Carolina Reckoning by Lisa Carter

Author:Lisa Carter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abingdon Fiction
Published: 2013-07-18T00:00:00+00:00

24

Alison wheeled to hide the surprising tears that sprang into her eyes. She was finding that despite her new faith, some wounds ran so deep that it didn’t take one supreme act of forgiveness on her part, but daily resolutions continually to forgive Frank.

Erica surveyed the exhibit. “Just about done. Oh,” she clapped a hand to her head. “I forgot. The Museum of History is loaning us military uniforms. Revolutionary, Civil War, and both World Wars to interest the guys among us. I’m going to have to go downtown and pick those up.” She gathered hangers and boxes.

Alison retrieved a hatbox hidden under the frame of the mahogany four-poster rice bed. “What about this?”

“Hats?” Erica frowned. “What’s it doing in here? I didn’t remove that from storage. Hmmm . . .” She wrinkled her forehead. “How about you arrange a hat display in the foyer downstairs? Be creative.”

Erica piled her up with the rest of the boas and half-empty hatboxes until she could barely pick her way downstairs. She got to work on the antique coat tree as Erica set off on her errand. The house was quiet in the early afternoon, except for the steady tick-tock of the still-functioning 1830s grandfather clock.

She had the public areas of the house to herself. Faint whispers arose from the closed docent room behind her as the volunteers sat down to a late, makeshift lunch in a lull between tours. The electrified crystal chandelier, converted from its original gas, cast a small pool of light at the front of the 1820 addition to the house. The hardwood floors gleamed, a tribute to Miss Lula’s housekeeping.

The last box she uncovered was the one she’d found under the bed. Brushing aside the archival tissue, at first she couldn’t believe her eyes.

A black cloche hat.

If not the same one as the one in Frank’s photo, then identical to it.

Trembling, she fingered it, turning it this way and that, examining it inch by inch. Inside hung a single strand of hair, caught in the label. In the wavering light cast through the dimpled glass of the window, she could just make out its color, a reddish hue.

She fell back onto her heels.

This had to be the hat the mysterious woman wore in the picture with Frank. Who among her Weathersby suspects was the redhead?

Erica was more strawberry than blonde. Ginny was ginger-headed. Ivy’s hair was copper-colored, and Linda ascribed to a rotating variety of bottled hues.

Had Erica’s wide-eyed ingénue confession been an act? Ginny certainly had a reason, in her own mind, to do away with Frank. Mike was checking into the myriad of financial pies Linda and Bill Lawrence had their fingers into. And what about Ivy?

The front door banged open. She dropped the hat like a hot potato. A cloud of patchouli, wafting like a prelude, filled Alison’s nostrils even before Natalie Singleton strode into the house.

Natalie wore knee-high white go-go boots and a vivid orange sheathlike dress, provocatively short, revealing tanned and muscled thighs. There wasn’t much fabric at the top, either.

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