“I wasn’t judging.” I dropped my hands to my lap and clasped them together to stop myself from flinging something at her. “I was stating a fact.”
She looked at Dylan. “Carly’s questioned all the Harpies and their husbands over the past couple of days, acting as though they are criminals. It’s an embarrassment. They’re my friends.”
“They are,” I agreed. “Not one of them would tell me why you were being blackmailed. Why were you being blackmailed? What are you hiding?”
Across the table, Delia clutched her locket. I didn’t grab mine. I wanted to feel Patricia’s reaction . . . and was immediately rewarded.
A surge of unadulterated panic shot through my body.
“You have no right to interfere in my business.” Fury flared in her eyes.
“No, but I do. Carly’s been helping me try to clear your name,” Dylan said in a low voice. “So you don’t go to prison.”
I knew that tone. He was angry. Absolutely enraged.
“I did not ask for her help,” Patricia seethed. “I do not need her help. I did not kill Haywood, so I have complete faith that justice will prevail.”
She was telling the truth about not killing him.
“Do you know who’s behind the blackmail?” I asked.
“Of course not!”
It was the truth. And with that, the last Harpie fell. None of them knew much of anything about this entire case.
“This is insanity. What I need,” Patricia said to Dylan, “is for her to stay out of my private affairs and to leave my friends alone.”
“But,” I protested, “your friends tell me the most interesting things.”
Redness flooded her cheeks as she gripped her wineglass. “Like what?”
Setting my elbows on the table, I leaned in. It was like Delia and Dylan vanished, leaving only Patricia and me to face off. “Like how Hyacinth told me that no one but her knows who Avery Bryan is. But you know who she is, don’t you, Patricia?”
I was almost knocked clear off my chair by the anxiety that flooded through my veins. Patricia’s hand shook as she set her glass down. “Who’s that now, dear?”
“She’s an Ezekiel. Rupert Ezekiel’s great-granddaughter, in fact.” I noted that her energy didn’t change at this information. “She’s Haywood Dodd and Twilabeth Morgan’s daughter.”
At this bit, her heart started racing to the point where my chest ached, and I feared she was going to have a heart attack.
“Never heard of her,” she said coldly.
Dang, she was a good actress. No wonder she hadn’t out-and-out failed the lie detector test she’d taken.
I needed to figure out why this information set her off. “Heard of who? Twilabeth?”
My chest constricted painfully but Patricia didn’t so much as break a sweat. She had an out-of-this-world high pain tolerance.
So this was about Twilabeth. Haywood had kidded that Patricia had turned on him when he married her, and I had believed it to be a joke. Until right now. Despite being married to Harris, did she have a crush on Haywood back then?
She set her napkin on the table. “No. Avery Bryan, whoever she may be.”
“You’re sticking to that story, are you?” I asked.
Rising, she said, “It’s time for me to leave. Delia, my apologies that I did not finish your delicious supper. I’ve lost my appetite.”
“Would you like to take some home?” Delia asked.
I shot her a look of disbelief. So much for helping me out.
She winced and mouthed, “Sorry.”
“No, thank you, dear,” Patricia said.
Dylan rose, too. “What is going on here? I know you well, Mama, and you’ve been lying through your teeth this whole time. Why?”
“I’m ready to leave now.” She tapped her foot. Louella circled her legs.
“You can’t keep doing this,” he said to her.
Jaw tight, she asked, “What is that exactly, Dylan? Please enlighten me.”
“You can’t keep treating Carly this way, abusing her at every turn. Talk about an embarrassment.”
“I’ve never abused anyone in my whole life,” she declared, outraged.
My eyes nearly rolled clear out of my head and down the hallway.
Dylan crossed arms. “Never mind all your past misdeeds, which are too long to list. More recently, do you recall at the ball the other night when you first insulted her dress, then stepped on it and nearly made her fall? Or how about the many times tonight you’ve insulted her with your little digs, both silent and verbal, at her choice of wine, her housekeeping, her hostess skills, her napkins, for heaven’s sake. And then you lied your face off when all she’s trying to do is help you stay out of jail.”
She paled. “As I mentioned, I don’t need her help.”
“Carly,” he said through clenched teeth. “Her name is Carly.”
Drawing her shoulders back, she said, “I do not need Carly’s help. My life is none of h—Carly’s—business. Now, I’m ready to go home. Can we please go now?”
Dylan slid his keys out of his jean’s pocket and handed them to his mother. “I’m staying. You can drive yourself home.”
In shock, my heart fell to my feet, flopped around.