“Trust me, what’s on the website is a small fraction of what’s in there. And those creepy dolls aren’t the worst of it.” She glanced at her watch again. “Sorry—I really do have to run. It was good talking to you. It’s like having another mom when I’m away from home.” With a smile, she left.
I wanted to shout after her that I was barely past forty and not nearly old enough to be her mother, but I couldn’t find the energy. I sat back in my chair, my appetite completely gone, my mind running in so many directions, I wondered if Jayne would allow me to include it in my daily exercise goal. I stared down the street and spotted Veronica walking toward me and I waved, then picked up my phone to text Jack. A glimmer of excitement coursed through me as I contemplated working with Jack again, no longer having to come up with an excuse to see him.
I opened the screen, then stopped when I saw that I had a waiting text with a phone number I didn’t recognize with a local 843 area code. I clicked on the message and my throat tightened as I read the words in all caps, almost hearing them shouted in my ear.
SHE DESERVED IT
CHAPTER 10
When I returned home from work later that afternoon, I almost drove past number 55 because of the large box truck blocking my driveway, and the people scurrying around the front yard and piazza like ants at a picnic, dragging thick ropelike cords through the open front door.
A red Ferrari squatted behind the truck, its rear half jutting into the street. Despite the City of Charleston permit sign that had suddenly sprung up at the end of my driveway, I hoped a diligent parking officer would see the car and slap a ticket on the windshield. I had no doubt to whom the sports car belonged.
I stopped my car and checked two of my calendars to make sure it wasn’t street-sweeping day, then pulled into a spot at the curb. My residential parking decal would allow me to avoid the nuisance of a ticket, but that was one piece of information I wasn’t going to share with Harvey Beckner.
I’d spent my entire lunch hour speed-reading Lust, Greed, and Murder in the Holy City and my face still burned. If I looked in a mirror, I was sure I’d find that my eyelashes had been singed. And though I’d left my copy of the book available for Jack to read or at least skim through after he’d moved back in, he was still too wounded to read even as far as the acknowledgments page. The few details Jack knew about Marc’s book had come from Jack’s editor, Desmarae, who’d told Jack it was the best book she’d ever read. Just one of the many reasons Jack had been so eager to make a deal with Marc and find a new publisher. He was struggling to finish the book still under contract while declining suggestions by Desmarae to turn it into a graphic novel and appear shirtless on the back cover. I doubted that John Grisham or Stephen King had ever had to field the same suggestions. And to have his editor suggest that Marc’s book was one of the best books she’d ever read was like her rubbing salt into the wound.
I could only hope that we still had time to change the most highly inaccurate and insulting elements of the screenplay before this nightmare became fully realized on the big screen. Although I had the strong suspicion that doing that would be like holding back a hurricane with my pinkie.
I walked toward the house, my steps slowing as I neared the commotion. Every light in the house had been turned on, and as I got closer, the lights all brightened in unison before going completely dark. I stopped. A man cursed as someone ran down the piazza steps, then stopped as the house was flooded with light again. It seemed, I thought, as if the house had just winked. Or sent out a warning.
“We don’t have to stay here, you know.”
I swung around to see Jack standing beside me. Despite it being only late afternooon, the winter sky had already deepened into purple, making it difficult for me to distinguish real people from shadows. Or worse. Which was why dusk had always been my least favorite time of day regardless of the season.
I waited for him to place his arm around me and pull me close until I remembered that he wouldn’t. And why. I watched the small patch of grass on the side of the house get flattened by dozens of booted feet and winced. “This is what we wanted, right?” We had agreed to stay in the house during all of this because Jayne said it would be best for the children, to avoid removing them from their structure and routine.
A familiar tic twitched in Jack’s jaw. “Yeah, but after we negotiated everything into what we assumed was a workable situation, I had no idea that limiting the filming to three rooms and converting our carriage house to dressing rooms would still require all . . . this.”
“Neither did I. But would you really trust Harvey enough to give him free run of the house without supervision?”
Jack didn’t hesitate. “Nope.” He turned to survey the house, his lips pressed together.
“How long have they been here?” I asked.
“I don’t know—I just got here. I was inside only long enough to see Mrs. Houlihan chasing a member of the crew out of her kitchen with a soup ladle, shout at Nola to remain upstairs with Jayne and the twins, and tell someone who appeared to be in charge that they needed to put a cloth on the dining room table before they placed the crew’s dinner on it or she’d give Sophie their direct number.”
“So, about the film . . .” I started, determined to push back my first impulse of going directly to Harvey and demanding changes. I wanted to spare Jack more mental anguish but made the effort to upgrade to the new Melanie, no matter how tempted I was to ignore the problem in the hope it would all go away. I cleared my throat and tried again. “So, about the film . . .” I started again.