by Kym Roberts
“I thought the well went bad?” Mateo asked.
“Who told you that?” Scarlet and I responded in unison.
Mateo looked back and forth between us as if we were crazy women. “Cade asked me if I thought you’d allow him to help you out because the water tested positive for arsenic.”
“Arsenic?” I said.
All I could think about was the tall glass of ice water I’d had before heading out to the bar. “I’ve been drinking the water. Would whiskey negate the poison? How long does it take?” I cleared my suddenly scratchy throat. “Surely Daddy would have told me . . .”
Mateo’s head snapped up from the pad of paper he’d pulled from his shirt pocket. “You’ve been communicating with Bobby Ray?”
“No.” Long and drawn out, my answer sound like a lie on a roller-coaster ride.
“Does Charli need to see a doctor?” Scarlet asked.
Mateo turned to Scarlet. “I don’t know. It wouldn’t hurt.” Then he started interrogating her. “Have you been communicating with Bobby Rae?”
Scarlet shook her head and began methodically inspecting every book on the shelf in front of her.
He rubbed his hand over his face, no doubt tired of us pushing all his buttons. “Why don’t we have a seat in the tearoom, have a bottle of water, and talk about what’s really going on? You know, communicate on an adult level?”
Scarlet’s hands went to her hips, and I realized she did that a lot when she talked to the sheriff. “Mateo Espinosa, I know you’re not accusing us of acting childish.”
“If the boot fits, Ms. Jenkins.” He held out his hand, allowing us to lead the way.
By the time we sat down with a bottle of water, I was feeling marginally better until Princess joined us.
Mateo was poised with his pad to take notes. “Tell me about the books.”
This time I had no problem telling the truth. “I don’t know anything about them. I’ve never seen them before.”
“I have,” Scarlet piped up. “About a month ago Bobby Ray told me I could take as many of the books upstairs as I wanted to repurpose into something useful. Princess—”
Mateo eyes strayed in my direction.
“Sorry, I meant the four-legged Princess,” said Scarlet.
We all looked down at the rodent, who was currently begging for a handout. Sitting up on her hind legs, she was performing her dog routine again. I gave her half a cookie from the plate on the table next to us, which I had neglected to clear at the end of the day. She sniffed it, took it between her paws, and then shoved it in her mouth before waddling away.
Scarlet continued. “Princess had started going upstairs and chewing on some of the old books. None of the books from upstairs were selling, so Bobby Ray said I could have as many as I wanted. I took a couple boxes full of the hardbacks, some chewed up and some others that were in pretty good shape. When I got back to the salon and started sorting through the books, I realized The African Game Trails weren’t written by just any old author, but by Theodore Roosevelt—the Theodore Roosevelt. The twenty-sixth president of the United States. And when I opened it up, I saw it was signed. I immediately brought them back to Bobby Ray. They had to be worth something.”
Mateo put the leather satchel on the table and pulled out two really old leather-bound books that, despite their age and the dust covering them, looked to be in collector’s condition. “Are these the books you were talking about?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. Without a doubt those are the books I brought back to Bobby Ray.”
“What did he do with them after you brought them back?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did he put them on the shelf for sale? Could Scott have purchased them from Bobby Ray?”
Scarlet shook her head. “Oh, no. Bobby recognized them immediately. He said he’d forgotten all about them and didn’t mean for them to get mixed up with the books that were for sale. He and Marlene were talking about them when I left for an appointment.”
“You didn’t hear any of their conversation?”
“I know Marlene wanted to sell them, but Bobby Ray was adamant that they weren’t for sale. He said they weren’t his, that they belonged to his princess.”
“The armadillo?”
Scarlet smiled. “I’m pretty sure in this case he meant his daughter, Charli.”
They both looked at me, but I didn’t know what to say. I’d never seen the books before in my life, and if they’d belonged to my mom, she would have shown me. I had the books she valued in my apartment in Colorado. But the most financially valuable books she’d left me were Dick and Jane readers from her childhood that were only worth a couple hundred dollars.
I shook my head. “If they were meant for me, he never told me about them.”
“Who’s to say there isn’t more than one set? Maybe Duncan had his own set?” Mateo asked.
Scarlet started shaking her head again before he even finished the question. “There’s no way there are two signed sets of The African Game Trails in Hazel Rock, Texas. Besides, these were a limited edition, set number one hundred and thirteen out of five hundred.”
Mateo carefully opened the book, showing more care than I thought a cop would, and read the copyright page. Then he asked, “How did you know it was the one hundred and thirteenth edition?”
“My birthday is January thirteenth. It’s pretty easy to remember.”
Mateo nodded, closed the book, and put it back in the satchel. Then it was my turn to be questioned.
I gulped.
“What was Scott talking about when he said he had a right to be here?” he asked.
I sighed, thankful his question was about Mr. Duncan and not my dad. “I caught him in The Barn after-hours two nights ago.”
The sheriff’s jaw tightened. “And you didn’t call the police?”
“I would have, but he was upset. He said he was reminiscing about Marlene—that coming to the store helped.”
“The man broke into the store and you didn’t report the damage? Nor did you see a reason to tell me about it tonight when I saw the flashlight in The Barn?”
“We went into the Tool Shed right behind Mr. Duncan. Why would I think he was in the bookstore? And he didn’t break in. He knew where my dad kept the key under the flowerpot. That’s why I didn’t call. I figured my dad must have given him permission to come in after-hours. I mean, it seems like everyone has a key to this place.”
It was Scarlet’s turn to lecture me. “Aubrey, Cade, and I are the only ones who have a key. And your dad never kept a key outside—you should have known that.”
“I haven’t talked to him in years. How was I supposed to know that? There’s a key under the pot at his house!” Unfortunately, my outburst opened a can of worms.
“So you haven’t talked to him since you’ve been back?” Mateo asked.
“No,” I lied.
“You wouldn’t impede my investigation, would you, Charli?”
“Nope. Not in a million years.” But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t do everything I could to protect the man I loved.
Chapter Twenty-five
I woke up to a voice mail dinging on my phone. It was Dean, telling me he’d left a red Honda Insight parked in front of The Book Barn Princess for me to use. The keys were under the mat and I could stop by to pay him when I returned the car.
Freedom felt pretty good.
I rolled out of bed with a smile on my face—then found out I’d made a big mistake when I’d decided to wash my hair with my daddy’s shampoo. I didn’t have any conditioner, so I’d done a flat twist with it damp, hoping beyond intelligence that my curls would look all right in the morning.
They didn’t. In fact, they didn’t even look like curls. I looked more like a hippie with a fried-out afro than a woman with twenty-first-century curls. I threw on some clothes, ran outside, stopped at the cute little four-door hybrid parked in front of the store, and grabbed the keys just in case someone thought a Honda would
make the perfect joyride. Then I ran across the street in a panic and rushed in the door of Beaus and Beauties to face a stunned crowd.
Everyone froze at my arrival. Joellen jerked the brush of polish across Aubrey’s nails.
“Joellen!” Aubrey yelled, then followed her best friend’s gaze to my hair. Her mouth fell open.
Mary dropped the foil in her hand, and I watched it float to the ground unnoticed by everyone but me. I really wished I could be that four-by-four piece of aluminum paper.
Mary grinned. “Honey child, if there was a disco ball and some mirrors, I’d think I’d been time warped back to the seventies.”
I threw my hands in the air. “Help!”
Scarlet turned off the hair dryer, leaving Reba Sue’s long blond hair covering her face, which I immediately recognized as a tactical move. She knew the woman saw me as competition for Cade’s attention and would have turned her cell phone in my direction and taken a photo as soon as she got one look at me.
Cade would run in the opposite direction, if he wasn’t already. I told myself that’s what I wanted, so who cared? Unfortunately, I did.
“Is that Hazel Rock’s princess needing assistance . . . again?” Reba Sue’s tone was less than friendly as she started to pull her head up.
Scarlet shoved her head back down. “Don’t move, Reba Sue. I think you may have lice. I’m going to get a better lamp to see.”
Reba Sue shrieked. “Lice? OMG. I knew I shouldn’t have gone to his fishing cabin!”
Scarlet grabbed my arm and yanked me toward the back room, yelling over her shoulder to Reba Sue as we went through the doorway, “You’re in luck, I’ve got the perfect product.”
“You know better than to use the wrong product on your hair,” Scarlet scolded as she pushed me down in the shampoo chair. “I ordered some products for you the other day and they came in in this morning’s shipment. You should have asked.”
“I didn’t want to bother you.” It seemed like that’s all I ever did.
Scarlet ran her fingers through my hair, testing the dryness. “Having to look at this rat’s nest bothers me. I just hope you haven’t damaged it beyond repair.”
I may have whimpered. My dad and I had gone through this after my mom’s death. Neither one of us had a clue that the special shampoo my mom bought was specifically for our ethnicity. We just thought it was girlie shampoo, and because it wasn’t available at the nearest department store, we bought what we could.
I ended up with a buzz cut that made me look like a boy going through a prepubescent growth spurt. The kids at school thought I was a new kid and a few started calling me Chuck. Luckily, it didn’t stick.
Thank God, but I didn’t want to be called Chuck ever again.
Scarlet massaged conditioner into sections of my hair to make it more manageable to work with and began to finger comb out all of the tangles. When she did that, I breathed a sigh of relief.
I was in heaven.
“Scarlet!” Reba Sue yelled from her chair up front. Her voice sounded like her head was still between her legs. I giggled. I couldn’t help it.
“I can’t find the light. Hang on! Let me check in the storeroom!” Scarlet called back. She tapped me on the side of my head. “Behave.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I bought this to try—I’ve heard wonderful things about it, and you can get it cheaper at Country Mart than the price I have to sell it at,” Scarlet said as she leaned down close to my ear. “Please don’t tell anyone.”
I smiled, crossed my heart, made a motion of locking my lips, and put the imaginary key down the front of my T-shirt, which said All About Those Books. Scarlet had my undying devotion at that point.
Cade walked into the back room and everything changed. “I’d like to know what that key goes to,” he said.
His voice did things to me. I’d been relaxed and enjoying my new friendship more than I’d thought possible. Now I was all tense and tingly, his innuendo making my body feel flushed. I was glad my head was in a sink and other people were present.
I opened my eyes and looked into his heavenly hazel eyes, which looked more blue than green or gray today. Geez, I needed to get a grip. “How are things going, Mayor?” I asked, my tone more cynical than it should be.
Yet he still smiled. He was the perfect politician. A politician who kissed a girl and then turned to another. And he’d spread some pretty vicious lies to the sheriff about the well water at The Barn. I planned on getting answers . . . today.
“Good. I was just wondering if you and Scarlet were planning on having any of those book art classes you mentioned?”
“You’re going to join us?” Somehow I couldn’t see Cade making crafts. Scarlet couldn’t either. She paused in the middle of applying a deep conditioner that smelled like macadamia nuts and looked back at Cade.
“My mom wants to take a class. Said it would do her good to get out.”
Fuzz buckets. That was the last thing I’d expected to hear. Scarlet had the same reaction as I did. She turned back to me and pretended to be too busy with my hair. I closed my eyes and winced, as if she’d pulled my hair a little too roughly. That made her pull it for real and I winced again.
“Come on, she’s not that bad,” Cade tried to convince us. But we both knew better. They didn’t call his mom P.S.A. Calloway for nothing. P.S.A. were her initials, as her name at birth was Penelope Southwark Allerton. But her nickname came from the public service announcements she gave everywhere she went. Each time, it had something to do with her husband’s campaign or her son’s football career.
In fact, when she was given the honor of announcing the homecoming court at a school assembly, she’d stopped right after the announcement of my homecoming princess nomination and given a P.S.A. for family planning.
I had nearly died of embarrassment while Cade hid his face, but the shaking of his shoulders proved he was laughing along with his football buddies. His dad and Coach had looked more than a little irritated.
When Scarlet and I didn’t answer, Cade said, “It would mean the world to me.”
Scarlet gave in first. She had the least to lose. “We’re having one tomorrow night.”
“We are?” I asked.
She nodded and said, “We’re going to make pumpkins and Christmas trees.”
I gave in and went with it. “The class will start at six-thirty. That’ll give me time to close the shop and grab a bite to eat.”
I peeked out my left eye. Cade kissed Scarlet on the cheek. I wasn’t jealous. Much.
“You told me you were looking for a light.”
I rolled my eyes up toward the doorway and saw Reba Sue, her long hair parted down the middle like a curtain you didn’t want to pull all the way open. She was upside down from my vantage point, but I could tell she wasn’t happy, even if she was trying to hide it from Cade.
“I forgot I’d left Charli back here to allow a deep moisturizer to set in her hair.”
“What kind of light do you need? I can find it for you,” Cade volunteered.
For a moment fear flashed in Reba Sue’s eyes. The last thing she wanted was for Cade to know she might have lice.
I couldn’t stop myself. “Scarlet thought—”
My new best friend yanked on my hair as she twisted two strands together. “That a new treatment would help with her split ends,” Scarlet finished.
Reba Sue glared at me, but then turned the charm on for Cade. “Are you still picking me up at seven tomorrow night?”
All that heat I’d been feeling turned to ice.
Cade glanced at me, but I pretended to examine my nails. I really did need a manicure.
“I think I’ll have to change it to seven-thirty. My mom needs a ride,” he replied.
“Of course.” Reba Sue’s coy grin turned into a blinding smile.
I cussed in my head for my stupidity and closed my eyes. Cade was spreading lies about my well water and he was dating Reba Sue. There was no heat in a burned-o
ut stove.
“Scarlet, Charli, I’ll see you tomorrow at six-thirty.” There was something in his voice that I couldn’t read. Nor did I want to try.
I kept my eyes shut and replied, “Sure. We’ll save your mom a seat.”
I heard him walk out and could imagine the looks the other customers gave him. No doubt everyone watched his rear as he walked out of the store. Everyone except me.
“That man has one fine—” Reba Sue started.
“Ego,” I interrupted.
“There’s nothing wrong with an ego when the rest of the package can back it up,” Reba Sue said. I could hear the smile in her voice. It made me want to barf.
I knew exactly what package Reba Sue was referring to, and if she’d seen Cade’s package, she was a step ahead of me. Which really put me in a mean mood. “I like to open my presents and keep them a while. I don’t want something that’s been opened up by a bunch of other women and arrived at my doorstep soiled.”
“Cade Calloway is not soiled,” Reba Sue said.
“That’s enough.” Scarlet wrapped my hair in a plastic bag and sat me up straight.
“She started it,” Reba Sue accused.
“You rubbed salt in her wounds and you know it,” Scarlet replied. She pointed toward the doorway. “Don’t argue with me, Reba Sue. Go sit in your chair and wait for me to come out there and finish your hair.”
Reba Sue gulped and nodded. “I’ll be waiting up front.”
Once Reba Sue was out of sight, Scarlet said, “You need to know that tomorrow is the annual fund-raiser for the boosters at the high school.”
“Why do I need to know that?” I asked, knowing darn good and well that Scarlet was trying to tell me about Cade’s date with Reba Sue.
“They’re honoring Cade and Reba Sue for all the work they do. It only makes sense that they go together.”
“How nice,” I said. Except it was anything but nice.
Chapter Twenty-six
By lunchtime I was bored. My hair was in a scarf while it absorbed the wonderful nutrients Scarlet had put on it, and I’d only had two customers to occupy my thoughts. When they weren’t there, I thought about bad water and bad dates.
