“Congratulations, Luella,” Jude said, raising his coffee cup. The other agents followed suit.
At the end of the meeting, Bentley stood. “I’d like to note that Lila, our newest intern, has had a very promising beginning. Thank you, Lila.”
“Yes, I concur,” Flora said. “Lila is a wonderful addition to our little group.”
And then we adjourned.
No one mentioned Marlette or the investigation. No one whispered the word “murder.” It was as if the unusual man had never climbed the stairs with his wilted flowers and hopeful face.
I hadn’t mentioned Marlette, either, and though I kept looking at the newspaper for an article on his death, the crime pages were still focused on the arson case in Dunston. More than once over the course of the week, I flirted with the idea of calling Sean, but something held me back.
By the time I’d finished my daily allotment of queries, proposal critiques, and mailings that Friday afternoon, I was ready for the weekend. My mother picked me up and drove me the short distance to Inspiration Valley’s organic food store, How Green Was My Valley. It was my intention to whip up a tasty meal for Althea and Trey. My mother had generously offered to make supper every evening, but last night’s lasagna had been so undercooked that I nearly chipped a tooth on a noodle. On Tuesday night, she’d grilled hamburgers until they resembled miniature manhole covers. Althea’s talents in the kitchen were truly restricted to banana bread, coffee, and comfort.
In addition to bagfuls of fresh local produce, I picked up a copy of Charlaine Harris’s latest Sookie Stackhouse novel. After a week’s worth of query letters, I wanted to read something fun over the weekend.
“Have you heard from Trey?” my mother asked me after I’d loaded the groceries into a box in the truck bed.
“No.” I shot her a confused glance. “I thought he was going to borrow the truck and continue his job hunt today.”
My mother shook her head. “I never laid eyes on the boy this mornin’. His bed is as wrinkled as one of those Shar-Pei puppies, and it looks like a tornado blew in his window, lifted up all his clothes, and sent ’em flyin’ to every corner of the room. Doesn’t he know what folks use hangers for?”
“Sorry, Mama. He’s always been untidy.”
My mother snorted. “Kindergartners are untidy. That son of yours is a flat-out slob. But his room won’t put me off my supper. I just don’t like not knowin’ where he is, and the cards say he’s bein’ drawn away from the familiar. Somethin’ powerful has a hold on the boy, and I can’t tell if it’s a positive or negative influence. Things go all cloudy when I close my eyes and try to search him out.”
Ignoring the psychic mumbo jumbo, I said, “He’s probably hanging out at the Red Fox Co-op. You saw how he looked at Iris. Totally thunderstruck.”
“Yeah, I saw. I just wonder how far he’ll go to turn that girl’s head,” my mother murmured enigmatically.
With the exception of Makayla’s remark about the co-op folks growing marijuana as one of their crops, I wasn’t too concerned about Trey being up the mountain. The people there seemed charitable and kind, if not a little spellbound by Jasper. Trey would be home by nightfall. He didn’t enjoy roughing it much.
Back at my mother’s, I put the groceries away and then popped the cap off a bottle of beer. After my long week, the cool liquid slid down my throat like cold honey, and I sighed in contentment. Althea turned on a Johnny Cash CD, and the two of us belted out “Daddy Sang Bass” as I breaded chicken cutlets and fried them up in peanut oil. In true Paula Deen style, my fried chicken was seasoned with a splash of hot sauce, and I served it with slaw and buttered corn on the cob. I made enough for three, but Trey didn’t show up for dinner. I hoped he was consuming more than beer with his new Red Fox friends.
The sky had turned a bruised blue and gray by the time my mother and I finished supper and began to clear the table.
“It’s gonna rain,” she said, raising her nose into the air like a dog catching a scent.
Leaving the dishes to soak, we went out to the back porch and settled into a pair of rockers. My mother was having Jim Beam over ice for dessert, and I was going to digest a bit before attacking the quart of mocha chip I’d stashed behind a large bag of peas in the freezer. We’d barely set the wooden rockers in motion when my cell phone rang. The number wasn’t familiar, but I answered anyway.
“Lila?” Ginny Burroughs, my Dunston real estate agent, sounded agitated. Her strained voice immediately put me on alert.
“Good evening, Ginny. How are you?”
A pause. “Well, I was just coming over to your house to put the lockbox on—two agents are planning on showing it tomorrow—when I saw something…strange on your front door.”
I waited for her to continue, but she clearly wanted me to ask what she meant, so I played along. “Strange?”