The Liar

by Roberts, Nora

  “Of course, when Matt and Griff sit around, it’s how they’d take out this wall here, or do such and that with the backsplash. I guess one of these days I’m going to let Matt have his way with building a place from the ground up. He talks about it a lot.”

  “Do you want that?”

  “He’s gone native on me, Shelby. Wants a tucked-away place in the hills, in the woods, like Griff has. I guess I can see it, too. Quiet and ours. Maybe I’ll learn to garden. But for right now, it’s sure easy to step out the door, walk a few minutes and be at the clinic.”

  “Oh, but wouldn’t it be fun to build a house from scratch? Deciding just where you want this room or that room, where the windows would go, and what kind?”

  “The three of you could have endless conversations on that,” Emma Kate decided. “I start getting nervous once it goes beyond what color paint for the walls. In an apartment like this, everything’s pretty well set.

  “Do you want to sample the wine?”

  “Better not. I can’t stay long. I just wanted to see you and your apartment. Pretty well set or not, it’s really you, Emma Kate, bright and fun,” she said as she wandered out of the kitchen to the living room with its deep-cushioned red sofa, crazy-patterned pillows tossed over it. The framed posters of big, bold flowers added more color, more charm.

  “Some of it’s Matt. That jade plant’s from a cutting he got from his grandmother. He babies it like his firstborn. It’s kind of sweet.”

  She gave Shelby a rub on the arm. “I was giving you some time, but I’m starting to see you don’t want to talk about last night, or any of it.”

  “Not really, but I should tell you her name wasn’t Natalie or Madeline. She was Melinda Warren, and the man she said I should be afraid of if he found me is James Harlow. He escaped from prison, Emma Kate, right around Christmas.”

  She took out her phone. “Here’s the picture of him Forrest sent me, so you should be careful if you see him. Forrest said he’s probably changed his hair, maybe looks some different. He’s six-feet-three and weighs in at two-twenty, so he can’t change much of that.”

  “I’ll keep my eye out. This is a mug shot, isn’t it?”

  “I think it is.”

  Taking another look, Emma Kate shook her head. “Wouldn’t you think he’d look threatening or hard or mean in a mug shot? What he looks is sort of affable. Like some guy who played football in high school and now he teaches social studies and coaches.”

  “I think being able to look affable is how they all manage to swindle and steal.”

  “I guess you’re right. And they think he killed her?”

  “Who else?” Shelby had asked herself just that—who else?—a dozen times or more. And never came up with a single alternative.

  “I guess they’re talking to everybody who was there last night, and asking around town. Forrest said they’re trying to get in touch with the detective who talked to me, but they haven’t gotten ahold of him yet.”

  “It’s the weekend.”

  “I suppose. She—this Melinda Warren—was telling the truth about being married.”

  “To Richard?” This time Emma Kate laid a hand on Shelby’s arm, left it there.

  “It’s most likely. They have to go through some paperwork and background and all to be certain the man she married was the same man I thought I married. But . . . Hell, Emma Kate, it’s not most likely, it just is.”

  “Shelby . . . I’m sorry if you are.”

  This, too, Shelby had asked herself a dozen times. Was she hurt? Was she sad? Was she angry?

  The answer had been a little bit of all, but more of simple relief.

  “I’m glad of it.” Comforted, she laid her hand over Emma Kate’s. “As awful as that is, I’m glad of it.”

  “I don’t think it’s awful. Smart and sensible, that’s what it is.” And turning her hand, she linked her fingers with Shelby’s. “I’m glad of it, too.”

  “He thought I was stupid, but what I was, was pliable.”

  After giving Emma Kate’s hand a squeeze, Shelby dropped her own to wander around the small, bright space.

  “It’s infuriating to look back at it now. It’s . . . and you know I use the word sparely, but it suits what’s in me over this. It’s fucking galling, Emma Kate.”

  “I bet it is.”

  “At the time I thought it was the right thing, the thing to keep my family together. But we weren’t a family. I thought, once I swallowed hard on it, that was done now. It’s not done. Not until they find this Harlow person. I don’t know if they’ll ever find that woman’s jewelry and her stamps. I can’t think what Richard might’ve done with them.”

  “That’s not your problem, Shelby.”

  “I think it is.” She walked to a window, looked out at Emma Kate’s view of the Ridge. The long, steep curve of road, with buildings ticking their way down it as they hugged the sidewalk.

  Flowers in barrels and pots, heading-toward-summer flowers in hot reds and bold blues replacing the pastels of spring.

  Hikers with their backpacks, she noted, and some locals warming the benches outside her grandmother’s salon, the barbershop.

  She could just see the well, just a corner of it, and the young family who stood reading its plaque. A couple of young boys made her smile as they raced after a spotted dog who’d snapped his leash and was running, tongue out, hell for leather.

  It was a good view of what was what in the Ridge.

  For a minute or so more, she had to take herself beyond that curving street with its hills and shops and flowers. Take it back into what still clouded over it.

  “If the police could find all that, or what Richard did with it—or most of it—I wouldn’t have to worry or wonder. Then it would be good and done.”

  “What does worry and wonder get you?”

  “Not a damn thing.” She turned back, smiled at the practicality that steadied her. “So I’m not thinking about it every minute of the day. Maybe if I don’t think about it, something’ll pop into my head.”

  “That happens for me when I vacuum. I hate running the vacuum.”

  “You always did.”

  “Always did, so my mind wanders around. Things do pop in.”

  “I’m hoping. Now I’ve got to get home. Mama had Callie and her friend plant a fairy garden, and I want to see it. Remember when Mama had us plant one?”

  “I do. Every spring, even when we were teenagers. I’ll have to try my hand at it if we ever build that from-the-ground-up house.”

  “You could do a miniature windowsill fairy garden right there, using your big front window.”

  “Now see, I’d never have thought of that. Now you did, and I’m going to end up buying little pots and plants. Wouldn’t that look sweet?”

  “Guaranteed.”

  “I could . . . Hold on.” Emma Kate picked up her phone when it signaled. “Matt’s texting me he’ll be home in about a half hour. Which means closer to an hour, as he must be finishing up helping Griff on the house, then they’ll have to talk about it awhile. Ruminate.”

  “Ruminating can take some time. I’ve got a date with Griff Tuesday.”

  Emma Kate’s eyebrows winged up. “Is that so? And you don’t mention it until you’re heading out the door?”

  “I’m not sure what to think about it yet, but I want to see his house. I always wanted to see what someone with some vision could do with that place.”

  Those eyebrows stayed raised. “And seeing the house is your sole purpose of this date?”

  “It’s a factor. Honestly, truly, I don’t know what I’m going to do about what’s moving along between us.”

  “Here’s a thought.” Lips bowing up some, Emma Kate lifted the index finger of both hands. “Why not try something I don’t think you’ve put up front for the last few years. What do you wa
nt to do?”

  “When you put it like that?” Shelby’s laugh was quick and easy. “Part of me—maybe the most part of me—just wants to jump him, and the realistic part is saying, Slow down, girl.”

  “Which one’s going to win?”

  “I just don’t know. He sure wasn’t on my list, and I’ve still got a lot to tick off there.”

  “I’m calling you Wednesday morning to see if you ticked off ‘sex with Griff.’”

  Now Shelby raised her eyebrows, shot out a finger. “That’s not on the list.”

  “Add it on,” Emma Kate suggested.

  Maybe she would, for some point down the road. But for now, she was spending the rest of the weekend with her daughter.

  • • •

  BY MONDAY THERE WAS still no word on Jimmy Harlow, no sign anyone matching his description had been around the Ridge, or asked about the brunette at her hotel in Gatlinburg.

  Shelby decided to be optimistic, decided it was best to think he’d done what he’d come to do, had exacted his revenge on Melinda Warren, and moved on.

  She parked outside the salon with time to spare, so walked down to the bar and grill. Optimism was her choice. It didn’t have to be everyone’s.

  Tansy answered her knock.

  “Shelby.” Tansy immediately enfolded her in a hug. “I’ve been thinking about you all weekend.”

  “I’m so sorry about all this, Tansy.”

  “Everyone’s sorry about it. Come on in and sit down.”

  “I have to get to work, but I wanted to see you first, and tell you I understand if you and Derrick want to cancel Friday Nights.”

  “Why would we do that?”

  “It wasn’t the sort of encore any of us had hoped for on our debut.”

  “It didn’t have anything to do with us, with you, with the bar and grill. Derrick talked to the sheriff personally just yesterday. They’re looking at it as a vengeance killing, old business that came here with her.”

  “I’m part of that old business.”

  “Not to my way of thinking. It’s . . .” On a whoosh sound, she levered onto a stool. “I still get a little queasy and light-headed in the morning.”

  “And here I am hammering at you. Let me get you a cool cloth.”

  “I’d do better with a ginger ale.”

  Quickly, Shelby went behind the bar, poured ginger ale over a lot of crushed ice. “Sip it slow,” she ordered, then got a clean bar rag, soaked it with cold water, twisted it until it held cool without dripping.

  When she came back around, lifted Tansy’s hair and laid the cloth on the back of her neck, Tansy made a long, long Ahhhh.

  “That really does feel better.”

  “Worked for me when I was carrying Callie.”

  “It comes on most mornings, but usually passes before long. Every once in a while it hangs on, comes back a time or two. Just the icks, you know?”

  “I do. It doesn’t seem right something so wonderful should make a woman feel sick, but the prize at the end of it’s worth it.”

  “I tell myself that every morning when I’m hanging over the toilet.” She sighed again when Shelby turned the cloth over, laid the cooler side against her skin.

  “It’s passing already. I’m going to remember that trick.”

  Reaching back, she patted Shelby’s arm. “Thank you.”

  “Do you want a couple crackers? I can get some from the kitchen.”

  “No, it really is passing. Now you sit down here and take my brand of cool-cloth treatment.”

  After tugging Shelby around, Tansy looked straight into her eyes. “That Warren person? She was an awful woman, and from what I’ve been told, didn’t give a good damn about anybody but herself. She didn’t deserve to die for it, but she was an awful woman. Whoever killed her was awful, too. You didn’t even know those people, Shelby.”

  “I knew Richard—or thought I did.”

  Obviously feeling herself again, Tansy hissed and flicked that away. “And Derrick’s got a cousin over in Memphis deals drugs for a living. That doesn’t make us part of it. Are you too upset to sing on Friday? I understand it if you are. We lost a waitress over it.”

  “Damn it. I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, don’t be. Her mama had a cat fit, said she might as well work at Shady’s Bar as here with people getting shot. As if it happened every week. She was a whiner anyway,” she added with a wave of her hand, “and Lorna’s not sorry to see her go, so neither am I.”

  “I’m not upset about it, not like that. If you and Derrick want me, I’m here. I’ve already started the playlist.”

  “New flyers out today, then. We set a record on Friday.”

  “You did?”

  “Topped our best night when we had the Rough Riders from Nashville, by fifty-three dollars and six cents. You e-mail me the playlist when you’re finished, and I’ll make sure the machine’s set. And how’s your mama and all the rest?”

  “Dealing. I’d better get to work before Granny docks my pay.”

  She walked in right on time and went straight to work. She gave the garden patio a sweep, watered the pots, opened the umbrellas so clients could sit in the shade if they chose.

  Back inside, she folded towels that hadn’t been seen to while she listened to the chatter of the first customers. When she stepped out she saw her grandmother had come in, already had someone in her chair. Crystal gossiped happily with the woman she was shampooing.

  And Melody Bunker and Jolene Newton sat in the pedicure chairs with their feet in bubbling water.

  She hadn’t run into Jolene at all since she’d been back, hadn’t seen Melody since that day in The Artful Ridge. She wouldn’t have minded keeping it that way. But since she hadn’t been raised to be rude, she stopped by the chairs on her way to check the front treatment rooms.

  “Hey, Jolene. How’re you doing?”

  “Why, Shelby, I swear!” She set her glossy magazine in her lap, gave her head a toss that had her long, high ponytail bobbing. “You haven’t changed one single, tiny bit, even after all you’ve been through. Are you getting nails today, too?”

  “No, I work here.”

  “Is that right?” Jolene widened her hazel eyes as if this was fresh news. “Oh now, I think I did know that. You told me that, didn’t you, Melody, that Shelby was working at Vi’s again, just like back in high school?”

  “I believe I did.” Without looking up, Melody flipped a page in her own magazine. “I see you took my advice, Shelby, and found work you’re suited for.”

  “Thank you for that. I forgot how much I enjoy being here. Y’all enjoy your pedicures.” She walked to the desk to answer the phone, booked an appointment, then slipped through to check the front rooms.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Melody and Jolene with their heads together, heard Jolene’s high-pitched giggle. The same as it was in high school.

  She ignored it, and them, reminding herself she had a lot more important matters to concern her.

  By the time she swung through the salon again, Maybeline and Lorilee—mother and daughter—were both perched on low stools doing the scrub portion of the pedicures.

  So they’d gone for the deluxe, Shelby thought, and walked down to make sure the paraffin was turned on warm. She checked the locker rooms, hauled out used robes, ran through the rest of her morning checklist.

  She had a friendly conversation with a woman from Ohio, one giving herself a day off from a hiking adventure with her fiancé, and offered to take a lunch order as the woman had booked a full day.

  “You could eat out in the garden if you want. It’s such a pretty day.”

  “That would be wonderful. I don’t suppose I could get a glass of wine.”

  “I can make that happen,” Shelby told her, and produced a couple of menus. “You just let me know what
you want, and one of us will go get it for you. About one-fifteen? You’ll be between your Aromatherapy Wrap and your Vitamin Glo Facial.”

  “I feel so pampered.”

  “That’s what we’re here for.”

  “I love this place. Honestly, I just booked the day here so I wouldn’t have to hike three days running. But it’s all so terrific, and everybody’s so nice. Could I get this Field Green Salad with the grilled chicken—the house dressing on the side. And a glass of Chardonnay would just make my day.”

  “You just consider it made.”

  “Is the woman out front, the owner, is that your mother? You look like her.”

  “My grandmother. My mama’s doing your facial later.”

  “Your grandmother? You’re kidding me.”

  Shelby laughed, delighted. “I’m going to tell her you said that, and you’ll have made her day. Now, can I get you anything else?”

  “Not a thing.” The woman burrowed down in one of the chairs. “I’m just going to sit here and relax.”

  “You do that. Sasha will come get you in about ten minutes for your wrap.”

  She walked back into the salon with a smile on her face, went straight to the desk to place the order for a one-o’clock pickup. She started to turn to her grandmother when Jolene hailed her.

  “That’s pretty polish,” Shelby said, nodding toward the toes Jolene was having painted glossy pink.

  “It puts me in mind of my mama’s peonies. I forgot to say before, and my goodness haven’t you been busy in here, I heard you were singing on Fridays down at the bar and grill. I was sorry I couldn’t make it in to hear you, then I heard about what happened and wasn’t sorry I wasn’t there on Friday. I think I’d have had a heart attack or something finding out some woman got shot right outside.”

  She patted a hand to her heart as if even now it was in danger.

  “I heard you knew her, too, is that right?”

  Shelby gave Melody a glance. “I know you consider Melody a reliable source of information—and that Melody’s confident you’ll push whatever buttons, turn whatever knobs she tells you to.”