Taken In (6 page)

Dixie.

She blinked against the same tears she saw misting in more than a few pairs of eyes in the room and willed herself instead to enjoy the experience of watching her friends and herself on the television screen, silliness and all.

“For that—and for the steadfast loyalty of each and every one of these women seated here beside me—I am truly blessed.”

One by one, each head on the screen bobbed in the aftermath of Dixie’s words. And like clockwork, each head present in the living room of their hotel suite bobbed as well.

They were blessed.

Each and every one of them.

As their segment faded to black amid a smattering of live sniffles, Leona cleared her throat, scooted to the edge of her chair, and stood. “I’ll be right back. I just want to check on Dixie and make sure she’s doing okay.”

Under any other circumstances, Tori would have jumped at the opportunity to rib Leona for the creases that managed to push their way through the artful handiwork of the most sought after dermatologist in all of South Carolina. But considering the likely reason for those creases, Tori opted to pass on her one and only prospect for a little verbal payback in favor of nailing down an answer she’d been craving all afternoon.

“How is she?” Tori blurted out as she stepped through the door of the hotel suite with an armload of bags and Rose’s forearm tucked securely inside her own.

Margaret Louise followed closely behind, flanked on either side by Debbie and Beatrice. “She been eatin’?”

“She hasn’t moved since you left.” Slowly, Leona pushed off the sofa with Paris in her arms, the creases across her forehead and around her eyes deepening even more. “In fact, she was so still for so long I actually went all the way into her room and rested my hand on her back to make sure she was still breathing.”

Debbie set her own menagerie of colorful shopping bags on the entryway table and held a piece of carrot stick from their lunch in Paris’s direction. “The body has a way of shutting down when it becomes overwhelmed. Sleep is important right now. It’ll help her deal with all of this a little easier when she finally wakes.”

Leona’s slender shoulders rose and fell in a rare shrug, her stance and overall demeanor in keeping with the unfamiliar wrinkles that made her look far closer to her sixty-five years than ever before. “I suppose.” She gestured toward the bags on the table, the bags in Tori’s hand, and the sliver of Kenny’s plastic head bobbing just above the opening of Beatrice’s purse. “Where did you go? What did you do?”

Margaret Louise dropped onto the nearest chair and hoisted her left foot onto her knee, her pudgy hands making short work of the buckle that stood between her sandaled feet and a much-needed massage. “Why, I think I just walked more ’n the last three hours than I have in my entire life.”

“You could stand to do a little more of that at home, too. It would be good for your”—Leona let her gaze drop slowly down her sister’s pleasantly plump frame—“
heart
.”

“I ain’t sure how pantin’ can be good for my heart, Twin, but I’ll keep it in mind.” With her left hand kneading away at the bottom of her foot, Margaret Louise gestured toward Beatrice with the other. “We sure got a lot of pictures to show Melissa and Georgina when we get back home. Sightseein’ ones, fancy people ones, and some you just have to see to believe—like the one with the man who had pink hair, purple shoes, lime green pants, and earlobes that were clear down to his chin! You want to see?”

“I think I’ll pass.” Leona wiped the underside of Paris’s mouth with a crisp white handkerchief then set it on the table beside Debbie’s bags. “What did you buy?”

Debbie looked down at her bags, fingering each one as she ticked off her purchases. “A T-shirt for Jackson, a necklace for Susannah, and a really nice signing pen for Colby.”

“And for yourself?”

Debbie waved her hands side to side, pulling her head back as she did. “Nothing. Things here are far too expensive. Anything I really need I can get in Sweet Briar.”

“But they won’t be from New York.”

“That’s okay, Leona. Sweet Briar is fine with me.”

Leona rolled her eyes then turned to Tori. “Let me guess. You bought something for Milo, right?”

“I tried to, but I haven’t found just the right thing yet.” She pointed to the bags on her arm. “These are actually Rose’s.”

Leona’s left brow arched upward at Rose. “Oh? I didn’t know Bengay came in a soft pink shopping bag. Or is that to carry the slippers you usually wear morning, noon, and night?”

“No. It’s for the duct tape I purchased for your always-flapping mouth,” Rose quipped. “But now that I’m standing here, looking at you, I realize I should have gone with the extra-wide size.”

Tori laughed despite her best efforts, her desire to remain neutral during Rose and Leona’s showdowns not always easy to fulfill. Especially when Rose was a master at the comical comebacks.

Leona’s gaped mouth shut just long enough to twist in anger at Tori. “You find this nasty old goat to be funny, dear?”

“I can’t speak for Victoria, Twin, but I sure as shootin’ found it funny.” Margaret Louise turned to first Debbie and then Beatrice, their smartly placed hands a poor disguise for their own reactions. “Yes siree, it’s just as I ’spected.
Everyone
thinks Rose made a funny.”

Leona’s foot came down hard on the carpeted floor. “I can’t win with all of you, can I? I stay behind to look after Dixie while you all go off gallivanting, and
this
is how I’m treated upon your return?”

Four heads slowly lowered in shame, Rose’s following suit with the help of Tori’s gentle hand.

Leona, seeing an opportunity to ride the martyr train a little longer, continued on, the wounded tone to her voice akin to the smack of a rolled newspaper on their noses. “Of everyone here,
I’m
the one who needed this trip to New York City. I’m far too cultured and intelligent for life in Sweet Briar. But I gave that all up to be closer to you, Margaret Louise. And even though my mind is wasting away in that one-horse open town, I stay as my gift to you, Victoria.”

“Your gift?” Tori echoed during a fast upward glance.

“Of course. If it weren’t for me, you’d still be plucking your eyebrows by hand and missing more than seventy percent of those stray hairs.”

Debbie’s shoulders began to shake, bringing Leona’s full attention in her direction. “And you, Debbie Calhoun? If it weren’t for my being in Sweet Briar, all those handsome reporters who come to town to interview your husband wouldn’t ask to come back with each new book release.”

Beatrice stepped in closer to Rose, cowering unnoticed under Leona’s reproachful stare. “And Rose? You’d be drooling away in some rest home, the victim of an unchallenged mind. Because
I
keep you sharp. My intelligence keeps you sharp.”

Rose’s response was unintelligible behind Tori’s hand, and for that, Tori was glad. The last thing they needed was for Dixie to wake to their battle sounds. She said as much to Leona and Rose, their grudging agreement quickly drowned out by a hard knocking sound just over their shoulders.

“Did you order room service, Twin?” Margaret Louise asked.

Leona shook her head then pushed her way to the door, smoothing her hands down her form-fitting skirt as she did. “No. But I’m not usually the one who summons men. They just flock to me all on their own.”

Wrapping her bejeweled hand around the doorknob, Leona yanked it open, a smug smile stretching her lips wide. “Mmmm,” she fairly purred as her lashes began to bat. “See? They flock.”

Five heads craned around and over Leona’s shoulder to take in the handsome, well-built, uniformed police officer eyeing them from the hallway. One by one he took in each of their faces, his thoughts—save for the momentary appreciation shown Leona—unreadable.

Finally, he spoke, his gaze coming to rest once again on Leona. “Are you Dixie Dunn?”

Leona’s shoulders slumped along with her jaw, Rose’s laugh igniting the indignant sputtering that followed. “Of—of course I’m not
Dixie Dunn
. I have class . . . I have standards . . . I have—”

The man held his badge up for all to see. “I’m Detective Jay Pollop of the NYPD. I’m here to speak with Dixie Dunn.”

Tori gently pushed her way past a still-sputtering Leona and held out her hand. “I’m Victoria Sinclair, Dixie’s friend. Can I ask what this is about? Dixie is sleeping.”

“It’s in regards to the murder of John Dreyer. Wake her.”

“If you don’t quit all that pacin’ back ’n forth, Victoria, you’re gonna wear a hole in that fancy carpet.” Margaret Louise patted the empty chair to her left. “And I for one don’t have the money to replace a rug that’s probably worth more ’n my car.”

Tori turned around and made yet another pass in front of the still-closed door that separated them from the conversation between their friend and Detective Pollop, then sank onto the chair with a sigh. “I think one of us should have gone in there with him and held her hand while he fills her in on John’s death. She’s been through enough already.”

“She didn’t want us in there, Victoria, remember?” Rose’s arthritic hand, calmed by the movement of her sewing needle, worked on the sample for their flower pin project. “She’ll be all right. Dixie has rebounded from worse in her lifetime. She’ll mourn, of course, but the fact remains she spent just one morning with the man.”

“I still can’t get over the fact he was really murdered,” Debbie mused over a late afternoon cup of coffee. “I’m shocked.”

“I’m not.” All eyes turned in Leona’s direction, the woman’s pallor still reflective of the trauma of being mistaken for a woman nearly ten years her senior. “Frankly, it was only a matter of time, if you ask me.”

“Why?” It was a question Tori had wanted to ask since they’d set off to find John after their taping at the studio the day before, but she’d refrained when the discovery of his body moved Dixie to the forefront of her concerns. “What was so awful about this guy that you’d actually say something like that out loud?”

Leona looked down at the man’s nose-twitching namesake then leaned the back of her head against the sofa. “The first time I saw John was in a bookstore coffee shop.”

“Was it that lovely little one closest to the Eiffel Tower?” Beatrice asked as she set down the novel she’d been reading in order to listen more closely.

A pregnant pause was soon followed by a shifting of Leona’s legs. “Um . . . not that one, no.”

“But you met him in Paris, right?”

Leona pinned the British girl with a death stare then continued with her story. “What caught my eye about John was how enthralled he was by his companion.”

“With
you
in the room, Twin?” Margaret Louise teased. “How is that possible?”

Turning to Tori, Leona made a face. “Do you want to hear my answer about John or don’t you?”

“Yes I do.” Then to Margaret Louise, Tori said, “Please. Can we let Leona speak?”

Satisfied, Leona took center stage once again. “There he was, sitting across the table from this older woman who obviously wasn’t in the habit of being in the company of a male.”

“Why do you say that?” Rose asked.

“She was awkward, for starters.”

“Okay . . .”

Leona’s gaze swung back to Tori. “And she fidgeted constantly. Like a middle school girl talking to a boy for the first time. Only this particular boy was handsome.
Extremely
handsome.”

Rose, Margaret Louise, and Beatrice exchanged looks, their heads nodding in unison amid dreamy thoughts of the man’s eyes and facial structure.

“He had this day-old stubble on his face that day that made knees weaken around him.” Leona looked down at Paris and blew her a kiss. “That’s why, when I saw my precious baby for the first time, I instantly thought of John, even though I couldn’t recall his name at the time. His whiskers and his eyes were enough to transport me back to . . .”

“Paris!” Beatrice aided.

Again, Leona pinned the nanny with a stare before moving on with her story. “The next day, I went back to that same store to purchase a book I decided I wanted to try. He was there. Again. With the same enthralled look on his face.”

“I s’pose he must have liked her fidgetin’, huh?”

“You might think that,” Leona countered her sister’s comment, “if the woman seated across from him was the same woman. But it wasn’t.”

Tori blinked once, twice, her mind working to absorb everything Leona was saying.

“It was the same thing again on the third day. Same enthralled look aimed at yet another older, obviously infatuated woman.” Leona set Paris on the floor and watched as she hopped over to Debbie’s feet, the memory of the earlier carrot still alive and well in the rabbit’s thoughts. “That’s when I knew he was a gamer. A well-groomed, clearly well-off gamer. The young man behind the counter simply filled in the blanks when I asked.”

“What blanks?” Tori asked.

“The fact that John’s clothes and expensive car were
because
of the women he chose. Single women who wanted companionship badly enough they were blind to the ways of a real live—albeit attractive—con artist like John Dreyer.”

“But—but he was so well read,” Rose wailed. “He knew all the classics and could speak intelligently about them!”

“And he knew about the kind of places I’ve always wanted to visit,” Beatrice added glumly.

Margaret Louise slumped in her spot. “He knew his way around a kitchen better than any man I’ve ever known.”

Leona’s left brow rose, followed seconds later by her right. “And if you’d said you were into skydiving, he’d have told you about all his many encounters with that, too.” Then, dumbing her voice down to a pitch and pace in keeping with a preschool teacher, Leona continued, “That’s what a con artist does. He cons you into thinking he’s something he’s not, luring you in until you believe he’s something special and start showering him with gifts in order to keep such a wonderful man.”

“But Dixie isn’t wealthy. She needs every cent of her social security check to make ends meet.” Tori looked to Rose for confirmation, her elderly friend’s head nodding almost immediately.

Leona pushed off her chair and wandered around the room, stopping briefly outside Dixie’s door before continuing her aimless path. “That’s the part that doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe the bloke changed since you saw him in Paris, Leona. Maybe he’s no longer a wanker.”

Tori began to nod along with Beatrice’s supposition, but stopped as a very different conversation drifted through her thoughts . . .

“I know I shouldn’t be surprised. It was only a matter of time before one of those women wised up to his ways and exacted revenge.”

“Well, could it be possible, Leona?” Debbie posed. “Could he have changed?”

Leona opened her mouth to answer, but it was Tori who actually spoke. “From what I was told by his neighbor at the crime scene, it doesn’t sound like it. In fact, this woman seemed to not only know about his ways, but pointed to them as a reason for his fall.”

“If that nice policeman is callin’ it murder, then it was a
push
, Victoria.”

“And it probably was. Behavior like that has a way of catching up with you eventually.” Leona stopped halfway through her third lap around the room, bent delicately at the waist, and retrieved Paris from the floor. “But louse or not, John was still the visual inspiration by which I named this precious little girl.”

“You thought she was a boy when you named her, Twin.”

“Does it matter?” Leona hissed at her sister. “It was still my inspiration. How can I sit idly by while his killer is on the loose?”

Margaret Louise linked her arms across her ample chest and laughed. “Then you best get crackin’, Twin. The limousine will be here tomorrow afternoon ’round two o’clock to collect us and get us back to the air—”

A click on the far side of the room brought Leona’s hand to her hair and an order for quiet from her lips. “He’s coming!”

“He?” Debbie echoed just as Detective Pollop emerged with an ashen-faced Dixie.

Tori leapt to her feet. “Dixie, are you . . .” The words trailed from her mouth as a flash of silver caught her gaze and pulled it from Dixie’s pasty white complexion to her handcuffed hands.

“Wait! What are you doing?”

The detective led Dixie through the sitting area and over to the door, his gait slowing long enough to answer Tori’s question. “Your friend has been arrested for the murder of John Dreyer.”

Gasps rang up around the room, igniting a torrent of tears from Dixie in response. Neither was loud enough, though, to abate the sudden roar of fear and rage in Tori’s ears. “You’re arresting
Dixie
? For
murder
?”

“I’m taking her downtown for processing.” Detective Pollop opened the door, ushered Dixie into the hall, then looked back over his shoulder with a solemn expression. “You might want to hire your friend an attorney. She’s going to need one.”