by Tegan Maher
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE SHOP WAS EMPTY when I got back, which was unusual. Erol was sort of a prude when it came to leaving the store if the door wasn't locked, and I hardly ever locked it. There really wasn't anything much to steal, and it was off-season so the only people around were locals.
Plus, Coralee was right next door. Nobody in their right mind would pull any shenanigans that close to the one woman in town who could turn their biggest social nightmare into a reality in three phone calls or less.
I went to the back and stuck my leftovers—okay fine, my second slice of strawberry cheesecake from the Cat—into the fridge and went back to my work area to start on the second chair. The first looked great, but I noticed a couple of crevices that still had traces of pink paint. I shook my head, wondering why on earth somebody would have painted such beautiful wrought iron pink.
Hunter's ringtone played on my phone right as I was reaching for the gloves.
"Hey handsome. What's up? Any news?"
He heaved an audible sigh. "Yeah, there's news. It's just not the good kind."
When he didn't continue, I prodded him. "Okay, well you can't just say that and stop."
"It's just, I don't know what to think. I talked to Harry Custer, the sheriff over in Eagle Gap. He doesn't have much good to say about Gabi."
I shrugged, pouring paint thinner into my pan. "Well we already knew that. She told us last night about the incident with his kid."
"Yeah, except that's not all. Apparently, Gabi had a huge knock-down, drag-out with Marcus a couple years ago, right in front of all the barn staff."
Rubbing my hand over my face, I said, "Well, I'm not sure why it's relevant of it was a couple years ago. Gabi must have had a good reason."
"That's the problem," he said. "She had a damned good reason. They were dating at the time. And he brought another woman."
Oh. Well, then. I struggled for something to say because anyway you looked at it, that was bad. "How long had they been dating?"
"Several months, according to Custer. He said it was serious."
I thought back to those hideous boots and wondered what in the name of Sam Hill she'd been thinking. "There's gotta be some kind of explanation."
"Yeah, I was kinda hoping you could fill in the blanks. I mean, I know she moved away, but you stayed in contact, right?"
Surely this is something she would have mentioned had she thought it was important. Though she was a peace lover, she wasn't one to beat around the bush.
"We did, sort of. She'd come over and visit every once in a while, but we sorta lost touch other than that. She was doing her thing and we were doing ours. Plus, I was at UGA for a few years, so that didn't help. Still, I'm sure there's a logical explanation."
He pulled in a deep breath and let it out. I could picture him running his hand through his hair. "I sure hope so. Custer's chomping at the bit to take a bite outta her backside, so we need to figure out what it is, and quick."
"I'll call her now."
"Okay. I'll see you tonight?"
I puckered my lips, a little bummed because we hadn't gotten to spend much time together lately. "Tonight's Ms. Monday."
"Oh yeah. That kinda sucks but I understand. Breakfast in the morning?"
"You're on," I said. "Meet you at the diner."
We said our goodbyes and I pulled up Gabi's number. It rang through to voicemail, so I hung up and shot her a text asking her to call me back.
I worked through the afternoon and finished the other chair. I was just standing back to admire how great they looked when the bell above the front door chimed. I pushed through the door to the front room and smiled. A little old lady was shuffling around in a baggy dress, pushing a walker with tennis balls on the legs. A younger version of her was standing at the counter.
"Hi! Welcome to Reimagined. I'm Noelle."
She smiled. "I'm Sarah and this is my mom, Lainey. I'm looking for a clock for my husband's man cave, and a friend told me you make the most original things. I'd like to have one made out of a coke sign or a beer sign if you have one."
I led her to the section on my wall where I'd hung my clocks. I felt a huge sense of pride when she exclaimed over them. It was nice seeing my work hanging for sale, and even nicer when she bought three instead of just one. Lainey puttered around while we talked turkey, muttering as she ran her hands along different pieces. Sarah kept a close eye on her the whole time we were talking.
She tipped up one corner of her mouth, her eyes sad. "Mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's two years ago. She's only seventy, but you'd never guess it."
She was right. I'd have put Lainey closer to ninety that seventy and my heart went out to them both. What a shitty disease.
"Anyway, what can you do? I quit my teaching job and I'll take care of her until she passes. She was a wonderful mother. I figure the first couple decades of my life, she made every decision around taking care of me and making sure I was happy. I'll gladly do the same for the last decade of hers. We're going to go get our hair done, now."
That almost made me tear up. I checked her out and gave her the friends-and-family discount, watching as she steered Lainey over to Coralee's.
The pile of jewelry I'd set aside for Anna Mae was still on the counter and I made a mental note not to forget it since she'd be at Fancy's that night. The sun flickered off the crystal teardrop earring and I noticed there was only one there.
I poked through the rest of the pile with my finger, but it was nowhere to be seen. My mind drifted unbidden back to Lainey. She'd been tottering around the area and had probably seen the bauble. I shrugged and tossed it into a little bag with the rest of the jewelry. Anna Mae would surely find some use for it.
Gabi still hadn't answered me, so it would have to wait. I had a girls' night out to get ready for.
CHAPTER NINE
CHERI LYNN, WHO WAS an exotic dancer when she still had a body, wrinkled her nose when I came out of my closet. "You're not really wearing that are you, sugar?"
I looked down at the ripped jeans and black Keyhole Motorsports t-shirt I'd gotten as swag when I bought my motorcycle a couple months before. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"
"Nothin' if you're goin' to a truck pull. But since you're goin' out for ladies' night, you might want to wear somethin' that, well, makes you look like a lady. Your girls are all flattened. And the jeans—" she threw up her hands, then smoothed the flirty, electric-blue cocktail number she was wearing.
Scowling, I went back to the closet. "Some of us don't have the luxury of just thinking about what we want to wear and having it appear out of thin air, you know."
"Yeah, but I could probably reach into Gertie Buckley's shoppin' cart and come up with somethin' better than that." Gertie was our local bag lady. Nobody knew where she'd come from. One day she wasn't here, and the next, she was, cart and all.
Raeann snorted as she pulled on one of her knee-boots and I glared at her. "Don't start."
"She kinda has a point, Noe."
I heaved a put-upon sigh and pulled out a new-to-me pair of skinny jeans I'd picked up at the Goodwill and a peasant blouse. I didn't know what the big deal was; it wasn't like I was trolling for men. "Does this suit Your Highnesses?"
Cheri Lynn smirked. "At least it was made for a girl."
Deciding to take the high road and not throw the t-shirt at her when I shucked it off—mostly because it would have gone right through her—I changed clothes and went to the bathroom to put on my face.
"Has anybody heard from Gabi today?" I called as I twisted my hair into a loose braid over my shoulder.
"No," Rae said, "but I forgot to tell you these shady-lookin' guys came into Brew lookin' for her."
I glanced at her in the mirror. "What do you mean shady?"
"Slicked-back hair, cheesy knock-off Ray Bans, suits. They flipped a candid picture of her at me like they were some kind of special."
"So what'd you tell 'em?"
She shrugged a sh
oulder. "That I'd never seen her before in my life. They made me feel skeezy just standin' across the counter from 'em."
I paused with the mascara wand halfway to my eye. "That doesn't sound good. And now we haven't heard from her today? When were they in?"
"Early. Maybe eight."
Worrying my lip between my teeth, I tried to think of some other way to contact her. She was working part time at the Walmart and waiting tables at a little country breakfast place on the other side of town. I hated to call Walmart and Lila's was closed.
"If we don't hear from her tonight, I'll run by her Mama's tomorrow to check on her." I little sliver of worry slid down my back.
Cheri Lynn floated into the bathroom, eyeballing my makeup job. "Now you look like a girl. I'll poke around tomorrow and see if I can find the men. Hopefully they skinned outta town already, but from what Rae described, they aren't the type to give up 'til they find what they're lookin' for."
"Yeah," I said, worried. "I just hope they haven't already found her."
CHAPTER TEN
I COULDN'T HELP IT—I stopped by Gabi's mama's on the way to Fancy's even though I'd never gotten along with the woman, nor did I know anybody who had. Unfortunately, she hadn't seen her either, and pissed me off on top of ratcheting up our fears.
"Probably hooked up with some lowlife and is holed up somewhere. She said somethin' about goin' to Fancy's and ain't no decent people ever stepped foot in there. Satan's playground, that's what it is, with its liquor and whores and n'er-do-wells. All of 'em Hellbound, and I say good riddance."
She waved a hand and looked down her nose at Rae and me; she couldn't see Cheri Lynn. "I reckon that's where the two of you are headed with your faces all painted up like that? They put one of them poles in there yet?"
I scowled and started to tell her exactly what she could do with her bad self because Cheri Lynn was a little sensitive about talk like that, given her former profession. Her entire life had been pretty much one big beat-down to her self-esteem and I glanced at her to see if she was takin' the judgmental old bat's words to heart. She just rolled her eyes and Rae put a hand on my arm, shaking her head.
"Water off a duck's back, sugar," she said, grinning. "Let's go get you some of that Satan Water. You look like you could use it."
We turned away from the door and she stepped out on the stoop, probably to make sure we didn't pick any of the flowers out of her toilet-bowl planter. True class there. Cheri Lynn held up a finger, her eyes glittering with laughter. "Hang on, ladies. Watch this."
Rae and I looked at each other, then turned and waited as she floated back up the walk. Gabi's mama was still leaning against her doorframe, staring after us. Cheri stopped just a few feet away from her, then stuck her face within a foot of the woman's right cheek. She scrunched up her face for a second and the air around her shimmered in the way I'd come to associate with an imminent public appearance.
She looked just a tad less translucent, and I knew the moment she became visible because Mama Meanness's face—we named her that behind her back as kids when she told us ice cream and candy were evil—lost all color. Cheri Lynn screwed her face up and whispered in her ear, "Bibbity ... bobbity," raising her voice a little with each syllable and dragging the words out as the woman slowly pivoted her head to look at her. "BOO!"
Mama Meanness fell into the house and crab-walked up her hallway, screaming bloody murder about demons and harlots, slowing down only long enough to cross herself. On a whim, I flicked a wrist and slammed the screen door shut, and Rae, who's always been the creative one, blew a gust of wind through, right up her dress, and shut the lights off.
It was all we could do to make it back to the car before we collapsed in a fit of hysterics, and Cheri Lynn floated through the back passenger door of my truck, grinning like a possum eating a sweet potato.
"Did ... did you see her—" I gasped, laughing so hard I was holding my side, trying to draw breath.
Rae's face was so red I was afraid she was going to pass out. "She was crossin' herself backwards!"
Cheri Lynn held up her finger, squeaking through her own giggles, "And she wasn't wearin' any panties, either, the hypocrite."
That did it. I slapped my hand against the steering wheel, accidentally blowing the horn, and did my best to cross my legs to keep from peeing my pants.
"Phew," Rae said, sucking in a few deep breaths several seconds later. "I needed that. Now, let's go have us a beer or three."
I swung a U-turn and pointed the truck toward Fancy's. Bobbie Sue's car was already in the lot when we pulled in, but Camille's wasn't. As we crunched across the lot, Blondie blasted from the jukebox and two guys with hard-hat hair held the door open for us. One of them shivered when he ran his arm through Cheri Lynn's arm and I smiled.
Folks tended to write those feelings off as drafts. Little did they know.
Bobbie Sue was already at our regular table with bucket of Bud Light sitting in front of her. Rae and I grabbed a bottle and twisted the top off. I had to admit, that first drink tasted awful good. My worries about Gabi had returned after the silliness with her mama had died down and I checked my phone for a message, even though I knew there wasn't one.
"Hey girls," Bobbie Sue said. She was messing with the flap of a manila envelope.
"Hey, Bobbie," I answered, taking another pull of my beer. "How'd your day go?"
Before she could answer, Camille strolled in, looking as classy and put-together as always. She was wearing jeans and a sequined t-shirt, which I only mention because several months prior, that would have been unheard of for her. She'd been all business suits, perfect makeup, and not a hair out of place. Salads with lemon juice and organic food only. Ice cream, burgers, and fried foods didn't exist in her world.
However, she'd had a rough summer that had made her rethink her lifestyle. In short, she took the stick out of her butt and decided life was for living, because she wasn't gonna make it out alive any more than the rest of us are.
I liked the old her, sort of, but I loved Camille 2.0, which was great because Shelby was best friends with her daughter, Emma.
She swung her purse up and dropped it on the table, then pulled a beer from the bucket and collapsed onto her stool with a sigh. "Man, what a week."
"You ain't kiddin'," Bobbie Sue said, still fiddling with the envelope. "When it rains, it pours."
I wrinkled my forehead, concerned. "What's up? I just talked to you a couple days ago and things were going great. Justin's not givin' you problems is he? If so, I'll take him for a few days for an attitude adjustment."
Justin was a nine-year-old kid we'd pulled off the streets after the little brat had stolen my wallet. It turned out his mama and daddy were both gone and he was stuck in a home with the foster mom from hell.
I fixed her little red wagon for her, post haste, then took him in until Bobbie Sue and her hubby Earl adopted him a few months later. We still sort of kid-shared because she had the restaurant to run, and the heathen had grown on us.
He'd stayed the weekend with a friend, which we all thought was fabulous because we figured it was a sign he was settling in, but that meant I hadn't seen him in a few days.
Bobbie snorted. "Shoot, other than just bein' rambunctious, that kid's never any trouble. Sides, if it was just a matter of a young’un needin' a knot jerked in his tail, I'd be all set. I can handle that with my eyes closed."
She drained her bottle and pulled the last cold one out of the bucket.
Even though the place was fairly busy, Marybeth, the weathered owner-bartender, had already filled up another and was headed our way. I swear there must be some sort of alarm on the buckets because she always knows when that last one comes out.
I turned my attention back to Bobbie and opened my senses up just a little. I've always been telepathic and empathic, and so has Shelby, though her gift had been blocked until recently. The previous summer, though—in Justin's story, in fact—I learned that I had a lot more fuel in my psychic tan
k than I'd ever suspected.
Ever since, I've kept my mental door shut except to talk to Shelby because privacy is a big deal to me. Doing that muffled my normal senses a little though, and I wanted to at least get a sense of what she was feeling. It turned out I should have just wondered what she wasn’t feeling. Confusion, anger, sadness—it swirled around her. I'd never seen her such a mess.
"Is everything okay with you and Earl? Are one of y'all sick?" I was starting to flip out a little because it took a lot to rattle her. Leaning over, I took a not-subtle-at-all gander at the envelope but all I could see was her name. I jabbed my chin toward it. "What's that?"
"You do look peaked," Rae said, narrowing her eyes. "I'm with Noe. What's in the envelope?"
While Cheri Lynn floated closer to Bobbie, Camille played diplomat. "Leave her be, guys. She'll tell us when—and if—she's ready. Ms. Mondays are for letting stress go, not for takin' flak for being stressed to begin with."
I felt guilty as soon as she said that, and from Rae's and Cheri Lynn's expressions, so did they. "She's right, Bobbie Sue. I'm sorry."
She waved me off. "It's okay. It's just, I was adopted and never knew my folks, and this"—she shoved the envelope to the center of the table—"came in the mail today."
Rae was on the other side of the table but could read as fast upside down as anybody else could right-side-up. She also had perfect vision. "It's from an attorney," she said. "What's it about?"
Though she'd been the one to back us off two seconds earlier, Camille reached for the envelope, her hand pausing about it while she raised her brows at Bobbie and nodded toward it. "May I?"
Bobbie Sue shrugged. "Sure. Go ahead. Maybe you can make more sense of it than I can."
Camille pulled the stack of papers out and started reading, taking a swig of beer every now and again as she skimmed through the pages. Cheri Lynn read over her shoulder, but just shook her head at Bobbie Sue. "It don't make any sense to me either, sugar."