The Liar

“Some of it’s Matt. That jade plant’s from a cutting he got from his grandmother. He babies it like his firstborn. It’s kind of sweet.”

She gave Shelby a rub on the arm. “I was giving you some time, but I’m starting to see you don’t want to talk about last night, or any of it.”

“Not really, but I should tell you her name wasn’t Natalie or Madeline. She was Melinda Warren, and the man she said I should be afraid of if he found me is James Harlow. He escaped from prison, Emma Kate, right around Christmas.”

She took out her phone. “Here’s the picture of him Forrest sent me, so you should be careful if you see him. Forrest said he’s probably changed his hair, maybe looks some different. He’s six-feet-three and weighs in at two-twenty, so he can’t change much of that.”

“I’ll keep my eye out. This is a mug shot, isn’t it?”

“I think it is.”

Taking another look, Emma Kate shook her head. “Wouldn’t you think he’d look threatening or hard or mean in a mug shot? What he looks is sort of affable. Like some guy who played football in high school and now he teaches social studies and coaches.”

“I think being able to look affable is how they all manage to swindle and steal.”

“I guess you’re right. And they think he killed her?”

“Who else?” Shelby had asked herself just that—who else?—a dozen times or more. And never came up with a single alternative.

“I guess they’re talking to everybody who was there last night, and asking around town. Forrest said they’re trying to get in touch with the detective who talked to me, but they haven’t gotten ahold of him yet.”

“It’s the weekend.”

“I suppose. She—this Melinda Warren—was telling the truth about being married.”

“To Richard?” This time Emma Kate laid a hand on Shelby’s arm, left it there.

“It’s most likely. They have to go through some paperwork and background and all to be certain the man she married was the same man I thought I married. But . . . Hell, Emma Kate, it’s not most likely, it just is.”

“Shelby . . . I’m sorry if you are.”

This, too, Shelby had asked herself a dozen times. Was she hurt? Was she sad? Was she angry?

The answer had been a little bit of all, but more of simple relief.

“I’m glad of it.” Comforted, she laid her hand over Emma Kate’s. “As awful as that is, I’m glad of it.”

“I don’t think it’s awful. Smart and sensible, that’s what it is.” And turning her hand, she linked her fingers with Shelby’s. “I’m glad of it, too.”

“He thought I was stupid, but what I was, was pliable.”

After giving Emma Kate’s hand a squeeze, Shelby dropped her own to wander around the small, bright space.

“It’s infuriating to look back at it now. It’s . . . and you know I use the word sparely, but it suits what’s in me over this. It’s fucking galling, Emma Kate.”

“I bet it is.”

“At the time I thought it was the right thing, the thing to keep my family together. But we weren’t a family. I thought, once I swallowed hard on it, that was done now. It’s not done. Not until they find this Harlow person. I don’t know if they’ll ever find that woman’s jewelry and her stamps. I can’t think what Richard might’ve done with them.”

“That’s not your problem, Shelby.”

“I think it is.” She walked to a window, looked out at Emma Kate’s view of the Ridge. The long, steep curve of road, with buildings ticking their way down it as they hugged the sidewalk.

Flowers in barrels and pots, heading-toward-summer flowers in hot reds and bold blues replacing the pastels of spring.

Hikers with their backpacks, she noted, and some locals warming the benches outside her grandmother’s salon, the barbershop.

She could just see the well, just a corner of it, and the young family who stood reading its plaque. A couple of young boys made her smile as they raced after a spotted dog who’d snapped his leash and was running, tongue out, hell for leather.

It was a good view of what was what in the Ridge.

For a minute or so more, she had to take herself beyond that curving street with its hills and shops and flowers. Take it back into what still clouded over it.

“If the police could find all that, or what Richard did with it—or most of it—I wouldn’t have to worry or wonder. Then it would be good and done.”

“What does worry and wonder get you?”

“Not a damn thing.” She turned back, smiled at the practicality that steadied her. “So I’m not thinking about it every minute of the day. Maybe if I don’t think about it, something’ll pop into my head.”

“That happens for me when I vacuum. I hate running the vacuum.”

“You always did.”

“Always did, so my mind wanders around. Things do pop in.”

“I’m hoping. Now I’ve got to get home. Mama had Callie and her friend plant a fairy garden, and I want to see it. Remember when Mama had us plant one?”

“I do. Every spring, even when we were teenagers. I’ll have to try my hand at it if we ever build that from-the-ground-up house.”

“You could do a miniature windowsill fairy garden right there, using your big front window.”