by Kym Roberts
I really hoped Reba Sue and Cade had a bad date.
“Did you hear?”
I looked up from my phone, where I was searching the internet for the telltale signs of arsenic poisoning. Scarlet was doing that full-of-purpose walk that she and she alone had, straight toward the counter. She’d changed since the morning, when she’d been makeup free and looked like the girl next door. Now she looked like the rich girl in town, her hair in that Grace Kelly swoop she wore so well. Her makeup was applied to perfection, with eyeliner stretching out her eyes in the style so prevalent in the sixties and now again, thanks to Adele. She had on a vintage dress that hugged her curves in a soft light blue satin all the way down past her knees, which complemented her light complexion and her red hair. Her heels were nude but as high as a stepladder.
I looked down at the gray Hooked on Books T-shirt I’d changed into after getting my hair done. It matched my cutoffs and flip-flops perfectly. A sigh escaped. I needed to do something about my limited wardrobe. “Hear what?” I asked.
The door swished open and I waved at my neighboring business owner. With a quick “Hello,” Betty the quilt maker, along with Mary and her daughter Aubrey, made a beeline for the second floor. To her credit, Aubrey looked about as uncomfortable as a chicken in a fox den. There was no way the teenager would ever want to work in The Barn again.
Scarlet started shaking her head. “You’re going to see that a lot today.”
“See what a lot?”
The door swished open and Franz walked in with his white baker’s hat and jacket still on. He waved, then waddled as quickly as he could to the second floor.
“That,” Scarlet said. “The newspaper ran an article about Scott Duncan’s arrest and how he found literary gold in the loft of The Book Barn Princess. They hinted that there might be more.”
The door swished open yet again and Mrs. Phelps, my old English teacher, walked in. Dressed in a suit with a knee-length skirt and a purse that she clutched in front of her, she headed for the stairs, but then stopped and approached the counter, her chunky heels clopping on the floor the entire way. “Hello, dear,” she said over the top of her cat-eye glasses.
“Mrs. Phelps, it’s so nice to see you.”
“Thank you, dear. I’ve been meaning to come by to ask if you had any old dictionaries or encyclopedia sets you could donate to the school. I’d like my students to be able to have a real reference book on hand instead of just the internet for their final papers. It’s an exercise in old fashioned research and when their papers are complete, they must submit a hard copy instead of uploading them. They’re lucky I don’t make them use typewriters.”
I nodded, understanding her desire to have them do off-line research papers. “I’ve seen several sets, but I’m not sure where they are. Could I box them up and bring them to the school later?”
“Oh, that would be lovely, dear. Thank you. There should already be a box of dictionaries around here that Bobby Ray was saving for me.”
“I’ll be sure to bring those as well,” I assured her.
“Your father would be so proud of you.” She scrunched her shoulders and her nose up at the same time and smiled while holding the handle of her purse up to her chest. “I’m just going to have a peek at what’s available in the loft.”
Scarlet’s eyes rolled back in her head.
I grinned. “Help yourself, Mrs. Phelps.”
As she walked away, Scarlet whispered, “People think you’ve got a treasure chest upstairs.”
I shrugged. “Let them. It’s good for business.”
“Well, that’s not what I came to tell you. Mateo has Scott Duncan on a seventy-two-hour hold for investigation of theft, right?”
“Yeah, we knew that last night.” My response caused Scarlet to wave at me to lower my voice while she gave furtive glances over her shoulder as Vicki and Gwen entered the store. The two women smiled and then slunk their shoulders and headed for the stairway like everyone else.
I was beginning to think the whole town was two rocks short of a box.
Scarlet leaned in farther. “But we didn’t know he would be serving a search warrant on Scott’s house and that the search warrant also covered evidence linking Scott to Marlene’s murder.” Her eyes sparkled with excitement.
The sadness of it all, however, was starting to take a toll on me. “Wow” was all I could muster.
She pulled back, forgetting her earlier desire to keep our conversation on the down low. “Wow? Is that all you’re going to say?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Maybe you could start with thank God they’re getting closer to catching Marlene’s killer.”
I shrugged. “That’s kind of a given.”
“But?” Scarlet wasn’t about to let it go.
I paused as two more customers entered the store. The two football players, who promptly made their way to the stairs, completely ignored me on their way up to the second floor. If they weren’t on their lunch break, they were definitely skipping school . . . to come to the bookstore. Which was even odder, considering they were going to be in a world of hurt if Coach showed up as planned to work on the faucet in the tearoom for me.
“Don’t you think it’s sad? If Mr. Duncan killed Marlene, that means he probably did it over a book.” I pointed out.
“A very valuable book.”
“But it’s a book!” I walked out from behind the counter and went into the tearoom. Instead of making tea, I grabbed a bottle of water and held it out to Scarlet. She shook her head and continued to look at me. I closed the fridge and opened the bottle, taking a big drink before I answered.
“Don’t you think President Roosevelt would rather not have published his book than have it be the cause of an innocent woman’s murder?”
I could tell Scarlet wasn’t quite on the same page by the way she inspected her nails. “President Roosevelt has been dead for almost a hundred years. I don’t think he really much cares.”
“But he would care if he knew it when he wrote it. I don’t think he would have signed it if he’d known that tiny little signature would become so valuable that someone might kill to get it.”
“He was a man. Men don’t look at things like that. Especially men of wealth and power. Do you think the mayor would look at it like that?”
“Which one?” J. C. would have signed it a dozen times.
Scarlet rolled her eyes. “We only have one.”
“Well, yeah, but when someone says the mayor, I tend to think of the senior Calloway.”
“What about the young Calloway?” said a masculine voice.
We both jumped. I wobbled on my flip-flops and dropped my bottle of water. Scarlet managed to maintain her balance in her five-inch heels.
“OMW, Cade Calloway! You nearly scared us out of our panties!” she exclaimed.
Cade made his way into the tearoom and grinned. “Now that would be a sight to see.”
Scarlet swatted him on the arm and it was my turn to roll my eyes. It was either that or notice how good he looked in a button-down dress shirt and slacks. I grabbed a dish towel from the counter. “What are you doing here?” My question came out harsher than I’d intended, but I’d already seen him once that day and that was more than enough.
“Why are you so mad?” Cade asked.
I indicated the mess in front of me and the man had the audacity to laugh.
He laughed.
I threw the towel in his face, which only made him laugh harder.
“Really, Charli,” Scarlet said, “that’s no way to treat the mayor of our fine town.”
“He’s not acting like a mayor. He caused this mess by sneaking up on us, so he can clean it.” That was what I made my five-year-olds do.
Cade bowed, sweeping his arm out like we were in Regency England, not modern-day Hazel Rock. “I’d be happy to assist.”
I picked up my bottle, resisted throwing it at him as well, and put it in the recycle bin. Then I decided to
finally confront him about the rumor he was spreading about the water at The Barn. But first I got him a tall glass of ice water for his trouble and set it down firmly on the table in front of him.
“I’ll trade you,” I suggested, watching his face to see if he would crack under pressure.
“Uh . . . thank you, but I’m not really that thirsty.” It was as close to a confession as I needed.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I countered. “It’s already in the nineties and it’s only ten o’clock. I can see the sweat beading on your brow.”
Cade looked at the water as if it was going to kill him.
“So it’s true,” I said.
“Huh?”
I picked up the glass and held it up between us. “You weren’t just spreading rumors. The water is contaminated.”
Cade eyed the glass. “I did hear that, yes.”
I walked over to the sink and dumped the water down the drain. “Why would my daddy let me live here and not tell me the water was contaminated?”
It was Cade’s turn to sound irritated. “How would Bobby Ray know about the water when you were the one who received the notice from the health department?”
I blinked, but that didn’t change the look of irritation on Cade’s face. “I didn’t receive any notice.”
“That’s not what I heard,” he accused.
“Heard from whom?”
Cade’s tone was still more accusatory than I cared for. “Are you saying you aren’t trying to hide the fact that the report on the well water came back positive for arsenic?”
“I haven’t seen any report from the health department since I’ve been back. In fact, the only time I got the mail was when Reba Sue . . . when Reba Sue brought it in for me.”
Scarlet’s hand flew to her chest. I’d completely forgotten she was there. “OMW. She wouldn’t.”
Cade was a little slow with his responses, but he knew he was up the creek with a fork for a paddle. “What?” he asked, looking back and forth between us.
I’d seen that look on his face before. When I was seventeen and he broke up with me because I was bad for his reputation. It was a lie then and Cade Calloway was definitely lying to me now. It was as plain as a gator on a golf course. Reba Sue was the one who told him The Barn’s water was contaminated.
The decade fell away, like that rare fog lifting off the river. Cade and I were left standing in the courtyard, water from the fountain trickling in the background. I was looking up into his face, so worried that something was wrong with his mom or dad, or that maybe he’d somehow flunked a test and his grades were going to affect his chances of being recruited by the right teams. My arms looped around his waist and pulled him tight against my body. Wearing only cutoffs and a bikini top, I was sure I could draw him out of his shell. But his arms stayed at his side, his eyes never met mine, and Cade Calloway said the worst thing I’d ever heard:
“Charli, the Tide turned me down. The recruiter called me and said it was because I had a tendency to get mixed up with the wrong people.”
I’d laughed. A young, naïve, and foolish girl who didn’t understand what he was saying. “That’s insane. You’re a Calloway. The Tide wouldn’t know a good quarterback if he knocked their noses off with a bullet pass for a touchdown.”
Knowing Alabama wasn’t his first choice, I tried to ease the blow and stood up on my tippy toes to kiss him. He turned away and my lips met his cheek. At that moment my stomach turned. I knew rejection by the Tide would sting his ego, but this was bigger than that. What he said next shattered everything I’d ever thought love would be.
“I can’t see you anymore. I can’t get caught skinny-dipping, I can’t be found sleeping in my car because I drank too much with my girlfriend to drive us home, I can’t get you out of jail for trespassing on county property. Every bit of trouble I’ve been in was because I dated the wrong type of girl.”
I dropped my arms from his waist. He still wouldn’t look at me. His fingers raked through his dark curls as he turned away.
“You’re making that up. Why are you li—” I started.
That was all I got out before he turned to me and yelled, “This is my career! My dream! Football is my life . . . not you!” He walked away with purposeful steps toward the vintage Camaro parked in the street. His parting words spilling tears down my cheeks. “Good-bye, Charli Rae.”
I’d watched him leave in a cloud of dust as he spun the tires on his car, eager to get away from me. It was the first time in my life I hadn’t fought for what I wanted. What I believed in.
I shook my head and returned to the present. Now I faced Cade on behalf of the girl I used to be. “You’ve never been able to lie to me, Cade Calloway. Reba Sue started the rumor about the water in The Barn being bad, didn’t she?”
Cade didn’t say a word.
“And the rats? Was that her as well?”
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Charli.” Cade’s voice was low, dangerous. He could have been mad at Reba Sue. Or me, or the world. I couldn’t tell.
One thing was certain, I was madder than a rabid dog at Cade Calloway.
“Ahhh, maybe I should go?” Scarlet eased toward the stall door of the tearoom.
I ignored her, too caught up in the emotions I’d held in check for so many years. “I wasn’t the cause of the Tide turning you down. Your parents were. They knew you’d turn tail and run as soon as one recruiter even mentioned my existence.”
“Now hold on, Charli Rae. . . .”
But I was on a roll. I poked him in the chest. “That recruiter from the Tide was your second cousin.”
“I didn’t know that!”
“Initially, no. But you suspected something was up. And when my daddy told you—”
Cade met my anger with a bit of his own. “Bobby Ray told me that I was a bad influence on you the night he took me to get stitches in my head. That I was going to ruin your future. That you wouldn’t go to college if—”
“If he got you barefoot and pregnant.”
None of us had seen or heard the middle-aged man wearing a cowboy hat and boots join us in the tearoom. We all turned to look at the man I’d missed more than I cared to admit.
He took off his hat and ran his hand through hair that wasn’t quite as thick as I remembered it. The gray at his temples made me realize how many years I’d missed and would never get back. He held his hat in front of him, his head tilted downward, acknowledging the error of his ways.
His shoulders weren’t as straight as they’d been when I’d left. Instead, they were rounded with age catching up to him. Yet he was still an attractive man, still appeared lean and strong in his blue denim shirt and Levi’s.
“Daddy?” My voice quivered. I hated this show of weakness when I’d just now gotten my strength back, but it was there.
“I’m glad you’re home, Princess.”
Little feet scurried across The Barn floor and a squeal echoed through the store. Dad smiled and was about to bend down and pick up his little pink friend when, like a dream ending too soon, we were interrupted.
“Bobby Ray Warren.”
Through misty eyes, I saw my daddy’s shoulders slump. He patted the little rodent at his feet and then stood up straight. He turned and faced the sheriff standing in the doorway.
“You’re under arrest for the murder of Marlene Duncan,” Mateo said.
My father nodded his head and held out his wrists without saying a word. For a second I almost read his actions as those of a guilty man. Then I recognized them for what they were: acquiescence. He was giving up without a fight.
I rushed forward, but Cade held me back. “You have Scott Duncan in custody for her murder!” I yelled.
Mateo clinked the cuffs on my dad’s wrists with a look of sorrow on his face. “I have Scott Duncan in custody for criminal trespass and felony theft.”
“But you served a search warrant on Scott’s house.” I yanked myself out of Cade’s grip.
“Charli
, Scott didn’t do it,” my father said.
Cade moved forward, his voice stern with warning. “Don’t say another word, Bobby Ray.”
“I’m not going to let an innocent man go to jail for the murder of the woman he loved—” my father started to stay.
Cade stopped him. “Bobby Ray—”
“As my friend, let me have my piece.” My father straightened his shoulders and sealed his fate. “Scott Duncan was in Dallas trying to broker a deal for the sale of volumes one and two of Teddy Roosevelt’s African Game Trails on the day Marlene was murdered. I’d left them out on the counter and Aubrey put them in a box of old books up in the loft. Marlene and I were in the process of searching for them and we sent Scott to meet with the buyer in Dallas with a different book to buy us more time. He left The Barn before I did the morning she died.”
“But Mr. Duncan was never on the video from Scarlet’s shop,” I said. “He must have tricked you and—”
Dad interrupted again. “If you’re talking about having a video of the front door from Scarlet’s place, it won’t show the side door. We hadn’t opened The Barn yet. Scott went out the side door and I locked it after he left.”
“Let’s go, Bobby Ray.” Mateo led my father toward the side door of The Barn. At some point the customers had come down from the second floor. Now they stood lined up, watching the sheriff lead my father out of the store. If it wasn’t for them, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have jumped on Mateo’s back. Instead, humiliation and fear slapped me in the face. People from town were standing inside our Barn, eating up the gossip like a bass swallowing a whole school of juicy minnows.
“What are you looking at?” I screamed.
Cade grabbed my arm and tried to stop me. “Charli—”
But I yanked my arm away and stalked over to them, ready to lose every bit of ground I’d gained with the community that stood silently watching.
“Princess.”
I froze. He’d given me the name at birth. And when he used it, it meant something completely different. It was full of love and kindness. Wonder and awe.
None of which I deserved at the moment.
I turned to my daddy, tears streaming down my face.