by Tegan Maher
I scooped the flyers off his desk and studied them. She'd been pretty, though she was way too serious for a girl her age. Of course, it could have been she was trying to look older for the fake ID, but still. Her eyes looked tired or maybe resigned.
"What are you going to do about the call? Are you going to keep sending feelers out?"
His expression was troubled. "I've been thinking about that, and I think we'd be better off looking into it quietly. Maybe whoever called was from another county and will think I've dropped it if I don't send any more official inquiries. Jim has some friends high up in his Atlanta office looking into it on the down-low, and they're going to get in touch if they find anything." He took a deep breath. "I have a bad feeling about this."
I grinned. "You developing psychic powers now, too?"
He held up his hands. "Oh, no. One of us springing up with new magic every couple months is hard enough to keep track of. Two of us would drive me to straight over the cuckoo's nest."
"I'd hate to see that happen, then," I laughed. "And I'll try not to stumble onto anything new, either."
"That would be nice. Every time I think I'm used to all the witchy stuff, something new crops up. I can deal, but I know it stresses you, and I hate to see that."
I stood to leave, and Erol, being the pragmatic businessman that he was, said, "You need to set an appointment with Peggy Sue on your way out. Just let me know is no way to make a sale. Give her two options for days, then two options for times."
Glowering, I said, "I'm aware of how to run a business."
He hmphed. "Yeah, you know how to run it right into the ground. Set the appointment."
Not responding, I turned toward the door. Hunter came around the desk and gave me a quick peck, then put his hand on the small of my back and walked me out of the office and down the hallway toward Peggy Sue's desk.
"If you hear anything at all, let me know ASAP. The sooner we find out who she is, the faster I'll be able to breathe knowing you're safe."
"Will do," I said.
"Bye Noelle," Peggy Sue said, smiling and wriggling her fingers at me.
"Bye Peggy," I answered.
Erol cleared his throat, and I lowered my brows at him but pasted on a smile and turned back to her. "Would tomorrow or Friday be best for you to stop by the shop?"
"Oh," she said, looking pleased. "I have a hair appointment Friday during my lunch hour. How 'bout I stop over after? Say 12:45?"
"That'd be great," I said. "See you then."
I shuffled out of the office, perusing the flyers. Hunter had given as much detail as he could, given the circumstances. He'd included the information about the initials on the ring but had left off the physical description in order to hold back enough to validate the story if anybody came forward.
Erol looked at them over my shoulder and shook his head. "She barely lived."
"Yeah. I wish this were one of those times when her spirit stuck around."
He nodded. "That would make the situation easier, but if wishes were horses ..."
"Heaven forbid something be easy," I said, wondering about the initials. "Let's stop at Coralee's first."
A whoosh of cool air hit us—well, me—as soon as I opened the door to the Clip N Curl. Besides Coralee and Alyse, her nail girl, two young women were getting the total treatment. One had her feet in the pedicure tub, and the other sat in the barber chair, Coralee's hands flying around her head, her scissors snipping.
"Hey Noelle," Alyse said. "Busy night, I heard."
I shot a meaningful glance between Coralee and the girls, and Coralee nodded. "We've just been talkin' about how awful it is, that poor girl bein' found like that. Just dumped overboard like trash." She shook her head, her big hair moving with it like a well-coiffed helmet.
Alyse, who was leaning against the other barber chair, glanced at the flyers in my hand. "Ooh, are those the papers Hunter was sending over?"
Nodding, I handed her one.
"May I see?" asked the girl in the pedicure chair.
"Sure," I said, handing her one, too.
She studied the face, chewing on her lip. "She looks familiar to me, but I can't place from where."
That was the first semi-lead we'd had.
"Did you maybe go to school with her?" Coralee asked, glancing at one of the papers I was holding at an angle for her.
The girl shook her head. "I don't think so. It's from somewhere else. And I'm not even sure if it's her, exactly. I think maybe she reminds me of someone."
"I'm Noelle, by the way," I said. I figured having her name may be handy once we had a few more pieces to the puzzle. That, or maybe she'd think of something later. I reached into my clutch purse and pulled out a business card.
Taking it, she said. "Oh! You run that cute upcycle shop. I've stopped by but can't seem to catch you. My name's Clara, by the way, and this is my friend Mari Jo."
I sighed, making a point of avoiding Erol's gaze. When he cleared his throat, I glanced at him. As expected, he was wearing his I told you so expression. I really hated it when that happened, because his head really didn't need to be any bigger.
I'd determined when I opened the shop that I was going to focus on large pieces, then sell them mostly via ads. He'd disagreed, saying I'd do better to keep regular shop hours. Having his point made twice in one day didn't do much for my argument.
"Yeah," I said. "I've been considering opening regular hours, at least a few times a week.”
I kinda wanted to smack the victorious smile off Erol's face, but of course, I couldn't say anything.
Coralee caught his expression and shot him a disapproving look. "Noelle spends a lot of time scoutin' estate sales and such for pieces to use. Hers isn't a traditional business, but she's runnin' it the best she can since there's only one of her."
Erol crossed his arms and looked a little like a five-year-old who lost his ice cream cone.
Clara looked a little embarrassed, thinking Coralee was talking to her. "Oh, I know. It's just her stuff looks so cool."
"Thank you," I replied, trying to set her mind at ease. "I feel bad about not bein' there more. I'll be there the rest of the week, though. Ten to four. Stop in whenever you want, and I'd be glad to show you what I have."
It occurred to me that she may remember who the girl in the picture reminded her of, too, and I wanted a chance to talk to her after it'd had a day or two to simmer in her head.
"That would be great," Mari Jo said, speaking for the first time. "I'd love to see what you have, too. My aunt bought one of your Coke-sign clocks, and it's awesome."
I'd taken to finding old signs that had little to no value other than nostalgia and turning them into clocks. It was easy, the signs were always cheap, and the clock parts cost next to nothing, too. Weirdly enough, they'd turned into my best-selling accent pieces.
"Then I'll see you ladies this week," I said. "Coralee, I'll leave you a couple of these to show around."
She'd finished cutting Mari Jo's hair and was scrunching some coconut-smelling product through it. Glancing down at the sheet I'd laid on the table by the chair, she furrowed her brow. "She was wearing a ring on a chain? What kind of ring?"
"I don't know for sure," I said. "Hunter wants to keep that to himself so he can verify any info that comes to him. All I know is that it was engraved with those initials."
I wanted to tell her about the man and woman who'd come into the shop and what she'd said, but that was a conversation best saved for when there weren't other ears.
Belle had popped in while we were talking. As soon as there was a lull in the conversation, she pointed to the back of Mari Jo's head. "You're not gonna leave that all crooked like that are you?"
She'd owned the Clip N Curl before selling it to Coralee and still held the position of judge and jury when it came to her idea of quality. She wasn't shy about bringing what she considered shortcomings to Coralee, either. She had a hundred variations of missed a spot and she's too fat for that lines,
and it was funny to watch because Coralee had to bite her tongue, considering since the clients couldn't see Belle, she couldn't tell her what to do with her opinions.
Coralee glared at her but moved to fix the spot she was pointing at.
"Do you have any time this afternoon, Coralee?" I asked.
She glanced at me, curious, because I'd just had my hair done a couple of days ago. "No, I have a full book the rest of the day, then me and Buddy"—her boyfriend of fifteen years—"are goin' over to the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet in Eagle Gap. Why?"
"No reason," I said. "Just wondering what you were doing. Thought maybe you could pop over to the store to chat if you weren't busy." I met Belle's eyes and motioned toward my shop and she nodded.
"Anyway," I said, "I've gotta get back to work. Mari Jo, Clara, nice to meet you and I look forward to showing you what all I've got over there."
We did the goodbye dance for another minute, then I left and took the ten or twelve paces to my shop hoping Belle had caught the hint.
CHAPTER EIGHT
OF COURSE SHE HAD.
Belle was there waiting for us when I unlocked the door, and I gave her the rundown on the conversation I'd had with Mel. Or, more specifically, the cryptic messages she'd given me.
She took a deep breath. "I don't like the parting shot about being careful."
"Yeah, I'm not too keen on it myself," I said, "but what can I do? It's not like she told me to watch out for a man on a horse holding a pumpkin instead of his head."
"True, but I'm glad Hunter has you paired with somebody for the duration. I know you're capable, but you're not invincible."
She drifted back through the wall to the Clip N Curl to relay the new information—another benefit of having ghosts floating around. She wouldn't have to wait to tell Coralee and Alyse because the clients wouldn't be able to hear her anyway. Of course, it would be one-sided and she'd be bombarded with questions once Mari Jo and Clara left, but at least the two could turn it over in their minds.
Between the three of them, they knew a ton of people When you branched that out, word would be out about Misty by late afternoon. If there was a missing Misty, I'd know about it before long. Coralee couldn't tell anybody the real reason she was looking, but she'd come up with something good. Information gathering was her area of expertise. Well, that, cutting hair, and making brownies.
The girls weren't coming until the next day, so I decided to lock up for the day and deliver the flyers. Much to my surprise, Erol agreed with me.
"Just because I'm trying to beat a strong work ethic into you doesn't mean I don't understand priorities," he groused when I mentioned my surprise.
Frankly, I was offended by his belief that he had to teach me a good work ethic, considering I'd never called off work a day in my life unless it was dire. That meant I'd missed a total of two work days in six years and I worked hard. I snorted. Work ethic!
A little voice in the back of my head niggled that I hadn't been putting in much effort lately. I almost missed a step—where had that come from? Once it entered my head, I couldn't push it out. If I was honest, I had to admit that since I'd gotten the money from the Hank debacle, I'd spent a lot more time playing than working. Erol was right—I did need to put more into it. I wasn't telling him that, though.
The smell of smoked meat assaulted my senses and made my mouth water before I was within a block of Bobbie Sue's Barbeque, or BSB, as many of her abbreviated logos read. Bobbie Sue had been friends with my mom and was also our godmother. She took her role seriously, but I don't think she was any more mothering that she would have been without the formal connection.
When we got to the front doors of the restaurant, Erol floated in front of me. "I'm gonna go make sure Norman's okay." His face clouded a little. "He didn't seem to be feeling well last night, and I'm worried about him."
"Okay," I said, reaching for the handle. "I'm sure nobody's gonna accost me with Earl and his meat cleaver so near at hand."
He snorted as he drifted back down the sidewalk. "Shoot, any person with half a brain in his head knows Earl’s scary, but Bobbie Sue's lethal."
That was a true story.
As soon as I walked in, Justin, their ten-year-old adopted son, nearly bowled me over with a fierce hug. I hadn't seen him in almost a week, when we'd had his tenth birthday party at the farm. He usually spent at least one night a week with us, but things had been hectic.
"Did you really find a dead body in the lake? What did it look like? Was it gross?" His brown eyes glittered with the excitement only a ten-year-old boy could have over such a macabre situation.
I rumpled his hair, and he squirmed away from me, obviously too mature for such an insulting gesture. "Hey brat. First, I didn't find her. I was just there. Second, she looked like some poor girl who'd been drowned in the lake, and of course it was gross. It was a dead body."
He wrinkled his nose. "You know what I mean. Did it look like a zombie?"
Shivering as I remembered her pale skin and sightless eyes, I decided to steer the conversation in a more boring direction. "There's no such thing as zombies. Where's Bobbie Sue?"
"There could be zombies," he said. "There are witches and werewolves and vampires. Maybe we just haven't seen the zombies yet."
I gave him a disbelieving look. "Yeah, pretty sure we'd notice undead people with body parts dropping off, wandering around eating brains."
He huffed out a breath, disgusted with my lack of imagination. "Bobbie Sue's in the back makin' slaw. Or beans. One of the two. Me and Earl been out back choppin' firewood for Suzie Q. Gotta make up at least twice the meat as usual with the fishin' tournament comin' to town."
He was right about that. Keyhole Lake hosted two tournaments a year, but this was the biggest one. The one in the fall tended to bring in more locals since it took place when school was still in session. This one, though, brought folks from all over Georgia. Folks came as families and spent time on the beach or shopping as well as fishing. It was a profitable time for Keyhole Lake.
Crap. That reminded me—I needed to bake a ton of extra pastries for Rae. Last time, we'd gone through triple our regular amount. I guess it made sense when people were getting up at the butt crack of dawn. Coffee and sugar—it was what made the world go round at that time of day.
I pushed into the kitchen, and a warm rush of welcome washed over me. I'd known Bobbie Sue all my life, and I'd worked at the restaurant since I was old enough to hold a job. After Addy had died, it was how I kept the lights on and food on the table, and Bobbie Sue and Earl would always have a place in my heart, if for no other reason than they gave me a hand up when I really needed it.
I still worked a shift occasionally when she was shorthanded or in a pinch, and it was there that Hank had keeled over dead in his cole slaw during the Fourth of July celebration.
That had given the town a real reason to celebrate, but it had been a mess for me. Still, it had set in motion events that changed my life, and I hadn't spent as much time working there after the dust—and the reward money—settled. That niggling little voice sounded off in the back of my head again, reminding me I'd gotten lazy, and I sighed.
Bobbie Sue, a ton of dynamite packed into a hundred-pound package, grinned when I walked in. "Well looky who decided to grace us with her presence! Whatcha been doin' for the last week, girlie?"
Earl, a huge man with arms the size of small maples—if maples had Marine tattoos—tossed me a wry grin. "From what I been hearin', she's been fishin' more than bass outta the lake." His face turned serious. "You okay, though? We been worried sick about ya since we heard."
"Better than that poor girl is," I said. "Speakin' of, I brought some flyers to put up out in the dining room. She was carryin' a fake ID usin' the name Kasey Ball, but the picture was her."
"That it?" Bobbie Sue asked as her knife split a head of cabbage open like it was butter. "Just the picture? And how do you know the ID was fake?"
I told them the story, and she
drew her brows together. "Lemme see the picture."
She wiped her hands on a bar towel and took the page from me. "So that's all we know about her? I recognize the name she was using. Kasey works at Pigs. Been there for years, and that definitely ain't her. She ain't nowhere near as young as this girl. What did she have to say?"
"I don't rightly know," I said, realizing I hadn't asked Hunter about that conversation.
"Seems to me that'd be an important piece of info. Maybe she knew her," Earl said. "I reckon most folks that steal identities just grab 'em off the net, but maybe not. Kasey's folks don't trust the internet. Don't do no internet bankin' or even shoppin' off the web. Least they didn't. He bought some lures from me a few years back and had to wait 'til Monday to go to the bank 'cause he wouldn't even own an ATM card."
That may sound strange to outsiders, but it wasn't as uncommon in the country with older folks as you'd think. Many of 'em had a healthy distrust for the government and didn't want their names anywhere they could be traced. Add in a heapin' scoop of unwillingness to provide strangers with personal info, and the internet just wasn't a place they wanted to mess with.
I rubbed my chin. "You know, I'm not even sure if Hunter talked to her or not. It could just be that he did a trace on her through the DMV and came back with the real picture. One way to find out." I pulled out my phone and fired off a quick text.
Earl put down his cleaver and came around from behind his stainless-steel worktable to take a closer look, too.
Squinting, he said, "She looks familiar, but maybe it's just because she's kinda average lookin'."
He wasn't wrong. Straight dark hair, average face, brown eyes. She wasn't homely, but she wasn't gorgeous. Just another face in the crowd. And now she'd never walk through a crowd again. The thought made me angry. Hunter's notification tone sounded on my phone, and I checked the message.
"He hasn't gone to talk to Kasey yet," I said. "He only ran the name and driver's license number and came up with the picture. He did call her place to verify all was well but got her mama; Kasey was workin', and she was there babysitting."