Chapter 43
Sandwiched between Gloria, Harmon, and Miles, and standing in front of Dean Remington’s glossy black door, Ingrid felt queasy.
Edie and Dean had always been cordial with one another, nodding politely and commenting in passing about the humidity and the number of tourists on the street, but Edie didn’t exactly pal around with him.
Ingrid wasn’t sure what she was about to encounter.
She tried to remember if she’d actually ever been inside Dean’s house.
Not one instance came to mind. The closest she’d come was peering out her window into Dean’s courtyard garden, which was planted with lush azaleas, gardenias, camellias, and jasmine, all white, surrounding a small, aquamarine plunge pool.
She used to watch Dean and whoever he happened to be dating at the time laze around it.
She’d spy on them as they drank cocktails and smoked.
Sometimes when she was lucky, she got a front-row seat to epic arguments between Dean and whoever was his current paramour.
In these interactions, the boyfriends either sulked or went on Oscar-worthy rampages, sputtering and pacing and screaming expletives.
Sometimes they even threw bottles of sunscreen, glasses of fizzy drinks, or paperback novels.
Dean always maintained admirable calm, standing with one elbow resting on the other arm, forefinger pressed against his lips during the show.
Ingrid could never imagine what it was about Dean that made them so angry.
He seemed like such a mild-mannered person.
Nothing like that had happened in the two years since Sheffield moved in.
Sheffield was a gorgeous man, over six feet, with the face of an impish Greek demi-god.
Like the previous boyfriends, he spent a lot of time oiling himself by the pool, firing up a bubbling bong, and talking nonstop on the phone, but whenever Dean came out, they never fought.
Dean always just planted a quick kiss on Sheffield’s head, then took a quick tour around the garden to deadhead brown blossoms.
The front door swung open, revealing Dean, resplendent in peach trousers and a marigold-yellow jacket with a multicolored silk cravat tucked into a crisp button-down shirt. He reached past Gloria and Harmon and gathered Ingrid’s hands into his own.
“You’re here,” he said, looking deeply into her eyes with his own owlish green ones behind his horn-rimmed glasses. “Come in, come in, my little lamb.”
Ingrid let herself be led into Dean’s opulent town house, taking in its silks and taffeta, tassels and fringe, buttons and baubles.
Delicate antiques glowed in the soft light from crystal chandeliers and gold sconces.
He took them all into a back conservatory where a round wicker table sat beneath a bower of orchids and ferns.
Sheffield appeared and hugged Ingrid, then gave Miles a lingering, wistful once-over.
“Sit down, everybody,” Dean said expansively.
As they sat, Ingrid glanced at Miles. He smiled back at her, and she felt her heart swell with love. She felt so thankful for him. And for Gloria and Harmon, who had turned out to be nicer than she’d expected.
“Harmon, say grace,” said Gloria, slapping him on the arm.
Harmon blessed the food, and they proceeded to feast on course after course that Zelda, the chef, brought in from the kitchen.
There were platters of brown sugar scones with clotted cream and clementine jam; a Dutch baby with fresh cherries; individual ramekins of Eggs Florentine with goat cheese, dusted with sourdough crumbs; and flaky caramelized bacon tarts.
Dean plied them with hot coffee and mimosas, and an hour and a half later, they moved the party outside, where they sprawled poolside on chaises.
They were drowsy with the sunshine and the scent of gardenia, all laughing at Sheffield’s impression of Dean’s timid way of tiptoeing into the pool.
Harmon fell asleep and the bells of St. John’s rang.
Miles and Sheffield took turns doing flips off the side of the pool into the crystal blue water.
After a while, Dean held up his drink. “A toast to neighbors.”
Gloria and Ingrid lifted their glasses. Harmon snored peacefully on his chaise.
“It’s been too long since we were all together like this,” Dean said.
Ingrid’s eyebrow raised. She eyed Dean, then Gloria. Why did the two of them look like they were sharing a secret? “Y’all used to get together a lot? Was Edie ever included?”
“Always,” Gloria said with a furtive glance at Dean. “Before she and Dean had their falling-out.”
“Let’s not dig up old bones,” Dean admonished.
Ingrid sat up. “I never realized Edie was friends with you. She never said. What happened?”
“Oh, lamb.” His expression went soft. “Back in the nineties, things around here got really wild. The city was changing. We could all feel it.”
Ingrid nodded. She’d heard the stories from Edie.
“Well, you know how it went. The tourists read the book—”
“The book,” everyone tutted, like they always did in conversations like these.
“—and they came down to see what all the fuss was about … and it was like some folks here wanted to put on a show for ’em.
You know, with the wild parties and over-the-top behavior.
People acted the fool, playing into the mythology.
Rill Loeffler took it to a whole other level.
” Dean rolled his eyes. “Rich kid, maybe the richest in Savannah, fresh out of …”
“Virginia,” Gloria supplied.
“I can’t blame him. He saw an opportunity with the influx of new tourists. For Savannah Sauce and himself. He was always having these parties—”
“Out on Tybee,” Ingrid said. “In the house on the beach.”
“That’s right.” Dean inhaled, lost in the past. “A lot of people came through that place. From New York, LA, Miami, London, Paris. A lot of drugs went through it, too. Basically, if you were a person of influence back then, any kind of mover and shaker, you partied with Rill Loeffler at his beach house.”
“The Sargassum Sling,” Ingrid said.
“Named after a drink Rill invented for the parties.” Dean looked off into space. “Lots of secret ingredients in that one.”
“Lots of bad behavior resulting from drinking too dang many of them,” Gloria said.
“And you were mad at Edie for going to the parties?” Ingrid asked.
“Let’s just say we disagreed about them,” Dean said simply.
Ingrid felt the fear creeping up. “Did something bad happen at one of those parties? To Edie?”
Dean heaved a sigh. “Nothing that she ever mentioned. Or that I ever found out about. I’m not one to blame the victim—but I think all of us thought Edie had put herself in a tricky position.
She was hanging around Rill Loeffler, a man from one of the most powerful families in Savannah.
A man who was engaged to be married to a young woman from an equally powerful family, and a man who clearly had an enormous crush on Edie.
It was a situation that Rill created. One that would hurt people.
That would bring a storm of epic proportions.
” Dean shook his head wearily. “And then, out of nowhere, Edie started having these debilitating health problems. She was coughing constantly, tired all the time. Losing weight.”
“Already just a slip of a thing,” Gloria interjected.
“She went to the doctor,” Dean continued, “but they couldn’t find anything wrong with her. We were talking once, and I repeated a rumor that she was either depressed because she was actually in love with Rill, too, or …”
“Or what?” Ingrid asked.
Dean stroked his jaw. “That Scoot Loeffler, or Fairburn as she was then, was poisoning her.”
Ingrid sat bolt upright. Her eyes darted from Dean to Gloria. It was like her dream. That day in the doctor’s office. Scoot, mixing a milkshake made with volcanic ash. “Poisoning her?”
On his chaise, Harmon snorted and flopped onto his side. Across the garden, on a bench entwined with jasmine, Miles and Sheffield were sharing a smoke and giggling. Gloria lowered her sunglasses over her eyes and lifted her face to the sun.
“It was a rumor,” Dean said. “Which I thought was a joke. I regretted the moment I said it. It hurt Edie.”
“But was it true?”
“Of course not,” Dean said. A little robotically, Ingrid thought.
“Of course not,” Gloria echoed.
“But she got cancer,” Ingrid said. “Later, anyway.”
“Well, that was just bad luck,” Dean said.
“It happens, hon,” Gloria said.
Ingrid wasn’t ready to let it go. “But you’re telling me that people were saying Scoot Loeffler tried to poison my grandmother? And then years later, she gets cancer, and nobody thinks anything about it?”
Edie’s doctor had really listed those possible causes that day.
Contaminated soil. Volcanic ash. Kitty litter.
She thought of all the photos from Rill’s Tybee Island house, the Sargassum Sling.
Rill hanging all over Edie. He’d been in love with her.
Enamored, he told Ingrid. And then he went and slept with Tess.
Scoot had probably found out about that, too.
And she still wasn’t over either betrayal.
“It makes perfect sense,” Ingrid said. And it did. Everything was starting to align. Everything was clear now.
Ingrid really had cast a simple karmic spell on Scoot.
Her only mistake was that before doing it, Ingrid hadn’t known how many despicable things Scoot Loeffler had actually done in her life.
If the woman had really poisoned Edie … well, then, inviting Scoot’s karma had been like inviting a category five hurricane right in the front door.
Miles had walked over and was standing beside her now. Looking at her with that protective, worried expression he occasionally got. He reached for her. “Ingrid—”
She brushed him away. She was filled with something hot and molten, something that seeped through her body, the way a comic book supervillain got infected by alien ooze. And like those stories, she could feel the substance inside her was going to bring a new level of strength. Of vision and power.
This was it. The wrong that had been done to Edie. The heart of the false balance.
Scoot Loeffler poisoned and killed Edie.
And it was up to Ingrid to right the balance.
She stood abruptly. “I have to go,” she said, more to herself than any one of the startled people sitting in Dean Remington’s garden, and headed toward the gate.
“Sweetheart?” Gloria called after her.
“Ingrid,” Miles called.
But Ingrid didn’t stop. She ran out the gate, letting it swing open behind her, and down East Taylor, running, running, running. Blind with rage and disbelief but also with a new purpose. She was heading to some destination she couldn’t name but was confident she would recognize when she found it.
Edie would show her.