by Julie Chase
She turned glossy eyes on me, giving me her full attention for the first time since I’d arrived to pick her up. “I guess I’m glad your obsession with puzzles finally paid off. You certainly spent enough time reading up on the topic.”
“Then you’ll be proud to know I’m not driving aimlessly away from our destination. I’m actually headed for Resplendent to drop off a trunkful of things that should’ve been given to folks who could use them a long time ago.”
She smiled. “Good.”
“Do you still want me to make you a dress like the one I wore Friday night?”
“I do, but you can’t write my measurements down. You’ll have to memorize them. I don’t want that sort of thing documented.”
I laughed.
She didn’t. “What are you wearing today anyway? Do you really not own enough pastels to last until the pageant?”
I made a face. “I really don’t.”
“You make enough money to buy yourself some new things, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” For the first time in a long time, I had the money. What I didn’t have was the time or desire to go somewhere with fluorescent lighting and countless strangers to try on fifty unflattering things in the hopes of finding one or two I liked enough to trade my cash for. “I’ll work on it.”
“You only have a few weeks before we crown our pet ambassador. If you don’t have something appropriate by then, you’ll have to accept a gown from my stylist.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I slid my car against the curb outside Resplendent. “I hope Claudia’s here. I didn’t think to call ahead.”
“She’s always here, unless she’s making a pickup.”
An odd thought circled into mind. “The last time I talked to her, she said something about a modern day Robin Hood. Can you think of anyone in the district like that?”
“Like Robin Hood?” Mom grimaced. “No. Thank heavens. I never liked him. Robin Hood is one of the most grossly over glorified villains in the history of literature. I’m sure there were plenty of wealthy families who’d have given to the poor if there was a proper initiative made for collection. Instead he took it upon himself to steal from those who had and distribute it to those who didn’t. He was a socialist. And a brute. Yet readers sing his praise. Praise for a criminal.”
“I had no idea you were so passionate about Robin Hood.”
She folded her hands delicately on her lap. “How are the flower costumes coming? I hope you’ve brought samples or sketches or something along for the meeting.”
I perked. “I have. You’re going to love them. I’ve completed four so far and have three mock-ups ready for review, plus a pad full of sketches with the costumes drawn on varied pets. I can have whatever the committee decides upon ready in a few days.”
“Good.” She pulled oversized sunglasses from her bag and traded them for the smaller, less distracting ones on her face. “Tell Claudia I’ll have another pickup for her next week. I’m going to wait here. If anyone sees me inside her shop, they’ll speculate about which of the things were mine.”
I doubted that, but there was no convincing her otherwise, and we didn’t have time to fool around. We’d be late for our meeting. “I’ll be right back.” I left the car on with the air conditioner going and popped my trunk.
After several awkward trips, my trunk was empty and my back was kinked. Meanwhile, there were no signs of life inside the store. I dinged the silver bell near the register and had a look around.
The shop was gorgeous, decorated in antique and high-end pieces. Either district residents had donated some very costly items, or Claudia Post had more money than I’d expected. The state of her hair and clothing suggested otherwise, as did the aging SUV she drove around town.
I hit the little bell again before strolling through the racks. The thrift shop could have easily been a private boutique in Manhattan. Claudia must’ve had a partner or at the very least a decorator to display and disguise the hand-me-downs so handsomely. I fingered a row of last season’s designer fashion and died a little inside at the amazing resale prices. Was it my imagination, or did the thrift shop have a distinct Robin Hood feel?
I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and dialed Jack.
“Sorry!” Claudia arrived in a flurry of hangers, dresses, and exasperation. “I’m so sorry. I’m here!” She attempted to unload her arms onto the counter, but my boxes were in the way. Her burden slid onto the floor. “Drat.” Hangers clattered into a wide mess. “I was in the back ticketing a new round of markdowns,” she sputtered. “I started up front when I heard the bell, but I dropped everything and had to start again.” She gave the fallen dresses a long look and a deep sigh.
My call connected. “Oliver,” Jack barked.
“Hey,” I told him, unsure how to say what I’d wanted to before Claudia’s bizarre entrance. “I thought of something you might find interesting.” I hustled to Claudia’s side and began collecting dropped hangers. “Give me a minute. The timing couldn’t be worse.”
She looked as if she’d seen a ghost.
I shook my head at her and pointed to the phone at my ear.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Well, now isn’t a good time.”
“You called me, Lacy. So what is it?”
I set my collection of hangers on her counter and raised a finger to let Claudia know I’d only be a minute. I moved casually to the far window and cupped a hand over my mouth to contain my voice. “Do thrift stores seem very Robin Hood to you?”
“It’s funny you bring that up because I just had a long talk with Tabitha this morning.”
“What?”
“I found her mother in Bon Temps like you said. Tabitha was telling the truth about that. I called the emergency contact number listed with the care facility, and an answering service took my information. Tabitha called back a few minutes later. She used a burner phone that I couldn’t trace, but she told me everything. She wants immunity in return.”
“You’re kidding? That’s amazing! What did she say?”
“A lot. I’ve been building a case and petitioning for a warrant since we hung up the phone.”
“Mom and I are on our way to a committee meeting now, but are you free later? I want to know everything.”
“I’d like that. You’d probably like to know that I agree with what you said before. I don’t think she’s a killer. Not a cold-blooded one anyway. She seemed genuinely horrified to know she’d been serving the wine that likely lead to his death. She maintains that Sage is the truly unhinged and dangerous one. I hope to have enough evidence to prove that soon.”
“Who is she?” I chewed my lip and pretended to admire the shop’s contents while Claudia continued dropping things behind the counter.
“You’ll never believe it.” He barked a hearty laugh. “It’d be comical if it wasn’t so damn brilliant.” The engine of his truck rumbled to life in the background. “I’m on my way to pick up the search warrant right now.”
“You have to tell me,” I said. “I’ll implode if you don’t.”
The brass plate below a massive oil painting caught my eye. “Margaret Olivia Sage,” I read. Tension knotted my muscles and fear twisted my gut. “Oh, no,” I breathed.
“What did you say?” Jack asked, his voice suddenly tight.
My attention jumped to the quote positioned below her name: “A woman is responsible in proportion to the wealth and time at her command . . . While one woman is working for bread and butter, the other must devote her time to the amelioration of the condition of her laboring sister. This is the moral law.’” The thrift store was Sage’s way of helping women. “It’s Claudia Post,” I whispered.
“Where are you?” Jack demanded.
“Resplendent.” I spun for the door.
Something blunt pressed against my spine. Heavy scents of rose hips and lavender assaulted my senses. “Hang up.” Claudia’s voice was low and demanding. The bumbling worker bee was gone.
I
removed the phone from my ear and dropped it into my pocket. “What’s going on?” I asked, hopefully loudly enough to be heard by Jack. “Is that a gun?”
A hand appeared beside my cheek. “Hand over the phone.”
“Okay.” I took my time complying. “I don’t know what’s going on, Claudia,” I said. “I came to make a donation. My things are on the counter over there.”
“Give me the phone!” she ordered. “Who were you talking to?”
I hit the disconnect button as I lifted the cell phone over my shoulder to her.
She turned me by my head and shoved me forward. “March!”
“Where?” I watched in horror as she flipped the “Open” sign to “Closed” and pulled the blinds.
“To the stock room.” Hot-pink price tags clung to the cuffs and elbow of her sleeves. They were the same bright color as the sticker I’d found on the floor of the freezer where Mr. Becker had died. She poked the back of my arm with her gun. “Move.”
I jumped away, plastering a protective palm over the spot where the barrel had met my skin. The worst of memories bubbled to the surface of my mind, like a geyser of horror, as I marched away from my mom and civilization. Into Claudia’s stock room of doom.
I crept through the doorway with trepidation, nausea, and regret. If only I’d made the Robin Hood connection sooner. If only I’d taken the call with Jack outside.
Her stock room was the size of a small warehouse. Fluorescent lights hovered overhead, suspended from high ceilings by thick chains. Rows of metal racks overflowed with things waiting to be sold. There were no windows and at least six light switches on the wall plate beside me. No one would see what she did to me here. No one would know.
My chest tightened to a painful ache. Mom would come looking for me and meet a similar fate once she tired of waiting in the car and Claudia couldn’t explain where I’d gone.
Claudia caught her toe on a misplaced box and cursed. She stumbled against the now closed door behind her, flailing for balance. A powerful rush of déjà vu overtook me. Mrs. Becker had taken a similar spill while chasing me from her house. Claudia had her eyes and ears everywhere. Her hands, meanwhile, swung wide, bracing against the exposed brick walls. Her gun was no longer trained on me.
I had the space of a heartbeat to decide. Would I fight? Or would I die?
She wobbled upright, straightening with effort. “Don’t get any ideas. You’re finished causing me problems.”
She was wrong.
I held my breath and hit the row of light switches, sending us and the room into total darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Furry Godmother’s secret for avoiding tardiness: Don’t go.
I ran blindly through the dark for several seconds, cutting between overstuffed merchandise racks and smacking my knees against boxes. The storeroom was a lot like I imagined the inside of Claudia’s brain to be. Jumbled. Overstocked. Dangerous. The frantic smacking and pawing noises behind me pushed my feet faster. I presumed Claudia, in all her bumbling glory, would soon find the switch plate, then shoot me.
The broad beam of a flashlight cut across the floor ten feet away. “You thought you had me,” she said. “But I know this room. I’ve filled and emptied this room. I practically live in this room. I don’t need light in here.” The beam bled forward, sweeping left and right in search of its target. “But you do.”
I cracked my head on a wooden shelf or coat rack and stopped short from the burst of pain. I bit my lip and grabbed the thing to steady and silence it. Definitely a shelf.
“I bought this gun for protection when I moved to New Orleans,” she said. “The Big Easy. Ha!” She laughed maniacally while I patted my pockets forgetfully in search of the phone she’d taken. “There’s nothing easy about making a place for yourself down here. This city’s hard. Just like all the others. People only see what’s on the outside, and we can’t all look like you with your big Disney eyes and your long princess hair. Cute little figure. All the right clothes. Money. Money. Money. Mommy runs the town.”
I shot an ugly look in the direction of her infuriating voice and considered plowing over her like a bulldozer.
“I bought this handy little silencer later.”
I reconsidered the bulldozing.
“I needed to protect myself. This isn’t a woman’s world.” Her footfalls shuffled closer. “We have to help one another.” She stopped moving.
Killing me seemed the opposite of helpful, but I was admittedly biased, and she was clearly crazy.
I circled back toward the door. My only exit. My escape. The shelving contents felt different than they had on my way in. I turned in a blind circle. Had I gotten into a different aisle somehow? Did the whack from the shelf send me in another direction? A strange sense of vertigo overcame me. My eyes had nothing to focus on, and my stomach crashed and flopped like ice chunks against my spine.
“That’s how I met Tabitha, you know? I helped her.” Claudia’s voice drew closer. “She was looking for a man and his money to save her mother, but men only want one thing, and I don’t mean a relationship. She never could’ve made it here without me. I knew all about the locals. I knew who was single. Who was generous with their money, and who would fall to their knees over someone like Tabitha, with her big blonde hair and her narrow little backside. I had what she needed. So we made a deal. I provided her with names, and she got close to the men. Everyone has a secret they’d pay to keep hidden. She dug them up, and I collected for the both of us.”
The broad cone of light moved in my direction, forcing me deeper into the darkness.
“Tabitha dated a lot of men, and we made good money until she fell in love with Old Man Smacker. They weren’t even supposed to meet. He wasn’t on my list, but she thought he hung the moon. She and I were friends until he ruined everything.”
I felt along the shelves, moving steadily in the opposite direction of her voice. My steps were tentative and slow. Hers were heavy and quick. My breaths were too loud. My shoes were too loud. The makings of a panic attack tightened my chest and clogged my throat. I needed to get away. I needed to think. I stubbed my toe on what felt like a floor lamp. My hands wrapped around it on instinct, stopping the fall. Instead, I swung it into place behind me, right in the middle of the aisle.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” Claudia complained. “I grew up with nothing. Not like you. My mama cleaned for people like you. I had to watch wealthy old men paw at her when they thought their wives weren’t looking. It was disgusting,” she said. “No woman should have to go through that.”
Something toppled a few feet away, and Claudia cursed. “That lamp was antique Tiffany!”
Shoot! She was closer than I’d thought. I kicked my shoes off and pressed myself between the shelving units. I sucked in my breath and shimmied until I popped out on the opposite side.
“Marco!” she called. The flashlight’s beam bobbed a zigzag across the floor. “You’re supposed to say ‘Polo.’ Come on,” she taunted, “be a good sport.”
I tossed something that felt like glass as far from me as possible, and Claudia’s footfalls ceased.
“Stop breaking my stuff!”
I sprinted forward, only to tangle my feet in who-knew-what and fall. My hands splayed before me, slapping the concrete loudly and starting Claudia’s footfalls anew.
“Tabitha and I had an agreement,” she continued, sounding sickeningly satisfied. “Once she married the old man, she’d funnel his money into my store, and I’d never let him find out who and what she really was. Then he died.”
My tummy rolled and knotted with indignation and sickness. Claudia said she wanted to help women, but she’d intentionally manipulated Tabitha. “You made her a victim,” I blurted. Panic shot through me like lightning. I clamped both hands over my big mouth and darted around what felt like a grandfather clock, praying fervently for an intervention or instant-onset laryngitis.
The light swept an arc in my direction. “I knew y
ou couldn’t keep your mouth closed. It’s not exactly your specialty.”
I slid my hands over the face of the clock, which turned out to be an armoire. I opened the door and climbed inside the makeshift refuge. I needed time to gather my wits, make a plan, find Narnia.
“Once he was dead, I told her she should do the right thing and come back to our original arrangement, but she thought she was too fancy to do that again. She didn’t want to be with other men. She was grieving. She loved him.” Her voice slid into a faux whine. “Nonsense. Their relationship was built on lies. I threatened to tell Smacker’s grandson everything if she didn’t come back to me, but she ran.”
I could see why. Claudia was a lunatic.
“In hindsight, I could’ve handled that better, but enough chitchat. You might as well come out,” she grouched. “You won’t leave Wallace Becker’s death alone, so I can’t let you live. You must realize that.”
I curled into a tight ball, praying for invisibility.
Light flashed over the cabinet, piercing the small crack between doors. “Your time on Earth is over, but I’m sure princesses like you get special treatment in heaven too.”
I moved my hands in front of my face, prepared to defend myself when she opened the doors if she didn’t just shoot me and go back to sorting hangers. To my great surprise, her footfalls moved away. Blood rushed in my ears. My heart pounded with relief. I swiped a renegade tear from my eye and steadied my breaths before she heard them.
“What happened to Wallace was unfortunate,” she said. “I lured him into the fridge for privacy, swatted him with a frozen box of dog biscuits, and locked him inside. I’d hoped a night in the freezer would give him time to think about how badly he wanted to poke the bear. I wanted him to get some perspective and reconsider how he spent whatever time he had left, but that didn’t work out.” Her voice grew muffled from the increased distance. “But he wasn’t well. He was going soon anyway.”
I slipped out of my hiding spot and weighed my options. Claudia was far enough from the door for me to escape, but I’d have to run right past her to get there.