I ducked, and it circled back around. I ducked again and tried to paddle in a different direction. The bee landed on the front of the kayak, and while I didn’t want to kill it, I also didn’t want to get stung, so I dipped my paddle and sent a splash of water in that direction. Not enough to hurt it, but just enough to give the idea it should find a dry flower. You can’t really aim water well with a paddle, so the bee escaped unscathed, but took off to buzz me a few more times, and eventually landed in my hair where I could feel its creepy feet scrabbling to hang on. I froze.
Meanwhile, Jacy had circled around and was waving her life jacket in my direction.
“Get it off me,” I begged, but it took forever for her to get close enough to help.
The bee took off and, ducking every attempt to splash water on it, buzzed me several more times while I yelped and ducked and tried to get away, and while Jacy giggled.
Well, she giggled until the bee decided she was a better target and went after her. Then it was my turn to circle around and try to help. This went on for ten seconds longer than forever but was probably closer to five minutes—the bee dodging and buzzing us like it was on some kind of mission, while we circled each other, waving paddles and life jackets around.
Finally, the bee lost interest and flew away leaving behind a pair of disheveled women who immediately put paddle to water and got the heck out of there.
In the aftermath of the battle, I never noticed the figure standing on the camp’s dock until I glanced up on my way toward the grassy knoll at the water’s edge. “Ugh, what’s he doing here?”
“Hey, David,” she called as we bumped the bank. “I didn’t know you were coming up here today.” She added be nice to me in an undertone.
I know it was irrational to dislike the man for no good reason other than a childhood prank, but I couldn’t help myself.
“I’m meeting your mom to go over the plans for the landscaping she wants to do. She should be along any minute. Might be a good idea if you two resolve your differences before she shows up.”
I exchanged a confused look with Jacy.
“What are you talking about?” Since he was trying too hard to avoid looking at anything but my face, I assumed his imagination was taking him places I didn’t want to hear about, so I peeled apart the hook and loop attachment and tugged the towel wrap up over my breasts, settling it snugly in place. “Have you been out in the sun too long?”
Everything about David made me annoyed. I wasn’t sure why.
"Me? Look, ladies, I'll admit I found your little bout of kayak jousting more than entertaining."
When Jacy giggled, it hit me what he meant, and I supposed our bee encounter might have looked a little odd from a distance. We had, after all, been paddling serenely along before all hell broke loose, and from the dock, I doubted the bee was visible. Even if I could see the springboard he’d used to jump to conclusions, I didn’t appreciate the meddling.
Jacy explained, through tears of laughter, that we'd been attacked and were merely attempting to protect ourselves. David appeared slightly disappointed that the story was tamer than the one he'd worked up in his imagination, but made no further comments. It was a good thing, too, because my patience with him was, inexplicably, wearing thin.
"So," Jacy said after she'd caught her breath, "my mother is on her way, then?" She directed the comment to David, who had evidently managed to insert himself into every corner of my life, from my relationship with my parents to my friendship with Jacy and her family.
It didn't occur to me at that moment that his intentions had nothing to do with me, but it still irked.
“I’m already here. Jacy, dear, I didn’t know you were coming to camp today. I don’t know how to say this, but I have some awful news about someone you know. Two people, in fact.”
"It's okay, Mom. I already heard. Look who's here with me." Jacy stepped aside to reveal my presence.
Since I stood behind Jacy, I didn’t see whatever look she gave Momma Wade (the name Leandra insisted I use), but it got the job done.
“Everly, you’re a sight.” Moving around her daughter, Leandra kissed me soundly on both cheeks, then on the mouth before enclosing me in a patchouli cloud of a hug that went on for a beat longer than comfortable and ended when she shivered. “There’s something odd—”
CHAPTER 11
Pulling back, Momma Wade took my face between her hands and stared at the empty space near my left ear. When I tried to turn my head to see what she was looking at, she increased her grip to keep me in place. I couldn’t see anything out of the corner of my eye that I thought would cause her to make tisking noises.
“What? Is something wrong?”
Jacy’s face popped up over her mother’s shoulder, and when she waggled her eyebrows at me, I knew this was one of those moments. The ones that had everything to do with spirit guides and prescriptions for anointing myself with oils and putting herbs under my pillow to ward off evil.
In other words, Momma Wade was about to get her hoodoo on.
“Jacy, can you get my bag out of the car? You know the one. I need to smudge Everly before the cloud over her gets any darker.”
Oh man, it was worse than the oils, which I actually didn’t mind since most of them smelled so good, but white sage made me cough. “It’s okay, you don’t have to—” Saying no to Momma Wade was as futile as trying to turn the wind. And don’t tell anyone, but given the week I’d had so far, I kind of hoped a good smudging would change my luck even if it did cause me to hack up half a lung.
I almost didn’t care that David watched the spectacle with amusement. If he hung around long enough, he’d get the smudge treatment eventually. Everyone did, and if this one worked, I might be around to give him the same amused face when it happened.
It didn’t take but a minute for Jacy to bring the requested items, and Momma Wade lit the sage. Circling me and wafting the smoke over me with a feather, she cleansed my aura or whatever until I began to feel sick from the smoke.
“Mom, it’s enough. I don’t think this is helping.” Jacy gently tried to pry the smoking bowl from her mother’s hand. “Everly’s turning green. Let it go.”
Still focused on me, Leandra shrugged her daughter off. I’d never seen her that determined. “I need to … there’s something … show me how.” I assumed that last was an exhortation to her spirit guides and gave Jacy a frantic look. Another minute of inhaling the scent of burning sage and I might toss my cookies, or rather my eggs and soup, all over the place.
To my great relief, Momma Wade handed the smudge bowl off to Jacy, who dumped the smoldering herbs into the fire pit and suffocated them with a layer of heavy ash. The smell clung to my hair, but at least the air was clean when I sucked in a deep breath to clear away any lingering smoke from my lungs.
“Give me that.” Leandra indicated the bowl, and I worried she was going to start all over with a new batch of sage, but she didn’t. Instead, she told Jacy to hold the bowl while she muttered to thin air and searched through her bag of, well, I wasn’t sure what all was in there.
Essential oils, for one thing, I learned when she popped the stopper off a blue bottle and shook a few drops into the ashes still clinging to the bottom of the bowl. Leandra was harmless, and even if I hated the scent of burning sage, I would never hurt her feelings, so I waited and watched as she pulled out more bottles and carefully added a drop or two from each.
When she was satisfied with the blend, she used her finger to stir the oils together with the powdery ashes until the mess turned into a dark gray paste.
“Don’t be scared, Everly.”
In case you were wondering, telling someone not to be scared has precisely the opposite effect, so I went from feeling indulgent to apprehensive in a hot second.
"What are you going to do?" Before I finished asking, she'd smeared the smoky-smelling oil across my forehead, and I went from feeling nervous to feeling foolish.
Whatever mania had come over her
, Momma Wade was done with it now. Her shoulders relaxed, and the glazed look left her eyes. Her smile, when it appeared, looked totally normal. “There, your third eye is open. That should do the trick.”
Dismissing me, she turned to David. “Come, young man, show me what you have planned for our little oasis by the lake.” Taking him by the arm, she led him into the camp.
“Well, that was—” Jacy stared at my forehead like she expected an actual eye to sprout there.
“Weird.” I finished. “Creepy. Intense.” My brain supplied a few more terms I couldn’t say out loud for fear of hurting Jacy’s feelings.
“All that, and by the way, you stink.”
“I hope you mean that literally and not figuratively.” But I followed her back to the dock and watched her dive neatly into the water. “Race you to the buoy and back.”
David was gone by the time we staggered back onto the porch, but Leandra was inside, putting away the last of our lunch dishes. Her face, when she turned toward us, revealed nothing of her earlier concern for my spiritual welfare.
“Now tell me, is the rumor true?”
How sad was it there were so many possibilities, I couldn't pick which one she meant? "Maybe. What have you heard?"
We settled in at the table.
“I heard you were the one who found poor Hudson this morning. Such a pity.”
Jacy chided her. “We came out here to give Everly a chance to get her bearings. Maybe she’s not ready to talk about it yet.”
"It's okay, Jace. I'm sure the gossip mill is running at high speed. I might as well hear what's going around so I can be prepared for the onslaught."
As gently as she could, Leandra began to roll out a laundry list of fact and supposition. “As you well know, he was staying at the Bide A Way, and depending on who’s telling the story, he left his wife because she took a lover or she kicked him out for the same reason.”
“Pfft.” Jacy hooted. “I wouldn’t blame her if she did. He could be a jerk sometimes. You heard the way he talked about Everly after she left. I wanted to kill him for it.” When she realized what she’d said, her face pinked. “I didn’t. Obviously. Why would I wait until now?”
Did I want to know what he’d said about me? Probably not.
"Then there's the incident at the school. A lot of speculation about why he was demoted, but no one's really certain. The only thing I know for sure is there was a closed-door meeting between him, the principal, and the superintendent when it happened. That came right from Sandy Dabond, and she works in the office, so you know that's prime information."
“Okay Mom, but you know people call her Sandy Dumb Blond, right? I’m not sure I’d take her word as gospel for anything.” Jacy rose to snag a couple of bottles of water from the fridge. “What else have you got?”
Leandra twisted the top off her bottle and took a healthy swig. “Nothing else I want to repeat. Tell me, dear, did you really buy the Willowby place?”
I sighed. “Are you going to talk about the house’s bones? Everyone does, and I’m hoping they mean it’s solidly constructed, but I’d rather hear what it’s like on the inside. No one wants to talk about that nearly as much.”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you there, dear. I’ve never set foot inside the place. I only brought it up because I think it takes an adventurous spirit to start over in such a decisive way. Don’t pay any attention to what people say. Small towns are full of vipers who try to sting a strong person with words.”
Reading into her tone, I came away with the impression that Momma Wade hadn’t much cared for Mrs. Willowby who, by all accounts, was a nice person. Whatever the story was, she didn’t seem to be in a mood to elaborate, and I’d had more than enough drama for one day to press the matter.
When Jacy made noises about getting home to start dinner, I was more than happy to help stow the kayaks away and close up the camp.
The trip back went by a lot faster than I expected, but when Jacy started to pull into the parking lot of the Bide A Way, I told her to keep driving. We’d been gone for a good six hours, but the place still buzzed with police activity. There was crime scene tape up running around the poles supporting the overhang and a satellite van with the Channel Five logo on the side.
“Are you sure you don’t want to bunk on our sofa for the night?”
Tempting as it sounded, I wanted what passed for my own bed these days. “No, but if you wouldn’t mind running me back to the Gas N Go, I’ll grab a sandwich or some pizza, then maybe you could loop around and drop me off out behind the motel. The way the false front on the office sticks out, I think I can sneak around the corner and into my room without being seen.”
“I’ll go you one better.” The steering radius on the Jeep was tight enough to pull a U-turn almost on a dime, and Jacy did so with such flair I had to grab the chicken handle again. Two minutes later, she nudged into a narrow space near the back door of the diner. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.”
She couldn't have been gone five minutes before she was back with a bag of take-out containers. "Mabel's the best. I told her the gist of things, and she bagged up Bert Thompson's order. He'll have to wait a few extra minutes for his meatloaf tonight."
“Thanks, Jace. Tell Mabel I’ll settle up with her tomorrow. It ought to be safe to show my face without being mobbed by then.”
“I’m working breakfast in the morning; it’s my short shift of the week, so I get off early. Offer still stands, you call if you need me.”
Only a criminal would sneak into her own room when she hadn’t done anything wrong, but since the alternative was being interviewed on the news, I sucked it up and waited until the coast was clear. The U-haul van blocked me from sight, and I was glad I’d moved it during all the hoopla. Besides, I couldn’t have stayed in that room. Not after what had happened right next door.
CHAPTER 12
Determined not to relive the memory, I turned my focus to the take-out bag and the scent of Mabel’s meatloaf. Enjoying, or at least attempting to enjoy, a meal took nothing away from the dead, and I told myself I needed the sense of normalcy.
That eating what amounted to a stolen meal in a cheap motel room had become my new normal was not a topic I wanted to explore right then. Or maybe ever. Better to just put one foot in front of the other until I was back on solid ground.
Glancing over to where I'd tossed my purse on the bed, I noticed the corner of my phone sticking out. Half tempted to leave it off and just go to bed, I sighed, tapped the power switch, and listened to the wake-up tone. According to the number on the little icon, there were seven missed calls and several voice mails.
Two of the missed calls came from the town office, two more were from my mother, one from Spencer Charles, and the others from numbers I didn’t recognize.
Dialing up my voice mailbox, I put the phone on speaker.
Everly, darling, please call me. I know you said you were okay, but I need you to check in. Mom sounded worried.
Miss Dupree, this is Martha Tipton from the town office. I’m calling with good news. I rounded things up early, and we managed to talk the title company into pushing the paperwork through. I’m pleased to say you can come in and pick up a copy of the paperwork and the key to your new home anytime tomorrow. Well, not any time, since we’re only open from nine until noon on Fridays.
That was the best news I’d had all week.
Spencer Charles here. I've checked your references, and if you are still interested in the job, it's yours. Call me as soon as possible to verify, but as far as I'm concerned, you can start on Monday.
Even better news. The kind that lightened my mood considerably.
For about a minute, and then the next message played.
Everly Dupree, I know you had something to do with my boy being killed. You should have never come back to town. You’re going to pay for this. Do you hear me?
I hadn’t heard that voice in over five years, but even through the huskiness brought on by grief
-stricken tears, I recognized it as belonging to Hudson’s mother.
The next few were from reporters, and I deleted them without listening to any of them all the way through.
Mom answered on the first ring. “Everly, I’m so glad you called. Are you all right? Let me send daddy over to get you. I don’t think you should be alone right now. It’s not safe there.”
“It’s okay. I’m fine.” Well, as fine as a person could be in such a situation. “And it’s only for a night or two. I’m picking up the paperwork and keys for the house tomorrow, and once I get the utilities switched over, I’ll be moving in. That’s good news, right?”
Reluctantly, she let me distract her. “It’s very good news. I have the day off tomorrow. Would you like me to go with you to look the place over?”
“I’d love that. I’m planning on getting the keys at nine. Do you want to meet me there, or should I pick you up?”
I heard the smile in her voice and realized she had probably expected me to say no. “I’ll meet you there. Now, I hate to be the bearer of more bad news, but there’s something you should know.”
I switched the phone to my other ear. “About the house? Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind about it being a good investment.”
There was a pause, and my heart began to sink toward my toes.
“No, of course not. It’s about the unfortunate incident this morning.”
Unfortunate incident? A man was dead, I’d classify that with the use of stronger language. Tragic would be a lot closer to the truth.
“Hudson’s mother has been telling everyone who will listen that you’re the reason her son is dead.”
“That’s not news to me. She got my number from someone and left me a nasty message. I’m choosing to give her the benefit of the doubt because she’s lost her son and she’s hurting. No one could possibly believe I had anything to do with his death. I hadn’t exchanged more than a few words with the man in years. Hudson’s part of my distant past. What reason would I have to kill him now? His mother’s delusional.”
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