CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Carrie
I looked around my room, feeling no connection to it whatsoever.
My mom was not the type to leave a child’s room exactly as they’d had it when they were growing up.
As soon as I’d left for college, she’d had her decorator change it into the main guest room.
I’d been offended by it the first time I’d come home from college.
I’d only been gone a month before I’d had to come home for a cotillion Mom insisted I participate in.
My room had been cleared of any and all memories of me. I’d been afraid Mom had just thrown it all away—the posters, the decorations, the pictures of me and my friends—but she’d had someone box everything up and put it in the attic.
Now I was kind of glad for its lack of a homey feel.
It would have been a little humiliating to look around my childhood bedroom and see reminders of who I used to be.
I closed my eyes and the tears that had been threatening all morning began to fall.
If the excited girl who’d gone off to college thinking only wonderful things were ahead of her could see me now, she’d be devastated.
Life had not turned out as I’d planned. Sometimes I wondered if anyone’s ever did.
I rolled over in bed, trying to get my stomach to calm down. For whatever reason, I’d had trouble with nausea lately. Maybe it was stress. I got up slowly from bed thinking that would help. It did, somewhat.
After I’d overheard what Thatcher had said about me after he’d broken our marriage vows, I’d done nothing for a few days.
I’d just needed to cry out my feelings and wait for my heartbreak to turn to anger.
For me, anger was a strong motivator to get things done.
And I had a lot to do today. Might as well get started.
“Good morning,” Mom said in her normal voice.
There was no sympathy or anything like that from her.
It wasn’t her style. She preferred to work through misery.
When my grandma passed away, Mom worked outside in her personal gardens—the ones the landscape company wasn’t supposed to touch—for two months.
Every day she’d be out there from sunup to sundown, just working away.
I’d peeked out there a few times and noticed that she was planting all of Grandma’s favorite flowers and trees.
There were hydrangeas, gardenias, peonies, roses, Japanese magnolias, Japanese maples, and more.
When she’d finally declared herself finished, she’d thrown a party in the gardens to celebrate her mother’s life.
It had been a beautiful tribute to Grandma, and the garden was so beautiful it was featured in a national magazine. People truly did grieve in different ways.
So… she didn’t understand the concept of just taking it easy or laying around miserable. Not that I was planning to do that any longer.
I had plans to put in action.
“Cook made a full breakfast to celebrate you coming down for breakfast today.” She gestured to the sideboard next to the breakfast room table. It was covered in platters of eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, biscuits and gravy, and fruit. I stared at it, my stomach roiling.
“All of that is for three people?” I whispered.
“Yes, of course. She’ll save the leftovers, obviously.” She frowned when I didn’t get up to fix myself a plate. “Aren’t you hungry?”
“Um… not really. I was thinking some dry toast and maybe some water would be nice.”
“What… are you in jail? Goodness, Carrie. Just because you’re about to go through a divorce doesn’t mean you should starve yourself. There’s nothing wrong with you, darling. It’s all his fault.”
I stared at her. Why was she saying all of that?
“Don’t try to be as thin as that horrible Madison Welles,” she hissed.
Ah. Now I understood. “I’m not. I’m just a little… off at my stomach.”
“Completely understandable,” my dad said as he came into the room. He heaped some of everything on his plate while Mom went to get me some plain toast.
He looked at me. “You know I’d like to take my gun, go to his office, and kill him, don’t you?”
I nodded as if this was a normal thing to say.
“I’d rather stay out of jail, though. Another way to kill him is to take him for all he’s worth.
He’s a fucking…” he turned guiltily to see if Mom had heard him, but she was still puttering away in the kitchen.
“He’s a fucking Caldwell,” he said in a lower voice.
“And he cheated. That makes that stupid prenuptial agreement you signed null and void. You know you should have let me look over it first, right?”
I looked sheepish. He was still pissed about that more than five years after I’d done it. “I wanted to prove to Karen Caldwell that I wasn’t a gold digger.”
He chuffed out a cynical laugh. “Nothing could have made that witch think you weren’t a gold digger, honey. We could have more money than them and she would still think you were a gold digger.”
I looked down at the table, feeling tears well up again. Why was I crying so damn much?
“Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel worse.” He reached out and patted my hand.
“No, it’s fine,” I said willing the tears not to fall. I didn’t have time to cry. “I’m just more emotional than usual. I guess it could have something to do with seeing the aftermath of my husband fucking another woman.”
“There’s no need for sarcasm, dear,” Mom said, startling me. I hadn’t realized she was back in the room. “Or foul language.”
“Sorry,” I said perfunctorily. “I have a plan.”
“Of course you do,” Mom said, a smile on her face. “The Wyeth women are not weak. Not in any way.” Wyeth was my mom’s maiden name.
“For that matter, neither are the Crenshaw women,” Dad threw in.
“Good genes on both sides,” Mom nodded. “Now, tell your father your plan while I make you some toast.”
“I’m going to do a reconnaissance mission.
It’s going to be painful, but I need to find anything and everything that will prove he was having an affair.
I’m going to look at bank accounts for any purchases he might have made for her.
I’m going to look at his iPad and computer for texts and emails.
They’re both linked to his phone, so that should be easy. ”
“Good ideas,” Dad said, sipping his coffee.
“Get screen shots, print outs, everything you can get your hands on to take to the lawyer.” He thought for a minute, and I could tell he was trying to think of anything he might be forgetting.
“Oh, take Blair,” he said as if that might be the most important part of the plan.
“Why do you want me to take Blair?” My best friend didn’t exactly scream ‘expert spy.’
“You’re probably going to need comfort, sweetheart.”
“Oh. Okay.” Damn. He was right.
My mom’s heels clicked as she started walking my toast towards us.
“What lawyer have you picked out for her?” she asked my dad.
“Ellis Malloy. I know he’s over in Halliwell, but he’s a tough son of a bitch…”
Mom dropped the plate and it shattered into about a hundred pieces. Dad and I stared at her. She looked shaken and her face had gone totally pale. “Ellis Malloy?” She grabbed the nearest chair, pulled it out, and sank into it.
“Yes,” Dad said slowly, exchanging a look with me. “Do you know him or something?”
“No. Not at all. Of course not,” she laughed loudly and awkwardly. “Why would you think that?”
My eyes widened and Dad’s mouth had dropped open.
“I’ll go make you some more toast,” she said, practically jogging into the kitchen in her heels and dress.
“I’m not hungry,” I called after her, but she pretended not to hear me.
“Anyway,” Dad said, “I don’t know what that was about, but you have an appointment with him today at three. I was able to call in a couple of favors to get you in so quickly. I’ll text you his address.” He looked at his watch. “For now, you’d better get ready and go do a deep dive at your house.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t ever want to go back inside that house.”
He looked sympathetic. “Sorry, sweetie. It’s necessary. If you’d rather I go with you, I can.” He got a calculating look on his face. “In fact, if I brought my gun and he showed up unannounced, we could make his murder look like an accident.”
“Dad…”
“I could say we thought it was a home invasion…”
“Dad, I don’t want you to kill Thatcher for me.”
He looked slightly disappointed.
“I’ll call Blair, and if she can’t go with me, I’m sure Melinda or Sadie would be happy to help me out.”
He sighed, still obviously disappointed to have his murder plot thwarted. “I have to go to work anyway.”
His phone buzzed, and he answered. “Dr. Crenshaw,” he said automatically.
So many of his patients had his cell number, it was more than likely one of them.
“Yes, hello again, Mr. Malloy,” he looked at me while he listened to whatever the lawyer was saying.
“Yes, that’s right. Crenshaw is her maiden name, and she grew up in Indigo Falls.
” The slight smile that had been on his face slowly turned into a confused frown.
“I don’t understand…” he stopped and listened.
“Okay. Well, thank you. I’ll be on the lookout for it. ”
He hung up and sat there for a moment looking perplexed. “That was weird.”
“What?” I asked.
“The lawyer I wanted for you said he had a conflict of interest and couldn’t take the case. He’s sending me the name and address of another lawyer. He went ahead and made you an appointment with him.”
“He said ‘conflict of interest?’ Not just conflict?”
He nodded. “Huh. Maybe he knows Thatcher?”
“That’s probably it.” I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye and saw my mom standing in the opening between the kitchen and the dining room. Her face was pale and her eyes looked red. Had she been crying? Mom never cried.
I started to ask her about it but got distracted when Dad received the text about the new lawyer. After that, I didn’t think about it again as I made plans to meet Blair at my house for our spy mission.
***