“Taffy?”
Tanyalee groaned in exasperation, letting her head fall back against the porch swing. She couldn’t get a moment’s peace in this damn place! All she wanted was to sit outside in the dusk—alone—and listen to the bugs. Was that too much to ask?
“Out here, Aunt Viv.” Her voice sounded as exhausted as she felt.
Within seconds, the front screen door creaked open and slammed shut, and Viv plopped down next to her on the swing. She set the contraption in motion with her pink-laced tennis shoe.
“Phew! It’s a warm one tonight!” Aunt Viv took a sip of the frozen drink she held in her hand, an elixir she called “risky slush”—strawberry daiquiri mix, ice, and vodka whirled around in the blender until it became a cold, crunchy soup. Not that it needed to be a warm night for Viv to break out the Osterizer. In fact, it didn’t even need to be night at all. Tanyalee knew Viv had been fond of these innocent-looking concoctions as long as Tanyalee could remember, which was most of her life, since she’d come to live with her great-aunt when her parents died. Tanyalee had been five, and Cheri seven. Vivienne Newberry was the closest thing to a mother they’d had since.
“Thank you for helping wash up after supper.” Aunt Viv patted her on the knee. “You’ve always been such a helpful girl, Taffy.”
Tanyalee squeezed her eyelids shut for a moment, then smiled at her. “I’m turning thirty this year and I do believe that’s way past the girl stage, don’t you? And, um, Aunt Viv?” She grabbed the wrinkled hand on her knee and squeezed it tight, staring right into her aunt’s wide eyes. “Please, for the love of God, stop calling me Taffy. I don’t like it. I never have and I never will. Thankyousoverymuch.”
Viv snatched her hand away. “Good gracious alive, Tanyalee Marie! Those Arizona people may not have had any manners but you didn’t have to change yourself to be just like them!” She took a slurp of her slush.
Tanyalee had to chuckle. Wasn’t that the whole reason Grandaddy Garland had spent a fortune to send her to Sedona Sunset in the first place—to help her change? Dr. Leslie’s words echoed through her mind: “Your family members may not like the differences they see in you. They may feel threatened when you begin to communicate directly. It will be a new dynamic for everyone, especially your aunt Vivienne. From what I can tell, she’s lived in a state of denial for much of her life.”
Tanyalee tried a softer approach. “I’m just telling you how I really feel, Aunt Viv. Please try to accept that.”
“Lor-dee!” Aunt Viv pushed the swing faster and stared out at the fireflies on the sloping front lawn. “When has saying how you really feel ever gotten anyone anywhere in this world?”
Tanyalee took a deep breath and counted to three. “It’s what I’ll be doing from now on.”
“Hmmph.” She turned away.
“I love you, Aunt Viv. I’m happy to be home.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, and the sentiment seemed to soothe her a bit.
“I love you, too, Taffy.” She tentatively returned her focus to her grand-niece and smiled softly. “I love both of my girls something fierce, and I’m so proud of you both!”
Tanyalee sighed deeply. Her aunt hadn’t heard a thing she’d just said.
“Now all we have to do is get you settled down and happy.” Viv patted her knee again. “We need to put our heads together and come up with a way for you to meet some eligible bachelors.”
“I plan to concentrate on myself for a while, not men.”
Her great-aunt shrugged. “Well, that explains why you haven’t hardly said boo to your poor granddaddy since you’ve been back—it must be because he’s a man!”
It occurred to Tanyalee that this was a pointless conversation, like most she’d had with Aunt Viv since the day she entered puberty fifteen years before. Tanyalee knew all she could do was speak her truth. Whether her aunt understood was a detail she couldn’t control. It was just as Dr. Leslie had predicted.
She responded to Aunt Viv’s jab with polite directness. “Granddaddy Garland’s been at the paper every day since I’ve been home, which is a funny thing for a man who’s supposed to be retired. But I enjoy spending time with him. And God knows he’s right at the top of my steps eight and nine.”
Aunt Viv took another sip and frowned. “Eight and nine steps going where?”
“I’m talking about the eighth and ninth steps in the twelve-step program. I make a list of all the people I have harmed and then make amends to them.”
Viv’s tennis shoe skidded to a stop on the painted floorboards, causing the porch swing to come to an abrupt halt. A bit of slush slushed all over the front of her blouse. Maybe that’s why Aunt Viv wore nothing but pink—it camouflaged the cocktail stains.
“Amends for what, exactly?”
Tanyalee took a slow breath. She hadn’t planned to reveal all this to Viv quite yet, but figured she might as well get it over with. “I will be making amends to all the people I’ve hurt. Lied to. Stolen from. Used. Manipulated. And I need to make amends to Granddaddy for … well, everything.”
Viv’s mouth opened in slack wonderment, then snapped shut. “I don’t believe all that’s necessary, do you? That misunderstanding happened in the past. You made a mistake. And anyway, your list can’t be very long, Taffy. You’re a perfectly lovely young woman.”
Tanyalee smiled sadly. That was the way Viv had always seen her—perfect and lovely. And for most of her life, that’s how she’d seen herself. But then, somehow, that perfect and lovely life seemed to get away from her. She became consumed with jealousy over J.J.’s love for her sister and decided to steal him from Cheri out of spite, tricking J.J. into getting her pregnant and forcing him to marry her. From that point on, nothing seemed to work for Tanyalee. She miscarried but didn’t tell J.J., and when he found out he divorced her immediately. Next came the misdemeanor shoplifting charges, and eventually the felony forgery mess. Sometimes she didn’t recognize the person she’d been back then—a person who’d had the audacity to take out a loan and claim Granddaddy was a cosigner, forging his signature. What a sense of entitlement she’d had! Then came the crushing shame of seeing her name in the police blotter of the Bigler Bugle, the newspaper her family had owned for generations: “Taken into custody was Tanyalee Marie Newberry, 28, of Willamette Road, Bigler. Newberry was scheduled for arraignment Wednesday.”
A night in jail. A bail hearing. Humiliation. Desperation.
Was it any wonder Wim Wimbley no longer had looked like such a bad option? The preppy little weasel had a ton of money, and because he’d wanted in her panties since high school, he’d been disgustingly easy to twist around her baby finger. So that’s how she’d ended up living in a big house, driving a new Mercedes, wearing expensive clothes and a two-karat emerald-cut diamond, engaged to a rich man without a conscience. It was a detail that hadn’t bothered her in the slightest—until he pulled a gun on her.
Sometimes, the weight of her own stupidity and selfishness took her breath away.
“Oh, it’s a long enough list, Aunt Viv,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Granddaddy, Cheri, and J.J., of course. Even Wim, since the only reason I was with him was for his money. Plus a lot of people from my past—school friends I talked about behind their backs, all those boys I dated to either get back at another girl or for what they could do for me, the owners of C’est La Vie Boutique in Asheville.”
Viv’s glass tumbler began to slip from her grasp. Tanyalee caught it.
Her aunt cleared her throat and patted her chest. “You’re going to go digging around in all that old dirt? Especially with Cheri and J.J.? Why in heaven’s holy name would you go and do something like that?”
She handed the tumbler back to Viv. “Don’t look so shocked. That’s the reason I went to Arizona—so I could sort out why I did all those dishonest things and find the courage to ask for forgiveness and make better choices in the future.”
“Oh, all right. I think I understand.” Viv nodded tentatively. “Wasn’t that an episode of Dr. Phil?”
Tanyalee laughed. “I think that’s pretty much all the episodes of Dr. Phil.”
“Well, I’m proud of you anyway, Taffy,” Viv said, patting her niece’s knee again with one hand and raising a glass to her mouth with the other. “That’s a brave thing to do, I suppose.”
Just then, a car pulled into the drive. It took Tanyalee three seconds to notice it was a brand-new Lexus LS 460 sedan in the most beautiful pearl-gray finish she’d ever seen. Frankly, the Mercedes coupe Wim had given her as an engagement present looked like a stripped-down Ford in comparison. “Who the hell is that?” Tanyalee asked.
“Oh, that’s Tater Wayne.”
Tanyalee let loose with a hoot of laughter. “Oh, Aunt Viv. You’re so funny.”
“Am I, now?” She grinned widely. “I take it you didn’t visit with him at the wedding?”
“Uh, no.”
“So you don’t know what’s been going on with Tater Wayne lately?”
She didn’t. The last Tanyalee had heard, Tater Wayne was mowing Aunt Viv’s grass and cleaning out her gutters, his left eyeball twitching all the while. Tater was a good soul, but not the world’s most attractive man, that was for sure.
And anyway, she hadn’t “visited” with anyone at the wedding, which was only supposed to be an engagement party. Talk about a shock! Tanyalee had completed six weeks in rehab and Dr. Leslie arranged for her to attend the party as an assignment, not a social event. So she headed to the lake house with a prettily wrapped gift and her sincere wishes for happiness—only to find out Cheri and J.J. had just gotten married! Lord-ee! She’d hopped into Aunt Viv’s old pink Caddy and driven back to the house, shaking all the while, then called Dr. Leslie and cried her guts out for fifteen minutes in a fit of rage and jealousy and regret. Tanyalee was on a plane the next day, headed back to Sedona Sunset for the additional month of inpatient treatment Dr. Leslie believed was necessary for her recovery.
So, no, she had not noticed that Tater Wayne had been present. All she’d noticed was how beautiful and happy her big sister looked in that simple cotton summer dress, a bouquet of wildflowers clutched in her hand. She’d also noticed the dark flash of hate and warning in J.J.’s eyes as soon as he got a glimpse of Tanyalee. Truly, the way he’d stared at her nearly made her turn right back around and chalk it up as a failed assignment. But she’d pressed on, hugging her sister and handing over the set of blue-checked dish towels that she knew would match her kitchen curtains.
Tanyalee was dragged back to the present when she heard the driver side door of the Lexus shut with a velvety smooth thump. A man who looked like a rich relation of Tater Wayne’s walked up the drive, his hands in the front pockets of his pricey trousers. Tanyalee rose to her feet as if in a daze. “What the—”
“Hey! Welcome back, Taffy! I heard you was back an’ I thought I’d stop by and say howdy.”
This just wasn’t right. Was this some kind of joke? This man was not the Tommy “Tater” Wayne she knew. Where were the dirty workman’s clothes? The yellowed or missing—teeth? The beater pickup truck? And why was he wearing a black eye patch over his trademark crazy eyeball?
“Shoulda gone out with him before he won the Mega Millions,” Aunt Viv whispered in Tanyalee’s direction, a twinge of glee in her voice. “He’s already off the market. Some nice police lady, I hear.”
“What are you talking about?” Tanyalee would have to deal with Aunt Viv’s bizarre misinformation later, after she sorted out this shocking turn of events for herself.
“Taffy!” He hugged her tightly, and that’s when Tanyalee noticed a few additional details about her old friend. He smelled like high-priced men’s cologne instead of Miracle-Gro. His button-down shirt was fine silk instead of dirty flannel. His teeth—a full mouth of them—were straight and sparkling white. And his hair was washed, cut, and styled to gentlemanly perfection. “Dang, but it’s good to see you!”
“I…” Tanyalee couldn’t get her mouth to shape words. How was this kind of transformation even possible in ten weeks? Had he really won the lottery? “Tater? What happened…? You’re so incredibly … Are you on some kind of reality show or something?”
Tater looked embarrassed.
“He’s our local celebrity,” Aunt Viv said with pride. “And I’ll always be able to say ‘I knew him when.’”
Tater Wayne kissed her wrinkly cheek. “Oh, Miss Vivienne. Stop now.” He looked at Tanyalee with one clear blue eyeball, a small smile playing on his lips. “I ain’t a celebrity and I wouldn’t be caught dead on no TV show. I’m the same man I always been. My numbers hit is all, but it ain’t nothing to brag about.”
Tanyalee couldn’t help herself. Her eyes nearly bugged out of her skull. “Are you shitting me, Tater?”
“He goes by Thomas now, honey,” Viv corrected her.
“Right,” Tanyalee said, thinking that Tater was allowed to be Thomas but she was still stuck with Taffy? Did she have to win the lottery to receive the same courtesy?
“How’s that pretty police lady girlfriend of yours?” Viv asked.
Tater’s face went scarlet, which made Tanyalee entertain the possibility that Viv wasn’t completely out of her mind.
“She’s real good, Miss Vivienne. I’ll tell her you inquired about her.”
“Well, now. That would be nice.”
Tanyalee must have been openly scowling, because Tater—Thomas—shuffled his feet and put his hands back in his pockets. She took some comfort that at least something was the same about her old friend—he was still on the shy side.
“Yeah. I’m dating this real wonderful woman,” Tater said, his voice soft. “Her name is Kelly and she’s the supervising special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration out of Asheville.” He didn’t try to hide the pride he felt in saying her job title.
Tanyalee shook her head. “What? How did the two of you meet?”
“Uh…” Tater’s eyes flashed toward Aunt Viv as if asking for permission, and Viv nodded her approval. “We met at Cheri and J.J.’s wedding.”
“Oh.” And just like that, a wave of powerful sadness washed over Tanyalee and the chitchat was over. She decided she’d have to get the details about Tater’s new life some other time. “Well, I’m gonna turn in for the night. It was so wonderful to see you.” She kissed Tater on the cheek, getting another whiff of the former handyman’s much improved fortunes. “Good night.”
Viv didn’t bother waiting for Tanyalee to open the screen door before she whispered to Tater, “She’s still a little sensitive about that subject—probably because she’s not done with her stepping stones.”
“I see,” Tater said.
“I haven’t mentioned to her yet that Cheri and J.J. are on their honeymoon, so don’t let it slip.”
“All right, Miss Vivienne.”
Tanyalee heard the exchange, of course. Her feet felt as heavy as blocks of concrete as she trudged up the large central staircase of the old house, her palm sliding along the polished oak banister the way it had for nearly twenty-five years. Stepping stones, she thought. How true. The way her heart had cracked open at the thought of Cheri and J.J. on their honeymoon reminded her that she’d need to deal with things one day at a time, one step at a time, or one breath at a time.
Whatever it took.
* * *
Nothing. There was nothing.
Dante should have checked Pink Taffy’s ID while she’d taken one of her many bathroom breaks. It had been no excuse that each time she said, “I’ll be back in just a jiffy,” he was sprawled out on the hotel room bed too exhausted, limp, and oxygen deprived to move. He should have gotten his ass up and checked her wallet when he’d had the chance, the way any decent special agent would have done. What a stupid oversight that had been! The irony had not escaped him. Here he was at Quantico teaching DEA trainees basic investigative techniques and he’d let some woman slip away without an ID check. Now, weeks later, he couldn’t find her anywhere on the grid and all he was left with was the silver charm bracelet, memories he couldn’t shake, and a residual hard-on.
He twirled the bracelet around in his fingers, staring at the laptop screen. There were no Taffys in the Raleigh-Durham or Charlotte metro areas of her age range or description. A statewide check didn’t provide any leads, either. An analysis of national crime databases and news reports found nothing about flying-squirrel-related kidnappings, as if he really expected anything. Plus, the murdered parents, if, in fact, they’d been murdered, would be impossible to identify. He had no dates. No location. No details on how they might have died. No names.
One thing he knew with certainty—Pink Taffy was an accomplished liar, which meant there were more than a few plausible explanations for the lack of information. Maybe she wasn’t named Taffy at all, and had, in fact, stolen the bracelet from someone of that name. Or Taffy was a nickname for something like Tabitha or Tiffany or some other ridiculous Southern-girl name. Or it could be she wasn’t from North Carolina at all. Or she’d purchased the bracelet for a relative or friend—but if that were the case, why would she give it to him as a memento of a one-night stand?
Why would she leave him anything, for that matter? Why did she want him to remember the night they’d spent together?
Dante jumped from the desk chair. He paced in front of the window of his assigned temporary base housing unit, still twisting and twirling the jewelry in his fingers. There wasn’t even an indication of where the item was purchased, no serial number or item name.
Nothing.
A pounding on his door made him jump. “What?” he called out.
“It’s Hinman.”
“Yeah. Coming.” He’d forgotten all about his plans to catch an AA meeting and grab dinner with fellow instructor Westley Hinman, a buddy from his Basic Agent Trainee Academy days and one of many special agents dedicated to staying in recovery. As they often joked, a high incidence of alcoholism was one of the few perks of the job. Dante tossed the bracelet on the bed and flung open the door. “I’m ready.”
Hinman looked him up and down, an eyebrow cocked high on his forehead. “Uh, you sure about that, bruh? ’Cause no shirt, no shoes, no way am I being seen in public with your ass.”
Dante laughed—more at his own scattered frame of mind than at Hinman’s wit, though his buddy was plenty funny. “Oh, yeah? Well, I’m ashamed to be seen with you when you’re fully dressed.” Dante grabbed a polo shirt out of the drawer and yanked it down over his head, raking his hair with his fingers.
“Pffft.” Hinman checked himself out in the full-length mirror, rubbed his military-style buzz cut, and flexed his pecs under his tight yellow T-shirt. “Everybody knows I’m the pretty one and you’re the fugly friend with the great personality.”
Dante laughed harder. “You are definitely the first person on the planet to tell me that.” He slipped his feet into a pair of battered Nikes and patted his jeans pocket for his keys, which weren’t there. He spun around, searching the room, and spied them on the bathroom countertop.
“What’s this?” Wes asked from the other room.
Shit. Dante closed his eyes in annoyance. Hinman had found the bracelet. “Nothing. Let’s roll, Westley.”
“Oh, no you don’t.” Hinman laughed. “Who’s Taffy? Was she hot? With a name like that, she had to be hot.”
“She’s nobody, okay?” Dante reached for the doorknob, aware that Wes had just used the past tense, as if it were assumed that whoever Taffy might be she was already long gone. On some level that bothered him, though he knew it was a safe assumption for one agent to make about another. The DEA lifestyle didn’t exactly lend itself to long-term relationships.
“Fine. So she’s nobody. But was she hot?”
“Yeah, she’s hot—was hot. I’ll never see her again. Can we go now?”
“She live around here? You got a number? Did you pick her up at a meeting?”
Dante was getting impatient. “Special Agent Hinman? Do you plan on wearing that bracelet to the community meeting room of the public library and then to the Outback Steakhouse? Because if you don’t, you need to just put it the fuck back where you found it.”
“Damn, bruh.” Wes tossed it to the rumpled comforter. “Touchy, touchy.”
Dante shook his head and stepped out into the hallway.
“Is she going to be at tonight’s meeting? What’s she look like?”
“What the fuck, Hinman? You know I don’t thirteen-step women, and I don’t know who she is, all right? I met her coming back from Chicago and we … you know … we hooked up. But now I can’t find her.”
“Whoa. What do you mean you can’t find her?” Wes put a hand on Dante’s shoulder. “Where’d you meet her? Did she swipe a credit card? Were there any security cameras? Partial prints on a coffee cup or anything? Shit, man, you didn’t even trace her cell number? Why? Was it a burner purchased with cash?”
“I don’t have a number. Can we just go?” Dante started walking down the hallway to the elevator. His digs in Asheville weren’t luxurious by any means and it wasn’t like he’d slept in his own bed much while he was undercover, but home was sure as hell nicer than these military-base accommodations.
“You didn’t say where, exactly, you met her.”
“Drop it, Westley.”
“Come on, man. What’s up? You’re obviously interested in her or you wouldn’t have the bracelet on the bed and you wouldn’t be all testy like you are, so maybe I can help you find her.”
“No.” They’d reached the downstairs lobby, and both nodded to a whole slew of Marine Corps officers and agents from the FBI, DEA, and God knew what else on their way to the front door. As they headed to the parking lot, Dante realized he was glad to be getting off base, even if it were only to visit a chain restaurant.
“So, I don’t get it. Was she at a baggage carousel? A shuttle stop? An airport bar? Did you get a partial on a license plate? Come on, man, there’s got to be a way to find out who the babe was.”
“Drop. It. Now.” Dante put his key in the ignition of the rental car and backed out of the parking space.
“Fine.” Hinman sighed. “Too bad it isn’t something simple, you know, like you sat next to her on a flight or something.”
Dante’s mind went blank. Even blanker than it had already been, apparently. He started laughing at his own ridiculous, Taffy-drunk, stupid-assed self. He looked over at Hinman. His friend had pressed his back against the passenger side door and was staring at him like he was an alien.
“Do not tell me she sat next to you on a flight.”
Dante pulled out of the lot and headed to the exit gate, ignoring Hinman’s comment.
“So?”
“You told me not to tell you.” Dante and Hinman flashed their shields and a young marine waved them through, telling them to enjoy their evening.
“All right, now.” Hinman rubbed his eyes and chuckled softly. “That right there is the saddest shit I’ve heard in a long while. The chick must have fucked your brains out, Cabrera.”
Dante had suddenly lost his appetite. All he wanted to do was get back to his room and start checking FAA passenger manifests until he found little Miss Pink Taffy.
“You got feelings for this woman or something?”
“Hell, no.”
“That is some bullshit.” Before Dante could say anything else to him, Hinman held up his hand. “I’ll stop. But if you can’t be honest with yourself, at least tell your sponsor how you really feel. Promise me you’ll do that, okay?”
Dante changed the subject. “I’m thinking surf-and-turf tonight. How about you?”
A few hours later, Dante was back at his laptop, fingers poised over the keys. All it would take would be a few taps of his fingertips and he’d be able to locate his flight number and seat assignment from O’Hare to D.C., then enter the secured Justice Department site. From there, he’d be only a few clicks away from the passenger manifest that would take him directly to everything he’d ever wanted to know about Taffy—or whoever the hell she was.
Dante held his breath for a moment. Why in the world would he even bother? He didn’t want or need to know anything about that woman. Taffy had been a one-night stand of epic proportions—all sweet Southern gentility until he nailed her up against the hotel room wall—but that’s all she’d been.
One.
Hot.
Night.
Dante logged out and closed his laptop. Not much later, as he lay in bed in the dark, he was sure he’d made the right decision. He’d never, ever gone chasing after an anonymous hookup before, so why start now?
He rolled over, punched the pillow, and willed himself to go to sleep.