Roxy Sings the Blues

By Ellie Mack

Scars tell the story of a past. Roxy's scars aren't visible but they have carved her deeply and the pain they caused pours out through her music. If facing an uncertain future after losing her mother wasn't enough, a failed relationship from the past returns to wreak havoc. Just when she was trying to build a new life for herself, the troublemaking ex Devon drags her into danger. Roxy sits in the spotlight of a pivotal investigation. Detective Devon Miller is hot on the case and stirring the embers of forbidden fires.
Will Roxy hit the right note to help her old flame solve the case in time or will she be left singing the blues?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ellie Mack
• Release date: Sep 8, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370492930

Ellie Mack

Ellie Mack received her BS in cartography from Southeast Missouri State University. Since leaving the corporate world for the title of MOM, she has pursued her writing dreams. Nowadays Ellie charts unmapped territory through her fiction and humor writing. Formerly a columnist for a local paper, her weekly column received a lot of attention. She lives near St. Louis, MO with her husband of 32 years and their college aged daughters. When she’s not writing she can be found bullet journaling, crocheting, or cooking. You can find her musings on her blog: https://quotidiandose.wordpress.com

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Roxy, you have to come home.

It wasn’t the first time that my sister sounded melodramatic with ‘end of the world’ news on the other end of the phone. She tended towards the dramatic in every day affairs so I’ve learned to tune out her ‘crisis alert’ tone. You say that all of the time, Tara. I have classes and work. I have a match this weekend. I’ll come home as soon as I can.

No, Roxy. You need to come home now. Her words were weak, her voice wavering.

Tara My frustration level was at an all-time high. At least once a week Tara called to tell me that Mom was doing worse. I had a test coming up that I really needed to study for, I had an MMA match that I hadn’t trained enough; and I had job applications to put in. I didn’t have time for this additional stress in my life.

It hadn’t been a month since I was home. Granted, I wanted to see my Mom and sister, they meant everything to me. Sometimes I wished that I could live at home with Mom until I finished school, but that wasn’t practical. I had a job, classes, and a training schedule. It barely left any time for my fiancé Luke.

We were both looking forward to graduation in a few months so that our lives wouldn’t be as hectic. A few months after graduation we would be married and go on our honeymoon slash finally graduated reward slash celebrate Luke’s position with Cyberpro. Midterms were just a week away, I couldn’t go home now. I’ll come up after midterms and then we can binge on whatever movie Mom wants to watch and catch up.

No Roxy, that won’t work. Tara’s voice cracked, the crying apparent.

Tara, the nurses know what to do. They will take good care of Mom and by next week she will be back home. You’ll see. Stop worrying, Sis.

We were both under the strain of Mom’s battle with cancer. Tara had to deal with it first hand, but I was certainly not exempt. Did she think that I wasn’t affected by this?

Mom’s gone. She blurted it out, practically screaming it through the receiver.

No. I shook my head as if somehow it would change what I instantly knew was true. Part of me wanted to think that Tara was panicking, reacting to Mom taking a downturn after being admitted a few days earlier. I knew the situation was grave. The doctor had given her news that she could expect three maybe four months. That was two months ago. I wanted to think that maybe she had coded and the nurses came rushing in with a crash cart. I remember well the panic of that happening last time. In my heart, though, the truth of her words resonated.

Roxy her voice broke. I can’t do this alone.

I hadn’t been there for Mom when she passed. My heart sank as tears welled in my eyes. My baby sister needed me now. I regretted every time that I put off going home on a whim, every time she had asked me to come that I chose to stay. I could have gotten other jobs. Hell, I could take another semester if I needed to. Why had I been so selfish?

I’m on my way Tara. Just stay put. I’ll be there as fast as I can.

Mom was all we had besides each other. Dad, well that was another story for another time. I didn’t want to think too much about him. As quickly as I could, I threw some clothes into my suitcase and zipped it up.

The loneliness, the piece of my heart that was already missing, left a burning sensation like a deep cut. One that didn’t bleed right away but kind of split open in slow motion with a single bead of blood welling to the surface a microsecond before the pain registered and blood poured out. . . a cut that would leave a nasty scar forever. Swiping at errant tears, I grabbed my keys and purse, barely remembering to lock the apartment.

I couldn’t survive without Mom. She was my rock, my friend, my advisor, my everything. I was closer to Mom than I was to my sister, Tara. We were opposites, Tara and I, like night and day. I could talk to Mom. I could laugh and joke and I knew Mom would get me. I loved Tara, and at times, we could hang out and have a blast. Then there were times when she was aloof and wanted nothing to do with me.

That didn’t matter now, though. Tara was alone and she needed me. We needed each other. I knew there would be a lot of paperwork and arrangements. We had our differences, but the bottom line was we were family and family is important.

It was normally an hour and a half drive. I texted her before starting the car and told her to argue with the nurses, to demand to talk to the doctor, whatever it took for her to stay at the hospital in Mom’s room.

Tara tended to be emotional while I was the rational one. I could imagine her heading back to the house trying to find the perfect dress to bury Mom in and I would find her on the bed having cried herself to exhaustion. I also knew the house had been depressing for the last year.

Tara was forced into being self-sufficient over the past three years since Mom was first diagnosed. I taught her to drive and she had full use of Mom’s car since she could no longer drive.

While I was at college, everything fell on Tara’s shoulders. As much as I wished that it were different, I pushed for as much normalcy as possible. When I went home, I would handle the bills, go over the paperwork for insurance, and check the medical equipment, all those responsible things that didn’t register with my sister.

I felt bad for her carrying the brunt of the responsibility, but Mom insisted that I stay in college since I was so close to graduating, and focusing on my classes helped me not obsess over the situation. Plus, Mom knew our strengths and weaknesses. While she encouraged us to deal with our shortcomings, when it came down to business, she expected us to operate in our individual strengths. It had helped instill a sense of self-confidence and the knowledge that we could tackle most things ourselves, even when it wasn’t our strong suit.

Tara had enrolled in the nursing program at the community college, which was closer to Balder University, where I was enrolled, than it was to our home. We had divided the payment of bills between us over the past year when Mom’s investments ran out, but it was always up to me to make sure they were paid. I knew when the insurance approved the home visiting nurse that it was doubtful Mom would ever return to work. We held a glimmer of hope that even if she couldn’t work, she would at least be with us. Cancer doesn’t care what you hope for, though.

I drove to the north end of town to fill up at the convenience mart before hitting the interstate. Before leaving, I texted Luke, to let him know where I was. Hopefully, he would call me when he got off work and would drive up later.

A long list of things that I should do ran through my mind, but I couldn’t deal with that now. I had to get to Evanston General Hospital!

A long drive alone with my thoughts allowed time to regret my decisions. What if I had taken the semester off and stayed home with Mom? Would she still be alive? I would have at least been able to spend time with her. I could have gotten my old job back at the Italian Restaurant in town and stayed with her.

I pulled off into the rest stop and tried to call Luke again letting out a sigh of frustration when I got his voice mail. Luke call me. It’s urgent.

I hadn’t left him a note, hadn’t left a text, hadn’t paged him at work. This was not the kind of message that you left in a text nor have someone paged over. I threw the car in reverse and took off, screeching my tires as I shifted gears.

~~~~~

Fifty-two minutes later, I pulled up into a visitor’s spot by the main entrance of the hospital. I barreled through the doors, racing towards the elevators then to the oncology floor, running past the nurse’s station towards the room number Tara had texted me.

I stopped short just outside the door, my heart pounding in my chest. This was it. This was reality. I did not want to face losing Mom. Some small part of me thought that if I didn’t see it with my own eyes, maybe it wasn’t true. I had this inner childish hope that I was in a nightmare and if I would hear a loud noise, I would wake up. Then I would call Tara, and Mom would be talking in the background and all would be fine. That’s how it should be. Not this. Never this.

I gave myself a quick mental talk about facing reality and to stop being a hopeless dreamer as I took several deep breaths. One step into the doorway, all I could see was the curtain pulled around the hospital bed. Two steps, the end of the bed with feet visible beneath a white cotton blanket with the blue hospital name on it. Three steps and I was at the side of the bed, afraid to look down and recognize the woman in the bed as my mother. Tara was on the other side, her head down on the edge of the bed, holding a frail bluish hand.

My eyes welled with tears.

NO!

My body wracked with sobs as I lifted the other cold lifeless hand to my cheek. Tara lifted her head slowly; looking up at me with such a forlorn and lost expression, it broke my heart even more. I ran around the bed to her, lifting her from her chair as we sobbed together.

It wasn’t fair. Even knowing it was coming someday, we were not prepared for the reality. Some day was not supposed to be this day or any day in the near future. At twenty-four and twenty, we were not supposed to lose our mother. Before either of us were married, before either of us had children, before either of us had even had a chance to truly live, cancer took her from us. It. Was. Not. Fair.

As I held my younger sister in my arms, my eyes clenched tightly to shut out the vision of the corpse that lay in the bed that was supposed to be my mother. It was Mom, but it wasn’t. My breath caught in my throat, feeling panicky and lost, so very lost. I turned quickly to the side, hitting the vase of flowers on the stand next to the bed rails. The vase that held a beautiful flower arrangement shattered into pieces as it made contact with the linoleum floor.

Shattered. Just like our lives were now.

CHAPTER 2

Luke walked across the steel catwalk suspended above the production floor. He was about a third of the way through his training checklist when an image on the screen below him caught his eye. Were the workers goofing off or was this company footage?

He stopped, watching over the shoulder of the technician that sat at the computer station below. He couldn’t hear what was being said, but Test subject 5 and 6 flashed across the bottom of the screen. Luke stood mesmerized for a few minutes as he watched images of the test subjects’ comparison from the beginning and progressing through weekly photo updates for the six-week trial period as indicated by the header at the top of the screen. Both individuals began as healthy athletic young men, but both seemed to age years before his eyes, taking on a gaunt, unhealthy appearance of a methamphetamine addict.

He shook his head moving on. It had to be something else. Cyberpro Dynamics Corporation manufactured vitamins, supplements, and holistic food products. He landed this job with Cyberpro after winning his division match in MMA. A representative from the company had been at the arena that day, and after watching the match, offered him a sponsorship. When he met with the owner/manager of the business, Wilhelm Reinholz, the secretary had given Luke’s file to him indicating an application for a position on the legal team.

By the end of the day, he not only got the position on the legal representatives team, but he also won the spokesperson gig filming six commercials and short infomercials that were on a loop of ads that rolled on monitors in health food stores across the nation. He landed a guest appearance at a Home and Garden Extravaganza where he did a brief exhibition match to display some of his trademark moves. That had the crowd on their feet cheering, making his transition for marketing the company’s products smooth and seamless.

It made for a busy, stressful semester for Luke, but he couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Every third week, he flew to their headquarters in northern Chicago for training to prepare him to step into his fulltime position in July. He had to become aware of the procedures, learn the products, so that he felt he could represent the company to the best of his ability. It wasn’t in him to just sit in the office and read a stack of legal briefs, he was more hands on. Dr. Kline had been giving him the tour of the facility, walking him through the steps of production but he had to leave early. Luke guaranteed he would finish the walkthrough on his own. It seemed like a better way to spend his time than staring at a computer screen.

He checked the calendar on his tablet. July was only four short months away. Two full months until graduation and another month until he and Roxy would be married and off on their honeymoon to Cancun. After the honeymoon, they would move into his furnished loft apartment with a phenomenal view.

In four months he will have achieved his life dreams! Then he and Roxy could make new goals and dreams together. Life was good!

He took the stairs leading down to the floor below at a jogging pace. He tipped his hard hat towards Tom, a friend he had gone to high school with who had helped him ease into his current position. Tom motioned him over to his station.

Hear you’re getting hitched, Tom continued his actions, pulling bins from the assembly line and stacking them into crates.

Yep, Luke beamed, his vivid blue eyes sparkling as his grin spread across his face. June sixteenth I’m marrying the woman of my dreams.

Is this that MMA fighter I saw you with? Tom pushed the crate off onto the rails, pulling the next one forward.

Yep. Roxanne Winters, aka Foxy Roxy, Luke stuck his pen in his pocket protector.

Congrats man. Did she come up with you this time?

Nah, she had a test and a photo shoot for her sponsor.

Tom hit the red button on the cable that hung down in front of his cage. The stacks of crates on the motorized pallet train moved down the line towards the loading docks. He grabbed a towel from his station and swiped at his brow.

Damn I’m glad that’s done. Boss’ been riding my ass all day to get this shipment to the docks. Been at it solid for three hours now. He tossed the towel back on the workbench and moved out of the caged area.

Luke stepped back out of the way, careful not to get in the path of the robot pallet trolley. It was a regular symphony of orchestrated beauty when things were in full swing. He followed Tom to the break room, where both men opted for one of the company’s newest sport’s drinks.

Next time bring her with you and you two can join the Missus and me for some steak on the patio. It will be nice to catch up for more than three minutes on break, you know? Hell, we haven’t had a decent catch up since football season our senior year at Raleigh Central.

Sounds like a plan. She is supposed to come up with me next Thursday. I gotta turn in my paperwork and my W2. We will fly back Monday evening. I’m sure Roxy will be excited to meet you and Shae.

Hey, as long as they don’t start talking about body clocks and babies for another few years, I’m good.

The men chuckled together as they finished their drinks and ended their break.

Just text me the time and address. I’ll pick up the beer. See ya then Tom. Luke gave a generous nod in Tom’s direction as he headed for the stuffy office that sat at the far west end of the plant.

It was a good daily bit of brisk walking to make the rounds through the plant. Scheduling it in the afternoon when he was usually hit with the afternoon drowzies had been a good plan. He now felt invigorated and ready to tackle the rest of the day. His mental countdown to go home to Roxy began as he sat at his assigned desk, checking the next few items on his list.

The next task was of vital importance and extremely boring and tedious. This was what had first prompted him to schedule the walkthrough. Last time he had tried to tackle this; he nearly fell asleep at his desk. Not good for the new guy. Verifying that he understood the products and the company he would represent made for a lot of behind the scenes work, but it was the paperwork that he dreaded the most.

Today however, he