The Liar (38 page)

“I like pancakes.”

“Yes, but—”

“Text: Thank you, Mama. We’ll see you in the morning.”

He nudged her up another step so they were eye level, then laid his lips on hers. “Stay. Sleep with me tonight. Wake up with me in the morning.”

How could she resist? Why would she? She trailed her fingers over his cheeks. “I wasn’t expecting to. I don’t have a thing to sleep in.”

“If that’s an issue, I won’t sleep in anything, either. We’ll be even.”

“That’s fair.” She laughed again, a little giddy, when he swept her up, carried her the rest of the way with the puppy running to catch up.

S
helby wound her way into the fifties, mixed up the playlist with bluegrass.

She slipped in early to rehearse, thought it wonderful and amazing that she already had more than half a dozen Friday Nights in her pocket.

Tansy applauded when she finished “Rolling in My Sweet Baby’s Arms.”

“Love it!”

“I didn’t see you over there. I thought I’d punch in some bluegrass, mix in the folk and traditional with the standards. I thought I’d weave in a lot of Patsy Cline. Like a featured artist?”

“I love that, too. It’s going to be even better when we bring in some musicians, have a real stage. Which we will by September—October latest, according to Matt. The permits came in this morning!”

“Tansy, that’s such good news.”

“I can’t wait to get started. I’m scared, too, as we’re pouring a lot of money into this expansion. But . . . the last few weeks sure show people like coming in on the weekend, hearing live music.”

“You talked Derrick into trying every Saturday night for a band, didn’t you?”

Raising her joined hands over her head, Tansy turned a victory circle. “We’re going to try it for the rest of the summer, then see if the take justifies the outlay. You’re a big part of why we can do all this, Shelby. I don’t know how long it would’ve taken me to talk Derrick into the expansion if you hadn’t hit it with Friday Nights.”

“I love doing it, and you gave me a chance. I guess it’s worked out pretty damn perfect for both of us.” She stepped off the little stage. “How’re you feeling?”

“Just a little queasy first thing in the morning still, but Derrick brings me saltines and ginger ale, and that usually settles it down. And look!” She turned to the side, cupped her hands on her belly. “I’m showing!”

“My goodness.” Shelby widened her eyes at the tiny, tiny bulge. “You’re enormous.”

“Maybe not yet,” Tansy said with a laugh, “but”—she lifted her shirt—“I had to jury-rig my pants with a carabiner. Can’t button them anymore. I’m going to move into yoga pants, and buy myself some maternity clothes first chance I get.”

Shelby remembered well that feeling, that glow. “They make such cute ones, so you don’t feel like you’re wearing a tent or your granny’s tablecloth.”

“I’ve already got some in a shopping basket online. I just want to make one more pass before I order. Now I know you want to get back to rehearsing, but I want to know how you’re doing.”

It couldn’t be avoided, Shelby thought. The past dogged her like a shadow at high noon. “I’m so sorry you had to talk to those agents.”

“Derrick and I were fine with that, don’t you worry.”

“Forrest said they’ve gone back to Atlanta. There wasn’t much I could do to help them find all Richard stole. I know it’s silly, but I feel like if I could remember something, or tell them something that leads them to finding even one more thing, I’d be better about it all. When it comes down to it, they told me more than I could tell them.”

“It’s hard, what they told you.”

“It taught me something. If I want Callie to grow up to be a smart, strong woman, someone who values family and friends, and respects herself, I have to show her. If I want her to know the satisfaction of making something of herself with effort and work, I have to show her. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

“It’s what you are doing.”

“I feel like I have to counterbalance—you know what I mean—all she’s going to hear one day about her father.”

“When she does, she’ll have you, and your family. She’ll have us, your friends.”

“Seems like Richard never learned, never understood that’s more than all the jewels he stole, all the money he swindled. If the years with him had any good to them, it was putting that bone deep in me. I took too much for granted before that.”

•   •   •

S
HE TOOK NOTHING
for granted now, not the laughter inside the salon or the sighs of pleasure in the Relaxation Room.

She gave her grandmother a quick, impulsive hug after she set more towels at the shampoo stations.

“What’s that one for?”

“Just for you. I’m happy being here with you. I’m just happy.”

“I’d be happy, too, if I had a man like Griffin Lott looking at me like I was the Venus de Milo, Charlize Theron and Taylor Swift all at once.” Crystal paused in her work, snapped her scissors. “I swear, I want a man for sex, but if Charlize Theron walked in and said, ‘Hey there, Crystal, how about we go on over to your place and roll around in the sheets?’ I believe I’d take her straight home and give that a go.”

Amused, Viola rinsed off her customer’s hair. “Charlize Theron. Is she the only one who’d tempt you to switch over from a man?”

“I believe she is. Now, that Jennifer Lawrence. She’s as pretty as they come, and I do believe she’d be nothing but fun to sit around and have a drink with. But she’s no Charlize Theron. Who’d you switch with, Shelby?”

“What?”

“Who’s your fantasy lesbian lover?”

“I never thought about it.”

Crystal just circled a finger in the air. “Give it a minute.”

No, Shelby thought again, she’d never take these crazy fun conversations for granted.

“I’d try Mystique,” she decided, and had Crystal frowning at her.

“Who?”

“She’s a super villain—from the X-Men. Forrest and Clay were just crazy for the X-Men, remember, Granny? Jennifer Lawrence, the one you’d like to have a drink with, plays her in the movies now. Mystique can change into anybody, any shape, anything. So it seems to me a roll in the sheets with her would cover about anything you were after.”

“I believe we have a winner,” Viola decreed, and sat her client down in the chair.

A couple of hours later, she cuddled baby Beau and watched Callie and Jackson play on the swing set. She thought it would rain by nightfall, she could scent it, see it. But for this moment, it was about as perfect a late spring evening as she could ask for.

Her father was delayed at the clinic, so Clay saw to a few little gardening chores, and Gilly sat in the porch rocker, banished from the kitchen by her mother-in-law.

“It ought to be illegal to feel this happy,” Gilly said.

“I’m awful glad it’s not. Today, I’d be sharing a cell with you.”

“I saw Griff today.”

She’d have to get used to people equating her happiness with Griff. And they weren’t altogether wrong. “You did?”

“I took the boys for a walk this morning, before the heat set in, and he was down the road a bit, fixing Miz Hardigan’s gate—the sheriff’s mama.”

“She was in the salon today.”

“I stopped for a while. It’s nice of him to go by and see to little things like that for her. They don’t charge her for those little things. I know, ’cause she told me herself. She gives them baked goods, and she knitted them both caps and gloves for Christmas.

“Look how big Jackson is! It wasn’t so long ago he couldn’t get up on that swing unless one of us lifted him onto it.”

And Gilly’s eyes filled.

She waved a hand in the air as Shelby patted her arm. “I’ve still got too many hormones, I guess. But . . . I don’t think I’m going back to work, Shelby, when my maternity leave runs out.”

“I didn’t know you were thinking about that. I know you love your job at the hotel.”

“I do, and I wasn’t thinking about it, not really, until . . .” She reached over, stroked a finger over Beau’s cheek. “I just don’t think I can stand to leave them both. I just want to stay home with them for a while. A year maybe. Clay and I have talked about it. We know things’ll be a little tight, but—”

“It’s hard. It’s hard to choose, it’s hard to have to choose.”

“I love my work, I really do. I’m good at it, too, but I want this year, that’s all. I want this year for myself and my family. One year out of all the rest doesn’t seem like too much, but it would be everything to me.”

“Then you should take it. You’ve worked at the hotel since college. I bet they’d give you like a sabbatical. Maybe they can’t hold your job, I don’t know, but I bet you could go back when you’re ready. And you won’t have any regrets.”

“It’s putting a lot on Clay.”

“He’s got strong shoulders, Gilly.”

“I never thought I’d want to stay home full-time, but I want this year. What about you? What do you want?”

“It feels like I’ve got it.”

“For tomorrow.”

Shelby glanced at the kitchen door. “I was thinking, just thinking. I haven’t told anybody but Emma Kate as yet.”

“I know how to keep quiet.”

“You do. Once I get my head all the way above water, if I can find my own place, and I can find one I can work out of? I was thinking maybe I could start up some kind of decorating business. Designing and coordinating.”

“You’ve always been good at it.”

“I’ve been taking some classes online to get more experience and education. Just a couple to start,” she added. “Ones I’ve been able to fit in.”

“You fit in more than anyone I know—except Granny.”

“Maybe I’m making up for not having enough to do for so long. I thought, well, if I could prove myself, Griff and Matt might use me some, or talk me up to their clients.”

“Sure they would. They have to redo rooms and areas up at the hotel regularly, Shelby. I’d put in a word for you.”

“Oh, I don’t know if—”

“Think big.”

“I guess I might as well. It’s just thinking right now anyway. I know I could run a business—still, I’d take more classes. But I sure know how to juggle money, keep accounts. It’s a ways off, but I’ve started tucking some money away for business classes.”

“Anytime I start toying around with the idea of starting up a cake and pastry business, that’s what stops me dead in my tracks, backs me up and turns me around the other way. The business,” Gilly said with an eye roll. “But you’ve got that MacNee in you. You know what else?”

“What else?”

“I’ve been wanting to give our bedroom a makeover. Between Jackson, then Beau, doing up the nursery fresh and getting Jackson in his big-boy room, our bedroom hasn’t been touched in five years. It shows.”

“Makeover can be a lot of fun, but . . .”

“Yes, there’s the MacNee,” Gilly said with a laugh. “Clay’s the same. Doing it over costs. If I’m going to stay home, I’ll have to be frugal about it, I know that, but God, Shelby, how I’d love to have a grown-up bedroom, a place for me and Clay to be me and Clay now and then. I can be frugal, especially if you’d help me out. You could practice on us.”

Gilly shifted, wrapped a hand around Shelby’s arm for emphasis. “Shelby, we’ve still got that mix of his old bedroom furniture and mine in there, and that awful, ugly lamp my aunt Lucy gave us as a wedding present.”

“That is an awful, ugly lamp.”

“If she didn’t claim it was an heirloom, I’d have accidentally knocked it over and made sure it broke in a dozen pieces. I don’t want fancy. I just want fresh and peaceful. Help me.”

“I’d love to help.”

The lamp had to go, but the furniture . . . refinish or paint, new hardware. It could work.

“And I’ve got plenty of being-frugal-about-it ideas. Sometimes it’s no more than switching things around and repurposing. Using what you’ve already got in a new way, adding some touches. And paint. Paint’ll change a lot for a little.”

“Now I’m getting fired up instead of teary. Do you have any time this week?”

“I could come by tomorrow morning, after I take Callie to Chelsea’s, before I head to the salon. About eight-thirty? Is that too early?”

“Nothing’s too early when you’ve got a toddler and a newborn. I was wondering if I could— Well, hey, Forrest.”

“Hey, Gilly.” He walked out from the kitchen, bent over the baby. “When’s he going to do something besides sleep?”

“Come on over and pay us a visit about two a.m.”

She caught the look in his eyes and, understanding, pushed up. “I’m going to take him in awhile—and pass him off to his grandmother. That’ll give me some time in the kitchen whether she wants me there or not.”

She took the baby from Shelby, slipped inside.

“I need a minute,” Forrest told Shelby.

“Sure. Sit down.”

“Kids all right out here for a minute? Clay’s right over there in the vegetable patch playing farmer.”

“He’s got Daddy’s knack for it, and the kids are fine.”

“Then let’s take a walk around front.”

“What is it?”

“Around front,” he repeated, took her arm.

“You’re making me nervous, Forrest, and damn it, I was having a really good day.”

“I’m sorry for that, and sorry to drop this on you on a really good day.”

“Am I in trouble? Does the FBI think—”

“No, it’s nothing like that.” He guided her around the side of the house toward the front yard. Out of sight of the kids, out of earshot. “It’s Privet, the Florida PI.”

“I remember who Privet is,” she said testily. “Did he tell you who his client is, finally?”

“No, and he won’t. He was found dead early this morning, by his secretary.”

“Oh my God. What happened?”

“It looks like he was killed between ten and midnight, and it looks like he was shot with the same gun that killed Warren.”

It shouldn’t come as a shock, she thought, and still it did. “He was murdered?”