Page 24

Chapter 21

I showered, dressed, and brushed away every trace of alcohol from my teeth, then found the cat carrier in the basement, which Ramsey trotted right into with an agreeable little meow. Jamie drove us to the new animal clinic, located across the river just past the mill, that Dr. Undergrove had opened. As we crossed the bridge and the old stone building with its huge water wheel, I remembered what Inman had told me.

The human remains he’d found.

And Sheriff Childers had taken the case from him.

I wondered if the remains were Wren Street’s. If one of her friends, one of the people living in our house, had killed her and she wasn’t really living on some weed farm in California. And then I put the thought out of my mind. I was going to a dark place. Torturing myself, imagining horror-movie scenarios in my head because I was sad about Peter. But I couldn’t allow that. I needed to stay positive. Keep it together for Mere.

Dr. Undergrove—Michael, as he told me to call him—was a cheerful, balding man in his early thirties. He and his wife Becca had moved to Juliana for the Initiative right after Peter and I had. They were from San Diego and loved their new life in Georgia.

Michael ruffled the fur under Ramsey’s chin, listened to my recounting of his strange behavior. “You know cats are closer to their wild predecessors than we like to think,” he said when I concluded. “Maybe he’s decided to be an outdoor cat.”

“Just run the tests,” I said. “I’ll pay for whatever you think is necessary.”

Outside the clinic, I climbed back in Jamie’s truck.

“Okay,” he said, throwing it in reverse. “Jamie’s Juliana, Georgia’s platinum hangover treatment, coming right up.”

We drove away from town, past a Dollar General, a bait shop, and something called a Sparkle Mart, out into the countryside. There was the occasional house or trailer, with above-ground pools in the front yard or firepits encircled by mismatched lawn chairs, some with metal sheds covering trucks or four-wheelers, but mostly it was mile after mile of rolling fields dotted with trees and cows. Jamie had some sports talk radio station on—two guys and a woman talking about the Braves—and I lay my head back on the seat and slept.

I woke up to the dinging of Jamie’s door. He shut it and leaned in through the open window. “Rise and shine,” he said. “Course number one awaits.”

We were parked on the side of the road next to a produce stand, a shed made of plywood with a corrugated green plastic roof with two folding tables set up under it. The tables were filled with wooden crates of fat red tomatoes, yellow squash and zucchini, cucumbers and melons. Mounds of green beans and some sort of purplish beans overflowed others. The sign said LINDA LOU’S FARM FRESH, but it was a man with a potbelly stretching out a pair of worn overalls and a grimy John Deere cap who handed Jamie a wet, mysteriously bulging paper bag and a glass bottle of Coke.

Jamie handed them to me, and we returned to the truck. “Just tear open the bag.” I did as he instructed, revealing a pile of wet peanuts still in their shells. “Boiled peanuts. Have at it. And the Coke, too. You’ll feel better in a sec.”

The peanuts were mushy and warm and tasted like earthy beans. I demolished them, as well as the frosty Coke, in a few minutes. By the time we had turned off the main road, we were at our second destination, which was apparently a tiny, concrete block structure, painted a mint green, sitting in the middle of a small gravel lot. The vintage sign out front simply read EATS , but there were no other cars around and the small building looked deserted. We didn’t get out of the car.

“What are we waiting for?” I asked.

“To see if it’s open.” He sent me a bemused look. “The owner, Garnet, is a hay farmer. Has a big place a couple of miles south of here. This is just his side hustle so there are no regular hours. But the man can cook, so the deal is, if you’re hungry, you just show up and hope for the best.”

“Ah.” I sat back, trying not to fidget. Trying not to think about the last time I’d ridden in this truck. The night Jamie had picked me up on the mill road. Ever pressed against me, sniffing for any stray peanuts that I may have dropped. I stroked her silky neck. The silence between us weighed on me. I thought of Jamie’s lips on mine, the pressure of his body in the back of his shop.

Talk, Billie. Talk about anything other than that night.

“You know, when we were in your shop that night”—I smiled nervously and he did, too—“I saw a stack of old photos of the Dalzell-Davenport house. And I’ve been thinking about them.”

If he was surprised or even perturbed that I’d looked at the pictures, he didn’t show it. “What about?”

I shrugged. “I was just wondering why you had them, I guess. What they were doing back there in that dusty box. I would’ve thought George Davenport’s family would’ve taken them.”

He sat back and draped his hands over the steering wheel. “Yeah, it was weird how that happened. When George’s family decided to move him down to Florida, they got in contact with me and asked me to collect some of his personal belongings. There was some business stuff, bank statements, tax information, stuff like that, too, as well as the photos. I was going to mail them to his new address, but his great-grandkids never got back to me.”

“You would think they would’ve wanted his financial information after he died.”

“Oh, they were just odds and ends. I’m sure they had what they needed when it came to the estate. Old George was a pretty wily character.”

I nodded, thinking about what Lilah had told me about George’s last days in Juliana—ranting in front of the statue of the little Minette girl, throwing paint on it. And the Crown Royal bag I’d found last night, full of what looked like gold nuggets. If George Davenport had struck gold on his property, I couldn’t understand why he hadn’t told anyone. Maybe it was something connected to that list in the ledger and the explosives. Or the page that had been torn out. Or maybe he was just what he sounded like—a quirky old man with a handful of odd obsessions and a case of dementia.

“Pretty cool that he had a picture of the Confederate soldiers,” I said.

He nodded vigorously. “That one’s really cool, right? My best guess is that it’s the soldiers from Juliana’s regiment. Quite a few men in town signed up to fight. Most of them were lost.”

“How sad.”

“Well, to be fair, they were fighting on the wrong side.”

“It’s just . . .” My mind started to connect a few dots. “Those guys in the picture I saw wouldn’t be Confederate soldiers because there was an American flag behind them. Wouldn’t they have the other flag, the Confederate flag?”

Jamie shook his head. “Well, the original Confederate flag looked almost identical to the Union flag, so that’s probably what you saw. They changed it later. You know, if you’re interested, there’s a plaque with the names of the men who died in the war over at the courthouse. It’s in some glass case, in the courthouse, part of the history tour.”

“Ah.” I looked out the window. I’d heard Alice Tilton led the history tours, on the weekends and summers when she wasn’t teaching.

“We’re not dating anymore,” he said, reading my mind. “Alice and me. In case you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t.”

He looked out the window, hiding a grin. “Okay.”

“Actually, I’ve been wondering if she was seeing my husband.”

His head swiveled back toward me. “For therapy?”

“And possibly other things.”

He looked doubtful. “You think they’re having an affair?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I found files on his computer. Not his regular documents he keeps for patients, but video files from each session.”

I could tell my words had stunned him. That he was turning them over in his mind, weighing the possibility. “I don’t know about that, but I do know that she was struggling with some things when we were seeing each other.”

“What kind of things?”

He hesitated.

“This is my marriage, Jamie. You said you were my friend. One of my friends, my true friends, would absolutely, one hundred percent tell me what they knew.”

“Oh man. Throwing down the friendship gauntlet.” He laughed, turning away from me and shaking his head.

“Just tell me,” I said. “Please.”

“She was upset about us,” he admitted. “She took our breakup hard.”

“And Peter was right there.”

He inhaled deeply. “It’s possible.”

“He’s never videotaped a patient before. Why would he do that unless he”—I huffed out air—“wanted to look at it later.”

“Don’t watch them,” Jamie said. “Don’t watch the tapes.”

I blinked at him, confused. “Why?”

“When Peter calls you, which he will, see what he says. Give him room to admit a relationship with Alice, if that’s what’s going on. Or let him hang himself with his own rope.”

“Wow. That’s some high-level relationship chess right there.”

“Well, this ain’t my first rodeo.” He sighed. I did, too, and then we went quiet, staring at the mint-green building. Suddenly a light flicked on, and Jamie straightened. He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “We’re on! Let’s go!”

We were indeed on, to the tune of fried catfish sandwiches, fried okra, tomato pie, and a peach cobbler that I swore I was too full to eat but went down like it was borne on gossamer angel wings. Everything was chased with sweet tea with mint and lemon in it. Ever, who we’d left out on the front stoop with a bowl of water and a pork chop bone, wandered in sometime during the conversation, but no one seemed to notice or care. By the end of the meal, as Jamie and Garnet and one other guy discussed the merits of the many catfish holes along the river, my hangover truly had vanished.

When the conversation turned to college football, I excused myself to find the bathroom. On my way, I caught glimpse of the kitchen, a hodgepodge of ancient-looking commercial appliances and shelves crammed with boxes of food, Styrofoam cups, and God knows what else. A young woman, mid-twenties, stood at the sink, her back to me. She was dressed in a short batik-printed skirt and gray T-shirt, a muslin apron tied behind her back. Her blond hair was long and in dreadlocks that were held back by a scrunchie. She was scrubbing dishes and swaying to reggae music coming from a speaker on the shelf above her.

I stopped, remembering what Deputy Inman had called Wren Street’s friends who squatted in my house. Trustafarians. Rich kids who adopted the trappings and style of the Rastafarian religion and social movement. Was this girl one of them?

The girl must’ve sensed my eyes on her because she twisted around. “Can I help you?” She was pretty, with a peachy complexion, freckles, and a toothy smile.

“Just looking for the bathroom.”

“You’re headed in the right direction. Just to your left.”

“Thanks.” I hesitated, thinking fast. “I’m Billie Hope, one of the new residents of Juliana. We moved down from New York in April, my husband and I.”

She seemed slightly taken aback that I was talking to her. “Oh, okay. Right on.”

“I opened a breakfast and brunch place on the square, next door to Cleburne’s Antiques.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen it.”

I smiled. “You should come by. I’ll comp you a mimosa.”

“Oh, I don’t drink. I just . . .” She pinched thumb and forefinger together and touched her lips.

“Anyway. Come by. Anytime.”

“Sure thing. Thanks.”

I tilted my head. “What was your name?”

“Oh. Emmaline. Emmaline Dalzell.”

ED . The initials along with Wren Street’s that I found carved into the baseboard in the guest room . Emmaline was one of the squatters.

“Great,” I said. “Fantastic. Nice to meet you, Emmaline. The catfish was fabulous. The cobbler, no words.”

“I’ll let Garnet know. I actually just wash the dishes.”

“The most important job.” I was dying to ask her about Wren, about the carvings in George Davenport’s room, but I really didn’t want to freak her out, so I continued on to the bathroom. Maybe she would show up at Billie’s, and I could get more out of her. Like what exactly they’d been doing in my house. Like if they were aware of any gold on the property. Or any legends about children. And if Wren really had gone to California . . . or had somehow wound up dead and buried by the river at the mill.

On the way back to my house, Jamie and I were both quiet. I was grateful that he’d come to check on me and load me full of greasy carbs. And in spite of the distraction of possible gold strikes, murder, and all manner of creepy small-town secrets, I knew it probably amounted to a bunch of nothing. A bunch of nothing that I was trying to make into something so I wouldn’t have to deal with Peter. I checked my phone one last time. Two of my New York friends, Jane and Annika, had finally texted me back. Jane, as usual, was fiercely loyal.

What the fuck? Peter walked OUT on you? Has he lost his mind? Would you like me to do murder on your behalf? I’m prepared, willing, and able, as soon as I get these kids in bed. XX

I smiled. Annika was a little more to the point.

I know the best divorce lawyer in Manhattan who will know someone in Atlanta. Call me.

Peter had texted me back, too, but I didn’t want to open it. I didn’t think I could bear any bad news. Not right now. Not while I was full of fried catfish and sweet tea and the sun was shining on my face. Not while I was in Jamie Cleburne’s truck. I turned the phone facedown.

“What is it?” Jamie said. Ever was sprawled out between us, her head in Jamie’s lap. He was absently scratching behind one ear.

“Nothing,” I said. “Just a couple of old friends looking out for me. Vowing to do murder on my behalf.” I gave him a rueful grin.

He lifted his eyebrows. “Good. I’m glad. You deserve it.”

“I really appreciate all this. What you did today.” I looked out the window, watching the green fields, but my fingers were scrolling to Peter’s text. I couldn’t avoid it forever. And maybe it was better to read it here, in Jamie’s truck.

I opened my phone, clicked on my messages, and read what my husband had written.

I can’t talk to you. Not yet. Tell Mere I’m traveling for work, and please don’t contact me again. I want a divorce.