Lethal Literature Read online

  Guilt covered Shirley’s face. “We work with this stuff, ya know? I should have seen the signs.” New tears spilled down her face, and I felt awful for being the one to make her verbalize her errors. Errors anyone would have made if they’d worn her shoes.

  “A few months back Ava started favoring her ribs. I asked her about it, but she said John Luke put his motorcycle down while they were out at the park and she got a couple broken ribs out of it. She said she was lucky to be alive. I should have noticed that she didn’t say they were lucky to be alive. Then she came in with a terrible headache, when I started to massage her head to ease the pain, I felt the bump. I tried to take her to the doctor, but she said John Luke had already taken her the night before, after she fell from a ladder while hanging a picture. Then two months ago, she had a busted lip. When she started to lie to me, I just said, ‘Don’t.’ I marched her out the front door and took her to my car. Then I drove to the park and dialed the hotline from my cell phone in case he monitored her call history. I sat there and listened while she told everything to a complete stranger on the other end of the phone. Everything she should have been telling her best friend months ago.”

  “I’m sorry, Shirley. I didn’t know Ava had any real friends. She was always friendly, but never overly friendly toward me. I had no idea you were that close. I wouldn’t have come in today if I’d known you were best friends.”

  Shirley nodded and added to the growing pile of dirty tissues on her desk. “Chances are I would have found out from my boss around noon. He wouldn’t have been a very compassionate person to hear it from. At least with you, I feel like you cared.”

  I did care; I just wasn’t sure if I’d cared enough to be let off the hook like that. My overall need from the moment I found out that Ava was dead was to make sure I never lost my daddy again. That’s where every bit of my concern had been. And I wasn’t very proud of it.

  Chapter Seven

  I left Shirley after having learned a few more details before she turned the conversation back to the literacy drive. She needed to talk to her boss and would be in contact with me that night at the vigil, or Monday at the latest. She also said she would send out an email to county employees about the vigil, as it was the least she could do after sitting back and letting the abuse occur for so long.

  I thought about my relationship with my own best friend, Scarlet. Would she try to protect the man she loved from the law? If stuck in an abusive relationship, would she value herself so little he could make her believe she caused the abuse? Would I recognize the signs of domestic violence, or would I let denial wash away my vision with lame lies she’d invent to cover up her unwarranted shame? Would I be a helpless witness, waiting for her to make the move that she would never take to protect herself? From what I understood, it would take more strength to leave an abuser than it would to stay.

  To make the scenario even worse, how would I feel if someone waltzed into the Book Barn Princess and casually told me Scarlet was dead? It was an unforgivable sin—no matter what the reasoning behind it was.

  “What are you doing here?”

  I jumped at the low baritone voice of the man approaching me from the side. His voice pierced my thoughts the same time his shadow hit me as I walked toward my daddy’s truck.

  “Cade, you scared me.”

  Cade Calloway had a way of towering over people, even me. He was the tallest man I knew, other than my cousin Jamal. But unlike my cousin, Cade had a powerful muscular frame to match his height. Yet he’d never scared me scared me—other than that time he’d gotten himself knocked unconscious during his senior year of football. He’d put the fear of God in me that day.

  He smiled, that warm smile I’d always craved. His face lit and made me believe in tomorrow being brighter than today. Even on a good day. “I didn’t think anything scared my fearless Princess,” he said.

  I returned his grin. I thought about asking why Reba Sue was in court. It somehow seemed important for me to ask, but I chickened out and teased him about his job instead.

  “What are you doing? Rubbing elbows with other politicians?” As mayor of Hazel Rock, Cade shined, but we were a very small town and I knew he had aspirations for something much bigger.

  “Ah, you know me too well.”

  I didn’t know grown-up Cade that well at all, but I smiled anyway.

  “What were you doing in the county building?” he asked.

  Guilt captured my tongue and made me stutter once more. “I . . . I w-was there to make a contact for the literacy drive.”

  The teasing light washed from his eyes and he glanced back at the building. “You didn’t tell Shirley—”

  “You knew Shirley and Ava were friends?”

  Cade closed his eyes, hiding his disappointment . . . in me. “I was coming here to tell her. I didn’t want her to hear it on the midday news or through the rumor mill.”

  Jeez, I was the lowest of the low. “Why didn’t you come earlier?” I demanded. It came out more like an accusation than I intended. “I’m sorry . . . I just delivered the news to her in such a horrible way.”

  Cade engulfed me in a hug meant to comfort. It did anything but. “You wouldn’t have done it if you’d known they were friends.”

  “I should have recognized Ava had close ties there,” I insisted. “She’s been collecting books for the foster care program since I was a kid.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. I’ve been coming to the county courthouse my entire adult life, yet Judge Sperry is hardly one of my favorite people in the world, nor do I know him that well.”

  I could have sworn he mumbled something about not wanting to know the man, but when I looked up for confirmation, Cade said, “You didn’t know, Princess. Cut yourself some slack.”

  I pushed away from his embrace knowing that part of me wanted to revel in it. The other part remembered how he’d cringed when he learned I’d delivered the bad news to Shirley. I was always disappointing him, and I wasn’t able to be the person he thought I should be. “Thanks.”

  Something flashed through his eyes that looked dangerously like regret before he cleared his throat and asked, “How are the Judge and your dad doing? Are they talking?”

  If anything would make me forget about that look, it was a discussion involving my dad and the Judge talking like two human beings. If recent rumors were to be believed, the two of them had a lot in common. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to put both of them in the category of Ava’s lovers.

  Then I remembered the awkward pat on the back my dad had given the Judge the night before. “What’s going on with those two?” I asked. “My daddy has never said a kind word about that old coot in his life.”

  Cade searched my face, then turned away. I could feel frustration rising off him in waves like the heat from blacktop. He turned back toward me, his jaw taut and strained. “You don’t know, do you?” he asked.

  “Know what?” My certainty that Cade Callaway couldn’t scare me dissipated. By the look on his face, he knew something I should know. Something very important.

  I was witnessing the same type of guilt I’d felt about breaking the news of Ava’s death to Shirley sinking into Cade’s hazel eyes. Then he put on that expression I hated so much. The one he wore in high school when he broke up with me. The one he wore when I’d confronted him about not taking me out to dinner like he’d promised. The one he wore every time he was hiding something from me that would have a dramatic effect on my life. “Nothing,” he said.

  But it was a lie. He knew something. Something that would change me and the little world I’d grown to love so much over the past year.

  “What is it, Cade?” He wasn’t escaping before I learned that tidbit of information that would haunt me to my dying days.

  The sun was high in the sky, beating down relentlessly for March. Sweat began to bead on Cade’s forehead. He ignored his disc
omfort as he searched my face for what I knew, or should have known. His lips pursed with his decision.

  “That’s something for you to discuss with your dad,” he insisted. “It’s not my story to tell.”

  “Cade, if you know something about Ava’s murder—”

  My response threw Cade off guard. “Ava’s murder? That’s not what I’m talking about.”

  “Then what is it?”

  Cade ran his hand through the thick waves of deep brown hair. “I thought he would have told you by now,” he said. “I guess I was wrong. But I can’t tell you, Princess. I’m sorry. It’s not my story to tell. If you need anything after he does tell you, know that I’m here for you. No matter what time of day. Call me, and I’ll be there.”

  That was twice now someone had told me it wasn’t their story to tell. Twice I was being told to chase my tail in circles. I swallowed my pride and asked the question that had been burning a hole in my chest since he’d approached me.

  “Why was Reba Sue in court the other day?”

  Cade squirmed. Literally squirmed like the skin he was wearing was suddenly more uncomfortable than he could stand. I would have never thought his reaction was possible.

  “She was arrested for indecent exposure.”

  “You’re kidding.” I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Then I thought about the reasons why Reba Sue would expose herself in public, or who she would have been with—both scenarios came back to the man in front of me.

  My laughter died. “Oh.”

  Cade was shaking his head before the word left my mouth. “It’s not what you think—”

  I raised my hand to stop him. “We may have tap-danced around the attraction between us over the past year, but I made it clear that I was moving on a couple months back. You’re free and clear to see anyone you want.”

  His hand went to his hair again. I had a habit of ruining that perfect hairdo without even touching the man. He circled in place with his nose scrunched up like he had the taste of something nasty in his mouth. Then he bent down to my level, looked over his shoulder to make sure no one could hear, and an angry whisper escaped through his lips. “She was arrested for skinny-dipping in my pool.”

  That was more information than I wanted to know. I started to turn around but he grabbed both of my shoulders and forced me to listen. “She was drunk and alone and trespassing. I was out of town.”

  I searched his eyes for the truth, and it was right there in front of me. “Oh.” He didn’t want her there. I couldn’t help the relief that washed over me.

  He released my shoulders and straightened to his full height. “My security company signed the complaint. I was trying to make it go away . . .”

  “Oh.” I was wrong. He didn’t mind her being there.

  “I’ve never known anyone who could say one word with three different meanings in thirty seconds.”

  His exasperation stirred my ire. “What do you want from me?” I demanded.

  “The same thing you want from me.”

  We stared at each other for a moment, and the years slipped away. Growing up, he’d always been the one person I could say anything to . . . and vice versa. The whole story spilled from his lips like the years of pain didn’t exist between us. “She came over and broke into my pool house uninvited. Then she got drunk on a bottle of hundred-year-old scotch and stripped down to her birthday suit and went swimming.” He shook his head in disbelief. “The woman’s lucky she didn’t drown. If I’d been home, I would have stopped her and sent her home before she got drunk. But I was in Austin, on business.”

  I remembered his trip to Austin. It was in support of a health care initiative for the poor.

  His lips pursed like the next part of the story was hard to repeat. “The security company came, had her arrested for burglary and indecent exposure, and gave the video to the police.”

  “Holy schnikes,” I snorted. Reba Sue had moved to town during my years of absence, but it was obvious she did not like me one bit, and despite my choked laughter, I wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone. “That’s horrible.”

  “When I found out, I was able to keep it hushed up, but the charges were already filed and the Judge insisted that I show up in court and have them formally dismissed.”

  I cringed. I knew exactly what judge would do that.

  Cade nodded. “Yeah. Judge Sperry, but then Isla burst into court accusing the Judge of cheating on her with Ava.”

  “Oh my God.” I was beginning to see just how ugly a scene that day in court had been.

  “So now everything I’d tried so hard to keep quiet is becoming the center of attention again.”

  “Did you get the charges dismissed?”

  Cade nodded to a man and woman who were walking toward the courthouse and waited for them to pass before answering.

  “Yes. After I got Isla calmed down, the Judge dismissed the case. But the damage has been done.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Liza Twaine got a hold of it. She called my office and asked for an interview.”

  Liza Twaine was a pit bull on crack when it came to a news story. Our local reporter would do anything for a story . . . anything.

  “This is my career, Princess.”

  And there was the true thing that always came between us. His career. It wasn’t Reba Sue or anyone else, but his political career. I needed to remember that.

  “I’m sorry. I suggest you be honest. You’re a victim in all this.”

  “Who will look like a womanizer. Sometimes secrets are for the best.”

  “Is that why you won’t tell me what my daddy is keeping from me about the Judge? Because secrets are for the best?” I asked.

  “That’s different. I told you, it’s not my story to tell.”

  I could tell he was sorry, but that didn’t make me feel any better.

  “If you need a friend to talk to, just call.” Cade leaned over and kissed my cheek before turning away. He walked toward the entrance of the county building without another word and I couldn’t help but think his parting line sounded dangerously like a song. It wasn’t a song I could place off the top of my head, but maybe it was the combination of a couple different songs and that was what was throwing me off, or maybe it was just the words of a man who cared.

  About me. About my daddy. And a teeny bit about the Judge.

  That alone could turn my world upside down.

  Chapter Eight

  There was no way I was going to complete my list in time for the vigil, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to. I’d found out the secret Scarlet wouldn’t tell, and I understood why she hadn’t told me what she knew through the beauty shop gossip mill. The version she’d heard was undoubtedly dirty laundry no one would want repeated, and Scarlet considered Cade a friend. She wouldn’t have repeated that story to her mother, let alone her best friend.

  Even though I had one mystery solved, I was bothered by another. One that was much more important than a woman skinny-dipping in Cade’s pool. I was missing something between my daddy, Isla, the Judge, and Ava. What it was, I had no idea. Ava couldn’t tell me. Isla was a bit unreliable. Daddy wasn’t talking, and the Judge . . . well . . . I shuddered just thinking about talking to the man. I tried to think of the Bible verses he would throw in my direction, but to be honest, not one was coming to mind.

  I should probably add that to the list of sins I needed to confess the next time I went for the sacrament of reconciliation. My list of sins was growing, and the whole church might have to wait a day before I finished with my unending list. I wasn’t sure a priest could survive that long in a little enclosed closet with no food or water at his disposal. Then again, maybe they sat there munching on bread and drinking wine.

  I should probably add that thought to my list of sins as well.

  I shrugged. At least the Judge couldn’t
lecture me about the length of time between my visits to church. He was Baptist and not likely to believe in the whole process anyway. I parked my daddy’s old beat-up pickup truck along Tenth Street where Scarlet had parked her car the previous night. This time, however, I was legally parked with the truck facing the same direction as the traffic. By the time I got out of the truck, Daisy and Jessie were on their front lawn.

  “You owe me a dollar,” Jessie said to his wife.

  Daisy shook her head and smiled. “That’s my husband.”

  “What do you owe him a dollar for?”

  “He’s a big gambler. He insisted you’d be here today snooping around.”

  “I’m not snooping around!” I protested. I was investigating. There was a big difference—from my point of view.

  Jessie pulled up his jeans a notch closer to his chest. If he wore them on his hips, he wouldn’t have any trouble keeping them up, but his championship rodeo belt buckle made them want to slip down to where most men wore their jeans. Jessie wasn’t a tall man; if he reached five-eight it was because of the heels on his cowboy boots. “Young lady, you made me snap a picture of a farewell letter to the Judge and then lie to the sheriff. You’re here to snoop.”

  Daisy sighed. “That’s my husband, trying to put his own sins on someone else.”

  Jessie scowled in our direction before he turned around and marched back toward the house. “I’m keeping my nose out of it, where it belongs.”

  Daisy rolled her eyes. “Can I help you with something?”

  “I don’t want to cause you any problems.” The screen door slammed on their front porch and I jumped.