The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club: A Debutante Dropout Mystery

by McBride, Susan

  “I’m really sorry, Andy, but things are moving more slowly than we’d hoped. We’ve had a couple more witnesses just added to the list, which means two more interviews than we’d planned.”

  “Hey, it’s okay. I’ll be fine, I promise. You’ve got plenty of your own to worry about,” I insisted, using every iota of strength I had to keep from sounding weepy. I would not make him feel guilty for being away, even if I selfishly needed him here. “So how’s the hotel?” I did my best imitation of perky. “Did you get one of those beds with a pillow-top mattress?”

  That was enough to get him going, and he loosened up, spending a good ten minutes talking about his trip, telling me mundane details about his room without a view, the lousy dinner with his colleagues, and how his allergies were making his eyes itch.

  As long as I heard his voice, I felt calmer than I would had I snapped a rubber band on my wrist or repeated a silly mantra.

  Until we were about to hang up, and he turned the tables on me again, asking pointedly, “Are you sure you’re okay? Your mom’s not the only one who’s got a lot to deal with. You want me to call Abramawitz, see if I can leave early? I could say I had a family emergency . . .”

  “No, I’m fine,” I lied, feeling tears rush to my eyes. “Stay there and do your job.” A job I knew he loved and that I’d promised myself I’d never interfere with. I was not going to ruin his trip, if I could help it.

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.” Another fib. At this rate, I’d have a nose that beat Pinocchio’s by a wooden yardstick.

  “Um, okay, w-well,” he stammered, something he was prone to do when he was rattled. “Uh, good night then.”

  “ ’Night.”

  I thought he was gone, and I nearly hit “end,” when I heard his whispered, “Hey, Andy, you still there?”

  “Uh-huh.” Barely.

  “Yeah, well, um, I . . . I miss you. Alot.”

  Not the most eloquent of deliveries, and still it made me catch my breath. “Really?”

  “R-really.”

  I’d been waiting to hear those three little words, and, now that I had, I felt suddenly tongue-tied.

  “Ditto,” I chirped and cringed after I’d said it, realizing how stupid it sounded, earning a soft, “Okay, bye,” from the other end.

  With a snap, I folded up the phone and stared at it for a long moment—cursing myself for my lack of verbal finesse—before I settled into bed.

  Ditto?

  Andy Kendricks, I told myself, you are no Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

  Well, fudge. Who was?

  Turning off the lamp, I lay back and stared at the ceiling, a warm flutter spreading through my chest where, minutes before, the pain had been.

  Hope flitted in my head, tiny lightning bugs bright against the dark. I could see the brilliant flashes even when I closed my eyes.

  Chapter 9

  It was the shaking that roused me.

  Not the sunlight knifing through the opened drapes or the windows rattling as a plane rumbled through the sky above.

  Someone had a hold of my shoulder and relentlessly jiggled, until I peeled open my eyes and grumbled, “All right, I’m up already,” half-expecting to see Malone as I squinted to aid my fuzzy vision. But it was Sandy Beck’s frowning face that hovered above me, and, even without my contacts, I could see she looked grim.

  I scooted into a seated position, sheet tenting above my knees, as Sandy took a step back and rubbed her arms, visibly upset.

  “What is it? Is the house on fire or something?” I asked and yawned, scratching at my scalp.

  “I thought you were supposed to go with Cissy this morning, isn’t that what you told me?” Sandy sounded rattled, something I didn’t hear often, if ever.

  “Go with Mother?” I repeated, before I remembered where I was and what she was talking about. “Oh, yeah.”

  The meeting at Belle Meade with Annabelle at nine o’clock.

  I’d nearly forgotten.

  “Your mother’s up to something, Andy. I woke up last night and heard a shuffling above my room, in the storage area.”

  “Why would Cissy rummage around in there?” I asked, blinking and trying to wake myself up.

  “I had the same question, so I checked this morning to see if anything was gone. It was. She’d removed a suitcase.”

  “Did she take the Vuitton?” My voice rose in panic.

  “No, honey, just the Tumi Wheel-A-Way.”

  Thank God. My hand covered my fluttering heart.

  “Then it can’t be too bad,” I said, because if any of her “heading to Europe for a month” set of Louis Vuitton was missing, it could mean that Mother had planned an extended trip. But if just the Wheel-A-Way were unaccounted for, it meant a few days gone, a week max, and that was stretching it. (Seriously, it could barely hold her shoes, her jewelry case, and her toiletry bag at twenty-six inches.)

  “That’s not all,” Sandy said, and the drawl that usually soothed me, made me wince.

  “What do you mean?”

  She fished in her trouser pocket and pulled out a carefully folded piece of Mother’s cream linen stationery. Even the paper gave off her signature scent of Joy.

  “You read it,” I told her, not having my “eyes” in.

  “It’s addressed to me,” Sandy started and proceeded to prop a pair of glasses on her nose, worn on a chain around her neck. She cleared her throat and recited: “ ’Dearest Sandy, I shall be gone a few days, but will check in occasionally. Please, don’t worry. I’ll be home soon, I promise. Hold down the fort, please, and tell Andy that, if she can’t support her mother in her time of need, she should mind her own bloody business. Most sincerely, Cissy.’”

  I pressed a palm against my forehead, more disturbed by the minute. “This is insane,” I said.

  Sandy tapped the sheet. “There’s more.” She cleared her throat again. “P.S. I borrowed the Buick, but will bring it back gassed. Feel free to use the Lexus for shopping and errands.”

  “She took your car?” Sandy drove a Buick Century. Imagining Cissy behind the wheel of a family sedan was rather like picturing Donald Trump flying Southwest Airlines with a paper boarding pass.

  Sandy pocketed the note. “I’m not sure what all’s going on, but I’m just shy of frantic, Andy.” She went to the chair where I’d tossed my clothes and picked them up. “You’ve got to find her and make her come home.” She shoved the wadded jeans and T-shirt in my direction. “And, dear heart, would you please hurry up.”

  Hurry up?

  “But I’ll see her at Belle Meade at nine. She’s got that appointment with Annabelle.”

  “Which you’re about to miss, if you don’t shake a leg.” She tapped the face of her watch.

  “What time is it?” I reached for the old alarm clock that had been around since my school days, and I drew it close enough to my eyes to discern it was five minutes before the appointed hour. “It can’t be,” I muttered, setting the clock aside, sure my bad vision betrayed me.

  “I should’ve wakened you earlier, but I didn’t realize your mother was gone until I found the note on her pillow when I went to take her coffee at eight-thirty, as she’d requested. I figured she’d be up and dressed by then, only she’d already flown the coop. But maybe that was part of her plan. To dupe us both,” Sandy said, wringing her hands. “So I’m not at all sure when she left.”

  “Did you try her cell?” I asked, ready to reach for mine on the nightstand.

  “Of course, I did! But she has it turned off, as usual. It’s like she doesn’t want to be in touch. Do you think she’s run away?”

  Run away to where?

  To Belle Meade? The retirement village where she believed someone was knocking off her Wednesday bridge group?

  Criminy.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, trying to act calm when I’d caught her jitters like cooties. “I’ll track her down at Annabelle’s office and personally wring her neck.”

  Sandy held out he
r armload. “How about you get dressed first? You can’t go in a T-shirt and bikini panties. If you got pulled over by the Highland Park Police, you’d have a lot of explaining to do.”

  “You think?”

  The HPPD had, not long ago, arrested and hauled to jail a ninety-seven-year-old woman for an expired registration, so I didn’t suppose they’d appreciate a near-naked girl in a Jeep.

  I hopped out of bed and snatched my clothes from Sandy’s arms, donning them so quickly that I put my shirt on inside out with the tag sticking up at my chin. After a fast readjustment, I made a pit stop in the bathroom to wash up and stick in my contacts so I wouldn’t drive the Jeep into a tree.

  I started to make the bed, but Sandy stopped me. “I’ll do that, Andy. Now get.”

  After I gathered my things and shoved them into the tote bag, she ran me out of the house without so much as a piece of toast in my belly.

  Stabbing my key in the Jeep’s ignition, I heard my stomach complain about missing the first meal of the day.

  What I wouldn’t give for a PopTart.

  Instead, I chewed on a couple of old Certs, excavated from the bowels of my purse (along with a nickel and a paperclip), grateful that it was Sunday morning and only a smattering of cars were on the road, heading to worship, or maybe hitting a few garage sales.

  Mother’s house wasn’t far from Belle Meade, and, by sailing through a pair of yellow lights, I made it past the Stonehenge-like columns and onto the grounds in what was surely a new land-speed record.

  Still, I hated that Cissy had such a big head start.

  My foot eased on the accelerator as the Jeep bumped along the brick lane, and I prepared to stop at the guardhouse ahead; but, as I rolled nearer, I could tell no one was there. Perhaps Bob and Sam got Sundays off to golf, or else they’d been summoned elsewhere.

  Like to Annabelle’s office to physically restrain an irrational, suitcase-wielding society matron?

  “I feel calm, I feel calm,” I said, again and again, but my pulse didn’t slow the slightest, and a vein in my neck started throbbing.

  Could a woman under thirty-one (okay, barely) have a heart attack?

  Maybe I’d be the first and would end up in the Guinness Book of World Records along with the guy who’d stayed awake for seven days straight and the girl who’d hula-hooped for two weeks (I’m assuming with potty breaks).

  Sunshine filtered through the trees overhead, and the dappled light danced on the red bricks, as the Jeep picked its way ahead toward the visitors’ parking spaces I’d noticed yesterday.

  My eyes widened as I pulled in beside a silver Buick with a DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS sticker on the bumper.

  Sandy’s car.

  So Mother was here.

  A deep breath rushed out of me, as I set the Jeep in Park and scrambled down from the driver’s seat, nearly tripping over my own two feet.

  Toes clutching at my flip-flops, I sprinted across the drive to the front steps of the pillared main house, flying to the door and grabbing the brass handle, only to realize I couldn’t get in without a passkey.

  Damn.

  Well, I knew Mother hadn’t waited to get in, not with Bebe Kent’s spare key in her purse.

  So I punched the intercom, glancing over my shoulder at the camera mounted above me and giving a big, fake beauty pageant grin.

  “Hello?” I crooned. “Anyone there?”

  “Andrea!” Annabelle’s voice squawked from the speaker a moment after. “Hurry and get in here!”

  The intercom snapped off, the tiny light turned green, and the lock clicked open.

  Pushing on the brass handle, I shoved my way inside, shut the door behind me, and scurried through the marble-tiled foyer with its everpresent and absurdly large vase of flowers centrally located, heading toward the rear hallway. Which is when I stopped, realizing I didn’t know which way to go.

  To the right was the dining hall, I remembered, and to the left . . . was a brass plaque on which was printed OFFICE with a little arrow pointing that direction.

  All right, so no one would accuse me of having eagle eyes. (And my ophthalmologist could vouch for that.)

  My thongs slapped tile as I scurried past doorway after doorway, until I found the one I wanted with ANNABELLE MEADE, DIRECTOR neatly labeled on, yes, another brass plaque beside the jamb. There were even Braille letters beneath, which made me wonder how my own name would look in dots.

  I wound my fingers into a fist to knock, only to drop my hand to the doorknob and twist.

  Well, it’s not like I was unexpected.

  I pushed wide the heavy paneled door, stumbling into the room and onto plush carpeting. My gaze flickered over high ceilings, plantation-shuttered windows, and leafy green plants sprouting everywhere from colorful Mexican pottery.

  Annabelle looked up from behind her Queen Anne footed desk, practically gulping with relief when she saw me, though she clasped her hands on her desk in a semblance of composure. “Take a seat, if you would,” she drawled in a rather clipped manner, like a Southern belle turned drill sergeant. “We’ve been having a most interesting conversation without you.”

  Well, I couldn’t have missed too much, could I? It was barely a quarter past the hour.

  Mother’s Tumi bag-on-wheels stood beside a wing chair—one of a pair—in which I assumed she sat, its tall back hiding even the top of her head.

  First things first, I told myself and steeled my shoulders.

  I marched up the aisle between the two chairs, ignoring the empty one to my right and swinging left to give Cissy a piece of my mind for slipping out of the house this morning under my nose and frightening even the unflappable Sandy.

  “Mother, how could you scare us like that?”—I began my rant, only to find my words clogging up in my throat like a verbal logjam. “Oh, my gosh,” I said, inching my way backward until I bumped into Annabelle’s desk and couldn’t go any farther. “I’m so sorry, ma’am. But I thought you were someone else.”

  Egads, what had I done?

  I’d screamed at a stranger.

  Because the woman in the wing chair wasn’t Cissy, unless my mother had been reincarnated into someone totally unrecognizable to me, her only child, the fruit of her loins.

  For starters, this gal had inky black hair cut off sharply at the jaw, teased into oblivion, and bangs that sliced straight across her forehead, nearly masking darkly penciled brows. Black cat’s-eye glasses with glittering rhinestones at each point sat firmly on a slim nose, distorting the kohl-lined eyes behind the thick lenses. The apples of her cheeks sported way too much rosy blush, and the color on her lips was equally garish, a cross between brown and orange that reminded me of a burnt umber Crayola crayon. Never my favorite color.

  Her jewelry was less than subtle, with way too many carats of tinted CZ that looked straight out of the Susan Lucci collection on QVC. (No disrespect intended.)

  As if that didn’t seal the deal, she wore a warm-up suit, something Cissy wouldn’t zip on even if she did work out. This one appeared to be put together with patches of animal prints connected by zigzagging lines of bric-a-brac and glittering with billions of tiny crystals.

  Bewildered didn’t begin to describe how I felt. If Sandy’s car was out front and a suitcase that could be the twin of Mother’s Tumi was parked near enough for me to kick it, then where the devil was Cissy?

  Was I already two steps behind?

  “I apologize,” I said again to the woman, then turned to Annabelle. “I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I thought you were still meeting with Mother . . .”

  “I am.”

  “You are what?”

  “Meeting with your mother.”

  Okay, I’d lost my mind. It was official.

  Annabelle batted her lashes coyly and lifted a hand from the papers on her desk to point at the woman in the wing chair. “Andy Kendricks, this is Miriam Amanda Wallace Ferguson, our newest resident. She’ll be moving into Bebe’s place for a spell. Though I do believe yo
u’ve met quite a few times before, as a matter of fact.”

  Er, I didn’t think so.

  Miriam Amanda Wallace Ferguson?

  Why was that name so familiar?

  I swung around yet again, keeping a palm flattened on Annabelle’s desk because somehow I needed to hang on to it, and I squinted at the stranger I’d been gawking at only moments ago.

  Nope, I still didn’t know her from Adam.

  She smiled at me.

  Grandmother, what shiny white teeth you have.

  Then a heavily magnified eye winked, and I cocked my head, studying this Miriam woman more carefully and wondering what the heck she had to do with my seemingly absent mummy.

  I leaned in a bit nearer.

  The subject of my scrutiny whispered, “You figure a microscope would be of any help in solving this riddle, sugar?”

  I swallowed.

  No, it wasn’t possible. Uh-uh, it couldn’t be.

  Oh, dear. Was it her?

  “Yoo hoo, yes, it’s true.” Fingers lifted to wiggle as the burnt umber mouth let loose an overblown Texas twang, totally confusing me. “Well, good mornin’ to you, too, sunshine. What’s with the bug eyes? Don’t you like the ensemble? Why, sweetie, it’s the new me. Though I’ve got to give a lot of credit to Mary Kay and Mrs. Coogan.”

  Mary Kay Cosmetics—that, I understood—since it appeared she had enough goods on her face to fill the trunk of a pink Caddy.

  But Mrs. Coogan?

  She was the retired drama teacher from Hockaday, formerly the director of our school plays, mistress of sets and wardrobe.

  “Oh, no,” I breathed.

  “Oh, yes,” she assured me.

  This woman . . . my mother . . . they were one and the same.

  I felt like a guest on Rickie Lake, and I’d always wondered where they found their continual supply of weirdoes. Turns out, I need only have looked in the mirror.

  “Andrea, sugar, don’t swoon on me now.” The exaggerated drawl settled back into the soft, cultivated strains I knew so well, confirming my worst fears.

  My dignified Mummy Dearest had morphed into a combination of Mr. Magoo and Peg Bundy.