Page 64 of Until Joy

But Joy?

That didn’t make any sense.

“Graham, you still haven’t told me what’s bothering you.”

We were sitting side-by-side. I swiveled my stool so it was pointing at her, caught her knees, and turned her so that she was facing me.

“This is serious, huh?” she asked softly.

I nodded.

She cupped the side of my face. “Just tell me, it’s going to be all right.”

I swallowed. “How did you get that scar on your ribcage?”

Joy looked down, which was all the answer I needed.

“It was him, wasn’t it?” I fought everything within me to keep my tone calm.

She nodded.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

She dropped her hand from my cheek to grip my wrists with both hands. Tight. Like she was hanging on to the only life raft in the ocean. Her nails dug into my skin, but I didn’t care.

“The Smythe family didn’t take what I told them very seriously,” she whispered. I hated it when her bottom lipped trembled.

“The Smythe family?”

“I worked for them while I was in London. They were rich, they lived in this posh townhome, but it’s not like our townhomes. It was a mansion. I was an au pair to their two children.”

I nodded. “Okay. But what do you mean, at first? What happened before you got stabbed?” I tried to keep the frustration and anger out of my voice, but I did a shit job.

She didn’t look at me; she was lost in the past.

I tucked my finger under her chin and pushed it up so she was forced to look at me. It killed me seeing her hesitant expression. I couldn’t tell if she was reluctant because of my outburst or because of her memories. I forced myself to dial it back. “Tell me,” I softly coaxed.

“It started out so harmless. It was flowers. Same as yesterday, only innocent and sweet. Somebody put a May Day posy of daisies on the doorknob of the Smythe’s townhome addressed to me. Everybody thought it was cute. We all thought it was one of the children from the park where I took Lionel and Susie.”

“What’s a posy?”

“It’s just a little cone of construction paper with ribbon taped to it, so you can hang it on a doorknob, then you put flowers in it. Sometimes there are dandelions in it. I got daisies. It said, ‘For Miss Magill’. It was written in red crayon.”

Her voice trailed off, so I nodded, and she started up again.

“We all laughed. The children asked everyone at the park the next day who gave it to me. Nobody confessed to it. But then, two weeks later there was a ballet slipper shoved through the mail drop slot. There was a ring wrapped in tissue paper shoved into the toe of the shoe, along with a note. It said, ‘Will You Marry Me, Miss Magill?’. It was written in crayon again, like a little kid wrote it.”

“A ring? What kind of ring?”

“The ring was something you could get at a candy store. I got spooked, but Mr. and Mrs. Smythe were sure it was some child who had a crush on me. It was all so childish. So was the handwriting. They convinced me it was nothing.”

“Somebody should have called the police or whatever they call them over there,” I bit out. “Your instincts were spot on. Your employers were wrong.”

“Yeah, you’re right. But hindsight is twenty-twenty.” Joy was trembling now.

I didn’t think about it. I slid off my stool and picked her up, then took her to my recliner.

“You’re always taking me here,” she protested. “You need a couch.”