'Til Grits Do Us Part (14 page)

I paused at the front door just long enough to hear Kyoko gasp. “Ro-chan. Please tell me you did not just say that.”

“About the llama?”

“Girl.” I could almost see her shaking her head. “If you know that much about pasture fencing, you need to move. Pronto.”

I knocked until my knuckles hurt then rang the doorbell. I finally gave up and strode through the field, past a more secure line of fencing, chickens scattering around my feet. And when I came to the neat little brick rancher up on a slight hill, I thanked God to see a car in the driveway.

“Hello?” I knocked on the screen door. Two cats snaked around my ankles, purring, and I reached down to pat one.

“Can I help you?” a woman called from inside. I shielded my eyes to see through the screen a floral sofa, walls splashed with paintings, and a brick mantel that cradled a photo of a blond preteen girl. A girl that looked like…like…somebody I felt I should know. But I couldn't put my finger on whom.

Footsteps pattered on carpet, and I jerked my eyes away from the photo.

“Hi. Sorry.” I wiped cat fur off my hand as she opened the door. “It's the llama.”

“She got out again?” The elderly woman, with a strikingly pretty Asian face and smooth gray-black hair pulled back in a ponytail, shook her head.

“The fence is down over there.” I squinted through the sun and pointed.

“Liv, you old rascal. What's Fred gonna do with you?” She chuckled. “She didn't bite or charge you, did she?”

“No. Why, does she bite?”

“Only people she doesn't like. So she must have liked you.” The woman winked. “Liv's a smart judge of character, you know. And she can smell your intentions a mile away. She never forgets a face.”

The woman stepped out on the porch and bent to see through the trees. “The cows are out, too, I guess?”

“Yes. A couple of them,” I replied, my “llama info quota” filling up for the day. “Are the Brewers around?”

“They're out of town. But I'll give their son a call. He lives just over the way. Sorry about that,
ne
?”

“No problem. They're not your cows.” I smiled then whipped around in her direction. Ne? Japanese people tacked that onto the ends of their sentences as a customary sort of “right?” or “isn't it?” Like the French
n'est-ce pas
?

Asking sounded tacky, so I politely stuck out a hand, hoping to divine a clue from her name. “Thank you, Mrs…?”

“Kate. Just call me Kate.”

Oh. Okay. I patted the cats and scooted down the steps, glancing over at her mailbox. Which greeted me with a boring, American-sounding “Townshend.”

So much for that. But when I looked back over my shoulder to wave good-bye, she bobbed her head toward me in a slight bow. Chin dipping down, eyes briefly closing. Arms straight and graceful. Just as I remembered from my years in Japan.

I resisted the urge to march back up Kate's front steps and scream for joy that she had to be Japanese, and what was she doing in Staunton, Virginia, surrounded by livestock? Then I'd throw my arms around her, ignoring all nontouching Japanese etiquette, and hug her until she couldn't breathe.

But I contained myself with difficulty. I stepped my way back through the grass, part of which was fouled in large sections by scattered corn and chicken droppings, and headed toward the road. Still racking my brain to remember whom that photo on Kate Townshend's mantel looked like.

That's it—Amanda Cummings
. A few years peeled back, maybe—chubbier cheeks, but that same golden-blond hair? I stopped short as the realization whammed me like a flying hubcap.

Surely not. All those news articles and police reports scattered in Amanda's blue folder whirled into my brain, and an uneasy tremor rippled through me. I hesitated in the shade of a giant sugar maple tree and dialed
The Leader
—wondering if I was obsessed or if everybody in this freaky town ended up looking like Amanda Cummings.

“Sorry to bother you, Meg,” I said in low tones, glancing back up at the Townshend house. “Can you help me a second? I need some information from Amanda's file.”

“For somebody who's not interested in that case, you sure do ask a lot of questions,” Meg replied smugly.

I chewed my bottom lip, watching the two cats curl up in a patch of sun on Kate's porch, blinking lazy eyes. “Just help me out, okay? I need to know if a Kate Townshend ever had any dealings with Amanda Cummings.”

“Well, I'd look her up for you, but I'm out on a photo shoot. A livestock sale.”

“Funny. So you don't want to help me?”

Meg paused. “I'm serious, Jacobs. It's out at Augusta Expo. Cattle Battle. Ever heard of it? They have milk-drinking contests and stuff. But I'll go through the files with you tomorrow and see what we can find.”

“Are you back?” Kyoko's voice chirped impatiently into my Bluetooth.

“Yep. And I hear a four-wheeler coming. Hold on.” I paused, hand on the car door. “That must be Mr. Brewer's son.” I stood on tiptoe. “Good. He's getting a couple of the cows back in.”

“You gonna wait for him to clear the road?”

“No. I'll just turn around and go to work another way. But I've done my good deed, anyway. Not that she cares.” I waved at the llama, who bristled and made burping sounds in my direction. “You can thank me later, Liv.”

As soon as I pulled open the door handle, I saw it: a glimpse of something white sticking out from under the door to the gas tank.

“What's this?” I leaned closer, flipping open the square metal flap and pulling out a wrinkled slip of folded paper.

“What's what?”

“This thing in my car.”

“Ro. If you tell me you've got a llama in your car, I swear I'll get on the next plane to Virginia and—”

“No. Right under the flap covering my gas cap…?” I frowned, flipping the metal door shut and unfolding the paper.

“Okay. That's it. When you're seeing South American pack animals in your gas tank, you need help.”

“No! A note.” I smoothed it out, shaking my head. “But it doesn't make any sense. Listen: ‘My triumph has begun with you, my angel.' ”

“Triumph? You mean like the British race car? Or maybe the motorbike?”

“I have no idea.”

“Well, it can't be for you then. Since you're anything but angelic.”

“Hmph. Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

I turned the paper over and jumped, staring down at a shockingly realistic painting of an eye.
My
eye. The brightly colored flecks of emerald-green and gold and that distinctive starburst around the iris I'd never seen on anyone else.

I scraped at the painting with my fingernail. “An eye painted in acrylics, it looks like.” My blood pumped faster, and I looked up, scanning the hillside.

Kyoko paused. “You don't have any weird admirers around the office, do you?”

“Only Clarence, and he admires every woman. He does comment a lot on my eyes though.” I frowned, turning it back over to the “triumph” side. “But the message is all wrong. Cars and motorcycles don't begin, they start.”

“Well, technically they do begin, back in a factory somewhere. But yeah, I agree. Doesn't make sense. It must be referencing something else.”

I looked around me at the cow-spotted hills, a slight summer breeze shaking the pines at the side of the road. A stalk of black-eyed Susans nodded along the edge of the pasture fence.

I smoothed my hair back nervously, trying to remember when I'd last stopped for gas. “I have no idea when the note showed up. It could have been yesterday or five minutes ago.”

“Do you recognize the handwriting?”

I smoothed out the note and studied it carefully. “No. It's just plain old red ink pen. And it looks like the writer used a letter stencil. The letters are perfect.” And also untraceable.

“Ro. That's weird.”

I felt a shudder in my stomach, working its way up to my dry mouth. Strange notes. Strange letters to Ray Floyd. Strange roses. I put my hand on the car door, feeling dizzy.

I started to open my mouth and tell Kyoko about the roses then decided against it. After being mugged at a Confederate battle reenactment and months later chased through the woods by Trinity's abusive ex-boyfriend and cohorts, Kyoko'd already determined what sanity I had left—particularly when it came to my choice of locale—hung by a thread.

“Forget it. It's probably Clarence, the creepy mail guy at work. He made a big deal about me leaving my car here on Friday for my birthday. Adam took me out, remember?”

“But you don't know Clarence did it.”

“No. But I'd bet money he did.”

“For somebody who's a magnet for trouble like you, this worries me. What's next, anonymous gifts delivered to your office? A masked murderer at that city council meeting you're supposed to cover? Hmm?”

“Stop it! You shouldn't say things like that.” My fingers chilled on the paper. “The council meeting's in Waynesboro, for Pete's sake—which is even smaller than Staunton.”

“Hey. You never know. You're the one who's been in and out of the emergency room more times than I can count, and don't ask me how—in a cow haven like western Virginia. But noooo. Nobody listens to me, do they?” Kyoko grumbled. “Looks like I'll have to take matters in my own hands if you don't shape up and quit flirting with death.”

“I told you already. Don't talk about death.” I gritted my teeth.

“Then stay out of trouble.”

I started to ball up the note and toss it in my car trash bag, but something stopped me. An odd bile in my throat at the sight of unfamiliar ink on paper, like the scent of roses. And instead I opened my purse and stuffed it inside, checking over my shoulder before I got in the car and locked the door.

I
was pounding out a story on the new speed-limit laws and mulling over options for bridesmaids' dresses when Clarence's mail cart squeaked to a stop by my cubicle. Nearly running into the thick stack of bridal magazines donated by Priyasha the marketing director—plus
Epicurious
and
Bon Appétit
for Green Tree recipe ideas.

“Hey, Sheila.” Clarence's voice came out low and raspy.

“Shiloh.” I looked up, still stumped as to how on earth I was supposed to dress both Kyoko and Becky for the wedding. I couldn't picture Becky in some horrid black number that looked like it had crawled out of one of Kyoko's vampire movies, and Kyoko would probably rather be shot than carry a bouquet of daisies.

“Right. Shiloh.” Clarence nodded, and I caught a whiff of mothballs from his sweater vest. “You're lookin' good today. 'Specially them eyes, with all those fancy colors. What are they, hazel?”

I thought of the note inside my gas tank flap. “Go away, Clarence,” I said through clenched teeth. “Leave me alone, you hear me?”

“You're doin' the story on that Cummings gal, ain't ya?” Clarence asked, undeterred. “The one who disappeared twelve years ago?”