“If the reverend’s own wife isn’t taking his preaching to heart, it doesn’t seem like you have a lot to worry about.”
“Maybe she’s spying for him.”
Jake’s lashes rose, his gaze alert. “Do you think she is?”
A.J. shook her head. “I honestly have no idea.”
“Why suggest it if it’s not on your mind?”
“Because it seems like such an unusual situation. He’s condemning us and she’s using our free passes. Have you heard something that makes you think I’m right?”
He shook his head. “More rumors. Speculation.” He reached across to refill A.J.’s glass.
“Speaking of speculation and wild rumors. What’s this story about something attacking John Baumann’s cows last night?”
Jake sighed. “What’s the theory now? Aliens mutilating livestock? I’ve heard everything else today.”
“So it is true?”
Jake lifted a broad shoulder in dismissal. “It’s not the first time livestock has been killed in this area. The Baumann farm is right on the edge of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.”
“So you think wild animals attacked the cattle?” Jake hesitated just a fraction too long.
A.J. had started to lift her glass. She lowered it. “No?” “I didn’t say that,” Jake said quickly.
“Didn’t say what?”
“Whatever you’re thinking.”
A.J. started to laugh. “You know, you sound just a little paranoid.”
Jake grimaced. “So would you if you’d had the day I did.” “Come on. Tell me. I share all my problems.”
His expression was unexpectedly serious. “Do you?” “I’m happy to say I don’t have a lot of problems these days, but . . . yes. I do. It’s one of the best things about, well, having someone. In my life.”
Jake’s eyes tilted. “As opposed to—”
“You know what I mean.”
He chuckled. “Yeah. I know what you mean. And yes, I agree. It’s nice having someone to talk to. Even if I don’t always take advantage of it.”
“So? What are people saying about your dead livestock case?”
Jake sighed. “They’re saying it’s the Jersey Devil.”
When A.J. stopped choking on the wine she’d inhaled, she gulped out, “You’re kidding.”
“I wish.”
“People are seriously suggesting that the Jersey Devil is roaming the countryside killing cows?”
“I know. Believe me, I know.”
“It’s got to be a joke.”
“If so, it’s an expensive and brutal one.” Jake pushed his chair back from the table.
A.J. glanced at the clock over the stove. It was nearly ten o’clock. The steady rhythm of the rain on the roof made a sleepy, soothing sound.
“Dishes?” she asked.
“Nah. I thought we’d have dessert now.”
“Oh? What’s for dessert?”
Jake grinned, his expression wicked in the wavering light. “You.”
A.J. started to laugh.
Three
Some things never changed. Lily Martin was one of them.
Well, perhaps that wasn’t quite fair. Though Lily looked very much as she always did, she was wearing a new shade of lipstick—an unlikely peony—and her hair was longer. She wore it tied back in a severe ponytail. Springtoned lipstick aside, she looked as tired and edgy as usual, so perhaps finally managing a big, successful yoga studio all on her own was not the twenty-four-hour picnic she’d expected.
“Hi,” A.J. said, taking the lattice-back chair across from Lily. “Sorry I’m late. I had a call from Vi McGrath at Zen Zone as I was about to leave. She says hello and she’s in on whatever we decide to do.”
The waitress, a petite brunette in cargo pants and camo tee, arrived with the menus, cutting off Lily’s response— assuming she’d had one. The choice to meet at Juice Junction had been hers. A.J. would have preferred somewhere a little more comfortable and a lot more private, but Lily had initiated this meeting with a surprise phone call that morning.
A.J. ordered the pad thai with tofu and Lily spent several minutes interrogating the waitress about the ingredients and preparation of the lentil burger.
“All right, what are we going to do about him?” Lily asked briskly as the cowed waitress escaped, menus clutched to her chest.
So much for social niceties.
“I don’t see that there’s a lot we can do,” A.J. said. “If we take Goode on publicly, we just provide him with the free publicity he’s seeking.”
“You may be willing to sit back and let that lunatic ruin your business, but I’ve worked too hard to get where I am.”
And A.J. hadn’t? Choose your battles. She sighed inwardly. “If you’ve got an idea, I’m willing to hear it.”
“We start by hiring a private detective.”
“Seriously?” Whatever A.J. had expected, it wasn’t that. Granted, with Lily, anything from staging a sit-in to firebombing the church headquarters could not be ruled out.
“Dead serious.” Lily’s expression was grim. Grimmer than normal.
A.J. sipped from her glass of ice water. It tasted like it had come from a hose. All part of the Juice Junction dining experience? “What is it you think a private detective might uncover?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t suggest we hire a private detective, would I?”
“I mean,” A.J. replied, grabbing onto her patience,
“what makes you think there’s anything to find out?”
“Instinct. There’s something off about that guy. I know a huckster when I see one.”
“Really?” A.J. wasn’t challenging Lily; she was genuinely curious. Maybe Lily did have life experiences that enabled her to pick out a phony baloney at ten paces.
They were silent as the waitress returned with their lunches. The speedy service might be the mark of spectacular efficiency, but A.J. couldn’t help wonder if the fact that the small eating area was mostly deserted at lunchtime was a sign of things to come. The only other customer was Sarah Ray, a lanky thirty-something blonde who hosted a local TV cooking show. She was dividing her attention between her lunch, Food and Wine magazine, and the window facing the street.
Maybe Sarah was there to do an exposé of Juice Junction. Or maybe the food was much better than the presentation would suggest. The scent of cayenne and fish sauce wafted up from A.J.’s plate. She picked up her fork and gave the noodles a cautious poke. “There is one odd thing, although I don’t know that it’s significant. Goode’s wife is a client.”
“Of yours?” Leave it to Lily to find something in that to be miffed about.
“Of Sacred Balance.”
Lily seemed to weigh this. “If she is his wife.”
A.J. chewed and swallowed hastily. “Is there really a question of that?”
“For someone with a reputation for sleuthing, you really haven’t done much background checking. Goode is boinking half the female population of Stillbrook.” Lily selected a sweet potato chip and crunched it briskly.
“Half the population?” A.J. didn’t care about the slur on her supposed sleuthing skills, but surely the rest of it had to be gross exaggeration?
Lily nodded indifferently and took a big bite out of her burger.
“Even if that’s true, it doesn’t mean they’re not married. Marital infidelity—”
Lily shook her head. “Have you had a good look at her? If they are married, it’s strictly a business arrangement.”
“And that’s it? That’s why you want to hire a PI? You think they might not be married? That’s not much of a sin these days.”
“It is for a minister.”
“True.” A.J. had to give her that much. “But that being the case, why take a chance? Why not just marry?” Lily’s hypothesis that the Goodes might not be married because they didn’t seem like a great match seemed almost touchingly naïve.
“Maybe they can’t marry.”
“Because?”
“Because he’s already married.” Lily added pointedly, “Or maybe he’s gay.”
A.J. cleared her throat. “Do you have anything else to go on besides some rumors and a hunch the Goodes aren’t married?” She lowered her voice as Sarah looked up from her magazine and glanced at their table.
“How would I? That’s why I want to hire a PI. So we can catch Goode in the act.”
“What act?”
“Any act. If we can discredit him, then no one is going to be interested in anything he has to say about the rest of us.”
There was certainly an ugly logic to Lily’s reasoning, but A.J. found the idea of a smear campaign—even if the smears were legitimate—more than a little revolting.
“I’m not happy about what Goode’s saying about us and about yoga, but this all sounds a little extreme to me.”
“Why am I not surprised to hear that you’re happy to take a passive approach to the problem?”
“I’m not being passive, Lily. I’m trying to be practical. Imagine if word got out that we felt so threatened by the idiot comments of this man that we felt we had to hire a PI to dig up dirt on him? I think that could do us more harm than good.”
“How would word get out unless you blabbed?” Lily fixed A.J. with a hard eye.
“It’s a small town. News spreads. Look at the rumors circulating about Goode right now.”
“There’s no smoke without fire.”
“First of all, that’s not true. Sometimes dust looks like smoke from a distance, and people still yell fire. Secondly, you’re missing my point. If Goode really is the hypocrite you think he is, then it’s going to come out.”
“Eventually. Maybe after we’re ruined.”
A.J. made an exasperated sound. She was honest enough to recognize that part of her resistance to Lily’s idea was due to the long-standing antagonism between them, but she also really didn’t think hiring a private investigator was the way to go. It seemed overly dramatic for the circumstances, but maybe she was underestimating the threat posed by rumor and innuendo.
“I’ll think about it. How’s that?”
“Don’t bother.” Lily’s chair scraped noisily as she pushed it back. “I’ll deal with it myself. As usual.”
“Come on, Lily. Don’t turn this into—” But A.J. was talking to Lily’s back as the other woman strode briskly to the front entrance. A.J. rose, then realized they hadn’t paid for lunch. She checked her pocketbook but she only had a couple of dollars in cash. She retrieved a credit card and took it to the front where there was no sign of a waitress or cashier.
Through the plate glass window she could see Lily marching down the street.
By the time the harassed-looking waitress appeared to run A.J.’s credit card and A.J. got outside, there was no sign of Lily.
She shook her head and started toward the small parking lot behind the café. The sound of raised voices caught her attention. She looked around and spotted Lily a few yards down on the other side of the street, arguing with a tall, dark-haired man.
A.J. let out a little groan as she recognized the Reverend Goode. A woman in a raincoat stood next to him while Lily read the good reverend the riot act. Fortunately, the rain had cleared the streets of Stillbrook of most pedestrians, but there were still a few people going in and out of the various shops, throwing curious looks at Lily and Goode.
A.J. spared a quick look for traffic and sprinted across the street. She didn’t particularly have a plan—in fact, she wasn’t sure getting involved in a public showdown was a good move—but it didn’t seem right to calmly get in her car and drive away. Tempting though the idea was.
As she approached the other three she heard Lily’s harsh tones. “Oh, you’ll be sorry. Believe me. I’ll personally see to that.”
“Are you threatening me, young woman?” Goode asked, although he was probably no older than Lily. He smiled in a way that sent unease slithering down A.J.’s spine. Despite the wide, white smile, his eyes were dark and dangerous.
“Lily, let’s not do this here.” A.J. reached Lily’s side.
“You’re damn right I’m threatening you.” Lily’s voice carried clearly in the cold autumn air.
A.J. met the eyes of the woman with Goode. She recognized Oriel Goode from the Sacred Balance showers. Oriel’s brown hair was piled in a careless upsweep. She wore pink makeup that did nothing for her sallow skin tone. Her brown gaze met A.J.’s without any sign of recognition before returning to her husband’s profile.
“I’d be careful if I were you. I could have you arrested for making threats,” Goode told Lily.
“That wouldn’t help any of us,” A.J. interjected before Lily could snarl a response. She reached for Lily’s arm, but Lily shook her off.
“You might fool some people. You don’t fool me.” Lily continued to glare at Goode, who abruptly looked bored. He looked down at his watch—a Rolex, unless A.J. was mistaken.
“You’ll have to excuse us. My wife and I are already late for our lunch appointment.” Goode took his wife’s arm and hustled her in the direction of the Happy Cow Steak House.
Lily took a step to follow, and A.J. moved in front of her. “You’re kidding, right? You’re not really going to go harass him in front of fifty witnesses at the most popular restaurant in town?”
“Why? Would it be awkward for you?”
“It would be stupid. Even more stupid than accosting him on the street in broad daylight was.”
Lily’s face was tight with anger. She was still trembling. “I’m sorry I can’t be dispassionate like you, but everything I have is tied up in the success of Yoga Meridian.”
“I understand. Everything I have is tied up in Sacred Balance. But this isn’t the way.”
“The difference is you have eighteen million dollars to cushion you if you lose the studio. If I lose Yoga Meridian, I’ll have nothing left.”
A.J. opened her mouth, but what was the point? She could try and explain to Lily that most of her money was invested in the various subsidiaries of Aunt Di’s empire, and that, like everyone else in the country, she’d suffered hits during the current recession. This wasn’t really about money for either of them. Lily couldn’t see it—would never see it—but they were equally vulnerable. Each of them needed their respective studios to succeed—and for more than financial reasons.
“Then you can’t afford to make mistakes in how you handle this. You need to step away for now. When I get back to the studio, I’ll call Vi and a couple of the other studio owners in the county and tell them what we discussed and get their input on how we should proceed. I think we need to keep a unified front on this—and we need to keep it impersonal and professional.”
Lily’s face screwed up in utter disgust. She flung herself away from A.J. and marched up the street.
Wearily, A.J. watched her go. She was feeling the lack of sleep from the night before. The thought of Jake was unexpectedly comforting. She smiled at the memory and then sighed as Lily climbed into her battered Renault and the engine screeched as though in pain.
A.J. turned and walked back toward the parking lot and her own car.
One of the first changes implemented by A.J. when she took over Sacred Balance was weekly staff meetings. Though initially the Tuesday afternoon meetings had not been greeted with universal joy—even on A.J.’s part—gradually they had evolved into a relaxed forum for everything from airing grievances to brainstorming. Now A.J. actually looked forward to the opportunity to touch base with her busy colleagues. The excuse to eat the occasional pastry certainly didn’t hurt either.
She was proud of the team she was building. She both respected and genuinely liked her staff members. It gave her a good feeling to know they cared as much about the success of Sacred Balance as she did. But if they honestly thought the way to bolster studio memberships was camping trips, she needed to check their green tea for hallucinogens.
A.J. was not, by any stretch of the imagination, an o
utdoors girl.
She liked the outdoors, in moderation. She liked being able to look up and see the stars at night. She liked being able to take walks in the woods or swim in unpolluted waters. She recycled faithfully, voted responsibly, and typically did her bit to preserve Mother Earth for future generations.
But camping?
Camping was . . . well, really too much of a good thing in A.J.’s opinion. She kept starting to object and then restraining herself as her staff got more and more enthusiastic about the idea of a weekend camping retreat for their students.
“This is brilliant. It’s something none of our competitors have thought of,” Denise Farber, the Pilates instructor, enthused.
And there was a very good reason no one else had thought of it, in A.J.’s opinion. But once again—with difficulty—she held her tongue.
“I’ve always wanted to do one of those yoga camping holidays in Spain,” Jaci said. “You know, horseback riding and wine tours and river fishing at one of those organic olive farms.” Jaci was their newest instructor, hired to replace Lily after she had left to manage Yoga Meridian. She was a curvy strawberry blonde in her early twenties. Despite her youth and easygoing attitude, she was a highly experienced instructor, and A.J. rejoiced on a regular basis that they’d snapped her up before Lily and Yoga Meridian had gotten her in their clutches.
“I like the idea of wine tours in Spain, too. This is camping in the Pine Barrens. In November,” A.J. couldn’t help pointing out.
“It doesn’t have to be the Pine Barrens,” Simon said quickly. “I just threw that out as an idea. We could find someplace closer to home.”
“Especially with the Jersey Devil on the loose,” Suze put in, through a mouthful of soft pretzel. This month A.J. had made an effort to provide more healthy snacks for their weekly staff meetings rather than the pastries she personally loved.
“The Jersey Devil . . . ?” Jaci was staring at Suze.
“Didn’t you hear about John Baumann’s cows?”
“Okay, that’s great.” A.J. spoke over Suze, who was clearly readying to launch into a ghoulish retelling of the recent attacks on livestock. “Back to camping in November. Never mind the fact that we’re not giving ourselves a lot of time to prepare, it’s . . . camping in November. Maybe we should postpone to the spring. The weather will be warmer and there’ll be more flowers.”
Death in a Difficult Position Page 3