Chapter 64
Miles hadn’t been back to Ingrid’s house since the reading of the will, and Ingrid wasn’t about to call him.
For now, she was safe. If Miles threw her under the bus, he threw himself, too.
And right now, as far as Sailor was concerned, it was merely an odd coincidence that her personal psychic and newly revealed half brother just happened to have been roommates.
Ingrid didn’t dare rock that particular boat.
Sailor hadn’t contacted Ingrid either, not since they’d said goodbye outside the Savannah Sauce headquarters. They had embraced, Sailor so pale and distracted.
“You know they found texts on his phone,” she said to Ingrid. “My father’s. To Finley. I just assumed she was texting Cas, but she wasn’t. She was texting those disgusting pictures to my father.”
Ingrid flushed. “I’m so sorry.”
“Men.” Sailor sighed then added, “Women, too. Frankly, I’m sick of everyone.”
“Yes,” Ingrid said, then, “Speaking of … you should keep an eye on him. Miles, I mean.”
Sailor gave her a long look. “Why?”
Ingrid shook her head. How could she tell Sailor the truth about Miles without implicating herself?
She didn’t want to think it was her fault Rill and Cas were dead, but she couldn’t escape the hard truth that she was inextricably linked with everything terrible that had happened to Sailor’s family.
Sailor regarded her with a pitying expression.
“Miles is family. The only real family I have left now. I have to give him a chance. And”—she added hesitantly—“I’m married now.
Running the company. I’m not going to have time for all the stuff we used to do.
I don’t even think I’m going to be much of a friend.
But I’ll keep up your payments. Don’t worry about that. ”
Sailor’s gaze had skipped past Ingrid, toward the rest of them—Glover and his associate, Jude and Miles—as they crossed the street in the direction of the waiting Rolls and an additional sleek, black car. “It’s nothing personal, Ingrid. I just have so much on my mind right now.”
“Of course.”
As Ingrid watched her walk away, Scoot appeared. The older woman lit a cigarette and sucked on it, hard.
“Looks like you and I are in the same boat,” she said with a delicate little sneer. “And it’s certainly no yacht.”
Ingrid leveled a look at her. “If I found myself in a boat with you, Scoot, you better believe I’d be man overboard.”
Scoot laughed like it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. “You better watch your step, missy. You’re on the outs now.”
“Tell me something, Scoot,” Ingrid said.
“Anything, Ingrid.” Scoot said dramatically and blew smoke over her shoulder.
“How did you do it?”
Scoot lifted her eyebrows.
“Was it kitty litter in her drink? Poisoned water from the Savannah Sauce factory? The volcano ash from Rill’s desk?”
Scoot stared at Ingrid, her cigarette burning to ash, and then she burst into gales of deep, rolling laughter. “Oh my God! You’re a hoot and a half, aren’t you? Is that what you’ve been thinking all this time? That I poisoned your grandmother … with volcano ash?”
Ingrid regarded her coolly. “And caused the cancer that ultimately killed her? Yes. Yes, it is exactly what I’ve been thinking.”
Scoot’s laughter dwindled, and Ingrid saw an almost imperceptible flicker of fear in her eyes. “That would make me quite the supervillain, wouldn’t it?”
“Or just a pathetic, sad woman, desperate for some happiness.”
“You know, Ingrid, it’s best to let resentments go,” Scoot said.
“If not, you risk becoming bitter. And I don’t know if anybody’s ever told you, bitterness gives you wrinkles.
Wrinkles that only poison from a needle can smooth out.
” She gave Ingrid a little squeeze on her arm.
“’Bye now, sweetheart. You take care.” She dropped the cigarette on the sidewalk and sauntered off toward her lawyer, waiting beside yet another black car.
With a savage jab of her shoe, Ingrid stamped on the smoking butt. Then, fuming, she walked all the way back to East Taylor Street, where she burst into her house, collapsed on her fancy new sofa, and drank the rest of Miles’s Bud Lights while watching endless episodes of The Twilight Zone.
She’d been so gullible. So weak. She really had lost herself, just like Miles said.
In becoming Sailor’s friend, in falling for Cas—and being prepared to accept Rill’s debasing offer to be his mistress—she had lost herself.
Their money and power and glamor had blinded her.
Blinded her as well to the pirate waving a false flag whom she’d invited into her home.
And then … oh Goddess … she’d ignored Edie’s warnings, turned to baneful magic, and in that moment of indiscretion, let the pirate take everything away from her.
At some point later in the evening, Gloria Ledieu and Dean Remington knocked on her door, asking in hushed tones if she needed company.
Word had gotten out, apparently, about Rill Loeffler’s will and its terrible revelations.
She thanked them, but said she wanted to be alone.
She went upstairs then, climbed into Edie’s bed, and cried herself to sleep.