Until she stole one of my friends’ fathers right out from under that friend’s mother’s nose. Needless to say, sixth grade ended up a hellish year, where I sat alone on the playground at lunchtime and recess.
“Well, you have to admit, she seems happy with your stepfather. Maybe true love has changed her?”
That she did. She smiled and laughed up at him, cooed over his every word. Bart was as handsome as Dita was beautiful, his dark suit expensive, his cufflinks like shiny jewels at his wrists. Everything about him screamed money—just the way mom liked her men. He was totally snow white, which was unusual for my mother. She typically liked them darker, but I guess it didn’t matter what color their hair was if they had a fat bank account.
Bart held himself with a regal air, his wide shoulders making my mother’s look diminutive and delicate. And I’m sure he was an awesome guy. A guy who’d no doubt have his heart broken before Dita was through with him.
Had she broken Hugh Granite’s heart?
And where was my sperm-donating Japanese star of stage and screen, anyway? Why was he just now popping into my life? Was he paranormal—a warlock, maybe? And what would he say when he and my mother finally met up again after thirty-two years? Should I warn her that he was here? Was he even still here? Had they already run into each other? I shuddered at the thought.
As always, Win read my mind. “Do you think you should mention to your mother your alleged father is here? Won’t it be awkward for all involved that he just popped in after all this time, after she never told you who he was to begin with? Wouldn’t she be the person to ask if the Hugh Granite is really your father?”
“I don’t even know where he is, and we don’t even know if he’s telling the truth, Win. I gave a lot of thought to what you said about people trying to con me for my money. Maybe that’s all this is?”
“I know you have a lot on your plate tonight, but giving your mother fair warning is the very least you can do, con man or not.”
Win was right. He was always right. “You’re right. I don’t like it, but you’re right. If you see her, shoot me the memo, okay?”
“Dove? I thought you were going to try to get past all the baggage with your mother and move forward. Circumstances in your life being what they are right now.”
I bobbed my head. That was fair. I had said that. This was all part of turning over a new leaf. I’d better get turning.
“You’re right again. I promise I’ll go find her and we’ll chat.”
But Forrest grabbed me from behind, wrapping his arm around my waist, and I didn’t stop him. “Dance, milady?” he whispered in my ear.
I giggled and let him spin me around before leading me to the dance floor set up in the middle of the lawn, surrounded by dreamy globe lights. The quartet was on a break and the small orchestra had begun a zippy tune.
Smiling, I said, “Just for a minute and then I have to find my mother.”
“Color me intrigued. The Dita Cartwright, back in Ebenezer Falls after all this time,” he teased.
Even more intriguing—that everyone prefaced my parents’ names with a preposition—or was that an article? Again, another decision I was incapable of making.
“Live and in the flesh,” I remarked dryly. I hadn’t shared much with Forrest about my mother, not in the way I had with Win. It was too personal; too embarrassing for someone I was just getting to know.
Forrest twirled me, pulling me close and swaying. “Did I already say you look amazing tonight?”
I grinned, my cheeks flushing hot. “You did. But I don’t mind hearing it again.”
“Then you look amazing tonight,” he whispered once more before brushing his lips over mine.
I didn’t even have time to process Forrest’s kiss or how it made me feel before, Ginger Jenkins, tapped me on the shoulder, sliding in beside us to sway in sync with our movements.
“There you are, Stevie! We’ve been looking all over for you! How’s our favorite medium these days?” Ginger smiled broadly, her petite height shadowed by the linebacker frame of her husband, Ronald Terrence Jenkins, the presiding mayor of Ebenezer Falls.
“I’m good, Mrs. Jenkins. Glad you could make it.”
I knew why her smile was so bright and what she was angling for. It was an election year, and Win had been right: since I’d come into all this money, everyone wanted a piece of me.
“Stevie, wonderful to see you—terrific party. And you look lovely,” Ron said, his fake politician grin firmly in place as he tipped his glass of champagne in my direction.
“You, too, Mr. Mayor. Funny how things change, huh? I remember when you used to be my seventh-grade science teacher and now look. You’re the mayor!”
Ron brightened his smile as Ginger patted him on his barrel chest with affection and rocked with him. “We’d love to talk to you about our upcoming campaign if you have time this week.”
I smiled and nodded distractedly before Forrest whisked me away again, saving me from putting my foot in my mouth—which I was often wont to do.
I sighed in relief against him, patting him on the back. “Thank you. I never know what to say when people start talking about money. I just inherited it. I don’t know the first thing about campaign donations.”
The story I told everyone who wondered how I was making it rain cash was simple. I told them a dear friend left it to me—and that wasn’t far from the truth.
I’d heard a rumor or two about me and some torrid affair with an older man (or “just like her mother”), but for the most part, everyone just took me at my word.
Forrest laughed, gripping my hand while his other rested at my waist. “Me either, but Ron’s campaigning hard, so look out. Though, if I’m honest, someday I’d like to hear all about how you came into all this.”
I looked around at all the things money bought. The mimes, slipping in and out of the clusters of people in their black-and-white striped shirts and white face paint. The orchestra, sitting in a pit in front of the dance floor with the garden as their backdrop, playing Sinatra tunes.
The Cirque acrobats, twisting and arabesque-ing with colorful sheets and hula-hoops, arcing in graceful leaps beneath the fairy lights. My amazing front lawn, high on a cliff, overlooking the Sound with tables dotting the landscape, bright lanterns glowing atop them. The endless array of expensive food and ice sculptures on tables with candelabras, leaving the horizon with a soft glow.
And the house. The most beautiful place I’d ever lived, big, sprawling, with every amenity known to man. And looking at it, the wide front porch, the lantern lights lining the cobblestone walkway, the stained-glass door, the beautiful white brick exterior with steel-blue shutters, was when I realized—these things were all awesome. I loved every one of them.
I won’t lie and tell you life isn’t easier with some cash. Because it is. I no longer worry about the light bill or paying my rent on time. I didn’t even have to work as Madam Zoltar 2.0 if I didn’t want to.
But I’d give all of it up if I could meet Win. Just once.
I’d go back to that fleabag hotel where I’d started when I first came back to Ebenezer Falls and eat one-dollar tacos for the rest of my life if I could just see him.
If I could sit next to the handsome man I’d seen in that picture I found in the back of my closet. The picture of Win and a woman named Miranda. The woman he claims murdered him. Who I came to find out was a fellow spy and his former lover.
The picture I still have in my room—still mostly unexplained because Win claimed he wasn’t quite ready to tell me the details.
It was the people in my house who made me happiest, who fulfilled me, and Win was a huge part of that, even without knowing the full story of his life or death.
“I ask you, Dove, how did that mime get in the mix? He looks like he’s kung-fu fighting his way out of a trash receptacle.”
I fought laughing out loud at Win’s comment while still in Forrest’s arms as I looked in the direction of the mime he ref
erred to and wrinkled my nose. In the middle of a group of several of the shop owners from town, his black-and-white striped shirt and white face paint glowing in the semi-dark, he attempted to tip his hat and dropped it into Sandy McNally’s plate of shrimp.
Ooo, he really was bad. He’d moved on to another trick, but he didn’t look like he was pulling an invisible rope—not even close. He looked like he’d taken a wrong turn somewhere and shown up a virgin to the hooker convention.
The other mimes were quite adept, producing flowers out of nowhere, pretending to walk tightropes, but this guy…let’s just say while he was muscular and fit, and looked good in the tight outfit, I hope he wasn’t going to quit his day job.
The crowd began to snicker a little at just how atrocious he was, making me feel uncomfortable for him. “That poor man,” I said to Forrest, slowing our dancing to a halt. “Let me go see if I can talk him out of any more performing and into some food. I’ll catch you in a bit.”
Pressing a quick kiss to his cheek, I slipped off the dance floor and went to see if I could convince the most awkward mime ever he should just grab some food and hang out.
But that was just before the crowd swelled as some of the waiters arrived with fresh plates of the big hit of the night—the shrimp wrapped in bacon and stuffed with jalapeño cream cheese.
When I managed to find my way past them and the crowd waiting for the food, the awkward mime had disappeared.
But Bart hadn’t. He strolled up to me, tall and maturely handsome, his shock of thick white hair even whiter against his tan. “Stevie! Have I told you how good it is to finally meet you in the flesh?”
I smiled up at him, remembering my words to Win that I was going to try to leave my baggage behind me. It wasn’t Bart’s fault my mother wasn’t Donna Reed. “It’s good to finally meet you, too. Where’s my mother?”
“Oh, she’s floating around, working her magic on all her old friends, if you know what I mean,” he said on a wink.
My mother didn’t have any old friends here in Ebenezer. And when he used the word “magic,” I grew a little nervous. Did he mean magic-magic? Or magical charms? Either could apply when it came to Dita.
Hooking my arm through his, I caught a whiff of his spicy cologne. He even smelled expensive. “So tell me a little about you, Bart. Where do you come from? What do you do for a living? What’s it like to live in Rome?”
The warm smile never left his green eyes. “It’s actually Greece, and I dabble in the market from time to time. Speaking of the market. I’d love to advise you.” He leaned in and whispered the next words. “Dita told me all about your recent coup and it sounds like you need an investment planner. I’m your man. If you’re looking, of course.”
“I’ll keep that in mind—”
Bart’s phone rang, interrupting any more conversation. He held up his phone, the shiny Rolex on his wrist flashing in the dark. “You’ll excuse me, won’t you?”
I smiled and patted his arm. “Of course. We’ll have a nice long chat later, after the party.”
Bart nodded and moved back off into the crowd of people, stepping around Sandwich, who was looking very smart in his tux, even if his bow tie was a little off. I nudged him with my shoulder. “Find any sardines in the sea of escargot and goat cheese?”
He barked a laugh, his shortly cropped dark hair glistening beneath the lights. “No sardines ever again for me.” Dropping his hands into his pockets, he smiled wide, his easygoing expression much different than the one I’d witnessed just two months ago at the scene of a murder. “So, this place, Stevie? It’s pretty amazing.”
I curtsied and winked. “No big deal. Just a couple of marathons on the DIY channel, YouTube videos, and some two by fours and paint. Easy-peasy.”
Sandwich smiled, flashing his white teeth. “You wear it well, Stevie. This house somehow suits you, and you look great tonight, by the way. Not that you don’t always look great, but tonight, you look extra great. Thanks for inviting me. Good eats.”
“Miss Cartwright?” someone drawled from behind me. Someone who was the bane of my existence.
Ah. My favorite police officer was here. I turned to find Officer Nelson, also known as Dana (I was still snickering over that), and occasionally known by me as Officer By The Book, looked quite dapper all dressed up. “If it isn’t Mr. Sunshine and Chuckles. Are you having a nice time, Officer Nelson?”
His lips lifted at the corners, otherwise known as the rare beast called a smile. “I am. This shrimp is pretty dang good.” He held up his hors d’oeuvre plate to show me, his always-serious eyes dancing with a flicker of delight.
“Good. I’m glad to see you’re enjoying yourself. So, anyone save your life lately?” I teased, batting my eyelashes in reference to my last tango with a killer.
Sandwich snorted. “Told ya, she grudges and she never forgets.”
I didn’t know Officer Nelson’s story. He was already a part of the Ebenezer Falls Police Department when I moved back. I didn’t know where he came from or where he’d been before here. The only thing I can tell you is, he’s one tough nut to crack. Like walnut-tough to crack. Wheedling information out of him about a crime and any hints or clues is about as easy as getting a hand mirror away from my mother.
Speaking of my mother, I promised Win I’d find her and warn her about Hugh. Where was Hugh, anyway? It was like he’d disappeared.
I grinned at Sandwich. “You don’t rack up points if you forget, Sandwich,” I teased.
Officer Nelson held up a shrimp and saluted me. “I, for one, never forget, Miss Cartwright.”
As I chuckled along with them, Chester waved to me, pushing his stout body through the crowd.
“There’s my girl!” Chester, Forrest’s grandfather, surrounded me in a warm embrace, wrapping his arm around my waist and chucking me under the chin. “Pretty as a picture, you are. Saw your mother with that guy Bart. Still looks just like she did the day she left Ebenezer. It’s uncanny. Handsome couple, the two of them, huh?”
“Not nearly as handsome as you, buddy. Who’d you buy all that good looking from?” I joked, straightening his white and red polka dot bow tie and letting my hands rest on his chest.
He looked up at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners, his balding white head shiny. “Aw, you stop, young lady. I’m just the gardener.”
“Bah. I’d have never made it without you, Chester. You’re the flower whisperer, as far as I’m concerned.” When his face turned appropriately red, I asked, “Did you get something to eat? I made sure they had pickled herring and crackers just for you.”
“I’m fine, toots. You go enjoy your company. But save an old man a dance, would ya? Forrest ain’t the only one who’s got twinkle toes.”
I barked a laugh and pressed a kiss to his round cheek. “I love you, Chester. You’re one of a kind.”
Letting go of him, I turned and scanned the crowd, hoping to locate my mother and Bart, or even Hugh at this point, but to no avail. They were somewhere swallowed up in the crowd of partiers.
So I strolled through the people who’d gone off and formed their own groups, waving, smiling, thanking everyone for coming, reintroducing myself, passing the time and avoiding the inevitable questions about my sudden wealth and my day job as Madam Zoltar 2.0.
There was some kind of commotion over by the big champagne glass of water, but I couldn’t quite catch what was going on before someone grabbed my arm.
“Stevie Cartwright!”
I was caught off guard for a moment until I looked a bit closer to the man calling my name and recognized him. “Elias Little?”
“Yeah!” he said on a grin. Sticking out his hand, he grabbed mine and pumped it. “Good to see you after all these years!”
I’m pretty sure Elias knew little to nothing about me—at least not from high school. We’d traveled in very different circles then, but he hadn’t changed much. Still wearing those horn-rimmed glasses, still sporting a crew cut and kind brown eyes.
“You look great, Elias. It’s good to see you, too.”
He leaned in as though he were going to share a secret (also, he still smelled like band practice—resin and a hint of sweaty, secondhand band uniform, to be precise). “So, wanna give a guy a scoop?”
“Scoop?”
“Yeah. All this.” He spread his arm, covered in a brown tweed jacket, and waved it at the house. “Didn’t just happen, did it? I mean, you had to get the money from somewhere, right? So I was hoping to do a feature on you in the Herald. You know, hometown girl makes good while she reads your mind or something? There’s gotta be a story there, Stevie—there always is.”
I snickered. “I don’t read minds, Elias. I speak to the dead on behalf of the living.”
He gave me the skeptical look everyone gives me, the dimples on either side of his mouth fading. “Riiight. A medium. Either way, I’d love to feature you in my column. Whaddya say?”
Just as I was about to politely decline, I heard a scream—a scream that chilled me to the bone, slicing right through me.
Oddly, it was a familiar scream.
One I swear I’d heard before.
In that moment, I wondered if the Bats had disobeyed orders to stay put in my room.
But then I saw my mother—on the top step of the porch stairs—her face riddled with horror and disbelief, the light shawl she wore falling about her slender shoulders as she clutched it to her breast.
My stomach sank right to the bottom of my sparkly shoes when she cried out, “Bart! It’s Bart! He’s dead!”
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Play That Funky Music White Koi (A Lemon Layne Mystery Book 2) Page 19