Lemon Pies and Little White Lies (27 page)

The bell over the front door chimed. “For the moment, let’s focus on our customers,” Ella Mae said. “I’m afraid tomorrow’s Beltane celebration won’t be as merry as I’d hoped. We’ll be lucky to have a dance and a cup of wine before the storm hits.”

“All the more reason to eat, drink, and live it up!” Reba declared. “I plan to be the belle of the Founder’s Day Ball.” She elbowed Jenny. “Are you in?”

Jenny grinned. “Only if you promise to save some men for me.”

Together, they pushed through the swing doors into the dining room.

“I invited a few of my own people to join us for Beltane—some Scots who’d like to get their hands on the woman who
tried to ruin their lives,” Fiona said. “If Nimue tries to mess with you, they’ll be your first line of defense.” She glanced at her watch. “They’ll be landing in Atlanta in about an hour, so unless you need me, Carol and I will pick them up.”

“You go ahead.” Ella Mae put an apron over her head. “I’m all set.”

“Until Beltane, then.” Fiona said.

Ella Mae nodded. “Until Beltane.”

•   •   •

Long ago, Beltane marked the unofficial beginning of summer. People would accompany their livestock to the summer pastures and then gather around an enormous bonfire to perform rituals encouraging a bountiful harvest. They’d also sing, dance, and feast beneath the open sky until night gave way to dawn.

In Havenwood, the festivities took place in the hidden grove in the mountains high above the lake. A traditional bonfire was lit, and everyone dressed in loose, flowing clothes bedecked with yellow and orange flowers meant to echo the bonfire’s flames.

On the morning preceding the Beltane celebration, Havenwood woke to a pounding rain and a forceful breeze. Ella Mae hoped that people had listened to the mayor’s announcement the previous evening. During the Founder’s Day Ball, he’d advised visitors to get on their way as soon as possible the next morning and asked residents to prepare for the storm if they hadn’t done so already. The locals who’d been around to witness Havenwood’s last major flood had already stocked up on canned food and batteries, but Ella Mae knew that there weren’t enough sandbags in all of Georgia to stop Lake Havenwood from overflowing once the rain started falling at four to five inches per hour.

Despite the downpour, someone had decorated the frame around Ella Mae’s front door. When she opened it to give Chewie a chance to do his business before she headed to the grove, Ella Mae found garlands of marigolds and yellow primrose woven with rowan and hawthorn branches brightening her threshold. There was also a posy of buttercups, goldenrods, and fern leaves tied with a saffron ribbon on her welcome mat.

Once Chewie was ready to come back in, Ella Mae ushered him into the kitchen and toweled him off. She then spread an old blanket over the sofa, invited him to jump up, and waited until he was comfortable before kissing the top of his head several times.

“I’ll be home soon, boy. You guard the house, okay?”

Chewie pricked his ears and cocked his head, as if he didn’t quite believe her. He whined when she opened the front door, and she promised that she wouldn’t leave him alone for long.

Stepping into the rain, she prayed she could keep that promise.

She ran to her truck and discovered another bouquet of gold and orange flowers on the passenger seat. The interior was redolent with their perfume. Ella Mae touched the silky petals and smiled. Only her mother could have cultivated blossoms that looked like flames. She sat there for several moments, the rain hammering against the metal of her truck, and thought of how fire could be both destructive and beneficial. That led to thoughts of Dee and her aunt’s advice about Hugh.

“I don’t know how to fight for him.” But as she watched the rain stream down the windshield, she suddenly realized how much she wanted to try. There was no denying her feelings. She loved the man. No matter what he’d said or done, she loved him. She always had and always would. “I’ve hinged everyone’s future on love, so it had better save the day. If I’m wrong,
Havenwood will fall and it won’t matter what I feel for Hugh Dylan,” she murmured, starting the engine and driving away.

As Ella Mae passed through downtown, she saw almost no signs of life. No cars lined the streets, and most of the shops were closed. She stopped at a traffic light near Perfectly Polished, Loralyn’s nail salon, and fixed a worried gaze at the fluorescent Closed sign in the window. She and Loralyn had never been friends, but now Ella Mae truly didn’t know what to think of her lifelong nemesis. Was Loralyn a murderer? Was she out there somewhere, plotting Ella Mae’s demise and thinking of ways to welcome Nimue to Havenwood?

The rain increased in intensity and, though the wiper blades on Ella Mae’s truck beat back and forth at top speed, she couldn’t see to the end of the next block. The wind had also picked up and was whipping the groundwater into miniature tidal waves.

Ella Mae had checked the local radar map on her computer shortly before she’d let Chewie out and knew that Havenwood was getting its first taste of Caliban’s fury. Still, she felt strangely calm. The time had come for Ella Mae to face the woman who called herself the Clover Queen. The woman who’d captivated Hugh Dylan. The woman who had likely convinced a resident of Havenwood to murder an old lady and set a barn on fire with two people trapped inside.

Leaving downtown behind, Ella Mae hit the winding mountain road and picked up speed. “Yes, the Lady of the Lake is almost here, and I’m ready to give her a greeting the likes of which she’ll never forget.”

The parking lot at the base of the mountain trail was already packed when Ella Mae pulled into a makeshift spot on a level patch of grass and hustled up the trail. She had to dig her heels into the sodden ground to make any headway.
The wind and slanting rain seemed determined to push her back down the mountain.

Once inside the grove, her dripping hair and saturated clothes dried immediately. She entered the orchard to find Jenny, Aiden, and Suzy with a man dressed in leather pants and a black T-shirt. He had shoulder-length hair the color of sunlit bronze and a close-cropped beard of a slightly ruddier shade. Ella Mae couldn’t see his face because he was bent over, rifling through a backpack.

“We wanted to catch you before you headed through to the meadow,” Jenny said, and pointed at the man. “This is Tyson Upton. We wanted to surprise you with a fireworks show. It’s all set up and ready to be launched.”

“Call me Ty.” The man dropped the bag and flashed Ella Mae an electric grin. “My name means ‘fiery and high-spirited,’ but people always think of chicken when they hear it. That’s me. A forty-year-old chicken.” He shrugged in amused defeat while Ella Mae studied him. Ty’s muscular forearms were tattooed with intertwined knots and swirls, he had a jagged scar on his forehead, and his eyes were the blue of an icy fjord. He had the confident bearing and the challenging stare of a Viking. And when he fixed his stare on Ella Mae, he made it plain that he liked what he saw. “Say the word, and I’ll light up the sky.”

Ella Mae jerked her thumb toward the entrance. “Outside? In the rain?”

He grinned. “Rain can’t stop my rockets. In fact, folks will see them clear across the lake.”

An idea came to Ella Mae, similar to the one she’d had when visiting Aunt Dee. “Jenny said that your fireworks can take any shape. Is that true?”

“Within reason, but yes.”

Ella Mae quickly shared her vision and Ty’s face grew
animated. “I like it,” he said. “Let me go outside and make some adjustments. And after my show is over, I’ll still be yours to command. I don’t like folks threatening my family’s friends, and Jenny said you’ve been a real good friend to her.”

She thanked him, and he flashed his killer grin again. “You don’t seem to be afraid of the storm or of this Nimue woman. That’s good.”

Ella Mae gestured at Suzy and the Upton siblings. “They give me courage.” She then pointed through the tree branches toward the meadow where the bonfire burned. “All of them.”

Suzy hooked Ella Mae’s arm in hers and pulled her away from Ty. “We’re not facing any foes without eating and drinking first.”

Ella Mae laughed. “Feast away. Just go easy on the honeyed wine. I might need to call on that photographic memory of yours.”

Fiddle music floated through the air and as Ella Mae and Suzy approached the meadow, they saw people dancing around the bonfire. The banquet had been laid closer to the orchard and the grass was littered with tables covered with yellow cloth and decadent dishes. After greeting dozens of people, Ella Mae ate a small piece of sliced beef in wild mushroom sauce and a forkful of golden potatoes seasoned with fresh rosemary. Having finished her meal, she inspected the objects she’d tasked a select group of men and women to make over the course of the week, and then sat down next to Aunt Verena and Leslie Conrad.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help,” Leslie was saying to Verena. “Hugh hasn’t been in the office since Wednesday, and there’s nothing on his computer. I think he realized I couldn’t be trusted. But I didn’t say a word to him, I swear.”

Verena snapped a carrot stick in half. “Who else knew
that you were keeping an eye out for any communication between Nimue and Hugh?”

Ella Mae was just about to take a sip of wine when she froze with the cup halfway to her mouth. She knew the answer to that question. Only one other person outside Ella Mae’s inner sanctum knew. “Lord, no.” The words came out as moan.

“What is it?” Verena asked.

Instead of answering, Ella Mae’s eyes darted around the meadow. “Where’s Reba?”

“She’s by the butterfly bush talking with the Drevers and their Scottish friends.” Verena used a roast turkey leg to point at the bush. “What’s happened?”

Leaving her cup on the grass, Ella Mae threaded her way through the press of people until she reached Reba’s side. “I need you. I think I know who it is. Joyce and Kyran’s murderer. The arsonist. The person who threw a brick through the pie shop window.”

Fiona exchanged an alarmed look with Reba. “Is this vile creature here now?”

Ella Mae quickly found the person she was searching for and nodded. “Standing near the punch bowl.”

Both Reba and Fiona frowned, clearly trying to comprehend how Ella Mae could call such an upstanding individual a murderer, but then the petite woman with auburn hair who’d been conversing with Carol stepped forward and said, “I’m Lundy. I’ve come from the Orkneys.”

Ella Mae’s eyes were locked on the figure by the punch bowl. “I don’t mean to be rude”—she touched Lundy’s arm without turning to her—“but I need to confront that woman. I believe she’s a—”

“Selkie!” Lundy cried softly.

The word caught the attention of all the Scots, and Carol gasped. “Aye. Look at those dark eyes. Round as marbles.
I thought there was something familiar about her, but I never imagined a selkie would be so far from the sea.”

Reba put her hands on her hips. “Are you tryin’ to tell me that the woman we’re all starin’ at is a damned seal?”

Ella Mae, who’d been silently trying to accept that the world was even stranger than she’d already imagined it to be, whispered, “That makes sense.” She grabbed Fiona’s hand. “The night I showed up at your house uninvited, you said that selkies shed their sealskin when they come ashore. And if a person manages to steal that skin, they can control the selkie, right?”

Fiona nodded.

Without speaking, she and Reba began to move. Ella Mae was right alongside them.

“We’ll flank her,” Carol said to the other Scots from behind them.

Luckily, there were so many people in the meadow that the woman by the punch bowl didn’t see them coming. At least not until Ella Mae raised her hands, signaling for a clear path. The music and chatter abruptly stopped. The crowd parted, and Ella Mae strode to the end of the banquet table and glared at the woman with the brown braid and the wide, dark eyes.

“You were right under my nose all along. You took our statements the night Joyce was killed. You were the first on scene the night of the fire. And you rushed to the hospital where Dee’s life was dangling by a thread—undoubtedly to finish what you’d started—but you couldn’t, because we beat you there.” Ella Mae balled her hands into fists to prevent her fingers from wrapping around the woman’s freckled neck and squeezing, squeezing. “How long has Nimue had your sealskin?” Her voice was a furious hiss.

The punch cup slipped from the woman’s grasp and
dropped to the grass. Everyone waited in breathless silence as Officer Wallace gaped in astonishment.

Ella Mae expected a denial, but the young policewoman’s shoulders sagged, and she said, “I’ve been her slave for two years.” Her face crumpled and tears pooled in her dark eyes. “Everything she commanded me to do—all of those horrible things—I did while screaming inside. I would have died rather than hurt anyone, but Nimue refused to let me die. The only reason I can even speak freely now is because she’s already in Havenwood. I’ve served my purpose.”

“Why didn’t you just kill me?” Ella Mae asked. “That would have been so much easier. Why go after Fiona? Why toss that brick or waste your energy torching the barn? You could have ended this months ago!”

Officer Wallace shook her head. “Nimue wants to deal with you herself. I don’t know why. She doesn’t tell me anything, she just gives me orders.” She dropped to the ground and grabbed Ella Mae’s pant legs. “Please end my suffering. I can’t live with what I’ve done, but I don’t have the power to take my own life. Not as long as she has my skin.”

Reba’s mouth curved in a cruel grin. “I’d be happy to volunteer.”

As tempted as Ella Mae was to let Reba have her way, she shook her head. “Get Aunt Verena.” She then put her hand under Officer Wallace’s chin and forced her to look her in the eye. “What’s your first name?”

“Marin.”

Even her name sounded like the sea. Ella Mae studied the young woman’s freckled face and tearful eyes and retreated a pace. “Stand up, Marin. If you’ve spoken the truth, then you’re as much a victim as Joyce, Kyran, and Dee. But if you’ve lied, you will be punished.” Ella Mae’s stare was cold. “I swore to seek justice for Joyce and Kyran. One way or
another, someone will pay a price for these crimes. My aunt, Delia LeFaye, may have something more to say about your fate. You burned her barn, her sculptures, and her body. Worse yet, you killed someone very dear to her and threatened the well-being of her beloved animals.”