Elizabeth Lynn Casey - Southern Sewing Circle 10 - Wedding Duress (10 page)

Tori stared down at the budget figures she’d painstakingly compiled earlier in the week and tried to focus on the report she’d be giving at the board meeting that night. But no matter how hard she tried, there wasn’t a program she was proposing or a subscription she was being forced to cancel that could keep her thoughts away from Miss Gracie.

Was Beatrice right? Had the British woman been pushed to her death?

And if so, had it been Cynthia Marland who’d done the pushing?

Focus, Tori, focus . . .

The part of her brain that embraced reason knew any hijinks associated with the nanny’s death were for the police to worry about. After all, Tori had enough on her own plate with a board meeting and her wedding to Milo.

But it was the other part of her brain—the part ruled by reality—that knew there wouldn’t be any investigation. Chief Robert Dallas was a nice enough man, but to him, police work was merely a funding tool for his two favorite pastimes. Ruling Miss Gracie’s death an accident was easy and freed up his time for fishing and hunting.

The real question, then, was whether to convince Beatrice to let her suspicions go, or do a little behind-the-scenes sleuthing to determine whether her friend was right.

Finish your report for the board . . .

“Victoria?”

She glanced toward her office door and sent up a mental prayer of thanks for the distraction that was Nina. “Hey, I have to tell you, that story time you did today was adorable. You had those little ones eating out of the palm of your hand.”

“They were cute today, weren’t they?” Nina agreed before moving on to her reason for momentarily abandoning her post at the information desk. “I know you told me to hold your calls for a while, but Ms. Elkin is on the line and she doesn’t sound very good.”

Dread propelled her hand toward the phone and the blinking red light that indicated Leona was on line two. “Thanks, Nina, you did the right thing.” Her assistant nodded and disappeared in the direction of the main room as Tori brought the phone to her ear. “Leona? Is everything okay? Did you have a setback?”

A faint sniff greeted her questions, followed by a second, louder sniff.

“Talk to me, Leona, please,” she pleaded.

The sniffing gave way to a series of rapid hiccups before a tear-choked voice filled her ear. “I—I miss Paris.”

She rolled her chair back a few inches and peeked over the edge of her desk at the brown box Milo had helped her secure for the purpose of housing her friend’s rabbit during work hours. “She’s right here, Leona, and she’s doing fine. Munching away on one of her favorite organic carrots as we speak.”

“Is she munching quickly or slowly?”

“I don’t know. Slowly, I guess.”

The sniffing resumed. “That means she’s depressed, dear.”

Rolling her chair free of the desk, Tori closed the gap between her and Paris with two short scoots. “I think she’s just full, Leona.”

“She’s without her mama. She’s depressed.”

“I don’t know how you can say—”

“Look at her ears.”

“Okay . . .”

“They’re drooping, aren’t they?”

Tori leaned forward, eliminating any chance the edge of the box inhibited her view. Sure enough, the ears that were normally ramrod straight were, in fact, a bit droopy.

“And her beautiful brown eyes are half-mast, yes?”

Wedging the phone between her shoulder and her ear, Tori reached into the box and lifted Paris into her arms, taking note of the animal’s eyes as she did.

Yup, half-mast . . .

“She could just be tired,” she posed weakly.

“This is Paris’s awake time, dear. She’s depressed.”

Tori cuddled the animal to her side, kissed the spot
between her droopy ears, and secured the phone with her hand. “Okay, so what’s your plan?”

“Smuggle her into the hospital to see me.”

“I can’t bring Paris into a hospital!”

“I have a private room, dear,” Leona reminded her in a voice that suddenly sounded far bossier than it did tear-filled. “If you are stealthy enough, no one has to be the wiser.”

She considered the various implications of doing as Leona asked but was thwarted from sharing them by Leona herself.

“If you do this, dear, you are absolved from your hideous treatment of me this week.”

“
My
hideous treatment of
you
?” she echoed.

“Of course. How else could you describe the way you stood by and said nothing when my sister and her posse attacked me so viciously the other night? Had you said something in my defense, I wouldn’t have turned to a workout to counteract my grief when I got home . . . And if I hadn’t gotten on that stepper in such a compromised state, I wouldn’t be lying here, writhing in pain, while my precious Paris sinks into utter despair.”

“Wait. You actually blame
me
for your fall?” Paris’s ears perked up in reaction to Tori’s shrill voice, but drooped again almost immediately. “You can’t be serious.”

“Please, Victoria, I need to see Paris.”

Oh, how she wanted to tell Leona to take a hike, to call her on her below-the-belt guilt tactics and refuse to buckle under their pressure, but she couldn’t.

Leona was, well, Leona . . .

She looked down at Paris and said the only thing she could. “If Nina is okay with closing on her own, we’ll be
there by four thirty. But we’re only staying for a little while. I have a board meeting tonight.”

*   *   *

She reached into the tote bag and shifted the travel magazine to the side just enough to afford a momentary peek at her nose-twitching contraband. Already the rabbit’s ears were more upright, and her eyes a bit wider, as if somehow she could sense who she was about to see.

“Now, when we step off the elevator, we have to make it past the nurses’ station as inconspicuously as possible, okay, Paris?” At the bunny’s answering twitch, Tori repositioned the periodical across the top half of the tote bag and waited as the elevator doors swished open at Leona’s floor.

“Can I help you?”

Tori stopped in front of the nurses’ desk and offered as natural a smile as she could muster for the woman seated on the other side. “Uh, hi, I’m just stopping by to visit my friend, Leona Elkin. She’s in Room 245 and she’s expecting me.”

“Miss Elkin has asked that I hold all visitors here at the desk until she’s done with her therapist.”

She resisted the urge to groan and, instead, tightened her grip on the handles of the bag. “Oh, okay. Um, she didn’t mention a visit with her therapist when she asked me to stop by.”

“She must have forgotten,” the nurse said around a yawn. “It happens sometimes.”

A sudden jolt at the bottom of her bag earned her a lifted brow and more attention than the pair needed. “If
your bag is getting heavy, you could set it here on the desk with me.”

As if . . .

To the nurse, Tori simply said, “No, it’s okay. Holding Leona’s favorite magazines is actually a really good workout for my arms.” She shifted her weight from her left foot to her right and took in Room 245’s closed door. “Um, do you happen to know how long her therapist will be in with her?”

The nurse’s shoulders heaved upward as she returned to whatever she’d been typing on her computer when Tori stepped off the elevator. “I would have expected her session to have been over ten minutes ago, but like yesterday, he seems to be spending a little extra time with Miss Elkin.”

She felt the knowing smile as it moved from one end of her mouth to the other. “This therapist is a male?”

“Is he ever.” The nurse bobbed her head around the left side of the monitor to reveal cheeks that were suddenly flushed. “There’s not a nurse in this hospital who doesn’t secretly wish to be me just so they can watch that one come in and out of the rooms on this floor—oh, shhh, here he comes now.”

She turned in time to see a tall, blond man emerge from Leona’s room, a heart-stopping, dimple-accompanied smile gracing his thirty-something face. Suddenly, any question she may have entertained as to why Leona’s therapy session ran longer than expected two days in a row was gone, in its place an answer born out of experience.

“Almost makes me want to mop my kitchen floor for the first time in months just so I can slip and break my hip,” the nurse whispered in Tori’s direction while her gaze remained fixed on no one but the therapist until he
disappeared inside the elevator at the end of the hall. “Oh yes, that is one fine,
fine
man.”

Switching the Paris-inhabited tote from one hand to the other, she bade farewell to the infatuated nurse and slipped into Leona’s room, closing the door behind her as she did.

“Who’s there?” Leona called out.

“It’s me. Victoria—the person you called and asked to come for a visit, remember?”

“Oh. Yes. Give me one moment, please.”

She waited through several odd sounds before she was invited all the way into the room and patted over to the bed. “Did you just arrive?”

“I’ve been here for about ten minutes but your nurse said you were with your therapist.” Setting the bag on the ground next to the bottom edge of the bed, she lowered herself onto the unclaimed portion of the mattress. “She was wondering why your session was running late. For the second day in a row, no less.”

“Dustin’s therapy is very . . .
thorough
.”

“When it extends from your hip to your mouth, I must agree,” Tori mused.

A sly, almost devilish smile appeared as the woman plucked a handheld mirror from the wheeled cart to her left and examined her collagen-enhanced lips. “Mmmm, yes, I really must find a lipstick brand that can withstand being kissed, mustn’t I?”

Without waiting for a response, Leona returned the mirror to its spot and pointed toward the bag. “Give her to me.”

Tori contemplated the mileage she’d get from teasing the woman but decided it wasn’t worth the risk to her own
personal safety. Especially when she was expected to don a hand-sewn wedding dress in nine days . . .

Leaning forward, she pulled the bag onto the bed, pushed aside the magazines, retrieved Paris from its base, and carefully set the rabbit atop Leona’s stomach. Instantly, Paris’s eyes widened and her ears perked.

“Oh, my sweet, precious baby. Mama has missed you so very, very much.”

Tori blinked against the sudden misting in her eyes, but drew the line at the sniffles that threatened to blow her cover. “She seemed to know it was important to keep it quiet as we came into the building. I was afraid the nurse might notice my bag moving, but she was too busy drooling over your therapist.”

“How did she sleep for you last night?” Leona asked, gazing down at Paris.

“She did fine.”

“I think she looks a little tired. But that’s to be expected, of course, when she has been so sad and confused over my tragic circumstances.” Leona’s hands glided over Paris’s back, only to start the process all over again when she reached the bunny’s little white cottontail. “But that’s all about to change come tomorrow when I get to go home.”

“You’re going home tomorrow?”

“Technically the doctor said
Saturday
, but I got him to agree to tomorrow afternoon if I can promise that someone will be there to take care of me for at least the first week or so.”

Her shoulders sagged with relief. “So Margaret Louise is going to come and stay with you then?”

A flash of pain made its presence known in Leona’s eyes
before bowing to a snort. “Unless you went against my wishes and told my sister about my fall, she doesn’t know yet. She’ll find out when she gets off that Rose-before-family bandwagon she’s been driving since Sunday’s show.”

There were days she wished she could reach out and throttle Leona with her bare hands. But that urge would have to wait. Besides, there were far too many people around who were trained to revive her at a moment’s notice . . .

“Margaret Louise is your
sister
, Leona. She should know what’s going on.”

Leona stopped stroking Paris long enough to pin Tori with a stare. “Yes, Victoria, she is, and she should. The fact that she has denounced me is
her
cross to bear.”

“Leona, please. You’re not seeing this situation for what it is.”

“Oh, I see it for exactly what it is because it’s the way it’s been for years. Rose Winters is perfect. I’m not. But it all comes down to jealousy. I’m beautiful, desirable, and well traveled. Rose is . . . old.” Leona looked down at Paris and smiled. “No, I’m going to be able to return to my Precious Paris tomorrow thanks to that hunk you’re marrying in nine days, Victoria.”

“You hired someone to stay with you?”

Leona nodded. “I hired a young girl from the Nanny Go Round Agency. She’ll be there when Sam brings me home in the ambulance.”

Tori swiveled her body to afford the best unobstructed view of Leona possible. “The Nanny Go Round Agency?”

“That’s right.”

“I thought they were a nanny agency. For families with young children . . .”

“And I think they are, for the most part. But after you and Milo left last night, I telephoned a few colleagues. One of them suggested I try the Nanny Go Round Agency. So I called and left a message on their after-hours machine and the owner called me back first thing this morning to make the arrangements.” With careful fingers, Leona inched Paris up her chest until they were nuzzling noses. “There, there, my most precious angel. I know it sounds like an eternity, but you only have to stay with Victoria for twenty-four more hours.”