by Angie Fox
Ellis forced a pleasant expression and turned to his fellow officer. “Looks like we’re done here. How about you climb to the bottom and help the coroner bring her up?”
Duranja’s jaw dropped. “What, all the way down there?”
Ellis just stared at him.
“I mean, yes, sir.” He began to head down, and I looked down at the poor girl again. No matter how she died, I felt sorry for her.
“Thanks for your help, Verity.” Ellis inclined his head toward the orchard. “I’ll walk you back to your car.”
“Always the gentleman,” I said, earning a smile. “I wish I could have done more.”
“We did plenty,” Frankie said, gliding next to us. “Personally, I think it’s a little insulting that you expect ghosts to haunt a spot simply because it’s convenient for you.”
I ignored him and took Ellis’s arm. “I enjoyed the movies last night,” I told him as he guided me through the trees. We’d been spending a lot of time together, and I was starting to count this summer as my favorite despite some of the more hair-raising ghost encounters.
Tall, broad-shouldered, and scandalously attractive in his uniform, his presence made me feel a little happier despite my reason for being here.
I had it bad.
If the way he was smiling at me was any indication, he had it bad too. Good.
“I’m glad things are going so well,” he said as soon as we were completely alone, “because I have a proposition for you.” He stopped to face me and took my hands in his. He hesitated, which was unlike him. And I could tell he was about to ask me something big.
My stomach danced, and I wondered if I was going to be happy with what he had to say or not.
It wasn’t as if this could be anything huge. We’d only been dating a year. We’d agreed to take it slow.
“My mother is hosting a barbecue tonight. She invited the two of us as of—” he tilted his head and gave a mock look of exasperation “—about ten minutes before you got here. It’s pretty last minute.”
And it was at the home of the town matriarch, the woman who’d sworn to ruin me. Then again, if I was to have any future with Ellis, I had to figure out some way to make a truce with his mother.
With that in mind, I forced a smile. “I’d love to go.”
Ellis didn’t appear convinced. “Are you sure?”
“I am,” I said, this time with more conviction.
I could handle this. Or at least I’d like to try.
An invitation from Virginia was a positive step, and I refused to be too prideful to accept it.
“After we solved the murder on the train last month, I think your mother and I came to a new, well, sort of an understanding.” I’d hoped that meant she would reach out, or that we could at least be more cordial when we inevitably ran into each other. “This is a good sign.”
“Don’t get too excited,” Ellis cautioned, taking my hand to lead me around a jutting tree root. “Beau has a new girlfriend, and Mom wants to check her out. I think this is her excuse to get us all in the same place and torture us.”
I thought back to the awkward dinner we’d had with Beau’s last girlfriend. That unfortunate woman had ended up dead. At least this dinner would go better. It had to.
“I won’t let your mom bait me,” I vowed.
“Hold on to that thought.” Ellis sighed.
My boyfriend had his own troubles with Virginia Wydell. Ellis was the black sheep of the family for following his heart and going into law enforcement instead of becoming a lawyer like his other brothers. His mother never let him forget it.
“Just be on your guard,” Ellis advised. “Mom expressly warned me to keep you in line tonight. Beau’s been telling mom that you might still have a thing for him.”
I had to fight my urge to scoff. “Seriously?” Beau’s ego knew no bounds.
“Hey, I don’t invent the crazy, I just deliver the news.” Ellis ducked under a lower hanging branch. The man was seriously tall.
“I still want to go. For you,” I said, tugging at him. “For us,” I added, succeeding in slowing him down. “Also, how does Beau have another girlfriend already?” We’d barely been home a month after the train trip.
Ellis chuckled. “You know Beau. He falls in love fast.”
Boy, did he ever. He always had. When he and I had met, I’d been convinced it was love at first sight. Beau had a way of making you feel special, one of a kind. He gave the impression he would hand you the moon on a silver string if only you asked for it. I’d always been a pretty sensible person, but spending time around a hot-to-trot Beau Wydell was like being sucked into a whirlpool. “Who is she?” I asked.
“She’s new in town,” Ellis replied, his expression pensive. “She’s been getting permits for her business for the past couple of weeks. That’s how they met, I think. She needed legal advice. She’s opening up a food truck. Sugarland’s first.”
A food truck! Well, that would be fun. Hopefully, it would inspire some more. Sugarland could use that kind of innovation. “She sounds like a smart businesswoman. Your mother must be proud.”
Ellis squeezed my hand. “Don’t count on it.”
“I don’t know, Ellis. Maybe your mother has mellowed a little.” Virginia and I did have a moment back on the train. She’d saved my life. We’d worked together for once. “Facing danger like we did on the Sugarland Express can change a person.”
“She tried to set me up with a girl from out of town just last week,” Ellis said dryly.
“Sometimes the changes are subtle at first.” He’d told me about that, and it was…not encouraging. But still. “You let her know that was unacceptable,” I pointed out. “This could be a chance for us to start fresh.”
I’d seen a glimmer of real, hard-won growth in Virginia, and if I didn’t give her space to be a better person, she never would. People couldn’t be put into a box and tucked away, never allowed to adapt.
If tonight didn’t work out, well, at least I’d attempted to be the bigger person. “Let’s try to have faith,” I said, squeezing his arm.
We reached the cars. Before I could take another step toward mine, Ellis gently leaned down and kissed me. I closed my eyes and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, savoring the feeling of his lips on mine. A kiss from Ellis was better than sweet tea on a hot summer day.
“I like how you think,” he finally said once he pulled away, a little breathless. “Even if it is pretty optimistic.”
“Can’t help it,” I said, trailing a finger down his tan uniform shirt.
My grandma had taught me the power of looking at the bright side, and I was counting on that now.
Besides, optimism would give me the courage I needed to attend this barbeque.
There was still some fear, sure. But I’d wear his mother down eventually. I was more than a match for Virginia Wydell.
And I intended to prove it.
Chapter 4
Five hours later, I steered the land yacht up the twisting road along the river bluff that led to a private driveway flanked by ornate iron gates with the letter W emblazoned in a smart monogram-style script. Ah, the family homestead.
The Wydells had owned their property even longer than our family had lived in my home. This estate had been in the family dating back to the land grants in the early 1800s. The white plantation-style house, with its upper and lower porches and towering Palladian windows, had been designed to appear as if it had always been here. In truth, the place had gone up in 1982, after Virginia married into the family. Word had it she’d been instrumental in razing the family’s original home and replacing it with this overblown version of Tara.
She’d also gotten a special permit to bulldoze the old-growth trees on the back of the property. That way, the house looked down on the river, as well as the entire town of Sugarland.
Tonight, the gates stood open, and I drove right through.
Towering cypress trees lined the meandering drive that wound past small, ca
refully tended gardens of native purple passionflowers and American beautyberry.
I turned a sharp curve past a lovely grouping of magnolias, and Frankie’s urn slid out of my purse and across the passenger-side floor.
“Hey, watch it,” he warned.
I glanced at the mobster lounging in the seat next to mine. “You’re lucky I let you come along at all.”
“Sure.” He stuck a hand through the window to catch the breeze. “You need a favor, and it’s, ‘Frankie, oh Frankie, abandon your hideout and schlep out into the wilderness with me.’ But—”
“It was a pecan orchard,” I reminded him.
“—I need a favor, and it’s Frankie the third wheel.”
Heavens. “I never called you that,” I reminded him. In fact, I’d agreed rather easily to let him accompany me tonight when he popped up in the middle of my bath and scared us both half to death. I mean, what did he think I was doing in there? Painting my nails?
“You’re going to have to face Special Investigator De Clercq one of these days,” I said, steering past a stone wood nymph frolicking amid a bed of purple emperor flowers.
“Don’t remind me,” he said, turning his head to stare out the window.
Frankie had found a ghostly summons, written on official police stationery, tacked to his shed when he’d returned home from the ravine. Apparently, we’d just missed the investigator. “You can’t avoid him forever.”
“I’ll take that as a challenge,” Frankie said as we neared the circle drive to the house. Cars lined the narrow shoulder of the road. This was a bigger party than I’d expected.
We pulled past the richly blooming blue and white hydrangea bushes that crowded the circle drive and scattered flower petals over the custom brick. “In the meantime, I wouldn’t mind casing this joint again. There’s a lot of quality stuff in here.”
“You are not to plan a robbery of this house,” I warned.
“Not with De Clercq closing in,” Frankie groused.
Ah, well, the investigator wasn’t my favorite person, either. But perhaps police surveillance had its advantages.
Several cars stood in the driveway, including Ellis’s cruiser. He leaned against the side panel, looking all casual. But I knew the truth. He’d waited so that we could walk in together.
He was still in his uniform, which was most likely deliberate. Ellis’s parents vocally disapproved of his profession, so every now and then he took pains to remind them that he was doing precisely what he felt called to do.
I left Frankie’s urn in the car and stepped out to greet my man.
He smiled at me and held out a hand as I drew near. “You look beautiful,” he said, and I could tell by the way he looked at me that he meant it.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “I’m wearing the same thing you saw me in earlier.”
He tugged me closer. “You were beautiful then too, but your hair’s down now. It’s a little different.”
“If you say so.”
I had taken care with my hair and a little makeup. I wanted this night to go well. And as we stepped up to the porch, I said a little prayer for Ellis, for me, and for Beau’s poor new girlfriend, who probably had no idea what she was getting into.
“Here we go,” Ellis murmured as he rapped on the brass door knocker.
“I can do this,” I reminded us both.
Virginia herself met us at the door, looking every inch the stylish grande dame of Sugarland. Her platinum blond hair dusted her shoulders in a sleek bob, her ears glittered with diamond studs, and around her neck lay a delicate gold and silver filigree cross that used to belong to me.
I stared at it as my body went numb and my brain buzzed with the desire to snatch it right off her neck.
That cross had been my grandmother’s, given to her by my grandfather on their wedding day. I’d been forced to sell it to an antique dealer to pay Virginia back for the wedding that never was. Virginia, of course, had bought it. I think she only wore it when I was around, to remind me of her status compared to mine.
I nearly brought you down. I could do it again.
It pained me deeply to realize nothing had changed.
If anything, Virginia’s petty reminder was more caustic now because I’d let myself believe that she could be a better person.
“Ellis.” Her smile held all the warmth of a winter sun. “And Verity. It’s so nice you could make it.” She exchanged an air-kiss with Ellis but didn’t even offer to shake my hand. She stepped back, her green silk dress swishing. “The party is out back. You can walk through the house. And, Ellis, do say hello to some of your father’s business associates, won’t you? Try not to get into a conversation though. No one needs to get bogged down in the nitty-gritty of what you do, darling.” Her eyes had strayed to me. “Of what either of you does.”
In other words, no cop talk, no ghost hunter talk. Never mind that ghost hunting and police work had helped solve the murders on the Sugarland Express—a train that Virginia and Beau had both invested heavily in.
“You certainly didn’t mind having a ghost hunter around when you needed one,” I said, breezing past her.
“Leave the past in the past, dear,” she said, her fingers lingering on her throat near my grandmother’s necklace.
Fine talk, coming from her. But I kept walking. I’d said my piece.
Ellis, on the other hand, couldn’t quite let it go. “You need to take your own advice, Mother,” he said gently but firmly.
Oh my. I stopped short of the palatial dining room that led to an even more massive kitchen with a big beautiful door to the backyard. I’d come wanting peace and understanding, not a toe-to-toe debate with Virginia.
“Move on, Mamma,” he said to Virginia. “Verity is trying and so should you.” She gasped, but he kept going, his tone gentle, and his intention clear. “While you’re at it, realize no amount of your criticism is going to change us.”
Virginia stood, stunned as if she’d been slapped, her hand still at her throat. Her fingers tightened on my necklace before she let go. She blinked once, twice, as she composed herself. “While I’m not used to my own son questioning my guidance and my love,” she said, “I admit you may be right—about your situation at least.” She glared past him to me. “No amount of reason seems to work with you two.”
Not her brand of reason at least. Her mouth tightened, the lines around it deepening, and I gave her a sweet smile in return.
Her mask of serene civility fell into place once more as Virginia directed her attention back to her middle son. “There’s another matter I’d like to discuss with you before you go outside with your…Verity.” She couldn’t even say girlfriend. “We have a family situation that may change your attitude when it comes to rash decisions.”
“Mother—” Ellis began to wave her off.
“Please.” She touched his arm. “It won’t take long, and I do need you for this.” She gave his arm a squeeze. “Come with me to the study.”
Ellis winced. I could tell he was torn.
“Go,” I said. She wouldn’t leave him alone until he did. And at this point, being left alone was all I wanted from Virginia.
He walked over to me. “Do you mind?” he asked, with all the enthusiasm of a man about to face a firing squad.
I didn’t see how he could avoid it. “I’ll be fine,” I said. As he leaned down to kiss me on the cheek, I smiled and added, “She’d better not have a date for you back there.”
Although come to think of it, I wouldn’t put it past her.
Ellis and I shared a grin. “Hit the party and grab a drink,” he said. “You could probably use one. I’ll see what she has to say,” he added without relish.
Whatever it was, he could handle it.
“I’ll be quick,” he promised.
“No worries,” I said, heading out toward the kitchen and the backyard beyond. “I’m bound to find somebody I know.” This was Sugarland, after all.
I stepped out back with a smi
le, and what I saw made me pause. I’d known from the cars out front that this was no simple family barbecue. In fact, I wasn’t sure this would qualify as a barbecue at all. It was more like a garden party.
I skimmed a hand down my purple cotton sundress and thanked heaven I liked to wear dresses as a rule. As it stood, I fit in quite well. The men smoking cigars by the bar sported polo shirts or lightweight seersucker suits. A group of women admiring the old-growth sassafras tree had even braved the lawn in high heels.
Light jazz music filtered through the crowd, and my attention focused on a massive white tent in the center of the expansive backyard overlooking the river. A dozen round tables covered in ecru linens lined up like soldiers at the ready, half of them already occupied. The food was catered, with roving waiters passing out appetizers and uniformed staff manning the buffet tables.
Most interesting of all, as I stepped out among the chatting groups of partygoers, I didn’t recognize a soul.
I hadn’t believed such a thing could be possible. Not in our small town.
And not with this size of a crowd. There had to be at least sixty people here. I paused just short of the main tent. “What on heaven and earth…” I began.
“Refreshment?” A waiter appeared at my left, holding a tray of mint juleps so cold that a thin layer of white frost clung to the silver cups.
“Gladly,” I said, taking a glass. The ginger-haired waiter sported a tightly clipped beard, though he couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. “Tell me, where are you from?” I asked, nudging the decorative mint leaf aside and taking a sip.
“Silver Spoon Catering in Memphis,” he said, offering me a napkin.
“Interesting,” I mused, and not just because anyone from fifty miles in any direction would have given his neighborhood instead of his employer.
I tasted the perfect mix of sweet syrup, mint, and smoky bourbon. At least the big-city folks knew how to make a proper mint julep.
Virginia usually booked local businesses. Unless… Perhaps most of these people were from out of town as well? I scanned the crowd. I didn’t see any of Virginia’s heritage society friends, or anyone from Sugarland for that matter.
