Page 72 of Sun, Sea & Strawberry Shortcake
They both look stunned, to be fair. But they’re alsosmiling.
Jodie holds up my missing phone. ‘We brought it back, Ruby.’
‘Well, thank you.’ I usher them both in. ‘And I mustapologise for my rapturous welcome, but we thought we might never see youagain. And we’ve got the most amazing news for you.’
‘News? Really?’ Bee looks at me quizzically. ‘Joanna’s beenbanged up for fifty years?’
‘Not quite.’ I smile at her. ‘Um, I think you’d better sitdown to hear this.’
CHAPTERTHIRTY-FIVE
‘What’s going on?’ Bee looks bewildered, glancing fromme to Mitch and back to me. But she sits down when I pull out a chair.
Jodie looks at the chair next to her mum’s but she jumpsonto her lap instead, hugging her neck and staring at me with solemn eyes. Thepair of them look exhausted... defeated. Too much hashappened here to bring them down over the past few weeks.
I sit opposite Bee, aware that with Jodie listening, I can’ttalk about Joanna and the fact that she’s been apprehended by the police. Idon’t want to bring up bad memories. I need to concentrate on the silver liningin all of this.
Emerald.
I clear my throat and plunge right in. ‘So...I think you know that Mitch here has been working in the village as a privateinvestigator?’
Bee nods. ‘When we spoke to the police, he told us that.’She smiles at him. ‘You don’t know how grateful I am for what you did that day,Mr Mackay. I wanted to find you and thank you properly before we left, but Ididn’t know where you were.’
Mitch shakes his head. ‘No, no. I totally understand. Youhad to think of Jodie. And no thanks are necessary. I’m only glad I could help.And please call me Mitch.’
‘Anyway, what you don’t know, Bee, is who Mitch was workingfor.’ I swallow. ‘Would you like to tell them, Mitch?’
He shakes his head. ‘Carry on, Ruby. You can probablyexplain it better than me.’
‘Right. Well, Mitch was given the task of tracking down aparticular person and his investigations brought him here. And the thing is, itturns out thatyoumight be the person he was looking for.’ I swallow asit suddenly enters my head that maybe we’ve got this all wrong. But I forge on.‘Were you known as Anna when you were little, Bee?’
She nods. ‘My real name is Annabeth and I got “Anna”. But inmy teens, I started calling myself Beth, which somehow got shortened to Bee andit stuck.’
We weren’t wrong.
I exchange a triumphant look with Mitch. ‘Joanna probablyfound out Bee’s real name from the adoption records and guessed that Bee was ashortened version of Beth.’
‘Sorry, what?’ Bee looks confused.
‘We know now why Joanna was terrorising you and Jodie. Shewanted you to pack up and leave the village before Mitch here discovered youwere in line for the inheritance that Joanna felt should be hers.’
‘Inheritance?’ Her eyes swing from me to Mitch andback again.
I nod. ‘The person who’s been looking for you knew you asAnna but she lost touch with you when you went to live with your adoptiveparents.’
I pause to let Bee take this in. It takes a moment toregister and I watch her face turn from puzzled to the realisation of what I’mtelling her. Hope and disbelief flare in her eyes. ‘You mean...Auntie Em?’
‘Is that what you called her?’
She nods. ‘Auntie Em and Uncle David. I loved them both butI had a really special bond with Auntie Em. She’s beenlookingfor me?’
‘She has,’ murmurs Mitch.
‘Oh, goodness, I can’t believe it. I went looking forherlast year but I had no luck. I went back to the old house, where I livedwith them, but they’d moved on long ago and the present owners couldn’t tell meanything.’ She shakes her head. ‘And Auntie Em was looking forme?’
She sniffs and dashes tears away, and I swallow on a lump inmy throat.
Beside me, Mitch looks poleaxed with emotion. He clears histhroat and mumbles something about the bathroom, then he gets up and goes outof the room.
