Leaving Carolina (3 page)

I look across my office to the windows that would offer an impressive view of the skyline if not for today’s tiramisu-layered smog. Ah, L.A.—hub and tailpipe of life, giver and taker of dreams, shining star and black hole of the universe.

“‘Course, I imagine Los Angeles is gettin’ old.”

Someone has
definitely
been talking to Mom. Did she reveal the incident from two years ago that precipitated our talks of trading L.A. for something tamer? The memory crawls up the back of my neck. A deserted parking garage, a soft tread behind me—

I grit my teeth. No, I’m not as happy here as I’d like to be, but I’m trying. “Actually, L.A. has been good to me.”

“Careerwise, but”—Artemis chuckles—“you’re what—thirty? And single?”

True, but once Grant is reelected… and after a suitable period of settling back into office… and when the timing is right, he will propose. “I don’t believe in rushing into something as important as marriage.”

“Um-hmm. So when can we expect ya? Tomorrow?”

Is he trying to be funny? “I’ll have to check my—”

“Sorry, ma dear. I’ve got someone on the other line. Bye.”

Lovely. As I lower the handset and reach for my planner, my headache goes from a patter to a pound.
Lord, keeping in mind that I am God-fearing, even though work continues to get in the way of church—help me get in and out of this mess as quickly as possible
.

Unfortunately, I’m booked through June and my schedule doesn’t lighten up until the first week of July, which would put me in Pickwick during the Fourth of July parade and bring me full circle to
that
night. With a growl, I flip back to June.

“You okay?” my assistant asks as she appears in my office doorway.

I meet Celine’s gaze. “Peachy.”

She narrows her lids. “Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.”

Typical Celine. Though I resisted her attempts to befriend me when she came to the firm five years ago, her upbeat attitude and gentle but unabashed Christianity won me over. I don’t always listen to her when my moral rudder goes askew, but she doesn’t preach or criticize. And when I sit on my pride long enough to ask for advice, she delivers.

“Family crisis,” I say.

She frowns, but then her eyes pop wide, and she steps in and closes the door. “The Pickwicks?”

She’s the only one I’ve told about my connection to them, and while I kicked myself following that moment of weakness, I don’t regret it. “Yes.”

“Do you want to talk about it? Over an early dinner before book club?”

I’d forgotten about book club. Half the time I don’t get around to finishing the books, but when I’m able to attend meetings, I enjoy
the discussion and diverse group of women. “Dinner, yes. Book club, no.”

“Okay.”

No pressure. “So, what did you need to talk to me about?”

She startles. “Oh! I just got word that the Lears are in the building.”

Why am I not surprised? I consider telling her to turn away the young Hollywood couple who begged me to squeeze them in. After all the shuffling it took to accommodate them, they didn’t show. Now, an hour and a half later, they waltz in here as if they’re my only clients.

“You do have a half hour before Mr. Gibbs’s appointment.”

Unlike the millions of women who adore Justin Lear and the millions of men who adore his wife, Celine hopes the “perfect couple” will stay a couple despite the revelation that Justin strayed. The good news is that they’re working to save their marriage. The bad news is that Cootchie’s self-confidence is in the toilet. That’s where I come in: coaching the actress on the art of appearances and arranging opportunities for her and Justin to look to all the world as if their love can overcome a never-to-be-repeated indiscretion.

“Send them in?” Celine asks.

“Yes, but make them wait ten minutes.” A slap on the wrist, but it’s something.

I continue to search my planner, but no matter how far out I go, I don’t have time to deal with a Pickwick pickle. “Thanks a lot, Uncle Obe,” I mutter, only to be struck by a memory of him in his garden, loosening a vine from a sapling as my ten-year-old self peers over his shoulder.

I gasp. “Why, that’s poison ivy, Uncle Obe. You shouldn’t be touchin’ it with your bare hands.”

“Not to worry. Its oils don’t bother me. Want to see if you’re also immune?” He turns. “Here, touch it.”

And let that vicious blister-causin’ plant do to me what it did to my cousin Bart? I retreat a step. “Mama said to stay away from it.”

He shrugs. “Well, then, I guess you’ll have to find out the hard way.”

Or not at all. I cross my arms over my chest. “You should use weed killer.”

“Oh no.” He strokes a leaf “This here is God’s creation. Once I free it, I’ll replant it in the woods.”

Mama’s right. Uncle Obe may be churchgoin’, tolerant of children, kind to animals and plants, and make the best pickled corn in the county, but he is a little nuts
.

Shrugging off the memory, I narrow my gaze on the name written in my planner. Who is this godson? And why is he messing with my life? I underline the name.

“Just wait until I get my hands on you,
Obadiah
Number Two!”

T
he Pickwick estate.

Gripping the bars of the gate, I look between them at the driveway and rolling acreage illuminated by the headlights at my back. At the top of that long, winding driveway, at the top of that hill, sits the mansion. I’m only able to pick it out against the dark sky because I know it’s there and because the enormous white columns frame the entryway against the gray stone.

What happened to the lights? And the gate ought to have been left open—or at least unlocked! I shake the iron bars.

“Some welcome.” And some day—a tractor-trailer accident on the highway causing me to miss my flight, two hours waiting for a seat on another plane, my late arrival in Asheville making me miss Uncle Obe’s hospital visitation hour, driving to Pickwick in a rental car that made strange noises throughout, missing the new downtown Pickwick exit and having to take the old Pickwick Pike. And now I’m on the wrong side of a locked gate without a battering ram. Hmm…

I peer over my shoulder at the car’s front bumper. It seems sturdy—

No, crashing the gate would not be a good idea
.

I did purchase the optional insurance—

That would be wrong
.

So I’ll have to drive into town and get a room as I’d planned before I received Artemis’s message yesterday. I thought it strange that, considering my uncle’s privacy issues, he wanted me to stay at the mansion, but I agreed. And now this.

I size up the gate. I’m fit enough to climb it despite a few pounds I’ve put on over the last couple of months (stress eating). But there’s one problem—my linen pantsuit, new and specifically chosen for my meeting with Artemis. A meeting that didn’t take place because when I called to tell him I would be four hours late, he refused to budge on his office hours.

“A man’s gotta get his sleep, Piper Pickwick. Pardon me,
Wick
. I’ll see ya Monday mornin’.”

“But that’s three days away!”

“Well, God may have set aside one day a week for rest, but I always take two, especially now that I’m nearin’ eighty. A man’s gotta be good to himself. Uh-huh.”

Frustrated at having dropped everything to fly out two days after his call, I reminded him of the urgency of the situation. He informed me that though Uncle Obe is still hospitalized, there’s no cause to worry, as Artemis has been able to drag out the process of changing the will. He then said he would leave a key under the welcome mat. Too bad he didn’t leave the gate open.

I smooth my waist-length jacket and consider its fate. I’ll just have to be careful. I return to the car and cut the lights, and night rushes into the spaces and corners I’d briefly ruled.

My scalp prickles.
It’s just darkness. No one’s there
. I’m far from alone out here in the middle of what once was next to nowhere. My
companion, the working-late-woman’s best friend, sits at the bottom of my oversized Rebecca Minkoff purse.

Fondling it through the leather, I lock and close the door, then cross to the gate. The iron fence surrounding the estate is eight feet tall beside the arched nine-foot gate, but the latter is the obvious choice due to foot- and handholds courtesy of bottom, middle, and top rails and the spear points projecting from each.

I remove my two-inch heels, shove them into my purse, place a foot between the spear points on the bottom rail, and begin my ascent. Piece of cake. Unfortunately, it gets tricky once I reach the top. While the spear points are decorative, they could still cause me a world of hurt.

Oops. A Southern thought. It’s a good thing I won’t be staying long. The last thing I need is to return to L.A. walking and talking Southern—especially talking, since I don’t have time for further voice coaching. Get In, Get Out must be my motto.

I grip the top rail, then heave myself onto my arms to get a leg over, but there is only enough space between the spear points for my hands. Maybe they aren’t purely decorative after all.

I return my feet to the middle rail and peer at the iron fence to the left. No spear points mean a resting place. Holding onto the gate, I sidestep, boost to the top of the fence, and swing a leg over. After a brief pause, I twist, drag the other leg over, and reach a toe to the gate’s middle rail. Contact.

“Good job,” I say as I transition back to the gate. I’m overstating my accomplishment, but it’s been a rough day. Fortunately, it’s looking up.

“Don’t move!”

The barked command rattles me so deeply I lose my grip. The burst of light makes me startle so hard my foot slips. Then the weathered bars slip through my hands as I slide down the gate toward the concrete driveway. Impact. Or not.

My progress arrested, I stare wide eyed through the bars. I’m still vertical—thanks to a belt loop caught on a middle rail spear, meaning I’m hanging like a Christmas wreath months past its use-by date. That explains the discomfort between my legs, but what about the guy at my back? Why is he creeping around at night on private property? It can’t be Artemis because
this
voice is twangless.

Not again
. But this time I’m prepared. Pulse pounding in my ears, I uncurl my right hand, then reach for my purse and my faithful companion within.

“I said, don’t move!”

Lord, please help me reason with him, or at least distract him
.

I draw a long, slow breath, then gaze over my shoulder and narrow my lids against the light beyond which I glimpse a shadowed figure—on the tall side and broad. “Look, if you don’t mind—”

The sound of tearing fabric is followed by a lurch, then my bare feet hit concrete and I fall backward.

The light jerks and swings, and I hear a clatter as a hand closes on my arm and yanks me up. I get my feet under me, but my back slams into a wall of muscle and bone. Meanwhile, my heart starts making plans to relocate without me.

Oh no! This can’t be happening
—

Hysteria will not get you out of this. Easy does it
.

I track the beam of light that illuminates the lower half of the gate back to its source—my assailant’s dropped flashlight. He doesn’t
have that advantage anymore, and soon he’ll find out that muscle and bone aren’t much of an advantage either.
Oh please, Lord
.

“Are you all right?” His gruff voice is so near I practically seize up.

I ease my free arm up my side, then touch the bulge at the bottom of my purse as I glance over my shoulder into his shadowed face. “I…”

He could be kin to a Neanderthal! I lurch forward, breaking his grip on me, plunge a hand in my purse, and pull out the pistol. Amazed at how light it feels—must be the adrenaline—I whip around and point it at my assailant.

Oh my, I’m aiming, and not at a paper target. The guy has to be scared to pieces, but why isn’t he running?

“That looks dangerous.” He sounds as if he might laugh. The sicko!

“It is dangerous, so don’t think I won’t use it.”

“You must be Piper.”

He knows me? I strain to pick out his features, but the flashlight on the driveway points opposite and provides only enough light to confirm that my imagination is not in overdrive. He
is
big, buff, and hairy. “Who are you?”

“The name’s Axel.”

Dangerous name.

“I’m the gardener.”

Unlikely occupation.

“I live here.”

He does? Though Uncle Obe always employed groundskeepers, they never lived on the estate. “Where?”

“In the guesthouse.”

I blink as memories of the cottage arise. On more than one occasion, Mom and I accepted Uncle Obe’s offer of a place to live. We never stayed long, but it was a comfort to have somewhere to go when things got rough.

“Now that we’ve established that neither of us is trespassing, you can put your shoe away.”

I startle. “What?”

“I commend you on your resourcefulness.” He steps past me in the direction of the flashlight. “I certainly never saw
that
coming.”