Thirty-One and a Half Regrets by Denise Grover Swank Page A

with the grandmothers of our town, but the scandalous rumors had no truth to them. The older women were lonely and Jonah spent time with them, actually listening, which came as no surprise to me. He’d listened to me for weeks before we officially called it therapy.
    “Hi, Jessica. Is Jonah in his office?”
    The young woman looked up at me with a fake smile. Her bleached blonde hair was big and curly and her shirt was tighter than necessary and slightly inappropriate for a church office. She’d arranged little knick-knacks around the office, and a candle burned on her desk, filling the room with the scent of snickerdoodle cookies. “I’ll let him know you’re here.” But she didn’t look happy about it.
    She pressed her intercom button and Jonah’s office door opened within seconds.
    A toothy, too-white smile spread across his face as he leaned against the door jamb. “What’s the wonderful smell?”
    Turning in her seat, Jessica beamed. “That’s my candle, Jonah. But I brought you some cookies. Would you like some?”
    He rubbed his stomach. “I’m gonna gain ten pounds if you keep bringing in those delicious baked goods.” He turned his attention to me. “Rose, what’s the pleasure of this visit? I thought we were seeing each other at my house tomorrow afternoon.”
    The young blonde woman shot me an ugly glare. She obviously liked Jonah and thought I was trying to steal him from her, especially since we spent so much time together.
    Were all secretaries destined to hate me?
    “Something important came up and I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow to talk. Do you have time now?”
    He held his door wider in invitation. “Of course. Come on in.” He leaned out the door after I brushed past him. “Jessica, hold my calls, please.”
    I sat in one of the wingback chairs in front of his desk. Rather than sitting behind the desk, he sat next to me, crossing his legs, looking very much like the televangelist I’d first met. He’d updated his hairstyle from its former eighties pompadour, but though it was shorter and more stylish, he hadn’t been able to resist adding highlights. “What’s going on?”
    I gripped the chair arm. “Bruce Wayne is missing.”
    He paused. “What do you mean, missing?”
    “You know how he’s been calling in sick? Well, it turns out he’s not. David says he was leaving in the mornings and coming back late at night, but when David asked where he was going and what he was doing, Bruce Wayne told him it would be better if he didn’t know.”
    He sank back in his chair, his shoulders slumping. “Oh dear.”
    “Then yesterday morning, David called me before seven a.m. to tell me that Bruce Wayne wouldn’t be in, that he was still sick, but it made me suspicious. I doubt David Moore even knew seven a.m. existed before yesterday morning. So after I ate lunch with Neely Kate at Merilee’s, I stopped by their house and brought him some chicken noodle soup. Only Bruce Wayne wasn’t home and half his clothes were missing. When I asked David, he told me Bruce Wayne never came home the night before.”
    Jonah squeezed his eyes shut. “This isn’t good.”
    “It gets worse.”
    His eyes flew open and his back stiffened.
    “Mason told me this morning that Daniel Crocker escaped from the county jail last night.”
    Jonah jumped out of his chair and started pacing. “What? How?”
    “I don’t know. He didn’t give me details. But I got to thinking that Bruce Wayne worked for Crocker before he got arrested for murder. And he still has a connection to Crocker’s guys. It seems too coincidental for Bruce Wayne to disappear twenty-four hours before Crocker’s prison break.”
    “Agreed. This is bad.” He stopped pacing. “What does Mason think?”
    “I haven’t told him.”
    “Why not? He can help you.”
    I twisted my hands in my lap, questioning whether I’d made the right decision. “Jonah, if I tell Mason, he’ll be obligated to report it. And what if Bruce Wayne