“That little sneak. He tried to frame me for the murder he committed. But my smart daughter saved me.” Mama reached over and gave my hand a squeeze.
“I wasn’t feeling too smart this morning, I tell you. I felt like I had fallen into an alternate universe. Eleanor had been arrested for the murder, and the case was supposed to be closed. The calendar suggested otherwise. At first I thought they were in it together. Then I realized Evan hated both his sister and his mother. And they didn’t like him or his snake.”
Lexy shuddered. “I can’t believe he kept a fifteen-foot python in his kitchen.”
“Owning a large snake didn’t make him a bad person,” I said. “Evan told me he’d had Monty since he was a kid. That’s more of a commitment than some men make to their wives.”
Charlie avoided my gaze and stuffed blue ricotta cheese in his mouth.
I took a small delight in his discomfort. “Then I found out how controlling Erica was.”
“I could have told you that,” Mama said. “Everything had to be her way. She was impossible to deal with.”
Everyone stopped eating to look at Mama. Baffled, she stared right back. “What?”
“Never mind,” I said, eating another bite of rainbow salad. “Anyway, I started thinking about that calendar and how much Evan hated his family. Put that with his being disinherited and you have a boatload of resentment. I started praising Eleanor’s brilliant strategy in planning the murder, and Evan came unhinged. He told me what it had been like to run over his mother. He was very convincing. I had no doubt that he was telling me the truth.”
“But what about the call from Eleanor’s phone the night of the murder?” Bud Flook asked.
“Evan lifted her cell phone at their private dinner earlier that night. Later, he returned it to her car. She didn’t miss it because she frequently left her phone in her car.”
“Evan must have been pretty clever to frame not one but two people for his mother’s murder,” Lexy observed.
Clever or desperate? Regardless, I didn’t want Lexy to idolize a killer. “I felt sorry for him. He claimed his mother killed his father and threatened to kill her children if they told.”
“I hope you didn’t feel sorry for him when he decided to kill you,” Rafe said.
“No.” I glanced over at Rafe. He’d stopped eating to listen. “Evan planned to set you up as my killer, Rafe. That’s when I used my Noodle.”
Lexy frowned. “Your brain?”
“My Noodle brand golf ball. I shattered the snake cage with it and ran for all I was worth. I’ll never play golf with anything but a Noodle after this.”
“What about perfect Eleanor?” Charla bounced in her seat. “Is she still in jail?”
I squared my fork and knife on my plate. “Britt is releasing her and dropping the charges.”
“What happened to the snake?” Lexy asked.
Why was she so fixated on the snake? “We are not adopting Monty. One Saint Bernard with puppies is all I’m willing to take on.”
Lexy wasn’t satisfied with my answer. “Did Eleanor inherit the snake?”
My eyes wanted to roll. I closed them instead. Gathered myself. I gave Lexy a reassuring glance. “Animal control has Monty. They’ll find him a home.”
Charla propped her chin on her hand. “You’re good at this figuring stuff out, huh, Mom?”
“My Cleopatra is super-smart, I tell you. She was right on the nickel when it came to saving my sorry butt.” Mama raised her glass. “I propose a toast.” Everyone lifted a glass. “Here’s to family. And to sticking together through thick and thin.”
“Here, here,” Jonette said.
I basked in the warmth of our gathering. Sharing a meal with family was the best part of life. During the past few weeks, I’d learned a lot about family. Blood ties were the strongest, but so were shared experiences. Though Jonette wasn’t blood kin, we were sisters just the same.
As for the men, I had high hopes but realistic expectations. Which of the four men at our dinner table would be here in a year? I smiled wistfully at Rafe. Let him be the one with staying power, I silently implored.
The sparkling lights in his brown eyes hinted at mischief. Bedroom mischief. For now, that would suffice.
Here’s a sneak peak of Death, Island Style, a book that will release as an ebook in Spring of 2013.
One of the perks of my new life is walking on the beach. I love to sink into the crisp morning sand, leaving behind perfect impressions of each plump toe, slender arch, and narrow heel. Those footprints proclaim to the world that MaryBeth Cashour lives here on Sandy Shores Island.
At least until the wind changes, the tide comes in, or someone else tramples my tracks. Oh, who was I kidding? My footprints were transitory, just like me. That’s the worst part about starting over, figuring out who I am and what I’m doing.
I turn to face the wind, taste the salty spray on my face, and bask in the unfamiliar warmth of the October sun against my skin. Back in Maryland, a warm fall day like this was called Indian summer, but here in coastal Georgia, short-sleeved weather is standard fare. In time, I’d relinquish that northern concern that a howling snowstorm could hit at any minute, but for now, I was still stuck in that cold weather mindset of a nasty storm on my horizon.
After my husband of ten years drowned unexpectedly in April, I sold everything but one framed picture of the two of us and moved back home, only to discover that my mom had kept her terminal cancer a secret. I spent the next three months watching her die.
Two deaths in three months gave me the willies. Worse, it made me responsible for all their possessions. Grandmother Esther’s gilt-edged porcelain lamp was a family heirloom, but I hated it. And Uncle Wallace’s faded latch-hooked rug? It had clearly seen better days. The marble-topped buffets I listed on e-Bay, and I gave away Mom’s junky old car, which was in worse shape than mine. The horrid checkered tile bathroom floor I left as was, and the house sold anyway, thank goodness.
By the time I’d finally gotten to the point of sorting through Mom’s personal papers in August, I believed I could see daylight. I couldn’t wait to finish this chore and do something, anything, else, but I learned a hard lesson. Be careful what you wish for. The information I discovered in her bank lock box knocked the wind out of me.
I’m adopted.
You would think that being thirty-five years old, I might have heard about this by that time, but my mom never mentioned it. Not once. I can’t blame my dad for his silence, as he passed away two decades ago, but Mom had years upon years to tell me the truth.
She sewed my prom dress, mailed me crafty care packages all through college, and single-handedly created beautiful decorations for my wedding. No mention of my adoption. Not even a hint. And it wasn’t like her death was unexpected. She knew the end was coming as surely as one ocean wave follows the next.
Secrets. I hate them. And yet the shores of my life were littered with them, much like the scattered shells dotting this deserted beach.
I stopped at another deposit of seashells and chucked them one at a time into my plastic pail. Justine Mossholder, the vibrant woman who’d sold me her gift shop named Christmas by the Sea, told me that part of owning the craft store was continually harvesting shells to make into Christmas ornaments. “Tourists love buying these local crafts as souvenirs,” she’d said.
She’d left detailed instructions on how to make oyster shell Santas, scallop shell angels, and sand dollar snowmen. “Paint the shell until the color suits your eye,” she’d said. “Use a dollop of glue to hold the ornament together, and accent it with a clump of tulle.”
Her instructions might as well have been in Greek. Turns out I had no eye for color, glue guns hated me, and I couldn’t tell tulle from organza. So here I was, collecting shells as instructed, only I didn’t want the nice big paintable shells.
I wanted the little itty bitty shells. I picked up one shell, then another, but that pace wasn’t satisfying. I wanted great glopping
handfuls of them. Something about these little shells felt urgently right.
I couldn’t explain my sudden unfathomable craving for them, but I needed these tiny shells as much as I needed air. With increasing fervor, my fingers grabbed clumps of miniature colored shells and tossed them in my pail. It was as though I was in a timed contest, and I only got to keep as many shells as I could cram into my hot-pink pail in the next ten minutes.
Stupid, I know, but so was trying to start fresh when I’d lost myself along the way. I’d gone from functioning as a devoted wife and competent receptionist to a berserk seashell-grabber. What was I going to do?
I had no friends.
I had no family.
I had no roots.
All I had was a yellowed piece of paper that said I was adopted. How the hell was I supposed to deal with that? My whole life was a lie.
My throat tightened. I sat down and allowed the shells and dry sand to drizzle through my curled fingers. How could I figure out who I was? My past was a jumble of secrets, my lonely future too dismal to contemplate.
I touched my gold heart-shaped locket, a treasured gift from Bernie on our first anniversary. Engraved inside were the words, “All my love forever.” Hollow words for a hollow life. I’m supposed to grieve and go on with my life, but the little kid in me wanted to stand up and shout, What happened to my Happily Ever After?
That sappy fairy tale sentiment wasn’t real. It was fiction, and I’d best realize that MaryBeth Cashour was a ghost of a person.
The offshore wind whipped my hair under my glasses. I flicked the tangled locks away from my eyes and stared out at the sea buoys on the watery horizon. Sea gulls lazily rode on currents of air above the cresting surf. I huffed out my disgust at their freewheeling lifestyle. Oh, to be so unencumbered. To let go and glide on the wind. If only I could be so free, so uninhibited.
After all the changes of late, I couldn’t fathom living like that. I needed to know what was coming next. I needed structure and anchors to keep me grounded.
The tides were regular. I’d learned that in a few short weeks. Natives of McLinn County, Georgia, set their watches by tidal fluxes. High water meant big waves, depth in the winding creeks, and delightful onshore breezes. Low water meant lots of beach sand, fish and crabs that could be caught moving with the tide, and offshore breezes. And nasty, biting flies.
I smacked one that was stupid enough to land on my ankle. Take that you bloodsucking varmint. I buried the insect carcass in the dry sand. My gaze drifted back to the hopeful blue sky above the cresting waves and noticed those sea gulls were still wheeling over the same part of the sea as before, just off the beach. That was unusual.
I caught sight of a dark shadow in the water. Something was out there beyond the breakers. Something big. Like a dolphin or a shark. Only it wasn’t swimming. It was drifting with the current.
Curiosity had me rising to my feet. I brushed the sand and crushed shells from my Bermuda shorts and cupped my hands around my glasses. The dark shape appeared to be quite long, maybe six feet long was my guess. And it was definitely cylindrical, like a log.
The object approached the shore. It bobbed in the surf, slowly rolling over, a dark back, a light underbelly. That’s when it hit me. My upside-down life wasn’t completely ruined. Things could be a lot worse.
I could be the dead guy floating in the ocean.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maggie Toussaint’s golf game formed the basis of her protagonist’s golf woes. While tromping through the forested rough, she realized there’s something about trying to hit a white ball into a small hole that brings out dark thoughts and murderous possibilities. With that insight, IN FOR A PENNY, the first book of the Cleopatra Jones series was launched. ON THE NICKEL, the second installment of the series, puts Cleo’s sleuthing to the test once Mama’s car is identified as the murder weapon.DIME IF I KNOW, the third book in the series, is scheduled to release in August 2013.
Maggie writes both mystery and romance. Her first published book won a National Readers’Choice Award for Best Romantic Suspense. She’s active in writer’s organizations, freelances for a weekly newspaper, and leads a yoga class. Visit her at maggietoussaint.com, at http://mudpiesandmagnolias.blogspot.com, and www.facebook.com/MaggieToussaintAuthor#.
Table of Contents
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of t...
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Here’s a sneak peak of Death, Island Style, a book that will release as an ebook in Spring of 2013.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
2 On the Nickel Page 22