Leave Tomorrow Behind (Stella Crown Series) (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-five

I needed pie. Nick needed to sit. Miranda needed…a brain transplant. The booster food tent could offer two out of the three, so we headed there as soon as Miranda was done with her rabbit love fest. There was no point going home anymore, because we’d have to turn right back around if we were going to make it to the parade. So food was the answer. But as soon as we sat down with two pieces of cherry pie and a Diet Coke—Miranda was such a party pooper—I was sorry we’d come in.

“Hello, again!”

The three of us gazed up at the mother of the hideous Summer, me with regret, Nick with something approaching fear, and Miranda with distaste. At least she and I had that in common. And at least the monster daughter was nowhere in sight.

“So, have you cleared your schedule?” The woman gazed straight at Nick, of course, like he had completely overpowered her with his gorgeousness. Which, perhaps, he had.

Miranda’s nose wrinkled. “Cleared his schedule for what? You do know he’s engaged.”

The miraculous thing here was that she said that last sentence without a stutter or even a hint of disgust.

The woman batted her eyes, which wasn’t quite as terrifying as when her daughter did it, but was bad enough. “He knows what I’m talking about.”

From his blank expression I could tell she was wrong.

“The Lovely Miss Pennsylvania pageant,” I told him.

Understanding brought life back to his face. “Oh. Um. I really wasn’t—”

“You simply must come. Summer would be so thrilled to see you in the audience.” Her body language suggested that she herself wouldn’t be sorry, either. Sometimes I didn’t mind the whole Nick-as-chick-magnet thing, but this woman was beyond creepy, being totally oblivious to me, sitting right beside him.

Miranda’s eyes were like tractor tires, probably because she was waiting for me to deck the woman. But I gripped my plastic fork, breathed deeply, and tried not to imagine plunging the utensil deep into the woman’s throat. Probably wouldn’t work, anyway, plastic not being the best weapon known to a crossed woman.

Nick smiled, back in control. “I’ll see what I can do, Mrs.…”

“Moss. But it’s just Ms. And you can call me Sherry.”

“I see.” His eyes flicked toward me. “I’ll have to see what my fiancée is thinking of for tomorrow evening.”

Her adoring gaze went sour for a second, before the fake smile came back, which she aimed at me. “Surely you don’t want to miss out on such an exciting event. My daughter is going to do very well, I know, and I would hate for anyone to miss it.”

“I really—”

“—don’t,” Miranda said. “Or, she doesn’t. Want to miss it, I mean. We’ll be there. Thank you for the invitation.”

Ms. Moss turned her smile on Miranda, where it faltered. Try to hook one guy, and suddenly she’s got two women to deal with. Not in her plans, I didn’t think. “Well, that’s…wonderful.” She blinked, like she was resetting her program, then dove into her purse and pulled out a photo of Frankenstein Summer.

Miranda gaped at it. “This? Is your daughter?”

“Yes. Isn’t she lovely?”

Miranda choked and coughed, like she’d just swallowed her Diet Coke the wrong way. I whacked her back, to make the idea convincing.

“But that’s the girl we saw at the calf judging. She’s—” She put her hand over her mouth, like she couldn’t stand to say any more about it.

Summer’s mom was oblivious to the whole freak out going on in Miranda’s head. She was more interested in beaming at Nick. “I’m so glad you’ll come. It will be a pleasure to see you there, Mr.…”

“Nick. Just call me Nick.”

“Oh, yes. Nick.”

I swallowed. Just hearing her say his name in that breathless way made me want to go take a shower. Or at least spray myself down over at the dairy barn.

Finally, the woman swayed away, looking back over her shoulder to see if Nick was watching. He wasn’t. But I was. She spun around and hustled away.

“Nick,” Miranda said, “you are way too nice to women like her. It’s disgusting.”

“Sorry. Don’t mean to be disgusting.”

“No, you’re not disgusting. She’s disgusting. Tell him, Stella.”

“Actually, I found the entire thing disgusting.”

“And how can she possibly think her hideous daughter has any chance of winning the pageant? I’m sure the judges would rather pick a girl off the street than have that monstrosity representing Lovely Miss. I know I would.”

It was a valid question. Did Summer’s mom really not see the joke her daughter had become? And how did she get into the pageant in the first place? Were there no guidelines? No criteria for being at least fifty percent human?

I knew just who we could ask, if we cared that much. Taylor. Or her mom. But I really didn’t care enough to even think about it another second. “So, what do we do now? You guys want to go? I’m ready to ditch this place.”

Miranda checked her phone. “But isn’t the parade soon? And isn’t Daniella’s daughter going to be on a float?”

“Yeah, I guess. Zach’s going to be on the dairy one, with the other kids in his 4-H club, and I did tell him I’d watch. Not that he really cares.” I dropped my forehead onto Nick’s shoulder. “Can’t we just go home? I’m tired of being here.”

“We should ask Taylor,” Miranda said.

I rolled my head to look at her. “If we should go home?”

“No, dummy, how that Summer girl got into the Lovely Miss pageant.”

“We can’t really go home,” Nick said. “Not if you want to keep your promise and see the parade. It starts in an hour. And then the combine demo’s after that.”

“So?”

“You’re not really going to make me miss that, are you? My one chance at seeing farm equipment destroy each other?”

I leaned back. “Really? That’s on your bucket list?”

“It has been ever since I heard about it last week.”

“Fine.” I relaxed into my chair. “What are we going to do for an hour?”

“Ask Taylor about the pageant,” Miranda said again, echoing the thoughts I’d had a minute before and had forgotten already.

“Why do you care so much?”

“Because that girl—not Taylor, I mean the surgically enhanced one—should never have gotten into the competition, and I want to know how it happened. Come on, we’ve been doing everything for you today. Can’t we do something for me?”

Nick, being no help at all, was watching me with amusement. “What do you say?”

“Whatever.”

Miranda clapped. “So where do you think Taylor is?”

“Don’t know.”

“But you can find out. Who has she been hanging around ever since meeting him yesterday?”

Right. I sighed and texted Zach.

is taylor with u?

He buzzed me back almost immediately.

yes

where ru?

west parking lot getting ready 4 parade

“All right. If we want to catch him, we’ve gotta go now.”

Miranda was up and halfway to the exit before I’d even sat all the way up in my chair.

“Come on, Love,” Nick said, holding out his hand and grinning. “Let’s go do something for Miranda.”

I let him help me up. I could think of something I wanted to do
to
Miranda. Would that count?

Chapter Twenty-six

Holy crap it was hot. Six in the evening and it felt like high noon. I half expected someone to stroll out onto the street with six-shooters and a ten-gallon hat. I edged back, away from the curb, into the sliver of shade provided by the arts and crafts building. Sweat rolled down my back—and my front—and I tried to remember why parades in the middle of the summer were supposed to be fun.

We hadn’t had any luck getting to Zach or Taylor, because only those involved in the parade were allowed behind the barricades by the time we got there. Our investigation into the inner workings of the pageant would have to wait. Darn. And here it was so important.

Lucy, Tess, and Lenny had joined us for the parade. Lenny was large enough to act as a shade tree, but his family had staked that spot out before the rest of us could make a claim, so we just had to sweat it out.

“Ooo, look Tess, I can see a firetruck!”

No, it wasn’t anyone’s mom who was so excited. Not a little kid. Miranda. It was like she’d never seen a parade before.

“I’ve never seen a parade!” she squealed.

“Seriously?”

She clasped her hands at her throat, staring down the street. “Well, like the Macy’s one on TV, and whatever, but not in real life. Unless you count the one we saw in that dinky little town near home, where there was only one firetruck and the mayor. That doesn’t count.”

I looked at Nick. “Really? No parades?”

He shrugged. “Not in our family’s activity plan, I guess. Or our town’s. I don’t know why.”

I caught Lucy’s eye, and she shrugged, like it was a mystery to her, too.

“Eee!” Miranda shrieked. “I hear a band!”

Oh, thank God. The firetruck was also blowing its horn, deafening everyone within the square mile and drowning out whatever Miranda said next. Soon the flag corps strode by, beginning a long line of what would be a show-and-tell of regional emergency fleets, high school marching bands, floats with the different 4-H clubs, horses, tractors, classic cars, and the Kiwanas guys on their miniature motorcycles. I’d seen it all before, so I took the opportunity to check out who was watching the parade around us.

The Grangers had their usual spot down at the end of the fairgrounds, but it was so crowded I couldn’t imagine trying to squeeze my whole troop in there, so we had searched out this spot and found it without too much difficulty. Pretty much everybody on our stretch of road was involved with the fair somehow. Other people chose to stay in their own front yards or along the sidewalk downtown, where the parade began. Still yet another group wanted to be sure of prime seats for the combine demo, and were already marking their spots in the grandstand.

Claire and Bobby’s folks, Amy Kaufmann and her husband, had set up across the street, and I gave them a wave. Also in our section were Randy’s parents and siblings, Laura’s folks, and several other families from the church I sometimes attended with the Grangers. The kids held their bags at the ready, waiting for the first float to throw candy. Tess was right there with them. I was surprised Miranda hadn’t snatched some poor kid’s bag out of his hands so she could grab the first bubble gum to be tossed out.

A marching band blew by, then some adorable miniature horses, followed by the first of the 4-H floats. The rabbit club. The kids on the float—mostly girls—waved and smiled and threw candy, almost whacking Miranda before she realized what was happening. When she did, she jumped up and down and clapped. Yay.

While horns aoogahed and kids (and Miranda) screamed, “Here! Throw some here!” I observed the on-lookers. Most of the crowd watched with small children on their shoulders or at their feet, but a smaller portion stood back, like me, wondering just how they’d been talked into doing this again. But then, I knew why. Zach. Randy. All those kids. This was one place where all were equal. All were given recognition for the hard work they’d put in during the year, regardless of how worthy their animal was, or where they’d end up when judging was over. It was great to see them out there, having fun, acting as a team rather than competitors.

I sucked down a water bottle and took a few steps to toss it in the recycling bin at the corner of the building. After I threw it in I glanced up and spied Daniella just down the way. She stood by herself, hand shading her eyes as she looked up the street, waiting for the Lovely Miss Pennsylvania float, which would be appearing at some point.

“Hey!” I called. “Daniella!”

She turned, but before I could catch her attention, someone else got it. Mrs. Gregg. She scurried up and touched Daniella’s elbow, and the two women got into a conversation I would have described as intense, if Daniella hadn’t kept watching down the street. Mrs. Gregg wore her city farmer clothes, but her Yes-I-belong attitude had disappeared. Now she looked out of place and out of sorts. She spoke with lots of hand gestures, while Daniella nodded and watched for Taylor’s float, until Mrs. Gregg finally grabbed Daniella’s arm and forced her to pay attention. Daniella gave one last glance toward the road, then turned her whole body toward Mrs. Gregg.

I wondered what they were talking about, but it wasn’t really my business, and I wasn’t worried about Daniella being able to take care of herself with Mrs. Gregg, so I turned to go, and smacked right into Austin. I mean really smacked him. I stumbled backward and kicked over the recycling bucket, while Austin bashed another guy, knocking him several steps.

“Sorry,” he said to the guy. The guy frowned, but didn’t stop.

“You okay?” I asked Austin, helping him up.

“Fine. You?” He picked up the recycling bucket and dropped in a couple bottles that had spilled out.

“Peachy. Where are you in such a rush to?”

“Me? You’re the one who’s like a tanker truck. I’m lucky I’m alive.” He grinned, but the grin didn’t meet his eyes.

“Austin? What’s wrong? You still pissed about today?”

His eyes flashed. “I’m fine. I’m over it. Sorry I ran into you.”

“Austin, have you talked to the cops about last night?”

He saw something over my shoulder. “Gotta go. See ya.”

He weaved his way through the crowd, done with me. But I wasn’t done with him. I looked over at Nick, but he was waving to Zach’s float, which was going by, Zach and Randy throwing more than one person’s share of candy toward our group. Tess scampered onto the street to pick up the bubble gum and Tootsie Rolls. Miranda jumped out with her, scooping up a handful and dumping it in Tess’ bag. Dammit, I was going to miss Zach’s float, or I was going to lose Austin, and I hadn’t liked the look in his eyes. Austin’s head was still bobbing along, and Zach would survive if I didn’t acknowledge the float, so I took off after the kid who worried me the most.

Austin wasn’t here for the parade, that was obvious. Hands in his pockets, he trudged ahead, not watching where he was going, or anything going on around him. No wonder he’d slammed into me. But he’d seen something behind me that made him say he had to take off. What had he seen?

I looked ahead, but didn’t see any people I knew. The junior fair building? Food? No. Something far more interesting.

Austin was headed right to the building where the police had set up shop to investigate Rikki Raines’ murder. Thank God. He was going to do the right thing.

My phone rang, and I checked the screen. Willard. “Hey, what did you find out?”

“Hello, to you, too.”

“Willard—”

“So here’s the thing. No official report on what killed Rikki Raines. I could get confirmation that she’d been paralyzed by something, causing her to suffocate, but toxicology hasn’t had a chance to analyze the medicine yet. This did just happen late last night, and no matter what television says, there’s no way to get results that quickly.”

“So Watts really is going by an anonymous tip. Or a guess.”

“That’s right.”

If I could have, I would have strangled Watts right there.

“But guesses—theories—are what we go by a lot of the time,” Willard said. “And if we don’t act on our instincts, we sometimes miss things.”

“So that makes it all right for her to accuse and terrify Carla?”

“Of course not. There are smoother ways to go about these things. But as we’ve talked about before, she’s young, and—”

“—and she wants to impress Daddy.”

“There is that.”

I thanked Willard, extracted a promise that he’d let me know as soon as he heard anything more specific, and went back to my family.