I Think I Love You Page 21

  “Sorry. No news.”

  God, if only one piece of this nightmare would end. “I’m starting to lose faith in a police department that can’t find a gun-wielding housewife.”

  He made a rueful noise. “The consensus is she’s holed up somewhere and… never mind.”

  She closed her eyes. “And that she’s taken her own life?”

  “No,” he said unconvincingly. “Don’t jump to conclusions. How are things in Mayberry?”

  She took a drag and exhaled. “Not as quiet as you might think.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m in trouble, Lando.”

  “How can I help?”

  Tell me how to fool a polygraph. “Tell me everything’s going to be okay.”

  “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  That made her smile. “So why are you calling?”

  “I wondered if you needed for me to do anything around your house while you’re gone, like water your plants.”

  “All my plants are plastic.”

  “Oh. Guess you don’t have pets, either.”

  “Nope.”

  “Hm. You have something against live things?”

  “Just live things that expect something from me.”

  “Ah. It’s not so bad. You should start off slow, maybe an aloe vera plant. Those are hard to kill.” A beep sounded in the background. “Listen, I have to get that. Take care of yourself.”

  “I’ll try.”

  She disconnected the phone and for some stupid reason, the tears were back. And the anger. Her glance strayed to the chest where her nutmeg was stashed. She longed to be transported from this misery for a few hours, but she resisted on principle alone—Mica had made her out to be some kind of addict, which was ridiculous. She looked at the bathroom door and gritted her teeth. Correction: this mess wasn’t her fault, by God; it was Mica’s.

  Mica. How ironic that she’d been so thrilled when Cissy and John had brought that wriggly little baby home from the hospital. At five years old, she hadn’t imagined that the black-headed infant would wreak so much havoc upon her heart and her life. No matter who had actually pulled the trigger that killed Dean, Mica shared the blame for the events she’d set into motion years ago. And during their interrogation, the little witch had done everything to point the finger at her.

  She snubbed out the cigarette, passed the ashtray to the nightstand, and sat up. Mica, as usual, was coming out on top. She’d taken Dean when she wanted him, had allowed him to help launch her career; then she’d gotten rid of him when he became a nuisance. Now she’d simply return to LA and to her agent-lover, then go on with her charmed life. She’d probably never even miss Dean.

  A person can’t just go through life destroying relationships and get away with it!

  Rage boiled in her stomach. Mica had been getting away with things her entire life. It was high time that she pay.

  Justine walked to the bathroom door and opened it noiselessly. By the dim glow of a night-light she found her toiletry bag and rummaged until her fingers found the item she was looking for. She held them up to the light and smiled.

  Long, strong, sharp scissors. She put her hand on the knob of the door leading to Mica’s room and turned it quietly.

  Chapter 23

  After a breakup, DO try a new hairstyle.

  Mica’s eyes flew open, and she was relieved to see daylight streaming into her bedroom. But on the heels of her relief to be free of the general torments of the dark hours came the profound sadness of remembering: Dean was dead.

  Her eyes filled instantly and stung around the raw edges. She couldn’t bear it, knowing he would soon be sitting in a little urn at Williams’s Funeral Home. She didn’t know what else to do—Dean didn’t have any family, and she couldn’t afford a funeral. They didn’t have a stitch of insurance. Cremation was the most economical choice, although she let Tate Williams believe it was Dean’s preference—a “Hollywood” thing. No one in Monroeville had been cremated to Tate’s knowledge, and since he didn’t have a crematorium, he’d have to ship Dean to Boonton after the autopsy, then have his ashes carted back, but they’d be ready for “viewing” tomorrow evening. Too late she found out that ashes couldn’t be buried in an inexpensive cemetery plot, as she’d hoped, and since she didn’t have money to buy a tiny crypt, she told Tate she’d take the ashes with her.

  She rolled over on her side and toyed with the end of her black braid. Tears curled over her cheeks and onto the pillow. Dean was dead, and her father was missing, presumably running from the law. She was conflicted—grieving for Dean, yet she couldn’t bear the thought of John wasting away in prison for killing him. They wouldn’t lock up an old man, would they? Not if he’d committed a crime trying to protect his daughters? Couldn’t everyone see that Dean had it coming, that he plowed through other people’s lives, burning through relationships and discarding them when they were no longer useful?

  Mica closed her eyes and thought of all the issues plucking at her. She needed to call Everett and break the news of Dean’s death and to brace him for a potential scandal. And see how quickly he could get her back to work, even if her health wasn’t yet stellar. Before she returned to LA, though, she’d have to take a polygraph regarding Dean’s murder. Luckily, she’d seen a movie where the person put a tack in the toe of their shoe and pressed down when they wanted to distort the readings of the machine.

  She’d be fine if she didn’t bleed to death.

  Then there was the Bracken case hanging over her head, which would be yet more bad publicity for her and for Uncle Lawrence. Rising starlet, love triangle, sensational murder, political relative, family skeletons, missing father, jealous sister, disoriented mother. All the makings of a celebrity scandal show.

  She wondered how Justine was holding up—it was obvious that she was still in love with Dean. Seeing her sister in her wedding gown the other night, wearing rings that had never been exchanged, had shaken Mica to the core. Over the years she’d imagined Justine immersed in her successful corporate career, dating powerful men and commanding respect from everyone around her, with no time to dwell on the past. And although she’d expected Justine to harbor hurt feelings toward her for leaving with Dean, she hadn’t expected that Justine would still harbor such deep feelings for him.

  Before Dean arrived on Tuesday, she and Justine had been making progress toward healing their relationship. Today she would make an extra effort to reach out to her. After all, they could at least attend the memorial service together, grieve together. And they would need collective strength to help John and Cissy through whatever lay ahead. Maybe something good could come from all this sadness—maybe their sisterhood would be restored.

  She sat up with a sigh, her limbs gloomy from the painkiller she’d taken last night. The medication had worked better than usual, though, she thought as she rolled her head from shoulder to shoulder, stretching the muscles. Her neck hadn’t felt this good in a long while. Maybe it was the extra sleep she’d been getting. Or the extra calories she’d been forcing herself to consume. Or perhaps the infection had affected other areas of her body and was now leaving.

  She reached for her purse and pulled out her cell phone. It was still early on the West Coast, but she wanted to get the call over with. And Everett had told her to call him anytime, day or night. As the phone rang, she cleared her throat and reminded herself to sound strong and in control—she wanted to come across as healthy and billable.

  “Hello?”

  His voice gave her such comfort, she wished she’d called him sooner. “Everett, it’s Mica.”

  “Mica, how are you? Where are you?”

  “I’m fine. I’m at my parents’ house in North Carolina. But I’m afraid I have some bad news.” Out of habit, she reached up to rub her neck, marveling once again at how good it felt. And how… breezy?

  “Mica?”

  Panic and confusion gripped her as she groped thin air where her hair used to be. She twisted and froze at the ho
rrific sight in her bed. A long severed black braid, vivid against the white pillow.

  “Mica?”

  She screamed.

  Chapter 24

  DON’T underestimate the therapeutic value of placing blame.

  Regina stood in the kitchen, drinking mostly cream laced with a little coffee, waiting for bread to toast so she could take a tray up to Cissy, who was bedridden and desolate over John’s disappearance. Regina knew how her mother felt—as if things would never be good again.

  She heard a noise on the side porch, and her heart jumped. John? She walked to the door and was a little disappointed to see Justine sitting in a glider with her feet tucked under her. She opened the door and Justine started.

  “You’re up early.”

  Justine lifted a half-smoked cigarette to her mouth. “Couldn’t sleep.”

  “That makes two of us. I made coffee—want some?”

  “Sure.”

  She set the toast aside for the time being, then poured another cup of sludge. She carried hers out, too, and sat across from Justine in a chair. Two birds trilled to each other from separate trees.

  Come over here.

  No, come over here.

  No, come over here.

  Typical male and female.

  A breeze stirred, prodding a new day to life. Nature had already forgotten yesterday. If only humans could be so lucky.

  After a few silent sips, she sighed. “Justine, I never slept with Dean.”

  “As if I care.” Her voice was flat.

  “I care, and I want you to know the truth. It happened two years before you were to be married, and it was only a kiss.”

  Justine’s cheeks went concave as she drew on the cigarette. “But he wanted to sleep with you.”

  She was silent, then added, “I’m sorry, Justine, for not telling you, for not warning you. I was ashamed, and I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “Forget it, Regina. I know that it was Dean’s doing—you don’t have it in you to be bad.”

  Why didn’t that sound more like a compliment?

  “Have you seen this?” Justine picked up a copy of the Asheville daily newspaper—Monroeville’s weekly paper wouldn’t come out until Monday—and extended it. “It’s the Metcalf family special edition.”

  The front page featured Dean’s death and what must have been the only picture of Dean the reporter had been able to get his hands on, a high-school-annual shot taken before Dean had dropped out of school. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen. Handsome and cool-looking, with challenging black eyes. Mean eyes, she decided. There was also a picture of the back of the antiques shop cordoned off with police tape, a graphic quote from the hefty dump truck driver, and a paragraph about local businessman John Metcalf, who had been missing since the incident and was considered a person of interest.

  A sidebar mentioned that in a “bizarre coincidence,” John Metcalf’s three adult daughters, one of whom was Mica Metcalf of Tara Hair Girl fame, had confessed to witnessing the twenty-year-old murder of Representative Lawrence Gilbert’s wife. This just as the man convicted of the crime was appealing for a new trial in Charlotte. In lieu of the girls’ high school pictures, thank God, they had used a press photo of Uncle Lawrence.

  She refolded the paper and cast about for a cheerful angle. “Our names weren’t mentioned.”

  “With Magnificent Mica in the mix? Of course not.”

  Regina frowned over the top of her cup. “I’m worried about you, Justine.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. What’s up with getting high on nutmeg? I didn’t even know that was possible.”

  Justine scoffed. “It’s nothing. If you’re going to worry, worry about Dad.”

  “I am—so much I can hardly talk about it.”

  Justine flicked her ash into a flowerpot “So you think John killed the bastard?”

  Regina drank deeply. “I can’t imagine it, but I’m terrified. With everything that Dad’s been through lately, he might not be in his right mind. And if he didn’t do it where the heck is he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And if John didn’t kill Dean, then who did?”

  Justine exhaled a plume of smoke. “Mica.”

  “Be serious.”

  “I am.” She leaned back against the glider and pointed her cigarette. “Her career was on the line, he’d given her VD, plus she found him in my bed.”

  She scoffed. “I know you and Mica have your differences, but she’s our sister. You surely can’t believe that she would commit murder.”

  “Regina, Mica’s been gone for twelve years—we don’t know what she’s capable of. People change.”

  “So where’s Dad?”

  “He’s taking the rap.”

  “What?”

  “You know Mica has always been his favorite. Do you think he’d let her go to prison?”

  She hadn’t realized that her sisters’ competition for John’s attention ran so deep. “I think you’re letting your animosity for Mica get in the way of your common sense. If there’s a God, Dean shot himself, then crawled into that wardrobe to die.”

  Justine shook her head. “Regina, only you could think of such a perfect ending, where no one else gets hurt.”

  “I think there’s been enough hurt in this family, don’t you?”

  “Don’t look at me—I didn’t start it.”

  “But you could end it.”

  Justine smiled the strangest little smile. “I’m actually feeling much better about the state of things between me and Mica.”

  Regina pursed her mouth and nodded, wondering what had changed since last night when her sisters could barely look at each other, much less be civil.

  Then from inside the house, she heard what sounded like an animal caught in a trap. “What on earth?”

  Justine seemed much less concerned, and before Regina could stand, the screen door was flung back. Mica appeared in a silky nightshirt, her face contorted, carrying a black something or other.

  “What’s wrong?” Regina asked.

  “What’s wrong?” Mica bawled. “What’s wrong is this!” She held up a long black braid, and Regina gasped in horror.

  “Oh, my God, is that your hair?”

  Justine flicked more ash. “Eww.”

  “I’m going to kill you!” Mica screamed, and launched herself at Justine.

  It took Regina a few seconds to figure out that Justine was behind the severed braid. An awfulness settled into her stomach, and she might have let them fight to the death if there weren’t so many other more dire issues at hand. She put down her coffee and levered herself between them. “Stop it. Stop it!”

  They pulled her down with them, arms and legs flailing. This couldn’t be happening. She was a respected senior editor at a prestigious publishing firm.

  They all went rolling to the edge of the porch and off the three-foot drop into the giant dew-laden ivy. She landed with a whoof and heard their grunts, too. She turned her head sideways and looked into the face of a blue concrete bunny. Another couple of inches to the right, and she might have wound up drooling for the rest of her life.

  “Are you okay?”

  She looked up to find Mitchell staring down at her. She nodded miserably. Then a big wet tongue licked her forehead.

  “Hi, Sam.”

  Mitchell reached down to pull her up. “Looks like I came at a bad time.”

  “No,” she assured him. “This is how we start every day around here.” She assessed the carnage. Justine was sitting up in the ivy, finishing her cigarette. Mica sat up a few feet away, crying and ruffling her short locks. The disheveled braid lay nearby, looking like a dead animal. Sam went over for a sniff.

  Mitchell made a clicking noise with his cheek. “Let me guess—they tried your coffee.”

  “Hardee-har. No, Justine whacked off Mica’s hair.”

  He flinched.

  “I know. Listen, could you give us a minute?”

  “Sure, I’l
l… go make some coffee.”

  “Great.”

  “Come on, Sam.”

  She straightened her damp, disheveled clothing and took a few seconds to catch her breath. Justine and Mica sat in steeped silence, as if waiting for a lecture. She put her hands on her hips and studied them for a long time. Stubborn, spoiled girls who’d grown up to be stubborn, spoiled women. And she was through being a referee. Finished. The end. She turned her back and waded through the ivy toward the porch.

  “Aren’t you going to say something?” Justine called after her.

  She kept walking and climbed the short set of stairs in silence.

  “We know you want to,” Mica said.

  She crossed the porch, walked into the kitchen, and closed the door behind her. Sam had found a quiet corner to occupy. Mitchell leaned against the counter, baby-sitting the coffeepot. “Regina, we don’t have to work today.”

  She sighed. “No, it’s fine.” Since the shop was now considered a crime scene, they’d decided to move on to the house to begin tagging the antiques there that would have to go.

  “You don’t have to help me, you know.”

  “It’s the only productive thing I can do right now.”

  “No word from your father?”

  “None.”

  “I passed Deputy Pete parked at the end of your driveway.”

  “In case Daddy returns, I suppose.”

  He made a noncommittal sound. “How’s your mother holding up?”

  “Not well. I was getting ready to take her breakfast when all sister hell broke loose.”

  He poured new coffee for both of them. “Women are scary.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “How so?”

  He handed her a cup. “Men fight fair. They tell each other what they think. Get pissed off. Pound each other into the ground. Then, usually, they go on being friends.” He drank from his cup and swallowed with a shake of his head. “But with women, it’s like guerrilla warfare—you never know what direction they’re going to come from. And vicious, man, oh man.”

  She sipped from her cup. “You don’t really expect me to agree with you, do you?”

  “No.” He bit into cold toast and nodded toward the door. “Doesn’t your sister make a living with her hair?”