The First Time I Fell
Page 25
“What did the reply say?” I asked.
“I can’t remember the exact words,” Ryan said. “Ronnie?”
Without consulting any notes, Capshaw quoted the message. “Do you think that’s wise, Laini? You know how Carl gets. Leave at once if he gets violent.”
More muddying of the waters, more redirection of suspicion. If Bethany had known about Denise’s theft of company funds, she’d no doubt have pointed investigations in that direction, too. I’d decided against telling anyone about Denise’s actions, but I had sent her a text message — user ID withheld — telling her that I knew she’d stolen the money, and that I’d be watching her carefully from now on.
“Of course, your reply was sent a long time after Laini’s text was received on your phone,” Ryan said.
“An hour and a half later,” Capshaw confirmed.
“But that couldn’t be helped. You could always say you’d missed the message from her initially. Let’s return to what happened at the top of the quarry,” Ryan said.
“You argued with Laini,” I told Bethany. “You tried to make her understand how you felt.”
Bethany sighed, trailing her fingers across the blue silk of Laini’s kimono.
“How did she react?” Ryan asked.
“She laughed. Laughed! But it wasn’t funny. She was ruining my business, hurting Carl, breaking my heart,” Bethany said, her voice catching in her throat.
And for the first time, I saw that Bethany truly believed she’d loved Laini. That maybe she’d even been in love with her, perhaps even obsessed with her. If I’d seen it sooner, I would have suspected her sooner; when woman kill, they usually kill an intimate partner and usually for reasons of love and hate.
“You pushed Laini over the edge,” Ryan continued.
“Yes. I mean, I didn’t intend to, I just saw red and it happened. It’s not like it was premeditated.”
“Yes, it was,” I said. “The note, the bike, the texts — it was all planned.”
Bethany sent me a look filled with deep hatred. I had the sense that if she could’ve moved, she would’ve beaten me over the head with her IV stand.
“You ran down to her car in the parking lot. You left the note in her purse after you’d rubbed it all over with a rag or a tissue or something, smudging any prints. Then you cycled back to your house,” Ryan said.
“That woman in the police station?” I said to Capshaw. “The one complaining about cyclists not wearing the proper reflective gear? She’s your witness. The cyclist was Bethany here.”
“Oh?” said Capshaw, clearly surprised.
I was petty enough to take delight in getting one over on her, and because you can’t have enough of a good thing, I added, “And somewhere at Bethany’s house, you’ll find a paper recycling pile which you should check, because you may just find a blue envelope, addressed to Bethany in Laini’s handwriting. It will probably have traces of pollen on it from stargazer lilies. You may find those same pink lilies on the compost heap, and if you check with the florist in town, you’ll probably discover that Laini purchased a bunch on the morning of Saturday, March tenth.”
Three pairs of eyes stared at me, amazed. Then Ryan cleared his throat and said to Bethany, “Then you returned the bike to the sugar works and went home to wait.”
“Was it you who threw all those flowers into the quarry a few days later?” I asked.
“Who else?” Bethany said. “I loved her best.”
I shook my head. “That’s not love — holding onto someone, keeping them nearby because it’s what you want, because it serves your needs. That’s possession. Love is wanting the best for the other person, even when it costs you, even if it means letting them go,” I said, and blushed for my hypocrisy, because wasn’t that exactly what I was doing with Colby?
Bethany closed her eyes as though to block me out, but didn’t respond. In the silence that filled the room, the memory of Laini blossomed. Her beauty, her blithe indifference to the obsessions and ambitions of others, her kind heart and merry laugh. And even pragmatic, hard-headed, tough-minded Ronnie Capshaw seemed to feel it.
“How could you do it?” she asked in a low, gruff voice. “Just snuff out her life like that? Such a waste …”
“Waste?” Bethany snarled, snapping her eyes open and surprising me with the ferocity of her tone. “Don’t talk to me about waste. Laini didn’t need any help wasting her life — she did that all by herself! Over and over again, wasting whatever and whoever came her way. She had everything anybody could want — beauty, money, popularity, love. Everything! It all came so easily to her, and she let it go just as easily.” Bethany held her hands out, spreading her fingers, as though letting treasures slip from her grasp into a flowing stream. “It was unbelievable how everyone fell under her spell. And she didn’t need it, often didn’t even notice it. And they wanted her all the more because of that.”
“We always want most what we can’t have,” I said softly. “We only chase the ones who run.”
“I could have accepted it if she used what she was given, but she just wasted it. In the pageants, she had enough beauty and charm to go to the very top, but she simply stopped competing,” Bethany said, her voice harsh with resentment and envy. “She had intelligence but quit her degree. She had the love of a good man, a life in Colorado, with money and a shot at a family, and she waltzed away from it all. She had a vital role in the business I’d spent years and years building up, and all the opportunities that lay ahead, but she was perfectly happy to let that all slide. She had Carl, but she threw him away.” Bethany stopped for a moment and swallowed hard before continuing in a low, throaty tone. “And me. She had me — my love, my friendship, my hope and happiness. But it all meant less to her than a new adventure. She wasted it all.” Bethany’s glance slid to the window, and her gaze took on a distant quality, as though she was seeing something very far away. “She wasted me.”
Epilogue
I watched Kennick Carter scatter Laini’s ashes via live streaming on Facebook. He did it in Santa Ana, not Spain — either the life insurance money hadn’t come through yet, or the lure of the nearby Santa Anita racetrack was too strong — but at least there were olive trees and sunshine. And Kennick told me Laini had never been to California, so I reckoned she would have approved of being in a new place.
It would have been lovely if the four winds lifted her ashes up into the air, but it was a still day there, so the gray dust merely fell where it was strewn — on grass and earth and the reaching roots of gnarled tree trunks. The winds would come, though, sooner or later, and the rains. And then Laini would be everywhere and nowhere, as perhaps she’d always wanted.
Kennick had tears streaming down his face as he said goodbye to his sister. So did I. My mother, who’d watched with me, was surprisingly dry-eyed.
“Laini’s in the arms of the Goddess, now,” she said. “You did good, Garnet.”
“I guess.”
I’d helped to find a murderer, and I had to believe it mattered that justice would be served, but it didn’t change the fact that the bright spot of beauty and color that was Laini was still gone from the world. And there was the undeniable fact that I’d also inadvertently done damage — to Ryan’s reputation, Jim’s bones and Bethany’s neck. It wasn’t clear what would happen to the Sweet ‘n Smoky syrup business, though I guessed Bethany would try to sell it as a going concern — she could hardly run it from behind bars. I could only hope that the people who worked there would get to keep their jobs.
“You did,” my mother insisted. “You cracked the case.”
“I guess,” I said again.
I thought I might, just might, have cracked something more personal, too. From the time I died, I’d been confused about who I was. The pendulum of my identity had swung from my old rational, logical self to this new intuitive, risky me, and I’d struggled to integrate the two sides. I still didn’t know how to do that, or whether it was even possible, but maybe it was enough for n
ow that the two sides coexisted within me. Like my eyes did. I had one brown and one blue eye — they didn’t match, they shouldn’t occur in the same face, but they did. And although they were unusual and freaked people out a little, they still worked.
I no longer wanted to be rid of my psychic abilities. There was no doubt that without them, I wouldn’t have solved Laini’s murder. Heck, I wouldn’t even have suspected that it was a murder. My gift — as unpredictable and exasperating as it was — had value. If I could learn how to use it better, then I could, just maybe, use it to help people.
“What will you do now, dear?” Mom asked, brushing my fingers away from my mouth. Some aspects of me, unfortunately, hadn’t changed.
“I’m back to Boston next week.” I’d finally finished and submitted my thesis. “Any day now I should get feedback and suggestions back from Professor Perry, and then I’ll get stuck into revisions.”
“And after you graduate? What will you keep yourself busy with then?”
I tickled Lizzie’s fuzzy stomach with my foot, thinking about my future. My phone pinged, and I checked to see who’d sent me a message. Skeptical Singh. G-Man.
“Buttons,” I said, opening the text and reading it.
“What’s that, dear?” my mother asked.
“Buttons. And button men.”
Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoyed this novel! If you loved this book, I’d really appreciate it if you’d leave a review, no matter how short, wherever you bought it or on Goodreads. Every review is valuable in helping other readers discover the book.
Book three in the Garnet McGee series (The First Time I Hunted) is now available!
Visit my website (www.joannemacgregor.com) to join my VIP Readers' Group and get my monthly newsletter, with advance notice of my latest releases, competitions, giveaways and offers for free review copies, as well as a behind-the-scenes peek at my writing process. I won't clutter your inbox or spam you, and I will never share your email address with anyone.
I’d love to hear from you! Come say hi on Facebook (@JoanneMacg), Twitter (@JoanneMacg) or Instagram (joannemacgregor_author), or reach out to me via my website (www.joannemacgregor.com/contact) and I’ll do my best to get back to you.
- Jo Macgregor
Other books for adults by this author
The First Time I Died
The First Time I Hunted
Dark Whispers
Acknowledgements
My thanks to my editor, Chase Night, and to my fabulous beta readers, Emily Macgregor, Nicola Long, Edyth Bulbring and Heather Gordon for all their invaluable feedback — I’m so sorry you always get to read my books in their raw, unfinished state! I’m also grateful to my expert Vermont reader Cameron Garriepy and to Dr. Stephanie Erin Hart for helping me with the medical details. You all help improve my writing immeasurably, and I deeply appreciate each one of you!