Haunting Olivia (22 page)

We might as well be friends, right?”

“I don’t know about friends,” Johanna said. “I 206

Janelle Taylor

mean, Marnie’s my cousin, and you’re like the enemy, you know?”

“The enemy?” Olivia repeated. “Does she really hate me that much?”

“Oh, yeah,” Johanna responded. “She does.”

“So, my car, the figurines, the noose, the size-eight footprint found outside my basement window the night someone slashed my bed—was that all you guys?”

Johanna stood up, suddenly nervous. She made a show of looking at her watch. “I really have to go.

I have to be somewhere.”

As Johanna practically ran to the door, Olivia said,

“Johanna, if it was the two of you, will it stop now?”

Johanna glanced at Olivia. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She bit her lower lip. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I probably won’t be able to chat or anything, though, because I’m opening up the shop earlier from now on.”

With a last nervous smile, Johanna fled down the stairs, walk-running down the road on her high heels until she disappeared from view.

“All that because your friend bought a couple of sweaters?” Zach said when Olivia closed the front door.

“It’s almost as though Johanna was looking for an excuse to talk. She’s so high-strung and nervous. I get the feeling that Marnie is pulling the strings, and Johanna’s freaking out. One more sweater and she might break down and confess.”

“I wouldn’t trust her, though,” Zach said. “It’s hard to tell what’s real and what she’s deluded herself into thinking is real.”

“Well, a little kindness seems the way to get HAUNTING OLIV IA

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through to her,” Olivia said, “so perhaps the incidents will stop now. She might see me as more allied with my father now, whereas before I was the enemy.”

“Yeah, but as she said, you’re even more of the enemy because of me.”

Olivia let out a breath and flopped down on the sofa in the living room.

“So Marnie came on to me because she thought I might get very rich soon?” Zach said, shaking his head as he sat down next to Olivia. “That makes me so sick.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation, she fell in love.”

“That’s not a consolation. She came on to me because she thought my daughter—and therefore I—

was going to inherit a fortune. That’s revolting.”

“Zach, did you ever see William when he was in town? Did he ever meet Kayla?”

He shook his head. “Well, he saw her at least one time that I know of. From a distance. I didn’t speak to him. He looked from me to Kayla and then turned away.”

“Why do you think he sent the birthday and Christmas cards?” Olivia asked. “I keep thinking about that; it would mean he cared about Kayla’s feelings. He wanted her to know her mother was thinking of her at least on those two big days.”

“Olivia, we’d go out of our minds trying to figure out the inner workings of your father.”

“Ever since my friend Camilla left, I’ve been thinking of something she said yesterday.”

“What’s that?” Zach asked, glancing at her.

“Well, Camilla thinks my father gave you Kayla because of my stamp of approval. He didn’t want his sixteen-year-old daughter to raise a baby, but he 208

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didn’t want the baby to be raised by strangers, all ties to me gone forever. So he gave the baby to you, knowing she’d be fine in your care.”

“But your father thought I was pond scum.”

“Clearly not. Or he wouldn’t have given you Kayla.”

Zach seemed to be taking that in. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. But I also don’t give a rat’s butt what your father thought of me.”

She smiled. “I know. And I’m glad. I just thought it was interesting. It hurts less not to hate him, Zach. And these little tidbits keep adding up to me being unable to hate him. I don’t like him, but I don’t hate him the way I did that first day I arrived in Blueberry.”

He took her hand and held it. “Good. Hatred doesn’t do anyone any good.”

“Do you think Johanna will tell Marnie about our little chitchat?” Olivia asked as Zach caressed the tender skin of her inner arm.

“I don’t think so. I have a feeling Johanna wants to be written up in
Glitz
magazine too much for that.

I think Johanna thinks she’s found a more important, useful ally than Marnie. Cousin or no cousin.”

“We have another pageant meeting tonight,”

Olivia said. “I have a feeling it’s going to take hours to make a single decision.”

“I’ll be waiting outside in the truck just to make sure the hours aren’t because you’ve been locked in a basement.”

“Don’t even joke,” Olivia said. But she knew he wasn’t joking.

Chapter 17

“No, I think Cecily should go first. She’s the pret-tiest,” Cecily’s mother announced.

“
Hello!
” Kayla yelled. “It’s an
inner-beauty
pageant.

So looks don’t matter.”

“Then
you
go first,” another girl snapped.

Kayla’s face fell for a moment, but then she recovered. “Jerk-face.”

The six contestants and their mothers stood on the stage in the auditorium, bickering back and forth, as they’d been doing for the past fifteen minutes. All that was required of them this evening was to agree on the order in which the girls would present themselves to the panel of judges and the audience in two weeks.

Olivia waited for Colleen, the assistant coordinator, to intervene, but the shy woman bit her lip and then buried her nose in the pageant manual. She was clearly intimidated by the mothers
and
the girls.

Olivia might not be the sole coordinator, but she was taking charge
now.

“Rule number one of Blueberry’s Inner-Beauty 210

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Pageant is that contestants must demonstrate inner beauty all the time, not just during the actual pageant. So let’s all put that into practice, okay?”

“I agree with Olivia,” trilled Cecily Carle’s mother.

There were eye rolls from everyone else.

“Well, I think either Eva or I should go first,”

Emily said. “Because we’re twins.”

“So you should both go last,” Kayla said. “You already call too much attention to yourselves.”

As the arguing reached headache-inducing levels, Olivia called out, “The pageant guidebook suggests we go in alphabetical order. That way, the judges know the order is random.”

“And your daughter’s name just happens to start with
A
,” Marnie said coldly.

“But Emily’s last name is Abernathy, so she’s first!” said Emily’s mother. “Then Eva.”

“Colleen,” Olivia said to the assistant coordinator,

“why don’t you take over now that we’ve got that settled.”

The woman practically jumped. “Okay, so the order is Emily Abernathy, Eva Abnernathy, Kayla Archer, Cecily Carle, Deenie McCord, and Brianna Sweetser.

“Best for last, baby,” Olivia heard Marnie say to her daughter.

“Attention, please,” Colleen called out in such a low voice that no one heard her. “Attention!” she suddenly bellowed.

All heads swung to her.

“We will have one placement rehearsal one day prior to the pageant next Saturday,” Colleen said, reading from the clipboard in her hands. “Each HAUNTING OLIV IA

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contestant must by pageant day be formally sponsored by a town establishment. I’ll hand out forms that must be signed by the proprietor at the end of the meeting.”

“Can it be any type of business?” Brianna asked.

“Any type as long it’s located within Blueberry,”

Colleen said. “And no, you can’t be sponsored by your kid sister’s lemonade stand or something like that.”

“I don’t have a kid sister,” Brianna snapped.

“I’m speaking to the
group,
” Colleen responded.

She seemed to be relishing this new position of power. “If I may continue. At the pageant, each contestant will read an essay of between seven hundred fifty and one thousand words on what inner beauty means to her. Each contestant will give an oral presentation on the most influential person in her life. Finally, each contestant will answer three questions chosen at random by the judges. After a short break, the judges will then review their scores and announce a runner-up and the winner of the pageant.”

“Who are the judges?” Cecily Carle’s mother asked.

Colleen flipped a page on her clipboard. “The esteemed judges are Donald Hicks, town manager of Blueberry; Laura Maywood, Blueberry Memorial Library’s reference librarian; and Valerie Erp, president of The Blueberry Historical Society.”

“Are we done?” Marnie asked, glancing at her watch. “I have an important engagement. And Brianna would like to work on her oral presentation.”

“She’ll need all the practice she can get,” Eva or Emily whispered.

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“Shut up, you stupid cows,” Brianna snapped.

“Inner beauty!” Colleen singsonged. “At all times, please!”

Well, at least Colleen had found her voice.

As Zach watched Olivia and Kayla walk out of the town hall, laughing, chatting, smiling, he was so overcome with emotion that he had to take a deep breath. This was exactly what he’d always dreamed of for Kayla. A mother—if not her biological one, then a woman who could fulfill that role for his daughter. And here was the best of both worlds.

Kayla looked so happy. So did Olivia.

Olivia and Kayla stopped and turned around; they were joined by Cecily Carle and her mother, Rorie. He saw Olivia point at Zach’s truck, and then they all headed over.

“Hi, Daddy!” Kayla said, leaning up to kiss Zach through the window. “Cecily invited me over to her house to work on our oral presentations. Can I go?”

It amused Zach how Kayla could go from hating someone’s guts to adoring them in two seconds flat.

Last week, Kayla despised “the perfect Cecily Carle.”

“I’d be happy to drop her home around eight,”

Rorie said. “We don’t live very far away.”

At Zach’s “sounds good,” Kayla squealed, and off she went with the Carles.

“Nice girl?” he asked as Olivia got inside the truck.

“The nicest one of the contestants,” Olivia said. “I like her mom, too.” Her eyes were on Marnie’s car, speeding out of the parking lot. “Marnie mentioned HAUNTING OLIV IA

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she had an ‘important engagement’ after the meeting. Curious as I am?”

As they trailed Marnie at a reasonable distance, Olivia filled in Zach on the meeting.

“Doesn’t exactly sound like the good influence I’d wanted for Kayla,” Zach said. “Sounds more like an Inner-Baddie contest.”

Olivia smiled. “The good news is Kayla seems so self-motivated to write her essay and work on her oral presentation. She needs to be sponsored by a local business. Have anyone in mind she can ask?”

“Yeah, my architectural firm. We’re a one-man shop, but she’s got my vote.”

Olivia smiled. “I’ll check with Colleen to make sure she can be sponsored by a family member’s business. I’m sure it’s fine, as long you donate a certain amount of money to the kitty of prize money.”

Zach began slowing down as Marnie pulled into her driveway. “I have a feeling she’ll drop off Brianna and then head out again. Let’s wait.”

They didn’t wait long. In another few minutes, Marnie was back on the road and heading down a rural highway. Twenty minutes later, she exited and pulled into the parking lot of the Boxboro Township Motel.

“I guess her important engagement is sex,” Zach said as they watched Marnie dash from her car inside the Boxboro Township Motel. A sign at the main entrance said:
“By the hour or week!”

“Why meet someone here?” Olivia asked. “It’s so out of the way—” They glanced at each other.

“Maybe her new boyfriend is married?”

Zach glanced around the parking lot, his gaze stopping on a familiar green Subaru Forester.

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“Now, granted, the Forester is a popular car in Maine, but I can think of one particular person who has that car.”

“Who?” Olivia asked.

“I’ll give you a hint. He’s definitely married. But more important—or perhaps I should say more
sickeningly
—he’s the only male judge of the Inner-Beauty Pageant.”

Olivia’s mouth dropped open. “The town manager?” she asked. She shook her head. “Do you think they started seeing each other before Brianna entered the contest?”

“If that’s the case,” Zach said, “she’s one hell of a hypocrite.”

The next morning, Zach waited in the kitchen as Olivia dealt with Johanna.

“Um, just forget everything I said yesterday,” Johanna said. “I was just really emotional about William. I don’t even know if what I said was true or not. It’s all jumbled.”

“Would you like to come—” Olivia began.

“I’m in a hurry,” Johanna interrupted, “so could you just give me your receipts and sign the roster?”

“Maybe next time,” Olivia said.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Johanna said, “of course, I’m sponsoring Brianna. She is my cousin’s daughter.”

“Of course.”

At the sound of the door closing, Zach met Olivia in the living room. “Let’s take a ride to the town hall and check our esteemed town manager’s license plate.”

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Five minutes later, they had a match. One minute after that, Zach was in Donald Hicks’s office.

“What can I do for you, Zach?” Don asked.

“Look, Don, we go way back, so I’m just going to come out and say this. I happened to be passing by the Boxboro Township Motel tonight and—”

The man’s face reddened. “You’re not going to tell Suzette, are you?”

“No, that’s your business. My business is the fact there’s now a conflict of interest concerning the Inner-Beauty Pageant. I’m talking about one of the contestants in particular. As my own daughter is a contestant, I don’t want to see the pageant judged on any merit other than the rules dictate.”

Don played dumb for a moment, then slapped his hand to his forehead. “Oh my gosh. Is Marnie’s girl a contestant in the pageant?”

Zach tried not to roll his eyes. “Yes, she is.”

“I had no idea, Zach,” Don said. “But don’t give it another thought. I’ll tell you what. You keep this between us, and I’ll resign as a judge immediately.