Rest in Pieces (12 page)

The man growled so loudly that I could hear him with my earphones on.

I managed to make friends wherever I went.

Ben jumped between him and me. He flashed his badge and said something to the man that involved lots of pointing at me.

I nodded and waved graciously letting him know that thanks weren’t necessary, and I’d be willing to hit the bull’s eye for him whenever he wanted. I’m such a humanitarian.

Ben walked back to me, took the gun, popped the clip out, and pulled back the hammer, causing the bullet in the chamber to fall out. He picked up the bullet, the clip and the gun, and motioned for me to follow him to the picnic table.

He set everything down, well out of Max’s reach and yelled, “I think that’s enough for today.”

He loaded the handgun into a plastic box with a combination and then locked it. Max and I followed him back to his silver Ford F150. Without a doubt, Ben’s truck was the fanciest I’d ever seen. When he opened the passenger’s side door for me, a folded up running board automatically lowered. It was fantastic. I opened and closed the door for a good five minutes playing with it when he’d first picked me up.

Once we were all back in the truck, Ben turned on the engine and the heated seats came on. This beat the heck out of Bessie.

“I think we’re done shooting for the day. Anyone up for a UTVing?” Ben took the path back to the Hidden Valley—um Falls—main office.

Max and I looked at each other and then I asked, “What’s UTVing?”

“In addition to the gun range, Hidden Falls is an adventure park. I’ve rented us couple of Cougar Cycle Thunderbolts. UTVs are kind of a cross between a dune buggy and a four–wheeler.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Hidden Falls has three thousand acres of Texas Hill Country. Who’s up for exploring it?”

I raised my hand before I figured out that it was a rhetorical question.

Fifteen minutes later, I was behind the wheel of a UTV. Ben was behind the wheel of another one and Max was strapped in the seat next to Ben.

After the gun episode, I was beginning to think that Ben didn’t trust me around other humans, plus, I’d never driven a UTV so Max was probably safer with Ben.

Two hours later, almost every muscle in my body hurt, but I’d had a hell of a good time. We’d ridden through the mud, climbed rocky hills, and I only flipped over once.

I smoothed the wrinkles out of my black pants as I walked out of the lady’s restroom. Ben and Max, both cleaned up, were waiting for me outside.

“Now I know why you told us to grab some extra clothes.” I pulled my denim jacket closed against the chill. The sun was low on the horizon and would be going down soon. After the sun went down, it was supposed to drop into the high forties.

Ben smiled appreciatively at the tight black turtleneck that showed under my open jacket. I didn’t realize that it had shrunk so much in the wash when I grabbed it earlier.

“I’ve got dinner reservations for us at The Overlook at Canyon of the Eagles.” He grinned, clearly quite impressed with himself.

I returned his grin and nodded. I hoped it was enthusiastic enough because I had no idea what The Overlook at Canyon of the Eagles was.

“They have a fantastic beef tenderloin with blue cheese butter.” He put his hand in the small of my back as we walked toward his truck. “The view is fantastic. The restaurant is on the top of a hill.”

I was starving. It didn’t go unnoticed that he’d mentioned beef. I liked steak, but it needed some sort of potato product with it. Please let there be potatoes.

“Do you like steak, Max?” Ben opened the door for Max and then for me.

“Yeah, I love it. Can I get mashed potatoes with it?” My little guy was a man after my own heart.

“You bet. They have really good ones.” Ben ruffled his hair.

So at some time in the past, Ben had been lured to the dark side by mashed potatoes. Good to know that there was hope.

“Unfortunately, I don’t eat potatoes any more.” Ben closed Max’s door and then mine.

And then the hope was gone again—just like that.

Well, I’d just have to eat enough mashed potatoes to make up for Ben’s lack. Maybe I’d eat twice the dessert, too. I’m such a helper.

“Mom, can I borrow your phone?” Max asked from the back seat. “I like that new racecar game you let me download.”

I pulled my phone and my ear buds out of my purse and handed them to him. Smashing racecars was loud business.

Ben opened the driver’s side door and sat. He closed the door and started the engine. I glanced back to make sure Max couldn’t hear us.

In a voice that was slightly above a whisper, I said, “thanks for the photo. It’s been helpful.

Really helpful. Since Molly had been pregnant and possibly poisoned through the eyes and her sort of boyfriend was an ophthalmologist, Haley, Monica, and I thought we had Molly’s murder in the bag. Well, once we had some actual proof. Tomorrow, I’d call to get an appointment with Dr. Dick and see if I could get him to talk.

“I know that it’s gruesome, but I thought it might give you some closure.” Ben watched the screen above the radio that showed what the backup camera saw. He backed out of his parking space, and drove down the little road to the highway.

“Speaking of closure, your aunt is having a Molly Miars–inspired séance tomorrow night. Apparently she’s going to contact Molly and ask her why she died. Astrid came over last night and told me that Molly’s spirit was in my house, so I guess it won’t be hard to conjure her in the séance.” I glanced back at Max, double checking that he couldn’t hear us. He was in game land.

Ben shook his head. “Last Thanksgiving, she did this kind of pop–up séance at the dinner table. She started chanting and before we all figured out what was happening, she started talking in this really terrible Australian accent. It sounded a cross between Steve Irwin and Julia Childs.”

“That’s Sebastian Sidebottom, her spirit guide. He died in some sort of horrible boomerang accident. According to her, the BAA or Boomerang Association of Australia celebrates his birthday with a reverence rivaled only by fans of Elvis Presley.” I’d looked him up and—not surprisingly—he didn’t exist. Either Sebastian was self–aggrandizing or Astrid was bat–shit crazy. I was going with door number two.

“It got really weird when she began interrogating my dead uncle Marvin about where he’d left his five karat diamond cuff links.” He sighed. “I didn’t have the heart to tell her that he’d given them to me when I graduated from high school.”

“Wow. All I got when I graduated was a diploma.” I keep forgetting that the wealthy lead such different lives than the rest of us.

He laughed like he thought I was kidding. Yep, way different lives.

“You didn’t grow up in Lakeside.” Ben pulled out onto the highway.

“No, I grew up in northeast Texas—Longview. It’s between Tyler and Shreveport.” Most people outside of Longview had never heard of it.

“Sure, I know Longview. My family’s oil company has an office there.” He arched an eyebrow. “Good football team.”

Okay, outside of the oil business and high school football no one had ever heard of Longview.

“So you were a Longview Lobo?” I glanced at me. “I bet you were a cheerleader.”

“Nope, I was on the dance team. I was a Viewette. We had pom–poms though.” Was he just making conversation or was he one of those guys who loved reliving his high school days? David had been a high school re–liver. There was nothing he liked better than talking about the good old days when he was quarterback of the Plano East Panthers. From what I could tell, under his leadership they’d almost won a couple of games…almost.

“I have a confession.” His cheeks flushed and then he chewed on his lower lip. “I know the old Chief was the quarterback so that type of thing is probably important to you. I need to be honest. I didn’t play football, I’m more of a soccer and chess club kind of guy.”

Could he be any cuter?

“Honestly, I’m not that into football. The only reason I was on the drill team is that my best friend wanted to try out, so she convinced me to go with her. I made it and she didn’t. I lasted a whole year before I turned in my pom–poms and hung up my white cowboy boots.” Besides, drill team was starting to cut into my hanging with my friends time and my BFF dumped me when I made the team and she didn’t.

I’d learned a lot since high school. First and foremost, the smart guys were the ones I should have been chasing and not the dumb jocks. Smart guys ruled the world; just ask Melinda Gates. And I’d learned that ex–boyfriends, no matter how much they claimed they wanted to stay my friend, really didn’t want to hear about my new boyfriend. And that having three dates to homecoming was one date too many. I’d also learned that calculus was a complete waste of time—no one used math that didn’t have freaking numbers.

“So, how did you like Daman Rodriguez?” Ben tried to sound nonchalant but he didn’t quite pull it off.

Holy subject change, Batman.

“Um, he has a really big house…like overwhelmingly big.” I had actually kind of liked him. He was hot, had pastries to spare, and massaged my shoulders. There was nothing not to like.

“How about that gun safe?” Ben nodded in appreciation.

That’s not the first thing that came to mind when I thought about Daman. Usually it was the dimples or his hot ass. I cut my gaze over to Ben. I guess if he’d commented on Daman’s dimples or hot ass, we’d have a problem.

“I guess. It was big.” I shrugged. “Everything in Daman’s house is larger–than–life.”

“He has a net worth of over seven hundred million dollars. He’s officially the richest man in Lakeside.” Ben glanced over at me, presumably to gauge my reaction to his news.

“I noticed that we didn’t travel in the same circles.” Or the same worlds. I have a net worth in the seven hundred dollar range. Give or take six hundred and ninety–nine dollars.

“So you weren’t impressed just a little bit?” Ben sounded a little nervous. “You know, his being so rich.”

I would have been offended by the implication, but I was too hungry to be offended. I cut to the chase.

“Nope. If I were a gold digger, I wouldn’t have married David.” The fact that I’d been pregnant was the primary reason that I married David, but since Max hadn’t put that together yet, I wasn’t going to point it out.

“I didn’t mean to imply.” He swallowed hard. “I just meant that lots of women seem to flock to him.”

“I don’t flock to anything. I’m not a big flocker.” I didn’t want to burst his bubble and point out that women flocked to Daman because of his hot ass and dimples. Yeah his outrageous wealth didn’t hurt, but it wasn’t the only reason women were drawn to him.

“Good.” He nodded to himself. “So he didn’t hit on you. I thought he might considering your family history…the diamonds.”

“What are you talking about? Yes, he did hit on me, but we don’t have any family history.” Then the hair on the back of my neck stood up. “What diamonds?”

“You know…the diamonds.” Ben’s eyes turned huge like he’d just figured out that I really had no idea what he was talking about. “Never mind.”

“Diamonds?” My stomach dropped to my knees.

“It’s nothing.” He blew out a long, labored breath.

“Either tell me what you’re talking about or take me home.” The edge in my voice had Ben glancing my way.

“The diamonds David stole from evidence before he left town.” Sweat broke out on Ben’s upper lip. “They were Rodriguez’s. He’s suing the city for a million dollars.”

Chapter 9

“How come neither of you mentioned the diamonds?” I’d been chomping at the bit all day. We’d gotten home way too late last night for me to call either of my best friends and then work today had just sucked to hell and back.

Ben had clammed up and refused to tell me anything else about my ex–husband, but he texted me several times wanting to know if I was mad at him. I wasn’t mad so much as embarrassed. I’d texted him back telling him that everything was fine. He seemed relieved.

Haley studied the polish on her fingernails and Monica gulped down her entire glass of wine.

We were meeting at my house for a pre–séance wine and cheese party.

“Someone needs to tell me. Ben blindsided me with it last night.” I took a long, tall hefty drink of my own wine.

Silence crackled through the room.

Haley took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We knew you were hurting and we didn’t want to add to it.”

“I need to know the whole story.” I poured more shiraz all around. For me wine and séances went hand in hand.

Monica scrubbed her face with her hands. “Okay, David took more than just the money from your bank account. He took some diamonds from evidence, worth one point two million and…”

She shook her head.

“What?” Crap, there was more? My heart kicked into overdrive.

Haley bit her top lip and then sighed long and hard. “It appears that he took some money from the city. Like close to a million dollars.”

It took a full minute for my brain to process the information. Not only had David abandoned his child and his job, he’d stolen evidence and embezzled money. Well if he were going to be a dick, why not be a huge one?

“Apparently, Grand Cayman is very expensive.” I knocked back the entire glass of wine and picked up the empty bottle trying to ring one more drop out. “We’re going to need more wine.”

Knowing that David had embezzled money from the city sure did explain a lot. All those glances that I’d once thought were pitying…now I knew they were hostile. All those invitations for dinner and play dates that had dried up after David left? I’d thought it was just because I no longer had the status of being married to the chief of police. I shook my head. Clearly everyone in this small town had known the truth except me.

And just when I’d thought I couldn’t feel anymore betrayed by my ex I find out this? I was a pariah in a town of gossip piranha. It was a wonder the lynch mob hadn’t beat down the door to get at me.

Maybe they couldn’t find me because I moved.

I took a hand of each of my friends and squeezed lightly. “Thank you both so much for not shunning me. In this town, I’m sure it cost you.”