Deadly Notions (20 page)

“People you thought were your friends—or at the very least had your back—can turn on you in an instant.” The woman’s eyes glazed over as she fixed on a spot somewhere over Tori’s head. “I mean, you see someone at church or across the table during lunch or while pursuing a common goal, and you just don’t imagine they can hurt you in that way.”

“I’m sorry, Regina, I really am.” She knew the words were lame when spoken against the kind of hurt that played across every facet of the woman’s face, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say. Regina wasn’t ready to hear the truth. Not yet, anyway. “Have they released her body so her family can plan the funeral?”

Pulling her focus back to Tori, Regina stared at her. “Why? Would that make you and your friends feel better?”

She stepped back, the woman’s anger akin to a slap across the face. “Of course not! I just wondered—”

“Well, don’t.” Regina pulled her purse from her arm and thumped it on the counter. “None of this is your business.”

“But I—”

Regina’s hand stopped just shy of Tori’s mouth. “You belong in jail.”

Tori’s mouth grew dry as heads in the neighboring checkout lane turned in their direction. Not wanting to cause Ashley’s friend any more hurt, she searched for just the right words—words that would take the sting out of a truth that wasn’t ready to be accepted. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Regina, I truly am. Like you, I hope that justice is served sooner rather than later. But I also know that punishing the wrong people isn’t the justice Ashley or the Lawson family needs at this time. Two wrongs don’t make a right. They never have and they never will.”

 

 

She was halfway through her sandwich when she spotted them on the other side of the Green—Beth in a pair of white skintight jeans with a flowery blouse and Milo in darker denim with a navy and white rugby shirt. They were stretched across the red and white checked picnic blanket Tori had given Milo a few months earlier as a hint of things to come when spring finally revealed itself again.

Only she’d intended it for a picnic of their own.

“Nice lookin’ couple, wouldn’t you say?”

Tori peeked around the other side of the tree. “Oh, hi, Mr. Downing. I didn’t see you there.”

“Been sittin’ here ’bout ten minutes or so. Thought ’bout sayin’ something sooner but you seemed lost in thought with your eyes closed and your head ’gainst that there tree.” The man bobbed his head to the side. “Seemed silly to interrupt your quiet time on account of chitchat.”

She shrugged. “I always like to chat with you.” And she did. The elderly man was one of her most loyal patrons at the library, his twice weekly visits something she not only looking forward to, but treasured as well. “I guess you’re right. I was just lost in thought is all.”

Mr. Downing chuckled. “Least you were ’til that bee buzzed you out of your respite.”

The bee.

“Then you got sidetracked by that young couple over there same as I did.” He gestured her attention back to the sight she’d rather forget. “Reminds me of you and your young man.”

Shaking her head free from a path she didn’t want to explore, she forced a laugh into her voice. “I guess I just hadn’t noticed them before now.”

“I confess I didn’t either until I followed the path of that bee. Seems he was attracted by their relationship as well.”

Their relationship. Milo’s and Beth’s.

She swung her focus back toward the picnic blanket as the man continued on, his words bringing a catch to her throat. “That’s the way me and my Evelyn were nearly every day we had together. We laughed. We joked. We talked. We planned. We simply enjoyed each other’s company no matter where we were and no matter what we did. Was that way from the moment we met in school.”

He leaned back on his park bench, a wistful smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “Only I got foolish and decided to see if the grass was greener somewhere else. Didn’t take me long to realize the mistake I made. Guess you could say I was the luckiest man in the world when she agreed to give me a second chance.”

A second chance
. . .

“I only hope they have more time together than my Evelyn and I did.” He released a sigh from somewhere deep in his soul. “Sure makes me wish I could redo those foolish moments.”

His words played in her head, tugged at her heart. “Did she take you back right away?”

“She played hard to get for a few days but I won her heart back in the end.”

“How?” she asked as she looked, again, at Milo and Beth.

“By callin’ on all the things we enjoyed together—bike rides, long walks, holdin’ hands, picnics on the Green . . .”

Picnics on the Green.

She swallowed. Was that what was happening with Milo and Beth? Was she winning him back?

“Thinkin’ ’bout your own young man?”

Mr. Downing’s words broke through her woolgathering. “I’m sorry?”

He lifted his left knee and crossed it atop his right. “I asked if watchin’ that young couple is makin’ you think of your Milo.”

For a moment she considered the notion of using Mr. Downing’s less than stellar eyesight to her advantage, but she couldn’t. Instead, she divulged the facts as they were and braced herself for the inevitable.

“If it was any other couple, I’d say yes, Mr. Downing. But since one half of that twosome
is
Milo, I’d have to say no.” There. It was out.

She watched as the man dipped his head forward and adjusted his glasses. “Why, Victoria, it looks as if you’re right.” Slowly, he pulled his attention from the blanket and fixed it squarely on her face. “It’s a foolish period is all. You mark my words.”

“Problem is, the foolish period was
hers
, when she broke up with him in college.”

He waited as she continued, her words clarifying things as much for herself as for him. “He was crazy about her in school. They were joined at the hip for nearly a year until she broke it off, crushing his heart in the process. Then, about a year later, he met Celia. Two years after that, he and Celia got married, only to have her taken by cancer six months later. Ten years went by—ten years with no real relationship of any kind until I moved to Sweet Briar.” She inhaled the courage she needed to reach the point in the story that was now. “Slowly we’ve built something special, something lasting. The kind of relationship I truly believed was confined to the fairy tale section in the children’s room.”

“And that’s changed?”

Tori shrugged. “I don’t know. I certainly hope not. But Beth—the girl he was crazy about in college? She showed up in Sweet Briar a few days ago and seems determined—like you were with Evelyn—to fix a mistake
she
made fourteen years ago.” She raised her index finger into the air and pointed toward the laughing woman with hair the color of golden silk. “Alas, operation picnic is in full swing.”

He looked toward the blanket once again, his narrowed eyes beckoning hers to follow. “Seems to me he’s not bitin’.”

“What do you mean?”

Lifting his own finger into the air, he, too, pointed. “I s’pose I was just taken in by the laughin’ and the squealin’. But now that I’m noticin’, really noticin’, it’s fairly obvious she’s the only one makin’ any noise.”

Determined to see the situation for what it was rather than what she feared, she forced herself to see the facts—

Beth on one side of the blanket, Milo on the other.

Beth laughing and gesturing and squealing, Milo simply nodding.

Beth using her hands and her body to emphasize whatever she was saying, Milo checking his watch.

“You know something?” she whispered. “I think you’re right.”

“Fourteen years, you say?”

She nodded. “Fourteen years.”

“That ain’t foolish, Victoria. That’s a sign of something that wasn’t right the first time.”

She inhaled Mr. Downing’s words into her heart, savoring them for what they were. The truth was right there in front of her face, in the one-sided interactions between Beth and Milo. And it was right there in the—

Reaching into her purse, she extracted the vibrating phone and glanced at the caller ID screen, the name stretching her mouth into a wide smile as she looked at the pair on the blanket once again.

“Hi, Milo.”

“Hey, beautiful. Any chance you have a few minutes for lunch?”

She winked at Mr. Downing. “Actually, I’m finishing up my lunch right now.”

Disappointment filled her ear. “Oh. I was hoping that maybe I could see you.”

Turning her focus back toward the blanket, she noted the way his shoulders slumped as he held his cell phone to his ear. “You can.”

His shoulders pulled upward. “When?”

“How does right this very second sound?”

“Right this very second?” he echoed as Beth’s shoulders took over the task of slumping.

“That’s what I said.” She knew she was teasing, being deliberately evasive, but talking to Mr. Downing had boosted her spirits.

“Where are you?”

“Watching you.”

“Watching—” He stopped then looked left and right until he finally spied her sitting on the bench at the base of the tree. “There you are.”

“Here I am.” She heard Mr. Downing chuckle as Milo flipped his phone shut, thrust it into his pocket, and then jumped to his feet, his long legs making short distance of the gap between them.

When Milo reached the tree, he spread his arms wide. “I had no idea you were here.”

She closed her eyes as he held her tight, reveling in the feel of his nearness. “I stopped by Leeson’s and picked up a sandwich, figuring I’d take it back to the library to eat. But when I walked past the Green, I couldn’t resist a little time in the sun.”

Slowly he released her, stepping back in the process. “Why didn’t you tell me you were there?”

“I’d just noticed you when Mr. Downing”—she swept her hand in the direction of the elderly man on the bench beside the pathway—“started talking to me.”

She felt Milo studying her, knew he saw right through her words. “Is that the only reason?” he asked.

“I think so,” she said honestly. “I hope so, anyway.”

“Milo! Come quick!”

They both turned to see Beth cowering on the picnic blanket, her hand pressed to her mouth. In a flash, Milo retraced his steps, Tori on his heels. “Beth? Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

With one hand still covering her mouth, Beth raised her other hand and pointed toward the cropping of trees that lined the northern border of the Green. “Someone—someone was
watching
me.”

Milo whirled around. “Tori, you stay with Beth and make sure she’s okay.” And then he was gone, his feet pounding against the asphalt pathway that wound its way toward the trees.

As he disappeared from sight, Beth slowly lowered her hand to her lap to reveal the megawatt smile that was as much a part of her exterior as the hair that cascaded down her back. “The prince always comes to his princess’s rescue, doesn’t he?”

The worry in Nina’s eyes said virtually everything Tori needed to know. Dixie’s drumming fingers simply filled in the gaps like the thump of a sledgehammer.

“Are you okay, Miss Sinclair?” Nina asked as she walked through the door. “I was getting worried.”

“You
do
realize your lunch is only supposed to be forty-five minutes, don’t you?” Dixie crossed her arms in front of her chest. “As head librarian you really should know better.”

“I’m okay . . . now. And yes, Dixie, I’m aware of how long my lunch break is supposed to be.” Tori crumbled her plastic grocery bag inside her hand then tossed it into the trashcan behind the information desk. “Things just . . . Well, let’s just say that something came up that was out of my control.”

Nina exhaled a rush of air. “I’m just glad you’re okay. I was worried, especially when I heard the police siren.”

She shook her head, the action as much to placate Nina as it was to free her own head of the realization that had come the moment Milo ran toward the woods.

Beth Samuelson was a liar, of that she had no doubt. And the motive for those lies was clearer than ever. Beth wanted Milo and she’d stop at nothing to get him back. Even if that meant lying to the police.

For a few moments Tori had actually considered calling the woman on her trumped-up claim, but in the end, she’d let it go, opting, instead, to sit back and watch the whole thing play out. Even when it resulted in Beth nearly jumping into Milo’s arms the moment he returned to the blanket with the police in tow.

When the time was right, she’d tell Milo the truth about his college flame. In front of the police wasn’t that time.

“So where were you?” Dixie demanded.

“I—”

“Ms. Dunn stopped by to talk to you about her schedule for story time,” Nina stammered by way of explanation. “It wasn’t on the calendar.”