by Jeff Shelby
I made a face. “I do not need to know this.”
I tossed the bottle back in the box as if it were a grenade and reached for the other one. Sophia probably should have mentioned that she’d ordered more than just anxiety meds.
This time, I read the label first before opening the bottle.
And I almost dropped this one, too.
“Ladies’ Libido?” I gaped at the bottle as I said it out loud.
This one didn’t contain pills. According to the bottle, it was a powdered, tasteless substance that could be added to any drink to improve a woman’s sex drive.
I couldn’t let go of it fast enough.
I stared at the other two boxes. They were both the same size, both a little larger than the one I’d just opened.
For one brief moment, I thought about leaving. I could drive back to Sophia’s store and march through the front door and tell her that I had zero interest in opening any more surprise boxes. Heck, I could stay and wait for the delivery truck while she went and gave her dog her meds.
Tallulah pawed at me again, whimpering this time. I bent down to pet her and she practically leaped into my arms. She was trembling, and her brown eyes were enormous. I could feel her heartbeat thudding wildly against my arm.
“My goodness, you’re a bit of a wreck, aren’t you?”
She hiccupped a response.
I’d never heard a dog hiccup.
I sighed.
“Fine,” I said, positioning her so that she was safe in the crook of my arm. With my free hand, I reached for one of the boxes. “I’ll get you your meds.”
It was harder to open the box while wrestling with a squirming dog but I managed to get the tape off and the flaps open.
No dog meds in this one, either.
Instead, there was a package of edible underwear and a bottle of massage oil. I didn’t want to imagine how those items were going to be used by the people who’d ordered them, but it was hard to keep my mind from going there.
I shook my head. “Stop it,” I said out loud, loudly, and Tallulah jumped in my arms.
I tightened my hold on her and gave her fur a quick stroke. “Sorry.”
I glanced warily at the third and final box. I wasn’t sure I could open it. What if the meds hadn’t been delivered at all? What if instead I was about to open a companion box to the two I’d already looked inside of? What could be next? A blow-up doll?
But the dog was still shaking and whimpering, and I knew I didn’t have a choice. I was going to open it.
I steeled myself and jabbed the skeleton key through the packing tape. I peeled it off and cringed as I lifted the flaps. There, under the air-filled plastic, was what I was looking for. Dog-Ease, flavored chews to help calm even the most anxious dogs.
I opened the bottle and Tallulah gobbled the chew in two seconds flat. I didn’t know what to expect from it—would she immediately go slack in my arms?—but I didn’t have much time to think about it.
Because the front door opened and a male voice called out, “Sophia? Are you home?”
Walter’s voice.
TWENTY
I dropped the dog.
My hand flew to my mouth. “Oh my goodness,” I whispered. “Are you okay?”
Tallulah was on all four feet and didn’t seem any worse for wear after the fall. She shook herself, then scampered toward the living room.
I was frozen in place, staring at the opened boxes on the kitchen counter.
I’d just opened three boxes that didn’t belong to me. Opening someone else’s mail was a federal offense. I could go to jail for this.
I shook my head. I was overreacting. Sophia had given me her express permission to come over and open a package so that I could give her dog medicine. It wasn’t my fault that there had been three boxes on the doorstep, and that I’d had the misfortune of having to open all of them to find what I was looking for.
No, I wouldn’t go to jail for opening their packages.
But I might die of mortification when Walter waltzed into the kitchen and saw that I’d opened boxes with all of their…intimate accessories.
I glanced around the kitchen, and my gaze landed on a door. A back door. For one brief moment, I contemplated sneaking out. I didn’t hear footsteps just yet—I might have time to get to the back door before Walter appeared in the kitchen.
I made my decision.
I hurried toward the door, my eyes trained on the knob. I was focused so much on my escape route that I didn’t notice what was on the floor. Not until my shoe sank into something soft and squishy.
And smelly.
“Crap,” I muttered.
It really was. I’d had the misfortune to step squarely on one of the puppy pads Sophia had warned me about. And a used one, at that.
I tried to walk the rest of the way on my heel, so as not to smear what was now on the bottom of my shoe along Sophia’s white tile floor. But this slowed me down, and before I knew it, someone had joined me in the kitchen.
“Rainy?”
My shoulders sagged and I spun around.
Walter’s face was a mask of confusion. “What are you doing here?”
I managed a feeble smile. “Oh, hello, Walter. Sophia asked me to stop by and give Tallulah her medicine.” I held up the skeleton key as proof I was telling the truth. “She had a delivery coming and didn’t want to miss it.”
Walter’s expression clouded at the word ‘medicine.’ Or maybe it was because his gaze had fallen on the array of boxes open on the kitchen counter.
“She ordered some and had it express mailed,” I explained quickly. “And, um, well there were a few boxes on the doorstep and they were all from the same place. And I didn’t know which one would have the meds in it so…um, I opened them all.”
Walter’s mouth dropped open. He reached for his glasses, pushing them up so they perched higher on the bridge of his nose. His cheeks were turning an alarming shade of red.
“Oh,” was all he said.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, feeling my own cheeks begin to burn. “I didn’t mean to…”
He coughed, then cleared his throat. “Don’t apologize,” he said. “You were doing Sophia a favor.”
He was taking this remarkably well, all things considered.
“Can I ask you a favor, too, though?”
I nodded. “Of course.”
He waved his hand toward the boxes. “Could you not mention any of this to my wife?”
“Excuse me?”
He cleared his throat again. “I’d just…I’d rather she not know what was in those other boxes.”
I was immediately suspicious. “Why?”
He didn’t answer right away. “It’s…it’s a secret.”
I folded my arms and asked coolly, “For her, or for someone else?”
His eyes widened behind his wire-rimmed glasses and he immediately held up his hand. “Oh, no, it’s not what you think.”
I wasn’t sure what to think, but the fact that he had intimate goodies being shipped to his house that he didn’t want his wife to know about sort of happened to point in a certain direction.
“I—it’s a surprise for Sophia.”
My brows arched, and I was sure he could tell just how skeptical I was. “For her?”
He nodded and then, as if he couldn’t bear his own weight any longer, he pulled out a stool that was tucked underneath the counter and slumped down. Tallulah stayed at his feet, whimpering.
He ignored her.
“Walter,” I said, trying to gentle my voice. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”
I wasn’t sure why I asked. I didn’t actually want to know if he was cheating on Sophia. But there were two things I knew about myself, two things I couldn’t deny: I was nosy, and I was sympathetic. And right then, staring forlornly at me, Walter looked like he needed a shoulder to cry on…or at least an ear to whisper into.
He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his mouth and chin, almost like he
was massaging and readying them for the big discussion. “I want to start a family,” he said.
“A family?”
His nod was slow and deliberate. “I’ve always wanted kids. Lots of them. And…and I thought Sophia did, too. We talked about it a lot when we were dating, and then when we were engaged. I thought we’d, uh, start right away,” he said. The reddish hue was back in his cheeks. “But she wanted to wait. First it was because of the house”—he waved a hand, indicating the space we were sitting in—“because she wanted it to be perfect before we started having kids. And then she started talking about wanting to have a little something for herself before devoting her life to raising a family. So that was when she opened the store.”
I listened. Sophia’s reasons for wanting to delay starting a family sounded reasonable. In fact, I’d often wondered how my life might have been different if I’d waited a few more years, or several, before having kids. But that was always a slippery slope, because I knew that Luke and Laura had quickly become the glue that had bound me to Charlie, and that if we’d waited much longer before getting pregnant, we might not have stayed married at all. Which would mean no crazy, fun-loving musical son, and no caring daughter who sometimes drove me nuts.
“—the dog.” I realized Walter was still talking, and now he was staring a little distastefully at the small white terrier still sitting at his feet. “Between the store, the ladies society and the dog, I’m pretty sure she’s never going to find time to have a baby.”
Walter looked so sad, so dejected, that I felt the urge to close the distance between us and offer him a hug. Or maybe just a pat on the shoulder. But then I remembered the soft, squishy stuff embedded in the bottom of my shoe, and I thought better of it. Besides, as upset as he looked and sounded, the pangs of sympathy I felt for him were wavering.
“Have you talked to her about it?”
He nodded. “All the time. She just keeps telling me to wait, it’s not the right time.” He chuckled, but there was no warmth to it. “So I thought I should just take matters into my own hands.”
I stared at him. “What? How do you mean?”
He glanced at the boxes. “Set the mood, make sure she’s in the mood, and make sure I can…uh…do what I need to do.”
I was pretty sure both of our faces were now as red as tomatoes.
“Besides, my window is pretty short.”
“Your window?”
His eyes were trained on the floor. “She’s in between birth control at the moment.”
Any last ounce of sympathy evaporated. “In between?”
“The pill was making her gain weight,” he explained. “She’s going to get the implant, but she hasn’t had time to go to Charlottesville, what with the store and everything. Actually, it’ll probably be pretty tough to get there before the holidays are over. That’s her busiest time.” He said this with a hint of bitterness.
“So you’re planning to seduce your wife with the express goal of getting her pregnant,” I said, more to myself than anything. “And not tell her you’re doing it? Won’t she…know?” This conversation was proving to be one of the most awkward ones I’d ever had in my life.
“Not if I mix the Ladies Libido into her drinks,” he mumbled.
“Walter!” My voice was shrill. “You would drug your wife??”
His eyes widened. “I wouldn’t be drugging her. I would just be…helping her get in the mood.”
I didn’t care that there was dog poop on my shoe. I marched over to him, my finger pointed squarely at his chest. “You can’t do that. It’s dishonest. It’s disrespectful. It’s…it’s illegal!”
His expression darkened, and then his nose twitched. His gaze drifted to my shoe, and to the trail of brown from where I had been standing.
He stood up, tugging at the knot of his tie. “You should go.”
I didn’t know if he was telling me this because I’d fouled their clean kitchen floor or because he didn’t want to continue the conversation. It was probably a little bit of both.
I planted my hands on my hips. “I can’t let you do this.”
“Do what?” His smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“Deceive your wife. Trick her into getting pregnant!”
“I’m not tricking her,” he said. “I’m just helping her along. She thinks a store and a ladies society will keep her happy, can take the place of having a family. I don’t want her to have any regrets down the road, that’s all.”
He wasn’t trying to convince me he was doing the right thing; he was trying to convince himself. And I knew that I had to do the right thing, too. I had to tell Sophia.
But as he steered me toward the door, his hand on my elbow, propelling me forward, his breath hitched so he didn’t have to inhale the foul smell emanating from the bottom of my shoe, I thought of something else, something that made my own breath still for a moment.
If Walter wanted a baby badly enough that he would trick Sophia into taking supplements, what else might he do to sabotage her current situation?
TWENTY ONE
“No.”
I was talking to myself again.
Sitting in my car, staring at the Rey’s house, trying to rein in all the thoughts swirling through my mind.
Walter’s behavior was despicable. As much as I understood how badly he wanted to start a family, he was choosing a horrific way to go about achieving it. But that wasn’t the only thing I was thinking about.
I was thinking about the missing money. And wondering if Walter was responsible for it.
“He couldn’t have,” I muttered.
But I knew that wasn’t the truth. Walter could have easily taken the money…and he could have just as easily framed his wife for it.
I thought about the things he’d said to me in the kitchen: how badly he wanted to start a family, how hesitant Sophia was about it, and how much her outside commitments got in the way of them starting down that path. If Walter would stoop to sneaking libido supplements into his wife’s drinks, was it that far-fetched to think he might do something even more nefarious to sabotage the things in her life that he thought were standing in the way of what he wanted?
The look on his face as he talked about the ladies society and the boutique flashed in my mind, and it sent chills down my spine. He had looked so angry, so disgusted…if he felt that strongly about those things, just how far would he go to remove one—or both—of them from the picture?
I needed to talk to her. I needed to tell Sophia what I knew.
But I also knew I didn’t want to face her in person. So I did what any coward would do and reached for my phone.
She answered right away. “Is everything okay with Tallulah?”
I blanked, then remembered. “Oh. Yes, everything’s fine. I gave her the medicine. One chew, just like you said.”
She breathed an audible sigh of relief. “Oh, good. And did she calm down? She usually settles right away.”
Again, I drew a blank. All I remembered seeing was Tallulah at Walter’s heels. “Um, yes, I think so. I don’t know very much about dogs. Listen—”
“Oh, thank goodness.” There was another sigh of relief but this time it hitched in her throat and I stilled, pressing my ear closer to the phone.
Sophia was crying.
“Sophia? What’s wrong?”
She sniffled. “Nothing.” And then she sniffled again, louder this time, and wailed, “Everything!”
I was still sitting in her driveway, still staring at her house. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“The delivery driver is here and he wants C.O.D.”
“C.O.D.?”
“Cash on delivery.” There was another sniffle. “And I don’t have it!”
“Sophia, you need to slow down. I’m not following.”
“I ordered some items from a wholesaler in Pennsylvania. That was the delivery I was waiting for. But the driver won’t unload the boxes until I pay him.”
“And you can’t pay him?”
“Not right this minute,” she said, a little defensively. “Most companies leave invoices and then I pay them. But this one wants cash on delivery.”
Sophia couldn’t pay them.
“So what are you going to do?” I asked. But the question I really wanted to ask was, Why don’t you have the money?
“I don’t know,” she half whispered, half sobbed. “This has never happened before.”
“Can you refuse the shipment?”
“No,” she snapped. “It’s a huge supply of Christmas items, which are always my highest selling inventory. If I don’t have these things to sell, I won’t sell, period.”
I chewed my lip. Now did not seem like a good time to tell her what I’d discovered about Walter.
“Can you write a personal check?” I asked. “From your own account, just to cover the expenses now? You could always pay yourself back.”
She made a noise. “Ha. Walter would never let me hear the end of it.”
I was pretty sure Walter would celebrate in the street at the news that the store was in trouble, but I kept this to myself.
“I’ll find a way,” Sophia muttered. “I’ll pay for this shipment, one way or another.” She coughed. “Thank you for taking care of Tallulah. I owe you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I told her. “And you don’t owe me anything.”
I didn’t want Sophia feeling like she owed me.
Especially when it appeared that she—or at least her business—was completely broke.
Thoughts of Walter sabotaging Sophia quickly left my mind, and I was back to thinking his wife might actually be suspect number one in the missing money scandal. Yes, the trail she had left—if she was indeed responsible—had been glaringly obvious, but she had just given me the one thing I’d been missing when considering her a potential suspect.
Motive.
TWENTY TWO
I was halfway through a bottle of wine when there was a knock on my door.
I’d gone home and, after making a quick lunch of cold cuts and crackers, I busied myself in reorganizing my kitchen pantry. I’d turned on a song list and belted my way through classics from the eighties and nineties as I emptied shelves and put things back. It didn’t need to be done—I’d only been in the house for six months—but it was mindless, busy work that kept me marginally occupied while I mulled over the missing money.
