Act Two

by Denise Grover Swank

  Act Two

  Magnolia Steele Mystery #2

  Denise Grover Swank

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Family Jewels Sneak Peek

  Also by Denise Grover Swank

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2016 by Denise Grover Swank

  Developmental editing: Angela Polidoro

  Copy Editing: Shannon Page

  Proofreading: Carolina Valdez Miller

  Cover Design: Nathalia Suellen

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN: 978-1-939996-50-3

  Created with Vellum

  Chapter 1

  “What the hell are you doin’, Magnolia?”

  My hand froze in midair, holding the pastry bag suspended over the tray of hors d’oeuvres. I brushed a stray hair out of my eyes with my forearm. “I’m doing what you told me to do. I’m filling the shrimp puffs.”

  My mother put her hands on her hips and gave me her best How did I give birth to someone so stupid? look. I’d grown accustomed to it during my teenage years, but she’d dusted it off and used it more times than I could count over the last three days. “With buttercream frosting?”

  I lifted up the bag and squirted some of the creamy filling onto my finger, then cringed after I tasted it. Definitely not cream cheese. “I must have grabbed the wrong bag.”

  “Just how many people at the art gallery show are gonna want to eat Cajun shrimp puffs filled with buttercream frosting?”

  The answer was so obvious I saw no reason to respond.

  She moved closer to the stainless steel table, taking in the trays lined with savory pastries. “And just how many have you done?”

  Yesterday she’d berated me for dawdling, so in the moments before she’d shown up, I’d been giving myself a mental pat on the back for picking up the pace. I cringed. “Almost all of them.”

  Momma sucked in a breath and held it for three whole seconds, her face turning red, then flung her hand toward the front door. “Get!”

  “What?”

  “Get out of here! Go! For three days I’ve let you work in the kitchen. For three days you’ve screwed up everything you’ve touched! Now get out of here so I can make them all over again.”

  “Lila!” my mother’s best friend barked, slapping down the spoon she’d been using to stir a pot on the stove, and turned around. “Maggie’s tryin’ her best.” I’d never heard her use such a harsh tone with my mother, but then again, I could always count on Tilly to have my back.

  “She’s a failure in the kitchen, Tilly. She’s hopeless.”

  Tilly crossed her arms and gave my mother a disapproving glare. “Then we’ll find somewhere else to put her.”

  “Where else are we gonna put ’er?” my mother asked. Her Alabamian accent was always stronger when she was exasperated—which, around me, was a lot. “Maybe we should dump all the folders she just organized in the file cabinets and let her file ’em again.”

  Anger burned in my chest as I jerked off my plastic gloves and threw them onto the stainless steel table. “You know I’ve never been good in the kitchen. I’m trying the best I can!”

  “It’s not good enough!” Momma shouted.

  I tugged my apron strings loose, then ripped the apron over my head and flung it onto the table. “I never asked you for this job!”

  “I’m leaving my half of this business to you!” my mother shouted. “You need to learn how to help Tilly run it!”

  Before she died. She didn’t say the words, but we were both thinking them. In that moment, though, my temper eclipsed my grief over my mother’s death sentence. “Then maybe you should get my perfect brother to run it, because I quit!”

  “Magnolia!” Tilly shouted in dismay.

  But I was already making my exit stage left, stomping across the kitchen and through the swinging door to the reception area. I didn’t stop until I was on the sidewalk in front of Southern Belles Catering. Only then did I realize it was raining.

  Great.

  Of course, it was April in Middle Tennessee; it would have been more remarkable if it hadn’t been raining.

  I ran toward the pizza restaurant at the end of the street, Mellow Mushroom, where I was supposed to meet my sister-in-law, Belinda, for lunch at noon. I was fifteen minutes early, but I was also newly unemployed. I might as well get a beer.

  Moments later, I was sitting at the bar in the garishly decorated restaurant, staring at a mural of cartoonized famous musicians while I sipped a pint of Guinness. As I took the first sip, I lamented that my life had gone so drastically off course in one month.

  Three short weeks ago, I had been poised to make my debut as the lead in Fireflies at Dawn, the hottest new musical to hit Broadway in a decade. But then I discovered that the director—whom I’d been living with—was screwing my understudy . . . and to say I didn’t take it well would be an understatement. The understudy and I got into a brawl onstage on opening night, much of which was captured on video and posted on the internet. People especially loved the part where Woman on a Train #2—aka my boyfriend’s new lover—ripped off the front of my dress and exposed my 34B breasts to the world.

  After I lost my job (fired), lost my home (that asshole Griff kicked me out), and found myself destitute (said asshole had convinced me to sink most of my money into the musical), I had no choice but to max out my credit card on a plane ticket to Nashville, Tennessee, so I could show up on my mother’s front doorstep in Franklin. My welcome home had been bumpy, to say the least, and not just because it was my first visit in a decade.

  “Hey, Maggie Mae,” a man said over my shoulder.

  I turned around to find Colt Austin, fellow Southern Belles employee and womanizer—though not necessarily in that order—bestowing his sexy bad-boy grin on me. His short blond hair was styled, and he’d recently shaved the scruffy beard he’d been sporting. I thought he looked better clean-shaven, but I knew better than to tell him so. His ego was already a force to behold.

  “Did Tilly send you to find me?”

  “No,” he said, sitting on the empty stool beside me and snatching the glass from my hand. “I was thirsty.” He took a sip and grinned again, his blue eyes dancing.

  “Get your own,” I grumbled, snatching the glass back and taking a healthy gulp.

  “Had a run-in with Lila, huh?” he said, waving his finger at the bartender. She came running with a bright smile plastered on her face. Colt had that effect on women—unfortunately, he knew it. “Hey, darlin’,” he said, laying on the accent as thick as molasses. “What stouts do you have?”

  The bartender batted her eyes and listed off his choices. Then they discussed which was her favorite and how long she had worked there, and by the time he’d finally settled on what to order, I’d nearly finished my drink.

  Before she could walk off, I wrappe
d my hand around Colt’s arm and laid my head on his shoulder. “I’ll take another Guinness,” I said, making my voice sound sweet and light. “Put it on my sweetie Colt’s tab.”

  The bartender shot me a glare before stalking off to get the drinks.

  “What was that for?” Colt asked, leaning away from me. “I was about to ask for her number.”

  I laughed and sat back up. “Just how many numbers do you have?”

  He shot me a smug look. “I’ve got yours, so don’t laugh too much.”

  “And we both know that’s because you needed it for work.” But that wasn’t all. Despite the hard time I was giving him, I considered Colt a friend. I knew I could call him if I needed help. Now that I’d decided to stay in Franklin for the indeterminate future, I’d need all the help I could get.

  He snaked an arm around my back and graced me with his sexy eyes. “We can change the reason I need it.”

  Things inside me began to stir, and it wasn’t the beer sloshing around in my empty stomach. I may have decided not to become involved with Colt, but I wasn’t dead. I was usually good at not letting guys affect me, but I’d let two men get under my skin since I’d come back to my hometown. Colt was not a safe bet. A good time, sure. But these weeks in Franklin hadn’t gone easy on me. I’d become a murder suspect on my first night in town, and no sooner had I cleared my good name than I’d found out about my mother’s terminal illness. Then there was the other thing . . . the one I still didn’t like to think about. The memories I’d zapped from my mind before running away from Franklin ten years ago had finally come back to me, but I had no clue what to do about it.

  I was, simply put, in no shape for a fling. My heart was too raw. I couldn’t risk falling for Colt Austin, master charmer and—I was quite certain—lover extraordinaire.

  I lifted an eyebrow. “And become lay number two thousand three hundred and sixty-seven?” I released a derisive laugh. “No, thanks. I have some self-esteem left.”

  He covered his chest with his hand. “You wound me, Maggie.”

  “I’m sure Mindy will help you through it.”

  “Who?”

  Shaking my head, I pointed to the bartender. “The woman you’re trying to lay. Perhaps you should have taken at least one glance at the name on her name tag instead of zeroing in on her cleavage.”

  He shuddered, but his eyes twinkled with mischief. “So crass, Magnolia Steele. And here I thought you were a lady.”

  I lifted my shoulder into a shrug. “Shows what you know.”

  Mindy came back with our beers and gave me an assessing glance.

  “I don’t want Colt,” I said. “He’s a free man.”

  She gave me a dubious glare.

  “No, really. You’re more than welcome to him. I’ve already used him up, and now I’m moving on to . . .” I spun on my seat, my finger extended as I scanned the quickly filling restaurant. My mouth fell open, and I found myself pointing at an older man with a pot belly and thinning hair. I recognized him from when I was a kid, but I hadn’t seen him in fourteen years.

  “Him?” Mindy asked in shock. “You’re giving up this hottie for him? Why?”

  “Because Colt has chlamydia,” I said absently as I hopped off the stool. “He’s a carrier.”

  Colt quickly—and loudly—protested my statement, but I was too busy trying to determine if I’d correctly identified the man sitting alone at a table for two.

  I stopped next to his table and hesitated. What if I were right? What would I do?

  I was still working on my approach when he looked up and gasped. “Magnolia?”

  I wasn’t surprised he knew who I was; the question was how he knew. The last time I’d seen him was when I was fourteen, and although I’d aged—barely!—I still looked a lot like I had as a teen. But the more likely reason he recognized me was that I’d made every gossip site and tabloid in the U.S., and Nashville had paid particular attention to the fact that I’d come back to Franklin to lick my wounds.

  I could only imagine the attention I would have faced if my name had been released in connection with Max Goodwin’s murder. Thank God it hadn’t come to that.

  “Mr. Frey?” I asked.

  He rose from his chair and shook my hand. “Magnolia, I haven’t seen you in years.”

  Precisely fourteen years and two months, in fact. The date he was referring to had been etched in my mind ever since.

  It was the day my father had disappeared.

  I’d had a dentist appointment that morning, and Daddy had taken me to his office for a little while. Something strange had happened right before he brought me back to school on his lunch break. Before we could board the elevator down to the lobby, a frantic Walter Frey, who had looked remarkably the same then as now, only with slightly more gray hair, had come barreling out of it. I remembered what happened next like it was yesterday.

  Mr. Frey grabbed Daddy’s arm and said, “Brian, I have to talk to you now.”

  Daddy glanced at me and stiffened. “I’m taking my daughter back to school, Walter. This will have to wait. I talked to Geraldo.”

  “It can’t wait. He knows.”

  Daddy’s face paled, and he stared at Mr. Frey for a couple of seconds before he said, “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Daddy nodded, taking a deep breath, then letting it out. “We can’t talk now,” he whispered. “Even if Magnolia weren’t here. Meet me tonight at eight. You know the spot.”

  Walter nodded, bouncing like a bobble head.

  Daddy pushed Walter back onto the elevator, but instead of following him in, he reached out an arm and held me back.

  “We’ll take another one.”

  “Why was that man so upset? Who was he talking about?” I asked.

  Daddy looked into my eyes, and I didn’t like what I saw in his gaze. Fear. “You forget what you heard, Magnolia. That was business.”

  “Why would he be so upset over business?”

  “I’m a financial planner,” he said. Another elevator dinged, and he led me into it. “People trust me with a lot of money. Sometimes it makes them anxious.”

  “Do you ever lose their money?” I asked.

  “Sometimes, but I try really hard to make sure they lose as little as possible.” He pressed the button for the lobby. “That’s why Mr. Frey was upset . . .” I could see the wheels turning in his head as he talked. “He heard that a stock was doing poorly.”

  “But he said he knows,” I said. “That didn’t sound like a stock doing poorly.”

  “It’s just business talk, Magnolia. You need to let it go.”

  And I had, mostly because I worshipped my father and making him angry at me was the last thing I wanted. But I knew it wasn’t typical stockbroker stuff. Especially because he stopped by my room before he left that night to make sure I knew where his handgun was hidden. It was the last time I’d ever seen him.

  The police had questioned Walter Frey based on my statement, but from what little I’d gathered, Mr. Frey had told the police the eight o’clock meeting had never happened, had never been discussed, in fact. The reason he’d come looking for Daddy that day was to discuss his Roth IRA account. The police had quickly dismissed Mr. Frey as a suspect or as a source of information.

  His lies had infuriated me, but as Momma had so tactfully said, if given the choice, who would I believe? A flighty fourteen-year-old girl prone to drama or a respected real estate attorney?

  Life had gone on after Daddy’s disappearance, and I was told to accept that there would be no answers. Anytime I brought it up, my mother told me I was too young to worry myself over such things.

  Well, I was all grown up now and Walter Frey had fallen into my path.

  It was time to get my answers.

  Chapter 2

  I motioned to the seat in front of him. “Would you mind if I take a seat?”

  He looked flustered. “I’m . . . uh . . . I’m meeting someone.”

  Was he nervous to be talk
ing to Brian Steele’s daughter, or to Magnolia Steele, naked internet sensation? The way he kept eyeing my chest told me he knew me as both.

  I sat down anyway. “I want to ask you a few questions.”

  He looked over his shoulder and then sighed and sat back down, placing his shaking hands on the table. “What about?”

  “My father.”

  His face paled, and he glanced over his shoulder again. “There isn’t anything to discuss.”

  “Actually, there is—and you know it. You were supposed to meet my father the night he disappeared.”

  “That was a long time ago, Magnolia.”

  “And yet I still want answers.”

  He finally met my eyes. “I told everything I know to the police.”

  No use mincing words. “What you told the police was a lie,” I said, staring right back at him. “I want to know if my father showed up at your meeting that night.”

  “There was no meeting.”

  I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “Don’t lie to me, Mr. Frey. I was there that day. I remember you talking to my father. I know you were supposed to meet him at eight at the usual place.”

  He looked torn, but I’d made it good and obvious I wasn’t leaving until I got what I wanted.

  He cursed under his breath and then said, “I can’t talk about it here. Not right now.”

  “You’re going to tell me what really happened. I’m not leaving until you do.”

  “I told you I can’t talk now. I’ll talk to you later.” He sounded frantic as he looked over his shoulder again.

  “You have to meet me tonight.” I looked out the window. “At the Embassy bar.”

  “Fine. Eight o’clock. Now go.” Apparently that was his go-to time for meetings, but before I could say as much, he gave my hand a slight shove.

  I had half a mind to be offended, but then I noticed a well-dressed middle-aged woman had walked through the door. She was the apparent source of his anxiety. I didn’t blame him—she reminded me of my elementary school librarian, Ms. Burke, who used to patrol the aisles like a storm trooper. Rumor had it an exceptionally rowdy boy had been thrown into “the hole” for misbehaving in the library. Though never substantiated, his story had put the fear of God into us, and the suspicious gleam in Ms. Burke’s eyes had offered little reassurance. This woman had that same glare.