Dangerous Alterations (27 page)

“I suppose. Or maybe it wasn’t her at all. Maybe it was someone who knew about medication the same way Kelly knew about electrical things.”

“Maybe,” she mumbled. “Maybe he dated a doctor at some point.”

“Or a pharmacist,” Margaret Louise suggested.

“A pharmacist,” she repeated even as her thoughts began shaping a reality that not only worked but made perfect sense, too. “Margaret Louise,
you
are a genius.”

Dumping all library responsibilities on Dixie without so much as a moment’s notice probably wasn’t one of her better moves but she didn’t really have any other alternative.

Except, perhaps, to wait until they closed for the day.

But when she saw how happy Dixie was to be given the responsibility again after the trauma of Friday’s fire, Tori couldn’t help but free herself of any guilt. Besides, had she stayed and waited until close, she would have been completely useless, her mind as far from books and patrons and post-fire related tasks as humanly possible.

No, following her gut was smart.

Unfortunately, following her gut at that very moment meant denying Margaret Louise of her second favorite thing to do—playing backup investigator to Tori.

Having Lulu and Sally for the day, though, made the timing less than ideal. And considering the fact that the woman’s grandchildren claimed the top spot on her list of favorite pastimes, it made sense to visit Lynn alone.

Yet as she drove along the very same winding roads she’d driven less than forty-eight hours earlier, Tori couldn’t help but feel her excitement waning. If she was right about the identity of Jeff’s killer, an innocent party was about to get hurt—an innocent party who’d been through enough trials over the last year or so to last a lifetime.

If she was right, and she said nothing in a misguided effort to help Lynn, a man would get away with murder. If she was right and told Chief Dallas, the killer would ultimately meet the justice he deserved but also set a cruel injustice in motion for a blameless bystander.

She felt her foot let up on the gas, the car slow in response.

What on earth was she doing? Was it really her place to stick her nose in business that, truly, had nothing to do with her any longer? Figuring out who killed Jeff wasn’t her job, it was the police chief’s. Her job was to excite people about reading and connect them with the books they sought.

It was as her great grandmother had always said, everyone had their place in life.

Pulling onto the shoulder, she slowed her car still further in preparation for the U-turn that would bring her back to Sweet Briar. Everything she was thinking was pure speculation. And, given time, Chief Dallas was perfectly capable of speculating in the same direction.

Wasn’t he?

The rhetorical question played through her thoughts, followed by random images that had her wondering whether he could.

Sure, Chief Dallas was a smart man. One only had to walk into the police department and see all his certificates and awards on the wall to know that. But he wasn’t always quick to look beyond his initial suspicions, narrowing in on his first guess while missing various possibilities that lurked in the periphery.

It was why she’d been propelled to snoop around when Tiffany Ann Gilbert was murdered. It was why she hadn’t settled for the obvious when Debbie’s husband disappeared. It was why she poked around in the death of Rose’s next-door neighbor and later a fellow kindergarten parent of Debbie’s and Melissa’s.

Some may say her need to probe came from a lack of trust in Sweet Briar law enforcement and they weren’t too far off base. But, beyond that, she was simply a curious person. Always had been. It’s why she read everything she could get her hands on growing up; fiction, nonfiction, anything with a cover on it.

She simply had to know.

How a tale ended …

How a particular animal survived …

Whether a relationship lasted or fell apart …

I have to know.

Tightening her grip on the steering wheel, Tori thwarted her U-turn and pulled back onto the road, curiosity winning out once again.

If her suspicions were right, she’d simply have to find a way to help Lynn. Where there was a will, there was a way, right?

She zipped along the road until she came to the turnoff to Lee Station, the Calders’ street coming up shortly thereafter. Slowly, she counted out the houses she passed on the left, the daytime version of Lynn’s street different than the nighttime version.

As she approached the fifth house, she pulled in tight to the curb and came to a stop. If she’d been thinking, she’d have run into Debbie’s Bakery before making the drive from Sweet Briar. But, as often was the case when she was following a hunch, good manners slipped from her mind.

Releasing a frustrated sigh, she pushed open her door and walked around the car, her feet following the same path they had less than two days earlier. A path that led them to Lynn’s front door.

She knocked on the trim that surrounded the screen door. “Lynn? Are you home?”

Footsteps followed, then the sight of Lynn’s surprised face beneath her bare head. “Victoria, what a nice surprise. Come—come in.” The woman reached out, pushed open the screen door, and stepped aside to let Tori pass. “Is everything okay?”

She half shrugged. “I wanted to thank you for letting us hang on to that picture of—oh, wait. I think I have the other one I didn’t intend to take.” Tori separated the shoulder straps of her purse and peered inside. Rummaging around with her free hand, she came up empty. “Darn. I’m sorry. I must have forgotten it at work.”

Lynn led the way into the same parlor they’d inhabited the first time, her hand gesturing to the same couch as well. “What other picture?”

She perched on the edge of the sofa and looked up at Lynn. “It was one of the shots you took of your garden. I guess it got stuck to the one of Kelly because we didn’t notice it until yesterday.”

Lynn waved away Tori’s concern. “I have plenty of pictures like that. No worries.” The woman reached up, touched her head. “I wasn’t expecting company today. Didn’t feel like wearing my bandana.”

“You look beautiful just the way you are, Lynn.” Tori patted the cushion to her left. “Do you have a moment to sit? I’d like to talk if that’s okay.”

“Of course.”

Lynn lowered herself onto the couch, her brows furrowing as she did. “Did you show the picture to the fire chief?”

She nodded.

“And?”

Linking her hands inside one another, she set them in her lap. “And I imagine they’re tracking Kelly down as we speak.”

A soft clucking noise emerged from Lynn’s lips. “Such a shame. One more woman is ruined because of a cheating man.”

She considered the woman’s words, recognized them as something she, herself, might have spoken before moving to Sweet Briar and meeting Milo. “She could have walked away, washed her hands of Jeff once and for all.”

Lynn closed her eyes and leaned her head against the back of the couch. “That’s not always easy. Especially when you’re head over heels for the person who ripped your heart in two. You, of all people, should understand that.”

She searched for the right way to articulate the place she was in, the hurt and the self-doubt she’d worked through in order to gain wisdom and happiness.

“I was hurt by Jeff, there’s no doubt about that. I, too, was head over heels for him, or, rather, what I imagined was head over heels. I put his needs first, his interests first, his everything first, allowing myself to disappear in the process.”

Lynn opened her eyes and fixed them on Tori. “You did that because that’s what we were taught to do as women.”

She shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. I may have thought that, but I don’t think that was entirely true. At least not in my case, anyway. My great grandparents had a wonderful marriage, the kind of marriage that not only lasted but worked, too. Sure, my great grandmother made dinner every night and set aside her dreams to support my great grandfather and raise their children. But she still kept herself. She sewed, she visited friends, she even dabbled with a little writing. The difference, though, was the fact that she had a mate who encouraged her to do those things. Encouraged her to be her own person.”

“Jeff wasn’t like that?”

She laughed. “No. And I’m embarrassed to say I was too dumb to see that. In fact, I didn’t even see that until after I moved here and was able to look back without the raw pain that blinded me after the breakup.”

“What made you see it then?” Lynn asked.

“I guess I saw the move as a chance to make a life for
me
. A life with friends, and hobbies, and a job that fulfills me in so many ways.”

“Then the move was your lucky break or your silver lining, yes?”

She shook her head. “No. My lucky break was Jeff showing his true colors before I got sucked into that life full-time. The silver lining is my life now.”

For a moment, Lynn said nothing as her gaze strayed to the mantel and its assortment of framed photographs. “You think Kelly would have come to that realization, too?”

“If she’d given herself time to grieve, yes. But she didn’t. She opted to act out at me before taking the time to realize I wasn’t interested in Jeff and that she deserved better than the respect he so clearly didn’t show her.”

“See, and I’ve had the time. Plenty of time.”

“Time?” Tori asked. “Time for what?”

“To realize I’m better off without Garrett. Any man who could carry on with another woman the way he does isn’t fit to be a husband. To anyone.”

Pity welled up in her heart for the woman. “I concur wholeheartedly.”

“But, for some of us, time isn’t the issue.” Lynn grabbed hold of a loose thread along the side seam of her jeans and twisted it around her finger. “Well, not in that sense, anyway. Time in the traditional sense of the word is very much an issue for me.”

Tori reached across the couch, closed her hand over the top of Lynn’s. “I’m so sorry for everything you’re going through. I truly am.”

“It’s life.” Lynn squeezed Tori’s hand in response, then extracted her own and pushed off the couch. “Would you like something to drink?”

“No. I’m fine.”

Lynn wandered over to the window and pushed aside the sheer white panel that broke the intensity of the afternoon sun. “So what brings you by, exactly?”

She swallowed once, twice, willed herself to find the courage to ask the questions that needed to be asked.

“Was Garrett angry when he heard the terms of Vera’s last will and testament?”

Lynn snorted. “Was Garrett angry? What do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

Slowly, Lynn turned from the window and retraced her steps back to the couch, bypassing her former spot in favor of a nearby armchair with matching ottoman. She propped her feet up. “The bulk of Vera’s money came to her by way of Garrett’s father. He was a very wealthy man. In his will, he left everything—the house, the cars, his money—to Vera. The only stipulation regarding his son at all was a request to allow Garrett and I to continue living in the house.”

Tori nodded yet said nothing as Lynn’s voice took on a fatigued quality. “Garrett wasn’t thrilled at that time but he let it go, assuming that it would eventually come his way once Vera died. But that didn’t happen. She left all of her money to Jeff, and this house to me.”

“Wow. He must have been furious.”

Lynn made a face. “That’s one word for it, I suppose. Another might be near violent.”

She stared at the woman. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“No. But he broke nearly everything that remained in Vera’s room. Every lamp, every picture, every glass knickknack he could get his hands on.” Lynn gestured toward the mantel. “The only reason he didn’t do the same out here is because I made the mistake of pointing out the caveat in the will. Once I did that, his mind and his efforts went elsewhere.”

“What caveat was that?” she inquired.

“The part that left the money to Garrett should anything happen to Jeff before the money was turned over.”

Tori froze in her spot, Lynn’s words essentially sewing up any conceivable hole she might have entertained in her suspicion regarding Garrett.

“H-had Jeff gotten the money yet?”

Lynn shook her head. “As of that morning, no.”

“Are you sure?”

“He came and stayed here after the wake. Garrett wasn’t thrilled but he agreed, something he regretted after he heard the terms of Vera’s will. Anyway, Jeff checked the mailbox ’bout twenty minutes before his run that last day. Came in all long-faced because it hadn’t come yet. So there I was with Garrett stewing over his lunch and Jeff pouting while I made him a protein drink. Eventually they both left—Garrett to work, or, rather, to see his mistress, and Jeff to take what turned out to be his last run.”

“So Garrett now gets that money?”

“Yes he does. In fact, the check that was being written in Jeff’s name was deposited in our account not more than forty-eight hours after his death.”

“Garrett killed him!” The second the words were out, Tori clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, Lynn, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that but—”

“What makes you think Garrett killed Jeff? I thought you were convinced it was Kelly.”

“Jeff died because of a medication that was in his system, a medication that wasn’t intended for a man with his active lifestyle and family history of heart problems.”

Lynn’s left eyebrow rose upward. “Medication?”

“It could have been stuck in his drink or mixed in his food. But whatever it was, it messed up his heart,” Tori explained, then watched as the connection she’d made at the library dawned on Lynn’s face as well.

Once again, Lynn rose from her chair, this time stopping beside a shelf stocked with various books. Standing on tiptoe, Lynn pulled a large blue volume off the shelf and carried it back to the couch. Flipping it open, she thumbed through the first few letters of the alphabet before coming to a stop and holding the book out for Tori to see.