Third To Die. Carys Jones

it upwards.

      Brandy tucked a loose strand of long blonde hair behind her ear and turned to head back up to her next client. She paused briefly, a hand on the rail and looked back at her aunt, her deep-brown eyes wide with irrepressible hope.

      “If someone does call, you’ll tell me, right?”

      “Child, you’re a lost cause!” Rhonda cried heatedly, pointing her scissors back at Brandy.

      “Beautiful Southern belle like yourself could have any man in this city eating out of the palm of your hand!”

      “Thanks,” Brandy whispered politely, not wanting to point out that the problem was that the man she wanted wasn’t even in Chicago.

      *

      The only place Brandy was able to find solace was sat at the white piano in the worn-down hotel a few blocks from her apartment. She’d sit at the stool and let her fingers glide effortlessly over the keys and she’d lose herself to whichever melody she decided to play. Lately, the songs she played were sombre and slow, reflecting her mood.

      He’d told her he was going to call. He’d told her that he was going to leave his wife and come back to Chicago for her and they were going to be together, truly together. That was two weeks ago. Since then there had been only silence from Aiden Connelly. As Brandy pressed down firmly on a deep chord she tried to push out all her pain, all her hurt and anguish. With each day that passed she came closer to the heart breaking realisation that Aiden was never going to call.

      *

      “Was he the smartly dressed man who came to Chez Vous a few weeks ago?” Rhonda asked as she walked along the street beside Brandy. The two women were headed out to collect coffees for everyone at the salon, a Wednesday afternoon ritual. Usually Brandy went alone, but this time Rhonda insisted on joining her.

      “Who?” Brandy glanced at her colleague, frowning slightly in confusion.

      “The man whose call you keep waiting on,” Rhonda said directly.

      “Oh,” Brandy looked down at her feet and blushed.

      Rhonda placed a comforting arm around her. She stood almost an entire foot taller than Brandy. She had jet-black hair styled dramatically into a spiked style with fluorescent-pink tips and she always wore the latest fashions coupled with her beloved vintage leather jacket. Rhonda oozed originality and confidence and, like Brandy, she relocated to Chicago from her small home town almost ten years ago when she graduated from high school.

      “And I’ve never looked back!” Rhonda would declare whenever she regaled someone with her tale of how she came to be in the big city.

      “Yeah, I thought something was up, I saw the way you looked at each other.”

      “He said he’d call,” Brandy admitted sadly. “He said he’d come back for me.”

      “He’s married, isn’t he?” Rhonda ceased walking and looked directly at Brandy. There was no judgement in her eyes, only concern.

      “Yes,” Brandy sighed. “He is. Does that make me an awful person?”

      “No,” Rhonda shook her head and continued walking. “It makes you human. He’s the awful person in this scenario. That ring on his finger means he can’t go leading someone on. He was your lawyer, wasn’t he?”

      “Yeah,” Brandy gave Rhonda a sideways glance and shoved her hands deep into her trench coat pockets.

      “Your aunt told me,” Rhonda explained. “She said she recognized him from television. She’s worried about you.”

      “She is?”

      “She says you’ve not been the same since he came to visit. And she’s right, Brandy. We’ve all noticed. When you first came to Chez Vous you were like this little breath of fresh air that left a smile on everyone you met. Now, you walk around with your head down in this cloud of unhappiness all because he hasn’t called. Don’t let a man have that much power over you, honey.”

      “I thought he loved me,” Brandy said sadly, unable to meet Rhonda’s gaze.

      “We always do,” Rhonda said sympathetically. “As awful as it is, if he loved you, he’d call. I’m not saying that to be cruel, I’m saying it to set you free.”

      Brandy flinched slightly at the bluntness of the comment and also the truth she knew it held.

      “I appreciate you being honest with me,” Brandy managed to smile slightly. They’d arrived at the coffee shop and wandered in and joined the moderate queue.

      “I’ll sort you out,” Rhonda promised. “I’ll take you out with me and find you a decent man.”

      Brandy smiled politely and nodded as Rhonda began to detail her plan for securing her young colleague a new beau. But Brandy couldn’t focus on what she was saying, her mind, as always, had drifted back to Aiden, and Avalon. She just wished she knew why he hadn’t called.

       Chapter Two

      Holding On

      Edna Copes wearily opened the large front door and squinted into the sunlight at Aiden. If she was surprised to see him, she didn’t show it.

      “Hi,” Aiden smiled gently at her. “I was hoping I could see Edmond.”

      Normally Edna’s face was constantly adorned by a bright, welcoming smile, but her lips were now held in a straight line. Dark circles had gathered beneath her eyes and her skin was pale and lacked its usual lustre.

      “I thought you’d come,” Edna sighed, gesturing for Aiden to come inside. “He didn’t want you to know. He thinks so highly of you. He kept fretting about worrying you. But I told him you’re a smart guy; you’d be here soon enough.”

      Aiden steeled himself upon hearing Edna’s ominous tone. Clearly, Edmond was as gravely ill as Clyde White had stated.

      “How bad is it?” he asked softly.

      A shadow crossed Edna’s face as she closed her eyes and shuddered slightly. When she re-opened them to speak they were dull and distant. She recited words she’d heard in a sterile doctor’s office, words she refused to give power to here in her home.

      “It was originally just in his bladder but it has since spread and last they checked it was in his lymph nodes.”

      “Cancer?”

      Edna nodded grimly.

      “He’s just through here,” Edna continued through the hallway and led Aiden towards the sitting room. Already he could sense that something was different. The Copes’ household was usually alive with sounds and energy but now the air was still and his footsteps echoed off the walls.

      The medicinal scent of antibacterial wash became almost overbearing as it lingered in uncirculated air. Edna opened the doors to the sitting area and it smelled like a hospital ward only without the garish white walls.

      The sitting room had been rearranged to accommodate a hospital bed which was nestled in the far corner, surrounded by a web of monitors. The drapes were closed, bathing the whole area in unnatural darkness. Edmond was sat in an armchair wearing blue plaid pyjamas. He had a blanket across his knees despite the oppressive heat of the afternoon.

      Aiden felt his breath catch in his throat when he saw his beloved colleague. Edmond was a wilted, watered-down version of his former self. He’d lost a drastic amount of weight so that his pyjamas were ill-fitting. The same dark circles which hung beneath his wife’s eyes were present on his own face, only they appeared denser and more permanent. His skin had become so pale that it was almost translucent.

      “He’s being so strong,” Edna whispered to Aiden when they were just beyond Edmond’s earshot.

      “Humour