Don't Go Home (3 page)

Annie was excited. The island had its resident crime novelist, Emma Clyde, but there was no literary author of Alex Griffith's stature. “Would he consider doing a signing?”

“Of course.” Again there was an odd note in her voice.

Annie ignored the lack of enthusiasm at the invitation. All right, he was a big deal and maybe a signing at a little store like hers would be more of a bother than a pleasure, but Rae Griffith wanted something and Annie intended to get a quid pro quo: Alex Griffith in person at Death on Demand. “Come in. I've just made coffee. Rich dark Colombian.” She beamed at her visitor, held the door wide.

Rae Griffith smiled in return. “Thank you.”

As they walked down the central aisle, Rae looked admiringly at the shelves filled with brightly jacketed books. “What a wonderful collection.” She pointed at a table with South Carolina authors. “I see you have lots of copies of Alex's book.”

“He's one of our top sellers.” Annie nodded toward the cluster of tables. “I'll bring coffee.”

But Rae followed her to the coffee bar. She looked down at Agatha, now washing her face with a graceful paw. “What a beautiful cat. I admire cats. They never belong to anyone.” She described their cat, an orange tabby named Butch.

By the time they settled at a table in the coffee area, Annie felt thoroughly comfortable with Rae Griffith. “What brings you to the island?”

Rae Griffith's face smoothed into blandness. “Alex grew up here. We're back for a visit.”

Annie didn't miss the change from relaxation to wariness. Interesting. Why the sudden reserve? “Does your husband have family here still?” With the continuing influx of new residents, Annie no longer counted on knowing most people in town. Annie had grown up in Amarillo, but she had often visited her uncle on the beautiful sea island off the coast of South Carolina. A couple of years out of college, she'd inherited his bookstore. Max Darling had soon followed and on a beautiful June day they'd married. They'd been here long enough to feel a part of the island, but they didn't know all the family connections as did those born and bred on Broward's Rock.

There was a slight hesitation, then Rae said without any hint of enthusiasm, “His sister, Joan Turner, and brother, George. And his late brother Heyward's widow, Lynn.”

Faces flickered in Annie's mind. She did know these Griffiths, though she'd never associated them with the novelist. Max's mother, Laurel, had consulted Joan Turner when she redecorated her home. Annie had been fascinated at the interchange between crisp, no-nonsense Joan and Laurel, who was, to put it charitably, a free spirit rarely constrained by conventional ideas. The result—ethereal surroundings evocative of misty clouds and moonlight—surprised everyone except possibly Joan and Laurel. Joan's clear-cut features were accented by ebony hair in a jagged cut that emphasized the depth of her violet eyes. Pudgy George Griffith, fleshy and faintly dissolute, always held Annie a little too close at the club dances. Bourbon laced his breath when he exhaled. Annie liked his wife, Susan, wondered why she'd married him. Lynn Griffith was always beautifully coiffed, perfect silver blond hair cupping a rounded face with wide-spaced blue eyes, a several-thousand-dollar complexion enhanced by every expensive
emollient available, lips that curved in a social smile. It always faintly surprised her that Lynn was an accomplished long-distance swimmer, competed in Masters events. But why shouldn't an athletic woman also enjoy perfection in her appearance?

Annie tried to remember always to be kind to Lynn because she'd heard the rumors: Heyward's drowning death was awfully convenient after his investment firm collapsed . . . a huge life insurance payoff saved Lynn from bankruptcy. Annie had sat next to her at a couple of Friends of the Library luncheons. Whatever the conversation, Lynn soon swung like a magnet to the wonderful antique she'd just bought, a cameo, a cut-glass vase, a silver tea urn, a serving tray in old English Davenport china, a Sèvres figurine of a Napoleonic soldier . . .

“How nice. Are you staying with Joan?” The Turner home was one of the loveliest on the island, not pretentious but perfect, a three-story white frame with front and back verandahs and a magnificent pool framed by palmettos.

Rae's tone was just a shade too bright. “Alex is a great believer in Benjamin Franklin's edict: Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days. Since we may be here all summer, we're at the Seaside Inn. We're hoping you'll help us put together a really grand evening there.” She reached into an oversized catchall cloth bag, pulled out several sheets of paper. “Here's what we have in mind . . .”

T
he storeroom door opened. Ingrid Webb poked her head inside. “I brought lunch.”

Annie swung around from her computer, frazzled and stressed. She pulled her mind away from orders and logistics and the challenge of setting up an extravagant book event in little more than forty-eight hours. As soon as Ingrid arrived that morning, she'd turned the store over to her, explaining in staccato bursts that she was under the gun—huge event, Alex Griffith, Wednesday night—and withdrawn to the storeroom to set everything in motion. “Lunch?” She blinked. “Oh hey, lunch. That's wonderful.”

Ingrid stepped inside, used her free elbow to push the door shut behind her. “Making progress?”

“Three hundred books are promised. They'll arrive on tomorrow's ferry. I had to pull out all the stops to get them that quickly.”

Ingrid was calm. “Duane can pick them up and schlep them over to the inn.”

Annie looked at her thin, tireless, wonderful clerk, short brown hair frizzed by the summer humidity, brown eyes that observed carefully, a calm, comforting presence whether a hurricane was coming or a visiting author turned out to be truculent as a warthog. “I'll fix Duane a basket of books.” Ingrid's husband loved thrillers, especially those by Lee Child, Joseph Finder, Brad Meltzer, Michael Connelly, L. J. Sellers, and Michael Sears.

Ingrid plopped the sack from Parotti's Bar and Grill on the worktable. “Fried oysters on an onion bun with Thousand Island dressing, plus coleslaw. Slice of key lime pie on the house. I told Ben you were lit up like a pinball machine calculating how many books you can sell if you manage to arrange a Force Five blowout by Wednesday night.”

Annie realized she was ravenous. She fumbled with the sack, pulled out her favorite meal from Parotti's Bar and Grill, and, indistinctly, between mouthfuls, brought Ingrid up-to-date. “Gazebo rented, check. Hotel catering, coffee, cash bars, check. Seating for one hundred and fifty, check. Mic, sound equipment, speaker stand for gazebo, check. Two tables behind the rows of chairs, one for the author, one for book sales, check.” She ran over the list in her mind, nodded. “It should be really neat. There are lots of weddings in the gazebo so the inn's used to setting up folding chairs. The event opens at seven, he'll speak at eight. It will be pretty because they have strings of lights in the live oak trees on either side of the gazebo and around the pool. The weather will still be steamy but with the sun sliding behind the pines it won't seem as hot.” She hoped. But islanders who stayed here in summer were acclimated to heavy hot air.

Ingrid hesitated, then asked abruptly, “What did you think about the piece in the
Gazette
?”

Annie wiped a smudge of Thousand Island from her chin. Ben's sandwiches dripped. “I haven't seen the
Gazette
. I've worked the phone and the computer nonstop since Rae Griffith left. Can you think of anything I've missed?”

Ingrid looked thoughtful. “A fire brigade might come in handy.”

Annie went on alert. “Fire brigade? Why?”

Ingrid was blunt. “To put out the blazes when he tosses Molotov cocktails at the natives.”

“Blazes?” Annie heard the hollow tone in her voice.

“Did his wife tell you what he had in mind?”

Annie looked at her clerk in apprehension. “I assume he's going to talk about his book.”

“The book and the people whose lives he used to write a ‘sprawling family epic about sex and lies and treachery.' I thought you knew what was coming or I would have said something earlier.”

•   •   •

A
nnie settled in a rocker on the screened-in porch. Tuesday night. It seemed an eon since Rae Griffith had walked into Death on Demand Monday morning. The hours had passed in a blur, calling, arranging, planning.

Worrying.

She loved dusk and listening to rustles and calls as the night brimmed with life and movement. Cicadas sang their song of summer. Crickets trilled. A distant owl whooed, always a lonely cry to Annie. Virile frogs trumpeted a hot time in the old pond tonight to listening lady frogs. As shadows thickened, the vivid blaze of summer softened to impressionistic hints of color, indistinct splotches of orange, violet, and red hibiscus, golden daffodils, crimson roses. Pink crape myrtle flowered near the gazebo. This time tomorrow night Alex Griffith would look out at an eager audience.

She took a deep breath of the usually soothing scents of pittosporum blossoms and honeysuckle. If Max were here, they would wander hand in hand to the gazebo and sit in the swing and she'd tell him about her frantic two days. She'd not realized how much she would miss him. They usually traveled together, but when an old friend invited him and three other college chums for a week of deep-sea fishing in the gulf, she'd been glad he decided to go.

For one thing, his absence put on hold the final demise of Confidential Commissions. For another, they were determinedly bright and cheerful but there was a shadow between them.

She gave a little push and the rocker creaked. Not that she believed there was a chance he would change his mind. He'd made himself absolutely, irrevocably clear. “No more delving into other people's problems, Annie. Period. End of story. Since I'm not a politician, when I say ‘period,' I mean ‘period.'”

As he pointed out, if she wanted to help people, she could volunteer at a hospice, make food for Mobile Meals, tutor at the elementary school.

Her face softened. She understood. He'd demanded her promise: Hands Off. No More Nancy Drew. Keep Crime on the Shelves. Because, as he put it, his face grim, “You scared the ever-living hell out of me. How do you think I felt when your cell didn't answer? And didn't answer? And then we knew you were there with a killer . . .”

She felt an uneven lurch deep inside. Max had been scared for her. So had she. She'd not been stupid. She'd been on her way to the police station, sure she knew the truth behind the murder of a reckless young second wife who'd disappeared after a Fourth of July dance. Instead Annie had answered her cell phone and turned another way. At road's end, she'd faced death.

Her brush with death had occurred only a few weeks before. The
very next week, Max woke up in the middle of the night and rolled over to take her in his arms and hold her in a bone-tight grip. After that, he had wasted no time deciding to close down Confidential Commissions, which had no real purpose other than, as he inelegantly phrased it, screwing around in other people's lives. No more.

She'd protested. Confidential Commissions helped people; it made a difference to their lives in ways both great and small. There had been those caught up in fear and despair and Max had helped right their world. He'd said, “Yeah. But one of these days, you'll poke that snub nose into the wrong mess. No more danger, Annie.” She'd pointed out that Confidential Commissions wasn't always involved in messes, that Max did all sorts of interesting things that made people happy. He'd helped a woman find a long-lost sister, found the rightful owners of a small Remington sculpture discovered in an abandoned well, put together a history of the Class of '46 at the local high school, proved the provenance of a baseball signed by Babe Ruth, uncovered the final hours of a corporal who died in the Battle of the Bulge. She'd told him, “You've made a lot of people happy.”

He hadn't been swayed. “You were a short walk away from dying.”

He was right. Her escape had been a very near thing. She thought of Max's life without her or hers without Max. They would live because the living must do what they must do, but light would be leached from the world, leaving gray days without vibrancy, without music, without warmth.

He'd extracted her promise:

“I will not engage in any activities that could put me in danger. Period.”

When she dropped her raised hand after completing the pledge, he'd given her his wonderful, terrific, all-American grin—to her mind, tall, blond, handsome Max was always Joe Hardy all grown up—and
tilted her face up and bent down for his warm lips to touch hers. From there . . . She felt a glow at the remembrance.

She wished Max was here, that she could reach out and take his hand. He was only going to be gone a week, but she hadn't realized how accustomed she was to the ping of her cell and texts from Max—“Meet me at Parotti's for lunch.” “Hey, how about some afternoon delight?” “Missing you.” “Look under the cushion in the gazebo swing.” He was always fun. Besides, he had very good judgment. Maybe he would reassure her that the Griffith event was no big deal. But he and the guys had left their cells onshore, sworn to a week on the boat untethered to the world. She hoped they were having fun—fish and beer and rowdy buddy talk on the gulf without a link to land.

Annie gave herself an impatient shake. Okay. Max wasn't here. What was, was.

The phrase reminded her abruptly of the quote in the
Gazette
feature on Alex Griffith. A character had observed grimly, “What is, is.”

Since Ingrid had alerted her, Annie had read the article a half dozen times. Last night and in snatches today, she'd reread
Don't Go Home
. This time she read the book with the
Gazette
story clear in her mind and with an understanding of how Griffith's past was revealed in the story. The characters were based on people she knew. Okay, fine. If he wanted to write a nonfiction book claiming people he knew were the real-life counterparts to fictional characters in compromising situations, that was his right. What he wrote was up to him. But did he intend to divulge the gritty details at a talk sponsored by Death on Demand?

The more she thought about the reception, the edgier she felt. She glanced at the book lying in her lap. Previously she'd found the stark black letters on the alabaster white tombstone hugely effective. Now
she loathed looking at the book. She didn't have good vibes about tomorrow night. If Griffith spoke about writing, his stature as a Southern author, anything on the book business, that would be fine. But a hard cold kernel of worry lodged in her gut. What if he used the talk, sponsored by her bookstore, to name names? What if he revealed the inspirations for the characters, many quite unsavory? What if he blatantly linked people on the island to several episodes that hinged on criminal conduct?

Rae Griffith had insisted on a Wednesday-night event, making it clear that was a good night for news to break, both for TV and for print.

Was Rae expecting a scandal-laced story that would make the tabloids, land on TMZ?

Annie gave a push with her foot and the rocker moved. She looked again at the Sunday
Gazette
, reread Ginger Harris's opening paragraph:

Has Martin felt remorse for pressuring Regina before her death? Will Buck keep Louanne's secret? Will Mary Alice ever tell Charles the truth? As he swings a golf club, enjoying power and pleasure, does Kenny think of a wasted form lying on a bed? Does Frances remember choking in the water, flailing to the surface, swimming to safety with no thought for her companion?

Annie pressed her lips together. She would not be complicit in an attack on people she knew. Tomorrow she would confront Alex Griffith. If he intended to publicly embarrass island residents, she would withdraw. Death on Demand would not be involved.

•   •   •

A
nnie parked her Thunderbird in the shade of a towering rhododendron. She left the windows down in hopes the red leather seat that matched the red exterior didn't feel like a griddle on her return. The late-July morning was as humid as a sweat bath. Her once crisp candy-striped blouse was wilting. She was glad she'd opted for linen Bermudas rather than a skirt. Anything to be a little cooler. She walked swiftly on the crushed oyster shell path toward the entrance to the Seaside Inn. The inn looked like an old Southern plantation in front with inviting wicker rockers on a wide verandah. Huge blue urns on either side of the broad steps overflowed with sweet-smelling hibiscus.

In the lobby, Annie threaded her way around clumps of wicker chairs and potted ferns. Island visitors, uniformly casual in tees and shorts, were beginning another day in paradise, some heading for the golf courses, others ready to fish or sail, many lugging beach umbrellas, chairs, and coolers. Elderly ladies rocked placidly.

She curved around the broad sweep of central steps that led up to the second and third floors. Behind the stairway stretched a short hall with several shops. She paused for an instant to look through the window of a women's casual wear store, Her Best. She admired a pristine white hip-length cotton blouse with ornate lace on either side of a V-neck and three-quarter-length sleeves with lacy cuffs. Maybe she'd stop and shop on her way out. She reached the door that opened to the terrace. She stepped out into the heavy heat and passed umbrella-shaded tables and deck chairs by a long pool. The springboard snapped. The diver executed a back one-and-a-half somersault. Although it was still early, the pool was perhaps a third full of swimmers, side clingers, and relaxed inhabitants of assorted floats. The pool
water shimmered in the brilliant sunlight. To one side was a basketball hoop and a small paved area. A woman jumped rope with a steady rhythm, face creased in concentration. Annie recognized Rae Griffith. There was no sign of her husband. Rae looked like a woman engaged in a serious exercise program, oblivious to her surroundings.

Annie didn't try to attract her attention. She wasn't here to see Rae. She was here to see Alex Griffith. Annie continued to the end of the terrace. She shaded her eyes and admired a sweep of grass framed by pines. An oyster shell path up the middle led to a white gazebo. She nodded in approval at the rows of folding chairs on either side of the path. These would be perfect for tonight. She walked up the path and climbed the gazebo steps. The lectern was in place and tonight a portable mic would be available. She looked out at the empty chairs and pictured the scene, dusk falling, cash bars set up. Before the program began, there would be plenty of room for people to mill around, say hello to friends, enjoy the small bright white lights twinkling in the live oaks.