The Last Ride in the Bumblebee Jacket by Kope Spencer

Author:Kope, Spencer [Kope, Spencer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense, American Suspense, Mystery, Psychological Suspense, Domestic Thriller
Publisher: Epicenter Press Inc.
Published: 2021-10-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

Sunday, August 28

Maggie rises with the sun and shuffles to the kitchen to brew a single cup of coffee, which she laces with generous portions of cream and sugar. She tends to avoid the devil’s cup, preferring her teas instead, but some mornings require the extra caffeine, and some days require the slap in the face that only coffee can provide.

After a few sips, she finds it too bitter and adds more cream and sugar.

As there is no morning paper to read—the subscription was canceled years ago—she shuffles toward the front of the house. Pausing at the bottom of the stairs, she glances up to the second floor. There’s nothing to see, of course; leastwise not from the bottom step. Still, her mind’s-eye plays witness to a parade of images—visions of things great and small. As if the insights of a thousand years were suddenly captured and placed before her.

Change is coming.

She knows this because she knows the secret of the second floor, a secret she’s kept for the better part of her adult life. It was always possible, even likely, that the secret would get out by accident, and for more than forty years that moment of discovery seemed forever imminent as if always approaching but never arriving.

To her credit or condemnation, Maggie never told a soul, not even her best friend, the gregarious Beryl Dawson. Now, with the revelation of the secret finally at her doorstep, nervous tension plays with her stomach and bowels and sets her limbs to shaking ever so slightly. She imagines that if her blood were a martini it would be two parts fear, one part relief, and an olive pit of reluctance—shaken, not stirred.

Some would say that secrets come in two varieties: those meant to be kept forever, and those meant to be temporary. Maggie’s was always meant to be the latter, made unavoidable by the sheer nature of the secret. But, what is temporary, anyway? The word defies firm definition because it’s subject to its use and environment.

For Maggie’s part, she’d always imagined it meant upon her death. And why not? Many secrets expire with their owners. Why should hers be any different?

Ah, but she hadn’t counted on Jenny.

Though she’d seen this day approaching with the steadfast determination of a glacier, she hadn’t imagined Darius and Spider, either. That’s the real surprise of it all. Of course, she always imagined that someone would get wise once she sold the Bumblebee Jacket, she just hadn’t counted on them coming to it so quickly. She was supposed to be gone by then, crossed over to that place where secrets no longer matter.

Everything will change tonight; she thinks with a sigh.

She knows as well as anyone that the death of a secret often brings change; whether that change is for good or ill, only time will tell. Still, there’s no more hiding it. She’s tipped her hand and there’s no going back.

For a moment, she wonders why she hid it in the first place, what drove her to such secrecy and intrigue? Perhaps it was just a silly impulse .

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