Tears pricked at her eyes. “That’s such a touching story.”
He pulled an envelope from behind him and handed it to her. “These are the pictures.”
With shaking hands, Holly opened the envelope. Dozens of photographs of her slid from the envelope onto the settee. Baby pictures. School pictures. Sorority pics. Wedding pics.
The dad she thought didn’t love her or her mother enough to even send a birthday card had never abandoned her. He loved her. Tears streamed down her face.
“I finally convinced him to break the vow he made years ago and to meet his daughter. He wants you to know he always did and always will love you.”
* * *
“What a blubbering mess.” Holly stared at herself in the powder room mirror. Crying always made her blue eyes bluer. And now she knew the man who had given her those blue eyes and he loved her and she loved him, too.
She splashed her face with cold water and patted it dry. Pat. Pat. Pat. Never scrub. That’s what her mother had told her. She’d told her so many things but never this. Holly wanted to be angry with her mom, but the way Chris told the story made it hard. It was a love story.
After another big honking nose blow, Holly left the powder room. Maybe Thomas would be waiting for her.
She returned to the parlor but no one was there.
Voices came from outside on the porch. She opened the door and there were Chris, Mackie, and Jake in deep conversation.
When they saw her, the chatter dried up like a September cotton boll.
Holly stepped into the thick of them. “What’s going on?”
“I think you’ve had enough excitement for one day,” Jake said.
“It has been an eventful day, but I’ll be the judge of what I can handle.” Holly hesitated. “As long as you don’t tell me someone is dead.”
Silence.
“Is someone dead?” she whispered.
“No.” Jake said. “No one is dead, but you’re not going to like it.”
“I didn’t like being locked up in the St. Agnes jail for the day either, but I lived.” She flopped her arms at her sides. “You’re scaring me.”
Miss Alice stepped onto the porch. “Tell her.”
She must have been listening from the other side of the door. Grandma Rose’s trusted friend? Had Miss Alice continued to send pictures and letters all these years? Was that why she kept her nose in Holly’s business?
“We were hoping we wouldn’t have to tell you,” Jake said.
“Tell me what?” Holly searched their faces.
“The lawyer told you today that he was not at liberty to tell you why you were released other than the charges were dropped.”
“Yeah.” Holly tilted her head to the side to make sure she heard every word. “And?”
“Thomas confessed to murdering Tru,” Chris said. “He did it to protect you.”
Jake shook his head. “He’s in the same cell you were in.”
“Oh, good gravy. Why?”
Chris straightened his tie. “I think we just went over that.”
“I can’t let him do it.” She marched inside and grabbed her purse. “Let’s go right now and get him out.”
“A confession is not something you can just take back.” Jake rubbed his chin. “He was read his Miranda rights and waived them. Unless something changes around here, he’ll be in jail until his trial.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“I’m surprised you’re still here,” Holly said when she answered Liz’s knock on the door.
“Can I come in?” Liz’s face was a road map of misery as she looked everywhere except at Holly.
Holly stepped aside for Liz to enter.
“We’ve got an app that monitors the roadway hazards.” Liz fidgeted with her hands. “The bayou should be low enough to drive a car through sometime within the next few hours.”
“Again, I’m really sorry about Bob.” Holly gave Liz’s arm a quick brush. “I know you and he had a kind of, sort of thing.”
“Yeah, well.” Liz sniffled a little. “I think that was mostly me with the thing.”
“I don’t know. He seemed pretty in tune with you,” Holly said, stretching the truth a little for a good cause.
“Sometimes.” Liz fumbled with her hands again.
Holly didn’t remember Liz having that nervous habit. “You okay?”
“Yeah, yeah.” She gave a dismissive wave, but it wasn’t convincing. “I just want to get something off my chest. Nothing will probably ever come of it, but it’s the right thing to do.”
“Okay . . .” Spit it out already.
“You know how Bob didn’t talk much.”
Holly nodded.
“Well, he talked a lot around Sylvia.” Liz slumped and blew her nose into a tissue. “If she said jump, Bob asked, ‘How high?’”
“Do you think maybe they had a . . . um, romantic relationship?”
“No.” The answer came quickly with a bit of an edge. Liz shoved the tissue in her pocket.
“Sorry. I’m a little suspicious of that kind of thing. If Burl hadn’t gone down in his plane I would have divorced him for good reason.”
“If they did it was a one-off.” Liz twirled a few strands of hair around her finger.
“Do you think they did?”
“Here’s the deal.” Liz hesitated. She seemed to debate going through with saying whatever she was going to say. “The night of the séance, Sylvia was inconsolable. She thought her career was over. She’d never work in TV again. It was B-A-D.”
Not Holly’s best night either. She knew Tru’s video debunking her ghost would mean the end of her business and maybe the end of Holly Grove.
“Anyway, Bob had a bottle of booze in the van and he brought it in to calm Sylvia down.” The hair she’d been twirling around her finger snapped. “So, they both get an alibi, if you know what I mean.”
Holly nodded.
“The thing is . . . Bob wasn’t in there long, because I saw him creeping up the attic stairs toward his room. It was later, after everything happened—the fall and all—that Bob spent real time with Sylvia.” Liz seemed to study the restless movement of her hands as she rubbed them together almost as though washing them without water. “I don’t know. Promises may have been made.”
“And kept.”
“I just wanted to get that off my chest.” Liz took a deep breath. Finally, she lifted her head. Her warm brown pupils surrounded by watery whites in a web of fine red lines stared back at Holly. Gone was the playful gleam Holly had first seen in Liz’s eyes. “I just can’t be sure, but I’d hate for a nice guy like Thomas to go to jail when a guy who is already dead might have done it.”
Holly wasn’t sure how she could prove that, but it was worth a try.
* * *
Buster knew I’d talk Thomas out of this confession nonsense. Holly hurled her cell phone onto her bed. That’s why Buster had him transferred to the district prison and didn’t tell anyone, including Chris, about it. Buster was already counting his votes for catching a killer. But he had the wrong guy.
If only that stolen memory card would show up somewhere. Tru used those glasses constantly. Holly wondered if Tru had more than one memory card. Maybe if she watched the footage, there would be a clue on there. Something Tru may not have thought important at the time.
Once again, she wished she could just ring up a ghost when she wanted one and put them all in a box when she didn’t.
Holly walked across the hall to Jake’s room, which had been where Tru had stayed. She knocked on the door. When no one answered, she pulled out her master key and opened the door. Maybe Jake wouldn’t mind her searching his room for the card.
Yeah, right. She’d tried that before and it didn’t go over so well. But, hey, the sheets needed changing anyway.
The door clicked back in place and Holly turned a full circle in the room. “Tru. Can you hear me?”
She almost laughed at herself. Calling a ghost was as likely to
get results as calling a cat. She’d learned ghosts come on their own sweet time.
It couldn’t hurt to look for an extra memory card. No telling what she may find on there.
Too bad Tru didn’t have the glasses on when the killer pushed him off the widow’s walk.
“Tru. Come on. Make it easy on me.”
Holly stripped the bed and felt along the edges of the mattress and deeper. She pulled out gum wrappers.
Wonder if Tru missed chewing gum all the time. He’d never mentioned it.
She fumbled along every edge in the room and didn’t find anything except dust.
If Liz was right and Bob was doing Sylvia’s dirty work, maybe he stole the memory card.
Holly scrubbed her hand across her forehead as though that would help her think. Bob may have kept it for insurance or blackmail. It wouldn’t hurt to look.
She trotted up the stairs to the attic room where Bob had stayed. She combed through the closets, under the rugs, and even checked to see if a memory card had been taped under one of the tables. Nothing.
If he’d been stupid enough or under Sylvia’s spell, he may have given it to her. She’d probably destroyed it so it wouldn’t come back to bite her if anyone else got their hands on it.
Holly decided to give Bob’s room one more pass. This time she checked the ceiling fans, bottoms of drawers, and the back of the headboard. The memory card was so small, but the stakes were high. If there was a video of Bob threatening or menacing Tru, that would help Thomas’s case. They’d all seen Bob pin Tru on the dining room table, but in pure Tru style, he’d asked for that. She had to find that card.
Holly crawled around on her hands and knees looking between the cracks in the cypress floor. She found more gum wrappers.
Wait! Gum wrappers. Why would Tru have been in Bob’s room? Hmm. This could be interesting.
“Tru?” Holly randomly called out his name to see if he would get the message.
Maybe if she went about this systematically, she would have a better chance of finding the card.
She knew it was only a hunch, but it was all she had to get Thomas out of jail.
“Hey, Tru. Could I have some help down here?”
If we find the card it could be a double. If I can prove for sure that Bob killed Tru, I may be able to put together who killed Bob.
She’d become convinced that the allergic reaction was no accident. Especially after Liz suspected that Sylvia had had a fling with Bob for special services.
But what if . . .
What if Sylvia put peanut butter in her mouth and kissed Bob? Lordy. That’s one disposable weapon! But how could she keep a big guy like that away from his EpiPen when it was right in the bed with him?
Or what if it wasn’t there? What if after he’d died, she’d dumped it on the bed? If Holly was a gambling woman, she’d put money on that. But she needed proof to win Thomas’s freedom.
While Holly was thinking, she had been feeling around in Bob’s room and found nothing.
She kicked the pile of bedding on the floor. Bob must have been dumb enough to give the memory card to Sylvia if he ever had it.
Somehow Holly had to search Sylvia’s room before she packed up and checked out. That meant getting her out of her room. But how?
“Yoo-hoo,” Miss Alice called from the hall. “Holly, are you up here?”
A smile pinched Holly’s cheeks. She knew just the right person for the job.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Holly eased Bob’s door open just enough to peek out at the back of Miss Alice’s bluish-gray hair as she leaned in and cupped her ear to the door of Thomas’s room and listened. Then Miss Alice padded along in her stealth orthopedic shoes, carrying her wonder purse hooked over her arm. Miss Alice stopped at the next door and leaned in. If her hearing ever goes bad, Heaven help us. She’ll turn her hearing aids up to spy level. “Psst.”
Miss Alice casually checked her hair with a quick fluff then turned to Holly. “Oh, there you are.”
With a wiggle of her finger Holly motioned Miss Alice into Bob’s room and closed the door behind her. “I need your help,” Holly whispered.
“Why on earth are you whispering?” Miss Alice said, casing the chaos of the search of Bob’s room. A wry grin smoothed out the wrinkles above her lip. “Spring cleaning, dear?”
“Something like that.” Although Holly had no doubt Miss Alice knew exactly what she had been doing.
“You know I always find lost things when I deep clean.” Miss Alice lifted up a doily. “Do you?”
“I’m not that lucky. Maybe you could help me.”
She patted her wonder purse. “I’ve got a few cleaning supplies right in here.”
“It’s not exactly the cleaning I need help with.”
“I know, dear. But you do need help and so does your father.”
“You knew, didn’t you?” Holly’s throat tightened. “It was you who sent the letters and pictures after Grandma Rose died?”
Miss Alice nodded.
“How did you not recognize him when he checked in?”
“Oh, I did, or I thought I did. It had been thirty-two years since I saw him. He had a full head of hair, tight skin, and muscles then. It was the name that threw me off. I sent the letters to his given name.”
“But you . . .” Holly’s voice cracked and her eyes stung, “you knew the whole story.”
“Not until Rose was on her deathbed. She kept the secret because she’d promised your mother.” Miss Alice dug a tissue pack out of her wonder purse. “And I promised Rose.”
Holly swallowed back a lump in her throat. Mama, Grandma Rose, and Thomas. They’d all loved her in their own ways. She missed them all so much. “I can’t lose Thomas. He’s all I have left.”
Miss Alice plucked a tissue out of the pack and handed it to Holly. “You’ve got me, the Deltas, Nelda, and Sam. For better or worse.”
And she’d had both from them and given it, too. She blew her nose in the tissue, then told Miss Alice her suspicions and what she was trying to do. “All I need is for you to get Sylvia out of her room for thirty minutes. Can you do it?”
Miss Alice took a tissue and cleaned her glasses while they dangled from a beaded chain. “Is the Pope Catholic?”
“Amen.” Holly took a deep breath. “Can you do it now?”
“Give me thirty minutes. I may need to draft Nelda to help.” Miss Alice slid her glasses on her nose. “And you need to do one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Search Thomas’s room,” she said in her no-nonsense nurse tone.
“Why?”
“If he was willing to confess to killing someone he didn’t for you, he could be willing to kill someone for you. He knows how much this place means to you and what was at stake with that debunker.”
“Thomas would never kill anyone.”
“I’m not saying he did, I’m just saying he loves you that much and that’s motive.” She dipped her chin down and peeked over her glasses. “If you don’t do it, I will. You need to know.”
* * *
Miss Alice was right. Holly didn’t know her dad, but she knew Thomas. He couldn’t be a murderer. Could he?
She opened his suitcase. Neatly folded khakis, jeans, knit polo shirts, and T-shirts filled the inside. Holly took everything out and checked the lining and then rifled through every pocket. The whole time she prayed she wouldn’t find the memory card. After she turned the last pocket inside out she glanced skyward and mouthed thank you.
Twenty minutes later, she’d stripped the bed, checked every crevice on it, and combed through the armoire. She’d also looked under the bed, the antique rug, the Empire chest, the mahogany pie-crust table, and the bed steps. All she’d found was dust and evidence she and Nelda needed to step up their cleaning a notch.
Holly stood and studied the room. She had touched everything except the French doors. After she pulled the bed steps over so she could stand on them to reach a little higher, s
he noticed the lining on the back of the drapes had a hem too. She picked up the fabric and felt along the hemline. She felt something hard. Actually, several disc-shaped things. She stuck her finger in the hem, loosened the stitches, and pulled out a washer-looking thing made of lead, probably to weight down the hem.
The only place left to look was the bathroom, and her confidence was high that a tech guy like Thomas wouldn’t put anything that went in a computer in a damp bathroom. She dropped the end of the drapery and something fell out. She blinked as though her eyes were lying. There on the floor a flat rectangular memory card lay among a sprinkling of dust.
Her stomach sank as she climbed down the bed steps. She kneeled, picked up the memory card, and closed her eyes to a flash of a memory from after the séance.
Thomas had picked up Tru’s glasses after Bob knocked them off during their tussle. Thomas could have taken the card then. It had all of Tru’s debunking video from the séance on it. How many times had Thomas told her he thought everything was going to be okay? He knew that card would never be seen. She clutched the card in her fist and pressed it to her chest. If Thomas had the card, he had no reason to kill Tru.
A scream she knew too well erupted from the hallway. Holly jumped to her feet. “Nelda!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Holly threw open the door and ran into the hallway just as Nelda let out another Hollywood scream. She waved a broom over her head and whacked it on the floor.
Rhett yapped and bounced with each swat of the broom.
“Did you get it?” Miss Alice yelled trotting behind Nelda and aiming an old-school revolver at the floor.
“Missed.” Nelda swung the broom again, then let out another slasher-movie-worthy scream.
Rhett zigzagged, nose to the floor, like he was hot on the trail of something.
And they were chasing something, but Holly couldn’t see it and neither could Rhett. And mercy, what was Miss Alice doing with a gun? “What is it?”
Sylvia’s door flew open and she poked her head out. She wore glasses, a Holly Grove white bathrobe, her hair in a towel, and not a stitch of makeup. Her ten status dropped a few points, evening her perfect ten to a pleasing five. “Are you people crazy?”
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