The Azalea Assault

by Alyse Carlson

  “Please!” Annie interrupted with as snotty a tone as Cam had ever heard Annie use. “Jake doesn’t need to talk to Evangeline! He can just stare at her… at her…”

  “Annie, Jake has never been like that, at least not that I’ve seen,” Rob said.

  Annie wasn’t having any of it. “Like you’d notice.” She’d poured another large glass of wine and was drinking it too fast.

  Cam looked at Rob helplessly.

  “Tell you what, Annie. I’m meeting Jake for a while tomorrow. I have to—for the police investigation,” Cam added defensively. “I will find out the scoop, because I’m sure he’s not married. He can’t possibly be as horrible as he seems right now.”

  “Bastard probably wouldn’t marry her! Even with that cute little boy!”

  Cam went over and hugged Annie again, letting Annie cry tears of frustration onto her apron.

  “He just seemed like one of the good guys—and I know y’all wouldn’t steer me wrong. I was so sure I wouldn’t get burned again!”

  “Again?”

  Annie sniffed. “Oh, geez, I snotted on you. You have to go change aprons or be banished.”

  Cam eyed Annie. She knew this was avoiding, or at least stalling, but Cam was also pretty repulsed with the snot on her apron, so she went in back to change it. By the time she returned, the third batch of brownies was in and Annie and Rob had both slouched down to the floor, each holding one of the brownies from the first batch.

  “Get a brownie,” Annie ordered.

  “I’ll have a few bites of Rob’s.”

  “No you won’t. Get your own brownie!” he demanded.

  Cam laughed. Rob didn’t have much of a sweet tooth, but if he demanded his own, he loved what he was having. She retrieved a brownie and sank down with the two people she loved most, aside from her family.

  Rob ate a bite of brownie, then nuzzled Cam’s ear.

  “Ick! You’re getting brownie in my hair!”

  “I am not, but so what? I know you’ll take a shower first thing when you get home anyway.” He sounded amused, which helped. Then he blew it. “Cam, I think you need to get used to the idea Nick might be our guy.”

  She scowled and used her legs for leverage against the wall. She pressed herself to a standing position and walked away.

  “I wouldn’t believe it was Nick if you found him with the body in his trunk. I’m that sure.” She finally took a bite of heavenly brownie to show her confidence.

  “But Cam, the evidence… His past conviction, Petunia getting… grabbed. The loan from Evangeline and Evangeline being harassed…”

  “The evidence is really incomplete right now, so I’ll thank you to keep that particular opinion to yourself!”

  Rob sighed.

  “I hate that! Don’t you patronize me! I’m right on this! Annie?” Cam was glad Annie seemed to be standing guard with an “I told you so” expression.

  “Nick’s a good guy, Rob,” Annie said, “even if you have to take it on faith.”

  That wasn’t quite as strong an endorsement as Cam had hoped for, given Annie’s posture. She looked at Annie more closely.

  “Geez, Annie, are you okay?”

  “When do I shoot your dad?”

  “What?” Rob sputtered, confused, but Cam got it.

  “Late morning. I’ll have to look.”

  “Good. I could use a talk with him. He’s a good listener,” she said. She sounded a little bit drunk. Then, after a pause, “Listen, I need to clean up.”

  “We can help.”

  “No, really—dishes and Jane’s Addiction will clear my head better than you two or sleep ever could.”

  Cam was worried, but also not inclined to force herself on Annie when she wanted privacy. And if Annie craved Jane’s Addiction, the original “Screamo” band, in Cam’s estimation, she’d rather give the space. She’d learned over the years that her friend usually knew when alone time was the answer.

  “You ready?” she asked Rob.

  He tried to protest, urging her to stay and help Annie, but it didn’t take long before he agreed and the two of them left together.

  Cam was prepared to tear into Rob about his refusal to accept Nick’s innocence, but when she got in the Jeep, he offered another tidbit of information that distracted her.

  “Print results come back tomorrow.”

  “Prints?”

  “Fingerprints from everybody at the party—so they can match the shears.”

  Cam grimaced. Somehow being fingerprinted had been humiliating, even though she knew she hadn’t done anything wrong.

  “That’s good,” she said, though she knew her tone didn’t match her words.

  Rob frowned. “Don’t you want to know who did this?”

  “Of course I do! I just don’t want it to be somebody I care about. And for your information, Rob Columbus, there is nothing wrong with that!”

  She threw her arms across her chest and stared out the passenger window.

  “I didn’t say there was.”

  “Then why are you so determined to pin this on my brother-in-law? Do you have any idea how badly other creeps have treated Petunia? How wonderful Nick is by comparison?”

  “No, I had no idea.” His tone was sarcastic. “I might have known more, had you bothered to tell me. Though, honestly, I’d be an idiot to know Petunia for three years and not have gotten the same idea.”

  He was as riled as she was. That hadn’t been her goal. She wanted to vent. Now, though, a fight was inevitable, and she couldn’t stop herself from diving in.

  “It doesn’t take much! All you’d have to do is meet the guy!”

  “I’ve met the guy. He has freaking prison wire tattooed around his neck!”

  “Physical stuff isn’t everything!”

  “Says the woman who won’t even splurge for a brownie!”

  “I ate a brownie.”

  He stopped the car in the middle of the road. She looked behind the Jeep, panicked, to make sure no one was behind them.

  “You ate a third of a brownie. You are five-eight and weigh a hundred and ten, and you can’t even finish a brownie.”

  “I weigh a hundred and seventeen.”

  “Excuse me while I move you from underweight to nearly healthy!”

  Cam was stung. “I thought you liked how I look.”

  Rob put his hands on his face.

  “I do, babe. I love how you look. I just wish you’d allow yourself some splurges. You deserve them and have plenty of wiggle room. I’m sorry. I just got frustrated.”

  When he put it that way, it was almost sweet. She was still mad and wrestling with herself. Part of her craved contact—connection with the part of her life that was okay, as much of it seemed to be flying off-kilter, but part of her couldn’t let it go.

  Cam considered spilling her worries, explaining to Rob that her fears about Petunia losing Nick were causing not only anxiety but guilt, too. She wished she’d never brought Jean-Jacques to Roanoke. She also worried about what had been dredged up about Nick. Even if he was proven innocent and released, it still had come to light that Evangeline cosigned on the Spoons loan. That wouldn’t make Petunia happy. And it was now semipublic that Nick was an ex-con—that might be bad for business. Cam just wished she could make things right for her sister, but it looked unlikely.

  Normally she would have invited Rob in, but when he started to get out of his Jeep, she stopped him, as much out of irritation with herself as him.

  “I’m really tired. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

  He looked annoyed.

  “If this is about you being skinny—”

  “No, it’s not about that. It’s about working from seven in the morning to eleven at night. That’s all.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  She leaned in and gave him a very tender kiss.

  “Yeah, like that makes me want to leave.”

  She rolled her eyes and got out, waving as she ran up the ste
ps.

  CHAPTER 9

  It was heavenly to sleep until eight the next morning, even though it was only seven hours of sleep. Cam stretched and glanced at the clock at seven fifty-five, pleased she didn’t have the jolt of the alarm to ruin the end of her sleep.

  On the other hand, Annie, who arrived as Cam finished her makeup, looked like something Davy Jones had dragged in. Davy Jones was a neighborhood stray they fed from time to time, and his taste in gifts left something to be desired.

  “Geez, Annie.”

  “I don’t wanna hear it. I need coffee, a drive-through breakfast with some grease, and Excedrin if you’ve got them.”

  “You do straight shots or something after we left?” Cam asked as she retrieved ibuprofen from her medicine cabinet.

  Annie hid her face in her hands. “Not exactly.”

  “What did you do?” Cam handed her the bottle, along with the water that had been at her bedside.

  “Look, I’d rather not talk about it. We’ve got a long day ahead, looks like we’ll be swimming through it, which is a bonus, so let’s just get to it.” She popped the tablets, chased them with water, and stood, following Cam out the door.

  “Okay by me.”

  Annie had left part of her equipment in a locked closet at the Patricks’, so there was only one load to get into the car. They went through a drive-through and got lattes and a sausage-and-egg biscuit for Annie. Cam, on impulse, and in rebellion of Rob calling her skinny, ordered a ham-and-cheese croissant.

  Annie stared in disbelief, but all she said was, “Looks like we’re all keeping secrets this morning.”

  Pulling out of the drive-through, Cam noticed the dark clouds to the west and pointed them out to Annie.

  “Good thing outside is mostly done for now, though today is the day with your dad and the wisteria,” Annie commented.

  “Is it?”

  They were at a stoplight, and Annie turned toward Cam, her eyebrows raised.

  “Okay, fat and pork for breakfast, I’ll give a pass. Honestly, it’s shocking it hasn’t happened before now. Maybe Rob wore you out last night. But not knowing the agenda? Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?”

  “I guess the pressure is getting to me. I forgot to call yesterday to remind him to come today. You know how he is with a schedule, and he’s supposed to help Petunia.”

  “Well, his interview is today, regardless. Jane would have reminded him. We can always get the pictures later—next weekend or something, if it comes to that.”

  “I guess that’s true. Though I doubt by this point there’s anything Jane Duffy doesn’t know about him. So the interview may be short.” Cam worked hard not to make a face. Her dad’s dates were a topic she preferred to avoid.

  “They are not going to put that he wears boxers instead of briefs in a gardening magazine.”

  Cam felt her face redden.

  “How do you even know that?”

  “Hello! Lifetime best friend? Sidekick at laundry duty? Besides, your dad is far too cool for briefs.”

  “I don’t want to think about that.”

  “Rob wears briefs, doesn’t he?”

  “Rob looks good in briefs.”

  “He’d look better without them.”

  Cam shrieked and threw her napkin at Annie just as the light changed to green.

  “What? You saying he doesn’t?” Annie asked once she’d crossed through the intersection.

  “It’s none of your business!”

  “Oh! You thought I meant naked! Pervert!” Annie managed to keep a straight face.

  “You did mean naked. I know you too well to claim otherwise.”

  Annie feigned innocence. “I meant boxers, man panties, a thong, a G-string… He’d look better in pretty much anything other than briefs, and certainly better in nothing!” But then Annie broke into laughter across her steering wheel. “Got you! Cam, I didn’t know you did jealousy!”

  Cam felt a little indignant at first, until she realized there was some truth there.

  “He’s a briefs man, and a briefs man he’ll remain.”

  “Your loss.” Annie shrugged, as if she didn’t care one way or the other.

  Moments later, they pulled into the Patricks’ driveway. Cam got out and walked to the trunk, waiting for Annie to pop it open.

  As planned, they met the Garden Delights crew in greenhouse number one, “Winter.”

  “Should be able to work with the lighting coming in, too,” Tom observed. “Looks a lot like winter.”

  Ian hadn’t shown up, even knowing there was a deadline. With the current photographer, he was more a hindrance anyway, but Cam couldn’t hold her tongue.

  “Where’s Ian?”

  “Off acting strangely,” Hannah blurted, then, at a glance from Tom, she looked at the ground and pretended she hadn’t spoken. Cam thought now wasn’t the time to probe, but she filed it away in her head.

  Annie and Tom got straight to work, so Cam went back to the house, hoping to find her dad. She was sure she’d hear about any problems later.

  Her father wasn’t there yet, so she took our her phone and dialed his cell number.

  “Daddy?”

  “Well hello, sunshine! I was just heading out.”

  “For here?”

  “Well, no. You said eleven.”

  “There’s a storm coming in. Any chance it could be sooner?”

  “I guess we could get it to go.”

  “We?” Though she knew. He had obviously been about to step out to breakfast with Jane Duffy. She pretended it was late enough for him to have slept at home the night before and returned in the morning for the shared meal at Jane’s hotel.

  “Oh, I’m sure you already ate, sweetheart,” her dad said, being intentionally obtuse.

  “Right. To go would be good. You haven’t talked to Petunia, have you?”

  “Petunia?”

  “Helping out. Remember?”

  “Oh! Yes! I talked to Petunia. She said she could handle it and to come after my interview and pictures.”

  That made Cam feel guilty, that her magazine shoot was why Petunia didn’t have help, so she signed off with her dad and called Spoons.

  “Is Petunia there?” she asked the girl who picked up on the third ring.

  “She is, but she’s swamped. Can I take a message?”

  “Tell her Cam will come there to help with lunch, organizing, delivering—that stuff.”

  “She’ll appreciate that,” the girl said. Cam thought it was the twenty-five year-old who snapped her gum a lot, but at least Petunia was at work and had help. She hung up a little regretfully.

  “Everything okay?” Hannah asked when Cam rejoined the crew.

  “Yeah, my dad should be here in half an hour.” Cam looked out at the wall of clouds heading toward them.

  “’Kay,” Annie mumbled. She’d heard Cam’s report, even though Cam hadn’t realized she was paying attention. Annie then finished a series of shots and looked up. “Timing works. We should be done with ‘Winter’ by then—not as much here as in the other ones.”

  Cam nodded. “I’m going to go make sure everything is set up at the wisteria, okay?”

  Annie shrugged as if she didn’t care, but Cam knew better. Her friend wasn’t having a good day. There was no comfort she could offer in front of the others, though, except to give Annie their nearly forgotten secret handshake as she left.

  Annie finally grinned a little. “Thanks. I needed that.”

  Cam made her way back to the house, assessing the approaching weather front as she went. She figured they had somewhere between thirty and ninety minutes to be done before a downpour hit.

  She found Ian standing on the patio like a lump, assessing the storm as she’d just been.

  “Come here. We may only have a half hour, and my dad is on his way. What is the ‘can’t miss’ shot?” Being diplomatic was hard, but she thought she’d better try.

  “Like she’ll listen to you. She won�
�t even listen to me.”

  “She doesn’t like you, with good reason, I might add. She’ll listen to me.” It seemed pretty dense of him to think anyone would listen to an arrogant jerk over a best friend, but she doubted Ian had any friends.

  He didn’t look at her, just walked ahead of her toward the wisteria.

  “The lighting makes that purple way cool.”

  Cam felt annoyed she’d just thought the same thing, only with better vocabulary—storms could provide very impressive lighting. The sun was still relatively low, and so the yellow tones of its morning rays reflected brightly off the underside of the clouds.

  Ian spent a few minutes explaining what he’d found so aesthetically pleasing about the wisteria and trellis, but then suddenly shut up at the sight of a fast-approaching Annie.

  “Is he here?”

  Annie asked as she arrived, trailed by the equipment-encumbered crew.

  “Any minute now. Why don’t you set up?” Cam said.

  Annie nodded, ignoring Ian entirely, and within moments Cam heard, “I’m here.”

  Cam turned toward the house to see her father walking their way. “Daddy! Wonderful. Come on over here.”

  Cam led her dad to the spot Annie seemed to be aiming at.

  “Now listen to Annie.”

  “Do I have to?” He chuckled.

  Cam rolled her eyes. He always laughed at his own jokes.

  “Okay, Mr. Harris, dance like I like,” Annie said. She looked through her lens.

  Mr. Harris started singing a really bad rendition of “Walk Like an Egyptian” and moving strangely.

  “There you go, baby,” Annie said.

  Cam broke into hysterics, as did Jane Duffy, who’d just joined them. The rest of the Garden Delights crew looked thoroughly confused.

  Without changing tone, Annie directed Mr. Harris. He fell back to lean against what showed of the trellis, a content pose, arms crossed in front of him and a satisfied smile on his face.

  Cam could have sworn she heard Annie whisper, “Smile like you just got lucky,” but she tried to ignore those kinds of interactions. Jane started giggling next to her, which was embarrassing, as Jane must have interpreted it the same way Cam had—but with pleasure rather than discomfort.