Death Threads, page 11
part #2 of Southern Sewing Circle Mystery Series
“Leona!” Tori hissed through clenched teeth.
“It’s what you were thinking, dear.” Leona’s hands dropped to the sides of her skirt, smoothing away wrinkles from the dust-coated material as the door in front of them cracked open.
“Whudev’ you sellin’ lady, I’m not buying nothin’.” A man of about seventy peeked his head between the wall and the door, his bushy gray eyebrows forming a V in the center of his forehead. “I gots everythin’ I need.”
Leona stamped her foot on the wood slab, the sound echoing outward as Tori simply stared, her gaze traveling over the man’s head in an effort to see any sign of additional life inside.
Spreading her arms outward like wings, Leona narrowed her eyes at the man. “Is it necessary to be so rude? Do I really look like I’m selling anything?”
The man’s dark brown eyes slowly made their way down Leona’s trim body as a slight smile overtook the scowl that had graced his face just seconds earlier. “I might be inclined to change my mind on not buyin’ nothin’ if I thought you might be for sale, Ms. Elkin.”
Tori’s mouth gaped open as Leona paused momentarily to preen before striking the man over the head with her clutch. “Didn’t your daddy teach you better manners than that, Mr. Jameson?”
“Wooo-eeee, I gots myself a real ’ive fireball on my front porch. I can see why my brother paraded you ’round town when you first came here. You’re feisty and fancy all in one purty package.” Slowly, the man’s hand cracked the door open a bit more as his eyes left Leona and fixed on Tori. “And who might you be?”
“I-I’m Tori Sinclair.” Stepping forward, Tori extended her hand to the man in the doorway, her gaze darting back and forth between him and the ever-widening interior view. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
His mouth widened into a bigger smile, revealing a few missing teeth and an assortment of crooked ones in the process. “Why, Ms. Elkin, have you been tootin’ my horn ’round town again? People gonna talk if ya keep that up . . .”
Leona’s finger shot outward, its tip barely grazing the man’s nose. “There’s nothing to toot, Mr. Jameson. And if there’s talk, it has absolutely nothing to do with me.”
A cloud passed across the man’s face as Leona’s words hit their mark. “Oh there’s talk. Lots of it. Nasty letters, too.”
Tori’s ears hijacked her limited visual inspection. “Nasty letters?”
“Yes, ma’am. But that’s not all—no sirree. There’s been shootin’, too.”
“Someone’s shot at you?” Tori asked as her mind raced to establish some sort of order for the questions begging to be asked. “Who? When? Where?”
“Don’t know who. Though I’ve got me some ideas.” The man’s hand traveled upward to his chin, a day or two worth of stubble covering the sides of his face. “Happened just today. In this very spot. Can still see the marks.”
“Where?” Tori stepped back, her visual inspection taking on a new stretch of territory that included the exterior boards of Gabe Jameson’s home. “I don’t see any holes.”
“They weren’t shootin’ with rifles, ma’am. Near as I can tell it was tomatoes . . . or maybe cherries.” Stepping onto the porch, the man made his way over to a series of red-stained boards to the right of his front window. “Now I’m not the best housekeeper—”
Leona sniffed, her arms delicately crossing in front of her body as her chin jutted in the air, the antique silver jewelry that graced her wrist and fingers glistening in the last of the sun’s rays. “ ‘Not the best’ implies you try, Mr. Jameson.”
“Leona!” Tori reprimanded from the corner of her mouth. “Now is not the time to be petty.”
“Petty, dear?”
Amused, the man waved his hand in the air. “No need to worry none ’bout Ms. Elkin and me. My grandpappy used to say squabblin’ between a man and a woman was a sign.”
“A sign of what?” Leona asked as her hands found her hips.
“Feelins.”
Tori laughed as Leona’s mouth dropped open. “You know something, Mr. Jameson? I think my grandfather used to say the same thing.” Resisting the urge to see her friend’s reaction, Tori took control of the conversation, steering it away from Gabe’s obvious interest in Leona and back toward the task at hand. “Any chance it was simply the work of teenagers bored with summer break?”
“Nope. It’s the work of someone angry ’bout what’s happened. ’Bout the truth comin’ out.” The man leaned against the house as he fixed his gaze on some distant point far beyond where they all stood. “Seems the truth ain’t somethin’ people want to hear when it ain’t as pretty as the lie.”
“You mean the fact that your family’s moonshine burned Sweet Briar to the ground all those years ago instead of Yankees?” Tori asked, the need to peek inside the home all but gone.
“Yes, ma’am. Seems this town can only be proud of fixin’ themselves up if the Yankees were the one to break ’em. Don’t seem to matter none that bein’ burnt to the ground is bein’ burnt to the ground. An’ buildin’ up again is buildin’ up again.”
No matter how you sliced it, the man was right. Then again, she hadn’t been raised in a town that celebrated its rebirth as an annual ritual complete with a festival and parade. If she had, maybe she’d feel differently.
Maybe.
Then again, some people were just born with certain qualities. Common sense was one of hers. And common sense couldn’t dispute what Gabe Jameson had just said. Rebuilding—better than new—after complete incineration was noteworthy and cause for celebration regardless of what lit the fuse. It was the tenacity that mattered, not the act that called it into play. Why couldn’t people see that?
She leaned against the side of the house, her hope of finding Colby Calhoun hidden somewhere on this man’s property beginning to fade as reality dawned. Gabe Jameson was no more responsible for Colby’s disappearance than she was, of that she was virtually certain. She slowly studied the man in front of her as he toed what remained of the tomato stains on his home, a sense of acceptance hovering over his actions. “It doesn’t bother you that this secret is out, does it?”
He met her gaze with his own, his head shaking slowly from side to side. “Nope, can’t say it does. If anythin’ it’s a blessin’. Carryin’ a secret like that your whole life is rough. Real rough. That Calhoun fella showin’ up at my door last week was a good thing in my book. Freein’.”
“You didn’t mind him showing up here and asking questions? Poking around at a secret your family’s kept for generations?” She pushed the tips of her fingers through her hair in disappointment. Not because she wanted Gabe Jameson to be capable of abduction, but simply because she’d wanted to find Colby.
“Nah. He got right to the point. No pussyfootin’ ’round. Can’t hold nothin’ ’gainst a man like that.” Pulling a flat can from his back pocket, Gabe Jameson unscrewed the top and removed a hunk of chewing tobacco, which he shoved into a corner of his mouth. “I’m glad it’s over. It is what it is. It’s up to folks in town how they deal with it. Shame though, if they focus on the moonshine ’stead of the fixin’ part. Real shame.”
Leona’s voice, quiet yet firm, cut through the silence that fell across the porch, her words reminding Tori that she and Gabe were not alone. “This secret . . . you don’t seem upset about the fallout”—she gestured toward the red stains beside the man—“now or in the future.”
The man shrugged, his mouth working the tobacco for a few moments before spitting some into the dirt just beyond the front of the porch. “It’s not like a few red stains makes a diff’rence. It’s not like I have a missus to protect unless”—his mouth parted revealing the gaps between his teeth—“you want to change that, Ms. Elkin . . .”
Leona straightened her stance, her shoulders rising majestically. “And break the hearts of so many women who want to fill that role? I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night, Mr. Jameson.”
“Now, Ms. Elkin. Are you tryin’ to make me blush?” The man shifted from foot to foot, Leona’s words bringing a rise to his chin and an endearing twinkle to his eyes.
Tori nodded ever so slightly at her friend. Leona Elkin could be a lot of things—some of which could be off-putting at times, but she was also a good egg.
“I imagine you do see all of this as freeing, Gabe. You really don’t have all that much to lose by this secret coming out now.” Peering over the top of her glasses at the shacklike house behind Gabe, Leona entwined the fingers of both her hands through the handle of her clutch. “But what about the person who stands to suffer a good deal because, unlike you, they do have something to lose . . . something they’ve worked long and hard to achieve despite considerable odds?”
Tori stared at Leona, her radar beginning to ping. What was Leona talking about?
“I didn’t answer that Calhoun fella’s questions to hurt Hank. I answer’d ’cause it was the truth.”
“A truth that you have to know will hurt him.”
“Whoa—wait. You two have officially lost me. Who is Hank? What did I miss?”
Gabe lifted his right foot and propped it on the wall behind him, his head shifting to the left long enough to spit out another round of tobacco. “Hank Joe, Hank Joe Jameson. He’s my brother, not that that means nothin’ to him anymore.”
Gabe’s brother?
Confused, she looked from Gabe to Leona and back again. “Okay . . .”
“Most folks don’t know him as Hank and even more don’t know he’s a Jameson on account of his changin’ his name to be somethin’ he’s not.”
“He’s accomplished a lot,” Leona interjected, her right hand rising into the air as her index finger extended in Gabe’s direction. “He made his choices and you made yours.”
“Choices?” Tori asked.
“He was too good for this”—the man pushed off the side of the house and stepped off the front porch, his feet kicking up dust clouds as he walked forward a few feet only to turn back to them—“for the very land our daddy worked his whole life . . . and his daddy b’for him . . . and his daddy b’for that. But he’s a Jameson. That’s somethin’ them fancy shoes, fancy clothes, and made-up last name ain’t ever gonna change.”
She watched Gabe as he continued to pace around, his feet shuffling through the dry dirt that seemed to surround his home for acres. Although she was out of the loop in terms of the sudden sparring match that had sprung up between the two, it was quite obvious it was a sore subject for both.
“You know Hank, Leona?”
“He goes by Harrison now, but yes, I know him. And so do you, dear.”
“I don’t know any Harr . . .” The words trailed from her mouth as her thoughts began to put two and two together, a picture emerging in her mind of a man wearing a dark blue suit, crisp white shirt, and a powder blue tie. A man who donated a number of law books to the library in honor of his career. In fact, if she remembered Nina’s words correctly, Harrison James Law Practice was the most respected law firm in the entire county.
Not bad for someone who grew up alongside the man still pacing back and forth in the dirt, spitting tobacco into the distance and wiping his hands on his ill-fitting white sleeveless shirt.
“I wouldn’t have known Mr. James was your brother,” Tori stated matter-of-factly.
“Most people don’t. ’Cept the folks who’ve lived in Sweet Briar most their lives. Hank prefers to keep it that way.”
She looked over her shoulder at the shack Gabe called home, scanned the grounds to the left and right that boasted the absence of money and pride, imagined the barn behind the house where generations of the man’s family made moonshine as their primary source of income and entertainment, and understood completely why Harrison James would want to keep his ties to this life hush-hush.
Who wouldn’t? Especially if you were trying to build a career by earning people’s trust and respect.
Suddenly she understood what Leona had been asking.
Sure, Colby’s public revelation may have served as a breath of fresh air for a man like Gabe Jameson—a man who’d lived his entire life with the secret of what happened on his property over a century ago. But for a man like Harrison James, who wanted to distance himself from this place and its people in favor of a better life, the revelation of what happened here could blow everything he’d worked so hard to accomplish right out of the water.
She tucked her hand underneath Leona’s arm and gently guided her off the porch and onto the dirt. “I think it’s time we round up Margaret Louise and head back.”
“Is everything okay, dear?”
“U-uh, yeah. It’s fine. It’s just getting a little late and we’ve taken enough of Mr. Jameson’s time.”
Gabe stopped pacing. “I didn’t tell to hurt Hank. I really didn’t.”
Leona stopped, the bejeweled fingers of her right hand reaching out just long enough to offer the man a gentle pat on his bare arm. “I know you didn’t.”
And, strangely, Tori did, too. Gabe Jameson was an open book, it was something you just came to believe and know as you talked to him. But Leona was right. He didn’t have too much to lose by telling the truth about Sweet Briar’s incineration.
Harrison James, on the other hand, had everything to lose—his respectability, his character, his name, and the very life he’d worked so hard to create. Men killed for far less than that on a routine basis. The only question that remained was whether Harrison James was one of them.
Chapter 11
She pulled her knees to her chest and nestled back against the cushion, the crazy pace of her day finally loosening its grip as she took in the game of kickball that was winding down in front of her cottage. The workday had been a blur with a summer school field trip, a book club, and grant papers that had commanded her attention from the moment she’d walked into the library that morning until she’d closed the doors at seven.
The visit from the children had gone well, with most of the students eager to leave the confines of Sweet Briar Elementary in favor of something different. All twenty students had thrown themselves into the possibilities of the children’s room, acting out various stories with the help of the costume trunk and the small stage that had been constructed for just that purpose. The monthly meeting of the branch’s mystery book club had been a success as always, with many of its members flooding the shelves for the latest in their favorite genre before heading back home.
On any other day, Tori would have taken enormous pleasure in the large number of patrons and their intense enthusiasm for reading. It was, after all, everything she loved about her job. But no matter how much she’d tried to lose herself in the activity, her thoughts kept straying back to the same thing.
Colby Calhoun.
She hadn’t realized just how certain she’d been about the whereabouts of his body until the moment Gabe Jameson had started speaking and all hope had faded away. And as hard as it was to realize she’d been wrong, she’d been glad, too. Gabe Jameson was no more capable of harming another human being than she was.
Leaning her head against the wicker back, Tori closed her eyes and lifted her face to the early evening breeze that stirred the tops of the trees. Summer in the south was rough, with its high humidity and even higher temperatures, a combination that made dusk the most tolerable part of the day.
“Miss Sinclair, are you okay?”
Smiling wide, Tori opened her eyes and focused on the little girl at the bottom of her porch steps—a little girl with long dark hair, big brown eyes, and a smile that had stolen her heart the moment they met.
“Hi, Lulu!” She dropped her legs to the ground and spread her arms wide. “How did you know I could use a Lulu hug tonight?”
The child’s eyes sparkled as she hopped up the steps and skipped over to Tori. “Magic!”
“I like that kind of magic.” Tori wrapped her arms around the little girl and inhaled deeply, a curious potpourri of sugar cookies, Play-Doh, and dandelions bringing a lump to her throat. She glanced over the top of the child’s head and smiled at the woman lumbering up the steps with a covered casserole dish in one hand and a coloring book and crayons in the other. “You have no idea how much I needed this tonight, Margaret Louise.”
“Sure I did.” The woman stopped as she reached the top step, her breathing slightly labored. “I knew it yesterday . . . when we were in the car on the way to Gabe’s and you mentioned—”
She shook her head softly as she held her hand in the air. She could talk about any number of things at that moment—books, sewing, her suspicions about Gabe’s brother, dessert recipes, whatever. But Milo? No. Not yet. He’d popped in and out of her mind all day, her heart growing heavier with each passing hour that brought no contact.
Turning her attention back to Lulu, Tori tapped the child’s nose softly. “Have you been reading this week?”
The little girl nodded as she hopped from foot to foot in front of Tori’s chair. “I’m almost finished with a new Cam Jansen mystery and Mee-Maw is reading On the Banks of Plum Creek with me, too. Aren’t you, Mee-Maw?”
Margaret Louise nodded. “We just finished reading about Laura and Mary’s country party.”
“Oooh. Wasn’t that funny when Nellie got the leeches all over her?” she asked as she reached out and smoothed Lulu’s hair from her face.
“Uh-huh.” The child stopped hopping long enough to point at her grandmother before looking back at Tori. “Mee-Maw brought a coloring book for me to color while you talk. She even has some crayons for me, too!”
Casting a sidelong glance in Margaret Louise’s direction, Tori nibbled back a grin. “Let me guess . . . blue, red, and yellow?”
Lulu’s eyes widened in awe. “Wow! You could be a magician!”
“Or a distillery-map reader.”
“What’s that?” Lulu asked.
“That’s Miss Sinclair’s attempt at a funny, sweetie.”
“Oh.” Lulu pulled her gaze from her grandmother’s face and fastened it back on Tori’s. “Mee-Maw said if I color one real careful you might let me hang it on your refrigerator.”
“It’s what you were thinking, dear.” Leona’s hands dropped to the sides of her skirt, smoothing away wrinkles from the dust-coated material as the door in front of them cracked open.
“Whudev’ you sellin’ lady, I’m not buying nothin’.” A man of about seventy peeked his head between the wall and the door, his bushy gray eyebrows forming a V in the center of his forehead. “I gots everythin’ I need.”
Leona stamped her foot on the wood slab, the sound echoing outward as Tori simply stared, her gaze traveling over the man’s head in an effort to see any sign of additional life inside.
Spreading her arms outward like wings, Leona narrowed her eyes at the man. “Is it necessary to be so rude? Do I really look like I’m selling anything?”
The man’s dark brown eyes slowly made their way down Leona’s trim body as a slight smile overtook the scowl that had graced his face just seconds earlier. “I might be inclined to change my mind on not buyin’ nothin’ if I thought you might be for sale, Ms. Elkin.”
Tori’s mouth gaped open as Leona paused momentarily to preen before striking the man over the head with her clutch. “Didn’t your daddy teach you better manners than that, Mr. Jameson?”
“Wooo-eeee, I gots myself a real ’ive fireball on my front porch. I can see why my brother paraded you ’round town when you first came here. You’re feisty and fancy all in one purty package.” Slowly, the man’s hand cracked the door open a bit more as his eyes left Leona and fixed on Tori. “And who might you be?”
“I-I’m Tori Sinclair.” Stepping forward, Tori extended her hand to the man in the doorway, her gaze darting back and forth between him and the ever-widening interior view. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
His mouth widened into a bigger smile, revealing a few missing teeth and an assortment of crooked ones in the process. “Why, Ms. Elkin, have you been tootin’ my horn ’round town again? People gonna talk if ya keep that up . . .”
Leona’s finger shot outward, its tip barely grazing the man’s nose. “There’s nothing to toot, Mr. Jameson. And if there’s talk, it has absolutely nothing to do with me.”
A cloud passed across the man’s face as Leona’s words hit their mark. “Oh there’s talk. Lots of it. Nasty letters, too.”
Tori’s ears hijacked her limited visual inspection. “Nasty letters?”
“Yes, ma’am. But that’s not all—no sirree. There’s been shootin’, too.”
“Someone’s shot at you?” Tori asked as her mind raced to establish some sort of order for the questions begging to be asked. “Who? When? Where?”
“Don’t know who. Though I’ve got me some ideas.” The man’s hand traveled upward to his chin, a day or two worth of stubble covering the sides of his face. “Happened just today. In this very spot. Can still see the marks.”
“Where?” Tori stepped back, her visual inspection taking on a new stretch of territory that included the exterior boards of Gabe Jameson’s home. “I don’t see any holes.”
“They weren’t shootin’ with rifles, ma’am. Near as I can tell it was tomatoes . . . or maybe cherries.” Stepping onto the porch, the man made his way over to a series of red-stained boards to the right of his front window. “Now I’m not the best housekeeper—”
Leona sniffed, her arms delicately crossing in front of her body as her chin jutted in the air, the antique silver jewelry that graced her wrist and fingers glistening in the last of the sun’s rays. “ ‘Not the best’ implies you try, Mr. Jameson.”
“Leona!” Tori reprimanded from the corner of her mouth. “Now is not the time to be petty.”
“Petty, dear?”
Amused, the man waved his hand in the air. “No need to worry none ’bout Ms. Elkin and me. My grandpappy used to say squabblin’ between a man and a woman was a sign.”
“A sign of what?” Leona asked as her hands found her hips.
“Feelins.”
Tori laughed as Leona’s mouth dropped open. “You know something, Mr. Jameson? I think my grandfather used to say the same thing.” Resisting the urge to see her friend’s reaction, Tori took control of the conversation, steering it away from Gabe’s obvious interest in Leona and back toward the task at hand. “Any chance it was simply the work of teenagers bored with summer break?”
“Nope. It’s the work of someone angry ’bout what’s happened. ’Bout the truth comin’ out.” The man leaned against the house as he fixed his gaze on some distant point far beyond where they all stood. “Seems the truth ain’t somethin’ people want to hear when it ain’t as pretty as the lie.”
“You mean the fact that your family’s moonshine burned Sweet Briar to the ground all those years ago instead of Yankees?” Tori asked, the need to peek inside the home all but gone.
“Yes, ma’am. Seems this town can only be proud of fixin’ themselves up if the Yankees were the one to break ’em. Don’t seem to matter none that bein’ burnt to the ground is bein’ burnt to the ground. An’ buildin’ up again is buildin’ up again.”
No matter how you sliced it, the man was right. Then again, she hadn’t been raised in a town that celebrated its rebirth as an annual ritual complete with a festival and parade. If she had, maybe she’d feel differently.
Maybe.
Then again, some people were just born with certain qualities. Common sense was one of hers. And common sense couldn’t dispute what Gabe Jameson had just said. Rebuilding—better than new—after complete incineration was noteworthy and cause for celebration regardless of what lit the fuse. It was the tenacity that mattered, not the act that called it into play. Why couldn’t people see that?
She leaned against the side of the house, her hope of finding Colby Calhoun hidden somewhere on this man’s property beginning to fade as reality dawned. Gabe Jameson was no more responsible for Colby’s disappearance than she was, of that she was virtually certain. She slowly studied the man in front of her as he toed what remained of the tomato stains on his home, a sense of acceptance hovering over his actions. “It doesn’t bother you that this secret is out, does it?”
He met her gaze with his own, his head shaking slowly from side to side. “Nope, can’t say it does. If anythin’ it’s a blessin’. Carryin’ a secret like that your whole life is rough. Real rough. That Calhoun fella showin’ up at my door last week was a good thing in my book. Freein’.”
“You didn’t mind him showing up here and asking questions? Poking around at a secret your family’s kept for generations?” She pushed the tips of her fingers through her hair in disappointment. Not because she wanted Gabe Jameson to be capable of abduction, but simply because she’d wanted to find Colby.
“Nah. He got right to the point. No pussyfootin’ ’round. Can’t hold nothin’ ’gainst a man like that.” Pulling a flat can from his back pocket, Gabe Jameson unscrewed the top and removed a hunk of chewing tobacco, which he shoved into a corner of his mouth. “I’m glad it’s over. It is what it is. It’s up to folks in town how they deal with it. Shame though, if they focus on the moonshine ’stead of the fixin’ part. Real shame.”
Leona’s voice, quiet yet firm, cut through the silence that fell across the porch, her words reminding Tori that she and Gabe were not alone. “This secret . . . you don’t seem upset about the fallout”—she gestured toward the red stains beside the man—“now or in the future.”
The man shrugged, his mouth working the tobacco for a few moments before spitting some into the dirt just beyond the front of the porch. “It’s not like a few red stains makes a diff’rence. It’s not like I have a missus to protect unless”—his mouth parted revealing the gaps between his teeth—“you want to change that, Ms. Elkin . . .”
Leona straightened her stance, her shoulders rising majestically. “And break the hearts of so many women who want to fill that role? I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night, Mr. Jameson.”
“Now, Ms. Elkin. Are you tryin’ to make me blush?” The man shifted from foot to foot, Leona’s words bringing a rise to his chin and an endearing twinkle to his eyes.
Tori nodded ever so slightly at her friend. Leona Elkin could be a lot of things—some of which could be off-putting at times, but she was also a good egg.
“I imagine you do see all of this as freeing, Gabe. You really don’t have all that much to lose by this secret coming out now.” Peering over the top of her glasses at the shacklike house behind Gabe, Leona entwined the fingers of both her hands through the handle of her clutch. “But what about the person who stands to suffer a good deal because, unlike you, they do have something to lose . . . something they’ve worked long and hard to achieve despite considerable odds?”
Tori stared at Leona, her radar beginning to ping. What was Leona talking about?
“I didn’t answer that Calhoun fella’s questions to hurt Hank. I answer’d ’cause it was the truth.”
“A truth that you have to know will hurt him.”
“Whoa—wait. You two have officially lost me. Who is Hank? What did I miss?”
Gabe lifted his right foot and propped it on the wall behind him, his head shifting to the left long enough to spit out another round of tobacco. “Hank Joe, Hank Joe Jameson. He’s my brother, not that that means nothin’ to him anymore.”
Gabe’s brother?
Confused, she looked from Gabe to Leona and back again. “Okay . . .”
“Most folks don’t know him as Hank and even more don’t know he’s a Jameson on account of his changin’ his name to be somethin’ he’s not.”
“He’s accomplished a lot,” Leona interjected, her right hand rising into the air as her index finger extended in Gabe’s direction. “He made his choices and you made yours.”
“Choices?” Tori asked.
“He was too good for this”—the man pushed off the side of the house and stepped off the front porch, his feet kicking up dust clouds as he walked forward a few feet only to turn back to them—“for the very land our daddy worked his whole life . . . and his daddy b’for him . . . and his daddy b’for that. But he’s a Jameson. That’s somethin’ them fancy shoes, fancy clothes, and made-up last name ain’t ever gonna change.”
She watched Gabe as he continued to pace around, his feet shuffling through the dry dirt that seemed to surround his home for acres. Although she was out of the loop in terms of the sudden sparring match that had sprung up between the two, it was quite obvious it was a sore subject for both.
“You know Hank, Leona?”
“He goes by Harrison now, but yes, I know him. And so do you, dear.”
“I don’t know any Harr . . .” The words trailed from her mouth as her thoughts began to put two and two together, a picture emerging in her mind of a man wearing a dark blue suit, crisp white shirt, and a powder blue tie. A man who donated a number of law books to the library in honor of his career. In fact, if she remembered Nina’s words correctly, Harrison James Law Practice was the most respected law firm in the entire county.
Not bad for someone who grew up alongside the man still pacing back and forth in the dirt, spitting tobacco into the distance and wiping his hands on his ill-fitting white sleeveless shirt.
“I wouldn’t have known Mr. James was your brother,” Tori stated matter-of-factly.
“Most people don’t. ’Cept the folks who’ve lived in Sweet Briar most their lives. Hank prefers to keep it that way.”
She looked over her shoulder at the shack Gabe called home, scanned the grounds to the left and right that boasted the absence of money and pride, imagined the barn behind the house where generations of the man’s family made moonshine as their primary source of income and entertainment, and understood completely why Harrison James would want to keep his ties to this life hush-hush.
Who wouldn’t? Especially if you were trying to build a career by earning people’s trust and respect.
Suddenly she understood what Leona had been asking.
Sure, Colby’s public revelation may have served as a breath of fresh air for a man like Gabe Jameson—a man who’d lived his entire life with the secret of what happened on his property over a century ago. But for a man like Harrison James, who wanted to distance himself from this place and its people in favor of a better life, the revelation of what happened here could blow everything he’d worked so hard to accomplish right out of the water.
She tucked her hand underneath Leona’s arm and gently guided her off the porch and onto the dirt. “I think it’s time we round up Margaret Louise and head back.”
“Is everything okay, dear?”
“U-uh, yeah. It’s fine. It’s just getting a little late and we’ve taken enough of Mr. Jameson’s time.”
Gabe stopped pacing. “I didn’t tell to hurt Hank. I really didn’t.”
Leona stopped, the bejeweled fingers of her right hand reaching out just long enough to offer the man a gentle pat on his bare arm. “I know you didn’t.”
And, strangely, Tori did, too. Gabe Jameson was an open book, it was something you just came to believe and know as you talked to him. But Leona was right. He didn’t have too much to lose by telling the truth about Sweet Briar’s incineration.
Harrison James, on the other hand, had everything to lose—his respectability, his character, his name, and the very life he’d worked so hard to create. Men killed for far less than that on a routine basis. The only question that remained was whether Harrison James was one of them.
Chapter 11
She pulled her knees to her chest and nestled back against the cushion, the crazy pace of her day finally loosening its grip as she took in the game of kickball that was winding down in front of her cottage. The workday had been a blur with a summer school field trip, a book club, and grant papers that had commanded her attention from the moment she’d walked into the library that morning until she’d closed the doors at seven.
The visit from the children had gone well, with most of the students eager to leave the confines of Sweet Briar Elementary in favor of something different. All twenty students had thrown themselves into the possibilities of the children’s room, acting out various stories with the help of the costume trunk and the small stage that had been constructed for just that purpose. The monthly meeting of the branch’s mystery book club had been a success as always, with many of its members flooding the shelves for the latest in their favorite genre before heading back home.
On any other day, Tori would have taken enormous pleasure in the large number of patrons and their intense enthusiasm for reading. It was, after all, everything she loved about her job. But no matter how much she’d tried to lose herself in the activity, her thoughts kept straying back to the same thing.
Colby Calhoun.
She hadn’t realized just how certain she’d been about the whereabouts of his body until the moment Gabe Jameson had started speaking and all hope had faded away. And as hard as it was to realize she’d been wrong, she’d been glad, too. Gabe Jameson was no more capable of harming another human being than she was.
Leaning her head against the wicker back, Tori closed her eyes and lifted her face to the early evening breeze that stirred the tops of the trees. Summer in the south was rough, with its high humidity and even higher temperatures, a combination that made dusk the most tolerable part of the day.
“Miss Sinclair, are you okay?”
Smiling wide, Tori opened her eyes and focused on the little girl at the bottom of her porch steps—a little girl with long dark hair, big brown eyes, and a smile that had stolen her heart the moment they met.
“Hi, Lulu!” She dropped her legs to the ground and spread her arms wide. “How did you know I could use a Lulu hug tonight?”
The child’s eyes sparkled as she hopped up the steps and skipped over to Tori. “Magic!”
“I like that kind of magic.” Tori wrapped her arms around the little girl and inhaled deeply, a curious potpourri of sugar cookies, Play-Doh, and dandelions bringing a lump to her throat. She glanced over the top of the child’s head and smiled at the woman lumbering up the steps with a covered casserole dish in one hand and a coloring book and crayons in the other. “You have no idea how much I needed this tonight, Margaret Louise.”
“Sure I did.” The woman stopped as she reached the top step, her breathing slightly labored. “I knew it yesterday . . . when we were in the car on the way to Gabe’s and you mentioned—”
She shook her head softly as she held her hand in the air. She could talk about any number of things at that moment—books, sewing, her suspicions about Gabe’s brother, dessert recipes, whatever. But Milo? No. Not yet. He’d popped in and out of her mind all day, her heart growing heavier with each passing hour that brought no contact.
Turning her attention back to Lulu, Tori tapped the child’s nose softly. “Have you been reading this week?”
The little girl nodded as she hopped from foot to foot in front of Tori’s chair. “I’m almost finished with a new Cam Jansen mystery and Mee-Maw is reading On the Banks of Plum Creek with me, too. Aren’t you, Mee-Maw?”
Margaret Louise nodded. “We just finished reading about Laura and Mary’s country party.”
“Oooh. Wasn’t that funny when Nellie got the leeches all over her?” she asked as she reached out and smoothed Lulu’s hair from her face.
“Uh-huh.” The child stopped hopping long enough to point at her grandmother before looking back at Tori. “Mee-Maw brought a coloring book for me to color while you talk. She even has some crayons for me, too!”
Casting a sidelong glance in Margaret Louise’s direction, Tori nibbled back a grin. “Let me guess . . . blue, red, and yellow?”
Lulu’s eyes widened in awe. “Wow! You could be a magician!”
“Or a distillery-map reader.”
“What’s that?” Lulu asked.
“That’s Miss Sinclair’s attempt at a funny, sweetie.”
“Oh.” Lulu pulled her gaze from her grandmother’s face and fastened it back on Tori’s. “Mee-Maw said if I color one real careful you might let me hang it on your refrigerator.”
