by Lila Dare
There wasn’t much to say. Dooley would have told me to hold my tongue. However, I trusted Marsh. I’m not a big gut-instinct person, but I knew I could tell him what happened and that he wouldn’t ever turn it against me. Even as I traced the initials with my thumb, I felt sure he’d be on my side.
“She tricked me.” My throat seized up with emotion and to my horror that last word came out as a gasp.
Marsh’s right hand reached across the span of wood. His index finger tapped mine. “Grace Ann? You all right?”
No, I wasn’t all right.
My bottom lip trembled. I studied the carved names in the tabletop. “Just for the record, Special Agent Dillon, I am not stupid. I mean, you’re the law and I’m in here without an attorney, so…so that’s all I’m saying.” Keeping my gaze on the wood, I raised my hand to pantomime zipping my mouth shut. Then I swallowed hard. Really hard.
With a sigh, he pushed back his chair, walked over to the blinds covering the two-way window, and stood there, letting his presence fill the space between us. Scritch-scritch-scritch came the sound of him cranking the blinds shut. His shoe leather slapped the tile floor as he walked around to his side of the table. Once there, he reached under the table and fiddled with something, something that finally went click.
“It’s just you and me,” he said, softly. “We’re off the record. What’s going on here?”
“I really don’t have anything to say.” I repeated this to myself, as a sort of mantra. In the beauty shop business, you hear all sorts of secrets. Part of being a professional is learning to keep your mouth shut. I could do that.
He rubbed his jaw. “Right. I can’t blame you. But I need a few answers.”
I chewed my bottom lip.
He sighed. “Lisa Butterworth tricked you. She took all the information you’d collected over the years on your clients and—”
“Who told you that?” I nearly jumped out of my seat.
“Your mother.”
Chapter Seventeen
“I STOPPED BY HOPING TO TALK WITH YOU. SOMEONE reported seeing you and Ms. Butterworth having a disagreement at the Walk-Inn Foods shop. A loud disagreement. Now she’s dead. I need to know what happened so I can clear you from my list of suspects.”
“My mother blabbed to you? Why would she do that?” I blinked in surprise.
“Probably because Officers Parker and Qualls had just loaded you into their car and taken you away. Your mother loves you and she was worried, so when I walked in, she told me what happened.” The way he spoke, it sounded so reasonable, and indeed, it made sense, but still…Mom usually kept her mouth shut. Why now, of all times, had she decided to blab to Agent Dillon?
He must have read my mind because he said, “She trusts me. I hope you do, too. I bet your mother doesn’t make many mistakes when it comes to judging character.”
Years of working with people one-on-one, listening to them tell their stories, has given my mother excellent people skills. But even so…it was surprising that she’d shared Lisa’s trickery with this GBI agent, because Mom has always been tight-lipped. When Alice Rose and I were younger, she used to wag a finger at us and say, “Girls, it takes a whole lot less effort to keep quiet than it does to mop up a wet spill in Aisle Six, and if you don’t believe me, I’ve got a floor you can practice on.”
“I want to clear you from the list we’re developing. The one detailing people of interest. In fact, I not only want to clear you, I will clear you, with or without your help. Obviously, your help would mean less wear and tear on both of us. I could wrap this case up faster.”
“And get the heck out of Dodge.” I aimed for funny, but my joke landed flat. Every time I saw him, I wanted more time with him, I felt drawn to him, and the intensity left me incredibly vulnerable.
He chuckled and moved his chair so close to mine that our knees bumped. “Not exactly, but I would be able to move on. Let me clear your name.” His voice was husky.
He wasn’t pleading, but his tone had turned softly persuasive. Sitting shoulder to shoulder beside me, his posture fostered an odd sense of intimacy—odd because the pastel green concrete block walls and the gray brown linoleum floors magnified every human sound, of which there was a gracious plenty. You could hear everything from murmuring voices, to the clicking of heels, to the hum of office machines. The hubbub outside this little room emphasized that while the rest of the world went on about its business, Marsh and I were here together in a gathering pool of silence. He reached over and took my hand, cradling it in his.
“Grace Ann? It’ll be all right. Trust me. I’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. We both know you didn’t kill Lisa Butterworth. All I need to do is find the person who did.”
It took all my courage to look into his eyes.
“When you talked to Mom…did she tell you I ruined her business? That she’s leaving town because of me?”
To my surprise, he gave my hand a gentle squeeze before letting it go. “I don’t believe that for a second. I don’t think you do, either. Not in your heart of hearts. She did tell me about Ms. Butterworth stealing your client list. How she tricked you. But I’d like to hear your version of what happened. After all, if Ms. Butterworth did that to you, she could have done the same thing to Chez Pierre.”
I nodded. In fits and starts, I explained how Lisa had presented herself as a bona fide expert in social marketing, which she probably was, and as a good choice for helping us, which she wasn’t.
Marsh nodded. “Makes sense that anyone would jump at the chance for that type of help. You probably should have asked her to sign a confidentiality statement, but since you two went to high school together, you had no reason not to trust her.”
“How’d you know we went to high school together?”
He shrugged. “Part of my job. I’ve been checking out who was connected to Ms. Butterworth and how. Besides, I was the one who had to inform her parents that their daughter died.”
“Oh,” I said. “How…how awful.”
“Definitely the worst part of my job. After a couple of hours, they gave me permission to look through Ms. Butterworth’s things so I could get a better sense of the woman. You know that she still lived with them? Moved back here from Atlanta recently. Saving money to buy a house. Had her eye on an old Victorian. Wanted to fix it up. She loved antiques.”
A lump formed in my throat. So Lisa had been trudging down the same track I was. Even though I’d been looking for a place to buy, I hadn’t found anything that both matched my wish list and my budget. Unlike her, I did have my own place, a small apartment that I rented.
“Lisa Butterworth hung on to all her high school yearbooks. I flipped through them and noticed your photo. You haven’t changed much over the years, but she had.”
I shrugged. “Took her a while to figure out how to make the most of her features. Style her hair in a way that was flattering. Clear up her skin. Probably had braces, too. I guess you’d call her a late bloomer.”
“How was high school for her? Is it possible someone here still holds a grudge? Is that what might have happened?”
“I seriously don’t remember much about her. See, she and my sister, Alice Rose, were in the same grade. I was two years ahead.”
“All right. Let’s move on. What can you tell me about Wynn Goodman?”
Chapter Eighteen
I ADMITTED TO MARSH THAT WYNN AND I HAD ONCE been a couple. I explained how Wynn trained all the newbie stylists, and that he’d taken a particular interest in me. Of course, I fell for the man. Who wouldn’t have? Wynn was ten years my senior, bronzed, chiseled, and blue-eyed. The iconic California golden boy turned hair guru. Think Laird Hamilton with a pair of scissors instead of a surf board. Before Wynn turned thirty, he’d been touted as one of Hollywood’s best and brightest. His movie-star good looks added to his skill with scissors gained him a constant stream of invitations to the hottest, hippest parties.
As a traveling stylist for Vidal Sassoon, he was a twenty-first-century global nomad, collecting passport stamps from exotic locations. After the head instructor at Sassoon’s Atlanta studio died of a heart attack at age thirty-five, corporate dispatched Wynn to fill the void, at least until a permanent replacement could be found.
That’s where we met. Because I’d been in the hair business my entire life, my skills outpaced the other stylists’. It wasn’t that they weren’t good; they were. But I grew up in a salon. They hadn’t. I couldn’t remember a time when I wasn’t a part of the beauty industry.
Heck, my mom would ask me to mix up a color formulation the way other mothers would ask their kids to pop a load of laundry in the dryer. Wynn wasn’t comfortable correcting other stylists’ mistakes, in part because he took a free-spirit approach and because he wasn’t an organized person, so he often turned to me. “Grace Ann, can you help Marcella? All her cuts are a bit longer on one side than the other.” And, “Ernesto is having trouble with texturizing hair. Any suggestions for him?” “LaReesa mixed the color wrong, and now the customer needs a correction.”
Mom raised Alice Rose and me both to be helpful, but my willingness to step in and save the day was more than a by-product of my upbringing. It was a result of my raging hormones.
I had a crush on Wynn. He was an incorrigible flirt. No woman was immune to his honey-dripping smile, or his slow, sweet manner. I’d seen him turn ninety-year-old grandmothers into giggling girls. That was fine by me, because bit by bit, Wynn made it clear that I was his favorite. Once when I was in the stockroom doing inventory, he stepped inside, locked the door, and crooked a finger at me.
In seconds, he had a hand up my skirt and my blouse unbuttoned.
“I’m not good at this,” I stuttered. After coming home and finding my husband “getting busy” with another woman, I’d moved out, gotten a divorce, and taken a pledge to remain celibate. So far, as a strategy, it wasn’t much fun but it was a whole lot less drama.
“Babe, relax,” he said as he kissed my throat. “This isn’t work. Or school. There isn’t going to be a grade or a quiz. This is just for you, sweetheart. Just for you. A reward you’ve earned by being luscious. Let a master lead the way.”
Boy. He played me like a fiddle. That man’s fingers were magic, and his voice had a low rumble that called to a portion deep inside me, a place I never knew existed. I mean, Hank and I’d been pretty hot and heavy before we married, but my husband had been a selfish lover, a man who concentrated on himself and his needs only.
Wynn took pleasure in seeing me melt. And I craved reassurance that a man found me desirable. While I’d never admit it out loud, I wondered if I wasn’t woman enough to keep a man’s interest, and if somehow Hank’s cheating had really been my fault. I felt like a phony—working all day to make other women more attractive, but feeling that I couldn’t do the same for myself.
Even though it had been a while, I felt warm and gushy all over when I thought back on our brief liaison. During the workday, Wynn and I were great together, considering a client’s needs, discussing styles and products, reveling over the outcome of our joint efforts. At night and in stolen moments, we were passionate lovers.
His betrayal totally blindsided me. It had been a sunny, beautiful June day. I walked into the salon for the start of my shift, and immediately, I knew something was up. Usually in that half hour before opening, the shop hummed with activity, a happy buzz that said everything was going right. On this day, the place seemed unnaturally silent. No one looked up as I walked past. No one called out happy greetings.
My station was tucked in the back. To get there, you took a twisting, turning path between other stations. Every stylist added touches to make the four-foot square space his or her own. Because we spent so much time there, the stations began to feel like “home.”
Today, as I approached my station, everyone went silent. I could tell something was amiss, and I spotted the reason right away. A small stack of magazine pages rested on the seat of my styling chair. A sticky note bore a scrawled message in ink: FYI.
The slick pages had been stapled together, starting with the cover sheet: “Hair TODAY.” Flipping the stack open, I saw a four-page color article featuring picture after picture of my best, most creative work. Accompanying the photos were accolades like “innovative, flattering, and sophisticated.” I grinned from ear to ear as I gazed on my work with wonder and joy. Wow! Wouldn’t Mom be thrilled? I couldn’t wait to share it with her. Excited by the attention, I scanned the copy for my name.
I looked at page one, page two, page three…and on to the end. That’s when reality set in. Nowhere, not anywhere, in that long article was I mentioned by name. Nowhere. The piece was about Wynn Goodman, the hot young talent in the hair industry. The positioning of the photos, the cutlines underneath, all touted the images as Wynn’s work.
But it had to be a mistake!
I read every word, every line once, twice more.
My first impulse was to call my mother. But I quickly got over that.
No way could I call her!
She had learned her craft the hard way, being totally self-taught. She cobbled together an education, struggling to open her own shop after my dad died and left her with two young daughters. Attending a beauty school in Atlanta would have been a dream come true to her. Working at Sassoon was a situation beyond her wildest fantasies. Every week she called and asked how things were going—and she was pleased as punch when I told her how much I was enjoying myself.
If I told her about this disappointment, it would burst her bubble. Mom wanted to believe that everyone in the beauty industry was as gorgeous on the inside as they were on the outside. Because she’d lived her whole life in St. Elizabeth, she could maintain that childlike innocent view of the business. An imaginary circle had conscribed her world; life within its friendly confines had given her an unrealistic belief in human kindness.
I wasn’t about to shatter her dreams along with mine.
“There’s probably some mistake. The reporter got it wrong. Wynn showed him my photos to prove how good his students are. Their wires got crossed. Yeah, that’s probably what happened. No biggie. When he sees it, he’ll make them print a retraction.” I mumbled all this to myself as I wadded up the magazine pages and tossed them into the trash can. Then I started inventorying my supplies and getting ready for the day ahead.
LaReesa Bowens showed up at my elbow. She was a large woman with a couple of homemade tattoos on her right forearm. “Girlfriend, we talking about that man! He was on the down low, girl. He’s a dog! Passing off your stuff as his. That Wynn Goodman ought to be shot, he should. Everyone knows those were your styles! Everyone! What a jerk. Especially considering the other news and all.”
“Other news?” I froze.
LaReesa shifted her weight and stared at me. “You mean you don’t know? I thought you’d be the first person he’d tell.”
“Spill it.” I crossed my arms over my chest so she couldn’t see my hands shaking.
“Oh, baby girl.” LaReesa shook her head. “You ready for this? That skunk. He really is lower than a cottonmouth’s belly on a July day. You know what he went and did? It was all over the news this morning. That talk show on the radio? The one where they talk to all the celebrities?”
“What happened!” I was losing patience, and LaReesa had a tendency to wander off topic.
“Wynn Goodman got engaged. He’s marrying Eve Sebastiani!”
Chapter Nineteen
ARTURO SEBASTIANI GREW UP IN POSITANO, WHERE his father owned an olive orchard. Early on, the boy showed great talent with his sisters’ hair. Their friends started lining up in the Sebastiani kitchen where Arturo would cut, color, and curl for a small fee. Inspired by the soft skin of the farm workers, Arturo created a variety of products, all using high-quality olive oil. When the boy turned eighteen, the villagers took up a collection to send him to the States for training.
Arturo arri
ved in New York City, found a place behind a chair, and never looked back, although he has been a huge benefactor to the area. Once a year, he makes a pilgrimage to the village, bringing much-needed financial aid to such projects as the local library, the schools, and the churches.
Somewhere along the line, Arturo attracted the attention of a wealthy socialite who convinced her husband to back the Italian boy in a series of business ventures. Thus, Snippets was born. Arturo married a model, had a bambino, and the entire Sebastiani clan often appeared en fami-glia in advertisements for the Snippets chain.
Everyone in the industry followed the adventures of Eve Sebastiani, Arturo’s only child and his successor in the business. She helped in refugee camps in Uganda, broke ground for AIDS hospitals in Kenya, and still found time to meet the Queen at Ascot. As time went on, Eve took on more and more of the decision-making responsibilities. But when had her path crossed that of Wynn’s? How long had they been an item? Was it possible my friends were reporting old news? Wynn had stayed at my place overnight just last week before flying out to Los Angeles for meetings at Vidal Sassoon headquarters.
Or so he said. The company headquarters had moved nearly twenty years ago. But I needed Wynn so much that I didn’t question him. Looking back, I’d been just as blind about Wynn as I’d been about Hank, but for different reasons. With Hank, I was young and stupid. With Wynn, I was needy and hurt. Ours was a typical rebound relationship, but I was too blind to see that at the time.
“Here.” LaReesa handed me her smart phone. The headline: “Eve Finds Her Adam.” The story: Eve sported a sparkling diamond from Wynn Goodman. They planned a June wedding on the Island of Skorpios. They met at an industry trade show, and, yes, they were truly, madly in love.
Which left me hurt, embarrassed, and out in the cold.
My knees buckled as I eased my way back into my chair.