“She was angry because I kept her from getting some award she was after—we all did, from what she said.” His voice, while still quiet, adopted more of a wooden quality as he continued. “Sally was out for revenge.”
“Revenge?”
He nodded. “On us.”
“What did you say?” she asked. “How did you react?”
“I told her I understood the knee-jerk reaction to exact revenge. But then I used the very thing she held over my head as an example of why she shouldn’t.”
A glance in the rearview mirror turned up no sign of a car behind them so she brought the ambulance to a stop in the middle of the driveway. “So Mr. Nelson was right about the whole blackmail thing, after all,” she mused. “She really was holding stuff over your heads.”
“She said she had proof that I’d written the letter to Mrs. Lowry’s husband . . . that I’m the one who destroyed that marriage and, therefore, drove Mrs. Lowry to kill herself.” He took a deep breath and let it out, slowly. “She said she’d find a way to destroy my career with it.”
“And you believed her?” Winnie asked.
“Of course I did. I know, better than anyone, what revenge can do.”
“What did she want from you in exchange for keeping your secret?”
“Money. Lots of money.” A tired laugh filled the space between them for as long as it took Winnie to blink. “Though, if she’d known how little I’d been making before I got here, she could have saved herself the postage stamp she used to entice me up here in the first place.”
Winnie peeked in the rearview mirror once again. Still nothing. “Did she use the reality talent show audition on you, too?”
Momentary surprise gave way to a slow nod. “She used it on all of us. Same letter. Same ploy. And it worked.”
“Do you know what she had on the others?”
Silence blanketed the space between them, prompting her to repeat the question.
“I only know of one for sure,” he murmured.
“And?”
“At this time, I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Even if it means righting an egregious wrong?” In the wake of yet another round of silence, Winnie considered everything she’d learned thus far and used it to formulate one more question. “Why didn’t you tell the police that she’d been blackmailing you?”
“Fear, I guess. I don’t know what she had on everyone else. My quest for revenge cost a woman her life. And Sally’s quest for revenge cost her her own.” He traced his finger across the hem of his cargo shorts and then stopped, his anguish raw. “What happens if something I say destroys another person’s life?”
There was so much to absorb, so much to examine and figure out in relation to what happened to Sally. But even so, there was one thing she knew for sure—George Watkins didn’t kill Sally. She knew that just as surely as she knew the reason he’d given up magic to become a mime . . .
“Maybe, instead of living a life in silence, you need to use your words to apologize—to the teacher’s husband, to her family, and to yourself.”
His eyes crackled to life again with an anger that didn’t bow to hurt this time. “You say that as if apologizing for what I did could bring Mrs. Lowry back . . .”
“Remaining silent hasn’t brought her back, either, has it?”
Chapter 24
Winnie leaned against the counter, her gaze following Ty as he raced out of the kitchen and through the open sliding door with Lovey close on his heels.
“That kid gives the best hugs, you know?”
“I do, and I’m glad. You looked like you needed one.” Renee towel-dried the last of Winnie’s dessert platters and stacked it atop the rest. “Is everything okay, Winnie? You seem distracted.”
Winnie felt her smile falter but fought back by directing her friend’s attention off her face and out into the backyard. Ty had commandeered a leafy branch and was dragging it through the grass in an attempt to get Lovey to play. Lovey, of course, responded on her own terms, alternating between aloof-spectator and attack-cat modes. “They’re kind of cute together. Maybe you should keep her.”
“Please. You talk a good game, but you’ve gotten attached to that cat.”
“Attached?” Winnie redirected her attention to Renee and a kitchen that showed no signs of having hosted a dozen ten-year-old boys less than an hour earlier. “Don’t you think you might be overstating things a bit?”
“Nope.”
“How do you figure?”
“Easy. You came back to get her, didn’t you?” Renee crossed to a wrapped plate on the counter next to the refrigerator, extracted two familiar-looking chocolate chip cookies, and handed one to Winnie. “Yes, I stashed aside a few of your cookies for myself while you were rounding the kids up for dessert. Sue me.”
Winnie broke off a bite of the cookie and popped it in her mouth. “So what’d you think of George in action?”
“George?”
“Don’t play dumb. You know who I’m talking about.” Winnie pointed at the cabinet tasked with housing glasses and, at Renee’s nod, helped herself to two while Renee secured the milk from the refrigerator.
When their glasses were filled, Renee led the way to the four-top table that looked out over the backyard via a bay window. “The kids loved him. In fact, after you left to drive him back to the retreat center, they took turns miming for me. Ty’s friend Sam was actually pretty good at it.”
“I mean, what’s your read on him—as a person?” She broke off another piece of cookie and then chased it down with a gulp of milk. “Do you think he’s trustworthy?”
Renee peeked out at her son. “I think he’s good with the kids, and he certainly had a lot of patience with them. But it’s hard to say much more than that when he doesn’t speak.”
“He spoke to me. On the way back to his place just now.” She shrugged off the shock Renee wore and made short work of her remaining cookie. “He was blackmailed. They all were.”
Renee stood, grabbed the cookie plate from beside the fridge, and plunked it down on the table between them. “Tell me.”
And so she did. About Sally’s ploy to get these five Charlton alums to Silver Lake, the secret she was holding over George’s head, and, finally, the woman’s demand for money in return for her silence. Renee, in turn, took it all in while eating her way through the limited number of leftover cookies. When Winnie was done, Renee took another look at her son and then brought her elbows to the table and her chin to the pillow created by her hand.
“And you really don’t think he’s the one?”
“You mean the one who killed her?” At Renee’s answering nod, Winnie, too, looked out the window. Only instead of watching Ty and Lovey, she found herself back in the Dessert Squad with George seated beside her in the passenger seat. “I don’t. The anguish on his face was so real, so raw. And he told me what she had on him. I don’t know why he’d tell me if he’s the one who killed her.”
“Does he know what Sally had on the other four?”
She forced herself back into her present surroundings and took another sip of milk. “He knows one of them for sure, but not the others.”
“And that one?” Renee prodded.
“He wouldn’t tell me.” Winnie looked down at the remaining gulp or two of milk in her glass but stopped short of actually finishing it in favor of the thoughts she needed to verbalize. “But at least now the notion of blackmailing has been confirmed. Now we just need to track down the specifics as they pertain to each artist. Once we do, maybe we’ll be able to figure out who retaliated with murder.”
“So how do you propose doing—”
“Hang on a minute, I’ve got a call coming in.” Winnie leaned forward against the edge of the table and retrieved her phone from the back pocket of her jeans. A glance at the screen had her shoving it back into its star
ting place and reaching for the last of her milk. “Go ahead, continue.”
Renee pinned her with a stare.
“What?” She paused her glass en route to her mouth. “Continue . . .”
“You can’t keep doing that, Winnie.”
“I can’t keep drinking milk?”
Adding a huffy breath to her eye roll, Renee crossed her arms and waited.
At a loss for what the issue was, Winnie splayed her hands at her sides. “What?”
“You can’t keep playing games, Winnie. It’s not fair. To you or to Jay.”
“G-games?” she stammered around the sudden whoosh in her ears.
“If you want to end your relationship with Jay—end it. If you don’t—then you two need to stop letting Scream Queen dictate the terms of your relationship. We’ve talked about this, remember?” Renee uncrossed her arms and helped herself to the last cookie. “What you’re doing now—this ignoring-his-call thing? That’s accomplishing nothing, zilch, zip, nada—”
Winnie released her hold on her glass and lifted her hands in surrender. “Okay. Okay. I got it. Point taken.”
“You’ve got to talk to him, Winnie. If this matters to him—if this matters to both of you, then you have to find a way to make it work.”
Renee was right. Dodging Jay’s phone calls was stupid. Childish, even. Winnie had never been one to run from problems. In fact, problems usually pushed her into action. So why change course now?
“You know I’m right, Winnie. It’s written all over your face.”
Slowly, she raised her gaze to Renee’s. “Am I really that transparent?”
“To me? Yes. But that’s because you’re my BFF.” Renee motioned toward the now-empty plate in front of them and then slumped back against her chair. “And as your BFF, you’re supposed to stop me from eating everything in sight. No one will look at me twice if you don’t.”
“You can’t walk down the street without getting double and triple takes.”
“As if . . .”
Winnie pushed her chair back from the table and stood, hands on hips. “Renee Ballentine, you are a knockout. Any man with a brain in their head knows this.”
“Not true. Bob didn’t.”
“I repeat, any man with a brain in their head knows this.” She dropped her hands to her sides and came around the table to squat beside her friend. “Bob is a fool, Renee. His actions had nothing to do with you and everything to do with him.”
“I want to believe that, Winnie. But it’s hard. I mean, how could things go from so right to so wrong in the blink of a bimbo’s eye?”
“If they’d been as right as you say, it wouldn’t have.” She followed Renee’s gaze out the window and across the yard to the boy who was now lounging on the grass, staring up at the sky, with a contented smile on his face and Lovey’s front paws stretched across his chest. “That little boy out there? You mean the world to him. And, when the time is right, you’ll meet a man who feels that way about you, too. Because he is out there, Renee. And he wants to find you just as much as you want to find him.”
Renee’s eyes shone bright with tears she refused to shed. “Do you believe Jay is that man for you?”
“I do.”
“Then get out of here and go make things right.” Renee stood, pulled Winnie in for a hug, and then released her with a shove toward the sliding glass door. “You go get Lovey and tell Ty I need him in here to help get your platters and stuff out to the car.”
Winnie stopped midway to the door and turned to look at her friend. “I love you, Renee. You know that, right?”
“Don’t you dare make me cry, Winnie Johnson!” Like a bird preparing to take flight, Renee flapped her hands at her sides in an effort to remain upbeat and cheerful. “Don’t you dare . . .”
Feeling her own eyes begin to mist, Winnie resumed her trek to the slider and stepped out onto the patio. “Okay, Lovey, it’s time to go home.”
Lovey looked from her, to Ty, and back again.
“Lovey, come on. We’ve got stuff to do.”
Again, Lovey looked between the boy serving as her pillow and Winnie. When she didn’t budge, Ty scooped her up and carried her over to the patio. “Lovey is a pretty cool cat, Winnie. She’s really smart, too!”
Winnie reined in the urge to laugh out of fear it might come across as mocking. “Oh? What makes you say that?”
“When I said your name earlier, she looked right at you through the bay window.” Ty dropped his emerald green eyes to the cat in his arms and smiled. “Didn’t you, Lovey?”
“She—she did?” Winnie echoed.
“Uh-huh.”
Interesting . . .
“Can you carry her to the car while your mom and I carry the plates and stuff?” She pulled the sliding door open and motioned Ty in first. “I’m sure Lovey would like a few more minutes with you.”
“Yeah, sure, I can carry her!”
Winnie followed them into the house and through the kitchen, stopping briefly at the counter to claim the plates Renee was unable to hold. “The party came out great, Renee. And thank you for keeping track of Lovey while I took George back to his place.”
“Thanks for taking George back to his place.”
“My pleasure.” Winnie followed Ty and Renee into the garage and out the other side to the Dessert Squad. Once the platters and plates were secured in back, she opened the driver’s-side door and watched as Ty deposited Lovey inside.
“Catch you later, Lovey.”
“Yes, you will.” Winnie kissed Ty on the top of his head and then moved on to Renee’s cheek. “And I’ll see you on Monday morning.”
“I’ll be there.” Renee wrapped her arms around her son and guided him onto the grass as Winnie slid into place behind the steering wheel. “I can stop and pick up some coffee on my way in if you’d like.”
“You could, or I could ask Mr. Nelson to make us some,” she teased.
“My mom says Mr. Nelson’s coffee tastes like mud.”
Pausing her hand atop the gearshift, Winnie laughed. “That’s because it does.”
“Oh! Oh! That’s what I forgot to ask you about this morning.” Renee guided her son back one more step and then smiled at Winnie across the top of the boy’s blond head. “Did he really wear a top hat?”
Winnie drew back. “Did who wear a top hat?”
“Mr. Nelson.”
Dropping her gaze to Ty’s, Winnie tried to get a read on whether or not she was the only one clueless over the current topic of conversation. But before she could come to a conclusion, Renee brought her up to speed. “You know . . . For his magic show last night. I bet he was completely adorable.”
“His magic show . . .” The words fell away as a reality that was too painful to voice aloud delivered a well-deserved sucker punch to her heart.
• • •
No matter how hard she stared at the first-floor windows of 15 Serenity Lane, there was no sign of Mr. Nelson.
No eyes peeking out at her from between the slats of his new blinds . . .
No waving from his favorite chair—the one positioned specifically for the purpose of watching the comings and goings of their neighbors . . .
No bang from the screen door as he caned his way onto the porch to welcome her home . . .
Winnie swallowed back the bile she felt rising in her throat and shifted her focus onto the passenger seat. “I hate myself right now, Lovey. I really do.”
Lovey looked from Winnie to the front porch and back again.
“How could I have been so stupid?” She pulled the end of her ponytail in front of her shoulder and gave it a sharp tug. “He was so excited to show me the tricks he learned, and I forgot. How pathetic is that?”
Pretty stinkin’ pathetic, that’s for sure . . .
She took one last inventory of
her housemate’s front windows and then gathered her purse and keys and stepped onto the driveway. “C’mon, Lovey, we’ve got some serious apologizing to do.”
Lovey paused in her journey across the front seat to pin Winnie with an irritated glare.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ve got some serious apologizing to do.” She watched Lovey jump onto the ground and then slammed the door shut. “Does it ever occur to you that we’re in this stuff together now, Your Highness? That maybe I could use a little moral support from you once in a while?”
“I thought it was just old people who talked to themselves.”
Winnie whirled around to find Harold Jenkins grinning at her from atop his motorized scooter. A quick scan of the road yielded Cornelia Wright and her sheltie, Con-Man, little more than a driveway and a half ahead.
“Good afternoon, Harold.” She lifted her hand in what she hoped was a friendly wave. “Lovey and I were just having a chat, is all.”
“It doesn’t look like she’s listening.” He directed Winnie’s attention back to the spot where Lovey had been less than a second earlier and, sure enough, she was gone.
She looked around frantically. “Where did she go?”
“She’s waiting on the porch.”
Winnie’s search shifted to the aforementioned location and the golden-eyed cat peeking inside Mr. Nelson’s living room window. Relief kicked in but not for long. “Thanks, Harold. I was afraid for a minute that I lost her.”
She took two steps toward the porch and then turned back to the road. “Hey, Harold? Have you seen Mr. Nelson today?”
Harold tapped his finger to his chin in thought. “No, can’t say that I have. In fact, when I was following Cornelia—I mean, going for a walk earlier—he wasn’t sitting on the porch playing chess the way he usually does.”
The bile was back. “He—he wasn’t?”
“No. And I remember, because I had a joke all ready for him. A real good one, this time.”
The guilt she’d been harboring since she left Renee’s transitioned into something a lot more like dread as she looked, again, at the first-floor windows. Squinting, she tried to make out her housemate’s form lurking behind strategically tilted blinds, but there was nothing.
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