by Nora Roberts
“I’m going to have a talk with this Florida PI, let him know I don’t take kindly to him stalking my sister. Then I’m going to do what I can to find out who the hell you were married to.”
“I think he stole that money he had stashed in the bank box, or he swindled it. Dear God, Forrest, if I have to pay all that back—”
“You won’t. You took what you took legally. Whatever he did, it’s pretty damn clear there’s nothing left to pay anybody back. One more thing. You’re going to tell all of this to the rest of the family. You’re going to get this out.”
“Gilly’s about to have a baby.”
“No excuses, Shelby. You’re going to sit down tonight, after Callie’s in bed, and tell everyone. I’ll make sure they’re all here. You want them to get word some private investigator from out of state’s asking questions about their daughter, their sister?”
Because she saw the sense of it, she pressed her fingers to her eyes. “No. You’re right. I’ll tell them. You have to take my side, Forrest, when Mama and Daddy start talking about helping me pay off this debt. I won’t have it.”
“That’s fair enough.” He came over, put his hands on her shoulders. “I am on your side, you idiot.”
She dipped her forehead to his chest. “I can’t wish the years away without wishing Callie away, but I can wish I’d been stronger standing up to him. It feels like every time I found my footing, something changed and I lost it again.”
“It sounds to me like he was good at making sure people didn’t find their footing around him. Go on, get all the things from the box. Let me get going on this.”
• • •
IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG to track down the private investigator, not when the man had opted to hide in plain sight. He’d registered under his own name at the hotel—though he’d spread the word he was a freelance travel writer.
Forrest considered confronting him there, but he thought he’d give Privet a taste of his own medicine. Once he was off duty and in his own truck, he did some cruising until he spotted the Honda parked outside The Artful Ridge.
Forrest parked the truck, got out and strolled by the shop. Sure enough, the man he’d spent an hour or so running stood talking with Melody.
He’d get an earful about Shelby from that source, no question. With his target sighted, he went back to his truck, waited.
He watched Privet come out, cross over to the bar and grill. Doubtful he’d find the same well of information in there, but if he was any good—and from the run it seemed he wasn’t bad—he’d pull out some.
Making the rounds, Forrest concluded as, fifteen minutes later, Privet came out of the bar and grill, walked down and into the salon.
Following Shelby’s path from earlier in the day, which meant Privet had trailed her through the morning.
That put a knot in Forrest’s craw.
This stop took longer, but when Forrest did another stroll by, he noted that Privet sat in a chair getting a haircut. At least he put some money in the local pot while trying to mine information.
Forrest settled back in his truck, patient, waited for Privet to come out, get back in his car.
He pulled out after him, paced him easily in the light town traffic. Privet took the fork toward Shelby and home. When the Honda drove straight by, Forrest calculated, turned off—did a three-quarter turn to face the road again.
He dug out his Kojak light, fixed it to the roof, and waited.
When Privet drove by a second time, eased to the side of the road a few yards down from the house, Forrest pulled out, hit the light so Privet would see it in his rearview.
He eased up behind the Honda, walked up to the passenger window—already rolled down.
Privet had a map out, and a frustrated expression on his face.
“I hope there’s no problem, Officer, and that you can help me. I think I made a wrong turn somewhere. I’m looking for—”
“Don’t waste my time. I believe you know who I am, and I sure as hell know who you are, Mr. Privet. I want your hands on the wheel where I can see them. Now,” Forrest said, setting his hand on the butt of his weapon, “I know you’re licensed to carry, and if I don’t see both your hands on the wheel, we’re going to have some trouble here.”
“I’m not looking for trouble.” Privet held his hands up, placed them carefully on the wheel. “I’m just doing my job.”
“I’m doing mine. You went to see my sister up North, and entered her home on false pretenses.”
“She asked me in.”
“You cornered a woman with a small child in her home, then you followed her across several state lines where you’ve spied on her, followed her.”
“I’m a private investigator, Deputy. My license is in my—”
“I said I know who you are.”
“Deputy Pomeroy, I have a client who—”
“If Richard Foxworth swindled your client, that’s nothing to do with my sister. Foxworth’s dead, so your client’s out of luck there. If you spent ten minutes with Shelby and think she had anything to do with it, you’re a damn fool.”
“Matherson. He used the name David Matherson.”
“Whatever name he used, whatever name he came into this world with, he’s dead. Personally, I hope the sharks had a good meal off him. Now, if it’s true you’re not looking for trouble, you’re going to stop following my sister, stop asking about her around town. I expect I could go into The Artful Ridge, the bar and grill and my granny’s place and they’d all tell me how when you were in there somehow the conversation came around to Shelby. That stops. I catch you at it again, I’m taking you in. Around here we call what you’re doing stalking, and we got a law against it.”
“In my business it’s called doing the job.”
Forrest leaned conversationally on the bottom of the window. “Let me ask you something, Mr. Privet. You think if I was to arrest you right here and now, and take you in, the judge around here is going to say there’s no problem with you sitting here—with those binoculars on the seat beside you?”
“I’m an amateur ornithologist.”
“Name me five birds indigenous to the Smokies.” Forrest waited two beats while Privet scowled. “See, you could say that bird, it won’t fly. I tell my boss, and we tell Judge Harris—who’s a third cousin, twice removed—that you’ve been sitting here watching my family home and my sister, been following her and her little girl around town, been asking questions about my widowed sister with her fatherless child, you think he’s going to say, ‘Why, that’s just fine. Live and let’? Or do you think you’ll be spending the night on a jailhouse cot tonight instead of your hotel bed?”
“My client isn’t the only one Matherson swindled. And there’s a matter of nearly thirty million in jewelry he stole out of Miami.”
“I believe you. I believe he was a fucking bastard, and I know he did a number on my sister I won’t forget. I’m not going to let you do the same.”
“Deputy, do you know what the finder’s fee is on twenty-eight million?”
“It’s going to be zero,” Forrest said equably, “if you’re looking for it through my sister. You stay away from her, Mr. Privet, or you’ll have plenty of the trouble you don’t want to have, because if I catch you at it, I’ll make sure of that trouble. You can tell your client we’re all sorry for his bad luck. If I were you, I’d head back to Florida and do just that. Tonight. But it’s your choice.”
Forrest straightened up again. “We clear on that?”
“We’re clear on that. I’ve got one question.”
“Ask it.”
“How could your sister live with Matherson for years and not know what he was?”
“Let me ask one back. Is your client a reasonably intelligent individual?”
“I’d say he is.”
“How did he manage to get himself swindled? You’re going to want to move along now, and you don’t want to drive back down this road again. That’s literal and metaphorical.”
&
nbsp; Forrest walked back to his truck, waited until Privet drove away. Then he drove himself the short distance to his family home, parked so he’d be there when Shelby told the family her story.
11
Confessions and truth telling exhausted the body and the brain. When Shelby dragged herself out of bed in the morning, she realized she’d start her day already worn down.
It was hateful to disappoint the people who’d raised you. She thought of Callie, wondered if one day she’d do something stupid and wake up with this same dragging sensation.
Odds were pretty good on that, so Shelby vowed to remember this morning, and to try to give her daughter a break when the time came.
She found Callie, still luckily too young to do something really stupid, sitting in bed having a cheerful conversation with Fifi. So Shelby dived in for a morning snuggle that pulled her mood up a notch or two.
She got them both dressed, then took Callie downstairs.
She put on the coffee, decided she’d make up some of the ground she’d lost with her parents the night before by making French toast—and the poached eggs her father favored.
By the time her mother came down, she had Callie settled in her booster with some sliced banana and strawberries, with breakfast well on the way.
“’Morning, Mama.”
“’Morning. All bright and early, I see. ’Morning, my sunbeam,” she said to Callie, and crossed over for a kiss.
“We get to have eggy bread, Gamma.”
“Do we? Why, that’s a special morning treat.”
“Nearly done,” Shelby told her. “I’m poaching some eggs for Daddy. Do you want any?”
“Not this morning, thank you.”
When Ada Mae walked over to pour coffee, Shelby turned, wrapped her arms around her mother from behind. “You’re still mad,” she murmured.
“Of course I’m still mad. Mad doesn’t turn off and on like a light.”
“Still pretty mad at me.”
Ada Mae sighed. “That part’s on a dimmer switch. It’s easing down some.”
“I’m so sorry, Mama.”
“I know you are.” Ada Mae patted Shelby’s hand. “I know. And I’m trying to come around to it being the situation you were in, and not that you didn’t trust your family to help you.”
“It was never that. Never. I just . . . I got myself into it, didn’t I? Somebody raised me to face my own troubles and deal with them.”
“Seems we did a fine job there. But not as fine a one on teaching you troubles shared are lessened.”
“I was ashamed.”
Now Ada Mae turned, took Shelby’s face firmly in her hands. “You’re never, never to be ashamed with me.” She glanced over to where Callie was busy with her sliced fruit. “I could say a lot more, and likely will when there aren’t little pitchers with big ears close by.”
“Pitchers don’t have ears, Gamma! That’s silly.”
“It is, isn’t it? Why don’t I fix you a piece of this eggy bread your mama’s made up.”
Clayton came down, dressed for the day in one of his habitual white shirts tucked tidily into his khakis. He walked to Shelby, gave her a knuckle rap on the head, then kissed it.
“Looks like a weekend breakfast in the middle of the week.” He got out a mug. “Sucking up?” he asked Shelby.
“I am.”
“Good job.”
• • •
SHE DID HER BARTER DAY with Tracey and took the girls to the park so Emma Kate could come by, have a little picnic with them on her lunch hour and finally meet Callie.
“When I was a little girl, Emma Kate was my very best friend, like you and Chelsea.”
“Did you have tea parties?” Callie asked Emma Kate.
“We did, and picnics just like this.”
“You can come to Gamma’s house for a tea party.”
“I would absolutely love to.”
“Gamma saved Mama’s tea set so we can use it.”
“Oh, the one with the violets and little pink roses?”
“Uh-huh.” Callie’s eyes rounded owlishly. “We have to be careful not to break it ’cause it’s deliquit.”
“Delicate,” Shelby corrected.
“Okay. We’re going to swing now. Let’s go swing, Chelsea!”
“She’s beautiful, Shelby. Beautiful and bright.”
“She’s all of that. She’s my very best thing. Emma Kate, do you have some time after work? There’s some things I still need to tell you. Just you.”
“All right.” Since she’d been expecting this—or hoping for it—Emma Kate already had a plan. “We could take a hike up to the Outlook like we used to. I’m off at four today, so I could meet you at the trailhead at maybe four-fifteen.”
“That’d be perfect.”
Emma Kate watched Callie run around the swings with Chelsea. “If I had somebody like that depending on me, there’s a lot I’d do I wouldn’t do otherwise.”
“And a lot you don’t do you would do otherwise.”
“Mama! Mama! Push us. Push us, Mama! I want to go high!”
“Takes after you,” Emma Kate commented. “You could never swing high enough.”
With a laugh, Shelby stood up. “I’m sticking closer to ground level these days.”
As she got up to help push the girls on the swing, Emma Kate thought that was a real shame.
• • •
SHE MANAGED TO SQUEEZE OUT some time to start a playlist, to pump a fist in the air when the consignment shop reported the sale of two cocktail dresses, an evening gown and a handbag. She adjusted her spreadsheet, calculated that she might be able to pay off another credit card with one more good sale.
She organized herself for the next day, her first day working at the salon, then pulled out her old hiking boots—ones she’d kept tucked away in her closet so Richard couldn’t insist she toss them out.
She dropped Callie off at Clay’s for a visit with Jackson as arranged and watched her daughter happily exploring her cousin’s little backyard fort before driving to the trailhead.
More she’d missed, she thought as she parked and got out. The quiet that let you hear birds calling and the breeze singing through the trees. The sharp smell of pine on air fresh and just cool enough. She hooked on her light pack—something else she’d tucked away from Richard.
She’d been taught from childhood to always carry water and some basics even on a short, easy hike. Cell service could be spotty—at least it had been the last time she’d taken this trail—but she’d tucked her phone in her pocket like always.
She didn’t want to be more than a call or text away from her daughter.
She’d bring Callie here, she thought, take her along the trail, point out the wildflowers, the trees, maybe spot a deer or a scurrying rabbit.
Teach her how to identify bear scat, she thought, smiling as she calculated Callie was just the right age to find that idea thrillingly disgusting.
She looked up at the clouds that skimmed over the tops of the higher hills. She might take her daughter on an overnight. Pitch a tent, show her the pleasure of sleeping out under the stars on a good, clear night, and telling stories around a campfire.
This was the true legacy, wasn’t it? The years traveling from place to place, the time in Atlanta, in Philadelphia, that was some other world altogether. If Callie chose one of those worlds, or another entirely, she’d have these roots to return to whenever she wanted.