Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
In my imagination, the Blue Ridge Mountains have always had a mood, an air, if you will.
On the day I won first place for my chicken coop in sixth grade, they were proud and majestic.
On the day I started working at the stables in high school, they were tentative but enthusiastic, and on the day I left home for college, they were pensive.
On the day Momma died, they were somber, mourning with me.
Today the mountains were confused as I gripped my fingers around a clutch Lacy had given me and held it over my head on the way to the morning tea.
A sprinkle of rain—almost a mist—had descended over the Rose Palace and I could barely see the peaks in the distance.
I could only imagine the frustrated contestants, railing against the humid air teasing their coifs.
My clutch contained lip gloss—Lacy’s idea—and the five Polaroids with the accusation—also her idea.
SHE KILLED BOTH OF THEM. These five words ran through my mind, repeating over and over like a mantra. I tried to consider all the ways I could figure out who had placed them in my bed without telling the sheriff—who was suddenly at my side.
Sheriff Strong wore the same uniform, but he’d added a cowboy hat that made him look like a sheriff from the Wild West. His brow was knitted and his eyes were on his feet, ignoring me completely.
“Good morning to you too,” I said, causing him to stop.
He stared at me as if puzzled about who I was.
“Dakota Green,” I reminded him. “You gave my aunt some fancy new bracelets before hauling her to jail.”
“I know who you are, Ms. Green,” he said, as if I was the one being rude.
“Okay. At ease,” I told him, confused by his rigid stance. I thought that perhaps there’d been a spark of something yesterday—but that had been before he’d arrested my aunt.
“I apologize. I’m on my way to…” He pointed toward the mansion. “Did you need something?” Impatience practically oozed from him. There was no way this man deserved my evidence.
“No, nothing from you,” I said, my tone icy.
“As solitary as a fisher,” he mused, almost to himself.
“Excuse me?” I scoffed. “I hate fishing.”
“No… a fisher, as in the mammal that lives in Canada. My grandparents are from Alberta and used to say that.”
“I prefer the term ‘lone wolf.’ Much scrappier.”
He almost smiled and I realized that I liked how his shoulders relaxed when he was on the verge of slipping into a more personable manner. Then, his walkie-talkie beeped and he was back to business mode.
He listened to the static. “The transmission here is terrible.”
I nodded to show I wasn’t the one keeping him and he turned and walked away.
I shook off the interaction as I neared the morning tea, trying to convince myself that despite the fact that someone had snuck into my room, I didn’t need the sheriff’s help… yet.
The windows of the solarium let in morning light, but the framework around them looked like giant black spider legs branching above the women. Along the walls were plants of every variety and size: Carolina jasmine, wisteria vines, Boston ferns, even a few succulents.
Colorfully dressed women streamed into the room for our first official event of the day, and I couldn’t help but look at them with renewed suspicion.
Had one of them left the message in my bed?
I’d considered the possibility that Dr. Bellingham may have planted the photos, but I wasn’t convinced.
He would’ve had to enter a female contestant’s cottage without being spotted or reported.
That would be a lot easier to do if the culprit was a woman, especially another contestant.
Perhaps he was working with someone?
I checked in at a table beneath the center of the glass dome just in time for tea with the judges. The sunlight created a gauzy glow and a kind of halo around the other ladies, particularly the blond ones, of which there were statistically far too many.
Lacy had done my makeup, used the tiniest glisten of Vaseline across my upper teeth, and dressed me in a light blue Sachin & Babi toile maxi sundress—I only know this because she’d coached me how to answer “who” I was wearing.
She’d brought over her own shoes—a pair of strappy Valentino sandals—and pulled my hair into a half-braid that reached mid-back.
While she’d worked her magic, she’d given me a few practice questions so I would be ready to impress the judges.
“What are your goals for this weekend?” Lacy had asked while brushing on a nude eyeshadow—of which I’d asked, “Nude? Then what’s the point?” The answer was that we used nude to look natural, which sounded like some kind of double-speak to me.
I’d answered honestly—to win money, find Mr. Finch, and spring Aunt DeeDee out of jail, legally or otherwise—which, based on the look Lacy had given me, wasn’t the right answer for any question this weekend. “Fine. My goal this weekend is to meet other women and become my best self.”
“Better,” Lacy had said. “But next time say it like you mean it.”
My dress swished against my ankles as I tried to prance rather than gallop through the room. This was a far cry from my usual attire, but even I had to admit that I looked like someone who belonged here.
“Good morning, Dakota,” a woman said as she handed me a 4x6 card with my table number and the time slots in which I would meet the judges. I recognized her as she put a hand to her chest and said softly, “I’m Aubrey’s mom.”
“Oh… yes… good to see you.”
Aubrey was one of the students at the stables, an elementary-aged kid on the spectrum who took riding lessons as therapy.
I didn’t conduct the sessions, but I did help her care for Bella before and after her lessons.
Aubrey didn’t speak much, but she and Bella would cuddle and stare into one another’s eyes for hours if we let them.
I liked the little girl. Neither of us made demands on the other, and we shared an interest in all things equine.
“You know that she talks about you and Bella all the time… well, I mean, she’s not a chatterbox, but every other time she speaks, it’s to mention Bella or ‘Coda,’ that nice lady who lets her use the brush and hoof pick.”
After every difficult moment from the past sixteen hours or so, those words made me feel something other than unqualified or inept.
“Thanks for saying that,” I told her.
“Thank you for being patient. Not everyone is.”
The last sentence was weighted with things I couldn’t begin to unpack in that moment, so I smiled and asked her to point me in the right direction.
“Yes, of course.” Aubrey’s mom returned to the matter at hand with a knowing grin. “The judges have been here for the past hour, eating breakfast and deliberating about all of you. I’m pretty sure I overheard your name a time or two.”
I looked at where she was pointing to see the three judges’ heads close together in conversation.
I could only hope they were saying nice things as I turned to find my assigned seat.
Four chairs had been set up at each round table, so judges could rotate through the contestants in batches, notecards and pen in hand to record anything profound or unseemly that we said during our brief interlude.
An assortment of pastries no one would eat, as well as a teapot and a pitcher of water had been stationed at each table, and three roses—one red, one pink, one yellow—had been bunched together and placed in a thin white vase in the center.
When I arrived at my assigned spot, Jemma was already seated. She wore a lavender dress that billowed around her feet, and she sat with perfect posture and a bored expression on her face.
“Oh, goody,” Jemma said, her voice not betraying any actual sign of enjoyment at seeing me.
“Good morning,” I said. “How was Dr. Bellingham?”
“He likes me,” she said simply, studying her cuticles. “That’s what matters.”
I didn’t have time to ask more because just then Summer hurried to my other side.
“Yay! Together again!” Summer’s enthusiasm was almost contagious.
“Except we’re missing someone from our little bonding exercise,” Jemma noted.
“Right.” Summer’s face fell. She was as expressive as Jemma was not. “Poor Savilla. I wonder how she’s doing. I would be absolutely bereft if my father disappeared.”
I found this statement interesting for a variety of reasons, primarily because I’d never had a father.
I mean, I had a father in the biological sense, but whenever I’d asked Momma about him, she would pull me onto her lap and tell me a story about how she’d found me in a basket floating down the river or how the fireflies had led her to me in the deep, dark forest on one moonless night.
Eventually, I didn’t think it important enough to keep asking.
Besides, it wasn’t like I was missing something.
Momma was the best friend a girl could have, and Aunt DeeDee made the best fried chicken and banana pudding a girl could want. What else did I need?
“I’m sure Savilla will recover,” Jemma said flatly.
“I know it’s ungenerous, but…” Summer paused and tilted her head as if considering her words carefully. “I really hope they don’t cancel the pageant.”
“I think most of us feel that way,” I said, motioning toward the other women readying themselves to interact with the judges.
“I’m getting married,” Summer said, almost as if it was a secret.
“Oh, congrats,” I said, imagining that she was planning to use her winnings on a fancy wedding.
“My fiancé is in med school and wants us to go abroad when he graduates.”
I tried not to make a face at her obvious wealth.
“He wants to repair cleft palates for children whose families can’t afford it,” Summer continued. “I’ll be a teacher wherever he sets up his practice.”
My face fell as I realized that I’d misjudged her, and I reminded myself once again that not all contestants were alike.