by Jill Orr
That broke the tension and everyone laughed, including David, who wiped at the corner of his eye before continuing.
“I wanted to share that story not only because Dad found his way into the hearts of so many, both literally and figuratively, but I know if he were here right now, he’d be so gratified to see that my big brother Thad was lucky enough to have found his way into Tabitha’s heart, and her into his. He’d be so proud of you both, and I am too.” Then he raised his glass and said, “To the happy couple!”
We all clinked glasses and drank to Thad and Tabitha, the music came back up, and the party continued. A few minutes later, a breathless Ridley walked over and plonked herself down at the table where Holman and I sat eating cake.
“I am too big to dance.”
David followed in her wake, a wide grin on his face. “You were the most beautiful woman out there.” He kissed her cheek and sat down next to her. “And you’re equally as lovely right here.”
At almost the exact same moment, Holman looked at me and said, “You have some frosting on the side of your nose—either that or a booger.”
“So Ridley,” I said, wiping my face with a napkin. “How are you feeling? You’re getting close, right?”
She leaned back in her chair, a contented and drowsy expression on her face. “Thirty-seven weeks. Dr. Wilson says I could go at any time.” She rested a hand atop her belly, which was now quite a bit more pronounced than it had been the last time I saw her. She was wearing a yellow chiffon Grecian dress with a plunging neckline to show off her ample chest, and of course, she looked amazing. But for the first time I noticed that her face was beginning to look just a tad bit swollen. Finally.
“Did Sheriff Haight ever figure out who poisoned you?” Holman dropped the question on David like a lead balloon. Small talk wasn’t Holman’s strong suit.
“Not conclusively,” he said, tearing his gaze from Ridley. “But we think it must have been Bennett. Wouldn’t you agree?” He looked at me.
It was a good question. I was bothered by the fact that there hadn’t been any physical evidence linking Bennett to David’s poisoning.
“Maybe Bennett just had a grudge against our whole family—who knows?” David said.
“If it were me, I’d want to know for sure,” Holman said.
“I do want to know,” David said. “But not tonight. Tonight I want to enjoy seeing my brother happier than I have in a long time, and the company of this gorgeous lady.”
Ridley gave David a blinding smile, I fought the urge to barf, and Holman furrowed his brow. “Well, that certainly seems shortsighted. You’re like Scarlett O’Hara—I’ll think about it tomorrow . . .” he said in a laughable impersonation of a Southern belle.
David, like his father, was not one to miss an opportunity. He stood up with glass in hand and said, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn what you think.” Then he walked off toward the bar to freshen their drinks.
A few minutes later, Holman and I were debating whether or not the lead singer of the band was lip-synching Norah Jones’s “Come Away with Me” (she so wasn’t) when Dr. H walked over to our table. “Ah, Mr. Holman and the lovely Riley!”
His warmth brought a smile to my face as it always did. I stood up to give him a hug.
“I dare say Tabitha planned everything perfectly. Not that we had any doubts about her planning capabilities,” he said with a chuckle. But after a moment, his face grew more serious. “How are you, my dear? You don’t seem quite yourself.”
“I’m okay,” I said, forcing a smile. “Or at least I will be.”
“She’s upset because she and her boyfriend Jay broke things off. He’s moving to Washington, DC, to take a higher position within the DEA. Riley understands this intellectually, but is having a hard time processing it emotionally.” Holman rattled off all of this like he was an anchorman on the six o’clock news. Then he added, “Particularly in this romantic setting.”
“Holman!” I hit his arm.
“What? Was that not an accurate description of why you’re in a funk?”
Dr. H looked from Holman to me. “Well, I wouldn’t lose hope. These things have a way of working out!”
I don’t know if it was Holman embarrassing me, or Dr. H’s kindness, but I felt tears sting the back of my eyes.
Dr. H again deftly swooped in. “Did I ever tell you about the time Louisa almost threw me out of the house?”
I shook my head, the abrupt change in subject stopping my tears.
“It’s true. We were talking about how we would each want to spend hypothetical lottery winnings, and she just couldn’t understand why a man my age would want to open a riverboat casino!” He laughed and got the fond faraway look that always accompanied a story of his dearly departed Louisa. “I told her, ‘The house always wins! We could be the house!’ And she screeched that she wasn’t going to end up married to a house, and threatened to throw me out if I was the sort of man who wanted to own a casino. Eventually we settled on the hypothetical decision to open a bird-feed store instead. Her compromise was that we could call it the Flamingo.”
Dr. H’s stories, particularly about Louisa, often left me both scratching my head and charmed, and I knew he had told this one to stop me from getting upset. I stood up and gave him another tight squeeze. “Thank you,” I whispered.
“All right, all right,” Dr. H said, as he released me. “I’m going to leave you young folks to carry on. It’s past my bedtime.”
The reception was beginning its third hour and I wondered how much longer I had to stay. Being surrounded by all of this happiness was getting tougher by the minute. So far I hadn’t humiliated myself by texting or calling Jay, but one more glass of champagne and who knows what I might do. Holman was deep in conversation with poor Ridley on what she planned to do with her placenta after she gave birth and since I wanted no part of that conversation, I pulled my phone from my tiny sparkly purse to check the time, and saw that I’d missed a call.
Hey Riley, it’s Lauren McCarty. Just wanted to let you know that I talked to my brother and he said he had given permission for someone to use our land as a part of some kind of investment or something. He said he’d done it months ago, back when Mom was still alive. I guess no one thought to tell me. But I’m glad you came around asking questions because my brother and I are co-owners of that land and we both stand to make a pretty penny if the pharmaceutical company who is leasing it hits iy big with this tobacco-based drug. Anyway. I didn’t know if John ever got back to you. He’s been super down lately—his best friend from high school just died in a hunting accident and he’s taking it real hard. Okay, well, that’s all. Thanks. Bye.
CHAPTER 45
I have to go,” I announced as I pushed back from the table and stood up.
Holman and Ridley looked surprised, the same question on both of their faces. “Uh, something has come up,” I said, vaguely. “Holman, you’ll be okay getting home, right?”
Holman had insisted on driving himself here on his bright yellow 1972 Honda Hobbit, which was a cross between a bicycle and a scooter. It looked like the love child of a giant praying mantis and a banana and was the most ridiculous contraption I’d ever seen. But he loved it and liked to take it out on special occasions.
“Yes,” he said, eyeing me with suspicion. “But what has come up?”
I didn’t want to tell him about the call from Lauren and all the questions it raised—basically connecting her brother John to Brandon Laytner and Bennett Nichols—because the investigation was essentially over. I didn’t want to look like a schmuck reopening the story if it was all smoke and no fire. I’d look into it myself first and then I could tell Holman or Carl if anything interesting turned up.
“It’s . . . uh . . . Jay,” I said, his name popping into my head at the last second. “He called and wants to talk.”
“Would you mind giving me a ride home?” Ridley stood up too. “I’m so tired and I don’t want to make David leave now. He’s
having so much fun.”
Damn. There was no way I could get out of that without looking like a huge bitch (No, I won’t take you home, super pregnant lady), and there was no way Holman could fit her on his Hobbit. I reluctantly agreed, and she went in search of David to say goodbye. I told Holman I had to run to the ladies room and ducked into the house, where I tried to call Lauren back, but there was no answer. I then scrolled through my phone and found John Krisanski’s number from last week and called him. He didn’t pick up either, so I left him another message saying I had a few questions about his connection to Invigor8, Bennett Nichols, and Arthur Davenport. That ought to get his attention. Maybe now he’d actually call me back.
Holman and I found Thad and Tabitha on the dance floor and I interrupted their Electric Slide for a quick minute. I pulled her into a tight hug, being careful not to mess up her perfect hair. “Congratulations, Mrs. Davenport.”
She wrenched away like I’d slapped her. “Oh, I am not Mrs. Davenport.” She wagged a finger at me. “I will be keeping my name, thankyouverymuch. I take a lot of pride in being a St. Simon girl. Plus, it’s my professional name and I wouldn’t want to lose any of the clout I’ve built up under this name.”
I was pretty sure Tabitha’s professional name according to Tuttle library patrons was “Excuse Me, Miss,” but I didn’t say anything. This was her big day after all, and my gift to her (in addition to the monogrammed hand towels) was to let it slide.
“Sorry,” I said, winking at Thad. “Thanks for everything, guys. It was a perfect evening.”
“Thank you for everything,” Thad said, and I could tell he meant it. He might not have been the most interesting man in the world, or as charming as his brother, and he might have been at least thirty-seven percent Sasquatch, but Thad was a good guy—and the perfect opposing force for Tabitha. It was nice to see them heading off into their happily ever after.
Ridley was at the front waiting for Holman and me. We all walked out together, holding our favor boxes containing two bear claws from Tuttle Donuts, a beloved local institution, and two small bottles of milk.
“The Hobbit doesn’t have storage, will you take mine?” Holman asked, a slight edge coming through in his voice. I recognized this edge as food stress. Holman loved doughnuts like Winnie the Pooh loves honey. “Don’t eat them though, okay?”
“I won’t.”
“Because it would be incredibly disappointing if I were to come over to your house in the morning to retrieve them only to find them gone.”
“I won’t eat your bear claws, I promise.”
Moments later, after a few more assurances that I wouldn’t snarf his doughnuts, he sputtered and tutted his way out of the long brick driveway on his preposterous vehicle.
Ridley and I got into my car and headed toward Ryan’s parents’ house. As we turned left out of the driveway, I could feel her eyes on me.
“What?”
“So Jay called, huh?”
I had told Ridley the whole story about Jay breaking up with me in a moment of weakness at the wedding reception. She’d asked why I brought Holman and it just sort of spilled out. Not that she and I were becoming friends or anything.
“Um, yeah. He says he wants to talk.”
“You lie.”
“I’m sorry—what?”
“You’re lying.”
I sat there stung speechless for a moment—how dare she accuse me of lying! I mean, I was, but still.
“Riley,” she said calmly, “one of my gifts is I can always tell when people are lying. I’ve had this ability since I was a girl. It is how I know Ryan still loves you, despite his denials, and how I know this still pleases you. So this lie about Jay calling you was very easy for me to spot.”
“What’re you”—I started to argue, but stopped myself. The truth was I was a terrible liar and it didn’t take someone with a “gift” to sense it.
“Fine. I just wanted to leave. It was a little too much ‘love’ for me, given my personal situation right now.”
Ridley was quiet, but I felt her eyes on me from the passenger seat, like she was running what I said through her internal polygraph. After a beat she said, “Nope. You’re still lying.”
“Ridley!”
“Who called you? I saw your face when you listened to the message—you went pale. Who was it?”
Damn. She was good. I thought it over quickly and decided, What did it matter if I told Ridley who called?
“It was Lauren McCarty. Her mother was a patient of Dr. Davenport’s and her family owns a tobacco farm in the area. She said something that made me wonder about the relationship between Bennett Nichols, that creepy Brandon Laytner, and her brother, this John Krisanski—who I don’t know anything about, but whose name keeps coming up. Something about this seems odd to me and I just want to do a little research, that’s all. Plus, a wedding really isn’t the best place to be when you’ve just been broken up with.”
Ridley was quiet as she typed something into her phone, apparently already disinterested in what I was talking about. But the more I thought about it, the more interested I became. All three of those men had ties to Dr. Davenport, and more significantly they all had reasons to dislike him. Why hadn’t their connections come up earlier? Was someone trying to hide something? My mind was busy tossing around theories when Ridley held up her phone. “Look.”
I snuck a sideways glance at the screen. “Why are you showing me a picture of the custodian from Tuttle General?”
“According to Google, this is John Krisanski.”
Shocked, I pulled the car over to the side of the road to process this. John Krisanski was Jack the custodian? How was that possible? I ticked back through the few conversations I’d had with Jack over the past few days. We’d talked about Arthur’s obituary—but he hadn’t mentioned that Arthur had taken care of his mother. And now I learn that this guy was Bennett Nichols’s best friend from high school, and he was leasing his family’s farmland to Brandon Laytner’s Invigor8? There were a lot of coincidences starting to rack up here. I stared out of the windshield into the dark night, my eyes unfocused as I thought through what all this could all mean.
“Riley?” Ridley’s voice brought me back to the moment.
“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking it off. “I’m just shocked, that’s all—” I put my turn signal on and started to pull back onto the road. “I know you’re exhausted, I’ll get you home.”
“It’s not that—” Ridley said as she looked from the floorboard to me and back again. “I think my water just broke.”
CHAPTER 46
I had never driven so fast in all my life. All of a sudden every bump in the road seemed like a threat, every stoplight an obstacle. As I flew down back county roads toward Tuttle Gen, I had visions of being forced to deliver Ridley’s baby on the side of the road. I was in a near panic. I wasn’t proud of it, but at one point Ridley looked over and said between contractions, “It’s going to be fine, Riley. Just breathe.”
I flew into the circle drive of the hospital, put on my hazards, and led (an infuriatingly calm) Ridley inside. She had called Ryan on the way over but we’d made it there first. The woman at the reception desk called for a wheelchair and told me they’d be taking Ridley straight to Labor & Delivery.
I ran back outside, legally parked my car, and went back to wait with her until Ryan got there.
When I got to her room, she was already hooked up to what they called a fetal heart-rate monitor. The nurse in the room explained that Ridley was in “active labor,” which meant the baby was ready to be born.
“You look scared silly, hon,” the nurse said. “Are you Ridley’s partner?”
I’ll admit my first reaction was to be flattered—I mean, the thought that I could be with someone like Ridley . . . and then I mentally slapped myself for falling under the Ridley-spell like everyone else. “No,” I said quickly. “I used to date her partner. I mean, her baby daddy. I mean, the baby’s father.”
&nbs
p; The nurse looked at me like I was insane, since I was now clearly irrelevant, not to mention full of TMI. Then she turned back to Ridley. “Hon, do you have a partner who’s going to be involved in this birth? I don’t think it’s gonna be too long now.”
“Yes,” Ridley said between deep breaths. “He’s on his . . . warggggh!” She let out an anguished cry. I have to say: watching Ridley in active labor put off any ideas I had about having kids for a good long while. Not that I felt it had been in my immediate future or anything. But still. It did not look fun.
“I’m going to get the doctor and then we’ll get some more information on where you are. Okay, sugar?”
Ridley was sitting propped up by two pillows behind her, a death grip on the railing of her bed with each hand. Incredibly, she didn’t seem scared or nervous, just hyper-focused. It was almost like she was in a trance; she was staring at a point directly across the room, puffing out short, forceful breaths every couple of seconds. I felt like I should be doing something, so I took a few delicate steps toward her bedside. Should I breathe with her? Should I help her count—was that a thing? I had no idea.
“Can I get you anything?” I asked tentatively.
“No,” she said, and her voice had a definitive edge I hadn’t heard before. Not exactly harsh; more like firm.
“Ice chips? Another blanket?”
“No.”
“Do you want a magazine?”
“Riley,” she sighed, finally breaking her gaze at the point across the room. “I’m trying to meditate. It’s supposed to help the baby and me relax.”
“Ohhhhh,” I said. “Okay. I’m sorry. I’ll just be quiet.”
She went back to breathing/staring and I stood there silently like an idiot. This went on for some time. And then Dr. Wilson walked in the room, her eyes down on the chart she was holding. “I hear there’s a baby ready to be born in here—oh, hi, Riley!”