“Always,” I answered with a smile.
“Good,” he answered. “Because I’ve got a lead.”
While I was listening to him, I couldn’t help but think about what Charlie had said. What did that mean ‘I’d know all about that’? How would I know about not seeing googly eyes because I was too close to it? I had one relationship in my entire (old) life. And we’d only had eyes for each other.
But what about Peggy?
Had I missed that? Did Peggy have feelings for Aiden the entire time we were together, and I was too blind to see it?
There was no way for me to know that, of course. Peggy and Aiden were together now, regardless of when it started for her. But why would Charlie allude to that? What good would this line of thinking do for me?
“Oh!” I said as everything snapped together in my mind.
“Did you hear me?” Darrin asked. “I have a lead.”
“So do I,” I answered. “Daniel was having an affair.” I swallowed hard. “And I think that I know who it was with.”
15
“I wish you would just tell me,” Darrin said, keeping pace with me as we made our way through the courtyard and back toward the building. “I could make you tell me, you know. Withholding evidence is a crime.”
“It’s not about withholding evidence,” I answered honestly. Shaking my head and hoping Darrin would understand what came next. “I shouldn’t have said anything in the first place, not without being sure.”
“You’re working a lead, Rita,” Darrin scoffed. “It part of the process of investigating. If I had to be sure about every little thing before I shared it with my deputies and co-workers, we’d never get anything done.”
“It’s not the same,” I answered. “These people are famous.”
“You think I’d let something slip to the media?” He glared at me, seeming hurt by the prospect, which was absolutely not my intent.
“Of course not,” I balked. “You’re too good at what you do for that. It’s just, these people have had enough lies spread about them. They’re practically in piles at their feet. I won’t add to those piles, not if I can help it.” I sighed. “Now, if you feel like you need to put me in handcuffs for that, I don’t guess I can stop you.”
I looked at him, batting my eyelashes all innocent like.
“Stop that,” he said. “I’m sensing a plan forming in that wild, little head of yours.”
“You would be right,” I answered.
“Care to share it?”
“Not so much,” I answered.
“Oh great. It’s one of those.” Darrin set his jaw.
“Is that so bad?” I asked as we neared the building.
“That depends. The last time we followed one of those plans you ended up almost getting shot in the woods.”
“Well, I mean, what are the chances of that happening twice?”
“Something tells me they’re better than they would be if I was talking to just about anyone else in the world,” he answered.
I almost chuckled at that, but there was no time. Darrin grabbed my hand, which caused me to look him square in the face.
His eyes were wide and clear as he spoke to me.
“People are missing, Rita. They might even be dead.” He turned back to the building. “The waters around here are choppy, and they’re getting more dangerous by the minute.”
“That’s why I’m doing this,” I answered. With my hand still in his, I tried to explain. “We have to do our best to get Chloe and Priscilla back, but that doesn’t mean we get to destroy other people while doing it. If my suspicions turn out to be true, then great. It’ll help us get to the bottom of this. But if they don’t, and it gets out anyway, then even the rumor will be enough to taint them. It’ll be in every magazine. It’ll be on the faces of these rich snakes as they slither around their cocktail parties. I’ll have made a joke of Chloe, Daniel, and the woman that I think he’s having an affair with. While I’m more than willing to reveal the truth at all costs, I don’t think rooting through the lies gets the same luxury.” I quirked my mouth to the side. “I just have to be able to tell the difference.”
“Then let me help you,” Darrin said. He didn’t seem to realize he was still holding my hand, but I did. “If you want me to keep this under my hat-”
“You can’t,” I cut him off. “An hour ago, maybe. But you’re in this now. You’re working the case in an official manner. Even if this didn’t pan out, you’d have to put it in a report. Those things have a tendency of leaking when you don’t want them to, especially if there’s a trial after this.” I shook my head. “And don’t tell me that you wouldn’t because we both know you’re way too by the book for anything else.”
“And you’re not?” He grinned at me.
“Don’t have to be.” I shrugged. “Not a cop. I’m more of a freelance consultant.”
“Is that what you are?” Darrin asked, still grinning. “Well then I suppose, save for the identity of Daniel’s presumed paramour, we better compare notes.”
“What you got?” I asked, looking around to make sure the coast was clear. “Is Sheriff Black under the assumption that this is an attack on the Real Southern Debutantes?”
“He definitely thinks it’s a possibility,” Darrin nodded. “The other three cast members have been given protective detail, and they’re all accounted for.”
“None of the others were invited to the wedding?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.
“Apparently, since the weddings was a ‘no cameras allowed’ event, the other three Debutantes were busy shooting a summer special down in Cancun. Got to keep the money rolling in, I suppose.”
“That’s probably for the best, even though I don’t think this is about the cast,” I answered.
“Neither do I,” Darrin confided. “It feels more personal than that somehow, like whoever took her and possibly Priscilla has a personal stake in things.”
“Which doesn’t make sense given the fact that this is supposed to be a ransom kidnapping.”
“That’s not the only thing that doesn’t make sense in this case,” Darrin answered. “I checked the surveillance video while we were separated. A lot of people have entered the grounds, but no one has left the premises in hours.”
That was strange. Usually, when someone is kidnapped, there’s some forward momentum. People are taken away. What Darrin was suggesting was something else entirely.
“You think she’s still here somewhere?” I asked, biting my lip.
“I did,” he said, staring out past me. “But Sheriff Black’s men have been scouring every inch of this place since the video was shown. They haven’t found any sign of either Chloe or Priscilla anywhere.”
“Is there a back way out, maybe something that hasn’t been used in a while?”
“For someone who’s ‘not a cop,' you certainly do have a knack for asking the sort of questions one might.” Darrin nodded. “Mr. Covington gave me a map of the grounds. There’s nothing there that isn’t covered by the security cameras. If anyone had left this place, I’d have seen it.”
“We need to get to the bottom of this, Darrin,” I said, sighing audibly.
“We will. I just hope it’s in time.”
“What’s the next step?” I asked, noticing the way Darrin’s eyes always seemed to be darting to either side, scanning the area. Though I’d have never given him this sort of compliment to his face, it sort of reminded me of my father.
“I’m going to get some Second Springs officers in here, some people that I trust. And, until then, I’m going to go through Priscilla’s things and look for a connection between her and Chloe outside of the obvious.”
“They didn’t hate each other,” I answered. “At least, Chloe didn’t think they hated each other. I’ve seen pictures. They were quite close, actually.”
Still, that didn’t make sense with the note I’d found earlier. I was still missing something.
“Good to know,” Darrin answered.
“As soon as you know whether or not the husband’s been having an affair-”
“You’ll be the first to know,” I answered. “Well, unless I happen to run into Peggy first.”
“Rita, be serious,” he said.
“Seriously, I’ll be in touch,” I said, the humor dropping away from my voice. “Be careful, Darrin. If no one’s left, then not only does that mean that Chloe and Priscilla are probably still here-”
“It also means that whoever took them is, too,” he finished. “Best detective in Washington D.C.,” he reminded me.
“How could I forget?” I smiled. For whatever reason, I didn’t hate Darrin’s self imposed tagline as much as I used to.
“You be careful, too,” he said.
“I already died once.” I shrugged. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Let’s not find out,” he answered, and something flashed through his eyes that I couldn’t quite recognize.
“Fair enough,” I answered, looking down. A waiter came trotting out of the door, a tray of sparkling white grape juice in flutes sitting in his hand. I snatched two up, nodded a ‘thank you,' and handed one to Darrin. “To making it right,” I said, holding my cup up in the air.
“To making it right,” Darrin answered, clinking it with his own.
16
While Darrin was out doing some investigating on Priscilla, I needed to do some investigating of my own. If I was going to prove my theory out, then I was going to have to go back a bit.
I needed to take a look at Chloe’s rise to fame, at the beginning of her relationship with Daniel and, going back even further, her life before all of it.
I needed to make up for the two years I lost by being dead. And there was one person I could think of who could help with that better than anyone else.
Peggy was still feverishly at work when I walked back into the kitchen, piping frosting onto lemon cupcakes in perfect circles.
Aiden sat in a chair near her, flipping through something on his phone. If I knew him like I used to, good money was on it being a book, probably one of those medical mysteries about a contagion ripping through a mountain town hospital or something.
“How are things?” Peggy asked, though neither of them looked up at me.
“Chugging along,” I answered. “How are things in here?”
“Roughly the same,” she answered. “I’ve been trying to pump out as much food as possible. Since everyone is stuck here, I figured they’d be hungry.” She shrugged. “They’d probably rather have an actual meal as opposed to a mountain of cupcakes, but the entrée team isn’t as generous as me. So I’m sure they’ll take what they can get.” She looked up at me. “Do you think we’ll still get paid?”
“I hope so,” I answered, grabbing a bag and helping her with the icing. “Baking supplies don’t come cheap, and Momma needs a new oven mitt.”
“That’s not all I’ve been doing,” Peggy added quietly, nudging back at Aiden-who was still looking at his phone- and letting me know that she’d rather him not hear this. “When the servers come in to get the trays, I listen. And some of them have had some pretty interesting things to say.”
“Like what?” I asked, mirroring Peggy’s motioning perfectly but still falling a little short of that perfect frosting circle.
She always had been better at that than me.
“Mostly about the kidnappings. There are some wild theories, including the idea that Chloe kidnapped herself to get out of the wedding. Some of them think her and Daniel have always made an odd pair.”
I had no strong opinion on the latter part. The heart wants what it wants, after all. The former seemed ludicrous to me however. “I doubt she’d have those markings on her face if she set it up herself,” I said. ‘Sure, she’d want to make it look realistic, but she’s on television. Her face is important to her, and there are plenty of other places you could scar up if you wanted something to look legit. Besides, I looked through that crime scene myself. I’ve seen a few that have been orchestrated, and none of them ever pass muster. They all either look too frantic or too put together. This was the real deal. Whoever took Chloe did so without her knowledge.”
Now Priscilla may have been another story, but there was no need to muddy the waters with that information just yet.
“That’s not the only thing,” Peggy continued. “A lot of them were talking about losing their jobs.”
“With the catering service?” I asked.
“No, not them. The people working at the country club.”
“That makes sense. Kidnappings are bad for business, especially high profile kidnappings. Though I doubt it’d shut a place like this down, I can see why they’d be concerned.”
“That’s the thing, though,” Peggy said in a whisper, still forming those perfect circles. “It didn’t seem like the sort of thing that came up all at once. One or two of them already had replacement jobs.”
“That is curious,” I answered, making my slightly inferior frosting decorations. “But that’s not what I came here to talk about.”
“Well then Rita, what did you come here to talk about?” Aiden was staring at me from his seat, a perturbed look on his face.
He had heard everything we had been saying, which meant he knew that not only was Peggy still investigating things (even if it was quite mildly) but also that-instead of persuading her against it- I was pumping her for information.
“Don’t be like that,” Peggy said, finally putting her piping bag down. “We’re all in this together.”
“No we’re not,” he answered, standing. “Unless you’re talking about the kitchen. Because, if you are, then sure. We’re all in the kitchen together. But, other than that, you’re wrong.”
“Aiden, I don’t want to talk about this right now,” Peggy said. It was the first signs of a fight I had ever seen in their relationship, and it struck me as both odd and sad.
“But you’re more than willing to talk about all this dangerous stuff,” he scoffed. “It’s like you’re trying to get yourself hurt.”
“More like trying to make myself useful,” she retorted.
“There’s more than one way to be useful!” Aiden shouted. His eyes were wide and bugged out in a way I had never seen them before, not even that night before prom when we got into that massive argument about college plans.
“You are being useful, Peggy. Look at yourself. You’re doing what you’re good at, what you love.”
“Right,” she scoffed. “Because this is what I love.”
“It’s your business,” Aiden said, narrowing his eyes.
“And it’s a good one; one that I enjoy, one that makes us money. But have you forgotten how all of this got started.” She shook her head. “You shouldn’t have. You were there.”
“Just because this was her idea doesn’t mean that it’s not just as much yours.”
Her idea? Oh no, they were talking about me, the old me. They were fighting and, even dead, I was at the center of it. New guilt washed over me.
“I understand that, but it’s just not fair,” Peggy said, her voice cracking. “I came back here because she told me things would work out, that we’d be happy. Now she’s gone, and I have to do it all by myself.”
“You're not happy?” Aiden asked, his jaw tightening.
“Of course, I am.”
“Then why are you talking like this? Why are you acting like you’re alone, like your life doesn’t belong to you?”
“Because, sometimes it feels like it doesn’t,” she answered, blinking back tears. “I own a business she designed. I serve customers that she cultivated. I’m even engaged to her fiancé.”
Aiden was as still as a statue as she continued.
“I don’t want to live someone else’s life, Aiden. Even if that someone else was my best friend.”
Pain squirmed its way into my gut. All I wanted was for the people I loved to be happy, and somehow I was causing their sadness.
“Then why are you ac
ting like her?” he asked. There was no anger in his voice, no resentment. It was just a question, plain and simple.
“Maybe I’m not,” Peggy answered. “Maybe this is me. Did you ever think of that?”
“No,” he shook his head. “And I don’t want to. I lost one person I loved already to this kind of life. Say what you want about fate or destiny or even being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But Rita’s life led to her death. The way she lived, always investigating things and putting herself in danger, it finally caught up with her.”
A flash of indignation appeared in me. Aiden never had these objections when I was alive. It seemed unfair that he’d air them now, even if he didn’t know I was standing in front of him.
“That’s not true,” Peggy said. “She was delivering pies when she was killed. It could have happened to anybody.”
That was true, though it didn’t invalidate the fact that I lived a more dangerous life than my father (and apparently Aiden) would have liked.
“But it didn’t happen to anybody! It happened to her, and it happened to me!” Now Aiden was blinking back tears, too. “I wouldn’t survive if it happened to me again. So no, I’ve never thought about you being the type of person who needed to get involved in stuff like this.” His hands balled into fists at his sides. “Because I didn’t want to, because I knew that if I did…if it was true…then that would mean…”
“That you couldn’t be with me,” Peggy finished, unable to keep the tears back anymore.
She turned to me. “Rita, I’m not sure what you needed, but I’m afraid it’s going to have to wait. My fiancé and I need to talk about a few things.”
“Of-of course,” I answered, feeling very out of place all of the sudden. I felt more than that though. My heart was broken entirely. The idea of these two together was strange and frankly a little unpleasant to me. It turned out the idea of them breaking up was equally unsettling. “I’ll give you guys some time,” I muttered, looking at them like a pair of lost puppies trying to find their way in the big bad world. I wanted so much to help them, but what could I do?
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