by Gayle Trent
Mark made a noise that was somewhere between a sigh and a growl. “Lila began seeing Monty when he got out of prison a few months ago.”
“Honey, wasn’t he a little old for you?” Myra asked.
Lila twirled her lank brown hair around her forefinger. “Maybe a little. But he was nice to me. And he had big plans that he wanted to include me in.”
“Plans like swindling a woman out of the majority of her savings?” I asked.
“Todd told us you were mean.” She raised her chin. “He said you put him in prison and then divorced him.”
“I didn’t put him in prison. He shot a gun at me, and the state prosecuted him for it.” I stopped when I saw the waitress approaching.
Myra and I both ordered soft drinks.
After the waitress hurried off to get our drinks, I continued. “So, basically, Todd put himself in prison. Did he tell you anything about the night he took a shot at me?”
Lila shook her head and looked down at the table.
“This is why it’s best that I talk with Lila alone,” Mark said. “You’re upset, Daphne, and you’re upsetting her. You need to understand that Lila has been through an ordeal herself. Her boyfriend was murdered.”
I took a deep breath and tried to refocus. “I realize that. And I’m sorry for your loss, Lila. I just want—we just want—to try to figure this whole thing out and help the police catch whoever is responsible for Monty’s and Todd’s murders.”
“I want that too,” she said.
The waitress returned with our drinks—new ones for Myra and me and refills for Lila and Mark. “Let me know if y’all need anything else.”
Mark moved his straw from his nearly empty glass to the full one. “Now that we’ve established that we all have the same goal, could I please continue speaking with Lila?”
“May we stay?” I asked.
He drew his bushy eyebrows together as he considered my request.
“We promise to be quiet,” Myra said.
I knew that was a promise neither of us would be able to keep, but it worked.
“Fine. Just let me and Lila do the talking.” He sipped his cola before addressing Lila. “Whose idea was the wedding planner scheme?”
“It was Todd’s. See, after Todd got out of prison, he got really frustrated at not being able to find a good-paying job. Monty was upset about that too. So one night they got to talking over beers. Monty had a friend who sold stolen merchandise. The friend’s boss was looking for some more help because he’d robbed a warehouse the week before.”
I wanted to grab this girl—who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five—by the shoulders and ask her what in the world was wrong with her. How did she get mixed up with a criminal like Monty Harlow and believe that staying in a relationship with him was a good idea?
“I take it Monty and Todd decided to sell stolen merchandise for the friend’s boss,” Mark said. “What kind of merchandise was it?”
Lila raised and dropped one bony shoulder. “Some kind of electronic stuff or something. I don’t know.”
“How did that turn out?” he asked.
“Not good. The boss accused them of shorting him somehow. They swore they didn’t, but it was their word against his, and he had a bunch of guys backing him.” She went back to playing with her hair. “They paid him whatever he said they owed him. But then one of his crew saw Monty with his parole officer, and the boss started thinking that maybe Monty and Todd were informants for the police.”
“That’s not good,” Myra said. “That’s the sorta thing that gets you whacked.”
Mark leveled his gaze at her.
“Well, it is!” She grimaced. “Sorry, Lila. Please go on.”
“The guys knew they needed to get out of Tennessee, so they started coming up with ways to get money. Monty’s family has pretty much disowned him, but Todd called around to some old family members and friends.” She looked at me. “When he found out you were getting married, he and Monty cooked up the wedding planner scheme.”
“And that’s what brought Monty to Brea Ridge,” Mark said.
“Monty and Todd too. Todd actually stayed in Abingdon the whole time because he didn’t want to be seen by Daphne or anyone else who might know him.” She took a drink of her soda. “But he’d been here the whole time. The money from the wedding planner business and what Todd could make by selling some sort of ring was supposed to have bought us all new identities and helped us get somewhere that we could start new lives.” She dropped her chin. “Monty was going to marry me.”
I put my hands in my lap so I could clench them without anyone knowing it. This idiotic girl! The wedding planner business? It wasn’t a business! It was a con—a con to screw me out of my savings!
“Lila, do you think the crime boss from Tennessee either came here or sent someone here to murder Todd and Monty?” Mark asked.
“I don’t think so. We’d all been careful. We kept an eye out for guys we knew were in the crew and for people who looked like they didn’t belong around here.” She sighed. “I believe that whoever they got involved with after they got here killed them.”
That nearly brought me up out of my seat. “What? What do you mean—whoever they got involved with after they got here?”
Again, Lila lifted and dropped one shoulder. “I’m pretty sure they were running some other racket from here, one I didn’t know about. They met somebody somewhere in Bristol once or twice a week almost from the time we got into town. When I asked Monty about it, he got angry and said that Todd was being stupid and getting distracted. He said this wasn’t in their original plan and that they needed to stay on track.”
“And you don’t know who or where they were meeting?” Mark asked her.
“No. But I’m pretty sure it had something to do with her.” Lila flicked a hostile gaze in my direction. “Todd was really mad about her getting married. Monty was like, who cares, let’s get our money and run. But Todd wanted something else.”
“He wanted to hurt me,” I said softly.
“Yeah. I guess so.”
* * *
After talking with Lila, Mark offered to drive Myra back home. I was glad. I needed to be alone. Rather than going straight home, I drove. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the curvy, mostly deserted roads allowed me to be alone with my thoughts.
I remembered how it had been to be Todd’s wife. Some days it seemed that everything I did made him angry. I was either “questioning his authority” or “acting like I was smarter than he was.” That was in addition to the accusation that I was seeing someone behind his back. I don’t know how I could’ve ever seen anyone behind his back. He checked the mileage on my car daily.
But when I made him angry enough to punish me but not angry enough to physically hurt me, he’d lash out at me emotionally or psychologically. The fact that he’d been behind the wedding planner scheme—something I’d already guessed but that Lila confirmed—was proof that Todd not only wanted to hurt me financially, he’d wanted to ruin my wedding. It was likely that he’d also planned to ruin my relationship with Ben.
I could see Todd’s twisted logic in this. He’d served his time in prison and couldn’t even get a well-paying job. I, on the other hand, had moved back to Brea Ridge and had stared a whole new life—a better life—and it was going well. Naturally, he’d want to ruin all of that if he could.
Plus, he would still see me as his property. I’d been his to control and manipulate. I imagined he got a kick out of knowing that he was doing that again through Monty Harlow. But who was he seeing in Brea Ridge, and why? Lila said she felt sure it had something to do with me. The cold chill snaking down my spine told me she was right.
I turned the car around and headed back into town. I needed to talk with Violet. I called her cell and learned that she was at the office. I said I’d be there soon.
When I got there, she had clients in her office. I sat down in the lobby to wait, but then I stood and began to pace. She didn
’t keep a receptionist during the summer since her hours were irregular, so there was no one to talk with to help me keep my mind occupied.
I looked out the window at the breeze ruffling the leaves of the maple trees. There was the red and white sign that Jason had touched up three weekends ago, “Violet Armstrong, Licensed Realtor.” Pink and white impatiens covered the ground around the base of the sign.
Thoughts of Todd’s face flooded my mind: angry, taunting, sneering, hard as granite. I resumed pacing and tried to replace those memories with images of Ben, but it was tough when I needed desperately to know who Todd had been scheming with here in Brea Ridge.
At last, Violet saw her clients to the door, thanked them for stopping by, and told them she’d be calling them soon with some new listings.
As they walked down the steps, she turned to me and her smile disappeared. “You’re as white as a sheet. What’s wrong?”
I explained about the meeting with Monty Harlow’s girlfriend. “She says there was someone here in Brea Ridge who was working with Todd and Monty. She didn’t know what they were up to, but she said it involved me.”
Violet put her hand on my back and directed me into her office. I went inside and sat down, and she closed the door.
Sitting on the chair beside me, she said, “Did she have any idea who this other person was?”
“Apparently not. I’d love for you to talk with Mom and very casually ask exactly what she and Todd said to each other.”
“You honestly don’t think Mom was involved in some sort of plan with Todd, do you?”
I spread my hands. “She did invite him to Roanoke to start over there.” Before Violet could protest, I hurried on. “But, no, I don’t think she was the person meeting with him and Monty once or twice a week. That was someone who lived here, and I need to find out what the three of them were up to.”
“Why don’t you call Mom yourself and hash this out with her?”
“She likes you best.”
“Daphne!”
“She does. Besides, every time I talk with her, I wind up making matters worse.”
Violet nodded. She couldn’t deny that truth. “I haven’t had time to talk with her since y’all had your latest blow-up, so I can use that as an excuse to call. Then I’ll find out precisely what she and Todd talked about when he called her.”
“Do you think he called her more than once?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll ask. I’ll also see if he mentioned any Brea Ridge associates he was hanging out with while he was in town.”
“I didn’t even know he had Brea Ridge associates,” I said. “We moved to Tennessee as soon as we got married, and he wasn’t from here originally. How could he have any friends or contacts in this little Podunk town?”
“UT is a huge regional college. If he had any Brea Ridge connections, I’m sure they were people he met in college.”
“Excellent point.” I was struck again about how his years at college had seemed to have been the best, most important time in Todd’s life. “While you’re getting information from Mom, I’ll try to find a list of University of Tennessee alumni now residing in Brea Ridge.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I drove home and went straight to my office. I booted up the computer and found the URL of the University of Tennessee website. In order to search alumni information, I had to register. Since I didn’t want the search traced back to me, I registered as Todd Martin.
You’d think I’d have been familiar with the same people as Todd. But although we met in college, we didn’t run in the same circles. Plus, if the person he was plotting with had been a graduate of UT, he—or she—could have been at the school at any time, not just the same time period as Todd.
I felt as if I were grasping at straws. Still, doing an alumni search made me feel as if I was at least trying to connect the dots between someone here in Brea Ridge—other than me—and Todd.
The directory began to load. I refined my search to alumni currently living in the region of Brea Ridge, Virginia. That narrowed the field down considerably.
Steve Franklin. Hmm. I hadn’t realized Steve had gone to UT. I’d been under the impression that he’d graduated from a Virginia college. His graduation date wasn’t listed.
Neil Grant. That was Ben’s editorial assistant. He’d graduated in 2007—ten years after Todd and me.
Those were the only two names I recognized. There were a couple of other people from Brea Ridge and quite a few from Abingdon and Bristol, but I saw nothing that would make me think any of them had a connection to Todd.
I opened a new tab and took a look at my website. It could use an update. I had made and photographed several cakes that weren’t on the site and needed to be uploaded to the gallery. The phone rang, and I decided my site update could wait until after the wedding. It was Violet.
“What did you learn from looking at the UT alumni directory?” she asked.
“Nothing really, except that Steve Franklin and Neil Grant went there.”
“Do you think either of them was in cahoots with Todd?”
I chuckled. “Doubtful. Steve wouldn’t want to lose his only bakery provider, unless he has someone else in mind for the job. And Neil wouldn’t want anything interfering with my marriage to Ben because he really wants Ben out of the office so he can be in charge for a while.”
“Well, that’s no good.”
“Did you talk with Mom?” I asked.
“Yeah. She really felt sorry for Todd when he called her. He apparently tugged on her heartstrings pretty hard. That’s why she offered to help him start over in Roanoke.”
The fact that she did that still made me furious, but I didn’t say anything.
“He mentioned his grandmother’s engagement ring to Mom,” Violet continued. “She told him she didn’t know if you still had it or not. Didn’t you tell her you returned it?”
“No.” I blew out a breath. “Mom and I had argued and become really distant after I served Todd with divorce papers, and I…I wasn’t talking with her at that time.”
“Oh.” She paused, as if she was scrambling for something to say. “Maybe Mom was reaching out to Todd to find out more about what had gone on between the two of you. You know he always behaved like a model citizen around us. Maybe she wanted to feel him out—have him tell her whether the abuse had been ongoing or a one-time thing.”
“I could have told her if she’d have ever asked me.”
“She never asked?” Violet sounded confused.
“Not really. After the shooting incident and after I told her I was divorcing Todd, she told me I was being unreasonable. I said she didn’t know what it was like.”
“And she didn’t press you? She didn’t want you to tell her what it was like?”
“No.” I replayed the conversation over in my head.
“Maybe she wasn’t ready to hear the truth. I know I wasn’t. When I found out what you’d been going through with Todd all those years, I was devastated.” Her voice broke. “How could I have not known? How had I not seen any warning signs?”
“Vi, we lived two hundred and fifty miles away from each other. And I hid the truth about my life so well that not even the people I worked with suspected that we weren’t your typical happy couple.”
“I just wish you’d have told me. Jason and I would’ve come down there and brought you home.”
Tears pricked my eyes and made my nose burn. “Stop before you have me crying. It happened. It’s over and done with. And I’m moving on with my life.”
“I know. You’re right.” She sniffled, and it was like a jab to my heart. “I love you.”
“I love you. And I’m going to try again to clear the air with Mom. Maybe if she hears—from me—a tiny bit of what my life was like with Todd, she’ll be happy for Ben and me.”
“Honey, she is happy for you. Or at least, she wants you to be happy. I just think she honestly couldn’t get her mind around the fact that Todd wasn’t the person he
presented to her and Dad.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
After talking with Violet, I took a deep breath and then I…ate a fudge brownie. Hey, a girl needs a shot of courage in the form of chocolate once in a while, doesn’t she?
I dialed Mom’s number, half hoping she wouldn’t pick up.
“Hello.”
Dread made me hesitate.
“Hello?” she repeated.
“Hi, Mom. It’s me.”
“Daphne, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Everything’s fine.”
“You don’t sound as if everything’s fine,” she said.
“I just wanted to clear the air between us.”
“Oh.” Her tone instantly became guarded.
“I didn’t call to argue.” Was I being reassuring or merely making matters worse? “I spoke with Violet, and she said she felt as if you couldn’t quite correlate the Todd you know with the Todd I lived with for fifteen years.”
“Well, that’s true. Todd always came across as mannerly and kind to your dad and me. And he seemed so protective of you. Whenever I’d call and you were out, Todd knew exactly where you were and what you were doing.”
“That’s because I had to get his permission if I wanted to go anywhere,” I said.
“A husband wanting to be apprised of his wife’s whereabouts doesn’t mean he’s demanding permission, Daphne. It means he’s asking you to be considerate. Didn’t you want to know where he was when he was out?”
I clenched my fist. “It wasn’t like that. If I asked where he was going and when he was coming back, it was none of my business. But when I went less than a mile out of my way on the way home from work to visit a bookstore, Todd shot a gun at me.”
“That was what you did? You just went to a bookstore?”
“Yes.”
“A regular old bookstore?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Had you dated someone who worked there or something?”
“Mom, how can you not know the reason my husband shot at me?” My mind added, Are you really so dense?
