Act Two

by Denise Grover Swank

  I forced a laugh. “You just figured that out?”

  She ignored me. “At first I thought of a ball gown because you made the princess comment, but while a ball gown is an attention grabber, it seems too innocent, too girlish for you.”

  She was right. I’d never go for that style.

  “I have a new dress that came in. A fitted A-line dress with a full skirt, a beaded lace bodice, and beads and rhinestones fading down the skirt.”

  She said she picked the dress for the bride, not necessarily the body type. I was curious. “Okay. I’ll bite. Why that dress?”

  “The full skirt because you like to feel feminine. You wear a lot of dresses and skirts. The rhinestones and beads because you like attention and handle it well. But the back is lace-covered. It gives a hint of skin while still keeping it covered. Despite the fact that you’re often in the public eye, you’re still very closed off, avoiding close connections with people.”

  The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Belinda stopped at a red light, and she was quiet for a moment, as if mulling over what she was going to say next.

  When the light turned green, she continued driving and said, “Lace edges the scoop neck of the dress, which is perfect because you carry your secrets close, guarding them as if your life depended on it.”

  My heartbeat picked up. “Why in the world would you say that?”

  She turned to me with innocent eyes. “Because it’s true, isn’t it?”

  How did she know? What did she know? She couldn’t know about the murder I’d witnessed on graduation night. Did she know that I’d shared my suspicions about my father with Brady? I hadn’t told her about my discussion with him after the murder, but then she knew that Brady had asked me out to dinner—and that I’d declined. What if Roy had told her a detective came to see him? She could very well have put it all together.

  Maybe I should tell her everything I knew. Lord knew I needed to tell someone. The secrets and lies and dangers and half-truths were all welling up inside me, making me liable to burst.

  Trust no one.

  Of course, Daddy hadn’t even known Belinda. My biggest concern was asking her to keep a secret from her husband. Would she agree? Would she tell him anyway to protect herself?

  I couldn’t take that risk.

  Chapter 19

  I was hastily coming up with a response, but I jolted when I heard my phone start to ring. I pulled it out and looked at the screen. Brady.

  I pushed the mute button. I couldn’t talk to him yet.

  “What are you talking about, Belinda?”

  Her nose wrinkled. “All those years in New York on your own. You’re not very open about what you were doing.”

  Relief washed through me, but I tried not to let it show. I was being paranoid and ridiculous. What had I expected her to mean? I gave her a teasing grin that I hoped didn’t look too insincere. “What exactly do you think I was doing?”

  “Nothing bad,” she said in a reassuring voice. “It’s just that I know it had to be lonely for you.” She pulled up to the curb outside of Ava’s house and put the car in park. “I’m sure it was harder than you let on.”

  I reached for the door handle. “No sense dwelling on the past.”

  “Why was that woman talking to you?” she asked quietly. “What did she want?”

  Anger rose up out of nowhere. Maybe it was because I was so tired of hiding. Maybe it was because I so desperately wanted to share my secrets with her, yet I couldn’t trust her. Because I knew she’d choose my abusive asshole brother over me. But that alone was irrational and unreasonable. She’d known Roy a whole lot longer than she’d known me.

  Still, my anger won out, flooding every cell of my being. Fight or flight kicked in, and instead of answering, I said, “How about I tell you after you tell me why you let my brother beat you?”

  The color drained from her face.

  “That’s right. I know. But then, you already knew that. We just don’t discuss it. You may let him hurt you, but I won’t tolerate it, so tell your husband if he shows up at my apartment again, I’ll do a whole lot worse than kick him in the balls this time. Brother or not.”

  If possible, her face paled even more. “Roy came to see you?”

  “Yeah, the night I warned you that he was pissed. Why don’t you ask him about it?” I sneered, then got out of the car and stomped to my apartment. As I heard her car pull away, I was overwhelmed with regret and shame. Magnolia Mae Steele, master of pushing people away. I’d just hurt the one friend who’d given me a chance.

  God. Sometimes I really could be a cold-hearted bitch.

  When I got to the top of the steps, there was a large manila envelope waiting for me. It was propped against my front door, attached with several pieces of tape. I pulled it off and went into the apartment, close to tears. I had to apologize, but what could I possibly say to make things better? Sorry, Belinda. I didn’t mean to admit that I know my brother beats you didn’t seem appropriate.

  What a mess.

  My phone rang. It was Brady again, so I answered with a sigh, already weary of the conversation I knew we were about to have and the excuses I would have to fabricate. “Hey, Brady. Thanks for checking in. I’m fine.”

  He didn’t waste any time getting to the point. “Why were you at Walter Frey’s funeral?” he asked, sounding irritated.

  I considered protesting his question, but it didn’t feel fair. After all, just a few hours ago, I’d promised him I’d leave well enough alone. “I was there to pay my respects.” The fact that it was a partial truth made me feel better.

  “Why am I having a hard time believing that?”

  “Brady, you have to see this my way. Even if he was killed in a robbery, he was there because I asked him to go. If he hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t be dead.”

  “You feel guilty.”

  It took a second to speak past the lump in my throat. “Wouldn’t you?”

  His voice softened. “Maggie, it’s not your fault.”

  “So why were you there? Did you think the burglar was going to rob the body?”

  “Criminals who get off on what they’ve done sometimes feed off the grief of the victim’s family.”

  “That’s disgusting.” I started to pull the documents from the envelope, but out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the covers on my bed were messed up. It had definitely been made before I showed Belinda around the apartment—I’d made a point of it.

  “It’s rare, but—”

  “Someone’s been in my apartment,” I said, my heart leaping into my throat. Was it Walter Frey’s killer?

  Brady turned professional. “Are you there now?”

  Why would the killer have broken into my apartment? The way the bedding and my clothing had been tossed around, it looked like the intruder had been looking for something. “Yeah.” Maybe it was Roy seeking retaliation. But he seemed more like a smash and destroy kind of guy. Besides, he was probably in his office in downtown Nashville, over a half hour away depending on traffic.

  “Get outside and wait for me by the street. I’m on my way.”

  “I don’t think they’re still here.” Surely, if the killer were here, he would have jumped out at me already. But then it struck me why someone would be searching my apartment.

  The gold.

  “Magnolia. Get out now. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  But how could anyone know I had it? The only other person who knew about it was Colt.

  “Magnolia!”

  I shook my head. Brady was waiting for an answer, so I said in a huff, “Okay.”

  I hung up before he could respond, then immediately called Colt as I began to search my hiding places.

  As soon as he answered, I cut off his greeting and didn’t try to hide my panic. “Who have you talked to about the gold?”

  “What?” His voice hardened. “What happened?”

  “Someone’s been in my apartment, and they were looking for somethin
g.” I lifted the edge of the mattress. Sure enough, the two bags I’d hidden there were missing. “They’ve got at least one of the bags.”

  “Are you there now?” he asked, sounding breathless. “I’m on my way.”

  And so was Brady. “No! You can’t come. Brady’s coming over right now.”

  “You called the police? Are you insane?”

  “No! I was talking to him on the phone when I realized someone had been in the apartment. He figured out what was going on, so he’s coming over. You can’t show up too.”

  “Why not?”

  “Colt!”

  “Just checking to make sure you still had some sense in your head,” he grumbled. “You can’t tell him about the gold, Maggie. He’s going to ask you where it came from, and the minute you say your brother put it in your mother’s garage, you lose all possession of it. It’s not legally yours.”

  Only it was. Kind of. If my father hadn’t stolen it, of course. But that reminded me of Colt’s task for the day. “I’m not stupid. I’m not going to tell him. But someone knows it’s here. You talked to someone about that bar you took, didn’t you?”

  “It was very discreet, Maggie. And I swear I didn’t tell them where I’d gotten it.”

  “Did you find out anything about it?”

  “No. I went to a guy in Nashville. He’s going to get back with me. I trust him. He wouldn’t tell.”

  “Well, someone did.”

  “Did they get it all?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, stumbling over a pile of clothes and digging through my closet. “They got the bag between the mattresses . . .”

  “Oh, my God. Under your mattress? That’s the first place people look.”

  “I hid them in other places too, Colt!”

  “You better check them before Detective Eager to Get You out of Your Pants shows up.”

  “I’m not wearing pants,” I said, grabbing one of my black leather three-inch-heel boots.

  “All the better for him,” Colt said in a disgusted tone.

  I turned the boot over to dump the contents into my hand, but I already knew the bag was gone. The boot felt too light. “They got two,” I groaned.

  “You need to check every hiding place, and quick,” he said. “He’s gonna have his guys rip the place apart, and if they find one—”

  “I’ll look. But I have to go.”

  “Call me when you’re done.”

  I hung up and stuffed the phone in my pocket, already racing to the next hiding place. If Brady had still been at the cemetery, he’d be here in ten minutes or less. I’d checked nine places and turned up empty. I was reaching for the tenth, underneath the kitchen sink, when I heard a pounding on the door.

  “Magnolia!” Brady shouted. “Open the door.”

  “Just a minute!” I pulled out a tall container of antibacterial wipes, pushing out a breath of relief when I felt the reassuring weight of it.

  “Magnolia!”

  I pried off the lid and dumped out both the wipes and the bag of gold. There wasn’t time to put it back together, so I threw the container in the trash can and tucked the bag into my purse, where I’d been keeping the gun along with Daddy’s note and the list of serial numbers, before opening the door. An irate Brady was waiting on my front porch.

  “I told you to wait by the street.”

  “No one’s here, Brady.”

  He pushed past me and stood in the center of the room, glancing at the TV and my laptop on the island. “They didn’t take the electronics. Can you tell if they took anything else?”

  “No. I don’t have much, which is why I rented a furnished apartment. I left everything but my clothes in New York. I don’t have anything worth stealing.”

  He moved into the bedroom. “Well, they were looking for something.” He turned back to look at me. “Do you have any idea what it could be?”

  “No.”

  He held my gaze as though waiting for me to change my answer. A scowl crossed his face as he turned back to my closet. “Was the door unlocked? I didn’t see a sign of forced entry.”

  “No, it was locked. I have no idea how they got in.” And that scared the crap out of me.

  “Does anyone else have a key?” He moved in front of me. “Colt?”

  I knew he needed to ask, but his tone pissed me off. “No, Colt doesn’t have a key, not that it’s any of your business.”

  “As the detective who is currently investigating your break-in, it definitely is.”

  I glared up at him. “Then I want a new detective.” But I didn’t. Not really. I just needed to get Brady to back off. He wasn’t going to find anything that would help. I doubted he would even look for prints since nothing had been stolen. Well, nothing I could tell him about.

  But my threat was enough to soften him. “I’m only trying to help you, Maggie.”

  He was right. I sighed. “No one has a key except for my landlord.”

  “And he owns the house?” he asked.

  Dammit. I’d had a very pointed conversation with Miss Ava, and I suspected she knew a lot about a lot of people’s business. Had she come in here looking for something? But as soon as the idea popped into my head, I dismissed it. I had a hard time picturing Ava Milton, the pillar of Franklin society, ransacking my apartment.

  “She,” I said absently. “Ava Milton.”

  His slight reaction suggested he knew of her. In my opinion, any smart law enforcement officer should.

  “I think I’ll walk over and check if Ms. Milton saw anything,” he said.

  That was actually a good idea. Nothing slipped past her.

  “But I want to look around first.” He left the bedroom and headed into the kitchen. Of course his glance immediately landed on the container of antibacterial wipes in the trash can. He glanced at me. “Did you throw this away?”

  “Yeah . . .” I tried to sound confused.

  “It’s brand new.” He leaned closer. “And the wipes are still wet.”

  What could he be thinking? “So?”

  “Why would you throw it away?”

  “What are you, the waste police? What does it matter?” When he continued to stare at me, I used the first excuse that came to me, no matter how much of a diva it made me sound like. “I didn’t like the smell.”

  His eyebrows lifted slightly. “So you took the lid off and dumped the entire thing into the trash can? Wouldn’t the smell bother you even more that way?”

  “Are you serious?” I asked, getting angry. “You’re asking me about throwing away wipes when someone broke into my apartment? I never asked you to come over, Brady. I sure didn’t think you’d accuse me of anything.”

  The tension eased from his shoulders. “I’m not accusing you of anything, Maggie. I’m just trying to figure out what happened.”

  “I don’t know what happened.”

  He moved closer and put his hand on my shoulder. “You don’t have to know what happened. That’s for me to figure out.”

  “But they didn’t take anything.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes.”

  He pulled out his phone and swiped the screen.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m getting someone over here to dust for prints.”

  Maybe I was being stupid, but I didn’t want the police all over my apartment. “No. I don’t want to file a report.”

  Lowering his hand, he gave me a worried glance. “Someone broke into your apartment. I already told you that I have a bad feeling about your safety. Please let me make the call.”

  What if he got the prints of whoever did this? That would be useful information. But the thief surely hadn’t been stupid enough to leave prints behind. “No.”

  “Maggie! What the hell are you doing?”

  What could I tell him that wouldn’t make me look more suspicious? “Because I might know who did it.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You said you didn’t know.”

  “It only just oc
curred to me. I think it was Roy.”

  “Your brother? Why would he break in?”

  “Momma gave me a necklace that belonged to her mother,” I said, making it up on the fly. “Roy demanded that I give it to him.”

  “Your brother broke into your apartment to take your mother’s necklace?” Just when I was sure he was going to accuse me of being the liar I was, his eyes filled with anger. “I think I need to go have a talk with your brother.”

  “What? No! You’ll only make things worse.”

  “Maggie, the man physically hurt you during the Max Goodwin investigation. Was he the one who was at your apartment before I showed up the other night?”

  “Let it go, Brady.”

  “Not if he’s breaking into your apartment. He’s dangerous.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I talked to him two days ago. I know what he’s capable of.”

  I froze. “What does that mean?”

  He shook his head and glanced around the room. “How did I not see this when I was here before? It wasn’t Colt. It was Roy, after all.”

  “I’m not filing charges, Brady.” I grabbed his arm and started to drag him to the door.

  He pulled me to a halt. “Why the hell not?”

  “He’s my brother. This will kill my mother.”

  “Do you really think your mother wants him hurting you?”

  “She’s dying.”

  His eyes widened.

  Dammit. I hadn’t meant to let that slip. “She told me when I came back. That’s part of the reason I’m still here. She only has a few months left, and she loves my brother. Asshole or not, he was here for her when I wasn’t. It would destroy her if he was charged with anything, especially if it was against me. I can’t do that to her. I’m not sure she’d forgive me, and our relationship is shaky as it is.”

  “Maggie.”

  Genuine tears filled my eyes. “I can’t. You have to understand that.”

  He sucked in a deep breath, then pushed it out. “I’m worried about you. Surely you can understand that you’re in danger.”

  “He wouldn’t hurt me.”

  “Yet he already has. I saw it with my own eyes.”