Fool Me Once (25 page)

“Oh, one more thing. Do you have a friend who might be interested in dating Dee Dee? He has to be as good-looking as you and just as nice.”

“Damn, Olivia, I like the way you do business. It's a deal! I know just the guy—Tom Ethridge. He has a law practice in Berryville but lives in town. Let's make a date for this weekend.”

Olivia smacked her hands together. “I love it when things work out. Just love it, love it, love it!”

The
Winchester Star
was hand-delivered the following morning by Dee Dee herself. She was beaming from head to toe as Olivia herded her and the dogs into the kitchen, where Jeff was making pancakes. “We got you a date for this Saturday,” she hissed in her friend's ear. “How cool is that, my friend? Jeff said he's handsome, practices law over in Berryville, but lives right here in Winchester.”

“Great! Now read my article. We got the top half of the fold, and it doesn't get any better than that. Jeff's firm called the paper four times before I left the office, and it's”—Dee Dee looked at her watch—“only seven-fifteen. My boss called Sally Blake to come in to help handle all the phone calls he knows will be coming in. This stuff is hot news for Winchester. What's really good is, we got the scoop. I owe you, Olivia.”

Jeff turned off the stove to join the women at the table. Dee Dee handed him his own copy to peruse. He whistled at what he was reading. “You have a way with words, Ms. Pepper,” he drawled. “The firm will be drawing up all kinds of motions. I'll bet they have people at the courthouse already just waiting to file those papers.”

Olivia and Dee Dee looked at Jeff. “What kind of papers? What will they try to do?”

“Well, for starters, I can almost guarantee the firm is going to file a petition to have me removed as Cecil's handler. From there it will grow legs and take off. That means someone will be coming here with a court order to take Cecil away from us. They're going to say it's all about the money even though I never took a penny for his care.”

As one, Olivia and Dee Dee exclaimed, “Over my dead body!”

Jeff leaned across the table. “Then, Ms. Pepper, write a follow-up for tomorrow's paper. What's the last second we can feed you news?”

Dee Dee hopped up from the chair she was sitting on. “Six this evening. Sorry about the pancakes, gotta run. Relax, Ollie, this is what I do to earn my living. No one is going to take Cecil. If I have to, I'll appeal to the whole town to come here and protest. If either of you has any ideas, this might be a good time to implement them, but don't tell me what they are.” The combat boots stomped across the floor as the small pack of dogs raced her to the door. They gave her a rousing, yapping send-off.

“One stack of pancakes coming right up,” Jeff said, heading for the stove. “This is going to be one hell of a day, Olivia. We need to fortify ourselves.”

Little did he know how right he was.

J
ill Laramie's peach-colored spring jacket flapped in the early-morning breeze. Her stride was brisk as she made her way across the Ole Miss campus. Her destination was the library, where she went every day to read the morning papers. She could have subscribed to the papers or read them online, but she preferred to come here to the library and pretend she was part of the life there. She looked over her shoulder a half dozen times to see if anyone was following her. Satisfied there was no one on her trail, she walked even faster. She never felt safe these days unless she was inside a building.

It was no way to live, and she knew it. The anxiety and the stress had taken a toll on her these past few months. She hated looking in the mirror, hated the way she looked, hated the way she was living. On any given day she burst into tears at least a dozen times.

Jill nodded to several people she saw on a daily basis. One man in particular, a part-time professor at Ole Miss by the name of Alan Freeman, had invited her for coffee at Starbucks several times. If she wasn't so paranoid, she would have enjoyed a little get-together. He was more than a little interested, even inviting her to dinner and once to a concert. She'd declined all invitations with ridiculous excuses because she was afraid. Now she regretted those decisions. It was the story of her life—refusing to let anyone get close because at any given moment she might have to cut and run. Still, there was a lightness to her step when she made her way to the table where she usually sat to pore over the daily papers and saw Professor Freeman already at the table, a copy of
USA Today
in front of him.

Jill smiled, a genuine expression of warmth. She wished she could have met this man years ago. Before…before she'd ever met Allison Matthews.

Alan Freeman looked the part of the absentminded professor. During the winter months he dressed in baggy tweeds. In the spring and summer he wore wilted seersucker. His hair was beyond the thinning stage, and his features were, at best, hawkish. It was his eyes, bright and curious, and his warm smile that drew her to him. He was gentle and soft-spoken. Outside the classrooms, he smoked a pipe, as did most of the older professors. A widower, he'd returned to Ole Miss when his wife of thirty years had died of ovarian cancer.

Alan only taught part-time because of his other interests, which were many and varied. He lived in a charming old house in Oxford. She'd driven by it one night just as it was turning dusk. She loved the old oaks, with their hanging moss, the Confederate jasmine that climbed and trailed over the ornate fencing and trellises. The house itself was set back from the street and surrounded by dozens of gardenia and azalea bushes. A magnificent magnolia tree, taller than the three-story house, stood sentinel at its side. Alan said that in June the tree was full of fragrant white flowers. The house, he'd gone on to say, had belonged first to his grandfather, then his own father, and now he owned it. He'd laughed, a wonderful sound, when he said the house was a work in progress, and the main reason why he only taught part-time. Jill suspected that Alan Freeman was independently wealthy.

If only she could live in a house like that with someone like Alan Freeman, her cup would, indeed, run over. It wasn't going to happen, though, and she knew it. Not with her past or current life. Still, it was fun to dream.

Jill sat down and smiled shyly at the man sitting across from her. “Anything new in the world today?”

Alan laughed, a quiet sound, as he pushed part of the paper across the table toward her. “I found this extremely interesting,” he said, pointing to a large picture below the fold on the front page. “Great human interest. What do you think, Caroline?” Alan asked, using her new alias of Caroline Summers.

Jill stared down at a picture of Olivia Lowell holding a small dog. Next to her was a handsome young man. She was glad she wasn't holding the paper in her hands because she would have dropped it in shock.

Her hands in her lap, Jill speed-read the article, knowing that Alan expected a comment. She hoped she could make her voice work. “Hmmm,” she said. Her head bobbed up and down, her eyes behind their green contact lenses exceptionally bright.

“My wife and I had a dog once that we loved dearly. With no children of our own, Sophia, that was the dog's name, became our child. There was nothing we wouldn't have done for that dog. We were devastated when she died at the age of fifteen. We literally could not function for weeks. All we did was cry. I know how that young couple feels.”

“Hmmm,” Jill said again. What were the odds of her seeing this particular article at this particular time in her life? She allowed herself to slump down on the hard wooden chair. She was never going to get away from her past.

“I guess you had a similar experience, I can see it in your face. Listen, Caroline, let's go over to Starbucks and get a cup of coffee.”

All she wanted to do was get out of there. Common sense told her an article like the one she'd just read didn't have anything to do with her. That same common sense told her where there was smoke, fire was sure to follow. Reporters were going to start digging, and when they found out that Olivia Lowell was Adrian Ames's daughter, the connection to Allison Matthews would be revealed as surely as night follows day. Sooner or later, the past was going to jump up and hit her hard. That was a given. A chill unlike anything she'd ever experienced rivered through her body.

Jill picked up her purse. It was time to run again. She felt like crying until she felt Alan's hand cup her elbow. She forced herself to look up at the man towering above her. She smiled. She knew then she didn't want to give
this
up, whatever
this
was or turned out to be. As much as she didn't want a cup of Starbucks coffee, she said, “Sounds good.”

Just do something ordinary,
she cautioned
herself. Coffee at Starbucks is ordinary. Try not to think about Olivia Lowell and the article in the paper. Oh, God, I don't want to run again. I don't have the stamina. I'm over sixty, and that's too old for this. I can't do this anymore
.

Jill looked around her garden apartment. In all the years since she'd graduated from college, this was the first place, the first time that she truly felt like she was home. The apartment was cozy, filled with brand-new furniture. She'd painted the walls herself, a shade of paint called Distant Mountain. It made the rooms look bigger. She cooked in the kitchen, did her laundry in a little closet off the master bedroom, soaked in the Jacuzzi with scented candles and fragrant bath salts. Subconsciously, she thought she'd made the decision to stay right there and stop running. For some un-godly reason, the apartment felt
permanent.
She'd paid her rent a year in advance when she'd signed the three-year lease, another sign she'd been thinking of the place as a permanent abode.

Who was she kidding? She could blast out of there with a moment's notice.
Old habits die hard
, she thought when she looked at the small travel bag that was packed in the corner. All she had to do was pick it up, and she was gone.

Her shoulders straightened as she walked over to the corner and picked up the bag. She plopped it down on the bed, opened it, and took everything out. She zipped the bag shut and shoved it into the closet. Everything else went in drawers or on hangers.

Done.

She was finished with running. She'd been running one way or another ever since Allison Matthews had revealed the role she and Gwen had to play
after
the robbery. But things got much worse the night that odious old man from the bank, Allison Matthews's former boss, decided that in addition to the usual services she provided, he wanted
her
, and for the three nights of the annual Faulkner conference, have her he did. And that was how she became pregnant with Mary Louise, and that was why she had been emotionally dysfunctional ever since, unable to be a mother to her child, a wife to her husband, a grandmother to her grandchildren. But now the running was over. Things had to change. And change they would.

Confession was good for the soul.

Sleeping soundly at night was something to dream about.

She wanted to get to know Alan Freeman better.

That was her bottom line.

Jill looked in her refrigerator, wondering what she was going to make for dinner. She finally selected a small steak and set it on the sink to thaw. She made fresh coffee even though she didn't really want it. It was something to do while her mind raced.

The next two hours were spent on the phone and her laptop. After packing up her laptop, she made her dinner, ate quickly, washed the dishes, and changed her clothes.

At five o'clock Jill closed and locked her apartment door. She drove to Memphis, where she boarded a flight that would take her to Charleston, South Carolina. In Charleston she rented a car, drove to Summerville, and took a room at the Hampton Inn, which was just a mile or so away from where Gwen lived.

That night Jill Laramie slept like an innocent child. It was the first full night's sleep she'd had in over forty years.

The minute she woke and looked at her small travel clock, she knew she'd made the right decision in coming there.

Jill showered, dressed, and checked out. She didn't bother with coffee or breakfast but climbed in the car, looked down at the directions lying on the passenger seat of the car. Within minutes, she was knocking on the door of Gwen's trailer. When the door opened, the two women looked at each other and burst into tears. “Come in, come in,” said Gwen.

Dozens of cats scattered in every direction.
At least Gwen has someone to love her
, Jill thought, her arm still around her old friend.

“Would you like some coffee? It's instant.”

“Sure,” Jill said, looking around. Everything was shabby but neat and tidy.

“I guess it's time, huh?” Gwen called from the kitchen area.

“I'm afraid so, Gwen. I don't know about you, but I can't live like this anymore. Let's just get it over with.”

“But I thought…”

Jill whipped out a copy of
USA Today
and handed it to Gwen. “You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know how all of this is going to go down. You know how reporters are. I'm so sick of the lies, the running, I can't take it anymore. I swear, Gwen, if that woman hadn't died, I think I was capable of killing her myself.”

Gwen handed Jill a cup of coffee. She slurped at her own. “I want to make sure I understand, Jill. Are you saying we're finally going to tell the
whole
truth and not that story we've stuck with all these years?”

Jill blinked as she sipped at the scalding coffee. “Yes.” She looked around. “Why didn't you tell me you were living like this? I would have given you money.”

“Because we agreed. I screwed up, and this is the result. I didn't want you to see what…You know what? It doesn't matter. When the girl came here, I stayed with our script.”

“I did, too. Still, you should have told me. I would have helped you. Listen, I booked us on an afternoon flight to Washington, D.C. Can you find someone to take care of your cats till you get back? I'll give you the money, Gwen.”

“What…what if I…can't come back? What happens to my cats?”

Jill pointed to the paper lying on Gwen's ample lap. “I don't think that girl will let anything happen to your cats. Now, do you have enough cat food to put out?”

“Just bought a big bag yesterday along with fresh kitty litter. They'll be good for a couple of days. Are you sure, Jill?”

Jill ran her hands through her hair. “I'm sure, Gwen. Look, no offense, but you and I have to go shopping. I saw a store called Belk's on my way here. We'll get you outfitted, have some lunch, then head for the airport. Is that okay with you?”

“I guess so. Should I call my son?”

“Not yet, Gwen. Things might not go our way, even though I think they will. Let's not look for trouble ahead of time. I didn't tell Mary Louise.” Tears spurted in Jill's eyes.

“Don't cry, Jill. Now that we're at the end of the road, maybe somehow we can make it right. If we can't, then so be it.”

“Do you need any help with the cats?”

“No, they all eat out of the same bowls. It won't take but a few minutes. If you're intent on fixing me up, I'll have to owe you, Jill.”

“Oh, pooh, just forget that. I saw a beauty shop on the way, too. Want to get a haircut and shampoo? Does wonders for your self-confidence.”

“Well, sure.” Gwen laughed. “God, I've missed you, Jill. Do you think the girl believed all those stories we told her about not being in touch? I really don't think Allison ever bought into it. She knew that the two of us were close and she was the outsider.”

“Who knows? At this point, Gwen, it doesn't even matter. One lie or a hundred lies, what difference does it make? None. Are you ready?”

“Just let me wash my hands and I'll be ready to go.”