Surely he’d want to help protect me.
“I’ll be in touch,” Bart said.
“Maybe you can stay for tea when you come,” Emily said. “We hardly get visitors out to the house these days.”
“I’m sure that Carly will have to run off as soon as our meeting is done,” Bart said. “She’s a very busy woman.”
Did he know I was looking for Lula? I wouldn’t be surprised. Even if his power had waned, Bart Drummond seemed to have his finger on the pulse of everything that happened in Drum. Was that why he wanted to meet with me? To convince me to stop my search? If so, why not send Emily to another area of the store and convince me now? No, it was something else entirely.
“Mrs. Drummond?” a woman from the pharmacy counter called out. “Your prescription is ready.”
“Oh,” Emily said, looking flustered. “My doctor called in a new prescription for my nausea. I hope this one works.” Then she added, “It was so lovely seeing you. I do hope you’ll find time to stay for tea when you stop by to see Bart.”
“Don’t worry,” Bart said with a shit-eating grin that looked eerily familiar, likely because I’d seen a nearly identical grin on Max’s face countless times. “We’ll be seeing a whole lot more of Carly.” Then he steered her around me and headed to the pharmacy counter.
I didn’t like the sound of that. What did Bart have planned for me?
But I’d been dismissed, which I was one hundred percent good with. I really didn’t want to chat with Bart, and I had places to go before I headed back to Drum.
After I went to the nursing home, I was paying a visit to Mountain View Lodge.
Chapter Twenty-One
Greener Pastures was on the other side of Ewing, at the top of a steep slope. It seemed dangerous to keep a bunch of elderly people next to such a sharp incline, but then again, the brick building looked like it had originally been intended as a bomb shelter. I doubted they got out much.
The front doors opened to a wide hall that led to a large room with multiple tables set up to my right. A few older women sat at one of the tables, working on a jigsaw puzzle. To my left was a nursing station desk with an older woman tapping on her smartphone. She barely looked up when I stopped in front of her. “Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Miss Thelma.”
“Thelma Baines or Thelma Tureen?” she asked, her attention still on her phone.
“Uh…I’m not sure. Her granddaughter Greta comes to see her all the time. Her granddaughter Ginger said it would be okay to stop by for a visit.”
“Honey, ain’t nobody gonna stop you. Head on back.” She made a vague gesture toward her right. “Thelma Tureen’s in room 26.”
“Thank you.” I turned and walked down the hall, passing a wall plastered in headshots of the various employees, or so I assumed, but my attention was captured by a man in a wheelchair who seemed catatonic. My heart ached, and I considered stopping to check on him, but I was already leaving Marco longer than I’d planned. I needed to talk to Thelma and get out of here.
The door to 26 was open, and a woman with short, pure white hair sat in a rocking chair in the corner with a red quilt over her lap, knitting. She looked up with a friendly smile. “Hello. Are you looking for Virginia? They put her in the room next door.”
“No,” I said, taking a step into the room. “If you’re Thelma, I’m here to see you.”
Her smile widened. “Come on in.” She squinted up at me. “Do I know you?”
“No, ma’am. I’m Carly Moore, a friend of Greta and Ginger’s.” I was proud of myself for not fumbling around, trying to remember to use my new last name. It had become more and more natural over the past weeks.
She placed her knitting in her lap. “Oh, yes, Ginger called to tell me you’d be stopping by. I haven’t seen her in a month or so, but she’s busy with those babies. Greta comes to see me though. She shows me pictures of Ginger and her kiddos.”
I noticed she didn’t mention Melody.
“That sounds like Greta,” I said, only then realizing I’d put myself in an impossible situation. Was I really going to tell this elderly woman that her granddaughter was missing? It seemed obvious Ginger hadn’t told her.
“Carly, please sit,”