Patterned After Death by Elizabeth Lynn Casey

Author:Elizabeth Lynn Casey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2017-05-08T16:21:14+00:00

Chapter 17

They drove for blocks before she realized she hadn’t seen a single building they’d passed. Not the gazebo, not the library, not Debbie’s Bakery, not the firehouse. She knew Charles was talking, but what he was saying, she had no idea. The images and sounds playing in her thoughts took her well beyond the confines of her friend’s new Prius.

So far, though, Charles hadn’t noticed. Or if he had—

“Have you heard a thing I’ve said since we pulled out of the parking lot?” Charles asked, his tone approaching injured.

She focused her eyes on the row of houses outside the passenger-side window and made herself nod. A second later, she changed it to a shame-ridden shake. “I’m sorry, Charles. I didn’t mean to check out on you like that, but I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“I think it’s the overprotective friend, Tawny. It makes the most sense. I mean, can you just imagine how Margaret Louise or Leona would have reacted if they’d known you when that ex-fiancé of yours took up with your friend in that coat closet—which, in case I haven’t mentioned it before, was sooooo tacky.”

“Ancient history.” And it was. She hadn’t known it at the time, of course, but Jeff had done her the biggest favor of her life. Without that moment in time, she never would have moved to Sweet Briar and, as a result, she would have never met Milo, the man she was destined to spend her life with.

“If I’d been around when he ended up dead right here in Sweet Briar a few years later, I’d have wondered if Margaret Louise or Leona had done it.” Charles stopped at the four-way intersection and, after a lengthy stop and no sign of a single car for miles, he turned right. “Heck, I might have thought I did it.”

“I’m not sure Leona’s inclusion on that list would be the case any longer.” She heard the tremor in her voice and did her best to breathe it away.

Charles slowed the car from his normal twenty miles an hour to something a little closer to ten. “She’ll come around, sugar lips. Once she realizes you stayed back to help Jake, she’ll be fine.”

“She needs to listen in order to hear it, and listening isn’t always one of Leona’s strongest skills.” She turned back to the window and pressed her forehead to the glass. “Do you know what Jake said to me as he was leaving just now?”

“Do tell.”

“He told me to tell Melissa and Margaret Louise not to visit him anymore.”

The car came to a complete stop. “No!”

Her head slid up and down ever so slowly against the window. “He said they need to focus on the kids.”

“Are you really going to tell them that?”

“I don’t know. He wants me to. But I’m not sure I can. You know how they are about him.” As they inched up to the next cross street, she pointed to their left. “Can we stop and check on Rose?

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