Go, Ivy, Go! by Lorena McCourtney

getting the pot roast out of the oven when a totally unrelated thought occurred to me. Nothing to connect it with what I was doing, no reason for the thought to pop into my head at this moment. But there it was. Actually doing more than popping into my head. The realization whammed into it like the whack of a baseball bat.
    I just stood there with the hot pan of roast between my potholdered hands. I’d thought I was safely anonymous for a few days but—
    Mac stuck his head through the door and sniffed appreciatively. He started to say something, but I cut him off.
    “The Braxtons already know I’m here.”
     
     

 
    Chapter Nine
     
    “What do you mean?” Mac asked. “Have they been here and threatened you or done something?” He glanced around, fists clenched, ready to do battle with any lurking Braxtons. My hero! Although he’d be horrified if I called him that, of course.
    “No, but— Remember I told you Officer DeLora said the Deputy Chief of Police had married a Braxton, so now her name was Haldebrand?”
    “So?”
    “At the time Haldebrand sounded vaguely familiar, but it didn’t register with me why. Now it just came to me. That supervisor I talked to at the power company? Her name was Haldebrand.” I plopped the pot roast pan on a hotpad on the counter. “So she doesn’t have to extract from her police boss husband the information that I’m back in town to pass onto the Braxton clan. I waltzed right in and announced it to her. This might be where the Braxtons got the information that an Ivy Malone was living here before. The whole family has no doubt been wearing blisters on their fingers texting and facebooking and twittering the news to each other.”
    “The woman at the power company and the police guy’s wife aren’t necessarily the same person even if they’re both named Haldebrand,” Mac pointed out with what seemed to me unnecessary logic. “There may be lots of Haldebrands around.”
    “So you think I’m being paranoid?”
    “I’m just pointing out a possibility. I don’t suppose you know any first names?”
    “Officer DeLora said the Braxton the Deputy Chief of Police married was . . . Susan. Or Simone. Or something like that. I didn’t get the first name of the woman at the power company.”
    Mac got out his cell phone and started doing something with it that would totally baffle my non-smart phone.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Checking on Haldebrands in the area.” He did thumb things for a minute. “There are several here, but none is identified as the Deputy Chief of Police. I see an Andrew and Clarissa Haldebrand—”
    “No. I’m sure Officer DeLora didn’t say Clarissa.”
    “There’s an A.F. Haldebrand, and here’s a Eugene and S. A. Haldebrand—”
    “S.A.? That could be it.”
    “Also a Sylvester Haldebrand, a T. D. Haldebrand, and a Ted Haldebrand with a wife named Laura.”
    “So the Haldebrand woman at the power company may not be married to the Deputy Chief of Police Haldebrand.” Which is exactly what Mac had said, of course. “Which means the Braxtons don’t necessarily know I’m here.” I tried to feel relief, but my bones had an unexpectedly achy feeling. Some people get an ache that says a change in the weather is coming. My bones aren’t interested in weather predictions, and I’d never felt this particular ache before, but it definitely felt like a prediction. A Braxtons-are-gonna-get-you ache.
    Mac started to clip his phone back on his belt but changed his mind and tapped something more into it. When someone answered the call he said, “I’m trying to locate a Mrs. Haldebrand who I understand works for the power company. I hope I’m not calling at an inopportune moment? I’m working on some genealogical connections, and I’m wondering if the Mrs. Haldebrand I’d like to talk to could be you.”
    Working on genealogical connections. Not an actual untruth. Mac has never done any genealogical research, but he has mentioned a couple