33. Melly

33

MELLY

" G inny?" I called out, straightening.

She jumped, and her gaze found us inside the woods. With the box under her arm, she spun and bolted for the bookstore.

Elrik flicked his finger and ice coated the walkway. She slipped and fell backward, landing hard on her ass and smacking her head on the ground.

While she lay on the melting ice, stunned, we walked over to stand on either side of her.

"Detective Carter's on the way," I said. I'd placed the call as I left the parking lot. Once I'd explained, he said he'd be right over. We weren't completely sure the blackmailer would show up right away, but he said he'd take the photo and letter as evidence.

"Why?" I asked as she sat up, rubbing her head and groaning.

"Why what?" she snarled.

"Why are you trying to blackmail me? I also assume you put Xylitol in the punch. "

"I'm not admitting anything."

"I can see why blackmail might appeal, especially if it's lucrative. I'll be honest, though. I barely have ten thousand dollars to my name, so the well would've gone dry after one request."

"You have more. Grannie Rose told me how much you got from your dad."

"I did have more. When he died, I inherited the little he'd saved, plus his few possessions. I used most of the cash to open Creature Cones. I was saving the rest to upgrade equipment." I shook my head. "Did you put the Xylitol in the punch?"

She snarled.

"I can't understand why you'd want to ruin Grannie Rose," I said.

"I didn't want to ruin her." Ginny got to her feet and glared at us both. "I was trying to ruin you, Melly. Pretty, perfect Melly who could do no wrong. You always had things easy."

"What?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"Grannie took you in. She raised you. She gave you everything you needed. She lets you have the apartment above the garage for practically nothing. She rented you the building on Main Street even after I offered her more for the chance."

"That's right. You wanted to open a coffee shop to compete with Mystic Mocha." It was so long ago; I'd forgotten about it.

"That building is the perfect location for a place like that. But, no, Grannie only wanted to rent to her precious granddaughter. Not me. Never me. "

"You're my stepcousin, her sister's stepchild. She does care about you."

"Not since the divorce."

"Why did you want to ruin me?"

"Because then she'd see you for what you are, a leech, and she'd ditch you like she should've done when you were twelve."

"That's enough," Elrik snarled. "Melly has more worth in her pinky finger than you do in your entire body."

"Lay it all out for me," I said, noting out of the corner of my eye that Detective Carter was standing inside the woods, listening. "You put the Xylitol in the punch because you knew I'd made it while Grannie was recovering after fracturing her hip. You must've thought I'd made it that night as well."

"I didn't know she'd made it that evening," Ginny said. "You were supposed to. I wanted her to be angry with you for poisoning her friends."

"You dumped it in even though you knew it could hurt someone. Sue was hospitalized."

"She's fine."

"People were throwing up!"

She shrugged. "No one was seriously harmed."

"Then you cut Elrik's radiator lines and left that threatening note."

"Which should've made you stop looking into this," she said.

"I couldn't let my grandmother go to jail," I snarled. "Then you review-bombed Creature Cones."

"That should've ruined you too. You should be crying while closing your ice cream shop, begging someone to step in and buy your used equipment, which I would've done at a fraction of the cost. I would've sold it for a nice profit."

"You suck," I huffed.

"If you'd let this go," she said, "I wouldn't have taken pictures of you and Elrik at the beach. I wouldn't have needed money to give myself a new start."

"No more plans for a coffee shop?" Elrik asked.

"I want to leave town."

"But you're taking care of Bob," I said.

"And you're practically running Sterling Life and Indemnity," Elrik added.

"Bob's shoving me out as if I haven't spent all this time not only ferrying him around from one engagement to another but keeping that business afloat. I was the one who talked Grannie Rose into backing away from a lawsuit after she fell. I sold more policies over the past year than he did in the two prior years combined."

"What else have you done?" I asked, feeling incredibly defeated. I hadn't been close to Ginny while growing up; she was older than me. But I thought we respected each other, if nothing else. Now I felt like I'd cared for a stranger.

"Remember a few weeks ago when people started complaining that your ice cream tasted like pickles and black pepper?" she said with a sneer.

I sputtered. "You sabotaged my ice cream?"

"If you hadn't dumped it out, you would've earned those one-star reviews," she said .

All I could do was shake my head and back away as Detective Carter strode forward.

"Will you come with me peacefully, or do I need to put you in cuffs?" he asked. His nod took in me and Elrik, and I knew he'd take it from here. Ginny would be arrested and charged. Grannie Rose's name would be cleared. And we'd all try to move on from this betrayal.

She shot me a glare before nodding to him. "Don't cuff me."

Detective Carter led Ginny away. She kept shouting about how she was still going to ruin me, how she was going to show the pictures to Grannie, how she was going to tack copies on the bulletin board in town hall.

She'd soon realize that this was over, that she no longer held any power over me or Grannie Rose.

Elrik held out his arms, and I leaped into them. He held me while I struggled to gain control of my turbulent emotions.

"I'll tell Grannie," I whispered against his neck. "I won't show her the picture Ginny sent, but I'll tell her about it and let her know there are others. If she rejects me, then that's how it goes."

"I don't think she will." He stared down at me with so much love in his eyes that no matter what, I knew everything was going to be alright. "No one respects a blackmailer, but everyone adores you."

"I have enough saved to weather any storm Ginny might send my way."

" We have the strength to weather whatever storm someone chooses to send our way. "

For the first time since I opened the envelope, I felt complete joy in my heart. "You're right. I'm not alone any longer. I have you in my life and in my heart."

"Always."

And then he kissed me.