Her hair was shoulder-length, a glossy natural dark blond. My hair is great, Gail thought. Her boyfriend, Deputy Sonny Keller, seemed half in love with her hair, which he once compared to honey-colored satin when he was drunk. He loved her hair and her big breasts, even though she thought they were too big and were beginning to sag although she was only thirty-two and had never nursed a child. And although her teeth were perfectly straight and white, looking at her round face with what everyone called “chipmunk cheeks,” her small and murky blue eyes, her snub nose, and her too-thick neck sent Gail into the habitual fit of depression.
When she was growing up, Lottie had continually told her she was cute, even pretty when she smiled, but Gail had been certain Lottie was lying. She knew Lottie hated her because Gail looked like her father Butch, who’d been short and squat, an uneducated but smart man whom Lottie had driven away with her craziness. Gail had seen a goodness in her father no one else ever seemed to notice, and she knew her father had loved her, even though Juli had always captured all of his attention and his kisses. Julianna and Lottie had been happy when Butch left, Gail seethed inwardly after all these years. Happy! She’d been devastated.
Gail unconsciously clenched her teeth at the thought, then quickly relaxed her jaw. She didn’t want to chip a beautiful tooth by reverting back to the clenching and grinding that had plagued her as a child. But she couldn’t seem to help herself lately. She despised Julianna’s latest romantic involvement. She found it filthy, almost unholy if she had been religious, which she was not in the least. But most of all, Gail viewed it as sickeningly unfair. Once again, Juli had gotten what she wanted, just like everything was for her!
I should have done something about the situation years ago, Gail chided herself. Julianna had caused a man who loved her too much pain. Instead, Gail had let things drift while she worked out a plan. But as usual, she’d vacillated, afraid to take action until she’d poked every possible hole into every scenario she’d concocted. In the meantime, the situation had reached critical mass and gotten completely out of control. And to top it off, now Julianna had probably become a saint to the man Gail loved more than life.
Feeling hot tears of grief and frustration beginning to run from her murky blue eyes down her chipmunk cheeks, she pushed aside a heavy trunk and looked at a piece of scuffed wood beneath it. Gail got one of her mother’s kitchen knives and began gently running it around the edges of a barely visible square crack in the wood. Around and around, careful not to damage the already worn varnish. After nearly three minutes, she was able to pry the blade into a crack and lift up an eight-by-ten-inch piece of wood. She laid the piece aside, reached inside and clutched a velvet sack that had covered a particularly fabulous bottle of Crown Royal given to her father by a Christmas-generous boss. Neither the boss’s mood nor the Crown Royal blended whiskey had lasted long, but Gail had cherished the bag, worked on a secret hiding place for it every time she found herself alone in the cabin, and used it for safely squirreling away keepsakes for years.
Gail knew Lottie was nowhere near the cabin—she could almost feel the absence of Lottie’s “aura”—but she still glanced over each shoulder before she dumped out the contents of the velvet bag. She smiled when she saw the hair ornament her mother had made—there had been two—one for her, one for Juli. Two barrettes almost two inches long, made in the shape of a butterfly with tiny chips of blue, green, and pink Austrian crystals sprinkled on the gossamer wings.
She picked up one diamond stud earring. The man Julianna had cared about for a while and Gail had adored wore it almost constantly until it disappeared from his dresser one day. The last item in the velvet bag was her love’s picture, a small sketch she’d done, not very good, but recognizable. That was why she’d obliterated the face, just in case her hidey-hole were ever discovered. Besides, she didn’t need to look at a picture to remember his face. It was burned into her brain.
Gail wanted to take her treasures home, but she didn’t dare. She didn’t think she was under suspicion for her sister’s murder, but you could never be too safe. She wiped off each item and slipped it back into its velvet bag and down into the hole. She carefully put the trunk back in place, and walked out of the cottage.
On the porch, she glanced around. A fierce morning sun had washed the sky and the air clean. Beside Gail, her mother’s small cat Calypso let out a tiny, pitiful mewl of hunger. Gail looked at the cat for a moment, gave it a slightly lopsided smile, said, “Things are tough all over, cat,” and walked purposefully to her small white car, the cat looking pathetically after her.
4
“Good heavens, did a tornado blow through here?” Kit Kirkwood surveyed the shambles of Adrienne’s living room. “It’ll take forever to get this place back in shape.”
“Not really.” Adrienne slid a heavy seat cushion back onto the couch. “Only a couple of little things were broken. The rest was just tossed, as Lucas says.”
“Let me help you clean up.”
“I can manage. Skye is helping.”
“And with me helping, things will go even faster.”
Kit had dark brown hair that an incredibly expensive haircut gave a casually tousled look. She wore Capri pants, sandals, a T-shirt, and only a slash of pale lip gloss and a bit of mascara. Without the dark lipstick, the blush, and the eyeliner she applied to her hazel eyes when she was at the restaurant, she appeared at least five years younger. Usually Kit had a wide, lovely smile, but not today.
“I’m wondering just what the hell is going on in this town,” Kit said, picking up a lamp. “It’s beginning to feel like we’re in an episode of The Twilight Zone.”
“It always has. Don’t forget, Point Pleasant is supposed to be suffering under an old Indian curse.”
“Now you sound like my mother.”
“I’m beginning to think her belief in the supernatural has been undeservedly dismissed.” Adrienne shoved the last cushion onto the couch and stood back, hands on hips. “Here we are making light of the situation when Julianna has been murdered. What’s wrong with us?”
“Shock.” Kit set down the lamp on a table and came to Adrienne, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close. “Back when we were teenagers, I thought I was ordinary, you were special, and Julianna was bigger than life. She was so beautiful, so energetic, so joyful that she seemed … I don’t know … eternal. That sounds stupid, but even when she was having trouble with drugs, I knew she’d come through it. And she never forgot us. Even at the height of her career, I don’t think I ever went more than a month without talking to her.”
“I know,” Adrienne said sadly. “Her attention meant so much to me when Trey and I were in Las Vegas. I was miserable and worried about money, especially after I had Skye and I was still trying to get my master’s degree, I wrote to Juli, but I couldn’t afford to make a lot of long-distance calls. She understood without my having to explain. She’d call me and talk forever. Her phone bills must have been huge. But I always felt better after I’d talked to her. Well, when I talked to you, too. It’s just that Julianna—”
“Had a more exciting life than I did. We could both live it vicariously.”
By now, Adrienne’s eyes had filled with tears. “I’m going to miss her so much.”
“Me, too. Nothing will ever be the same for us.”
“Or Lottie.” Adrienne sighed. “How’s Gail taking it?”
Kit dropped her arm from Adrienne’s shoulders and shrugged. “She’s the same old Gail. A cipher. You’d never guess her sister had just been killed. Yesterday she came in for the evening shift as if nothing had happened. I told her to take the night off. She said that wouldn’t be necessary. Can you believe it? But I insisted she go home. I was so angry that she was unfazed by her sister’s death, I just felt like slapping her.”
“No wonder. Certainly she felt something. Julianna was her only sister.”
“Of whom she was wildly jealous. She has none of Juli’s beauty, her charm, her ambi
tion. Gail is okay looking, pleasant when she feels like it, and efficient. That’s it. I tried to befriend her for Julianna’s sake—I even gave her a job—but I can’t make myself like her. I believe she’s one of the coldest people I’ve ever met.”
Adrienne began shoving the heavy coffee table back into place. “Gail was devastated when her father deserted the family. She was also ashamed of their poverty. Juli didn’t give a damn.”
Kit pushed on the other end of the coffee table. “I love the slab of glass on this thing, but it weighs a ton,” she gasped. “What does Lucas have to say about all of this?”
“The break-ins, Claude’s death, or Julianna’s murder?”
“Any of it.”
“I don’t think he knows much about Julianna yet. Her body is still at the medical examiner’s office in Charleston. They’ll determine the cause of death. Same with Claude.”
“Claude? He burned to death.”
“There was something else wrong with him. Lucas wasn’t specific, but he doesn’t think his death was an accident.”
“Another murder?” Kit exclaimed. “Jeez, I never gave that a thought.” She sat down hard on a hassock. “Do we have some kind of maniac running around town?”
“Apparently.”
“My God.”
They both stiffened when the doorbell rang. Their gazes met as they stood perfectly still, frozen with anxiety. Then a man yelled, “Adrienne? I mean, Mrs. Reynolds? It’s Rod from Rod’s Lock and Key. Sheriff told me to come myself instead of sendin’ one of my employees ‘cause you know me. I’m here to install your new locks and your security system.”
Adrienne let out her breath and went to the door. She opened it a crack and looked out at Rod, whom she’d known since childhood. He grinned and she smiled back. “Rod, it’s good to see you.”
“You, too, Mrs. Reynolds.”
“Rod, when did I become Mrs. Reynolds to you?” She swung the door open. “We went all through school together.”
Rod’s oversized teeth shone in his lean, weathered face that spoke of all the time he toiled outdoors when he wasn’t laboring at his business. His father had owned a small farm and worked Rod shamefully hard when he was young. After he inherited the place, Rod continued to handle it by himself, refusing to make his young sons near-slaves as he had been. “Well, Adrienne, aren’t you lookin’ pretty these days?”
“Yes, I think the bandage on my forehead does wonders for me.” She smiled. “The same for dark circles under my eyes from no sleep.”
“It’d take more than a bandage and dark circles to ruin that face, although I’m awful sorry about what you’ve been through. Lord Almighty, I heard you found Julianna Brent’s body.” Adrienne nodded, hoping he wouldn’t ask for any details. “And then you got mugged and now your house’s been broke into.” He shook his head dolefully, deep creases forming between his heavy, sun-bleached eyebrows. “Sure glad you were at your sister’s, although I heard her place got broke into, as well. And the Hamiltons with that fine alarm system I put in. The most expensive one we’ve got. I don’t get it.”
“The alarm system wasn’t turned on, Rod.”
He looked relieved and annoyed at the same time. “Well, I’m glad there wasn’t nothing wrong with the system, but confound it, why pay a fortune for a fancy system like that and then not turn it on?”
“It was an oversight. When Philip and Vicky got home from a party, they found Skye and me and our dog as unexpected houseguests and I’d just come from the hospital after getting bashed on the head.” She tried to smile lightly. “Everyone was a little off center last night. I’m fairly certain that was the first time the alarm had been left off.”
“Phew. That makes me feel a whole lot better,” Rod said. “Wouldn’t want to think I’ve been chargin’ a lot of money for an alarm system that’s not what it’s cracked up to be.”
“Aren’t you even going to speak to me, Lightning Rod?”
Rod turned to face Kit and broke into an even bigger grin, showing more teeth. Adrienne was certain the man must have more teeth than the standard thirty-two. “Kit Kirkwood, no one’s called me Lightnin’ Rod for nearly twenty years!”
Skye had come into the room. “Hello. Why do they call you Lightning Rod?”
Rod’s eyes lit up. He’d always loved to tell this story. “When I was three years old, I took off running in a field during a storm. My mother spotted me just as a big lightning bolt hit the ground about five feet from me. She fainted.”
Skye gasped. “No wonder! Were you hurt?”
“Not a bit. They said I thought it was funny. I didn’t think it was so funny, though, when I was thirteen and ridin’ my bike home to beat a storm and lightning hit a telephone pole that crashed right down in front of me. Wires were flyin’ everywhere, thrashing around like snakes and throwing out some pretty mean sparks.”
“My goodness, you’re a walking disaster,” Skye said in an awed tone.
“Skye!” Adrienne burst out.
Rod laughed. “That’s okay, Adrienne. She’s right. Close calls with lightnin’ are my claim to fame. But God seems to be lookin’ over me, honey.” He looked at Adrienne and Kit. “Well now, isn’t this a pleasure? Of course, the circumstances are bad, but I get to see two of the prettiest girls in my graduating class. Don’t tell the wife, but I had crushes on both of you.”
“You had crushes on at least twenty girls,” Kit said dryly. “But you ended up with the right one. I always thought Carrie was sweet and pretty. Just terribly shy.”
“She’s not nearly so shy now. And she’s gotten even prettier with age. She’s a fine mother, too.”
At that moment, Brandon wandered in and immediately approached Rod’s offered hand. “Dogs always know when a person’s partial to them,” Rod declared. “My two boys each got a dog. Brown and White.”
“What are their names?” Skye asked.
“Brown and White.” Rod seemed puzzled by her question since he thought he’d already given their names. “And what’s this big fella’s name? Blackie?”
“Brandon,” Skye said promptly.
Rod looked slightly bemused. “Well, Brandon’s a fine name. Fancy, but … fancy.” He glanced at Skye. ‘Think Brandon would like to help me change the locks?”
“I bet he’d love it! And can I watch, too? I never saw a lock get changed.”
“I don’t want you and Brandon to be in Rod’s way,” Adrienne said.
Rod shook his head, the cowlick in his thick, sun-streaked hair waving as if it had a life of its own. “Kids are never a bother to me, Adrienne. Just a pure pleasure. I’d have a dozen of them if the wife hadn’t told me in no uncertain terms there’d be no more than four. Number three’s on the way—be here in a couple of months. I’ll have to get that one a dog, too.” He looked at Skye. “Maybe you can help us pick out a name for it, something fancy like Brandon.”
“What did you have in mind, Mr….”
“Just Rod, honey. I was thinkin’ of gettin’ a beagle and calling him Flop Ear.”
“Flop Ear!” Skye burst out in horror before she remembered her manners. “Well, Flop Ear’s nice, but maybe we can think of some names you’d like even better while you work on the locks.”
Adrienne looked at Kit. “Seems it’s time for us to take a break. Want some iced tea or coffee? You look pale.”
“I need coffee. Strong.”
“Rod?”
“Coffee would be great. I don’t know what my two assistants here drink.”
“I’ll see that they’re both taken care of,” Adrienne said. “Don’t work them too hard.”
Rod immediately began chattering to Skye and the noise followed Adrienne and Kit to the kitchen. “Do you suppose he really had crushes on us?” Kit murmured. Adrienne whispered back, “I think he did, but back then, we were all too afraid to get near him for fear of immediately being struck down by lightning.”
They struggled to suppress laughter until they got into the kitchen and closed t
he door. There they collapsed, giggling like girls Skye’s age over something really not all that funny, although the laughter was a good release from the tension and dark thoughts that had gripped them earlier.
A minute after Adrienne had pulled two tissues from her pocket and they each wiped away tears of laughter, she said, “You can have coffee but I don’t own one of those fancy bean grinders like you have. I can’t give you the quality you’re used to.”
“Frankly, I never go to all that trouble for myself. Anything is fine.”
While the coffee brewed, Kit ran her hands through her thick dark hair, tucked it behind her ears, then pulled it forward again. Fiddling with her hair was a sure sign of nerves with Kit “Do you know who Julianna was involved with? Who she could have been with at la Belle?’ she asked abruptly.
“No. But Skye thinks it was your stepfather.”
Kit gaped. “Skye thinks it was Gavin? Why?”
Adrienne took down two mugs from the cabinet “She goes to Vicky’s parties for Philip to keep Rachel company because Rachel hates them. Anyway, the two of them have noticed that when both Gavin and Juli are present, Gavin constantly touches Julianna.”
“Gavin constantly touches all young women,” Kit said in disgust “Did Skye have anything else to go on?”
“Just that Gavin would have keys to la Belle, making easy access for secret assignations.” Adrienne poured coffee into the mugs and set one in front of Kit. “I’m only telling you this because I don’t think Julianna was involved with Gavin. I thought she just put up with him out of consideration for Ellen. But your mother is bound to hear the rumor and she might believe it.”
“You bet she’ll believe it.” Kit sighed. “Honestly, how she could have stayed with that jerk all these years given his affairs is beyond me. I know she was crazy about him when she married him, but she doesn’t love him anymore. She told me she stayed with him when she first found out he was a philanderer because I needed a father after mine jumped ship.” Kit scoffed. “Gavin was never like a father to me. Or to Jamie. Then he let Jamie die—”
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