Third To Die. Carys Jones

at having you here when she bathes me! I need to retain some of my mystique!”

      “I’ll ask her,” Aiden smiled.

      “I wish we could sit and chew the fat all day,” Edmond said wistfully. “I want to hear all about what a smug bastard Clyde White was when he told you I was sick. But I’m tired. And as a sick man I get to call it when I’m tired and insist people leave so I can rest!”

      “Sounds like a fair perk to the deal,” Aiden stood and fondly placed a hand on Edmond’s shoulder.

      “I promise I’ll be back at work soon,” Edmond told him, his eyelids already beginning to droop.

      “I’ll hold you to that!” Aiden pointed at him.

      *

      “I want to help,” Aiden said solemnly to Edna as she showed him to the front door.

      “He’s so stubborn,” Edna sighed. “He struggles to accept help from me!”

      “Is there anything at all I can do?”

      Edna pursed her lips and thought for a moment.

      “Could you take him to his chemo appointment next week? I’d take him myself, only some of our family are flying in and I need to get the house straight for having them all coming to stay.”

      “Absolutely, I’ll take him.”

      “We’re circling the wagons,” Edna admitted woefully. “As much as he wants to bury his head in the sand, the rest of us can’t. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you how bad things were. He insisted I shouldn’t say anything.”

      “It’s okay,” Aiden briefly embraced Edna and tried to hold back his own tears.

      “You mean so much to him,” Edna wiped at her cheek out of habit, even though she wasn’t crying in that moment.

      “If anyone can fight this, he can,” Aiden told her confidently before stepping out into the heat of the afternoon and walking back to his car.

      *

      Aiden turned the stereo in his car up so that it was distractingly loud. He needed something to distract him from his darkening thoughts. He’d so desperately wanted Clyde White to be wrong but it truly did seem that Edmond was fading away. It was so cruel a fate for such a vibrant, charismatic man.

      Drumming his hands against the steering wheel in time to the music, Aiden forced himself to hum along, to focus solely on the garish rhythm of the pop song being filtered through his car’s speakers. He became so hypnotised by the overly produced record that it took him a second to notice the flashing lights in his rear-view mirror. Lowering the music, Aiden realized with dismay that the lights were accompanied by the stringent shriek of sirens. Slowing, he pulled up on to the side of the road and cut his engine.

      “Dammit,” he grumbled angrily to himself. He was certain that he hadn’t been speeding. He’d admittedly been distracted but he’d still managed to adhere to the laws of the road.

      As Aiden glanced up into his mirror he noticed a familiar figure exit the squad car, which was now pulled up behind him. The pointed boots of Buck Fern stepped out into the gathered dust on the roadside and began to approach Aiden’s car.

      “Dammit,” Aiden uttered again, opening his car window and then carefully placing his hands at ten and two on the wheel.

      He could hear the old sherriff’s prolonged, deliberate steps before he finally appeared at his window, casting a shadow across Aiden as he blocked out the afternoon sun.

      “Afternoon, Sherriff,” Aiden tried to sound as amicable as he could.

      “Connelly,” Buck replied gruffly, snarling as he uttered the greeting.

      Buck placed one hand on the car’s roof and lowered himself to look in at Aiden.

      “Mind stepping out of the car?” Even though Buck delivered it as a question, they both knew it was a directive.

      “Seriously?” Aiden asked, bewildered but already unbuckling his seatbelt.

      “Seriously,” Buck confirmed coldly as he stepped back and waited for Aiden to get out.

      The few cars that passed them slowed slightly to observe the encounter taking place, the drivers eager to gather some gossip they could take home and share over the dinner table.

      Aiden got out and slammed his door shut and then looked directly at Buck Fern, searching the old man’s grey eyes for some hint of rationality.

      “Where you headed?” Buck drawled out the words as though he had all the time in the world to kill.

      “Home,” Aiden instinctively replied. Then he realized that this wasn’t entirely true. He had planned to swing by the office and speak with Betty. Before he left Edmond, his dwindling colleague had insisted that he inform his loyal secretary of the severity of his condition.

      “But don’t go worrying the old girl too much,” Edmond advised. “Just tell her the basics. Seems word is getting out and if she hears it from anyone other than you or I there will be hell to pay!”

      Aiden ran a hand through his hair and felt the stifling heat of the afternoon beginning to penetrate through his shirt and cause his skin to break out in beads of sweat. He yearned to be back in the air-conditioned comfort of his car.

      “Did you stop me just to ask where I’m going?” Aiden cried angrily. He lacked the patience for Buck Fern’s games. The old sherriff had picked the wrong time to try and rattle his cage.

      “Partly,” Buck admitted, smirking slightly. “I thought you might be skipping town.”

      “Skipping town? What? Why?”

      “I think you’d do well to skip town,” Buck continued.

      “I’m sure you do think that,” Aiden glanced back longingly at his car.

      “Your wife received anymore of those strange letters?”

      Aiden felt his whole body suddenly chill despite the heat of the day. He looked at Buck with renewed interest. “What makes you ask that?”

      “Last time I saw Mrs. Connelly she was real worried about some threatening letters ya’ll had received telling you to leave Avalon.”

      “They were just the laments of some bitter crackpot,” Aiden told him sourly. “Nothing to be taken seriously.”

      “No?” Buck’s eyes widened and his tone elevated mockingly. “She seemed real concerned by them. And with good reason. People round here, they don’t like being ignored.”

      “Look!” Aiden raised a hand towards the sherriff. “If you want to make thinly veiled threats, go ahead, but this isn’t the time.”

      Angrily, Aiden began to storm back towards his car.

      “I’m not sure how ethical it is to discuss a paternity case with someone other than your client,” Buck called after him. He was talking about his brother’s paternity case which Aiden had previously handled, albeit badly. His personal feelings for Brandy had managed to cause him to blur the lines surrounding his professional integrity.

      Aiden paused with his hand just over the door handle which was already sizzling with heat beneath the sun.

      “Did you think nothing would come of it?” Buck began advancing towards Aiden with those same slow, deliberate steps. “My brother is not a man to be trifled with, Mr. Connelly. He knows all about what you did. How you kept the truth about Davis’ paternity from him. How you ran off to Chicago to divulge it all to Brandy White. He knows what you did and you know he harbours a grudge.”

      Sighing, Aiden looked towards the sherriff.

      “I only ever acted in the best interests of the child.”

      “First, you’re not a social worker, you’re a lawyer,”