Marybell took a deep breath. Everything she’d feared, exposing not just herself, but her friends, was all becoming a reality. “I didn’t tell you and now look. Your lives have been invaded. Plum Orchard is a three-ring circus out there because of me, and if you think it’s going to get better, it’ll just get worse.” Her voice began to rise, her muscles stiffening again.
Dixie clucked her tongue while she wrapped a long bandage around the heel of her hand. “Honey, I play on a field where Louella Palmer is the captain o’ the team. You can’t think the press scares me, can you? I’d hope you think me a whole lot stronger than that. And just you wait till I get my hands on her. It’s time to bring out the big guns.”
The tightness in Marybell’s chest was beginning to ease. She shot Dixie a glance of disbelief. “Now you’re insulted that I didn’t invite the press to hound you?”
“I’m insulted that you think we wouldn’t go to bat for you. I have a lot of money, Marybell Lyman, er...Carson Chapman. Oh, whoever you are. If you had come to me, we’d have seen our way to findin’ a lawyer or a mob hit, or somethin’ that would clear your name. Let us help you.”
No. She shook her head hard. “You can’t help me, Dixie. No one can help. Do you see what it’s like out there? They’ll ruin your lives. They ruined mine. They ruined it. I lost everything. Every single thing I ever had. I lost a scholarship I worked all my life to get. I lost a place to live. I lost my dignity. When Landon met me, I was eatin’ out of Dumpsters! I was homeless for a long, long time. People spit on me, Dixie. I won’t let that happen to all of you while you’re tryin’ to protect me. I won’t allow anyone to treat you that way.”
A crash against her front door startled them all, that familiar panic, the one where flashes went off in her face and microphones were stuck under her nose began to smother her.
“I said you get the hell off this lawn or I’m gonna show you what a can of some good old-fashioned companionator whoop-ass is, you bunch o’ flesh-eating vultures!” LaDawn yelled, pushing her way inside the apartment door. Her eyes were wild and angry when she flipped the lock and turned to face them.
She held up a crushed cup carrier, dripping coffee. “It’s a nuthouse out there, but I brought fuel. Let’s plot a death or ten.”
Em rushed over with a hand towel and began to wipe, her expression grim. “We can’t plot a death if Marybell won’t let us.”
That’s when LaDawn spied the suitcases. Her mouth fell open and she gasped. “You were just gonna up and leave in the middle of the night like we were some lot of one-night stands?”
“If I leave, they leave.” She used a thumb to point at the ruckus right outside her door.
LaDawn clamped her hands on her hips, the jangle of her bracelets echoing in Marybell’s tiny apartment. “You did not just say that to me, Carson Chapman! That’s right. I called you by your given name because that’s damn well who you are, and the H-E-double hockey sticks I’m gonna let you run away like we all never meant nuthin’ to you. You’ll stay right here, and you’ll fight for your right to live your life in peace. You’re not leavin’ me alone so I’m the only one they stare at. We do that as a couple. End of.”
Marybell shook her head, making it pound harder. “Do you have any idea what they did to me, LaDawn? I’ll say it one more time, they virtually ruined my life. My entire life. I couldn’t even go to the dentist without them showin’ up. They harassed everyone around me until no one wanted to be around me anymore. No way am I going to let them ruin your lives, too. What will they do when they get wind of the fact that I’ve been working for a phone sex company all this time? Or that you were once a companionator? You’ll never find a moment’s peace.”
LaDawn’s eyes went wide. “Whose damn life is it? It’s mine, and if I want to let them ruin it, that’s up to me. Not you.”
Now the panic thrummed through her veins, plucked them until they were so tight she thought she’d burst wide open from it. “Please, please hear me. I promise you, you won’t feel that way when they take pictures of you picking your nose or some equally unflatterin’ photo. Please. I appreciate all of you, but, Em, you have children, and, Dixie, you have a phone sex company. You know what the press can do to something that appears so innocent. If I leave Plum Orchard, they’ll follow me and leave you all out of it.”
“Stop!” Em yelped. “Stop this now. Back when this all happened, you didn’t have us. But you do now, and we’re going to get to the bottom of this, if it’s the last thing we do. You are not leaving this town, Marybell—Carson—whatever your name is. I won’t allow it.”
Marybell gaped at her. “How do you propose we prove I had nothin’ to do with any of this? It’s my word against an idea in everyone’s head that’s been blown out of proportion over and over. There’s been so much speculation about my involvement—and it wasn’t good speculation—that there’s no turnin’ the tides now. Never mind the fact that I went into hiding. How does that make me look? Guilty. It makes me look guilty.”
“You were cleared by the D.A., right?” Dixie asked as she took another cloth from LaDawn and began wiping at Marybell’s face.
After the millionth grilling. “Yes, but that didn’t change the public’s perception of me. Not one iota. Everyone thinks I helped Leon run off with that money because of that stupid picture of us together. Now that this story has been dredged up again by this supposed sighting of him, the press probably thinks we’re waiting to meet up and spend all those millions together.”
“Explain the picture of you two,” Dixie demanded, her eyes hard bits of blue.
Her sigh was ragged, but she closed her eyes and told the story again. “I was working late, filin’ papers, and Leon came back to his office from a party drunk. He never made any bones about the fact that he found me attractive, but I’d managed to skirt his attentions up to that point. I know you’re all wonderin’ why I stayed when he was so aggressive, but my internship was almost up, and interning at Kazinski’s was a huge coup on my résumé. I needed the prestige it brought. So I toughed it out.”
Dixie nodded, tucking her hair behind her ears. “So, why were you sprawled on top of him on the floor, Marybell?”
Her words were slow to come. She’d explained this at least a hundred times and it always led to the same looks of suspicion. Sure, they couldn’t prove she knew anything, but that didn’t mean they didn’t think she was lying through her teeth.
A sigh escaped her lips, harsh and tired. “Because he pulled me onto his lap, and the chair he was in fell over and I fell on top of him. If you look closely at that stupid picture, you can see the leg of an overturned chair. It’s hard to see until it’s pointed out, but it’s there. I don’t know who took the picture. I don’t know why. I just know I didn’t know he was stealin’ money from anyone, and I did not have an affair with Leon Kazinski.”
Dixie nodded, patting her on the knee. “Then that’s all I need to know.”
“What?”
“I said that’s all I need to know.”
“Ditto,” LaDawn muttered.
Em slapped her hands on her thighs with a smile. “Meeting adjourned.”
Marybell sat on the couch, frozen, her hands ice-cold. “That’s it?”
“What’s it?” Em asked, confusion in her blue eyes.
“You all believe me?” They believed her? No proof. No hard-core evidence? No grilling? They just believed?
LaDawn nudged her from behind. “Course we do, MB.”
Dixie flashed a finger upward. “Now we just have to set our minds to provin’ it.”
Eighteen
Sanjeev poured everyone cups of tea: tea he promised would ease Marybell’s sore throat and her pained heart. The moment Dixie had called him was almost the exact moment he’d shown up at the door, armed with food and fighting off the press, cursing the helicopter now hovering over her house. “It’s almost like they’ve discovered Elvis alive and well and living in Plum Orchard,” he mused.
Em smil
ed gratefully at him, taking her cup. “Honestly, who would have thought one little ol’ sex scandal could drum up so much noise?”
Marybell reentered the room after a long, hot shower at the insistence of the girls. The people who believed in her. All of them, in one room.
Instinct had her tucking her chin to her chest, but LaDawn propped her chin up with a finger. “No more hidin’ even though I hate how doggone pretty you are, no more fixin’ your eyes to the ground. Hear me, Carson Chapman?”
She lifted her eyes, letting her friends see her for the first time without makeup and eye masks and all manner of people shields. Her hair down around her face, almost touching her shoulders, she stood rooted to the spot.
Em stuck her tongue out at her from between crimson lips. “Had I known you were this gorgeous naturally, I’d have told you to keep that makeup on your face. Forgive if I hate for just a minute or two. It’ll pass.”
“Why, if it isn’t Carson Chapman,” Dixie murmured softly when she looked up from a ream of paper sitting on her lap. “You are the prettiest thing.” She patted the place on the couch next to her. “Now let’s figure this out.”
The entire time she’d showered, all while she’d scrubbed her face clean and rinsed her hair, she’d alternated between elation that Dixie and the girls believed her and anxiety over how to approach Tag.
She couldn’t get his face out of her mind. The hard lines of it, the shock, the red anger flushing his cheeks. Would he listen as they had? Or would he hate her for lying all this time the way Alison had?
Her hands fisted tight against her sides. She couldn’t even bring herself to ask them if anyone had heard from him. Every time she tried, her throat closed up again.
She looked at the laptops lying around, pictures of her running from the press and even one of her lying against a Dumpster just before she’d disappeared, glared at her. The humiliation of that time in her life, the ugly truth of her, backpack at her feet, torn skirt, greasy hair, propped up against a garbage can, her eyes sunken and red, made her want to curl up into a ball of shame.
Dixie’s voice cut into her thoughts. “So Landon hired someone to poke around Kazinski’s life?”
Sanjeev’s nod was a brisk bounce of his dark head. “He did. The moment he hired Carson, or Marybell, he told me he smelled fish.”
“Something fishy,” Dixie interjected.
“Can one smell something wrong?”
Dixie laughed. “Only in America where metaphors and euphemisms abound. Forget that, Sanjeev. Landon knew MB was tellin’ the truth all along? You knew who she was all along? Why didn’t you tell us?”
His black eyes admonished. “That was not for me to share. MB lost many things, Dixie. One of which was her pride, her dignity. She lived on the streets. She’s suffered indignities the likes of which I can’t even imagine, yet I can identify with. I lived on the streets, too, Dixie. You have no idea what that does to your soul, and I hope you never will. To reveal such anguish is a journey one must make alone, and each journey is different. I am not the exposer of journeys. Landon asked that I never reveal what I know, and as always, I honor his requests. My apologies to you, Marybell.”
Marybell sat next to Dixie, still in shock, unable to articulate how true Sanjeev’s words were. How stunned she was to find Landon had fished around on her behalf. It was so like him to want to make everything better.
Yes. Landon had known about Leon. He’d found her at her worst, and her most mistrustful, but he’d poked and coaxed and prodded for several months until she’d finally told him everything. Yet she’d had no idea he’d looked any deeper than her confession.
Dixie pursed her lips. “But, Sanjeev—this is a huge secret to hide from us. Maybe I could have done something before any of this happened.”
Sanjeev blustered, waving his hands in the air. “You don’t propose to tell me you could have done something Landon couldn’t, do you? That’s preposterous.”
“Okay, fine. That’s probably true. So forget not tellin’ me and just tell me what his investigators did find.”
Sanjeev’s mouth flatlined. “Nothing. No trail to the money he stole. No proof our Marybell wasn’t at the center of this in cahoots with him. If you give this thought, Mr. Kazinski’s plan was quite foolproof, and above all, simple. All he needed was somewhere to hide that money, if, in fact, he still has it, and disappear. Maybe he planned to escape where there are no extradition laws? The United States can apply to have one extradited, but that doesn’t mean the country will approve it. If those pictures really were taken in Morocco where Leon was allegedly sighted, they are a country, in fact, that has no treaty with the United States.”
“How do you hide out for all this time, Sanjeev, without someone recognizing you? Kazinski was global news, for gravy’s sake!” Em said, letting her cup clatter against the coffee table.
Sanjeev shrugged. “You have connections?”
“Who?” Dixie said, frustration in her tone. “His wife didn’t seem to have the answer. She bailed ten days after he was indicted because she thought he was cheatin’ on her with MB. His employees? All of whom are now working low-end jobs and just managing to make ends meet, if this investigator’s reports are correct. Wow, when this Kazinski ran, he ran hard.”
As if she hadn’t asked herself this a million times. Where had he hidden the money? Who had taken that damning picture of her?
Dixie flipped through some more papers, handing stacks to Marybell and LaDawn. “You know what, I hate to say it, but the logistics of this make no difference to me. I don’t understand how he managed to funnel all that money wherever he funneled it to. It’s like trying to decipher the Da Vinci Code. I don’t care. I just care that we find something to prove Marybell wasn’t cattin’ around with that thief. Proof so these vultures will go away. We need to find whoever took that picture. I believe with all my heart they know the truth. If it just turned up anonymously, it was done to either make money or get some kind of revenge. That’s always what somethin’ like this is about.”
LaDawn’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe it was his wife? I mean, I’d be in a snit to top all snits if I found out my husband was havin’ an affair with someone that looks like our Marybell does.”
Marybell shifted on the couch, her hands folded in her lap, thinking, rehashing.
Em cupped her chin in her hand. “Very true, but if she did take it, she lied to the investigators. Says here she denied any knowledge of MB messin’ with her husband. And if it was her, would she ever admit it, anyway?”
No. It wasn’t Leon’s wife. She couldn’t say why she didn’t believe it, but she’d never believed Helene was capable of getting up enough nerve to do something like that. She’d been miserable with Leon, everyone saw that, but she was also afraid of him.
Marybell shook her head. “Helene was always so kind to me. I have to believe she wasn’t capable of being so vengeful. Leon was awful to her the entire time I worked for him. I think what he did was the excuse she needed to leave him. She was afraid of him. Every time he spoke, she cringed.”
LaDawn made a face. “Jealousy does crazy things to women, MB.”
Dixie’s head popped up. She held up a finger as though she were piecing something together. “Who in tarnation is Tara-Anne Baker?”
No. Never. “Why do you ask?”
Dixie tapped the papers in her lap. “Tara-Anne Baker. It’s right here. She’s listed as an employee of Kazinski’s. I don’t see a deposition from her in this list of ruled-out suspects anywhere.”
Marybell sat up straight, a foreboding tingle running along her spine. “Tara-Anne Baker was my roommate in college. I got her a job cleaning offices at Kazinski’s....”
Dixie’s eyes narrowed when she tapped the list of employees. “Then why wasn’t she questioned?”
Her head was reeling. What had happened to Tara-Anne? She’d skulked off campus the moment the dean told her she’d lost her scholarship and never looked back. It wasn’t as though she kept
in touch with anyone. Virtually all of her past life had been erased because of Landon, and she’d worked hard to put it all behind her.
“So you haven’t seen or heard from her since you were booted out of college?”
“Well, I guess I wouldn’t. I mean, it’s not like I left a forwardin’ address, Dixie. I ran away, and Landon helped me cover my tracks.”
Dixie jumped up from the couch, her boots clacking against the hardwood floor. “Sanjeev? Call up that fancy private investigator and tell him he missed a suspect!”
Marybell’s head was spinning. All she wanted to do was run away—far away, hide under the covers, pretend this had never happened.
Do you want to do that next to a Dumpster, Marybell? Or do you want to hike up those britches and fight for your life?
Yet she voiced her fears. “Tara-Anne’s a long shot, if you ask me. All she did was clean the offices.” Wasn’t it?
Dixie gave her a pointed look. “They questioned the security guard, the bathroom attendant, MB. How did they miss the cleaning lady? Somethin’ ain’t right. This is where we smell fish. Now let’s find this woman. No stone unturned, I say.”
* * *
Dixie had the men who’d guarded Call Girls come to stand outside her door. Their angry faces and big bodies kept the reporters at bay for the moment.
After the girls and Sanjeev left, the silence of doing nothing but waiting crept in. The flurry of activity now gone left her with her fear.
She had to call Tag. She had to explain. He had to let her explain. Scooping her phone up, she scrolled for new texts and found a big fat nothing. She’d texted him, almost begging him to talk to her—his silence was the most telling of all.
What had she been thinking when she thought she could keep this all together? Where had all her big brains gone when she thought stalling him until she had some proof she was innocent and a confession were going to make up for all the lies she’d told him from the very beginning?
She couldn’t get the picture of his face at the VFW Hall out of her head. She couldn’t forget how different that Tag was compared to that of the funny, easygoing Tag she’d fallen in love with.
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