longer than this.” That was the first I noticed there was no sign of Alex. “That means it’s a pretty strong force inside of him that drives him,” Auntie continued.
I rolled my eyes. “You and your concoctions.” I shook my head. “I’m sure he just wanted to lie down in his hotel room. He wasn’t feeling well.”
“He felt well enough to leave.” She raised an eyebrow at me. “Check your phone. Did you miss a call from him?”
“I’m not checking my phone,” I said, slight indignation in my voice. “Can we just get out of the car?”
She shook her head in disbelief. “I don’t think you’ll be able to make that one sit still long enough to get him to the altar.”
I got out of the car and left her sitting there.
As I headed into the small, tiled add-on entryway and up the few steps to the main floor, I turned to see where Auntie was then pulled my cell phone out of my pocket.
“No missed calls,” I muttered and checked my messages. Nothing.
Where did he go?
And why did he leave without telling me?
I went straight to my room and found J.R. laying at the foot of my bed.
“Hey, boy, you waiting for me?”
He lifted his head, ears perked, but that was as far as he went. Didn’t run to me or bark me out a hello.
“Don’t have the strength to come greet me?” I said. “Must have lent some of it to Alex. Even being sick, he had enough energy to leave.”
I slumped down into my computer desk chair, set my cell phone next to the keyboard to keep an eye out for Alex’s call or text, and fired up my Dell desktop. J.R. must’ve mustered up enough oomph to move because he came over and laid at my feet.
The first thing I looked up was Bumper’s Facebook page. He was so young, full of life and from what I understood had a bright future in front of him. I didn’t have a Facebook account—social media just wasn’t my thing—but his page wasn’t private and it was no problem bringing up his profile page from the link after I googled his name.
There were oodles of pictures. I sat, clicking through and staring at each one. Bristling with life, he was all smiles in most of them. Happy. Eager. Animated.
Was the Alvarezs’ plot to make their daughter an honest woman really making him so nervous that he had an asthma attack? Although, I wasn’t sure if being nervous was a trigger. It even seemed as if Gaylon, a cousin who appeared close to his age, thought it wasn’t as bad as his mother professed or I guessed it to be.
Mrs. Hackett hadn’t seemed too convinced about his nerves being the cause of his asthma attack, although the entire time he was out back waiting for the ceremony to start that was how his demeanor struck me. Nervous. Worried. Enervated.
