Chapter 30
Heartbreak, loss, and separation are weighing on your mind in the Three of Swords.
CAL
Icheck in with Laura every day. Juliet disappeared as soon as she was released from Summit Ridge. Both Eagle and Danny have attempted to locate her without success. She’s a ghost.
My trial is set for September. The charge is capital murder. Unless Juliet can be found and somehow forced to confess, Laura says I am facing a sentence of life in prison. Without parole. She doesn’t mention the death penalty, but I know it’s a possibility because the media reports say I deserve it for committing such a heinous crime.
I avoid eating at Serendipity because I know Danny eats there often. I don’t want to run into him. He acted like a child at my house. Why are men such babies?
If he had let me finish my sentence that day, I was going to say, “This has been a lovely afternoon and I’d love to spend the evening with you.” Against my best judgment, I meant The. Whole. Evening.
But he overreacted and left in a huff.
“I’m sorry, honey,” said Marci when I called her that night.
“I really thought I had met a man who was different. Looks like I dodged a bullet.”
Since I was still on leave from the college until after the trial, I spent the majority of my time working on a new book, Zzzzzingle! It is about the freedom and joie de vivre that single women find in the second half of life.
I would never admit it, but I feel like a fraud writing it.
One, my life is void of joie de vivre. I am under indictment and mooning over the man who arrested me. No joy there.
Two, my literal freedom is in jeopardy. Without a miracle, I’ll be behind bars before long.
Three, I am not able to travel to promote my books. A condition of my bail is that I do not leave Georgia. Anyway, my publisher says no one wants to come to a lecture or a book signing by ‘the self-help guru murderess.’
I’ve seen some snarky articles about me online. I used to read them all, but people are really vicious. I process things with Jim once a week under the guise of “catching up” but it’s really therapy. He, Gwen, and Marci are the tribe that keeps me sane. Marci comes over as often as she can, but summer is her busy season at the restaurant.
I went shopping at my favorite boutique in Decatur a month ago and saw Irina Davis, Paul’s widow. When she saw me, she froze, and then started yelling in Russian and pointing at me. The boutique owner asked me to leave. I have become a pariah in my hometown.