Chapter Twenty-Six
There was a little time before the estate car came for her, and it was as good a time as any to begin retracing where she and Eden had been.
Her first stop was where they’d eaten a couple of times.
She pushed open the door to Mabel’s Country Kitchen, the same one she’d entered a decade ago.
Only this time she wasn’t sixteen, terrified, and confused, with no one to turn to.
She was older, with over a decade’s more experience and a whole lot more nerve and sense that she belonged.
This time, she had people, even if they were thousands of miles away.
Still, she couldn’t help the slight trickle of déjà vu and a triggering recall of having felt deserted and confused that morning long ago.
The smell of bacon and coffee, the ting of metal to porcelain, and the happy chatter of people filling their bellies greeted her.
She scanned the room until her eyes landed on a woman wiping down the counter, where luckily one seat was vacant.
She slipped onto the stool after getting the okay that she could seat herself and plucked the plastic-covered menu from the napkin dispenser that kept it upright.
“Good morning,” Isla said, offering a warm smile to the woman behind the counter. “Hot tea please?”
The woman’s name tag informed Isla that she was not the famous Mabel from the restaurant’s moniker.
Isla looked around. “So where’s Mabel?”
Becca looked Isla over with curiosity as she flipped over the mug and pushed toward her a steel container of an assortment of teas—of which Isla picked Earl Grey—and poured the hot water. She snorted. “You must not be from around here, hmm?”
Isla shook her head. “That obvious, huh?”
“Not really. Plenty of people visit Charlottesville and the nearby towns. But you asking about Mabel is the giveaway. She’s my grandmother.
Passed on many years.” Becca looked to be about in her fifties, strands of blondish-gray hair escaping the bun she’d swooped to the top of her head.
“What brings you by? You here to visit the Blue Ridge Mountains or Monticello? That’s a huge draw.
” Becca pursed her lips as she considered Isla.
“You don’t look like the mountain-trekking type, though. ”
Isla dunked her tea bag in and out of the steaming water by its string. “May I have creamer?”
Becca raised an eyebrow. “Creamer? That’s . . . unusual.”
“I learned it from my dad. He was from the west coast of Africa, and most will drink their tea with cream—or evaporated milk, rather—and sugar.” Isla shrugged. “You know, colonization and all that. It’s a British thing that stuck.” One of many things that stuck.
“You don’t say?” Becca appeared unaffected by the colonization part or the implications beyond it. What did she care?
Isla ordered bacon and eggs, scrambled hard with cheese.
She thought about ordering the home-fried potatoes, but she just couldn’t get into that.
Fried potatoes had been her father’s specialty, and she still couldn’t eat any without thinking of him and feeling the sadness that came with some of those memories.
The morning rush was clearing out, leaving Becca free to engage without much distraction.
There were other servers to bus the tables.
One seat over was a man in a police uniform, his radio set to low as he plowed through his big breakfast platter.
Isla had seen that item on the menu and known it was way out of her league.
“I was actually working some temp jobs around town and recently began some contract work for the Corrigans.”
Isla swore the noise, even the sizzle from the griddle in the back, died down when she mentioned the name.
Becca came closer. “That so?”
Isla nodded, finishing the food in her mouth before continuing. “Yep. He’s receiving the Man of the Year award in September, and so I am doing a profile on him. His life and career. I’m talking to pretty much everyone to get a good sense of who and how he is. Local perspectives, you know?”
Becca twisted her lips in mild distaste. “Victor Corrigan, huh? You probably won’t get much dirt on him in town—people either adore him or fear retribution if they say anything untoward. You know what I’m saying? The Corrigans don’t take too kindly to a bad public image.”
Isla pretended nonchalance, taking a sip of her slightly cooled tea.
Perfect. Just the way she liked it. “I figured as much, and that’s fine.
The profile is supposed to make him look good, you know?
” She paused, pretending to think. “What about his family? Any stories there? I’ve met his three kids, Holland, Bennett, and Myles. Met his wife too.”
Becca’s look of aversion sparked Isla’s curiosity even more. How much about the family dynamics did Becca know?
“I know there is another daughter, but she’s not around, apparently hasn’t been for a while now. Eva—Edith—”
“I wouldn’t be around either if I was her. You’re talking about Edie, or I guess Eden if you want to be proper when you cite it. But when she was around, everyone knew her as Edie. She was Elise’s daughter.”
So they knew. Isla tried to hide her surprise, but she wasn’t fast enough.
Becca smirked. “Oh, you thought an illegitimate child popping out at the same time a legitimate one did wouldn’t be news among the common folk?
Please. Rich people aren’t as subtle as they like to believe they are, and we aren’t as stupid as they’d like to think we are,” she said.
She continued when Isla had nothing to add.
“Nice girl. Sweet. Didn’t want anything to do with that family of hers, I suppose, which is why we haven’t seen her around.
Have we, Bowen?” Becca addressed the officer to Isla’s right.
He looked up, looked at Becca with raised eyebrows, then finally at Isla.
Isla was bringing her mug to her lips at that exact moment and stopped when she came face-to-face with him.
He was the cop she’d run into back then.
He and another older man who was an asshole.
He was the one who had pulled her back from walking into traffic without looking because she’d been so distracted after Eden’s disappearance.
Her eyes widened as they connected with his.
Did he recognize her from the brief snatches he’d seen of her back then?
Did she look different enough? Her hair was pressed into long waves, not curly and in its natural state like it was before.
She was older. Changed. But cops were trained to remember faces, weren’t they?
Or specific details that stood out to them.
At least that was what some of her connections in law enforcement had told her back home.
Did Officer Bowen remember her as she clearly remembered him? And what’s more, where was the asshole partner of his? Hopefully retired.
She sipped to keep herself from staring too hard, and he glanced at her without any sign of recognition. He actually looked a little annoyed at having his big breakfast platter interrupted for idle chatter.
“I guess so” was all he said before nodding to Isla and going back to his plate.
Becca said, “She’s probably living in the lap of luxury, like all young heiresses of a billion-dollar empire. She’s not thinking about this little town anymore.”
Or maybe not at all, Isla thought grimly.
“Edie wasn’t that type of person,” Officer Bowen remarked. He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin and balled it up. “She wasn’t what you’d expect an heiress to be.”
His comments surprised Isla, and she chanced another look at him.
He was maybe mid-thirties, just a little older than Myles.
His remarks put Isla off. She hadn’t expected him to have that kind of opinion.
One like he knew Eden personally. She’d have to think about that and Officer Bowen further.
But she couldn’t risk him eventually recognizing her if she said or did too much around him.
Becca nodded in agreement. “You’re right, you’re right.
That’s why it was a big ole surprise when she attended the local schools here.
Not the private one her siblings went to.
” Becca leaned against the counter, settling in, while Isla nibbled on a perfectly cooked piece of bacon.
Not too crunchy, not too limp. Just right.
“To be honest, she was something special. I think because her mama was more common like us than them, meaning not from money, Edie could get along with everyone well, without coming across pretentious. You know what I mean? If you don’t, you will when you hang around that family long enough.
Pretentious and privileged and thinking everyone works for them. Huh, Tolson Bowen?”
Bowen sighed. “I don’t know what you mean, Becca. I’m just trying to enjoy my breakfast before my shift.”
Becca motioned for Isla to lean closer to her, and Isla obeyed.
“Bowen’s one of the good ones,” she whispered in a nonwhisper that Bowen could clearly hear.
His ears reddened. “Don’t get me wrong, the police here are great and do their job well.
Even if sometimes they look the other way for certain people. Just saying.”
Bowen pushed his plate away, downed the rest of his coffee, and slid off his seat.
“And that’s my cue. Don’t mind her, ma’am.
Everyone’s treated the same around here.
At least by me,” he said breezily. He nodded at the both of them.
Had his eye lingered a hair too long on Isla?
She couldn’t be sure, but she brushed it off as nerves.
He hadn’t recognized her. If he had, he would have said something for sure. Right?
“I think you offended him,” Isla pointed out innocently.
Becca dismissed him with a wave in his recently vacated direction. “I didn’t mean him anyway,” she said.
“So she went to the local high school,” Isla redirected to get them back on track. “That’s pretty cool that they let her.”
“Yeah, she was special. Loved the theater. She was in the theater club with my niece, Sara.”
Isla silently said, Of course Eden would have been.
“But about six or so months into the school year, she left to go live with her mother in Florida. At least that’s what Sara told me.”
That tracked. Eden had shown up in the middle of a school year, though they hadn’t attended the same school.
Different districts. “Why do you think she left so suddenly during a school year, especially since she seemed to love the theater club here so much? This would have been her junior year maybe?”
Shit. Becca had never mentioned what grade they were in, or Edie’s age. Isla might have messed up. Thank goodness Becca had chased the cop away, because he surely would have picked up on that. Hopefully Becca wouldn’t notice. Isla held her breath.
Becca’s eyes darted around the relatively empty diner, and she lowered her voice.
“I couldn’t tell you. But Sara might know, since they were close.
She lives a few blocks from here—on Third, fourth house on the left.
Little blue number. Really cute. I’ll text her and let her know you might be stopping by? ” Becca raised an expectant eyebrow.
Isla affirmed. “Thank you. You were a huge help.”
Becca gave a satisfied nod. “Good luck on your profile. And kudos to you for getting in that ivory tower.”