Текст книги "Crowned and Moldering"

Автор книги: Kate Carlisle

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Among the crowd on the stairs, I could see Ms. Barney, watching. Thankfully there were no students, but Dismal Dain was there, smirking as usual. I felt a chill at the sight of him.

Eric watched as Tommy walked over and gave Denise’s arm a gentle squeeze. “Come on, kiddo.”

Denise gazed at Tommy, someone she’d known her entire life, and her eyes filled with tears. “Hi, Tommy.”

“I’ll meet you there, Tom,” Eric said, and walked to his SUV.

As soon as Eric got into his car, I came up and gave Denise a hug. “It’s going to be okay. I know you and Brad are innocent.”

“But Brad . . .” She broke into sobs, and I felt helpless.

“You’re making a fool of yourself, Denise.”

Tommy and I turned at the sound of an irritating new voice, and the chills I’d felt before turned to cold fury. Dismal Dain had moved closer to eavesdrop. He wore a cheap brown suit and his now-famous sneer. I’d never had such an urge to slap someone in my life, but I wanted to smack him so hard, I had to force myself to clutch my hands together. The man was an arrogant little worm, and I hated the thought of him gloating over Denise and Brad’s difficulties.

And then I remembered the way he’d stared at Callie the other night and it made my stomach twist into a hard knot.

Denise wiped her tears away and glared at Dain. “Just go away, Darren. This is none of your business.”

“It’s very much my business when a colleague acts like an idiot. Brad’s behavior reflects poorly on all of us.”

As Dain was speaking, Tommy turned around and muttered something into the walkie-talkie clipped to his shirt.

“You’ve always been jealous of Brad,” Denise said.

“Jealous!” Dain laughed and the sound was slightly maniacal. “Why? Because he got that little slut pregnant?” He shook his finger at Denise. “Don’t make me laugh. It was only a matter of time before they caught him.”

“Before who caught whom, Mr. Dain?” Tommy asked.

Dain hesitated for a moment, then said, “Before the authorities caught Jones. He was having sex with a student. It’s about time he was disciplined.”

“How do you know that?” Tommy asked.

Dain stared at Denise as if he were aiming his words right at her. “I saw Jones with that girl. I know what they did together.”

“Are you saying you saw Brad Jones having sex with Lily Brogan?” Tommy asked quietly but pointedly. At that moment, I saw Eric approach and stop a few feet behind Dain’s back. Tommy must’ve used his walkie-talkie to alert the chief to come back and hear Dain’s accusations.

Way to go, Tommy, I thought.

“Your friend was a slut,” Dain said, still speaking to Denise. “And your husband was weak. Always so weak. And delusional, too. Do you know he filled out scholarship applications for her? As if she would ever be anything but a whore.”

Denise rushed forward, ready to claw Dain’s face, but Tommy grabbed her and held her back. She struggled to get loose, but Tommy had strength and experience on his side.

“Your emotions rule you, just as they rule your husband,” Dismal taunted. “He couldn’t keep his hands off of Lily. And then he killed her.”

“How did you know about the scholarships?” I asked.

“Mr. Dain, did you see Mr. Jones kill Lily Brogan?” Tommy asked, his voice calm, in complete control. Unlike me. I was so furious I could hardly breathe.

“I know what was going on,” Dain said.

“You don’t know anything,” Denise muttered.

“How did you know that Brad was helping Lily with her scholarship applications?” I asked again.

He sniffed in my direction, as though I weren’t important enough to speak to him. “I know who applies for scholarships,” he finally explained. “Back then, they all had to come through me to get the forms.”

Dain homed in on Denise again. “Don’t you think I knew he was filling them out for her? What a foolish waste of time. He was pathetic, and she made him worse.”

“Just shut up about Brad,” Denise said. “He’s stronger than you will ever be. And Lily was smarter than you’ll ever know.”

“But where did you see them sleeping together?” I asked, trying to divert him.

He flashed me another derisive look. “I saw them at the lighthouse mansion.”

I exchanged a quick look with Eric, who took another step closer to Dismal Dain. “Did you follow them out to the lighthouse mansion, Mr. Dain?”

Dain whipped around, saw Eric standing there, and seemed to realize his mistake. “No. No, of course not.”

“Liar.” Denise pointed at Dain. “You did. You followed them and you watched them. You’re nothing but a pervert.”

“Why would I care about either of them?” he said scornfully. “They were both beneath contempt, especially the girl.”

“You’re the contemptible one,” Denise said. “If I find out you had anything to do with Lily’s death, I’ll make sure you suffer the same way she did.”

Dain turned to Eric, cutting her off. “I don’t have to stand here and listen to this drivel.”

But Denise wasn’t finished. “As soon as the police find Lily’s diary, we’ll know who killed her.”

Dain frowned, then waved his hand brusquely, dismissing her. “I have work to do.” He began to walk away toward the main building.

“Mr. Dain,” Eric said sharply. “Stop right where you are. I’m taking you in for questioning in the murders of Lily Brogan and Cliff Hogarth.”

Before Dain knew what was happening, Tommy circled around and grabbed his arm.

“This is an outrage,” Dain said, as sweat began to bead on his forehead. “I demand to see my lawyer.”

“No problem,” Eric said. “Tell him to meet you at the police station.”

*   *   *

Eric and his team questioned Dismal Dain for hours that night, but his lawyer insisted they couldn’t hold him unless they had enough evidence to support their claims that he had something to do with Lily’s death. They didn’t. Not yet, anyway. So Dain was let go.

Denise was also sent home after a few hours, but Brad was held for two long days before they allowed him to leave. Basically his lawyers argued that Lily’s flowery words about Brad in her notebook did not constitute enough evidence to hold him. Faced with the team of expensive attorneys Denise had hired to defend her husband, Eric had no choice but to let Brad go with a warning not to leave town.

A few days later, I called Denise to check in, see how she was doing, and ask if she wanted to get a cup of coffee sometime.

“Let’s meet this afternoon,” she said. “I owe you for helping me tag team Dismal Dain the other day at school. That little rodent.”

“I didn’t do much, but I was glad to see Eric drag him off to the police station.”

“Me, too.”

She had already ordered me a café latte and was waiting at a table when I walked into the coffeehouse.

“Thanks,” I said, joining her. “How are you doing?”

“A little better than when I last saw you,” she said. “I can’t stay long. I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon.”

“Hope it’s nothing serious,” I said, attempting to keep things light.

“It’s a fertility specialist,” she confessed. “I told you we’ve been trying to have kids, right? But after all these years of putting it off, I’m concerned I might’ve waited too long.”

I grabbed her hand. “You’re still really young, so I hope not. I’ll keep a good thought for you.”

“Thanks.”

I took a sip of my latte. “Did you hear whether Mr. Dain confessed or not?”

She waved away the question. “He’ll never confess, but I would bet a million dollars he killed Lily. I could see it on his face.”

“I could, too. He was so contemptuous of everyone, but especially Lily.” I contemplated my coffee cup. “For a while, I thought maybe Cliff had done it. He was so awful.”

“You’re right.” She scowled. “Between Cliff Hogarth and Dismal Dain, it’s hard to say who was worse.”

We sipped our drinks for a full minute before I said, “Did you ever consider that Mr. Brogan might’ve done it?”

She pressed her lips together in frustration. “Yes. Hugh Brogan was completely capable of killing Lily. When she disappeared, I wondered if he knew she’d been hiding from him at the mansion. I mean, if Cliff and Dain could follow her out there, Mr. Brogan could’ve, too.”

“Do you think we’ll ever know the truth?”

“I hope so. I’d like someone to pay for killing my friend.”

We sipped our coffees in silence for a moment, and then I ventured a question. “How did Lily and Brad get together in the first place?”

There were tears in her eyes, but she began to smile as she told the complete story, filling in some of the blanks for me.

Lily had been desperate to get away from her parents, and Mr. Jones had been a sympathetic listener. Lily confided that she wanted to try for a scholarship, and Brad did everything he could to encourage her.

“I knew the exact day when Lily and Brad fell in love,” Denise said. “By then the three of us were best friends. I loved them both so much.”

Lily was vulnerable and so beautiful, and she and Brad grew very close, very fast. The pregnancy took them off guard. But they were both thrilled and planned to get married after graduation.

“I was going to be the godmother,” Denise said with a sad smile.

“Did the three of you start going to the lighthouse mansion together?” I asked.

“Not exactly. I’d heard about it from one of the old hippies that used to come to the Gardens,” Denise explained. “It had been used as a crash pad back in the sixties. So I told Lily about it, and sometimes I would drive her out there so she could hide from her father. Usually after he’d beaten her silly.”

I shivered. “What a horrible man.”

“He really was,” Denise said. “When she disappeared, Brad and I both thought her father had done something to her. Brad went out to the mansion to look for her, but didn’t find her. I thought maybe her father had hurt her so badly that she’d finally run away. I thought I would hear from her eventually.” She shook her head in helpless frustration.

“When Brad and I heard that Lily’s remains had been discovered, we wondered if maybe she died from a fall.” Denise gripped her coffee cup. “We never imagined that someone had followed one of us out there and then waited for his chance.”

“It’s too terrible to contemplate,” I said. “And I hate to say it, but it’s starting to sound like her father might have been the one who killed her.”

“She must’ve been so frightened,” Denise murmured, her cheeks damp with tears.

Clearly we were both struck by the horror of what Lily had gone through in the last minutes of her life. We continued drinking our lattes in silence.

“Just one more question,” I said, breaking the quiet. “You told Dain that Lily had a diary. Was that true?”

She grimaced. “I didn’t realize the police had already found her notebook. That’s where she wrote down all of her thoughts.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the notebook had given the police all the evidence they needed to take her husband in for questioning. I doubted there was anything in the book that would incriminate Dain, but I prayed there was nothing else that would further condemn Brad Jones.

*   *   *

I had a crew of six working on the lighthouse mansion the next day. I wanted to do a big push to finish up the kitchen demo and start work on the basement beams. When Mac and Wade and I finally got the chance to walk through the basement for the first time, we were surprised to find many of the crossbeams and posts were in fairly good shape, despite years of abuse from ocean spray, offshore breezes, and the usual termite infestation that occurred in houses built near water. Despite their decent shape, though, Mac and I decided to replace all of the crossbeams and the posts, not only to give his new house a fresh start, but also to guarantee that those crucial load-bearing beams had a long, healthy life. They would be supporting the weight of the entire house, after all.

By four o’clock most of the crew had left and it was just Carla and me finishing up in the kitchen. I felt a sense of accomplishment when all three layers of linoleum were ripped up and thrown outside. But now the subflooring was exposed, and I was surprised the entire floor hadn’t buckled or that one of us hadn’t fallen through to the basement. The one-by-four slats that made up the subfloor weren’t level, and some of the slats were missing altogether. Of the ones that remained, many were warped.

The old pipes running every which way along the walls of the kitchen were in bad shape, too, with several of them tied and nailed to the strips of lath to keep them in place.

“We have our work cut out for us in here,” Carla said.

I gazed around at the exposed walls and floor. “I’ll say.”

“Are you ready to leave?” she asked, checking her wristwatch. “I’ve got to pick up Keely at ballet practice.”

I smiled. Her five-year-old daughter, Keely, was on her way to becoming a prima ballerina. “You go ahead. I’m going to take a quick look around the house and make a priority list of things to do tomorrow.”

“Okay.” She picked up the small red toolbox she always brought with her. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Thanks, Carla.”

After she left, I wandered from room to room, making a list of projects that needed work. I was struck again by the number of doors in the place, and how most of them were in disrepair and needed restoring or replacement. Some had been cut short at the bottom edge. I’d seen this in other Victorian homes and it was because the owners—or in this case, the navy—had installed new carpeting that was too thick to allow the doors to close. So instead of replacing the carpet or replacing the door, they would simply saw off four or five inches. Naturally, that would create a whole other set of problems to deal with.

I had a feeling these doors would be a project for years to come. I wondered if Mac would be happy to see me showing up every other month or so to work on a door in some room. I smiled at the thought.

I was kneeling down to check the flue in the secret servants’-quarters fireplace when I heard a creaking sound coming from the front of the house. It was dark out, almost six o’clock, and I wondered who was coming by this late. Mac, maybe?

“Hello,” I shouted. “Mac?”

No one responded.

I heard another creak and that one sounded like it was over my head. Was someone on the second floor? Now I had to wonder if Aldous had returned to the house.

I stood up and listened for another creak. I couldn’t say if it was a good thing or a bad thing, but nobody would ever be able to walk around this house without the owner knowing there was someone else inside. Every floorboard and door creaked or groaned when it was moved or walked upon. I would be able to fix some of them, but right now I just wanted to know who else was in here with me.

“Hello?”

Again there was no answer. And that was when I felt a shiver of doubt. Lily had died in this house. And so had an innocent serving girl named Betsy. I didn’t want to be the hat trick.

And with that disturbing thought hovering in my head, I pulled out my phone and texted Eric.

“At Mac’s place. Someone is prowling around. Help!”

I rolled my eyes at the cryptic message, knowing Eric would blow a gasket. But I hit Send anyway. Then, just for good measure, I texted the same basic message to Mac.

Footsteps sounded on the subfloor of the kitchen and I knew my visitor was getting too close. I burrowed into the space between the brick fireplace and the wall. It was barely a foot wide but I squeezed in there, trying to hide from whoever was stalking around. It couldn’t be a friend. He or she would’ve shouted out a greeting right away.

The footsteps grew softer, and I pictured the intruder walking toward the service porch at the far end of the kitchen. Maybe he or she would leave the house through the kitchen door and I would be able to come out of hiding. I felt ridiculous.

A door creaked open, but I could tell it wasn’t the door leading outside. No, it was the sound of the basement door opening. But who would be crazy enough to go down to a cold, dark basement all alone?

Sure enough, I could hear the light pounding of footsteps on the wooden stairs leading down to where Lily’s bones had been found. I wondered, Is this person returning to the scene of the crime?

But the basement hadn’t been the scene of the crime. I assumed that the real crime had occurred in the third-floor attic, where Lily apparently had been killed and shoved into the dumbwaiter shaft.

So who in the world was down in Mac’s basement?

By now I was a trembling mass of nerves. I had to do something. If the prowler stayed downstairs for a few minutes, I could run to the front door and reach my truck before he or she made it back upstairs.

I pushed myself out of my hiding place and tiptoed toward the front hall. But the wooden floor of the servants’ room was so old, it creaked even louder than the subflooring in the kitchen. I had no choice but to keep going, especially when I suddenly heard the sound of feet pounding up the basement stairs.

“Oh, God!” I careened around the corner into the wide front hall, forgetting about the ladder folded up against the wall. A dozen sample cans of paint were stacked nearby, along with rollers and folded tarps. My hip bumped into the ladder and threw me off balance. All I could do as I fell was try to protect my head from banging into anything else.

“Well, well, aren’t you graceful?”

I hated to be trite, but the sound of that voice had the exact same effect as fingernails scraping on a chalkboard. Every nerve ending in my body clenched as I glared up at him.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, pushing the ladder aside and dragging myself up off the floor.

Dismal Dain sniffed as though he’d caught a whiff of something unpleasant. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I misplaced something the last time I was here.”

I hated to show weakness, but I was forced to rest my hand on the wall to steady myself from the fall. “The last time you were here,” I said slowly. “You mean, the time you came out here to kill Lily?”

He bared his teeth. “You think you’re clever, but you’re nothing. You’re as useless and stupid as she was.”

I was so sick of him. “You like thinking you’re smarter than everyone else, don’t you, Mr. Dain? But clearly you’re not. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here, desperately trying to find something you should’ve taken with you fifteen years ago.”

“Nobody will miss you,” he said softly, and that was when I saw the tire iron he was holding.

With any luck, Eric or Mac would be here in the next ten minutes, but that wouldn’t be soon enough. I had to think fast, or I’d be another victim. I had to keep Dismal Dain talking. I suddenly remembered something Denise had said to him the other day, about Lily keeping a diary. I knew she meant the notebook, but did Dain know that?

“You came out here to find Lily’s diary, didn’t you? I don’t think you’ll find it.”

“I’ll find it,” he insisted, swinging the tire iron as he spoke. There was no doubt he intended to kill me.

“W-were you in love with her?” I asked.

He snorted. “In love? With a whore? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Okay, maybe you weren’t in love, but you wanted her, right? She was beautiful.” I was grasping at straws, but he had to have felt something for Lily. Otherwise why would he have followed her all the way out here those many years ago? “Did you try to get close to her during your counseling sessions? Did she turn you down? Were you jealous of Mr. Jones?”

He tried to ignore my accusations, but his nostrils were flaring and I could tell that my words were getting to him. “I told you she was a whore. She wasn’t just having sex with Brad Jones, you know. She was also sleeping with that other student, too.”

I had to think for a second. “You mean Cliff Hogarth?”

“Yes, that one,” Dain said. “Another brain trust.”

I seriously doubted that Lily had ever slept with Cliff Hogarth, but now wasn’t the time to argue about it. “So Lily was sleeping with both Cliff Hogarth and Mr. Jones,” I said. “Two men you had little respect for.”

“I told you she was a slut,” he snarled.

I shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. But she refused to be a slut with you, didn’t she, Mr. Dain? She wouldn’t have anything to do with you, right? I’ll bet that burned you up.”

His upper lip shook when he tried to sneer. “She was nothing to me.”

“And yet you wanted her so badly,” I taunted.

“Shut up!”

“So you killed her.”

“She was nothing to me.”

“She was everything to you,” I countered.

“She spurned me!” he shouted, raised the tire iron, and came at me.

Without thinking, I grabbed a paint can and hurled it at him. It hit him squarely in the face and the cap bounced off, spilling a quart of Red Velvet interior satin paint all the way down the front of him.

He was still raging and paint was still dripping off of him like blood when I raced out the front door and almost knocked down Eric, who was dashing toward the house. He crushed me to his chest and I wanted to crawl up inside him and stay safe. But I couldn’t—not yet.

“Are you all right?” he demanded.

“Dain,” I mumbled. “Inside. He killed Lily.”

*   *   *

Days later, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and Spring Festival were a huge success. The high school’s production of The Sound of Music was lovingly dedicated to the memory of Lily Brogan. Sean actually walked out on stage and said a few words about his sister and how she loved the theater we were all sitting in. His sister, Amy, joined him onstage and also said a few words. Amy had to gulp away tears, and her big brother put his arm around her shoulders to comfort her.

By the time the two of them left the stage and the play began, I was crying like a baby. And judging by all the sniffles I heard, I wasn’t the only one.

During the reception after the play, I was thrilled to discover that my plan to get Sean together with drama coach Lara Matthews was a huge success; they had started dating. When I saw him sneak a kiss from her behind one of the stage flats, I had to wipe away more tears. If anyone deserved to be happy, it was Sean Brogan.

Speaking of dating, Emily and Gus finally announced that they were a couple, as if we didn’t already know. They revealed everything at Emily’s official housewarming party the weekend following the play. She had decided it was time to invite everyone over, even though my crew was still working on several of her rooms. But since the kitchen was almost completed, Emily was more than ready to throw her first of many parties.

I was thrilled that Emily had invited Brad and Denise Jones. They fit right in with my group of friends, and I spent some time laughing and chatting with them before slipping off to wander through Emily’s house alone. I couldn’t help myself; I wanted to check the work we’d done so far and make a mental list of all the things that were left to do.

I was sipping champagne and studying the plaster corbels on either side of the bay window in the back sitting room when Gus walked in.

“Hey, babe. What’re you doing in here all alone?”

“Just checking my guys’ handiwork,” I said. Then, since I figured I wouldn’t have another opportunity to speak to him alone, I rushed ahead. “I’m worried about Emily.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“Gus, I’ve known you my whole life and I love you like a brother. But if you hurt my friend Emily, I’ll never forgive you.”

“Aw, come on, Shannon.” He laughed and gave me a hug. After a moment, he took hold of my hand. “Let’s take a walk.”

We wound our way through the clusters of guests to the front door and stepped outside. Emily hadn’t yet hired a tree trimmer, so the massive eucalyptus and redwood trees surrounding the house still loomed overhead, casting odd shadows as they swayed in the evening breeze. The moon was almost full and I wondered if it really did cause people to act crazy sometimes. My guess was yes.

It took Gus a few minutes of walking and gazing at the sky before he finally got around to telling me what he wanted to say. “Look, I don’t want you to worry. I won’t hurt Emily. I’ve been in love with her for more than ten years, ever since she first moved to town.”

I shook my head in confusion. “But it’s been so long. Why did you wait until . . . I don’t understand.”

He smiled and shrugged lightly. “She wouldn’t have me.”

“What do you mean?”

“She refused to get involved with me.”

I gaped at him. “Is she crazy?”

He laughed. “Naw. She thought I was too young and wild for her. She was sure I would grow tired of her.”

I glared at him. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“No, I wouldn’t.” With a scowl, he added, “But she insisted that my reputation had preceded me.”

“Your reputation as the world’s greatest lover?” I teased. “So, what changed her mind?”

He kicked a small stone across the flagstone pathway. “Would you believe it was Mrs. Rawley?”

I was puzzled for a moment. “You mean the ghost?”

“The ghost,” he said, and laughed again. “It happened after she read Mrs. Rawley’s diary.”

When we’d first started working on Emily’s house, my crew had found the old journal inside a wall of the dining room. As a young woman, Mrs. Rawley had hidden it inside a hole in the wall of her bedroom, behind a picture frame. Over the years, the small book had slipped down the inner wall to where we finally found it.

In the journal, the young Mrs. Rawley had revealed her unhappiness and pain. She hadn’t had the courage to run away with her one true love, who just happened to be Gus’s great-grandfather. Instead, she had done her duty and married the man her parents approved of, and had missed out on any chance of real happiness. If she’d had it to do over again, she would’ve followed her heart and her life would’ve been completely different. Apparently, the ghost saw her chance to help another couple follow their hearts when Emily moved in and Gus finally showed up.

“Mrs. Rawley’s story opened Emily’s eyes to the realization that happiness is fleeting,” Gus said. “You’ve got to grab it while you can.”

I wiped away a tear and gave him another hug. “Be happy,” I whispered.

He grinned. “You, too, beautiful.”

*   *   *

The day after the housewarming party, Callie went home to her mother. There were more tearful hugs and lots of promises to keep in touch. After she left I swore I would never cry again, because I’d shed more tears in the past few weeks than I had in my entire life.

Within a day, Mac and I both admitted that we missed Callie desperately. Mac was already lobbying his sister to send Callie back for the summer. I didn’t hold out much hope.

“Girls that age are totally into their friends and boys and the beach,” I explained.

“So you think she’ll forget all about us old people when she gets back to groovy Bel Air?”

I laughed at the very idea that we would be considered old, but the thought that Callie might forget about me was actually painful. “I hope not.”

“Me, too,” he said, and wrapped me in a tight hug. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and talk her into visiting for a week.”

I patted his back sympathetically, knowing how much he missed the girl. “Let’s try for two weeks.”

*   *   *

Days later, in a police lineup, Dismal Dain was identified by a hospital security guard. The guard swore that the last time he’d seen Dain, the guy was wearing a pair of blue scrubs and walking into the third-floor intensive care unit, where Cliff Hogarth had been a patient. The evidence was piling up, and Dain was finally forced to confess to killing Cliff, as well as Lily Brogan and her unborn child. To hide the crime, he shoved her body into the dumbwaiter. Then he packed her clothes into her backpack and tossed it down the laundry chute.

Dain’s excuse for killing Cliff was that he was being blackmailed by him. Apparently Cliff had been hedging his bets, thinking that either Dain or Mr. Jones had to have killed Lily. Cliff had seen both men out at the lighthouse mansion, when he himself was secretly following Lily.

Cliff Hogarth was a horrible person, but I didn’t suppose that was reason enough for him to die such an awful death. I did have to admit secretly, though, that I was perfectly happy to have him gone. He had made my life miserable, too.

The town thrived on all the grisly gossip, of course. And Whitney swore to anyone who would listen that she had never trusted Cliff Hogarth, after all.

*   *   *

One sunny day at the end of March, I drove out to the Gardens to see Denise. I hadn’t had a chance to tell her the whole story of my confrontation with Dain at the mansion.

“You must’ve been scared to death,” she said, and gave me a warm hug. “But I love that you showered him in red paint.”

“Yeah, that was a nice touch.”

We both were able to laugh about it, although Dain’s confession was a bittersweet victory.

“I mean, yes, he was a cold-blooded killer,” Denise said, “but above and beyond that, Dismal Dain was the worst student counselor who ever lived.”

“I know!” I said, shaking my head. “Me, a hairdresser. What an idiot.”

“I wish you were,” she said, grabbing a clump of her hair. “I could use some help here.”

We laughed some more and chatted as I shopped for herbs for my kitchen garden.

“Despite everything that happened, I’m so happy that we’ve become friends,” Denise said.

“I completely agree.” I flashed her a smile as I grabbed a pretty little pot of lemon thyme.

She hesitated, then said, “Since we’re friends and all, do you mind if I share some good news with you?”

“Please do,” I said. I placed the thyme plant in my basket and held up a basil plant to study the leaves. “I’m desperate for some good news.”

“Well, then.” Her smile was radiant. “Brad and I are going to have a baby. Two, actually. Twins.”

The basil plant slipped from my hands and she caught it, laughing. Then I burst into happy tears. Wrapping her in another hug, I whispered, “That might be the best news I’ve heard in fifteen years.”