by Tegan Maher
"Yes, mom," Gabi said and rolled her eyes. "I'll be sure. I'll also make sure I have a quarter in my purse to call home if I need to."
I pointed my mascara wand at her in the mirror. "Keep it up young lady, and I'll take away your party-line privileges too."
"Oh, the horror," she said, laughing. "I'm so glad we were born late enough to miss that, at least."
Addy popped in just then, dressed up a little herself. "You're glad you missed what?" she asked.
"Party lines," Gabi replied, and Addy looked at her like she'd lost her mind.
"Why party lines were the best source of juicy information around here," she exclaimed. "You think word travels fast now? Imagine five people eavesdropping on every phone call you make. How much would you be able to hide then?"
"Yeah," Gabi replied, brows raised, "Now I'm even more glad to have missed it. Things are bad enough already. Half the town knows I have a date tonight, all because he called while I was getting my hair done."
I snorted as I put on a pair of silver dream catcher earrings. "That's on you for answering while you were there."
"Are you kidding?" she asked, brows raised. "That was the third time he'd called. No way was I going to miss it again."
"Why didn't you call him back after the first two times, when you got off work."
She shrugged. "I did. We played phone tag twice, so I figured I'd answer while the answering was good."
Cheri Lynn nodded. "Yeah, you finally got a good one on the hook. You don't wanna let him get away. Men are a dime a dozen around here. Unmarried, employed, handsome, nice men, on the other hand, are rare as hen's teeth."
She wasn't wrong. I'd almost reconciled myself to old-maid status when I met Hunter. The best thing about growing up in a small town was that you knew everybody, including the guys. It was also the worst thing. If Chris Smith got caught sticking a booger under his desk in the third grade, he'd be known as Booger for the rest of his life, or until he moved away or did something else that ranked exponentially higher on the scale of things that would earn you a nickname. And let's face it—that carried a stigma regardless of how unfair it may be.
"I know," Gabi replied, appraising a blue peasant's blouse she held in one hand then a red sweater she held in the other. She tossed the blouse on the bed and pulled on the sweater. "And considering my current professional growth trajectory isn't likely to change anytime soon, I'm counting myself extra lucky. Middle-aged waitress at a greasy spoon isn't exactly tops on the list of ... well, anything I'd want to rank high on."
I snorted. "You're hardly middle-aged."
"Not now, maybe," she replied, pulling on a pair of my boots, "but it's where I'm headed if things don't change."
"I popped over to the diner earlier when I was lookin' for Coralee," Addy said, frowning. "That old geezer deserves a good swift kick in the manly bits for the way he treats y'all. The only reason any of you stay is because you can't find anything better, and he knows it."
"I know," Gabi said huffing out a breath. "Slingin' omelets at a dive diner wasn't exactly where I saw myself at this point in my life."
"Yeah, well you do what you gotta do," Cheri Lynn said, her expression a mix of sadness and compassion. She, more than anybody, knew all about that. A series of tough breaks when she'd been alive had landed her smack on center stage at Tassels, the local gentleman's club. Literally.
"You do," I said, and thinking about Tassels reminded me of something. "Gabi, have you considered talking to Marybeth about working for her?"
Jim Simpson, the slimeball who'd owned Tassels and most of the rest of the east side of town, had been arrested a few months before on conspiracy, tax evasion, second-degree murder, and a cornucopia of other charges. His holdings, including the strip club, pawn shop, and his personal home, had either been sold on the courthouse steps for back taxes or he'd sold them to pay his lawyer's fees, fat lot of good it had done him in the end. He was never getting out of jail.
Meanwhile, Marybeth saw potential rather than eyesores and bought it all at bargain basement prices.
Cheri Lynn had kept track of the girls she'd worked with at Tassels and had been worried what would happen to them when Jim had been arrested. "Yeah, Gab, that would be an awesome idea. Marybeth's a great person to work for. Fair."
Gabi shook her head. "No way. If I were gonna work the night shift, I'd go to work for Bobbie Sue." Her shoulders slumped. "Still, I'd have to work late. And besides, I actually did ask her a couple months ago. She said she doesn't need any help right now."
"Something'll come up," Rae said, slicking on some lip gloss. "I have faith."
"Faith is great," Addie said, "But you have to do your part. Start lookin'. It doesn't matter if somebody rigs the lottery for you if you don't buy a ticket."
I turned to Cheri Lynn. "What's Marybeth doin' with that place, anyway? Are the girls still workin' there?"
Cheri's eyes lit up. "They are, but Marybeth said nobody who worked for her would ever have to take her clothes off for a paycheck. She wants to turn it into a comedy club or somethin'. In fact, she wants to turn that whole end of town around. Says she's gonna do like they do to bad parts of a big city—gentrify it."
The thought of her using that particular phrasing was funny because Marybeth was one of the least gentrified people I knew—and I say that in a good way. She was down to earth and told it like it was. She wasn't educated, but she was smart as a whip and shrewd and savvy to boot. Nothing got past her, and she ran a clean business, but you sure wouldn't call her gentrified.
Addy huffed. "She's tryin' to put lipstick on a pig. That end of town has been rundown since Moses wore short pants."
I lifted a shoulder as I followed everyone from my room. "Well then," I said, clicking off the light, "that pig's long overdue for a makeover, and if anybody can wrestle it into a poke and get it done, it's Marybeth. Now, let's stop talkin' about her and go see her. She has a cold beer with my name on it."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
FANCY'S WAS ROCKING when we got there, and I scowled a little as I elbowed my way through the crowd to snag us a table in the back room where it was quieter. I liked it better when it was dead. Coralee had met us in the parking lot, and Marybeth glanced up as we passed the bar and gave us a smile and a nod. We'd barely gotten to the table when her daughter, Lacey, hussled toward us carrying a bucket of beer in one hand and a cup of darts and extra tips in the other.
"Hey, ladies! How's it goin'?" she said as she pulled a frisbee from under her arm and set our bucket in it.
"Oh, not bad," Coralee said with a wry smile. "Just tryin' to dodge a murder rap. You know, same ole, same ole."
Lacey gave her a half smile. "We heard of course. Do they have any leads? She didn't come in here, but I have a friend who works at the hotel, and she said the woman was a nightmare. Barkin' orders and demanding extra towels even though she still had plenty of clean ones."
"That sounds about right, at least from what I saw of her," I said. "She was a real peach when she was at the salon, too."
Lacey shook her head. "Some people. I swear, if everybody had to work in the service industry for even six months before they were allowed to get a job doin' anything else, the world would be a better place."
Coralee snorted. "Ain't that the truth. Some days, I think I need my head examined for not going to school to be an accountant or something."
"Yeah," Raeann said, pulling a bottle out of the ice. "I can just see you sitting behind a desk for eight or ten hours a day. Not." The woman had more energy than three people and if she had to sit still, she'd explode.
"Is it just you three tonight
I pulled a beer out and popped the cap off, then poked my head around the doorway to check the main room again. "Where's everybody else at?" I asked.
"Probably just running late," Raeann said. "Anna Mae had to close up shop, and Louise didn't get off 'til seven. Bobbie Sue said she'd try to make it if the dinner rush wasn't horrible. Otherwise, she said
she'd make it for sure next time."
According to my phone, it was only a quarter after six, so they'd no doubt be along shortly. Unlike me, Anna Mae kept regular hours. Despite the similarities in our businesses, she depended mostly on walk-in customers and liked the idea of keeping traditional hours. The problem there was that she didn't have much free time. She did close on Sundays but worked nine to five the rest of the week. Thankfully, she'd hired somebody a couple months back and was finally to the point where she trusted the guy to close up by himself.
Sure enough, it wasn't five minutes later that Anna Mae strolled in. Hoisting her purse to the table, she shrugged out of her coat and climbed on a stool. She pulled a beer from the bucket and sighed. "Man alive but does it ever feel good to sit down!" She stretched her legs out straight and rolled her feet. "What a day—my dogs are barkin'!
"I know what you mean," I said. "I wasn't on my feet all day, but I slept like crap."
Coralee cocked a brow at me. "I didn't exactly sleep like a baby either." She took a long pull off her beer, then studied the bottle, picking at the edges of the label. "I've been running it through my head and just don't get it. I mean, I get why somebody's wanna off her, but I don't get why she was in the alley behind the shop, or how somebody knew she'd be there."
"Yeah, that part bugs me, too," Rae said, then turned to me. "Is Hunter absolutely sure she was murdered there?"
That hadn't occurred to me, and I held up a finger as I pulled my phone out of my pocket. "That's an excellent question," I said, excitement bubbling in me as I fired off a text to Hunter. "He should be off by now if he didn't have any more leads. Let's see what he says."
Somebody hollered for Lacey. "The natives are getting restless," she said. "I'll be back by in a bit."
Coralee sighed as she shuffled off. "I called a hairdresser friend of mine in Atlanta that lives in roughly the same part of town as Loretta on the off chance she knew her. No such luck, but she promised to start some buzz about the murder and see what she could dig up. Otherwise, I have no idea where to turn. I've asked everybody here I know, and though she wasn't well-liked, she hadn't really crossed anybody's mind in years. Once she left, she didn't stay in touch with anybody but Priscilla, as far as I can tell."
Raeann started sorting the darts, looking for two sets with tips straight enough to play with. "I've heard mostly the same thing," she said. "But I've had lots of people from the conference in all week, and have been asking around a little. She wasn't popular with her colleagues. Apparently, she had a tendency to poach clients or just ride the coattails of other realtors. She'd either convince the people to let their contracts run out, then sign them with her company, or—more often—just wait for the listings to pop up and pounce on them. She got half the commission for basically doing nothing but showing up to a viewing."
"So maybe somebody got tired of it," I said.
"Maybe so," she replied, "but if she's pissed anybody off that bad, I haven't heard of it."
"Listen to this then," I said, and told them the story about her lawsuits.
Coralee whistled. "So do you think that's why the stupid cow goaded me? To get me to hit her so she could get my place?"
I lifted a shoulder. "Maybe. And it would explain the slip, too."
Coralee lowered her brows and her cheeks flamed. "I bet you're right—she was plannin' to fall, then take me to the cleaners. But I stopped her."
"It would explain the look she sent me when I held you back too," I replied. "If looks could kill, I'da been dead on the spot."
"I didn't notice that," she admitted, and I laughed.
"No," I said, "I bet you didn't. You were too busy tryin' to get loose so you could pop her a good one."
She looked a little sheepish. "I never did say thanks, by the way. I don't know why I let her get to me like that."
My phone dinged with an incoming text and I glanced at my phone. It was from Hunter.
"What does he say," Rae asked, craning her neck to try to read it for herself.
I shook my head. "He says her coat was so heavy it absorbed what little blood there was. Apparently, it didn't bleed much, outside of her, anyway. He says all they can say for sure is that she'd been dead for an hour or so, but even that's hard to say for sure because of how cold it was and how much she was bundled up."
"So basically, she may or may not have been killed there, and there's no way to tell for sure how long she'd been that way," Coralee said, disappointment etching her features.
"I'm sorry, sweetie, but yeah, it looks that way." I was disappointed too, but it had given us something else to pick at. "Maybe we should go to the hotel tomorrow and dig around a little," I said to Rae. She was off, so she'd be able to go with me.
"I think that's a good idea," she said. "But what's our excuse gonna be? It's not like we can just show up."
I grinned at her. "Why we're taking them pastries, compliments of Brew4U," I said.
"I like it," she said, giving me a sly look. "Investigating and getting a tax write-off at the same time."
"I figured you'd like that." Taxes had been the bane of her existence since she'd started. It was never easy starting your own business, and the first year she'd been open, it had taken everything she made to pay off her business loans and still have enough money to live on.
Anna Mae arrived at the table just then and hoisted her purse onto the table so she could shrug out of her jacket. "Hey everybody!" she said. "Are we ready to drink some beer and play some darts?"
"Hear, hear," Coralee said, and that's exactly what we did. Well, right after we ate our weight in wings. I smirked as I dragged an extra saucy wing through the blue cheese. Take that, Erol!
CHAPTER TWENTY
I DIDN'T HAVE ANY TROUBLE falling asleep when I got home—just the opposite. I crashed hard, my sleep dreamless, until it wasn't.
My dad was standing in our back meadow, smiling and reaching for me. The sun was shining and a warm breeze tickled my cheek. Warmth and welcome washed over me.
When I was almost to him, his expression changed from happy and loving to anxious as he glanced over his shoulder at the tree line behind him.
"You have to run," he said, the sense of urgency in his voice making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. "Take Shelby and go."
It was then I noticed how haggard he looked. In all my other dreams, he'd looked happy, and I was sure he had in the beginning of this one too. Now he looked old and tired. And terrified.
"Why, Dad?" My gaze followed his, and I searched the shadows for whatever was causing him such angst. Nothing moved, but I noticed the birds had stopped singing. "Where have you been?"
"Noelle Grace," he snapped, turning a harsh gaze back to me. "None of that matters. They're coming. You have to go, and you have to take your sister with you. Anywhere. As far away as you can get."
Shadows skittered across the meadow, and in an instant, it went from sunny and warm to misty and gray. Fog curled around our feet and something hidden in the trees made an unearthly sound, somewhere between a scream and a howl. He rushed toward me and pushed me. "Go now!"
I started crying and tugging at his hand, watching as a shadow separated itself from the trees and floated toward us. Fear like I'd never known coursed through me, and my heart raced. I grabbed his hand as the shadow moved closer and the sound raked over my nerves again. "I'm not leaving without you!"
He reached out and shoved me right as a blonde woman with long, platinum hair stepped from the fog and yanked him back. His face pinched in terror and the woman smirked at me as the fog enveloped my father. "It's not time yet," she said to me, a smirk marring her features before hatred settled there. "But it won't be long."
I jerked awake, gasping. My legs were tangled in the sheets and I was drenched in sweat. Adrenaline coursed through me and I glanced wildly around my room for anything out of place. Everything was just as it always was. I pulled in a few deep breaths, kicked the sheets off, and swung my legs over the side of th
e bed. There wouldn't be any more sleep for me.
Sliding my feet into my slippers, I pushed off the bed and headed to the bathroom to splash some water on my face. I glanced at the mickey mouse clock on my bathroom wall—a souvenir from when Addy and Uncle Calvin had taken us to Disney. Four-thirty. I heaved a sigh. It looked like I'd be getting an earlier start to my day than I had yesterday.
Skipping the third step on the stairway to avoid the creak, I made my way to the kitchen and kicked on the coffee pot. If I was gonna have another day like yesterday, I was gonna need caffeine. Addy popped in right as I was popping a blueberry coffee pod into the machine and swooped around to look me in the face. No doubt, I was a mess. I could actually feel the bags under my eyes, and the skin on my face felt tight, like it was puffy. Since I hadn't braided my hair the night before, it was likely standing out even worse than it usually did.
"You look like forty miles of bad road," she said, concern etching her features.
"I figure. And I feel like a Mack truck has driven over me a dozen times," I said, hitting the start button. Fifteen seconds later, my coffee was brewed, creamed and sugared. Thank goodness for Keurig. I plopped onto my chair and blew on it before I took a sip.
Swishing a hand, I brought a banana from the counter to my hand and peeled it. Addy smiled a little as I did. Ever since the third grade, when I'd learned that monkeys peeled their bananas from the bottom, I'd done the same thing. I figured they were to pros, and it really did work better.
"So what's got you suckin' down caffeine this time of day?" she asked.
"Another nightmare," I said, picking at the strings on the banana. The fear I'd felt in the dream skittered down my spine again, and my appetite fled.
She furrowed her brow. Another nightmare? This isn't a one-off occurrence?"
"No," I said, breaking the banana into pieces. "I've dreamed about him a few times over the past six months or so."
"And you're just now telling me, why?" She slammed her arms across her chest and scowled at me, but the worry in her eyes was evident.