Swan Dive (17 page)

SIXTEEN

(Day #6 – Tuesday Late Night)

Sid and I waited three hours for Ransom to show at the warehouse, but he never did. I didn’t know whether to be happy or wary. We drove back to the hospital and went our separate ways. I alternated between the ICU floor, the police station, and the Wharf restaurant. An entire afternoon in circles. No arrests, no interrogations, and Inga’s condition never improved.

I made an appearance at
The Nutcracker
that evening, which was the most solemn performance ever danced in the history of Christmas. The audience crackled with nervous energy, between the death of the Sugar Plum Fairy and the attack on the producer, while the dancers themselves looked exhausted and strung out.

Ten minutes before the curtain closed, I slipped away and drove to my cottage. Vigo told Courtney to meet at the beach at midnight exactly, which meant I needed to arrive much earlier to remain unseen.

I dressed in all black, from my tennies to my fedora. Then I changed. All black worked in dark alleys and secret caves. I was headed to the beach. Better to blend with the sand and sea grass if I went beige. Plus my floppy canvas sunhat looked more “I’m just hanging out” and less “I’m here to spy on you.”

With a flash of the paper security pass, I drove through the Sugar Hill Plantation gate just after eleven p.m. The moon was slightly more than a sliver and didn’t help illuminate the road any better than the random street lights did.

The public beach access path was directly across the road from Deidre’s condo. I figured the group would park there and walk across, which meant the Mini needed to be someplace else. I chose a lot three buildings down from the condo, but on the ocean side of the road, between a pair of SUVs. I tucked my phone in my pocket and hid my handbag behind the driver’s seat. I grabbed a beach towel from the trunk and quickly followed the sidewalk to the wood plank path to the sand.

I walked casually, but quickly, then stopped when I hit the last plank. The tide was so low, the water had receded nearly two hundred feet. The hard-packed sand stretched beyond where I could see. Wisps of moonlight glinted off the tiny tide pools left behind.

So much for hiding on the bank out of sight behind a sand dune mound. Not that I wanted to snuggle amongst the dirty buggy scratchy sea grass, but spying and eavesdropping required cover, and the beach before me was akin to standing in the middle of a football field. Flat and open in every direction. I could still hide behind a sand dune, but they could end up hundreds of feet away.

I scurried back to the Mini, ditched my hat, and rifled through the trunk. I emerged with binoculars, a thick sweatshirt, a fold-up chair in a bag, and a loggerhead turtle migration book. Yes, I had one with me. I also had a museum handbook, a golf course guide, a lighthouse pamphlet, two yacht club brochures, a clipboard, and seven maps covering the states of South Carolina and Florida. A PI-in-training needed undercover materials.

Using my deductive skills, I reasoned Courtney and Co. probably wouldn’t gather close to the plank path. They’d walk toward the water either to the left or right. I strung the binoculars around my neck and the chair bag strap over my shoulder and walked toward the water. When I turned back, lights from a bank of condos shone brightly on the right side. I chose the left.

I set up watch about ten feet in front of the dunes. I found an abandoned stake near the grass and used it as a prop. Loggerheads laid their eggs in the summer and the hatchlings headed out to sea in the fall. Little turtles were already swimming their way to warmer waters this time of year, but I hoped no one would realize it. Tall sea grass rustled in the wind all around me. I was partially hidden, but also partially exposed.

It was a no-go. Extremely plausible midnight turtle watching cover story or not, one glance at a stranger and they’d keep walking until I was no more than a dot near the dunes. I quickly packed up, tossed everything behind a sand mound, and hurried into the grass.

I’d barely settled in when I heard them approach. For a clandestine meeting, they weren’t very stealthy.

“I thought we needed a full moon,” a girl said.

“Did you bring the feathers?” a guy asked.

“I’ve got everything we need,” Courtney said. I couldn’t make out her features, but I recognized her voice. It looked as if she was carrying a box larger than an upright suitcase.

With talk of feathers and a full moon, maybe this was a ritual. Vigo did mention Mamacita was in Savannah for some kind of cemetery thing.

Four more people stepped onto the beach from the walk and joined the others. I was wrong about the group straying far from the path. They gathered twenty feet in front of me and slightly to my right, straight in front of the beach walk.

“Did you tell anyone?” Courtney said. “Or did anyone see you arrive?”

The group answered one collective “no.”

“Good,” she said softly, almost too softly. I could barely hear. “This is a private ceremony.”

I didn’t move or breathe, hoping no one would notice me tucked in the thin grass stalks. With the tide far away, its muted roar provided a steady, yet faint, soundtrack. The wind blew at higher speeds on the beach, adding to the eerie and romantic calm of the late night.

It was freezing and bitter cold. No one so much as glanced around. Not another soul was on the lonely beach. Two lights blinked off from the condo complex on the other side of the path.

Courtney knelt on the sand and took the lid from the box. The remaining five members stood behind her, all with their backs to me.

I lifted the binoculars and tried to focus in the black night.

Courtney handed each member of the circle something. They held it in their hands, individually, and began to chant. Courtney clicked a butane lighter and passed it from person to person.

Candles.

And flowers.

They weren’t chanting, they were singing. A song I didn’t know. A sad verse of love and loss and meeting again someday.

Through the binocular lens, I made out Courtney, Berg, Vigo, and Rory. I also recognized the two
Big Bang
lookalikes from the hospital. The Sheldon one stood next to Vigo. He placed his left hand in Vigo’s right. They held hands through the song, then squeezed them tight as it ended. They dropped them the instant it was over.

“So that’s the big secret they’re trying to hide,” I said under my breath.

“What’s that?” Ransom said.

I yelped and he put his hand over my mouth.

“Shhhh,” he whispered close to my ear.

Carrying flowers by candlelight, the group slowly walked forward toward the sea.

I smacked Ransom’s hand away from my face and punched him in the arm. “What are you doing here?” I whispered.

“Your stakeout skills are slipping.”

“They didn’t see me.”

“No, but I did.”

I rolled my eyes with great melodrama, but it was wasted in the dim moonlight. We shared my binoculars and watched the dancers place their flowers into the ocean, one by one. It took ten minutes for them to return to their original circle where Courtney’s box sat on the compact sand.

Berg stopped halfway back. He knelt, and stood, then knelt again. Pacing and kneeling across a twenty-foot span of sand.

Courtney hugged the
Big Bang
Leonard and wept, Vigo hugged the other girl. Their soft cries were carried along the coast by the chilly winds sweeping across the flat shoreline. Berg finally returned alone. He passed the group without stopping, nearly marching toward the wood walkway. Once he hit the first plank, he ran.

The rest of the group gradually broke up. They handed their candles to Courtney. She packed them away and followed the trail back toward the condo.

“What was that about?” Ransom said.

I stood and dusted grit and bits from my pants. “Now we’re sharing?”

“Of course, Red. We always share.”

“I don’t think so.”

Ransom took my hand. His warm strong hand engulfed my freezing cold fingers. He tucked a towel under his arm and led me toward the calm ocean water. We stopped halfway to where Berg had been pacing and kneeling.

Berg had drawn Lexie in the sand. He placed a flower ring on her head and she was dancing with a dolphin.

We continued closer to the water’s edge and sat on the towel on the damp sand. I rested my head on Ransom’s shoulder. He wrapped his arm around me. We’d been on that beach, or one nearby, twenty years earlier. In love. Forever ahead of us.

Flowers flowed with the gentle tide, slowly washing out to sea, reminding me forever wasn’t always ahead.

“Why only seven words on my answering machine when you left?”

“You counted them?”

“It’s not that hard to count to seven.”
Not our time, Red. You take care
. I was young and thought he was the love of my life. I replayed that message until the tape wore thin.

“Recruiting happened fast. The government is like that. I barely had time to pack.” He stroked my hair, softly running his fingertips through the strands. “I thought about that message all the way to Quantico. Part of me regretted not saying more. But we were kids. I didn’t know where my training and assignments would take me. Details I could never share with you.”

“Or you could tell me, but then you’d have to kill me?”

He laughed low. “Something like that.” He lifted my chin up toward his face. “Someday you’ll forgive me.” He placed his hands on my cheeks and kissed me. Slowly, softly, deeply. My insides sparked and I held onto his shirt, gripping it with my fists. I’d missed him and his kiss and his love my whole adult life. It was comforting and invigorating and suddenly ice cold.

The tide was returning. Seawater crept up to my shins. It was only romantic if you didn’t mind sand in your pants and your hair and freezing water soaking your feet.

Ransom helped me up. The moment washed away like the flower rings in the sea. He held my hand as we walked back past Lexie dancing in the sand. With the tide rising, she’d be gone by morning. But really, she’d be gone forever.

SEVENTEEN

(Day #7 – Wednesday Morning)

Melancholy enveloped me through the night and into the early morning. Lexie (murdered so young), Ransom (what might have been), Matty (our friendship felt broken), my parents (distant when alive, but now gone forever). I burrowed deep beneath my quilt and wallowed in my blue state. It didn’t help that I’d chosen a New Age Pandora station on Lexie’s iPad to fall asleep to. Wispy Irish ballads mixed with sorrowful instrumentals and I never wanted to get up.

My alarm sounded, and I was forced to roll over to smack the off button. I tapped the Pandora icon and made the melancholy stop.

The Ballantynes were to arrive home today. I missed them and was looking forward to spending the holidays together. They always brought me peace. But Christmas would be less bright with the death of their dear friend’s child. Even worse if Rory Throckmorton was in jail for her murder. Rory, Vivi Ballantyne’s cousin’s niece, the main suspect.

I shook off my blue and padded downstairs in bare feet. I poured a bowl of cereal and took it and my notebook out to the patio. It was brisk and refreshing. Morning joggers ran close to the shoreline while owners let their dogs splash in the sea.

I needed to make a list of the loose ends. I skimmed to the beginning pages of my notes. Three things from my search of Lexie’s room: the iPad (an oversized non-phone), the dry cleaning stub (two chef’s coats), and a stack of single tickets, one for each
Nutcracker
performance (importance unknown). Who were the tickets for? A boyfriend? Considering I saw Vigo holding hands with a boy on the beach, he probably wasn’t actually her boyfriend, just like Rory said. Then who was? I added the tickets to the list of loose ends, but really, how could I figure that one out?

Thinking of
The Nutcracker
led me to the attack on Inga. Pretty brutal, and it had to be connected to Lexie’s death. Inga argued with Rory, but much earlier in the day. According to Rory, Berg was likely the last person at the theatre. Was he the last one to see her unharmed? Why didn’t I think to ask Ransom last night on the beach? I flushed and touched my tingly lips. That man was a damn distraction.

I continued with more note-skimming and page-turning. Lexie’s birth mother, Truby Falls, was serving a twenty-year sentence for murder. She killed someone, so then maybe someone killed her daughter? Definitely a loose end for my list.

Rory’s other connecting dot: the nightshade berries at Stickly Preserve. That might’ve been enough for Ransom and his team of detectives, but I couldn’t get past the links from Mamacita to Vigo and on to Rory and Lexie. Vigo’s mother just happened to have a bushel of the exact same deadly berries, and she also talked to Lexie about them? And the same week, deer trampled Mamacita’s garden in the exact spot where the nightshade plant grew? I added two more things to my list: Berg’s whereabouts for Inga’s attack and Mamacita’s garden.

Which first? Murdering mother, death sketch drawing dancer, or killer berry growing Mamacita? My final decision: Mamacita, the most accessible. Second, the mother who was in prison somewhere in the State of South Carolina. Third, Berg. I could catch up with him later. I knew exactly where he’d be.

I called Tod. My day at the Ballantyne was booked from breakfast pastry to midnight snack, but Rory came first.

“I won’t be in until later,” I said when Tod picked up. “Can you postpone the set up crews again?”

“You planning on setting up the Palm & Fig as the guests arrive? Perhaps we can hand each a chair and a knapsack with their table settings to take up to the ballroom.”

“Don’t be melodramatic, Tod. I’ll get it done. Tomorrow,” I said. “Today I need to absolve Rory before the Ballantynes get home. Or at least find reliable evidence against someone else.”

“The Ballantynes arrive at four p.m.”

“I know. I’ll be there. But I have to get Rory out of the fire before they arrive.”

“That gives you eight hours. You better get moving,” Tod said. “I hope you’re dressed.”

I glanced down at my Kermit pjs. “Obviously I’m dressed.”

Once I showered and put on big girl clothes, I headed to Mamacita’s with a promise to myself if she wasn’t home, I’d leave without snooping (thereby eliminating any imminent dog attacks), and with one quick detour to the Bi-Lo for added insurance.

The Gullah Catfish Café was jammed for breakfast. Cars were parked cattywampus from the dirt shoulder to the dirt drive around back. A line of hungry diners poured from the open screen door. My sunroof was open and the smoky scents of grilled sausage and crisp bacon accompanied me all the way to Mamacita’s trailer.

Vigo sat on the rickety porch steps. The two dogs rested at his feet. Until I walked up. They sat at attention like gargoyles guarding the castle gates. They growled as I approached, but this time, I came prepared.

“Morning, Vigo,” I said and held out a package of raw hamburger. “This is for you and your mother.”

“Hey, cool,” Vigo said. “Let me put them inside. My mom’s out back.” The dogs danced with excitement and Vigo talked to them as he led them through the front door. He hadn’t raised a single questioning eyebrow. Clearly not the oddest gift he’d received.

He returned two minutes later and settled back onto the steps. “You’re still here.”

“I know this is sensitive, but I saw you at the beach last night,” I said softly. “With the other boy, holding hands.”

His easy smile and relaxed expression faded slightly. He glanced over his shoulder, then stood. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He walked over to his motorbike. It was parked next to the Mini in the small turnout.

I followed. “Rory is protecting you, right? That’s what all the secretive behavior is about.”

He put on his helmet and snapped the strap without saying a word.

“Vigo, you said Lexie and Rory were your two best friends,” I said. “One is dead and the other is accused of killing her. Rory will go to prison.”

He swung his right leg over the bike and sat down. He stared out into the distance.

I leaned against the Mini’s driver door and waited.

Distant birds called high atop the tall trees. The morning air smelled of fresh pine and burning wood and grilling breakfast meats.

“My family wouldn’t understand,” he finally said. “I’d be an outcast in the Hispanic community. They’re not very accepting of gay men. Mama is old world.” He gestured toward the exotic garden. “
Old
, old world.”

“And Lexie? How did she end up being your girlfriend?”

“She didn’t want to hurt Berg’s feelings. She knew he loved her, but she didn’t love him back. In high school, Mama kept setting me up with nice girls. So Lexie and I made a deal. We became a fake couple. No one knew.”

“Rory knew.”

“Yeah, she’s known a long time. And then Inga found out. Me and Danny, we met at her studio—”

“The boy from last night?”

“Yeah. At an after-party last week, Inga took a bunch of pictures and posted them on Facebook. In one of them, in the background, you could see me and Danny holding hands. It was like for a second.”

“That’s what Rory was arguing about with Inga? She wanted Inga to take the picture down?”

“Inga already took it down. She noticed it right away. But Inga told me to tell my parents because she wasn’t going to lie for me. I don’t think she would’ve told anyone, but I got scared.”

“And Rory was protecting you.”

“She’s a good friend. So was Lexie. They both looked out for me.” He started the bike and revved the engine. “I didn’t look out for either of them.” With one more rev, he skidded in the dirt and rode away.

I followed the landscaped trail to the garden. Mamacita was right inside the gate. She wore an enormous straw hat on her head with the pull strings on the chin strap tight against her chin.

“¡Hola!” Mamacita said when she saw me. “Como estas?”

“Bien,” I said. “Como estas?”

“Oh, muy bien,” she said. “Have you come to tour my plantas?”

“No, no. Not today, but soon. I just have a quick question about the deer.”

“Ay, the deer,” she said. “They creating havoc for all the island.”

“Do you know if there was a migration going through or a special time of day they’re more active?”

She eyeballed me from beneath her hat.

“Information for the Ballantyne and the Stickly Island Preserve coalition,” I said. “That kind of thing.”

“Si, si,” she said in a skeptical tone that belied her agreeing words. She took off her colorful canvas gloves and put her hands on her hips. “Lemme think. Last week, when you and me saw the trample...ay, it was the second time.”

“When was the first?”

“Oh, Tuesday, the week before.”

“Are you sure?”

“Si, si. The only day I wasn’t in Savannah. Had to be early evening or maybe later afternoon. I was out here until three or so. Came out again at seven. Though the perros were barking like four thirty. Right in the middle of my novellas. Maybe the deer startled them and they started barking?”

“Maybe,” I said. “What exactly did the deer eat?”

“Anything they wanted. I don’t count the plantas and berries.”

“Thank you, Mamacita. I brought hamburger and gave it to Vigo, before he left.” To make sure she knew I brought a gift.

“Gracias,” she said.

“Adios,” I said and walked back to my car.

I thought back to
The Nutcracker
schedule on the refrigerator in Deidre’s condo. Tuesday that week, and every day that week, they had dress rehearsal at four. The entire cast should’ve been there. Should’ve didn’t mean they were.

I dialed Parker and she answered on the first ring.

“Make it quick, Elliott,” she said. “I’m at the hospital and not supposed to use my phone outside of police business.”

“This is police business,” I said. “Anyone acting suspiciously?”

“No one’s held a pillow over Inga’s face while I’ve been on watch, if that’s what you mean.”

“Did you interview Berg? I heard he was the last to see Inga the night she was attacked.”

“We did. And Rory, too. Yesterday. You’re falling behind.”

“When did you interview Rory? I was all over the island yesterday and hardly let that girl out of my sight.”

“Hardly isn’t good enough,” Parker said. “I gotta go, El. Good luck.”

“Wait! What about Berg?”

“Still investigating. But it’s Rory you need to worry about. Now I really gotta go,” she said and hung up.

Next I called Rory. Then Jane. No answer. Since Rory was at the beach late last night, and Parker didn’t mention arresting her this morning, Rory wasn’t in custody. Yet.

I checked my watch. Almost ten a.m. Time to track down Lexie’s birth mother.

Most modern PIs do everything online these days. But my years of fundraising and board member herding taught me that personal meetings net better results. I needed to talk to someone at the county courthouse and get the scoop, the file, and interview Truby Falls in prison. Face-to-face.

I drove the thirty minutes to Beaufort. It was situated across the bay from Sea Pine, but since I wasn’t piloting a boat, I had to take the long way via highway roads. It was a quiet drive and I kept my sunroof open. It was too chilly to put the top all the way down, but I loved the fresh briny air as I traveled across a number of long bridges, the river water barely covering large patches of lowcountry.

The county courthouse was a beauty of pillared majesty with wide front steps. Two mighty flags fluttered in the wind, high on tall poles. The patriotic red, white, and blue familiar to every county courthouse, and the deep blue background with a white palm and moon native to South Carolina.

An elevator ride up, an elevator ride down, three hallway turns, four backtracks, and five lines later, I presented myself to a clerk behind a glass window.

“I need information on an old case,” I explained for the sixth time in an hour. “Truby Falls was the defendant. House fire on Pelican Alley eleven years ago.”

A nice lady in a polyester suit and plastic glasses tapped her fingers on the keyboard in front of her. Her monitor was the size of a boulder. I imagined lines of text blinking from a rectangle cursor slowly ticking across her screen like a typewriter.

“You’ll need a FOIA request,” she said. “It’ll take a while because it’s a closed case.” She pulled a stack of forms from a folder.

“Can you tell me which prison she’s in? I’d like to visit her. Today, if possible.” I didn’t have weeks to wait for a Freedom of Information Act request to get processed. Faster to pop over to the prison and get details from Truby herself. See if she had enemies vengeful enough to kill.

“All visitation requests must originate from the inmate,” she said. “You’ll need to get those forms from her. Once she’s put you on her list, and you return the forms, they’ll be processed. Each prison will have different visitation rules. You’ll need to contact her attorney.”

“That’s it? There’s nothing you can tell me?”

“Nope. But you can always go online. Search the case files, do an inmate search. Find out where she’s housed, how much time she received for which charges, see what programs she participates in, if any.” She slid me a stack of FOIA forms and wished me luck.

I sat on the courthouse steps and started the Google machine on my phone, but it was way too small and it frustrated the crap out of me. I thought about the iPad with its built-in cellular access, but I’d left it at my cottage. I went to the library instead.

Located near the water and the lively downtown, the county branch of the library was on a small side street nestled amongst clapboard houses with shutters on the windows and rocking chairs on the porches. Huge palms and magnolias lined the streets with Spanish moss hanging low on the branches.

After flashing my library card, I sat at one of the far computer terminals. It’d been over an hour since I left Sea Pine Island, and in less than five minutes online, I found Truby’s case. She was convicted off Second Degree Arson (ten-year sentence), Malicious Injury to Property (five years), Burning Personal Property to Defraud Insurer (five years).

That’s why that dance mom said “yeah, right” when talking about Truby getting sick in the bathroom. The police found evidence of arson and fraud. Truby must’ve faked the whole thing for the insurance money, and someone died in the process.

I clicked over to the Department of Corrections database. That took much longer. Fifteen minutes on the inmate search and no trace of Truby Falls. Though I was surprised how thorough the database was. I could search everyone with a last name starting with a B. Page after page of inmates popped up, with a link to each inmate’s profile. The detail amazed me. The record showed a recent photo, their full name and age, plus their entire record of charges and sentences. Below that it listed every instance when they left the facility and why. Court appearances, trips to the infirmary, furloughs, their job history inside the prison.

Interesting resource for my PI-in-training career, but didn’t help me with my current case. I cleared out of the search and left the library, driving the mile or so back to the courthouse. After two wrong turns inside the building, I stood in line for the same clerk who assisted me earlier.

“Hi again,” I said when it was my turn. “I found the information I needed on the court case, but I can’t find her in the DOC database. Truby Falls.”

She click-clacked along her keyboard. “You’ll have to contact her attorney.” She wrote a name on a slip of paper and slid it through the half-moon window opening.

“Can’t you help a girl out?” I asked. “This woman I’m trying to track down? Her daughter was murdered last week. Lexie Allen over in Sea Pine Island.” I showed the clerk my temporary credentials, which amounted to not much more than a typed piece of paper with my name and application level for PI status. “You can contact Corporal Lily Parker at the Sea Pine Police Department to verify.”

“Well,” she said and looked around. “I’ve known Lily for years. I guess it can’t hurt.” She gestured to her screen. “Not like this isn’t public record.”

“Thank you so so much,” I said as she scrolled the wheel on her mouse.

“Truby Falls was released about a month ago,” she said. “That’s why you can’t find her. The database is for active inmates only.”

“What? She received a twenty-year sentence, and that was like ten, eleven years ago.”

“Ten years. She was arrested eleven years ago, spent a year in jail during trial. Out now with time served. Only the arson charge carried the class B felony, the other two were much lower. She qualified for accelerated release.”

“Is she on parole? Can you tell me her parole officer’s name?”

“Nope. Time served. No parole.”

“Holy cow,” I said. “Where is she now?”

“Anywhere she wants. It’s a free country and she’s a free woman.”

I sat in my car for ten minutes trying to absorb the new information. Truby Falls was not in prison. Her daughter was dead. Did she know? Did she care? Did she kill her? Did she leave town? Maybe an old neighbor would know.

Since I was already in Beaufort, I used my phone GPS to locate Pelican Alley. It was near the water on the other side of town from the library. I drove through downtown. It was decorated for the holidays with red bows on street signs and white lights in all the trees. Shoppers vied for parking spots along the curbs while sale banners hung in the windows.

I followed the map lady’s voice commands, even though I doubted she knew where she was going. She directed me inland, away from the coastal summery roads I’d associated with a name like Pelican Alley.

I saw the dilapidated street sign and drove down the narrow street. Though the term street was generous, my Mini navigated without trouble. I didn’t know Courtney’s mother’s address, but I figured out which duplex was hers by the wooden
Nutcracker
display in her compact yard. The Sugar Plum Fairy had a printed picture of Courtney taped over her face.

A woman wearing purple eye shadow and matching plastic grape earrings answered my knock. She’d been at the theatre the night after Lexie’s death, talking to the other moms. Or bragging to them.

“Yes?” she said.

“Are you Courtney’s mom, Mrs. Cattanach?” I asked. “I’m Elliott Lisbon with the Ballantyne Foundation.”

“Oh, the Ballantyne, of course. Come in, come in,” she said and opened the door wide. “It’s pronounced natch, Catta
nach.
But you can call me Shirl.”

“I’m sorry to drop over unannounced, but do you have a minute to talk?” I followed her into an area smaller than the front half of a single wide trailer.

“Of course,” she said. “Can I get you a sweet tea?”

She didn’t wait for my reply. She went into the kitchenette and poured a cup from a plastic pitcher. “You here about Courtney in
The Nutcracker
? She’s amazing. Do y’all put on other shows?”

“I’m actually here about Lexie Allen.”

She handed me the glass and gestured for me to sit. I didn’t want to. The living room couldn’t have been more than a hundred square feet and felt claustrophobic. Knickknacks, trophies, pictures, tabloids, and beauty products crammed every semi-flat surface. The place wreaked of old cigarettes and everything looked as if a yellow film coated it.

I smiled and sat at the very edge of the sofa. I took a sip of sweet tea and bit back the urge to spit it into the glass. I’m classy that way.