That thought made him pause. After the barest hesitation, he set the teacup he’d been rinsing into the sink and turned off the tap. Drying his hands on the dish towel slung over his shoulder, he headed out of the kitchen.
“Where are you going?” his grandmother asked with surprise.
“I just want to be sure the door is locked,” Wyatt explained as he started up the hall.
“Oh, I’m sure it is,” Meredith said, following him. “Ellie is always fretting about that, insisting I lock the door behind her, or locking it herself. She—Oh,” she ended weakly as he reached the door, saw it was unlocked, and locked it. “How strange. She always fusses about that. She really must have been tired. I hope she isn’t coming down with something. She was very pale this morning.”
Wyatt turned back to see that his grandmother was frowning as she turned into the kitchen. Swinging back to the door, he tried the knob just to be sure the lock had caught, and then followed her, a thoughtful expression on his face.
“Gran?” Wyatt moved up next to where she was finishing up the teacups. She’d insisted they were too delicate for the dishwasher and had to be hand-washed.
“Yes, dear?” she murmured, concentrating on what she was doing.
“El knocked and then let herself in before I could get to the door,” he said slowly.
“Yes. She has a key,” his grandmother said easily.
“A key?” he asked.
“Yes, dear. It’s a little metal thing that opens locks,” she explained lightly.
“I know what a key is,” Wyatt said with exasperation. “But why does she have one?”
“Why, so that she can unlock the door, of course,” she said with amusement.
“But Gran, you barely know her. You said yourself she’s lived here less than two months.”
“I may not have known her long, but I know her well. She’s a dear girl. Completely dependable. I trust her.”
“You trusted Madeleine too,” he pointed out, and immediately felt bad when he saw her flinch at the reminder. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust El. At least, Wyatt wanted to trust her. But she had promised to meet him and then hadn’t, and now he found her ensconced in one of his grandmother’s apartments, yet acting as if she’d never even met him.
“Madeleine fooled me,” Meredith acknowledged now. “But Ellie is not Madeleine.”
“No, I’m sure she’s not,” he said soothingly, even though he wasn’t at all sure that was true. “Still, don’t you think that you should take what you learned from Madeleine and perhaps be a little more cautious with people?”
His grandmother was silent for so long, Wyatt began to think she wasn’t going to respond, but then she turned and peered at him solemnly. “Wyatt, if you go through life suspecting everyone, you will never know who might be trustworthy.”
“And if you go through life trusting everyone, you’re going to be robbed blind,” he countered at once.
Meredith’s mouth tightened with displeasure. “I don’t trust everyone.”
“Gran, you made a mistake trusting Madeleine and now have given Ellie a key after—How long has she had a key?”
“Two weeks,” Meredith said stiffly.
“One month, then. You gave her a key after knowing her only a month. Don’t you think that’s a bit risky?”
“No, I don’t,” she said resentfully.
“Next you’ll be giving her your banking information like you did Madeleine,” he said with a frown, worried now that his father might be right and his grandmother had reached that age when she needed help taking care of herself. Maybe a seniors’ home was a good idea.
“I’m not an old fool, Wyatt,” Meredith snapped impatiently. “I knew Madeleine for eight months before I trusted her with my accounts and such, and she gave me no reason to worry about what she might do. Yes, I was wrong,” she added quickly when he opened his mouth to comment, “but I know I’m not wrong this time. Ellie works with the police. She is also the one who discovered what Madeleine was doing, put an end to it, and made her pay me back. Ellie’s a very trustworthy and responsible young woman, and she’s my friend.” Eyeing him sternly, she added, “And you will be nice to her while you are here, or you will be invited to leave.”
Wyatt’s jaw dropped and his eyes widened incredulously. He was her grandson, for God’s sake, and Ellie was nearly a stranger . . . at least, to her. Really, Elspeth was a stranger to him now too, though he’d thought once that he knew her well.
“And I will not be moving into an old folks’ home.”
Wyatt snapped his jaw shut, and avoided her eyes guiltily. “Who said anything about an old folks’ home?”
“Didn’t I mention that I’m not an old fool?” she asked with some asperity. “I haven’t seen you for years. Ever since joining the army, you’ve been too busy to visit, and then this Madeleine business happens and suddenly you arrive as a surprise to see me?” She snorted. “Not likely. Your father sent you to make sure I wasn’t giving away his inheritance and to see if you couldn’t shuffle me into a home.”
“Now, Gran—”
“Who told him about Madeleine?” she asked abruptly. “Oscar?”
Wyatt grimaced. It had been Uncle Oscar. Wyatt didn’t say so. At least not verbally, but apparently his expression said it for him.
“I knew it,” she said with disgust. “I told Violet, and she would have run right home and told him. True to form, he then tattled to your father.” She turned back to the sink, muttering, “I don’t know why my sister ever married that man. Or why she has to tell him every damned thing I say.”
“Oscar’s just worried about you, Gran,” Wyatt said wearily. “First you got caught up in that iTunes scam, and then—”
“I didn’t get caught up in it,” she countered quickly.
“When Uncle Oscar and Aunt Violet arrived, you were on your way out the door with the phone to your ear, heading to the bank to get out money to—”
“I wasn’t going to get out money,” she insisted. “I was going to go to the bank and ask them first if the iTunes cards that fellow was talking about were real and if the government did take them in lieu of payment as he suggested. If they said no I would have hung up. I just didn’t know. I don’t use the computer. I have no idea what newfangled things they have out there nowadays, and that man was yelling at me!” she cried, growing increasingly agitated.
“All right, Gran. It’s all right,” Wyatt said soothingly.
“No, it’s not. Oscar’s doing his damnedest to convince your father that I’m an incompetent old fool, and it’s working. But it just isn’t so. I don’t need to go into a home. I still have my faculties,” she finished, her face flushed with hectic color and her lips trembling.
“Okay. I’m sorry. It’s okay.” Wyatt crossed the space between them and hugged her gently. “Everything will be okay.”
His grandmother sniffled into his chest and shook her head. “No, it won’t. Oscar’s a spiteful old bastard. He wants to get back at me for telling Violet to leave him, and he won’t stop until he succeeds in seeing me into a home.”
Wyatt’s eyebrows rose. “You told Aunt Violet to leave Uncle Oscar?”
“Repeatedly,” she said angrily. “The bastard was always cheating on her, but now he’s violent as well and hitting her. I’ve been telling her to leave him for years.”
Frowning at this news, Wyatt patted her back, but was thinking he’d have to look into Uncle Oscar and Aunt Violet while he was here.
“Ask Ellie,” his grandmother said suddenly. “She’ll tell you I’m not going senile.”
“She hardly knows you, Gran,” he said solemnly.
“She does so,” she insisted. “She has tea with me every morning, and quite often has dinner with me before leaving for work each night too. We spend a lot of time together.”