Page 32

Chapter 28

“C an we talk?”

I stood just inside the door of Cleburne Antiques, the small brass bell that hung over the door still tinkling behind me. There were no customers, just Jamie, bent over some papers behind the high counter. Mere darted into the jumble of dusty treasures to explore.

“Stay where I can see you,” I called after her. I didn’t need her stumbling upon Alice, who had entered through Billie’s and would, at any minute now, be slipping through the door that connected the kitchen with Jamie’s shop. I prayed George Davenport’s box of papers and photographs were still in the same place in the shadowy corner far in the back.

Jamie looked surprised but genuinely glad to see me. He flashed his wide, gorgeous smile, and with absolutely no feelings whatsoever, I took note of the muscled, golden-haired forearms framed by rolled-up, rumpled, blue shirtsleeves. In an instant—the instant I’d found Peter’s body in his father’s lake—I’d lost all feeling I’d ever had for this man. All that was left was a burning shame and the deepest disgust I’d ever felt for a person.

Peter was gone. And I’d slept with this man, even as my husband’s body had been decomposing in that beaver dam in his family’s lake. There was not enough forgiveness in the world to cover a betrayal like that. I didn’t even seek it. The only things I wanted now were revenge and survival. I was on autopilot, doing what I had to do to protect myself and my daughter.

“Of course. What about?” Jamie closed a folder of invoices and set it aside.

“About the thing you asked me the other day.” I smiled, hoping I looked sufficiently coy. “Unless you’re busy.”

He straightened. Stood very still. “Sure. Okay. I was just going over some paperwork.”

“We should be quiet.” I looked over my shoulder. “Mere.”

He nodded. “Understood.”

I moved closer to the counter, feeling his eyes on me. Every nerve in my body felt taut. Every beat of my heart, every pulse of blood through my veins, felt like it might be visible to this man, but there was nothing I could do but just play the role as best I could and pray that he bought it.

“I wanted to tell you that while I appreciate your offer, and I do, I think it would be best if I found somebody else to stay with. Maybe Alice.”

“Did she offer?”

“No, but I’m sure she’d say yes if I asked.” I met his eyes, holding his gaze, playing hard to get. Pathetic, that a game this old could work, but it did. It was. I could see his frustration. His desire.

Was he the one who killed Peter? That secret I couldn’t read in his eyes.

He hung his head for a second then looked back up. “Okay, look. I’ve got a confession. I already put in a call to an environmental testing and remediating company that can handle whatever’s going on at your house. They’re going out there today.”

I stared at him. “I didn’t ask you to do that.”

He flushed. “I know, but I felt so bad that your whole family moved down here and bought that house, thinking it was this idyllic setup . . . and it turned out to be a nightmare. I talked to Mayor Dixie, too.”

My mouth fell open.

“She said the city would pay for everything, no matter what they found.” He hesitated. “You’ll need to have it done anyway, if you decide to sell.”

“I don’t know. Peter may come back.”

“Would you hate me if I said I hope he doesn’t?”

I met his gaze, mentally calculating how much time had passed. I wondered how Alice was doing. If she’d found the box of pictures and the name . . . Yes. Yes, Jamie, I would hate you. I do hate you. Because you know he’s not coming back, don’t you?

“Even if he does come back, it still might be the best thing to sell the place.” He hesitated. “But I do hope if you decide to do that, you’ll find another house in Juliana. I would really like it if you stayed.”

I felt a clean, sharp blade of anger slice through me and clenched my fists by my side. How dare he? How fucking dare he?

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I said. “Not yet. But in the meantime—”

“Come stay with me,” he said in a rush.

I gave him a wry look. “I have a kid, Jamie. And a cat, who’s kind of a terror, if you recall.”

“The cabin is way bigger than Alice’s house. Our farm is almost a thousand acres. The cat can roam forever if he wants.”

“It’s just that I don’t want—”

“To be the center of gossip?” He lifted an eyebrow.

Peter’s dead. His body is in your father’s lake. Wedged into a beaver dam. I was trembling with anger. With pure rage. But I had to keep it together. I couldn’t let him see.

“What would your father think?” I was grasping now, running out of excuses to put him off.

“Dad?” Jamie shifted, planted hands on his hips. “Oh. Well, he’ll think he raised a good son who offered a woman and her daughter a place to stay while their poisonous home is being worked on.”

I tilted my head, gritting my teeth so hard I thought I might crack a molar.

“And yeah, he’ll take one look at you and know I’ve got ulterior motives.”

I wanted to reach over the counter and grab him by the throat. Squeeze and squeeze until his face turned blue and he begged for mercy. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mere winding her way around the piles of furniture, toward the back of the shop. Stop, Mere, stop. Hurry, Alice, hurry . . .

Jamie folded his arms over his chest. “Billie, you have to know by now how I feel about you. How I’ve felt about you that first day I saw you standing in front of that space next door. I knew you were married. I respected it—”

I lifted an eyebrow. God, I was good at this game, wasn’t I?

“Okay, I didn’t respect it.” He gave me a plaintive look. “I’m sincerely sorry for how things started with us, but I don’t want that to disqualify me. It wasn’t ideal, everything that happened, I know. And I know you’re nowhere near over Peter. I just want you to give me a chance, Billie. Just a chance. That’s all I’m asking for.”

Revulsion filled me. There was no doubt in my mind, if he had killed Peter, I would make him pay, and preferably with his life. That fact was suddenly the clearest, plainest thing to me. It was the engine that would drive me from this moment forward. Along with my daughter’s safety, the only other thing that mattered was bringing Jamie Cleburne down, in every way possible.

Mere appeared beside me, her hand slipping into mine. “A chance at what?”

“Tell you later, Mere, okay?” I squeezed her hand. She squeezed back, and I lifted my eyes to see Alice slipping like a ghost out of the gloom, weaving between the old pieces of furniture, toward the side door that led to Billie’s. She nodded at me, and I stiffened reflexively.

“You okay?” Jamie asked.

I nodded vigorously. “I’m fine. Fine.”

“Mama, where did Alice go?” Mere asked.

I gripped her hand tighter.

“Alice?” Jamie asked.

“We were hanging out earlier,” I said.

“We’re going on a girls’ trip,” Mere said.

“Really?” Jamie asked.

“Someday soon, if we needed to clear out of the house. We thought that sounded fun. Like, the beach or something,” I said hastily.

“But that man took our car,” Mere explained.

I waved my hand. “Long story. Turns out Lloyd Childers’ Jeep had a lien on it. Who knew?”

Jamie laughed. “Sounds about right. So my place it is? I can come pick you up later on tonight.”

“Sure. Okay.”

He looked at Mere. “Hey, kiddo. Are you okay to stay at my house for a while, you and your mom and Ramsey, so the men can do some work at your house and make it safe?”

Mere frowned up at me. “What’s wrong with our house?”

“The people are going to come check it out, to make sure it’s safe, that’s all.” I glanced at him. “We need to go home first, find Ramsey, pack up enough clothes. That kind of thing.”

“I can give you a ride home if you want,” Jamie said.

I smiled at Mere. “I think we’ll walk. It’s a pretty day, right?” Mere nodded. I could see she was confused. I needed to get her out of here, fast, before she started asking completely reasonable questions. “But thanks.”

“Is Daddy coming to Jamie’s house, too?” Mere asked me.

I swallowed down the lump that rose in my throat and tried to keep my voice level. “No. He’s traveling, remember?”

She nodded. I avoided Jamie’s eyes.

“I’ll swing over around eight,” he said.

“Sure. Sure, that’d be fine.”

I smiled again to cover my boiling anger. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but if keeping my enemies close was the only way I could outsmart them, then down the hatch.

* * *

We met up with Alice around the corner.

“Did you find it? The photo?”

“Yes, and the name written on the back,” she said under her breath as we hurried away from the square. “Dr. Sofia Argotte. UGA. A professor at Georgia, I’m guessing. I took a picture.” She held up her phone.

“Text it to me, and I’ll call her back at my house,” I said, pulling Mere along.

“Mom, slow down!” she complained. “Where are we going now?”

“Baby, I’m so sorry we’re running all around like this. But I just need you to hang tight with me for just a little bit longer.”

“I don’t want to go to Jamie’s house.”

“It’ll just be for a little while.” I turned to Alice. “Jamie called an environmental cleanup company to check out the house. We’ll stay with him while they check everything out. I think if I go over there, I may learn something new. And hopefully, I can track down Deputy Inman. Mere and I are just going back to hopefully find Ramsey, and Jamie’s coming back at eight. You should probably go back home.”

Alice looked flummoxed. “What are you going to do if Inman doesn’t call you back? Or if you find some kind of evidence that Jamie . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t have to.

I lowered my voice so Mere couldn’t hear. “Then I know we’re in deep shit, I’ll steal somebody’s car, and you and me and Mere will disappear.”

She stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Do you feel safe at Jamie’s?”

“Hell no, but I don’t know how else to play this. Listen, Alice, we need to call this person, this professor, Sofia Argotte, to see if she has any information. Maybe a link between the past, the gold mine, and whatever Wren and George Davenport were onto. And what’s going on in Juliana now. The more we know, the smarter we can fight.”

Mere tugged on my hand. “Mama, I want to stay at our house. Just us and Ramsey.” She’d settled into a full-blown funk, but who could blame her? She could sense the chaos. So much so that she longed for the pet she’d been afraid of.

Alice glanced furtively over her shoulder. “Would you feel better if I came with you? We can call the professor from your house.”

“I think you should go home so they don’t get suspicious. Just lock your doors. Windows, too. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t let anybody in.”

She gave me a hug and peeled off in the opposite direction, and Mere and I forged on. It was a long trek—four miles and some change—and by the end of it, Mere was hot, dusty, and whining. I, on the other hand, was glad for the exercise. It was a distraction that almost kept my brain from repeatedly flashing to the image of Peter’s body in Mr. Cleburne’s lake. His black, bloated, shapeless body.

I could feel the weight of the wedding band in the pocket of my jeans. The very same wedding band I’d slipped on Peter’s finger that day in Billie’s in Alphabet City, with my mom and my staff and all our friends. I’m stupid lucky, he’d said in his vows, his gaze not wavering from mine. I’ll never know how I ended up with you. I’d kissed him then, spontaneously, even before the minister had pronounced us husband and wife, and everybody had laughed.

Now tears rushed to my eyes, but I willed them away. Later, I’d have time to grieve. Later, I could fall apart. Right now, I had to keep going. For Mere.

When the house came into view, we saw Ramsey sitting on the front porch, eyes cool, tail curled neatly around his haunches, like some regal guardian of a Pharaoh’s tomb. Mere ran toward him, and—praise be to the feline gods—he allowed her to scoop him up and cuddle him. Inside, I went to get Mere into a bath, then rustle up some kind of dinner.

I made a quick summer pasta with peas and pesto and a salad. We ate on the back porch, and when we were done, I told Mere to pack another bag and did the same. After that, I pulled up the picture Alice had texted and searched the name Sofia Argotte.

Professor of history at the University of Georgia, the bio read . An expert in Civil War battles in Georgia and Sherman’s historic march to Atlanta.

There was only an email under her contact information, so I did a little more digging until I found a number. I dialed, but it went to voicemail. I left my name and number and a brief explanation of who I was—that I’d moved to George Davenport’s property in Juliana and had reason to believe there was a gold mine on my property that was possibly connected to Sherman’s march to the sea and some sort of wartime atrocity. I asked her to call me back and hung up, staring in the direction of the melting, orange sun.

The buried gold mine was just on the other side of that field at the base of the bluff. A mine and a tomb that held the remains of women and children murdered by Sherman. A story that the families who ran this town wanted to keep buried.

But there was more. There had to be.

A dove called somewhere out in the fields, the mourning sound long and low. The sound of loss and regret. I dropped my head in my hands and let out a whimper, and it was like a scab being ripped off a newly healed wound. The primal, guttering sobs that I’d been holding back for hours now, that I could only let out here in the privacy of this place demanded release. Still, Mere was in the house. I covered my mouth with my hand, but I couldn’t stop the tears now, the low wails that joined the dove’s, that poured out of me in a torrent. That felt like they would never stop.

But they did. At last, I was empty, squeezed dry of the pain, at least for the moment. I sat in silence, dazed, disoriented. I felt my scalp prickle, suddenly alert to the warmth of the setting sun. Was that the breeze rustling the overgrown camellias that lined the porch? Or maybe more moles, Ramsey’s prey of choice.

I shivered, suddenly feeling as if I was no longer the only one out here. I could sense it, the presence of something else with me, something watching me. But unlike the eyes I’d felt on me for the past few hours—threatening, evil, bent on doing me harm—these felt different. These eyes felt somehow . . .

. . . benevolent.

Like they were on my side . . .

“Peter?” I whispered into the air.

Two short blasts of a car horn sounded in the stillness, and I jumped. Mere ran out onto the back porch, a canvas tote overflowing with toys and books. “Jamie’s here!”

I downed the rest of my wine and headed out to meet him.