IN FOR A PENNY (The Granny Series) (16 page)

“Whatever you want.”

If only.
“Thanks, Tina. I owe you.”

“I’m happy to help.” She laughed in a lighthearted way that made
his own heart—even heavy with fear—do a little flip. “We need more guys like you around here.”

He went back inside and fixed himself another martini—a double this time.

In a series of gulps he chugged it back, then lifted the glass. His hand shook with his need to hurl it across the room out of sheer frustration, but that would make a mess. He carefully placed the glass back on the table and walked over to the Ilya Bolotowsky painting hanging on the wall. The sharp clean lines in black, red and blues were calming.

He stared at it until the colors seemed to bleed into one another.

I can’t wait any longer.

He lifted his hand to the left side of the painting and swung it out on the hidden hinge. The wall safe was well concealed right there in the middle of the room. No grooved spinning knob to collect germs, but rather a nice slick keypad.

The series of numbers sounded like the first few notes of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” The mechanism clicked and the door opened. He hummed his favorite part,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily…life is but a dream,
as he extracted the journal that held the detailed plan for his disappearance from Summer Shoals.

Chapter Seventeen

Lillian stood in the rec room ready to present her first Walter Stiles Federal Prison Camp Etiquette 101 class. Her heart hammered as the attendees filed into the room. The only friendly face in the crowd was
Dixie’s. And Dixie gave a little finger wave but found a chair near the back. Unfortunately, the women settling into the front row were Lillian’s worst nightmare. Big Martha and her entire posse. How in the world had they managed to be assigned the same class night? Martha had more pull around here than Lillian had even realized.

It worried the dickens out of her, but she sucked in a breath, pasted a smile on her face and handed a thick stack of papers to the woman in the first seat.

“Please take one and pass them around.”

Someone in the back said, “That old woman thinks she can tell us what to do?” and it upped Lillian’s blood pressure a tick.

Still, the woman snatched the handouts from Lil and passed the stack to the person sitting next to her.

“Thank you,” Lillian said with all the charm and kindness of a true Southern lady.

“You’re welcome.”

The woman’s words were a bit snarly, but regardless Lillian banged the shiny call bell the warden had provided.

Ding-ding-ding.

The room fell silent. Lillian was surprised the tiny bell had had that kind of impact on this unruly group. When the warden had given it to her, she thought the silly bell would be a waste of time.

“Point for you,” Lillian said, turning her attention to the woman in the first seat in the first row.

The woman cocked her head.

Lillian paced across the front row, beginning to feel her normal sense of confidence return even though Big Martha was scowling at her. “The first lesson in etiquette. Please and thank you.”

Big Martha muttered, “You’ve got to be kidding me with this shit.”

Lillian flashed her a warning look. “Excuse me. Did you have something you’d like to share with the group?”
No sense letting her think she can run over me in here. If I shut her down from the get-go maybe that’ll nip it in the bud.

The bully glared at her.

“Apparently not.” Lillian held her ground. Inside she was complete Jell-O, but she would never let it show. They’d chew her up and spit her out if she did.

“Alrighty then, the handout you’ve just been given includes everything you need for this week’s curriculum. This may feel like a beginner’s course to some of you.” She looked in Big Martha’s direction. If Martha felt respected, maybe she’d turn out helpful rather than a heckler. “Many of you are probably comfortable with these things, but let’s work together to help each other remember those simple little gestures that help separate us from the…well, you know.”

“No, I don’t think I do know. Are you calling us out?” A scraggly-haired woman glanced around at the others. A few of them nodded, garnering support.

Lillian sucked in a breath. “When we’re on the outside, we may have opportunity to engage in activities that require poise. That’s all I’m saying.”

“What makes you think poised is what we want to be?” The straggly-haired woman slumped down in her chair.

Add posture to the etiquette list.

“You think you’re better than us?” another chimed in.

Lillian raised a hand in the air. “Enough. I’m surely not here to pass judgment on anyone. We’re all at Walter Stiles for doing something that was not appropriate. So no one, me included, has any right to judge.” Why had she thought for even a moment this might be fun? 

Dixie stood and whistled at a pitch that made Lil’s ears ring. “Y’all pipe down. This is a required session and Lillian didn’t volunteer for this job, she
was picked. She’s already helped me with a few things. Let’s give the old bird a listen. If you have to sit here, you may as well give it a go.”

“Thank you, Dixie.”

“You’re welcome.”

Lillian dinged the bell.
“Point.” She spun around to the stack of materials. “Oh goodness, I almost forgot. Every time you get a point, you get one of these commissary dollars.”

“Well, why didn’t you say that to begin with?” The women muttered between themselves, but only for a moment, and then suddenly almost all eyes were on Lillian.

She distributed the first two commissary dollars.

“There are up to twenty of these up for grabs in every session. So, participate and it can be quite a little boost for you.” Lillian winked at Dixie, thankful for the prison jargon she’d shared with her to help her better communicate with these women.

She turned the page of her notes, then started working her way through the handout. Everyone in the room, except Martha, participated. But then with the nickname Big Martha, she had something to prove.

By the end of the session when the warden walked in, everyone
was seated with a formal place setting arranged in front of her, even Big Martha, but then one of her people had set up hers. Of course, not many of the settings were right, but it was a start.

Warden Proctor, a small smile tugging at her lips, strolled by each woman.

Lillian turned her notes facedown on the table. “We’re all done with this week’s session.”

The warden gave the ladies a nod. “You can leave.”

Not a word was uttered as the women shuffled out of the room.

Lillian stacked the supplies back into the box that the warden had assigned her,
then turned to leave.

“Lillian?”

She turned. “Yes, ma’am?”

“Did anyone give you any trouble today?”

Lillian only hesitated for a moment. It wouldn’t earn her any points if she ratted Martha out, and who knew, next week could be a whole different game. “None at all. I think your program will be a big success.”

“Thanks to you.”

“It’s my pleasure,” Lillian said, and quite honestly, it had been by the end of the hour. As she walked out of the dining hall, she saw Big Martha’s best girl hustling around the corner. She’d probably heard Lillian’s whole conversation with the warden.

Lillian pushed up her sleeves. She would just have to make that work to her advantage.

Teague took a folder off the top of the stack in his inbox. He flipped it open, reviewed it, then signed off on the papers inside.

“Uh…Teague?”
Deputy Barnes tapped on the open door.

He looked up from the stack of case files.
“Yeah?”

The deputy cocked a thumb toward the street fronting the building. “Pretty sure you’ve got a visitor outside.”

“I’m not expecting anyone.” He stood to get a look out the window.

The deputy grinned, a broad slash from one earlobe to the other.
“Said she’s family.”

Yeah, she was his visitor all right. “More like extended family, but I’ve got this, Deputy.” He strolled outside as Abby Ruth Cady stepped down from a shiny white Ford dually. The truck and her trailer took up nearly six parking spaces.
Only Aunt Bibi.
In the twenty-five years he’d known this woman, she’d only become more outrageous.

“Tadpole!”
She threw her arms in the air and stomped a booted foot on the ground. “Damn, you look fine.”

Teague winced at the pet name he
’d been saddled with after a little incident with Jenny when they were kids.

Abby Ruth strode over to hug him, ending the embrace with a big whack in the center of his back. “I swear, boy, you get better looking every year. My daughter doesn’t have the smarts God gave a rock, that’s for damn sure.”

Not going there.

He nodded at her long-bed crew cab truck. “That’s some ride.”

She elbowed him. “Yeah, I figure if I was a man, people would say I was compensating for something.”

Teague just shook his head. This woman lived to shock folks. Was that a shell casing around her neck? Never thought he’d see jewelry made out of .22 shells. Leave it to Aunt Bibi. That woman did love her guns. “You’re looking good.”

“So the men at that KOA camp told me.” Abby Ruth patted her steel-gray hair, chopped short around her face. At sixty, she would still turn men’s heads. Only a few inches shorter than his six-two with a long, lean build. She wore her trademark white shirt with slim jeans tucked into a pair of screaming red cowboy boots.

He looked down at her feet.
“Lucchese?”

“Custom.
Had ’em made by a gal up in Oklahoma.”

“Nice.”

“Tell you what, that drive from Ohio numbed my ass something good.” She rubbed her hands over the seat of her jeans. “But you said on the phone you had a situation, so I got down here as quick as I could.” The volume of her voice probably carried her words all the way back to Oklahoma.

He chose to ignore the five parking violations and took her arm to lead her inside. “Let me buy you a cup of cop coffee and tell you about it. That work?”

Her grin went wide and just a little evil. “You bet your sweet ass it will.”

An hour later, he drove out to Summer Haven with Abby Ruth following. They both parked, and her rig took up a good quarter of Lillian’s driveway.

Abby Ruth checked out the genteel Georgian house as they approached the front door. “Some digs.”

“The Summer family practically built this town.”

“Power-mongers, huh? I knew a few of those back in Houston. Oil men. Good in bed, but they always wanted to be on top.”

Teague’s palms twitched with the need to cover his ears. God, he loved this woman, but he needed earplugs sometimes. “Lillian is the last of her line.
A real sweet and refined lady.”

“A doormat.”

“No, she’s got spine to spare.” She’d gotten his ass up on that roof well enough, hadn’t she? “Problem is, Lillian’s a prideful old gal and she and her friends have their hands full with this huge place. And I haven’t seen Lillian in a couple of weeks. Just doesn’t seem right. If you can get on the inside, it would sure help me out. You know, keep them out of trouble and keep me in the loop.”

Abby Ruth stuck her nose in the air and sniffed. “Smells like a story to me.”

Exactly what he’d hoped for. She could keep him informed and feel like she was still working at the same time. Forced retirement wasn’t her mug of beer. Teague punched the doorbell and stood back.

Maggie opened the door while wiping her hands on a stained garage towel.
“Teague, if you’re stopping in for special tea, I hate to tell you, but I haven’t had time to mix any up what with trying to repair the bathroom after Sera took that flume ride.”

No, he’d come to plant a spy in their midst.
“No, ma’am. I came to ask you another big favor.”

“Abby Ruth Cady.”
Abby Ruth stuck out her hand.

Maggie hesitated, but finally shook. “Margaret Evelyn Stuart Rawls.”

Abby Ruth slid Teague a look that said
Are you shitting me?

“Abby Ruth’s an old friend of my family’s.” Teague smiled in what his mom described as his old-lady-and-baby-charming smile and edged Maggie backward through the door without her realizing what he was doing. He took a step closer. “She happened to be in the area—” he coughed to cover Abby Ruth’s snort behind him, “—and my place isn’t big enough to host guests. I was hoping, what with all this room here at Summer Haven, you’d be willing to let her
stay here during her visit.”

“What about the Broussard Bed & Breakfast?”

Shit.

“I’m allergic to cats,” Abby Ruth spit out, “and I heard the
Broussards have one of those big coon-sized Persian cats. If I had to sleep there, I’d be one red-nosed sneezing, sniffling, weepy-eyed girl.”

Maggie’s eyebrows drew together. “When in the world did Angelina get a cat?”

“Here recently,” Teague said.

“Well, with Lillian away, I’m not sure how she’d feel about opening her home to someone else.”

“She’s away? I thought she was under the weather.” Teague shared a glance with Abby Ruth.

“Uh…well…” Maggie stammered.

“Can’t you call her and ask?” Abby Ruth’s smile was less charm and more bite.

“Oh, well…hmm…” Maggie scrubbed the towel over her knuckles. “You know, now that I think about it, we have plenty of room upstairs. In fact, you’d probably be comfortable in the Sweet Vidalia Room.”

“Maggie,” Teague said, relief steaming through him like a cold beer on a hot day, “I can’t tell you how much you’ve helped me out.”