Amelia cleared her throat and overcame the urge to break the china plate over his head, burger juice and all. “That’s whomever I want, and I wasn’t aware you felt so trapped.” Amelia handed the crumpled receipt to What’s-His-Name along with her engagement ring. “If that’s the way you feel, by all means go ahead, get it out of your system.”
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“Setting you free so you can boink Burger Barbie’s brains out.”
What’s-His-Name stared at the engagement ring in his hand in disbelief. “What just happened? Why are you so pissed?”
“You were practically undressing that waitress right in front of me. That’s not proper behavior for an engaged man. The only boobs you should be staring at or thinking about are mine.”
What’s-His-Name looked at her chest and then let his eyes roam back to the rack on Burger Barbie as if to say, No contest. Who could blame me?
“What do you think I did at my bachelor party in Vegas?”
“I don’t know. What did you do?”
“Let off a little steam, like any normal guy.”
Amelia frowned. “And by steam, do you mean that you actually slept with another woman?”
“What do you think goes on at those weekends?”
Amelia picked up her purse from the stool next to hers, slung it over her shoulder, and started to walk away.
What’s-His-Name jerked her by the hand, pulling her back, and asked angrily, “You’re not seriously calling off the wedding, are you?”
Amelia plucked his hand away from her arm. “What did you think would happen? You’re obviously not ready to get married if you’re ogling other women.”
She walked away and never looked back. She erased What’s-His-Name’s memory from the database in her head and from her heart. There had to be someone else out there who wasn’t such a colossal jerk, but she had little hope of finding the right someone.
“Amelia, why don’t you slice us some of that key lime pie Mrs. Bailey brought over this morning? It’s fresh.”
“Grandma, we already had—” Amelia stopped herself and went back to slice the third piece of key lime pie, put it on a plate, and brought it in to her grandmother.
“Aren’t you going to have a piece of pie? It looks delicious.”
“I had a big breakfast.”
Amelia glanced again at the picture of the cabin on the wall, and she had a sudden memory of her grandfather sitting in his chair at the kitchen table.
“Every time Dad came over, Grandpa would pull out his parcel maps and the Plat of Survey and regale him with stories about the North Carolina land. And now you want to sell it? That was Grandpa’s legacy.”
Katherine covered her granddaughter’s hand with her own. “I’m just paying exorbitant insurance and taxes on property I haven’t seen in thirty years. You all love the idea of the land, but you’ve never set foot on it.”
“I wonder what it’s worth?” Amelia asked, her brain kicking into realtor overdrive as she removed her grandmother’s empty plate and put it with the other dishes in the sink.
“According to the tax people, it’s worth a lot, or at least I’m paying taxes on a high property value. Anyway, your parents are too busy to handle this. You’re a realtor, and I want you to sell the land.”
Amelia hesitated. “Grandma, you know I just got my real estate license, and I don’t have authority to sell real estate in North Carolina. You should get someone more experienced.”
“You’ve got to start somewhere. It might as well be in North Carolina. And I know you need the money. There will be a nice commission in it for you.”
“Grandma, I don’t want your money.”
“You’re my granddaughter. I know the sale would mean more to you than to some stranger in North Carolina. I’d like you to see firsthand what made your grandfather so happy. You will get the best price for me. If you have to hire an out-of-state lawyer, then go right ahead. Spend whatever you need. To tell you the truth, this land has been like an albatross around my neck. I encouraged your grandfather to sell it for years, but he refused. And I didn’t have the heart or the will to tell him he’d made a mistake.”
To Grandpa, purchasing the land had not been a mistake. He’d enjoyed the cabin during the years he and Grandma had actually vacationed there, and even after they stopped going to North Carolina he had been content to sit around the condo looking at maps of his property, reading the local newspaper from the community where the land was located, and gazing at the painting of the cabin in their condo. In his mind, it was comforting somehow to own the land. To imagine the possibilities. To dream his pipe dreams. But in reality the land was not doing anybody any good.
“Okay, I’ll try to sell it for you,” Amelia agreed. “Can you show me exactly what kind of property we’re talking about?”
“Everything’s in this cardboard box here on the coffee table.”
“Grandma, you’re not supposed to lift heavy boxes.”
“I’m not completely incapacitated.”
Amelia pulled the box toward her. She looked at her watch.
“But I need to leave by one o’clock to get a jump on the storm. I don’t have to go all the way to North Carolina to sell the property, you know. I could hire a lawyer to handle the transaction.”
“But I want you to go. If you’re going to do something, then do it right, I always say. Anyway, I know you and What’s-His-Name just broke up. Don’t you have something better to do with your time than mope around?”
“What’s-His-Name was a jerk,” Amelia admitted. A jerk she had once thought might be The One. The problem was that Bimbo Barbie thought he might be The One for her, too. Her friends had confirmed the jerk and the bimbo had hooked up and continued to see each other. She could cross that restaurant off her list.
“I’m sorry to hear that. The right one will come along. There’s always another train pulling into the station.”
Amelia smiled. No one’s train was interested in pulling into her station at the moment. In fact, the illusive train was rusting on the tracks.
“Maybe you’ll find him where you least expect it. Maybe he’s in North Carolina.”
Amelia chuckled. “Grandma, that land is in hillbilly country. There’s no one there I’d be interested in meeting.”
“They don’t have much use for us, either. They call us the Florida people. I remember the family who lived next door to our cabin, the Bradys, on Brady Cove Road. They had nine children. Each child’s name began with a B. There was Betty Brady and Ben Brady, and their kids Bundy Brady, Bradley Brady, Butch Brady, Bunnie Brady, Buster Brady, Ben. Jr., and Betty’s late-in-life triplets—Brenna, Barbara, and Bernice—Necey, they used to call her. Necey’s son is a lawyer up there. You might start with him. And don’t be so quick to judge people you don’t know. Anyway, what do you have to stick around for?”
“My job.”
“And how many sales have you made in the last three months?”
Amelia bit her bottom lip. “Well, none, yet.”
“Then this will be your first.”
“Are you just selling the land because you feel sorry for me and you want me to get a commission?”
“Of course not. I have complete confidence in you.”
“I wish my parents did.”
“Your parents love you.”
“Maybe, but they don’t think I can hold onto a successful career—or a man, even if the man was a scumbag.”
“Nonsense.”
“Let’s face it. They thought I was crazy to major in art history, and maybe they were right. I couldn’t find a job in my field. I’m not sure being a realtor is going to work out, either.”
“Have a little faith in yourself,” said Katherine, lifting a photo album from the pile. The sky began to rumble, and the lights in the living room flickered.
“Did you see that flash?” Amelia asked, rising suddenly. A few seconds later a thunderbolt shook the room. “Do you hear t
hat? That was close.” Amelia wrestled with her knuckles until they turned white.
“Amelia Analise Rushing. Sit down. You can wait for the storm to pass. Your grandfather’s whole life is in this box.” Katherine wiped a tear from her cheek. “Let’s go through the box, and after we have a piece of that nice pie Mrs. Bailey from next door brought over—Did I tell you she made it fresh this morning?—you can stay awhile and I’ll tell you a little bit about the neighbors and the town so you can get acclimated before you get to Confrontation.”
Chapter Two
“There are actually two tracts of land,” Katherine explained, pulling out the deeds and reading the descriptions. “The two parcels are situated in Bearmeat Brand in Confrontation Township, Jasper County, North Carolina.
“Tract One is more particularly described from the referenced deed BEGINNING on a Sourwood on the Graveyard Ridge, witnessed by a Maple and a Sourwood, at a corner of Glenn Nations and Paul Riverbrooks,” Katherine continued. “Then in a northwesterly direction to a Poplar on the bank of Nancy Green Branch; thence in a northerly direction with a wire fence and the meanders of the ridge, approximately 935 feet to a Hickory in the line of said tract; then in a westerly direction with the line to a Sourwood at a corner of Taylor Parris and Paul Riverbrooks; then in a southerly direction with Madison Franklin’s conditional line to a Spanish Oak; then with said conditional line to a Buckeye (corner of R. L. D. Standard); then in an easterly direction to a Hickory at a corner of Paul Riverbrooks; then up the ridge as it meanders approximately 400 feet to the point of BEGINNING, containing approximately twenty acres.”
“That’s insane,” Amelia said.
“I’m reading right from the deed. That’s exactly how the property is described. The land value of the first property is $93,300,” Katherine read.
“Tract Two is more particularly described from the referenced deed BEGINNING on a stake near the top of the ridge west of the Bearmeat Branch on the north side of Jasper Creek, being a corner in John Harris’s line,” Katherine continued. “John Harris was a widower married to the former Gillian Billings. Then in a westerly direction with John Harris’s line to the A. K. York corner in said line; then northwesterly with the A. K. York line to where it corners with Dan York and Glenn Nations; then in a northwesterly direction with the ridge up from the Mason Knob as it meanders to B.C. Lofting’s line; then in a southerly direction with the Lofting line to the point of BEGINNING, containing forty acres more or less. The land value of the second tract is $267,000.”
“That’s some serious money,” Amelia said. “But what does the fact that John Harris is a widower have to do with anything?”
“Every name and place is important. These were real people. It helped people identify the property.”
“How am I ever going to find that property? How will I know which sourwood tree to start from? And what’s a sourwood tree, anyway?”
“That’s why you’re going to need the help of one of the locals, maybe that Brady boy.”
“Billy Bob Brady?”
“I don’t know his name, but I’ll look it up for you. It’s in his mother’s last letter to me.”
Amelia rolled her eyes. “I guess I ought to pay the Clampetts a visit.”
“It’s the Bradys, dear.”
“More like the Brady bunch. I’ll bet they don’t have a complete brain between them.”
“That’s just a stereotype. They don’t think much of us, either. They call us the Florida people.” Katherine cleared her throat and pulled out some oversized sheets of paper. “Grandpa paid good money to obtain a survey on both pieces of land not long before he left us. These ought to help. And the cold spring that serves the city originates on our land.”
“You mean your land is the water source for the township?”
“That’s right. It’s a working spring that has a continuous flow of water.”
“What about the cabin?”
“Well, for a while we were renting it out to Betty’s youngest, Necey. She was paying rent, not much, but then the checks stopped coming.”
“Do you think the family is still living in your cabin?”
“I have no idea.”
“Probably squatters.”
“We’re not using it, so—”
“Grandpa wasn’t much of a businessman, was he?” Amelia observed. What had possessed her grandfather to buy property on an isolated mountaintop?
“Your grandfather was a good man.”
“Sorry,” Amelia relented. “I know he was.”
“How soon can you leave?”
Amelia contemplated her less-than-busy schedule. She didn’t even have any listings. Considering her lease had just run out, she was currently living with her parents, was just about flat broke and owed thousands of dollars on her college loan, and What’s-His-Name had made it clear that he preferred the company of an overendowed cocktail waitress (who probably didn’t have a deathly fear of inclement weather), there was no legitimate reason she couldn’t get into her car and head north immediately.
No reason except that the sky was getting darker by the minute, and that meant heavy rain, which inevitably meant lightning. Florida was the lightning capital of the U.S. And North Carolina was also one of the states that had the most lightning deaths and injuries every year. Amelia was well aware of the facts: that lightning is the most dangerous and frequently encountered weather hazard people experience each year; that there are approximately 100,000 storms in the U.S. each year; and that lightning is the number-one cause of storm-related deaths. Those statistics were emblazoned in her memory, and they were handy statistics to have, say, at cocktail parties when the conversation began to flag.
From the window, Amelia saw an ominous-looking funnel-like cloud drop from the mother ship. Was that a tornado forming? If it was a tornado, it could touch down at any moment. And she couldn’t—wouldn’t—drive in the rain. She’d have to check the weather forecast before she left Miami.
Amelia sprang to her feet. “Grandma, I need to leave now.”
“But you were going to stay for lunch.”
“Gotta go.”
Amelia shivered, expecting the familiar onset of a full-blown panic attack. The breath caught in her throat. Her heartbeat was out of sync. Gulping, she tried unsuccessfully to inhale a calming breath. She felt like she was going to collapse. Breathing into a paper bag might help, but she didn’t want to alarm her grandmother. Normal people could not understand her visceral reaction to rain. It wasn’t just rain but all the bad things that went with it. Thunder, lightning, tornadoes, and hail. The sense of dread and foreboding, the fear of driving with no visibility on the turnpike or the expressway, of being immobilized by the hypnotic rhythm of the windshield wipers in a blinding storm. Worrying about whether the car in front of her had its lights on and whether she was going to crash into it or get struck by lightning or go careening off the edge of an overpass.
She had often envisioned her car a heap of metal wrapped around a tree. Or at the bottom of a lake or canal. And she would be struggling in vain to get out of the car, up to the surface. How many tragic stories had she read in the newspaper or seen on TV? It could happen at any time, to anyone. It just hadn’t happened to her, yet.
Miami was on the cusp of hurricane season. Summer was the season of dangerous storms and tremendous floods. Amelia was very sensitive to thunder. When she knew a storm was coming and she was at home, she’d put her car in the garage, unplug all the appliances, and sit in a chair away from the window, huddled up under a blanket, to protect herself from flying glass, until the storm passed. There weren’t any basements in Florida, so she’d take refuge sometimes in her closet, if it was a really bad storm. And she made up any excuse to avoid driving in extreme weather. That set the tone for a slim social life, because it rained almost every day in Miami.
Amelia checked her iPhone. Tomorrow’s forecast called for a sunny day up and down the East Coast. So she could start out at first light in the
morning and make it all the way to Atlanta. No need to outrun the weather. She couldn’t drive the sixteen straight hours to the cabin. The last thing she needed was to arrive in a godforsaken town, if Confrontation could even be called a town, in the boondocks of North Carolina, in the middle of the night. And her car wasn’t exactly reliable. Plus she had a horrible sense of direction and she couldn’t afford a GPS. It would be easier to find her way in daylight.
“Take plenty of pictures of the property,” called Katherine, as Amelia hoisted the box of documents and hurried out of the condo before all hell broke loose and the bottom dropped out of the sky.
Chapter Three
Amelia scanned the law office of Alec Brady, surprised to see a framed diploma from Duke University School of Law on the wall.
“Welcome in,” greeted the young receptionist.
Welcome in? What kind of a greeting was that? Some kind of strange North Carolina dialect?
“I had the worst time finding this place,” Amelia complained.
“That’s because Confrontation ain’t even on the map,” answered the receptionist, which explained why Amelia had despaired of ever finding it. It must be something like Walton’s Mountain.
The receptionist told her to wait in “Billy Bob’s” office until he returned from lunch. Not an auspicious beginning. Amelia’s eyes were beginning to droop, her energy flagging after the long drive from Florida yesterday and the drive from Atlanta this morning. She was hungry, but she’d devoured all of her snacks. Admittedly, the scenery had been beautiful once she crossed the North Carolina state line, but she was tired of searching the sky for raindrops, her mood was crappy—and this jerk had the nerve to keep her waiting? When they had an appointment? Time obviously meant nothing to these mountain people.
Amelia pulled up her pantyhose and noticed a jagged run. Great. She’d snagged the stockings on Bozo’s scarred wooden desk. Dammit. She’d paid good money for these stockings. And money didn’t grow on trees. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t be caught dead in pantyhose, but she’d wanted to make a good impression. She pulled her dress down past her knees to cover the hole. Who’d invented pantyhose, anyway? No wonder they were the weapon of choice for serial killers.
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