His gut tightened again when she laughed. Then she carefully sat the hummingbird back on the table, and once again met his gaze. “You made the bench, didn’t you? The one where the old beech tree used to be.”
“We had a bad lightning storm several months ago,” he told her. “A strike took out the tree, pretty much split it in half. I salvaged what I could.”
She studied him like she had the doorknob, and he just barely restrained himself from hunching his shoulders.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she finally said. “What makes you think I was pumping Tanner Cross for information?”
“Well, you either lied to me about having friends here or you got restless sitting in your hotel room and decided to come over here and poke around. I’m not exactly sure how that translates into lunching with one of the pillars of the community, but given all the trouble you’ve managed to get into since you arrived in town this morning, I confess it doesn’t surprise me.”
She scowled. “Spraining my ankle was an accident,” she reminded him. “And not entirely my fault. And I fail to see how dining with someone who you refer to as a community pillar constitutes trouble.”
“Trouble for your sense of humor,” he clarified “since Cross tends to suck it right out of a person.”
“I thought he was very nice.”
Cal snorted. “I don’t know why people think nice is a compliment. The man’s the human equivalent of a white bread sandwich with the crust cut off.”
“Do you get along with anyone?”
“You’re the one who sought out my company.”
“More fool me. I found out nothing from Tanner Cross, nothing of interest, anyway, as he’s apparently been out of town for the past two weeks and doesn’t spend much time here in the building. He was only vaguely familiar with Sabrina.” She arched an eyebrow. “And he didn’t have anything uncharitable to say about you.”
“You were hoping he would tell you that Sabrina and I were having a raging affair and he was the only other person in the know, so that you could run to Ben and suggest he arrest me after all?”
“I was hoping that he would tell me you’re a serial killer so that I could stop feeling like I’m stuck in the middle between you and Ben. Which is absurd, because Ben is my cousin and I’ve known you for one day. Half of one day. So I should feel no loyalty to you whatsoever.”
Interested, he leaned forward in his chair. “So you feel loyalty to me, do you?”
“Not loyalty,” she clarified. “That was a poor choice of words. But you did help me out earlier today.”
“So it’s just gratitude that you feel.”
“Right now I’m feeling annoyance. You seem to have that effect on me.”
Cal leaned closer. “That’s not the only effect I have on you. But to be fair,” he said before she could verbally eviscerate him “you have a similar effect on me. Both the annoyance and the attraction. And I’ll take that any day over being accused of being nice. Would you like to see some of Sabrina’s work?”
She blinked, and Cal was gratified to see her catching her breath. But he thought it was probably better for both of them if he changed the subject for the moment. Otherwise he might do something really inappropriate like lean even closer and kiss her.
“I’d love to.”
As Sabrina’s jewelry was kept in a glass case in the next room, Ainsley had to climb to her feet again. But Cal offered her his arm, which she hesitated only momentarily before accepting.
He ignored the heightened senses that her warm, female presence pressed so closely against him provoked, and led her to the jewelry case.
“Oh,” she said. “It’s… well, it’s not pretty, is it? But it’s funky. And somehow… poignant.”
That was exactly how Cal thought of Sabrina’s work. She used found objects – old bottle caps, bits of broken glass that had been tumbled to smoothness in the river, rusty nuts and bolts, tarnished silverware – and she managed to transform them into pieces that tugged at you. They told a story without the benefit of words.
Some people looked askance at them because they weren’t delicate or pretty, like Ainsley said, but they’d proven remarkably popular. Cal’s gut tightened again, but this time it had nothing to do with lust and everything to do with worry over Sabrina.
“Do you know where Ben found her car?” he asked suddenly.
Ainsley glanced up sharply. “Yes. I looked it up on Google maps so that… well, just so I’d know.” She gave him the name. “Why?”
It was no doubt an exercise in futility. But the gallery wasn’t particularly busy, and Jocelyn could handle things for a while.
“Because I have an idea,” he said. “Want to go for a ride?”
AINSLEY stroked a hand over a sleeping Beaumont’s silky ears as she studied the passing scenery. The road they’d taken north climbed steadily as the land rose toward Blood Mountain, the highest peak on the Georgia portion of the Appalachian Trail. The civilization of the charming town, such as it was, gave way to large tracts of forest interspersed with the occasional farm, ramshackle house and admittedly picturesque community church.
“Where do people go to get gas around here? Or eat?”
When there was no immediate answer Ainsley glanced over to see Cal smirking. Well, she thought he was smirking, but from her position it was a little difficult to tell. She had the passenger seat of his pickup truck pushed back as far as it would go so that she could rest her sprained ankle on the dash. But something about the set of his jaw told her he was amused.
“What?”
“You sound like a city girl.”
“I am a city girl,” she reminded him. “I’ve lived in one my whole life, although I could argue that in many ways Savannah is atypical as far as urban centers go. However, there are gas stations on every other corner at least. And restaurants and bars and coffee shops and grocery stores. And… people.”
“There are people here,” he argued. “They just don’t like to be piled on top of one another like you city – even atypical city – folk do. And there are gas stations and grocery stores and even restaurants, sometimes all three at the same time. And some people actually have gardens and grow their own food. It’s a shocking concept, I know.”
She leveled a look at him, although it didn’t do much good since he was forced by the curves and dips and sheer drop-offs to keep his eyes on the road, lest they pitch over the side into a ravine. The dog, who’d made himself comfortable on her lap as soon as she sat down, sighed in his sleep. Ainsley resumed stroking him and looked back out the window.
“That’s the second abandoned house I’ve seen,” she told him as they drove past an old white farmhouse not too dissimilar from her grandmother’s – now Cal’s. “So maybe growing one’s own food and driving ten miles just to catch sight of another human isn’t quite the draw it once was.”
“It is for people who realize that fences may make good neighbors, but ten miles between fences makes for better ones.”
“I believe the word you’re looking for is misanthropes.” But the sight of the abandoned homes and barns made her somehow wistful, a little sad. Like a way of life was gradually disappearing before their eyes.
Something flickered at the back of her memory. “I may be wrong in my recollection, but I think that Carly liked to take pictures of old places like that. Abandoned houses and buildings and… old stuff.”
“You’re not wrong.”
She looked at Cal again, and this time his jaw appeared tight. “She belonged to the photography club,” he told her. “In school. They took a lot of the photos for the yearbook. That’s actually how we started… talking. She took some pictures of me at one of the football games, and brought them around to show me.”
“Talking.” She made air quotes, and Callum scowled.
“I already told you I had sex with her. No need to belabor the point.”
“But you knew her well enough to know that she enjoyed taking photos of old
abandoned places,” she insisted “so there had to be more than just sex. Especially if you remember that after all this time.”
“When someone whose body you’ve been intimately acquainted with dies, the conversations you had with them tend to stick with you. Especially when you’re young, and they’re young, and they were murdered. It… shapes your memories. They become more vivid than they otherwise would have. And besides, there are several of her photographs in the yearbook. Her artistic ones, I mean. Of the abandoned stuff. She won some county contest. It made that aspect easier to remember.”
Because she’d been involved with a number of criminal cases involving murder, interviewing people affected, she knew that his assessment of the effect of a traumatic event on memory was essentially correct. Like people would always remember where they were when JFK was shot, or when the planes struck the twin towers on September eleventh.
“So you didn’t have a relationship with Carly.”
He slanted her a glance. “Not the kind you’re meaning. But…” he hesitated, and then shook his head. “Never mind.”
Ainsley sat forward as much as she was able. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You do remember that I’m a lawyer, right? A trial lawyer. A criminal trial lawyer. I can cross-examine a block of wood and make it talk.”
“I would make a comment about you cross-examining my wood any time you felt the urge, but that would be crass. Especially given that you’re forcing me to state that Carly, uh, talked to more than just me. A good bit more. I was just the one who was dumb enough to mention it in front of her brother.”
“Oh.” Ainsley had known that Carly was wild, what her grandmother had referred to as ‘boy crazy.’ But hearing it from Cal felt… well, she couldn’t quite identify how she felt, particularly since he was one of the boys she’d been crazy with. However, Aunt Denise’s insistence at the time that Grant killed Carly because she wouldn’t have sex –willingly, anyway – with him, that she wasn’t that kind of girl, seemed particularly naïve. And sad.
Cal sighed. “I didn’t intend to speak ill of the dead. Not only is Carly not around to defend herself, but it would be hypocritical of me, considering I enjoyed an active sex life in high school as well. But that old double standard is tough to shed completely, even if it is bullshit. And I certainly don’t want to imply that I think she somehow… asked to be raped, let alone murdered.”
The image of Carly as she’d found her that morning, naked, the bruises on her throat visible even beneath the water, caused Ainsley to shudder.
A hand rested on top of hers and gently squeezed.
“I’m sorry,” Cal said when she turned to look at him.
For some reason that she couldn’t explain to herself, Ainsley turned her own hand over and twined her fingers with his. And then somehow their clasped hands ended up resting together on her thigh. He stared at her, his moss-green eyes apologetic. Apologetic, and something else.
But she didn’t have time to identify that something else, because he glanced back sharply at the road before pulling over. “We’re here.”
A little embarrassed, Ainsley disengaged her hand so that he could put the truck in park. Then she looked out the window.
At one time the building had been painted white with dark green trim. Large, craftsman style columns supported a sort of extended portico that shaded double front doors. Most of the windows featured broken panes, and kudzu vines were slowly swallowing one side of the structure. The fence which extended from the other side featured a fading No Trespassing sign.
“What is this place?”
“The old Cross Family Produce Stand and General Store.”
“Cross?”
“As in your lunch companion, yes. If you turn down that road up there,” he gestured with his hand “you’ll arrive at the winery in a couple miles. The main entrance is on the other side, off a road that’s a little less winding. This is the backside of the property, where Tanner Cross’s grandfather used to sell the produce, milk and eggs from the farm, along with other assorted essentials.”
“It’s a shame to let it go like this.”
“From what I understand, Tanner wanted to have it demolished, but the county historical society pitched a fit. Apparently it’s some kind of landmark. I think they even offered a grant if he would restore it, but seems he wasn’t interested.”
“Having grown up in a city that’s taken great pains to preserve its old buildings and landmarks, that strikes me as irresponsible. Or maybe just callous.”
Cal shrugged. “I remember him working here after school and on weekends. Sometimes he’d miss school altogether, especially during harvest time. I think there was some bad blood between him and his grandfather, who was of the spare the rod and spoil the child mentality, and a greedy bastard at that. Growing up, we all thought that Tanner was poor. The way he dressed, the fact that he never had any money for extracurricular activities. But then when the old man died, turns out he was practically rolling in it. He just didn’t want to spend any of it on his grandson. I imagine Cross doesn’t want to preserve those memories.”
Ainsley recalled what the man had said about his grandfather beating him after he’d fallen into the well. Obviously, their relationship hadn’t been a warm one. “I guess that makes sense. The question, however, is what exactly this has to do with Sabrina?”
“I told you I stopped by the gallery the day I left. That Sabrina was working? I’d informed her about the photo albums and journals the night before, but I was running late and forgot to bring them with me that morning. Anyway, she suggested that thinking about the photo albums had given her an idea; that she might try to find some things – old keys, pieces of hardware, God knows what else – for her jewelry that represented lost Dahlonega. A way of capturing the nostalgia of the old, abandoned landmarks around here, similar to what Carly did with her photographs. This,” he nodded toward the old roadside grocery “is fairly close to where her car was found.”
“So you think she might have come here looking for stuff?”
“It’s possible. She seemed pretty enthusiastic about the idea, and eager to get started. Maybe she thought of it as a way to… honor her sister’s work. I don’t know. Anyway, if she headed out exploring after work, it wouldn’t surprise me that this was her destination, or one of them. Like I said, it’s a landmark.”
“A landmark which is privately owned. And unlike your property, it’s clearly marked with a no trespassing sign. I would think that Tanner Cross might have something to say about people removing door hinges and whatnot. Not to mention the potential liability should someone get hurt while snooping around.”
“It’s pretty well known that he doesn’t give a shit if this place falls down, although you have a point about liability. Being a businessman with a lot to lose, I imagine he’s a stickler for protecting himself from lawsuits. Cross didn’t mention anything about Sabrina contacting him to ask for permission, did he?”
“He barely remembered who she was.”
Callum frowned. “So maybe she didn’t come here. But then again, maybe she did, if only to get some ideas.”
His hunch about the property here seemed thin to Ainsley, but she had nothing better to go on. And thin trumped nothing.
“I’ll just have a look around,” Cal said.
“You say that as if I’m going to sit in the car and wait.”
He looked significantly at her ankle.
“I’m not planning on doing jumping jacks or swinging from the rafters.”
“Good thing, since I already met my quota today for rescuing damsels in distress.”
When she simply stared at him, he sighed, and reached behind the seat. “You’ll need these. I, uh, made them,” he said, explaining the old-fashioned wooden crutches. “For the university’s production of A Christmas Carol a couple years ago.”
“You expect me to use crutches designed to fit Tiny Tim.”
“In this case Tiny Tim wa
s a college student who was close to six feet.”
“And you just happen to carry them in your truck?”
“Jesus. You probably win in court by wearing the prosecution down. I put them in my truck before I headed into town, just in case you might need them. Of course, I pictured you using them to hobble down to the wine and cheese reception in the lobby of your hotel, not traipsing around the countryside.” He cracked the windows before shutting off the ignition. “You are staying,” he pointed a finger at Beau, who’d clambered to his feet and stood wagging his tail with great enthusiasm as soon as Cal made a move toward the door. “All I need is for you to fall through a hole in the floorboards.”
“Sorry buddy,” Ainsley told the dog while Cal walked around the hood carrying the crutches. “The grumpy man doesn’t want you to get hurt.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BEN Paulson sipped his coffee – he’d lost track of how many cups he’d had over the past four days – and stared at the photo albums stacked on his desk as if they were live snakes. Old and mildewed, the addition of fingerprint dust took them from tragic reminders of his sister’s life to something bordering on obscene.
Ben thought that he’d long ago come to terms with Carly’s death, with the lack of resolution, but he realized that in some ways he was no better than his mom. He hadn’t buried his head completely in the sand, but he’d certainly avoided reminders. Like Ainsley, much to his regret. True, she hadn’t gone out of her way to seek him out either, but then he couldn’t blame her.
And he’d never been quite able to look at the framed photographs – Carly’s blue ribbon winning entries in several local contests – that still lined his mother’s upstairs hall. For whatever reason, looking at those photos was more painful than looking at images of Carly herself. Pictures of Carly, particularly around the time she died, allowed him to remember some of the old anger she’d aroused in him during the last year or so of her life.
Looking at her art made him sick to his stomach, thinking of the potential she had as a human being, and the waste of it.
She’d pissed him off, embarrassed him with her behavior at times. But he’d loved her. She was his sister.
The Southern Comfort Prequel Trilogy Box Set Page 39
