'Til Grits Do Us Part (18 page)

“You can create any domain name you want, which is why they're so impossible to trace. Hence the explosion of spam.”

At exactly that moment, my work inbox lit up again. Priyasha and I both looked at each other.

“Surely not,” I said, hovering the mouse over the unread message. Ody803 again. I blinked in disbelief.

I jerked my hand back from the mouse. “It's the creep who's sending me roses! That's another threat, isn't it?”

“Wait a second.” Phil grabbed the mouse and clicked back up to the second line. “That ‘revive my frozen heart' part. Isn't that from…from…? Hold on.” And he commandeered my keyboard, clicking into the Google search engine. “Yep. Just as I thought.
The Brothers Karamazov
”

“You knew that?” Priyasha screwed up her face.

“Lit major.” Phil scowled. “So I like poetry. Sue me.”

He pointed to the computer screen. “That's the first of what Mitya says to Alyosha when he visits him in prison. Here's the second half: ‘One may bring forth an angel, create a hero!' ” Phil struck a pose, arm outstretched. The blue-white overhead fluorescent light gleamed down on the angular lines of his perpetually crabby face.

Angel
. The angel thing again. I reached for the mouse.

“Yeah. I hated that book.” Phil dropped the orator's pose. “All except for my favorite line: ‘I may be wicked, but I gave an onion.' That pretty much sums me up.”

Priyasha rolled her eyes. “So our secret admirer is a literary, huh?” She poked Phil. “Is it you?”

“No. And don't bother asking me for onions. I've already done my good deed.” Phil snorted. “So you don't have any idea who this Odysseus guy is, Shiloh? Or why he thinks three and four is significant?” He counted. “He did send you three e-mails.”

“But two bouquets.”

“So far.”

“Oh, I'll find out who he is.” I was already clicking away on Google. Scanning lines about Greek legends and love stories at top speed. Something Homer had written about two lovers waiting years to be together, giving up hundreds of suitors and eternal youth.

“Or be lost yourself.”
I pressed my eyes closed, feeling ill.
Lost like Amanda Cummings?

A shiver passed through me as I clicked out of the window and back to the e-mails, reading through them again. Recalling the strange hang ups at the Carter house.

“This weirdo…he's
jealous
. He wants me to get rid of Adam?” I pressed shaking fingers to my cheek. “And cancel our wedding?”

“ ‘Our special day,' ” Priyasha read aloud, mystified. “The third. Do you think he's talking about your wedding day? Or something else? You don't have some…I don't know…upcoming rendezvous with someone from your past?”

In an odd flash I recalled the dusky evening shadows and rednecks' raspy laughter. Trying frantically to free myself as they dragged me farther into the woods.

My mouth went dry. I could see the skinhead's crazy eyes, like pale blue ice, and the glint of the knife.

“I'll show you what we do to Yankee scum who defile our land!”
he sneered, just before the period replica Civil War musket whacked him in the forehead.

“And then we can finally finish what we started.”

The summons to trial. October third.

“Shiloh? You okay? Sorry I'm late. I decided to make a hanging planter out of this two-liter bottle some idiot threw away. Do you know how long it takes plastic to decompose?” I vaguely heard Meg from around the corner of the cubicle. “Hey, why's everybody over at your desk? What's going on?”

There were four rednecks involved in the assault. I'd already met three in court.

Jed Tucker made number four.

Skinhead. White supremacist. White = shiro. “Shiro.com.”

And suddenly my shaking hands were punching in the number for Commonwealth Attorney Clyde Argenbright faster than I could think.

T
alk about a royal waste of time.” I paced in the Starbucks, letting the icy froth of a caramel Frappuccino clear my head as I complained to Kyoko and waited for Becky's old green Chevy Impala to pull up outside. “Nothing useful from anybody.”

I sucked angrily on my straw. “I should name them all Brandy.”

“Brandy? What are you saying, Ro? Have you lost your mind?” Kyoko, still on yell-mode after I'd spilled the news to her about the roses, was hollering again.

“If Rask doesn't fire that temp and get some real help, they'll be out of business within days. If I don't call the Better Business Bureau, that is.” I shook the cubes of ice that had settled in the bottom of my cup. “She threw the order notes in the trash yesterday. The order ticket laid around on the counter until last night, and Brandy thinks she rang it up but can't remember. She said she did so many of them.”

Kyoko seethed through her teeth. “Imbeciles. Did the trash go already?”

“This morning. They could have given me some evidence if they'd just called me first or saved the order. As it is now, we don't know if the order was faxed in, called in, or what.”

Kyoko muttered under her breath. “If you'd told me about this earlier, I could have helped you,” she said, her tone like ice.

“I know. I should have told you. I'm really and truly sorry.” I hung my head. “But I was afraid you'd flip out. Which, actually, you kind of did.” I suppose a forty-five-minute screaming rant, punctuated by various curse words (which Kyoko rarely used), justified my wording.

“Flip out?” Kyoko flared up. “You get anonymous roses with creepy messages while there's a killer on the loose and don't tell me? And then accuse me of flipping out?”

Oh great. Here she goes again
. I fumbled with my cell phone as she blasted me with another angry barrage about redneck lunatics and the FBI.

“You don't have to shout, Kyoko! At least I told you. Work with me here, will you?” I pleaded, feeling unexpected tears burn. “We've got to figure out who's doing this, and you're super good at solving stuff. I need your help.” I sniffled. “And I've got to pull a wedding together in less than two months also, if you don't mind.”

Kyoko grumbled a while, still mad at me. “So what did the police say?”

“Not much.” I scrubbed the straw up and down inside the plastic top, trying to reach the rest of the whipped cream. “Just like we figured. That Rask should keep an eye on any orders for me, and they'll increase patrols around Mom's house and Adam's.”

I sucked up a blob of sweet whipped cream laced with caramel. “Shane came out to ask me if I'd really made up my mind about marrying Adam. He spent most of the time giving Adam backhanded compliments and implying that I'm choosing low on the totem pole.” Anger burned in my cheeks. “Shane's such a jerk. I hope I never have to talk to him again.”

“Yeah, me, too, but for different reasons. I hope the perp straps himself to a moving train or something so you never have to turn in another police report.”

A car turned in front of the Starbucks, its headlights cutting a swath across the dusky twilight. I looked out over the barren asphalt and far-off mountains, wondering how I, Shiloh P. Jacobs, had wound up in a town of barely twenty thousand, slurping coffee in a Starbucks that shared a parking lot with (1) a grain elevator and (2) a butcher's shop with regular cattle deliveries.

But thanks to amber-colored accessories and padded armchairs, plus soft jazz over the roar of milk foamers and the sharp scent of espresso, I could close my eyes and forget I was in Staunton.

Almost.

“Forget about all this stalker stuff, Kyoko. Please. Becky's taking me wedding shopping, and I want to be in a good mood when she gets here.” I picked up a napkin and wiped the ring of condensation my cup had left on the table. “Did you look at the website I sent you and Becky for bridesmaid's dresses?”

“Oh yeah. I saw it. I'll wear whatever you want, of course, but I'd be grateful if you didn't try to shove my thick waist in some lacy yellow thing.”

“Your waist isn't thick. And I wasn't thinking of yellow.” I punched my straw through the plastic lid. “So what did you like?”

I cringed, afraid to hear her answer. After all, I'd never seen Kyoko in a dress of any kind. When we went to cocktail parties in Japan, she wore a dark suit. Very acceptably Japanese. But a dark suit in my wedding would make her look like a bouncer—or worse, a groomsman.

“Hold on. Let me pull up the site, and I'll tell you my favorites.” She clicked away. “Know what? Once I saw a picture of a wedding party where everyone dressed in camouflage—including the bridesmaids. It was kinda hard to find the groom.”

“Tim would love it.” I raised my eyes to the ceiling.

“Or hey, I can dig up some of my aunt's wedding pictures from 1982. Her bridesmaids wore shiny metallic gold. With puffed sleeves and great big bouffant hair. I might be able to—”

“You'd better help me, or I'll let Becky pick,” I threatened. “And for your information, all her favorites are pastels like lavender and sea-foam green. You'll be one big, frilly Easter Peep.” I caught myself. “Not that I'm calling you big.”

“Okay, I found one,” said Kyoko quickly, not hearing anything after
sea-foam green
. “That really dark red one on page three. Wow, what a cool haircut!”

I remembered that one. Of course she liked it—it looked like Dracula's Bride.

“Or how about that black dress on page four?” Kyoko chirped. “Now there's a color I like!”

I clapped my hands over my face, overturning my cup.

Kyoko must have heard my reaction because she rushed to assure me. “But don't worry, Ro. I'll wear whatever you want. Taffeta? I'm there. Suspenders? Just say the word.”

“Good because Becky's here.” I saw her car through my fingers. “I'll tell her you want taffeta.”

“As long as you pay attention and make sure you're not being followed, I don't care what you tell her,” Kyoko snapped, the smile dropping from her voice. “Does Becky carry a Taser? And for that matter, do you?”

“I have a dog. Does that count?”

Becky's sedan pulled up outside, bathed in light from the green-and-white Starbucks sign. She waved, and I gathered up my purse and empty cup.

“You're not still running every day, are you, Ro? Do you know how many joggers disappear compared to the average population?”

“Thanks for making me feel better, Kyoko,” I crabbed. “And yes, I'm still running. I want to live, you know? Running's good for you. You should try it.” I bit my lip. “Although I'm sticking to daytime now and just around the block.”

“Well, STOP. Your heart's fine without all those silly calisthenics. Join a gym or something. I'll wire you money.”

I smiled at her generosity, not bothering to make a wisecrack. “But I'm super careful. Adam went by Rask and chewed them out today, and we've talked the whole thing to death. Tried to cover every angle.”

“There's always one everybody overlooks, Ro. I'm telling you.”

“Kyoko.” I let out a sigh. “Adam's meeting Becky and me as soon as he gets off work tonight, and he'll follow me straight home. Okay?”

“I'm not sure I like you going home. Maybe you should bunk with somebody else for a while. But who would you move in with, anyway? Adam?” she teased. “Normal people live together all the time, you know. They say it builds self-assurance before tying the knot.”

“I don't need self-assurance.” I dumped my cup in the trash. “I need innocence. Which is in far shorter supply among couples today.”

I pushed open the door. “And besides, I never said I was normal.”

Kyoko chuckled. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”

W
e've got to stop meeting like this,” I joked as Adam opened his pickup truck door and stuck his head out. His eyes looked weary from a long day at work, and the front of his hair stuck to his forehead from sweat.

“On the contrary,” he said, a smile lighting his face as he grabbed his keys and got out of the truck. The porch light from the Donaldsons' cozy, brick, ranch-style house glowed down on green grass and hydrangea shrubs, and moths circled vigorously around the bulb. “I think we should meet like this more often.”

Becky grinned. “Reckon I should leave you two lovebirds alone?” She clasped her hands, fluttering her eyelashes. “ ‘That great vow, which did incorporate and make us one.' ”

Oh great. I groaned to myself. More Shakespeare.

Adam crossed his arms and bit back a laugh, leaning back against the door of his truck. “It's a little too early for the vows at this point, although I wouldn't mind.” He raised an eyebrow at me. His eyes gleamed like dark water, deep and luminous across the shadowy driveway. The yard fragrant with pinecones and petunias.

“After all our weddin' plannin'?” Becky's eyes popped. “Shucks, fella. You can wait another month and a half.”

She pointed to me. “And you, Yankee, listen up.” She shook her wedding-planning agenda. “You might be his now, but you're mine Tuesday night. Got it? We're plannin' an invitation party to put mailing labels on all your invitations. Not that ya have many.” She gave a long-suffering sigh. “And you gotta decide about them dresses right away. And what you're gonna do about Ashley.”

“Why, what's going on with Ashley?” Adam reached out for my hand, the porch light giving him a blondish halo.