Reap What You Sew (24 page)

“I didn’t know.” It was a simple statement but the most accurate Tori could make at the moment.

“Most people don’t.” Leona leaned over, set Paris on the floor beside her feet, a smile lifting the corners of her mouth ever so slightly. “That’s why I love Paris so much. She has no preconceived notions about me.”

She turned her head to the left, took in the limited number of cars parked in this portion of the shopping mall’s lot. As much as she’d been mentally preparing for a chat of this nature with Leona, the unexpected twist left her scrambling for something to say. Something that could accomplish what she needed to accomplish yet be respectful of a situation she simply hadn’t understood until that moment.

Leona beat her to the punch. “I see the worry in my sister’s eyes. I really do. And I don’t like it one bit. But I don’t know how to fix it.”

“You could ask about Annabelle. Maybe visit her sometimes, too.”

Shifting in her seat, Leona wiggled a finger in Paris’s direction, a pained smile negating her obvious attempts to remain unfazed by their discussion.

“I’m not trying to be pushy, or overstep my—”

“We do,” Leona whispered, cutting Tori off mid-sentence. “Every day.”

She stared at her friend. “Who does what every day?”

Leona stretched out her arms and plucked Paris off the ground, bringing the animal onto her lap once again. “Paris and me. We visit Mamma every day.”

“You visit Annabelle every… wait. When?”

“Every morning, we sit in the parking lot of Three Winds and wait until Margaret Louise leaves to meet those grandbabies of hers for breakfast. When we see her drive off, we go inside.”

She had nothing to say, so, instead, she simply listened as Leona continued, her friend’s voice strained and hushed. “The first day or so, we simply watched her from a corner of the community room. I guess I didn’t know what to say and I was terrified she’d steal something from one of her neighbors and I’d have to find a way to explain it away like my sister always does.”

“Did she see you?”

Leona shook her head, sadly. “She’s always in her own little world. Has been since Daddy passed on ten years ago.”

Suddenly, the comings and goings outside her window faded away and she prompted Leona to continue. “And after that…”

“On the second day… the day after Anita was apparently found murdered, Paris got unusually wiggly. Before I could get a firmer grip on her, she wiggled from my arms and landed on the floor. My gasp must have snapped Mamma into some sort of semifocused state because she looked up and saw me.” A faraway expression claimed Leona’s eyes as she seemed to travel backward in time. “Mamma smiled the most beautiful smile at me. And then she saw Paris… and she got all excited.”

“What happened?” she asked, anxious to hear the rest of the story.

“We stayed for about an hour. We went back the next day, too.”

“Does Margaret Louise know?”

Leona shook her head. “No. And I don’t
want
her to know. Not yet, anyway.”

“Why not?” She heard the shrillness of her question, saw the answering rise of Leona’s left eyebrow, but it was too late. The question had been posed.

“Perhaps I don’t want our time together picked apart and analyzed. When someone has assumed the caretaker role for as long as my sister has, they tend to think they know everything.”

It made sense. It really did. But still, she was floored. She’d had no idea, no idea at all.

“I’m trying to get to know Mamma again but it’s hard. It’s hard to ignore all those looks I saw growing up, looks I still see now every time her hands start swiping again…” Suddenly distracted by something outside the window, Leona’s words trailed off only to resurface in a completely different spot. “Now there’s one who would step on the face of his dying mother if it would get him to the next level.”

Tori followed Leona’s visual path to find a vaguely familiar face stepping from a nearby car. “Wait. I’ve seen him before…” She cast about for a name to go with the twenty-something but came up blank. “He’s from the set, right?”

“His name is Rick. Rick Manning. He’s related to Warren in some distant cousin way, I believe.”

Rick…

Rick…

“Rick’s been after Todd’s job since the day Fifth-Cousin-Once-Removed Warren got him this gig in the first place.”

Tori sat up tall. “That’s right. Margot doesn’t like him.”

Leona continued to track the young man across the parking lot with her eyes. “I don’t think many people do, except maybe Warren. Though why he would is a mystery to me.”

Pulling her focus from the subject at hand, she fixed it, instead, on her friend. “So why don’t
you
like him, Leona?”

“He’s conniving.”

Tori laughed. “Conniving, huh?”

Leona met her amused gaze and raised it with a hint of irritation. “That’s what I said, isn’t it, dear?”

The smile slipped from her lips. “What makes you say that?”

“He threatened me.”

She stared at her friend. “What do you mean he
threatened
you?”

“Apparently, Warren is distracted by me.” Leona lifted her left hand from Paris’s back and bobbed it beneath the tips of her hair. “I tend to have that effect on men as you well know, dear.”

It took everything in her power to offer the obligatory head nod rather than beg and plead for an answer to her question, but she did. It was the surest way to get back on track.

“Anyway, the night I brought over the brownies, he was there. In Warren’s trailer.”

“Rick?”

Leona rolled her eyes. “That is who we’re talking about, isn’t it, dear?”

Again, she nodded. And waited.

“When I arrived, Warren cut short their meeting and asked Rick to leave.” A self-satisfied smile spread across Leona’s mouth at the memory. “Warren wanted to bask in my presence. Alone.”

“Do you know what they’d been talking about?” she asked, her curiosity at an all-time high.

“He was trying to secure a higher spot on the totem pole.”

She stared at her friend. “A higher spot?”

“Todd’s spot, to be exact,” Leona mused. “Though why Warren would even consider swapping the two was beyond me. Todd is sharp and hardworking. Rick is unpleasant and lazy.”

Taking in the information, she asked the first question that sprang to mind. “So, was he?”

“Was he what, dear?”

She clenched her teeth and counted to ten. Snapping at Leona to get to the point would only slow the process more. Instead, she willed her voice to sound calm. “Was Warren considering swapping their jobs?”

“I believe he was. Until I showed up and put an end to Rick’s pandering.” Lifting Paris in line with her face, Leona looked into the rabbit’s wide eyes. “Mommy has that effect on men, doesn’t she, sweetheart?”

Slowly, Leona lowered the rabbit back to her lap and continued. “He wasn’t happy when Warren asked him to leave. In fact, if looks could kill at that moment, I’d be six feet under with one of Rose’s precious flowers planted on top.”

“He was that angry?”

Leona nodded. “After he left, that awful woman showed up, determined to horn in on my time with Warren. But, thanks to those wonderful brownies my sister baked, she, too, left.”

At the mention of Anita Belise, Tori’s mind threatened to wander off, but she refused to be sidetracked. Not yet, anyway. “So when did he threaten you?”

“When I left that evening.”

“Tell me,” she urged.

Releasing a quiet sigh, Leona stepped her feet firmly into the limelight. “Rick must have been hovering around Warren’s trailer, waiting for me to leave. In fact, when Warren opened the door and kissed me good-bye, Rick was waiting on the steps. He asked if he and Warren could finish their meeting. Of course, I knew how it was going to go, as I’d already taken an opportunity to voice my opinion to Warren, but I left the two of them to their meeting, nonetheless.

“The next thing I know, that Kelly fellow at the gate is thanking me for the brownies I handed out to everyone, when Rick runs up behind me and grabs hold of my arm.” Leona paused long enough to lift the sleeve of her silk shirt and point to two bruises near her elbow. “He was angry. He told me to stay out of his business or else.”

“Or else what?” Tori pleaded.

“Your guess is as good as mine, dear.” Wrapping her fingers around the door handle, Leona pulled, her feet meeting the pavement before Tori could even blink. “Now, can we please quit all this yakking and go shopping?”

Chapter 21

By the time she’d dropped Leona and Paris off at the antique shop to relieve Beatrice, Tori’s head was ready to explode. It had taken every ounce of willpower she possessed to follow Leona in and out of virtually every shop they passed. And when they’d spent nearly an hour agonizing over a beaded tote bag Tori knew Leona would never be caught dead carrying, she’d actually considered screaming.

But the shopping trip had been her idea, her avenue for trying to convince Leona to spend a little time with Annabelle. It wouldn’t have been right to scratch the whole outing the moment she’d heard about Rick and his threat.

Rick and his threat…

She glanced at the clock on the dashboard and compared it to her plans for the rest of the evening—plans that included some much needed time alone with Milo.

Thirty-five minutes.

That was surely enough time to make a pit stop at the set, right?

Her mind made up, Tori turned left onto Main Street and parked the car in the lot usually inhabited by the classic car enthusiasts during any and all of Sweet Briar’s festivals. Reaching behind her seat, she pulled her purse onto her lap and rummaged around inside until she found her notebook and pen.

Leona’s account of the hours leading up to Anita’s murder had intrigued her, setting off a list of questions she’d been forced to command to memory until Leona had made all of her purchases and been delivered safely back to her shop. The key, now, was trying to remember them all as she positioned the pen between her fingers and began writing…

• What is Rick’s background? Where did he work before being hired by Cousin Warren?
  
• What position is he ultimately after?
  
• How did he get along with the rest of the crew?
  
• What was his relationship with Warren really like?
  
• Did he have anger issues across the board?
  

She stared down at the questions, her mind registering their importance even as a new one—the biggest of all—formed on their heels…

• How would killing Anita benefit Rick?
  

Feeling a familiar sense of excitement bubbling up inside, Tori closed the notebook and shoved it back inside her purse. She needed to get to the bottom of her first five questions before she could truly speculate an answer to the sixth. To do so any sooner would be premature.

Still, she wondered… .

Was Rick threatened by Anita’s role in Warren’s life the way he seemed to be about Leona? Was he trying to get rid of Warren’s distractions so he could have the attention of his big shot director cousin all to himself? In which case, were the bruises on Leona’s arm a mere sampling of things to come?

The notion sent a chill down her spine.

“One step at a time, Tori, one step at a time,” she whispered. With a deep, measured inhale, Tori stepped from the car, her feet guiding her toward Stan Kelly’s post while her mind searched for a reason for her visit. She’d used the missing-notebook excuse once already.

“You’re back.” Stan sat forward, the back of his chair parting company with the fence post. “Still looking for that notebook?”

She considered the notion of extending the fib, but chose, instead, to go another route. An honest one.

“No. I found it, thanks.” Pointing at an empty folding chair on the other end of the table, she met Stan’s tired eyes. “Mind if I sit for a minute? I’d like to ask you a few questions if I could.”

The security guard’s broad shoulders rose and fell in rapid sequence. “Sure, go ahead. Not much else going on at the moment.”

She sat, her thoughts zeroing in on the list of questions tucked away safely in her purse.

“How far do you think a person would go if they thought their job was in jeopardy?” she asked, the unplanned inquiry bringing her up short.

For a moment, Stan said nothing, his gaze locked on hers. “Why do you ask?”

It was her turn to shrug. “I’m not sure, exactly. Except that I’m worried about a friend of mine.”

Pursing his lips, Stan merely nodded, his chair tilting backward once again. “Well, in that case, I suppose it would depend on how much she needed the job.”

She opened her mouth to correct the man on his choice of pronouns, but changed her mind at the last minute. Really, what harm could it do if he thought the person she was inquiring about was a female friend? If a time came to tweak that assumption, she’d worry about it then.

“I don’t know if she needs it so much as she wants it. And by wants it, I mean
wants
it. I guess it’s a once-in-a-lifetime kind of job.”