When We Were Friends Read online

  When We Were Friends

  Red Adept Publishing, LLC

  104 Bugenfield Court

  Garner, NC 27529

  https://RedAdeptPublishing.com/

  Copyright © 2022 by Nancy Yeager. All rights reserved.

  Cover Art by Streetlight Graphics

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  The Red Adept Publishing App

  CHAPTER ONE | 2016

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE | September 2011

  CHAPTER FOUR | 2016

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX | August 2011

  CHAPTER SEVEN | 2016

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN | July 2011

  CHAPTER ELEVEN | 2016

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN | May 2011

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN | 2016

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO | July 2009

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE | 2016

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE | February 2007

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX | 2016

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT | November 1999

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE | 2016

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO | September 1999

  Acknowledgments

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  Further Reading: Crazy Little Town Called Love

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  For the sister of my heart; I miss you every day

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  CHAPTER ONE

  2016

  Frannie Willets drove north on Indiana State Road 3, hoping for a sinkhole, a spring flood, a twenty-car pileup, anything to keep her from the reunion with her ex-best friend. No such luck as highway signs and her phone’s GPS directed her to the exit ramp, toward the address Lexi had given her. Still, Frannie blew right past the diner where her former partner in crime waited. She parked two blocks down on Main Street and climbed out of her beat-up white Camry into the clean air of Licking, Indiana, population 2,432—if you believed the interstate billboard. She locked the car, probably unlike anyone else here, but four years behind bars had made her suspicious.

  Eyes forward, shoulders back, hands down by her sides—courtesy of the guards’ strict training—she followed the incline of the sidewalk, up the tree- and shop-lined street that said welcome in a plain-spoken Midwestern accent. Lexi probably loved it here. Probably felt safe.

  Frannie felt like making a run for it.

  She passed a few pedestrians going about the business of life. One old man gave her side-eye, probably seeing at a glance what she really was. Eyes forward. Steady. Soon this ill-advised meeting would be over, and she would be back at the halfway house, in a medium-size town just fifteen miles from the tiny spot on the map where she and Lexi had grown up. Not that she would be staying there much longer.

  The closer Frannie got to the diner, the more her hands shook. She chose not to focus on that, chose to focus on staying alert instead. And she failed. She didn’t see the wispy blond kid, who couldn’t be much older than six, step into her path until it was too late. Frannie jumped out of the way and slammed her shoulder against a steel lamp post. She clenched her teeth and fists, ready to absorb a blow or at least a few inventive curse words.

  Then she collected herself. Straightened her jacket. Calmed the hell down.

  This was a kid, outside on a perfect spring day. Not an inmate with a bad attitude and something to prove.

  The kid wasn’t alone. She clutched a bright-pink leash, at the end of which was the saddest sack of fur Frannie had ever seen, with a matted black coat, one weepy eye, and four mud-caked paws. For the life of her, Frannie couldn’t tell what breeds had gone into making the mutt, and she was pretty sure she had seen pictures of nearly every breed there was. But oh, that face. Long black muzzle and liquid brown eyes. A face like that could melt her heart.

  Kid and mutt both stared at Frannie.

  “You must be Lexi’s friend,” the girl said.

  Wow, this town really is small. “And you must be a Who from Whoville.”

  The kid twisted her pale face into a scowl.

  “Like in The Grinch,” Frannie explained.

  “Not funny.”

  Frannie shrugged one shoulder. “Not trying to be.”

  “Mission accomplished.”

  Frannie rethought her assessment of the kid’s attitude. She glanced away from the girl with the sad blue eyes, round pink cheeks, and down-turned lips. A face like that could break her heart.

  As Frannie watched the mutt—maybe it had some poodle in its family tree, now that she thought about it—he raised a back leg and took aim at the lamppost. And missed.

  “Oh, shit!” Frannie barely sidestepped out of the way as the dog sent a stream of pee arcing in her direction.

  “Language! There’s a child present.” The words came out of the pale little person in front of her, but they sounded like they could have been channeled from the woman waiting for Frannie in the diner.

  “How’d you know I’m here to see Lexi?” Frannie asked.

  Without answering, the kid walked away and tugged her mangy mutt along behind her. They trudged off into the alley between what looked like an old motel and the greasy spoon that held Frannie’s fate. With her scraped elbows and muddy sneakers, the girl looked as much like a stray as the dog. Frannie shook her head. A town full of strays. This really was Lexi’s kind of place, and Frannie should know, since she had been the first misfit her ex-best friend had ever tried to rescue.

  By the time she reached the front door of Patty’s Diner, with its blue-and-white-striped awning over the Plexiglas front window with the name stenciled on it, Frannie was calmer. She stepped through the front door. As it swung shut behind her, a bell jingled. Her eyes adjusted to the dimmer light. She took in the red leather booths and blue Formica tables along the wall of windows to her right, square blue tables surrounded by white chairs down the middle strip of space, and the long white counter to the left. The smell of thousands of fried-eggs-and-bacon breakfasts hung in the air. A mellow pop-rock tune hummed out of tinny speakers in the drop ceiling.

  Shit.

  It was enough like the diner where she and Lexi had their first jobs to make her lean against the door to collect herself. Eyes forward. Breathe. Focus.

  Maybe Lexi had thought meeting in a familiar-looking place would set Frannie at ease. That just showed how little Lexi knew about her now. God, how she needed to be somewhere, anywhere else.

&n
bsp; Behind the counter that she could imagine packed with regulars for breakfast and lunch each day, coffeepots percolated, and day-old pastries aged. Two middle-aged women, one a Black woman in a dark-blue pantsuit with a white blouse, the other a white woman in a navy-blue skirt covered by a light-blue apron, stood at the far end of the counter. When Frannie caught the Black woman’s eye, she nudged her companion, and they disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Frannie alone in the midst of the mid-afternoon lull.

  Almost alone.

  Lexi slid out of the booth at the far end of the room. Her dark, curly hair was longer now and hung down over one shoulder. The baby fat on her cheeks had completely melted, taking her from the cute kid she had been to the beautiful woman Frannie had known she would be, even that first day in third grade. Lexi had walked into the classroom, the new kid in school, carrying a light-blue binder and a Goosebumps book. Lexi Harris had been seated in the second row beside Clarissa James, the most popular girl in the class, while Frannie sat in the back between Jeremy Thompson and Zane Zimmer. Frannie hated Clarissa more than ever in that moment, although she couldn’t exactly say why.

  Now Lexi, wearing a pink-and-blue floral sundress and navy flats, stood to greet her. Strange, Frannie had forgotten how tall Lexi was, but when she reached the table and Lexi stepped forward, the top of Frannie’s head only reached her chin. Frannie stiffened when Lexi hugged her, which made her ex-friend drop her arms and motion for Frannie to sit.

  “You look great.” Lexi slid into her own side of the booth and put her hands in her lap. “Your hair is so pretty. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen your natural color. It looked almost red in the sun.”

  It had been so long since Frannie had dyed her hair, she had forgotten it had been pitch-black the last time Lexi had seen her, and for four years before that. She had also forgotten, until just that moment, that she had been wearing these same ripped jeans and leather coat the last time they had seen each other, when Frannie had left Lexi, broken and bleeding, in a run-down motel. Frannie’s stupid plan had led them there, and Lexi had been too fragile to pay for their crime, so it was only right that Frannie was the one who should pay for it alone. She had driven two hours away before calling the state police to turn herself in.

  From all appearances, Frannie’s last-ditch effort to right her wrong had worked. As much as she had resisted this meeting, it was what she needed after all. Seeing Lexi’s new life assured her there was nothing more Frannie could do for her, nothing Lexi needed. No obligations and no regrets when Frannie left it all behind her. And no chance she would nearly ruin Lexi’s life again.

  Lexi nodded toward one of two mugs on the table. “I ordered tea for us. Earl Grey.”

  “Thanks.”

  Frannie didn’t mention she no longer drank hot tea. Hadn’t since she had gone inside and found the tea service to be lacking, to say the least. She shifted in her seat to try to get comfortable, but it didn’t help. The truth was, she would never be comfortable until this place and all the places like it, all the places where the small-towners could spot wrong-side-of-the-tracks trash like Frannie from a block away, were in the Camry’s rearview mirror.

  “Look, Lexi, I’m not going to lie. There’s only one reason I agreed to see you.” She was already lying. Maybe in her new life, she would do better. Not talk about the past, but not lie about it either. Frannie glanced around the empty diner but still lowered her voice to a whisper. “I need my share of the money. My parole’s up in six weeks, and as soon as the state of Indiana is through with me, I need to be through with it. I need to move somewhere else and start over.”

  “Move where? How far away?”

  As far as I can go on my share of the hundred grand. But she couldn’t tell Lexi that any more than she could tell her she wasn’t just moving. She was disappearing. “I haven’t worked out the details. But I’ll need cash to get a new start.”

  Lexi cupped her hands around her mug and stared down into it. It took her a minute to respond. “First, tell me how you’re doing. I mean, you do look great. But four years of your life, Frannie. Jeez Louise.” Tears welled in Lexi’s eyes.

  “Don’t do that!” Frannie hadn’t meant to shout.

  The woman in the pantsuit popped her head out through the kitchen door.

  Lexi waved at her. “Everything’s fine, Patrice.”

  The woman gave Frannie a hard look but receded into the back again.

  “Sorry,” Frannie said, “but it’s been almost a year since I got out, and I try not to think about it any more than I have to.”

  “I just want to know that you’re okay. That you’re going to be okay. After what you did for me.”

  Frannie handed her a paper napkin. “I’m fine. I did exactly what my lawyer told me to do. I kept my head down and my mouth shut, didn’t make enemies. I worked in the library for a year then got into the training program for cosmetology. Paid for by your tax dollars, so at least I don’t have to spend any more money on school.”

  “Not quite what you’d planned though.” When Frannie didn’t respond, Lexi filled in the silence. “Your mom told me you’re working at a salon.”

  “You’ve talked to my mother?”

  Lexi shrugged one shoulder. “Just every now and then. She told me you’re cutting hair.”

  Frannie shook her head. “I’m shampooing hair and sweeping and cleaning up the place. It’s a living. Well, not really. It won’t be enough.”

  She toyed with telling Lexi she needed the cash to fund her very own witness protection kind of escape to someplace where no one knew her. She would start by getting lost in the city crowds of Chicago until she could figure out a way to slip across the Canadian border and use her stolen nest egg to set herself up in a new life. In a place where no one in the aisles of Walmart and Rite Aid recognized her and pushed their kids behind them while they asked Frannie awkward questions. Where the salon owners didn’t remember just enough about her past to tell her they didn’t hire criminals. Where there weren’t people who had suspected she was no good her entire life, staring down their noses with half smiles that said they had finally been proven right.

  Where she couldn’t screw up again and ruin the lives of everyone she cared about.

  But if Lexi knew the truth, she would waste her time and Frannie’s trying to stop her.

  “Just tell me where it is,” Frannie said. “I’ll go get it myself. You don’t have to get your hands dirty again.”

  “Let’s just take a minute and catch up. I got married, you know.” Lexi wiggled her left hand to show her small diamond ring and simple wedding band.

  “I heard. My mother said it was in the local paper back home.”

  “It was a small wedding. Really small.”

  Frannie touched Lexi’s hand. The contact that used to be so easy and natural was almost painful now that they were nearly strangers, but she forced a smile. “It’s okay. You don’t have to explain. I wasn’t waiting for my invitation in the mail. It’s not like the warden was going to give me a day pass for a wedding.”

  “It felt wrong not to have my best friend standing up with me.”

  Frannie pulled back her hand. “We both did what we had to do.” She leaned forward and dropped her voice again. “And now I have to protect myself. Lex, if I don’t get that money, I won’t be safe. The police and the state think the money I had in the car when they arrested me, plus the little bit my mother scraped together for me, was restitution. But Jack Greene knows he’s still out nearly a hundred grand. He’s not going to let that go.”

  “What makes you so sure?” Lexi’s hands twitched as they hovered over her tea mug. “You haven’t heard from him, have you?”

  “He wouldn’t be that stupid. Between my parole officer and the managers of the halfway house, I’m still more Indiana’s property than not. But when my parole is over, Greene will come for me.”

  Frannie understood Jack Greene now more than ever, having served time with white-collar criminals wh
o had gotten away with their crimes for decades. She knew how their minds worked, how important it was to them to send a message when anyone crossed them. Lowlifes like Frannie who had swindled masters of the universe had to be punished. That made Frannie worse than useless to anyone from her old life. It made her dangerous.

  “He can’t come after you without admitting he was hiding a lot of cash. And he’s too smart to do something to the woman who went to prison for stealing from him. People would figure it out and might start looking at him too closely.”

  Lexi must have put a lot of thought into this. Unfortunately, she was nearly as naïve as she had been when they were kids, when she had believed lighting candles and reciting mantras and wishing on stars could change their lives.

  Frannie traced the handle of her own mug of the tea she wouldn’t drink because it was a vestige of the person she used to be and had nothing to do with who she was now. “He stopped by the drugstore where my mom works.”

  Lexi widened her eyes. “In Smithton? What was he doing all the way down there?”

  “Telling her he has no hard feelings toward me. Which we both know is bullshit.”

  “You think he’s threatening you by proxy?”

  Frannie nodded.

  “So, when your parole is up, you plan to take the money and do what? Just disappear?”

  Maybe Lexi wasn’t so naïve, after all.

  “I’m still working out the details,” Frannie said. “It’s for the best. And I haven’t told my mom, so please don’t say anything to her. I just need my share of the money to make a new start.”

  Lexi frowned down at her empty tea mug. “You can have all of it.”

  “All of what?”

  “All of the money. After what you went through... And my life here is good. I’m happy. I have a family and a job I love at a day care. I don’t need anything that belonged to that man.”

  A bubble of happiness formed in Frannie’s throat for the first time in longer than she could remember. “That’s... That would be a big help. Thank you.”

  “Under one condition.”