Dear Daughter (32 page)

I set my spoon on the side of a saucer, thinking of the map I’d seen in Eli’s study. “That land worth anything?”

“Not unless Cora can make something of it.”

My shoulders slumped. “So
that’s
why you’re all so gung ho about this festival business, to keep Cora invested—and not just emotionally. Here I thought it was out of the goodness of your hearts.”

“Frankly, I’m flattered you thought there was goodness to begin with.”

I meant to say something cutting and juvenile, but the words died on my lips when I caught a glimpse of his expression. I’d never seen him look so serious. I pulled my coat more tightly around me.

“What?” I said.

He shook his head. “I can’t quite decide if I should be throwing you in jail or running you out of town or—”

“Or?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

•   •   •

The meeting ended with a vote on, sure enough, what kind of cookies should be served at the next meeting. Then the historical society disappeared through a side door while everyone else scattered about for coffee and klatch. I took advantage of Leo’s momentary preoccupation with dessert and slipped away. I tried to tell myself I should look for Crystal, but I found myself wandering the halls of the house instead. The place should have felt menacing—weren’t mansions on hills supposed to be menacing?—but the hallways were so light and airy that I couldn’t imagine anything was hiding behind a corner. I was almost tricked into believing there weren’t even corners to hide behind.

Most of the doors were locked—my mother would have approved—but eventually I stumbled on a public room: a conservatory that had been converted into a breakfast room. Through the cloudy windows I could just make out the blurry shapes of a small formal garden, a parterre of rounded hedges and rosebushes that the weather had worn down to stems and prickles. Beyond that was a steep, forested slope. A thick mist sludged through the trees, steadily advancing on the house.

Okay, so maybe I was wrong about the absence of menace.

I moved on.

Upstairs was the ballroom, which was in the process of being transformed for what I assumed was the next night’s costume ball. In the middle of the dance floor was a cluster of potted plants that had yet to be distributed throughout the room. I walked over and rubbed a leaf between my fingers. Also fake.

Then, through the open door came a muted arpeggio of happy laughter. I hesitated, but when I recognized Cora’s voice, my feet carried me out of the room without asking for my permission. It seemed strange that Cora would abandon her hostessing duties. I headed down the hallway, following the sounds until I came to the door at the far end, all the way at the back of the house.

I opened it.

“
Oh my god
.”

•   •   •

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?”

I heaved my head to the left. Cora was smiling at me, standing with Stanton in front of a roaring fire. She had let down her hair, and he had unbuttoned his cuffs. The distance between them verged on impropriety, and I tamped back the sensation of being their spinster chaperone.

“This is my favorite room in the house,” Cora was saying.

“Your favorite room,” I echoed.

She came forward and pulled me into the room. “Come, join us.”

I hoped she didn’t register the reluctance in my muscles, which felt as if they’d been dropped in quick-dry concrete. I didn’t want to go in. I
really
didn’t want to go in. The room was rich and masculine, paneled in dark wood and laid with fine Persian carpets. A decorative Chinese screen stood in one corner, two leather club chairs flanked the fireplace. On one wall was a sideboard generously laden with crystal decanters; between two French doors was a Louis XV credenza. The well-polished billiards table was on the far side of the room, centered under a series of gilt-framed portraits.

Apart from the portraits, it was exactly like the billiard room in our house.

Right down to the shotgun hanging on the wall.

Stanton walked over to the table and began to pull out a set of billiard balls that looked an awful lot like genuine ivory. “Is billiards another of your accomplishments?” he asked.

“No, that’s not what I used—” I stopped myself. “No,” I said. “It isn’t.”

“Ah,” he said. “In that case, Cora, would you indulge me?”

“You know I always lose,” she said.

“Why do you think I take such pleasure in playing you?” The table apparently arranged to his satisfaction, he went to the sideboard. “Would you care for a drink?”

“Please,” Cora said.

“No, thank you,” I said. I needed to get out as soon as I could. I couldn’t be in this room. I just couldn’t. But how to leave politely?

Stanton poured a smooth, golden whiskey into two exquisite snifters. My hand itched, knowing how perfectly the glass would fit into my palm. We’d had the same ones, after all.

Stanton drank a third of his glass in one go before dabbing at his mouth with a handkerchief and picking up a cue. Cora was more circumspect, barely letting the liquid dampen her lips before setting the glass down.

I stationed myself near the fireplace. I tried to sling one arm casually across the mantel, but I was too short, so I settled for placing my hand on the carved frieze, all insouciance. I watched Cora and Stanton place themselves around the table. “Just three balls?” I said to break the silence and hurry things along.

“Eight-ball doesn’t pair well with whiskey,” Stanton said. “I prefer English billiards.”

I took a small step back, needing the heat of the fire even with my coat on. Cora lined up her first shot. Her stick glanced off the side of the cue ball, which spun in lazy circles before coming to a stop a few inches away.

At the same moment, my brain turned back on.

My mother has been in this room.

I cleared my throat. “Do you host events like this often?” I asked.

“Not for a number of years,” Stanton said as he circled the table. “My wife was the one who enjoyed entertaining. I’m more of a solitary creature, I’m afraid.”

There was a hint of melancholy in his tone, and I responded accordingly. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “When did she pass?”

“Oh no, she’s not dead—more’s the pity.”

Cora smacked his arm. “That’s Mitch’s mother you’re talking about.”

“And look how that turned out.” He knocked the red ball off two sides of the table and into a corner pocket. “Mrs. Percy and I parted ways some years ago,” he explained. “Ardelle isn’t for everyone. It takes a rare creature like Cora to see its worth.”

Cora took her turn, huffing out a ladylike curse as her stick slipped again. This time her cue ball didn’t move at all. “I’m really not any good at this, Stanton.”

“The most important thing, my dear, is patience. Don’t rush your shot.”

“That’s what you say every time. And I never get any better.”

I looked from Stanton to Cora and back again. They sure were friendly with one another in private. But if there was something to hide, why would they be acting like this in front of me? I must be imagining things.

“You play pool together often?” I asked.

“Billiards,” Stanton said. “And yes.”

“It’s the only way I can get him to talk business,” Cora said.

“You know I don’t need convincing—it’s always been our responsibility to look out for the town. I just wish I had more to give.”

“We love you for more than your money, Stanton.”

Stanton leaned over and knocked two balls into a side pocket with brisk efficiency. “And a good thing, too, because there’s not much left.”

That was it
, I realized. Stanton was humoring Cora for the same reason everyone else was: for her money. I wondered how long his had been running out.

I hoped he didn’t know about Trace Kessler’s reward.

The door slammed open, and a man and a woman wrapped in an embrace stumbled in. They fell against a wall and knocked a sweet little still life to the floor.

Stanton pounded his cue on the ground. “I beg your pardon,” he said.

They broke apart. I didn’t recognize the woman, but something about the man—

My eyes fell to his beer gut, and I remembered. It was one of Mitch’s buddies.

He flushed like a much younger man. “I’m sorry, Mr. Percy, but Mitch said—”

Stanton waved a hand. “Get out,” he said.

He hung his head. “Yes, sir.”

Cora said something soothing to Stanton, but I didn’t hear what it was. I was too busy looking at the space where Mitch’s friend had been.

Did all of Mitch’s friends make a habit of bringing girls back to the billiard room?

And then I remembered something Rue had said:

Just another ex–prom king who still hangs out with all his buddies from high school.

Maybe I knew how to narrow down the search for J. after all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“Where are the high school yearbooks?”

I’d barged into the back room of Kelley’s store, hoping she’d retreated to her home base to recharge after the meeting. Sure enough, she and Renee were hunched over the coffee table, playing some board game and drinking wine. Kelley correctly interpreted my thirsty look.

“I buy more wine the week of the festival than I do the rest of the year combined,” she said. “Would you like some?”

I stifled a groan. This whole town was a luscious piece of alcoholic fruit perpetually out of reach. “No thanks,” I said.

“Why do you need a yearbook?” asked Renee.

“If I don’t tell you, will you still show me where they are?”

“God, if I even can find them,” Kelley said, rising to her feet. “Which one do you need?”

“Let’s start with the class of ’85.”

“Why am I not surprised? Just a second.” She disappeared behind one of the shelves, and I heard a rustling of box flaps.

Renee regarded me over the rim of her glass. “What in God’s name are you wearing?”

I looked down. “I honestly don’t even know.”

“Do those jeans have a
drawstring
?”

Kelley came back and dropped a leatherette-bound book on the coffee table. I ignored their steady gazes and began paging through the yearbook.

“I’m going to say some names,” I said, “and I’d like you guys to tell me the first thing that comes to mind.”

I found the first name that started with J. “Jason Adams.”

Kelley furrowed her brow. “I think he’s in a fantasy league with my brother. Nice guy. Married to his high school sweetheart.”

I struck a line through his name.

“Julius Lynch.”

“Dead.”

I paused.

“How long ago?” I asked.

“Right after college. Leukemia. We had a big fundraiser at the school to pay for his treatment. Didn’t help.”

(Of all the terrible things I’ve ever done, feeling good about being able to cross a name off a list because a kid died of cancer is pretty high up there. And yet.)

“Jake Olsen,” I said.

“He’s my accountant,” Kelley said.

“And mine,” Renee said.

“Married?”

“Gay.”

I crossed him off, too. I moved to the next name.

“John Mitchell—” The words caught in my throat. “Mitch Percy’s first name is John?”

“Ugh, rich people names,” Renee said. “I bet he got into law school just because he had a first initial and a bunch of DUIs under his belt.”

DUIs—

I pulled out
Jane Eyre
and did the math as quickly as I could. I turned to page 202: July 21, the date of the DUI I’d seen in the police blotter. A handful of words were scratched angrily in the margin. She must have been out of her mind—they weren’t even in code.

Mitch was driving that goddamned car not me. God, what if we’d crashed. I could’ve lost everything.

Maybe Crystal was right—maybe my mother had been involved with Mitch.

Was Mitch J.?

And what had she been afraid to lose?

I looked up at Kelley. “Renee, can you cover your ears for a moment?”

“Why?”

“Oh, just do it,” Kelley said.

“Was Tessa sleeping with Mitch Percy?” I asked.

Renee let out a snort of disgust. “Oh for god’s sake, have you been talking to Crystal?”

“Real nice,” Kelley said.

“Like I wasn’t going to listen.” She turned to me. “Crystal’s been on this for years. Tessa this, Tessa that. The way she talks you’d think Tessa was Ursula the Sea Witch.”

“But why would Crystal lie about Mitch?”

“Some high school shit, I bet, same as always in this place. Tessa probably stole her boyfriend or something. The rumors are like—” She thought for a moment. “Fleas. Just when you think you’ve gotten rid of them, another batch of eggs hatches.”

“Yeah, but that’s why we have flea bombs,” Kelley said.

“It’s not a perfect analogy, okay?”

It took me a moment to catch up with them. “Didn’t Crystal have a kid with some guy she and Tessa went to high school with?”

Kelley’s nose wrinkled. “The only thing Crystal’s ever done right is kick that guy to the curb. I think he runs a motorcycle bar outside Sturgis or something now.”

“What’s his name?”

“Darren Cackett,” she said.

“Oh,” I said stupidly.

The man who’d been found with Tessa the night she was nearly charged with solicitation.

“Maybe Crystal has more of a reason to talk about Tessa than you think,” I said. “Do you know where I might be able to find her?”

“She’ll be at the movie tonight.”

“The what?”

“Cora screens
The Gold Rush
on the second-to-last night of the festival,” Kelley said. “Even though—FYI—that movie is definitely not set in South Dakota.” She reached out and put her hand on my leg, which I realized then had been quaking. “Rebecca, you said before that if I asked you’d tell me.” Even when her voice was grave it was somehow still gentle. “Should I be asking?”

I looked at the two of them, sitting so close together, their bodies leaning unconsciously toward one another. I bet it was easy to believe in trust when it was something you lived with every day. I knew better. That’s why the only person I’d ever trusted was Noah. (But then again, he was also the only person I’d ever a lot of things.) When I looked at Kelley’s and Renee’s faces, though, so open and shining and kind—and pretty, which I won’t pretend didn’t matter—and I thought that maybe—