Deadly Notions (25 page)

“Are you okay?” It was all she could think to say under the circumstances. “Is there anything I can do?”

Regina lifted the folder from the draft table only to slam it back down once again. “Damn! I wanted this so badly.”

“The partnership fell through?”

“You could say that.” Regina pushed off her chair and strode across the room toward her desk. “Look, I don’t mean to be rude but I’ve got work to do. If you’ve got something to say, say it. Otherwise, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I’ve got to figure a way to salvage this deal one way or the other.”

“I understand.” She closed the gap between them, her thoughts jumping to the reason for her visit. “Someone killed your friend and employee. I’m confident my friends are not responsible. But there were other people at that party, people I don’t really know. And while I hate to think any of them may be responsible for Ashley’s death, it is certainly possible.”

“Possible went out the window when I found her in her car with a rope around her neck, don’t you think?” Regina dropped into her chair once again.

Realizing the angry Regina was back, Tori cut to the chase. “Can I ask what Samantha Smith said to you the night of the birthday party?”

“Samantha Smith? Who’s that?”

She lifted her hands to her head. “About my height, short brown hair, a little spiky at the top. I think she was wearing a denim jacket of some sort?”

“Okay, okay. I remember.” Regina propped her elbows on her desk and leaned forward into her hands, her jaw tightening in the process. “She—she told me I had a hateful person working for me, someone who was cruel to children, and that I—along with everyone else at the party—would be better off without her.”

“Better off without her?” Tori echoed. “What? Did she expect you to fire Ashley?”

A low, mirthless laugh escaped the woman’s lips. “
Fire
Ashley?” Regina dropped her hands to her desk and stood. “Are you kidding me? I was offering her the chance to immortalize her
own
name instead of—oh, forget it, it doesn’t matter. That woman was crazy.”

“But—”

“It’s time for you to go. I am trying to run a company here. A company
without
a head designer I desperately needed.”

Tori felt the smile spread across her face the second she saw the name on her caller ID screen, the momentary respite from her thoughts a welcome relief. Flipping the cell phone open, she held it to her ear. “Hi!”

“I called over to the library and Nina told me you were off today. Where are you?”

“I just left Regina’s office and I’m heading home. I’m in dire need of a little chocolate.”

“You get anythin’ good while you were there?”

“Not really. Except maybe the fact that Samantha Smith may have hinted at the crime that took Ashley’s life.”

“Then you need to go straight to the chicken pen and start scratchin’.”

Her laugh echoed around the car. “Excuse me?”

“Sorry ’bout that, Victoria. I forgot who I was talkin’ to for a minute.” Margaret Louise’s voice bellowed in her ear. “Rather than taking a hint as told to you by someone else, how ’bout you get one straight from the horse’s mouth instead?”

“What horse might that be?” She slowed to a stop at the four-way intersection on the eastern edge of the town square.

“Samantha Smith.”

She stepped on the gas only to switch to the brake once again. “How?”

“By stoppin’ by—hold on a second, will you?”

As she waited, Tori slowly crept across the intersection, her gaze sweeping the grounds of the Green as she headed down one of its bordering roads.

“Victoria? You still there? Sorry about that. Sally had a mini-crisis.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Just dandy. Now drive on over here and let’s see if we can’t get some of those answers we need.”

“Samantha is there?”

“Sure as shootin’ she is. Seems almost the entire mornin’ kindergarten class and their mammas are here.”

“And where, exactly, is here? Melissa’s?”

“Good heavens, Victoria, of course not. We’re at the park—Sweet Briar Memorial Park.”

“You mean,
Penelope Park
, don’t you?” She turned onto Valley View road and headed east.

“Now don’t you get me started on that, Victoria. This is too nice a day to discuss the fact that our city council is three pickles shy of a quart.”

“It could be worse. They could be four pickles shy.” Tori stifled the urge to laugh as she pulled into a parking spot beside the park. “I’m here now.”

“Ooooh, I see you, I see you.”

She scanned the crowd of moms and kids to find a waving Margaret Louise on the far side of the monkey bars, her plump form moving alongside Sally as the little girl worked to maneuver each rung. “I see you, too.”

“The horse is on the bench when you step inside the gate.”

“The horse . . .” Her voice trailed off as she sought out her friend’s directions. Sure enough, the short-haired brunette that had been a topic of discussion with Regina Murphy not more than fifteen minutes earlier was sitting on a bench watching her daughter like a hawk. “I see her.”

“Why don’t you strike up a conversation when you first walk in. And I’ll do my best to encourage Sally over in that direction.”

“Sounds good. See you soon.” She snapped the phone closed in her hand and pulled the key from the ignition. A quick check in the rearview mirror confirmed what she already knew—she needed more sleep and a rapid end to the drama. And while she was at it, perhaps a one-way ticket out of Sweet Briar for Milo’s former flame, as well.

Shaking the latter image from her thoughts, Tori stepped from the car and made her way over to the gate, the prospect of talking to Samantha guiding her forward. As luck would have it, Samantha turned in her direction as she approached.

“Hi. Samantha, right?” She extended her hand in the mom’s direction. “I’m not sure if you remember me but—”

Samantha stood. “Of course. You’re the librarian. The one who helped with Sally Davis’s birthday party.”

She confirmed the woman’s words with a smile and a nod. “That’s right. I’m Victoria Sinclair. How are you?”

“I’m good. Thanks.” Samantha gestured toward her daughter. “You ever notice how life can turn on a dime?”

She looked from the little girl to Samantha. “Turn on a dime? I’m sorry, I’m not following.”

“One minute we were all discussing the merits of disposing of that awful woman on account of her rudeness and her insensitivity, and the next, she’s gone.” Samantha’s hands rose into the air. “Poof! The classroom cattiness and the totally ridiculous birthday party pressure is gone just like that.”

“Samantha, that woman is
dead
.”

“You’re right. And so are my daughter’s tears.”

Nothing like leading the horse to water.

“Your daughter’s tears?” she echoed.

“The tears she cried every single day after school thanks to Penelope’s nastiness.” Samantha’s hands found her hips. “And now that Penelope has been out of school mourning her mother’s death, things are so much better.”

She knew she was staring, could even feel her left nostril flaring in disgust, but she couldn’t help it. It was one thing to be happy your child was fitting in better and quite another thing to gloat about the death that happened in order to make it happen. “Penelope will
eventually
come back.”

“But now she’ll be on her classmates’ turf.”

“Her classmates’ turf?”

“That’s right. And it’s going to be one ruled by kindness and acceptance. Not nastiness and selective inclusion.”

“Mommy, Mommy, come catch me!”

Samantha held her index finger in Tori’s direction, the gesture polite but dismissive. “Well, I better go. It was nice talking to you.” And with that, the woman was gone, her feet kicking up pieces of shredded tires as she made her way across the playground and over to the swing set.

“Catch any fish on your line?”

She whirled around to find a grinning Margaret Louise at her elbow. “Excuse me?”

“You get anythin’?”

“You might say that.”

Margaret Louise’s eyes rounded. “What?”

“Besides the fact she despised Ashley?” she murmured as her gaze sought and found the back of Samantha Smith. “Well, there’s also the little matter of her being almost
giddy
about Ashley’s murder.”

“The playground sure is less splintered.”

“Margaret Louise!” She eyed her friend closely. “I realize she wasn’t a nice woman, I saw that with my own two eyes. But please tell me you aren’t glad she’s dead. There
is
a little girl who’s been hurt by her murder.”

“Ah, don’t mind me. Of course I’m not glad she was murdered. But by the same token it’s hard not to notice the change in the class dynamic now that she’s gone.”

She watched as each child headed home, some pulled away by the promise of a cookie, others guided home by the need to start dinner. Yet still she sat, the warmth of the spring sun rooting her to the same picnic bench she’d claimed as Margaret Louise headed home with Sally.

All of the things she’d wanted to do that afternoon—the book she wanted to read, the play food she wanted to make, the flowers she wanted to plant—paled against the desire to simply sit.

And think.

There was no getting around the fact that Samantha Smith didn’t miss Ashley Lawson. And no getting around what she’d said to Regina Murphy the night of Sally’s party. But was it a hint of things to come? A diabolical plan she intended to execute little more than twelve hours later? Or simply words spoken by a frustrated mom who needed to do nothing more than vent?

“Hey, beautiful. Margaret Louise said I might find you here.”

She swung her head to the right as a smile played its way across her face. “Milo, hi! What are you doing here?”

He opened the gate and stepped inside, his hands pulling her to her feet before he even officially stopped at the bench. “I stopped by your house but you weren’t there. So I started wandering around, hoping I’d catch a glimpse of your car somewhere.” Wrapping his arms around her, he planted a kiss on the top of her head. “When I passed Margaret Louise’s place, she called out, said she’d seen you at the park and that you were looking mighty good.”

Oh, how she loved that woman.

“And?” she teased, stepping back so she could twirl around.

“You look even better than she said.” He caught her hand and pulled her close once again. “I like that skirt on you. It’s real pretty.”

She glanced down at the tiny sprig of lavender flowers that adorned the A-line skirt, the matching lavender shirt hugging her modest curves. “Thanks.”

“No, thank
you
.” Lifting her face to his, he kissed her warmly. “Mmmm, I’ve missed you.”

“You’ve been busy.” She sat back down on the bench and patted the open spot to her left. “I figured I’d give you a little breathing room.”

“Did I ask for breathing room?”

“No. But you have a lot on your plate right now.”

“You mean Beth, don’t you?”

She considered denying his claim but, in the end, simply nodded.

He pulled her hand onto his lap and entwined his fingers with hers. “Look, I’m sorry I got a little short with you on the phone the other night but I just don’t believe Beth made up that encounter on the Green. Why would she do that? It makes no sense.”

Looking down at their linked hands she said nothing. Really, what was there to say? He wasn’t ready to hear the truth about someone who had meant so much to him.

“I told her I was heading out to see you and she was fine with it. She understands that you’re my girl.”

“I never said she didn’t understand it. I just said she didn’t like it.”

“And I think you’re wrong.”

“Then we’ll have to agree to dis—”

The ring of his phone caught her up short. “Hang on a minute. It’s Beth.”

“Hey, Beth, what’s up?”

She closed her eyes against the words that flowed from the phone, words her mind had predicted the second the phone rang.

“Milo, please, I need you to come home right away. I was sitting on the back deck just now and I heard something.”

Feeling his fingers loosen, Tori gently removed her hand from his. “What did you hear?” he asked.

“It sounded like a twig snapping. Like someone was back there . . . watching.”

“Where are you now?”

“Inside. With the doors locked. But”—Beth’s voice grew weepy despite the smile Tori would bet was stretched across her flawlessly made-up face—“I’m scared. Could you please come home?”

Home.

She swallowed as Milo said the words she knew he’d say. “I’ll be right there.”

He closed the phone inside his hand and stood, his eyes hooded. “Tori, I’m sorry. I really am. But she needs me right now.”