A hand on my shoulder pulled me out of the abyss. I glanced around to see I sat alone on the bench. Melanie and Amelia had left, and I hadn’t even noticed. I supposed Harper’s case was the last one before the lunch break. I lifted my head and Charles’s brown eyes latched on to mine. His brows pinched together. “Hey. You all right?”
I gave the obligatory answer with a nod, and for some odd reason, I wondered why we always felt as if we had to say yes when asked the question. And right now, I was anything but all right. “No, Charles. I’m not all right. I have no idea what just happened.”
“I’m going to help you clear things up. Okay? Come on. There’ll be press outside the courthouse if we don’t hurry.”
I rose, and I followed him toward the back of the courtroom, then stopped in my tracks. I didn’t know this guy from Adam. I had no idea if he was the good guy or someone trying to blackmail my family, as my father had told me. My uncle indeed despised and questioned his motives.
Charles cast a glance over his shoulder and realized I’d stopped following. He backtracked the few steps to reach me. “We have to go.”
“I have no idea who you are.” I shook my head from side to side, studying him. “What are you doing here? What ulterior motives do you have lurking below the surface?” I gave out a soft bitter laugh. “Because I’ll tell you. Right now, I don’t know who to trust anymore.”
He lowered his head close to mine. His breath brushed my cheeks. It smelled of wintergreen gum. “There is so much you don’t know about your mother. She is not what she seems.”
“Clearly!” My voice shook. And I lowered my head and whispered. “My always avoiding scandal mother flipped out this morning, and now she’s opening up her house to a stranger and the most scandalous case this town has ever seen.”
“I’m here to help you. To tell you who you are. That’s why I’ve come to Sweet Mountain.” His face grew grave, and his brown gaze bored holes through mine as he gently gripped my biceps. “For you.” His hand moved down my arm and thrust something into my pocket. I jumped at the intimate contact. He bent, retrieved his bag from the floor. I slowly reached into my pocket and he raised his hand, his eyes deadly serious. “Wait until you’re alone to look at the picture. Understand?” My head bobbed in response and he left me there.
It took a few minutes for his words to sink in. Picture. He’d given me a picture of something he found massively important to my current predicament. What did the image hold? Fear crept up my spine like cold fingertips. My whole life began crumbling around me. And as much as I fought them, tears began to make little tracks down my cheeks. I violently wiped them away. Melanie popped her head back in the courtroom and waved a hand for me to come with her. I rushed out the double doors of the courtroom and through the throngs of people milling around, avoiding all calls to my name. Thankfully flanked by Melanie and Amelia, no one could get directly at me. On the courthouse’s front steps stood Mr. Jenkins and my mother facing the reporters with an air of both triumph and defiance. “Mrs. Richardson is innocent, and we plan to prove just that.”
My, my, had his tune changed. Mother’s bank account the motivator, I felt sure. He also seemed more composed than I believed him capable. Perhaps he also thought this case would make his career, and he’d be in higher demand.
Frances Moody stood with her hands clasped in front of her black and tan knit suit and said with authority I didn’t believe she possessed under the circumstances, “The reprehensible injustice that has occurred in this town is appalling. The arrest and charge of a young, manipulated woman by an abusive and oppressive man and his family will not go unanswered. As a pillar of a community I love dearly, I must say, we are better than this.” Wow.
“My God, your mom is a Rockstar! I thought I couldn’t love her more. But now, I’m totally adopting her.” Melanie beamed, her eyes full of admiration as she stared at my poised and collected mother. The flashes of cameras would have caught a completely different picture a couple of hours ago. How could she possibly manage to hold it together with Harper in the house?
“She’s certainly something else.” I hoped my statement was ambiguous enough. I didn’t feel like answering questions right here out in the open.
“You okay? I have to go to work.” Amelia took my hand, squeezing it.
I scrounged up a smile and hugged her. “I’m good. Go ahead.”
“You good, Mel? You need me to drop you off or—”
“No, I’ll catch a ride with Lyla.” She hugged Amelia, and we watched her hurrying down the steps.
“It’s not a problem for me to ride back with you, is it?”
Questions flew at Mr. Jenkins. I watched him evade with grace, and then finally, he waved, signally they had concluded. He took Mother’s forearm, leading her down the steps. She never saw me. Never looked in my direction or around as I expected her to. I understood her vehemence toward injustice, not how she managed to wield it now.
“Hey.” Mel touched my arm, and I jumped.
“Oh yeah, sure. No problem. I’m in lot D, in the back. Come on.”
Before the reporters could notice me—the fired investigator for the defense and daughter of Harper’s guardian angel—I rushed down the steps and toward the green space near the parking lot.
“There’s more going on here than the attorney letting you go, isn’t there? Has there been any developments with the Spider character?”
I gave my head a shake. “A lot is going on. I was just at my parents’ house, and I swear, Mel, Mother was a wreck. Now she’s here and saving Harper.” I gave her the play by play of what transpired, including my visit with Mrs. Ross.
“Lyla!” We turned to see Piper marching toward me. Terrific. I had to get it together.
“What the hell? We pinky swore.” She glanced toward Mel. “How are you doing, Melanie? Seen the consummate ass lately?” Mel and Piper had an interesting relationship since Piper shared the title as the ex-Mrs. Tim Howard.
“God, no! His royal ass can take a long hike off a short bridge.”
They both had a little chuckle.
“Can you give us a sec, Mel?”
“Sure. No problem.”
I tossed Melanie the keys to my car. She gave Piper a little wave, still snickering to herself. I had to smile despite my troubles.
“What gives?” Piper cocked her head, keeping her voice low.
I rubbed my forehead and then lifted my chin to meet her gaze, and she furrowed her brow. “I’m as blindsided as you are.”
“You seriously had no clue your mother involved herself in this case?”
I shook my head. A thought occurred to me, and before I could overthink it, I made a decision. I no longer worked for anyone involved in this case. And now, more than ever, I wanted this case to go away but not without the responsible party being held accountable. “I’ve been blindsided more than once today.”
She cocked her head to one side. “What do you mean?”
I glanced around conspiratorially. “Off the record, but,” I held up my finger, “if you call and get corroborating evidence, I’ll consider going on record.”
Now I had her attention. “Okay,” she said slowly.
“A little bird told me that the night of the murder, LJ Richardson was out on a call at my parents’ neighbor’s house. And at the scene of the crime, the backdoor was wide open.” I raised my brows for effect. “I feel sure if you contact Hewitt Electric and ask for Farrah, she will confirm that even though Julio Gonzalez’s name is on the work order, both Julio and LJ worked that job.”
“Very interesting. Now with Harper cut out of the will because of criminal charges, that leaves the younger Richardson to inherit.”
“Yes. It’s fascinating. Equally fascinating is that a car has been following me for days. I caught a partial plate and had it checked. Guess who the car is registered to?”
“Intimidation tactics?” Upon my nod, she leaned even closer, her eyes wide. “LJ Richardson?”
“No. It’s registered to Leonard but—”
“He’s not driving it.”
“My thoughts exactly.” I bit my lip and appeared to be battling with what I was about to say. “And there’s also a rumor, and I use the word rumor because I have no solid evidence to support the claim that LJ may have seduced Harper while his father still lived.” I couldn’t divulge that Harper had confirmed the rumor. That would be too far.
A grin began to spread across her lips. “I heard something similar and already have feelers out there. And with this new tidbit about LJ’s whereabouts, I’ll have a front-page story.”
“Good for you.” I smiled.
Piper held up her pinky and winked at me.
We parted, and I hustled toward my car—score for the good guys.
As I slid into the driver’s seat of my idling car, Mel asked, “What was that about?”
I filled Melanie in, and she gaped. “You’re going to let Piper spread the rumors about Harper and LJ having an affair? Won’t that make her look even more guilty?”
“Not if the story runs with the slant that a jealous LJ couldn’t share Harper any longer and well, you know. They can place him at the scene of the crime. Then it looks like he took advantage of a damaged and vulnerable woman to set her up to take the fall of his father’s murder. That’ll create reasonable doubt.”
Melanie chewed on the side of her index finger. “Okay, yeah, I can see that. Anything to get her off a murder charge.”
“Give me two secs, and we’ll go,” I called my father. He answered on the second ring. “How could you not tell me?” I said without preamble. I couldn’t hide the pain in my tone as my hands curled into fists. That’s when I recalled the picture Charles had given me. I pulled it from my pocket.
Mel leaned over to get a better look. “What’s that?” She mouthed, and I shrugged with wide eyes, unable to look at it just yet. She took the small square from my trembling hand.
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play dumb. I sat right there in the courtroom and watched Mother stand up for Harper and offer up her house as lodging and posted bail for her!”
“What?” Daddy bellowed, and I felt the blood drain from my face. How did he not know? “Tell me everything.”
I gave him the play by play about what transpired in the courthouse, beginning with Mr. Jenkins firing Calvin and me. As all the puzzle pieces seemed to start to click into place, chills spread across my body. For the first time in my life, I feared why my father didn’t know everything about his wife and brother’s past. Charles’s words burned in my ears. And I had no clue who I could trust.
“She’s not in her room. Your Grandmother said she told her she had an appointment and assured her she was fine.” Daddy sounded unsure. “The cleaning service she called arrived a half-hour ago, and I just assumed Frances was here.”
“That you didn’t know makes me even more nervous.”
Mel lifted her hands, and I hit mute. “Daddy didn’t know Mother was going to do all this.”
“Oh my God.”
I nodded and unmuted the phone. “What’s going on?”
“Stay calm. Your mother is obviously having some sort of emotional break.”
“No,” I said firmly. “She isn’t. I just told you she’s here at the courthouse. And she not only didn’t she appear broken—she owned the courtroom. How after earlier? I haven’t the foggiest. You should have heard her. Turn on the news, and you can.”
Melanie reached out and squeezed my arm and held up a square photo. “Lyla. Look at this.” It was an old sepia style picture.
I stared at a haunting image of men in old fashioned suits and hats. The women were dressed in drab, oversized dresses, their hair in long thick braids. A young man who looked a lot like LJ stood off the side, and the skinny young girl to his left caught my attention. She stood awkwardly and stared defiantly at the camera.
“Doesn’t she look eerily like your mom?” Mel whispered and pointed to the woman standing behind the skinny girl. The woman had her on the slender girl’s shoulder, almost as if she worried the girl would run away. The woman had her other hand on the lanky looking boy to her right’s shoulder.
The woman’s face. Those large eyes. I couldn’t tell what color they were from the picture, but with the facial structure and the shape of those eyes, there was no mistaking the resemblance.
“God, Daddy, who is she?”
“What are you talking about? You know who your moth—” I heard the news in the background, and my father went silent.
I stared up at Mel, who had her fingers to her lips. “Could it be?”
“I’ve got to go.” I let the phone drop into my lap.
“You think this is why Charles said you don’t know who you are? Like maybe you come from Quakers or Amish people?”
My shoulder rose and fell as I studied the image in front of me. The woman standing behind the young girl looked an awful lot like my mother, though it couldn’t be. That woman would be much older than my mother was today. I hadn’t any picture of my maternal Grandmother to compare. Or if the dates could work out. They could be family. Were these the people my Grandmother fled from? I flipped the picture over. No date.
My heart raced. With every dig of the shovel, I unearthed something horrible. Though despite the horror, I had to keep digging.
“Does that guy,” I pointed at the man that reminded me of LJ, “Look like the Richardson men?”
Mel tilted her head from side to side considering. “Maybe. You think that’s the connection between your mom and Leonard?”
Mel and I were so in sync. I turned to my bestie. “What time do you need to be at work?”
Mel glanced at her watch. “I’m not on the schedule today but I have to run by and check in on the large catering order in about an hour and a half. Why?”
I pulled out of the space. “Because I’m going to have a word with the Richardsons’ neighbors. I kept meaning to canvas the street, but there’s always something getting in the way.”
“Okay. I’m in.”