by Nancy Bush
She told September much the same tale she’d told Dallas the day before, about visiting Stonehenge and visiting the Kilgores. When she was finished, she sent him a worried look, probably wondering what had robbed him of speech. With an effort, Dallas said to September, “She hasn’t told the police this yet.”
“You think I should?” Lucy asked anxiously.
“Maybe after September talks with the Kilgores.” He looked to the ex-detective.
“Sure. I’d like to interview this Brianne Kilgore,” September said. “You’re going to want full transparency when you talk to them, though. You don’t want the police to determine you’re hiding something.”
“I’m not hiding anything,” Lucy shot right back. “It’s just ... I can’t really believe this. Who would want to kill my husband? With poison?”
No one had an answer for that, so a few seconds later, September said, “I’ve got a few hours of daylight left. Maybe I’ll go to Wharton County right now.”
Dallas nodded. The sooner the better.
“Do you want a key to Stonehenge?” Lucy asked. “I still have one.”
“Sure.”
Lucy went to the kitchen, searched in a drawer, and pulled out a metal ring that had a number of keys on it. She twisted one off, then handed it to September, who tucked it into a zippered pocket. The ex-detective was wearing jeans, ankle boots, a sweater, and a short jacket with a hood, clearly ready for the outdoors.
She left a few moments later, and Dallas followed both Lucy and September to the door. After September left, Lucy turned to him, her eyes clouded. “You hardly said a word. Should I be worried?” There was a thread of panic to her voice.
“I was just listening, thinking things over.”
“Are you worried about September? Do you think she’ll go to the police?”
“No . . . Luke said she’s a good investigator.”
“She seems so nice. Maybe I shouldn’t have talked so much.” Lucy was clearly having second thoughts.
“I think it’s okay.”
“Well, what’s wrong, then?” she asked. “Is it my case? I’ve got to say, you’re scaring me a little.”
“That’s not why I was ... disengaged.”
“Well, what?” She held his gaze, her expression careful.
He decided to go for it. “Sorry. It’s just that you’ve seemed so familiar and I was trying to place where we might have met.”
“Oh.” Color pinkened her cheeks.
She did remember. He would bet that was what caused the blush. “I think I’ve got it now,” he said, watching her. “We met ... you and I . . . about ten years ago at my brother’s fraternity house. I was there for—”
“Oh, yes. That’s right,” she cut him off. “I remember.”
“All of it? Because I don’t. I woke up sick in the dark, and I . . .”
“You grabbed your clothes and left,” she said flatly. “At least I assume that’s what happened.”
He was gut punched. “You were the girl in the bed, then ... ?” He vaguely remembered a girl beside him, a flash of white skin. “I just remember talking to you downstairs.”
“Okay.” She nodded several times, wrapping her arms around her torso, clearly uncomfortable. “Yes . . . that was me.”
“You knew it was me . . . you’ve known ... ?”
“Did I know who I slept with? Yes,” she snapped.
“I’m sorry. I don’t . . . know what to say.”
“Not my finest hour. Maybe we can leave it at that.” She tried on a tight smile.
“One of the fraternity brothers, Jim Borden, spiked my drink.”
“Jimbo.”
“Yeah. He thought it was funny. A joke. I wasn’t the only one, by a long shot, I’d say. He went to prison over it, for a time.”
“Did he?” She sounded almost distracted.
“That’s what I understand.”
“Okay. . . .” She’d been looking past him, but now she glanced back. “So, you don’t remember anything about that night? I mean, after we went upstairs . . . ?”
He didn’t know what the right answer was. He didn’t want to insult her, yet the few memories he had were indistinct enough to seem like a dream.
“Well, that’s an interesting reason for not calling,” she said lightly, taking his silence as answer enough.
“I don’t think there’s a Hallmark card for this,” he said carefully.
Her bark of laughter was accompanied by tears standing in her eyes.
“Lucy, I’m sorry.” He stepped forward, but his movement just caused her to step back.
“Don’t be. You didn’t know.” She held up her hands. “It’s years ago. Water under the bridge.”
“Doesn’t sound like it.”
“No, truly, it is.” She was nodding rapidly. “I thought about calling you, but when you didn’t call me, I just let it go. It’s silly to even care. I’m over it.” She looked up at him brightly. “Can we just get back to the problems at hand?”
* * *
Holy shit. Holy mother of . . . oh, goddamn . . . shit ...
Lucy could barely think. She wanted to run away, but where? To some other room of her own house? To another universe?
He didn’t know . . . he didn’t know!
All these years . . . the choices she’d made, all of them based on a wrong assumption. But what if she’d called him, reached him, told him the truth? What would have happened?
It was almost comical. Almost.
“Sure,” he said, answering her last question, but then, “You knew this when you came to my office? You’ve known it all along?”
Was that an accusation? No. He was processing. Like she was processing. Oh, hell. Oh hell!
Her heart clutched. What if he did the addition, realized Evie was his? Her eyes shifted of their own volition to the photographs on the mantel. Immediately, she looked away, afraid he would follow her gaze, realize . . . or at least put the question in his head . . . about what the truth was.
“My sister told me to come see you after John died,” she explained. Her ears were thundering. She couldn’t think.
“Did Layla know?”
“I never told her everything . . . about that night.” Careful. Careful now. Think about what you’re saying. Is this really the moment you want to blurt everything out? Should she? No . . . no . . . not yet. She needed time. “But I must’ve said something, because she figured it out.”
“So, she knew when she came to me?”
She wasn’t sure where this was going, but there was nothing to say but the truth. She nodded jerkily.
“Huh . . . okay.”
She sensed he wanted to ask more about it. All the questions she had answers to. Yes, we made love. Yes, I was more than willing. Yes, I wanted to sleep with you. And yes, there were consequences....
What she did say, was, “Other people have one-night stands.”
He inclined his head in agreement. “Still . . . wish I’d known. Coulda been a different outcome.”
“Yeah, right?” Her laugh sounded fake to her own ears.
“I’m glad we met again.”
Aren’t you engaged? she wanted to ask, but she couldn’t find her tongue. After a few more awkward moments, Dallas told her he’d be calling her with an update on what September learned, then took his leave. As soon as he was gone, Lucy pressed her back against the door and shut her eyes. The effects of a sleep-deprived night and a long day had brought on the headache that had been hovering around the edges of her skull. Luckily, Evie could be at Kate’s for another hour or two.
She went upstairs and dropped on the bed fully clothed, dragging the bedspread around herself, cocooning herself against the world.
* * *
Arriba was divided into a warren of rooms; therefore, it wasn’t nearly as easy to see to the bar from the tables. The walls were splashed with bright primary colors, red, green, blue, and sunshine yellow, and dotted with sombreros, serapes. and maracas in every conce
ivable shape and size. Kate balked when the hostess, who was in black pants and a close-fitting black jacket, apparently having missed the color-scheme memo, tried to seat her too far away, without clear sight of the bar, which was where she expected Lyle and Pat to meet. She lobbied for a table in one of the rooms nearest to the entry area, one with a fairly in-line view of the bar if she sat just so. The hostess clearly disliked being thwarted, however, and marched back to her podium with her nose in the air. Little bitch. She wasn’t fooling anyone with those “diamond” earrings.
Kate was in a fever of excitement. Her knee was shaking and her pulse raced. She took a deep breath and quickly reached up to adjust her wig, which itched and felt awkward and heavy. The big glasses made her want to rub her nose, but it was all a small price to pay.
She’d arrived forty minutes early, so she ordered a small plate of nachos that came in a huge mountain that made her certain they’d given her the large platter. A heated discussion ensued between her and her waiter, one the hostess tried to poke her nose into as well, which made perspiration collect under Kate’s arms as time kept ticking by. She groaned when she saw the waiter confer with the manager, apparently, which the hostess avidly listened in on as well. Did these people have nothing more important to do? Wasn’t there anyone else in need of a margarita or something?
She finally had to lift a hand and say the nachos were fine, fine, totally fine before their little cabal broke up, and by that time it was ten minutes to four and she felt wrung out. She was mad at Lyle. Deep-down mad. Ready-to-wring-his-neck mad. He was meeting Pat on the sly, lying about the pearls—she just knew it—and acting like he could barely stand Kate’s touch anymore. What had happened to his sexual appetite? He sure could flirt with the cute young women around him, but could he give his wife a kind word? No way.
By the time Pat showed up a few minutes before four, Kate was horrified to see she had mowed through the nacho mountain until it looked more like a molehill. Lord, she was going to pay for this! She could practically feel her body ballooning with excess calories.
Zeroing in on Pat, Kate pretended she had laser eyes to burn a hole in the back of the woman’s ugly gray raincoat. Pat seemed tense, too. Kate could see her toe wiggling as she sat on the barstool. Her purse was on the seat next to her and she took out her wallet to order a cup of coffee. No drink, even though it was happy hour. Well, Kate hadn’t ordered one either, but then, she was on a mission and couldn’t afford to dull her wits. Maybe Pat was, too?
Lyle brushed in about five minutes later.
There you are, you lying bastard, she fumed in her seat.
He pretended to look around and then finally decided to sit in the seat on the other side of Pat’s purse. Lyle shot another glance around the room, checking to see if anyone was watching, and Kate’s pulse spiked, even while she quickly ducked her head to look inside her own purse, which sat on the table in front of her, as if searching for something in its depths
A few moments later, she carefully peered over the rims of her glasses to note that Lyle had ordered a beer. He drank slowly and appeared to be scrolling through his phone. Pat had her phone in hand as well. Kate’s waiter brought her the bill and Kate almost missed Lyle putting something in Pat’s purse because the waiter was blocking her view. She had to dart a quick look around the man’s right side, just in time to see Lyle pulling his hand away. The edge of an envelope peeked from the bag.
A few minutes later, Pat paid for her coffee, swept up her bag, and left. Kate was in a panic. She threw down a twenty ... damn, was it more than that? She snatched out another five. Not worth that much, but she needed to sneak out.
Nerves stretched tight, Kate scurried toward the entry area, passing right behind Lyle’s back on her way to the door. Luckily, he wasn’t interested in anything but his phone. Hurrying, she reached her car in time to see Pat climbing into a black Volkswagen Passat. Good, okay. She slipped into her car and switched on her engine as the Passat sped out of the lot and onto the side street. Kate eased in behind her. Okay. Okay ... she had enough gas to go over a hundred miles, so unless Pat was heading on a long-distance trip, Kate was okay.
She had a bad moment thinking about leaving Lyle at the bar by himself. That little hostess was just the kind of snippy bitch to catch his attention. Maybe she was the reason he’d chosen Arriba. Meet Pat for another pass off of God knew what, then hang out at the bar and see what kind of hot piece of ass shimmied by.
No. Stop it. She couldn’t think that way. Not now. Not while she was chasing down Pat.
Still, her brain was in a froth of indecision as the Passat suddenly turned onto a side road, to a less commercial area. Kate followed, aware her and Pat’s were the only two cars on a street that was a mix of small businesses and some tired-looking houses that were slowly being overtaken by new commercial buildings, an area becoming gentrified, which to Kate’s way of thinking was a good thing. She couldn’t understand these people who protested that their neighborhoods were being unalterably changed. Well, of course they were. For the better!
The Passat swung to the right and into what looked like a circular drive. Kate almost followed but stayed her course, a gasp in her throat. She’d thought the neighborhood looked familiar; she’d just never driven it before. A glance toward the building Pat had turned into: Cascade Place Assisted Care. The assisted living community where Junior, Lyle’s grandfather, had spent his last days. Kate had visited the assisted care center with Lyle a couple of times but had always been a passenger in the car. The area was really starting to be much nicer now. Though Cascade Place was one of the highest-ranked care centers around, it was planted in the center of a dicey area.
Pat had eschewed the front portico and driven down the side of the building toward the rear parking lot. Kate wound around the block, coming to the lot from the other side. She pulled into the rear parking lot in time to see Pat huddled under a small awning, punching in the code for the back door into an electronic keypad. Kate didn’t remember the code, and it probably had changed anyway in the months—almost a year now—since Junior’s death. She couldn’t catch the door before it closed, so she hurried around the sidewalk to the front of the building and was able to walk inside through the main doors without buzzing.
The woman at the reception desk smiled at her, but Kate just lifted a hand and marched forward, acting as if she owned the place. Always better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. She almost missed the sign-in book as she passed. Maybe it was better to sign in. She picked up the pen and wrote in April’s name, just to be on the safe side if anyone checked later, then headed down the main corridor.
She was concerned she’d missed Pat, but she needn’t have worried. Pat was standing at a nurses’ station at the juncture of the north/south and east/west corridors.
Kate had to stop short and pretend to be looking for the women’s room.
She found the door and pushed through into the bathroom. She was breathing hard, her pulse racing, her mind whirling. Pat appeared to be one of the staff at Cascade Place. What did that mean?
After several moments of planning her next move, she headed back into the corridor and past the nurses’ station. Pat was sitting behind the broad desk, reading a computer screen. Kate saw her name tag: Lauren Paulsen. Ah, LP. And as she glanced up at Kate with an inquiring look, Kate said, “Hello. I’m interested in having my aunt come to Cascade Place. Do you think I could look at any of the rooms?”
“We’re full right now, so I don’t know. Check at the office. Someone there can help you.”
“Are you a . . . nurse?”
“I’m an administrator now.” Her faint smile was chilly, as if she thought Kate had impugned her somehow. Must be a new position or she wouldn’t be so touchy, Kate thought.
“Okay. Thank you.”
She wanted to ask a thousand more questions but wasn’t sure where to begin. And truthfully, she knew enough now about Lauren Paulsen to demand answers from Lyle. He was the on
e who owed her an explanation.
As she turned away, she caught sight of a picture of Lauren with a couple of other staff members, all in their scrubs, but Lauren was wearing a pink scarf tossed jauntily around her neck.
Chapter Twenty-Four
September fought traffic and made it to the Wharton County Sheriff’s Department at around five p.m. She hurried up the front steps of the low concrete building, glad the rain had stopped, though she was wearing jeans and a raincoat, and when she entered, she strode to the desk where a young woman with upswept blond hair and a tan uniform smiled at her.
“I’d like to see the sheriff. I’m following up on the anonymous call you received about Amanita ocreata poisoning. The sheriff already spoke to Detective Wes Pelligree about it.”
“Oh. Um . . . the sheriff’s left for the day. . . .”
September had thrown out Wes’s name to try to get around the front desk before she had to explain she wasn’t with the police. That plan had apparently worked, at least for the moment, but her trip still looked like it might be for naught.
The girl said helpfully, “But Deputy Morant is still here. He’s the one who actually took the call.”
“Great. Would you tell him September Westerly’s here to see him? I think Wes might have mentioned I would be following up.” September held her breath. She wasn’t used to having to explain her interest without the full support of the law behind her, but the call was put through and Deputy Morant appeared a few moments later, meeting September outside the front desk. He strode through with his chin lifted in self-importance, but he eyed September up and down and softened a bit. “Come on in,” he invited, pushing back through the door from which he’d exited, September following. They entered a room with a couple of desks and chairs arranged tidily around the periphery. It was about half the size of the Laurelton Police squad room, with even less furniture. There was a topographical map of the county on the wall and September glanced at it, mentally gauging approximately where Stonehenge and the Kilgore properties were, checking their relationship to Glenn River, the closest town, and where the burner cell phone had been purchased from which the call was made.