Reap What You Sew (30 page)

Cupping her face in his hands, Milo moved in for a kiss, stopping just short of her lips. “The feeling is quite mutual.”

Chapter 27

She was just entering in the last spring title on the ordering page when her cell phone rang. Glancing at the name on the screen, she popped it open and positioned it between her shoulder and her ear so she could finish her task and talk at the same time. “Hi Leona.”

“Good morning, Victoria.”

“What can I do for you today?”

“I was wondering if you could stop by Three Winds for a few minutes? I’ve asked all of the residents if they know who the last two items in Mamma’s bag belong to but no one seems to know.” A loud sigh filled her ear. “So I’ve come to the conclusion they must belong to someone from the sewing circle. However, I don’t want to make things harder on my sister by telling more people than necessary.”

She hit End and leaned back in her chair. She hated to leave Dixie on her own yet again, but if she could help spare Margaret Louise any more angst, it would be worth it in the long run. “Are you there now?”

“I am. But if you don’t hurry, Margaret Louise will be back and all of this will be futile.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.” She snapped the phone closed, grabbed her keys, and made a quick pit stop at the information desk to fill Dixie in on her mission before making the trek out to Three Winds.

Leona was waiting when she walked through the front door.

“You’re not very good at watching the clock, are you, dear?” Leona linked her arm through Tori’s and led her down a long hallway of closed doors. “You said you’d be here in ten minutes, but it’s been much closer to fifteen.”

“I was at
work
.”

Leona waved away her protests. “Excuses do not become you, dear.”

“It’s a fact, Leona.”

“Semantics, dear.” Leona stopped them at a door halfway down the hall and dropped her voice to a near whisper. “Okay, this is Mamma’s apartment. She’s inside with Paris and she seems to be fairly clearheaded. If we can figure out whom these last few items belong to without involving her, so much the better.”

She nodded, then followed Leona into the small yet cozy apartment that was Annabelle Elkin’s new home. The narrow entryway boasted a kitchenette on one side, a small sitting room on the other, and what Tori suspected was a bedroom on the end. Although she’d been there less than a full week, it didn’t take long to see that her daughters had done their best to make the space cozy and inviting. There were magnetized photographs adorning the refrigerator—one for each of Annabelle’s seven great-grandchildren as well as Paris—and photo albums stacked on the bottom shelf of a floor to ceiling unit along the back wall of the sitting room. Scented candles, attractive picture frames, and potted plants were spread out among the rest of the shelves, giving the unit a lived-in feel.

“Hi Annabelle!” She crossed the sitting room to the wooden rocker where Leona’s mom sat with a sleeping Paris. “I love your new home. It’s very pretty.”

Annabelle beamed around the index finger she raised to her lips.

Tori acknowledged Annabelle’s request with a smile and a nod and quietly backed out of the room and into the kitchen where Leona was waiting.

“So here’s what I’ve got.” Reaching into the familiar tattered tote bag she’d propped on the kitchen table, Leona pulled out a cell phone and handed it to Tori. “Do you have any idea who this belongs to? Beatrice, perhaps?”

Tori shook her head as she examined the powder blue phone. “Can’t be. Beatrice wasn’t at Monday’s meeting.”

Leona shrugged. “I suppose these things could have been in Mamma’s bag for a while.”

“But someone would have spoken up by now if their phone had been missing for more than a week,” she pointed out, turning the phone over and over in her hand. “Maybe Melissa’s?”

It was Leona’s turn to disagree. “No. Melissa called me this morning. From her cell phone.”

Turning it right side up once again, she flipped it open and pressed the green button near the top. Instantly the screen came to life with a single digit shown on the screen.

9

“Hmmm. Whoever it belongs to was in the process of dialing someone when they must have gotten distracted and set the phone down.”

“A veritable hazard when Mamma is around.”

Tori pulled her focus from the phone long enough to fix it on Leona in an attempt to read her mood. If there was any resentment in her friend’s words, it was fleeting. She looked back at the phone, pressing the button for stored contacts.

“Okay, that’s weird,” she mumbled.

Leona’s eyebrows rose. “What’s weird?”

She turned the phone so Leona could see the screen. “Whoever owns this phone doesn’t have a single number in their contacts.”

“Did someone mention getting a new phone?” Leona asked.

It was a good question.

Yet Tori didn’t have an answer.

She pointed at the bag. “And the next item?”

“You mean the last one,” Leona said, reaching for the bag once again.

Tori looked at the phone one last time and then set it on the middle of the table. “Last one? I thought you said there were three things….”

“There were. Yesterday. But now there’s only two.”

She looked toward the sitting room and the woman rocking to and fro with a very peaceful Paris.

“It couldn’t have been Mamma,” Leona volunteered. “I had the bag at home with me.”

Tori considered her friend’s words, an explanation forming in her thoughts almost immediately. “Wait. I have it.” Grabbing her own purse from its spot by the table leg, Tori reached inside and pulled out the gold and white ribbon that had been attached to Colby’s list just the night before. “Was this one of the items?”

Leona brightened. “Yes, yes, that’s it.” The woman plucked the braided ribbon from Tori’s hand and dropped it beside the cell phone. “I imagine it’s nothing anyone is going to miss but you never know.”

She nodded and pointed at Annabelle’s old tote bag. “So what’s the third item?”

“I have no idea. I’ve never seen anything like it before.” Leona reached inside the bag and pulled out a long cylinderlike object with a series of diagrams depicted on the front.

Tori took it from Leona’s outstretched hand and held it under the light, her gaze moving from diagram to diagram. “This is an EpiPen.”

Leona leaned forward for a closer look. “What’s an EpiPen, dear?”

“It’s what people use when they have a serious allergy—like to beestings or certain foods like seafood or peanuts….”

Peanuts…

Her mouth went dry as she looked from the object in her hand to the cell phone on the table, her thoughts a jumbled mess.

“How… how did Annabelle get these things?” She heard the panic in her voice, saw the accompanying flash of irritation in Leona’s eyes.

“Shhh,” Leona hissed. “I don’t want Mamma to hear what’s going on. She’ll get all fuzzy-headed again.”

“But…” The word trailed from her mouth as she realized everything she was looking at could be nothing more than a coincidence. Or it could be the break she’d been praying for every night. She jumped to her feet, glancing back over her shoulder as she ran for the door. “Don’t touch a thing. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

“Fifteen?” Leona challenged.

“Okay, maybe twenty.”

By the time she got back to Three Winds with Todd, a good thirty minutes had elapsed. Which meant two things…

Leona was more than a little irritated.

And Margaret Louise was now part of the picture.

She mouthed a double apology at Leona as she pulled Todd into Annabelle’s apartment and over to the now empty table. “Where is everything?”

Leona squared her shoulders and peered at Tori over the top of her glasses. “I told you I didn’t want Mamma involved with this.”

Spinning around, she looked toward the rocking chair. No Annabelle. No Paris. She looked back at Leona. “Where is she?”

“She’s right here,” Margaret Louise said as she walked into the kitchen beside Annabelle, the door at the end of the hall open to the bedroom Tori had suspected it housed. “Isn’t this a nice surprise, Victoria.” Margaret Louise stopped beside Tori and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Oh, and I remember you. You’re the nice man who took Mamma and me on a tour of the set with Victoria that one morning.”

Todd dipped his head. “Ma’am.”

Leona brought her jeweled hands to her hips and stepped in front of her sister. “What? You save the nice surprise part for him?”

“You bein’ here ain’t a surprise, Twin.”

Leona’s eyebrows rose. “It’s not?”

“You think
I
put a picture of Paris on the refrigerator?”

“And why wouldn’t you?” Leona challenged.

Tori held her hands in the air. “Ladies, ladies, please. While I’m sure this is a worthy discussion, I need to show Todd the…” She looked at Margaret Louise, saw the confusion in her eyes.

Damn.

She tried another tactic. “Margaret Louise? When Todd and I walked into the lobby just a few minutes ago, there were lots of residents heading toward the Activity Room. Maybe there’s something going on that Annabelle might enjoy?”

Margaret Louise looked from Tori to Leona and back again, all traces of a smile disappearing from her face. “You want us to go, don’t you?”

She reached out, took hold of Margaret Louise’s hand. “We just need a few moments. That’s all.”

Nodding, Margaret Louise linked her arm through Annabelle’s and led her mother into the hallway, shutting the door in their wake.

“You told me fifteen minutes,” Leona hissed when they’d gone.

“I had to get to the set, find Todd, and drive all the way back here.” She pointed at the table. “So where is everything?”

Leona opened the cabinet above the refrigerator and pulled out Annabelle’s tote bag. “Here,” she said, thrusting it into Tori’s waiting hands.

One by one she pulled out each item… .

The gold and white ribbon.

The powder blue cell phone.

And the EpiPen.

She looked up at Todd as she placed the last item on the table, the man’s face white as a ghost.

“That’s Anita’s phone… and her medication.”

“And the ribbon?” she whispered.

“I have no idea about the ribbon. I’ve never seen that before.”

Leona dropped into one of the kitchen chairs, her voice a raspy whisper. “You mean you think Mamma killed Anita?”

She felt the blood drain from her own face as the reality of what was in front of them was too huge to ignore. “I—I don’t think so.”

But even as she expressed the answer she knew Leona needed to hear, she couldn’t help but play the scenario through in her thoughts. Anita’s cell phone and EpiPen had been in Annabelle’s purse…

Still, it didn’t add up. When Annabelle wasn’t in Three Winds, Margaret Louise kept her on a short leash. Sure, she might miss a little swiping like she did at the sewing circle meeting. But a murder? No, the leash was much too short for that.

There had to be something she was missing. Something—

“Wait!” she shouted. “You said the only time your mother takes three items is when she gets caught with the fourth in her hand, right?”

Leona nodded.

“What was she caught stealing in the last two weeks?”

“I have no idea,” Leona whispered. “I tend to avoid Mamma when we’re out in public.”

“But I don’t.”

The three of them whirled around to find Margaret Louise, wide-eyed, standing in the door. “What did Mamma do this time?”

She scrambled for an answer to ease the worry etched across her friend’s forehead but was thwarted by the ring of her cell phone. “Excuse me a moment.” Reaching into her purse, she extracted her phone and looked at the caller ID screen.

Milo.

For a moment, she contemplated letting it go to voice mail but, in the end, she picked it up. She could use the infusion of calm his voice tended to bring.

“Milo, hi. Is everything okay?”

“Of course. I just figured I’d take advantage of the kids being in music class and give you a quick call. How’re things at the library?”

She wrapped her hands around the back of Annabelle’s kitchen chair and closed her eyes. “I’m not at the library. I’m at Three Winds with Leona, Margaret Louise, and Todd.”

A beat of silence was quickly followed by a note of surprise. “You mean the guy from the movie set?”

She nodded.

“He can’t see you nod, dear,” Leona groused.

Her eyes flew open. “Yes, Milo. The guy from the movie set.”

“Why is he there?”

She took a deep breath, let it exhale slowly through her mouth. “I needed him to identify a few things.”

“Oh?”

“We found Anita’s cell phone and EpiPen.”

She closed her eyes again as Margaret Louise’s gasp echoed in her ears.

“Really? That’s great!”

She only wished that were true. “They were in Annabelle’s bag.”

The silence returned. This time lasting a lot longer than a beat.

“Where did she get them?” he finally asked.

“I guess she got them from Anita’s drawer somehow. Which is why they weren’t there when Anita needed them.” She opened one eye, saw Margaret Louise slumped in the chair next to her sister.