Sucker Punch (25 page)

A couple of car doors slammed, and a wave of reporters came after me. I was in no mood, so I turned around and shouted, “Come one step closer, and I’m letting my dog loose.”

I didn’t dare look to see whether Max was cooperating by looking fierce or wagging his tail in anticipation of a new game. All that mattered was that my bluff worked. The thundering herds stopped in the middle of the street, consulted with each other for a few seconds, and then turned away. I made a mental note to buy Max his very own Whopper and tried the door again.

Maybe they’d just locked up to keep the reporters out, but it still made my stomach knot. Even if we cleared Richie right that minute, would they be able to rebound from this? Or would they lose the inn? Maybe even leave Paradise?

I tried to shake off the negative thinking. If they moved on, at least they had each other. But I don’t have that many close friends, and I didn’t want to lose the few I had. I rang the bell, and after a few minutes Dylan opened the door and ushered me inside.

“Sorry for the wait. With all those reporters hanging around, we’ve been a little cautious.”

“And with good reason,” I said. I hugged him quickly and tried to kick the snow off my shoes. I finally gave up the battle and left them at the door. “How are you holding up?” I asked as I followed Dylan into the kitchen.

“As well as can be expected for a couple of guys about to lose everything. How about you?”

“You’re not going to lose everything,” I told him firmly. “We’re going to clear Richie of all suspicion, and when we’re finished the inn will be doing better than ever.”

Dylan tossed a grateful smile in my direction and lifted the coffeepot. “You interested?”

“Absolutely.”

“I just put a breakfast casserole into the oven. You’re welcome to join us.”

“Sounds perfect,” I said. “But I didn’t come here for you to feed me.”

“Humor me,” he said, and made a valiant effort to grin. “We don’t have anyone else to cook for.”

“You got it. So where’s Richie?”

“In bed, feeling sorry for himself. Why don’t you go on in? He might actually pull the covers off his head for you.”

“He seemed fine at rehearsal the other night. What happened?”

“The last of our reservations for Valentine’s Day canceled. On the plus side, we’ll have the entire inn to ourselves. It should be wildly romantic.”

He was trying so hard, I made myself laugh. but it wasn’t easy. “Let me know when the casserole’s out of the oven,” I said. “I’m famished.”

I followed a winding corridor created by several additions to the original structure to the master suite and knocked on the door. “Richie? It’s Abby. Can I come in?” He didn’t answer immediately, so I played my ace in the hole. “Max is with me.”

The muffled sound of rustling bedding came through the door, followed by a quiet, “You can come in, I guess. But warn Max that I look like dog shit.”

“I don’t think he cares,” I said as I turned the knob. “I know I don’t.”

Max saw his friend and bounded onto the bed, nudging and licking and wagging with excitement. Richie sat like a lump in a pair of boxers, his expression maudlin. Usually, Richie takes great pains with his appearance, so the five o’clock shadow, matted hair, and dark circles under his eyes had me worried.

I perched on the foot of the bed and tried to catch his eye. “Dylan’s making breakfast, and he’s invited us to stay for it. How about getting dressed and coming into the kitchen so we can talk?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I understand that, but you need to keep up your strength. None of this is going to be any easier if you let yourself get run-down.”

Richie slid a look at me. “Eating an egg isn’t going to suddenly make it all better.”

I’m as sympathetic as the next guy, but his attitude—on top of the fact that he’d conveniently forgotten to tell me some important stuff—was seriously pissing me off. “Neither will lying in bed all day feeling sorry for yourself. Get up. Put on your robe, at least, and come into the kitchen.”

His head shot up and he gaped at me as if I’d just ordered him to wear mismatched socks. “I’m in pain here, Abby. This is a very difficult time, and I don’t need you getting all bitchy with me.”

Ooo-kay.
So that’s how we were going to play it? “I’ll make a note of that. Why don’t you make a note of the fact that when a friend sticks her neck out to help you, it’s a good idea to tell her the truth?”

His eyes flashed with anger, but at least he was awake now. “I
have
told you the truth. I can’t believe you’d even suggest that I haven’t.”

“The whole truth?”

“Absolutely.” He put an arm around Max and pulled him close. Like I said before, sometimes you gotta create your own support system. “Who told you I was lying? I would never do that to you.”

“It’s not so much an out-and-out lie as an error of omission. Why didn’t you tell me that you threatened Laurence?”

Richie’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times before he managed to gasp out, “It’s a lie. I never threatened him.”

“You never said you ought to ‘tear his fucking heart out’?”

The blood drained from Richie’s face and his shoulders slumped again. “Well, yeah, I said that, but I didn’t say it
to
him, and I certainly didn’t mean it.”

“Somehow, I don’t think the police are going to care that you weren’t looking Laurence in the eye at the time. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it didn’t mean anything. I was just . . . pissed. That’s all.”

“Oh. Just
pissed
. That makes all the difference.” Okay, so that was a touch sarcastic, but really! “What were you pissed about?”

“I can’t tell you.”

I gaped at him. “You’d better tell me if you want my help.”

Richie got to his feet and ran a hand along the back of his neck. “I would if I could, but I can’t. It’s not my story to tell.”

So there was a third person involved. That could be good news, or it could be bad. “Fine. Whose story is it?”

“I can’t tell you that, either.”

I let out a sigh of frustration. “Are you kidding me? I thought you understood how bad your situation is. If somebody can help explain why you came storming out of the auditorium threatening to kill Laurence Nichols, you need to tell me who it was.”

Richie met my gaze with bloodshot eyes. “You think I don’t know how bad things look? Well, I do. I get it, okay? Dylan and I could lose everything. We’re already on the downward spiral. I don’t have a lot left, but I do have my honor. I need to hang on to that, if nothing else.”

“Whoever it is will understand. If we can’t clear you of suspicion, you could end up in prison. For a long time. Maybe forever. You owe it to yourself and to Dylan to do whatever you can to save yourself.”

Richie shook his head. “How can Dylan respect me if I go back on my word just because I hit a road bump?”

“This is more than a road bump, Richie. This is—”

“I said no, and I meant it Abby. There’s nothing more to talk about.”

Abby’s head meets immovable object—again. I fell back on the bed and closed my eyes, trying to think of something I could say that would change his mind. “Well, it has to be someone involved in the play,” I said, thinking aloud.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to figure out who you’re talking about. Maybe whoever it is will talk to me.”

“Leave it alone, Abby.”

I ignored him. “And it has to be someone who was at the theater that day. If I can’t find the call sheet, I’m sure Vonetta will tell me. That will at least help narrow it down.

“I said back off.”

“And it has to be someone with a connection to Laurence. Someone who doesn’t want that connection made pub—” I cut myself off and sat up straight. “It’s Serena, isn’t it?”

Richie went perfectly still and we stared at each other for a full minute, both trying to guess how much the other knew before we said anything more.

“It
is
her, isn’t it?”

“You know about the—?”

I nodded. “She told me about it when I went to see her after Laurence died.”

All the air left Richie’s lungs in a
whoosh
, and he dropped heavily onto the bed. “She swore me to secrecy.”

“I didn’t even realize you knew her that well,” I said.

“Well, she didn’t actually confide in me on purpose. I overheard their conversation completely by accident. Laurence was such a jerk to her, and she was so upset I couldn’t just sneak out and pretend I hadn’t heard it.”

“Okay, so now I know who it was. Tell me about their conversation. What did they say?”

Richie raked his fingers through his hair in an effort to tame it. It didn’t work, but I took that as a sign that he was starting to feel better. “Okay. Well . . . I was looking for some stuff that I’d left in the sound booth earlier. I found it and was just getting ready to leave when Serena came into the auditorium.”

“She didn’t see you?”

He shook his head. “I turned the lights off when I left the booth, so I was in the shadows, I guess. I would have said something, but Laurence came in right behind her, and after the little dustup we had over lunch, I decided to just stay where I was. I didn’t want him to accuse me of trying to molest him or something.”

“Good call.”

Richie’s lips twitched. “Yeah. Well. Anyway, she told Laurence to get away from her, and he said something smarmy, like ‘Oh, come on baby, don’t be like that,’ and she called him a bastard, and he laughed at her and said, ‘I don’t know why you’re so angry. That whole thing happened years ago. Why don’t we just let bygones be bygones?’ and that’s when she got really upset.”

“He tried to sweep it all under the rug?”

Richie nodded. “Like it wasn’t even important. She said that he’d ruined her life, and he said, ‘Hey, it was you or me, babe. Every man for himself,’ and she said, ‘Well, you certainly looked out for
your
self,’ and he said, ‘Don’t be so melodramatic. It’s not as if we were going to be together forever,” and then she tried to slap him, but he caught her wrist and I think he hurt her, and he said, ‘Hey, we both knew how it was, and if you think about it, I probably saved you a whole lot of trouble. At least you didn’t have to do the whole single mother on welfare thing, right?’”

Just when I thought Nichols couldn’t sink any lower in my estimation. “What a heartless creep.”

“You can say that again. Anyway, Serena hauled off and smacked him, and he laughed, and she told him to stay away from her, and he said he was here for the duration, and they’d be seeing lots and lots of each other, and he said it in such a lecherous, disgusting way I wanted to smack him myself.” Richie paused to suck in a breath. “And anyway, he finally left, and she was crying, and I just
had
to say something to her, and she told me the
whole
story . . .” He shrugged and exhaled again. “And that’s it. It just really upset me, you know? I used to think Laurence Nichols was this great guy, and I was so excited to meet him. . . .”

I finished for him. “And he turned out to be a self-absorbed homophobe. Disappointing, I know. But that’s going to be the thing that saves you, Richie. Remember that.

He looked up hopefully. “Really? You know a way to clear me?”

Oops.
I felt like a jerk for offering hope when I wasn’t sure I could deliver. “Not yet, but I will. I promise.”

Yeah, I know. It was a rash promise, and I was foolish to make it. But my back was against the wall. And besides, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I stayed at the inn just long enough to eat breakfast, then hightailed it back to Divinity in time to meet Elizabeth and the twins. While Karen and Liberty waited on customers, Elizabeth stuffed strawberry lollipops into bags and the girls tied each one with a red bow. Orders kept piling up, and even with my sister-in-law and nieces helping, it was all we could do to keep up with demand. No matter how fast I churned out fresh candy, it disappeared before I had more ready to replace it.

I ordered dinner for the entire crew—two Gut Buster Specials and a Hawaiian Paradise from Black Jack Pizza. Extra cheese bread since Wyatt and my nephews were making deliveries and post office runs for me. There isn’t enough cheese bread in all of Paradise to satisfy those three, but I made an effort.

Wyatt took the kids home early since they had school the next day, but I stayed until nearly midnight with Karen, Liberty, and Elizabeth trying to get a jump on Monday’s orders. By the time I finally locked the doors and climbed the stairs to my apartment, I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open. Unfortunately, I was even more hungry than tired, so I hauled the leftover pizza home with me.

Three more days
, I told myself as I dragged one foot after the other. After that, business would slow down again, and life would get back to normal. Jawarski would come home, and my imagination would stop conjuring images of him deciding he couldn’t live without his ex-wife. I’d figure out how I felt about him and find the courage to actually put it into words. And all would be right with my world.