Downtown Debutante by Kara Lennox

Author:Kara Lennox
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Dear Mom and Dad,

Let me say first that I love you, and I’ve never stopped loving you—

She didn’t need to read the rest. She laid the note on the mahogany coffee table that sat between her and her parents. “I suspected it was something like this, but now I know how it happened.”

“Then you didn’t write it?” her mother asked hopefully. Her father, she noticed, looked very uncomfortable. He was obviously more convinced than his wife that Brenna was guilty.

“I did write it,” she said. “At Seneca’s urging. We were talking one night about why I didn’t spend more time with my family, and I told him how I just never fit in and how everything I did felt wrong—”

“Oh, honey,” her mother started, but Heath interrupted.

“Let her finish.”

“Well, anyway, I explained to him about how Grandma had died and left all that valuable jewelry to me, and how everyone had been mad at me, like I’d somehow convinced her to change her will or something. And that the gulf between us had just gotten so big I didn’t know how to get across it. And he suggested I write a letter. He said when we try to put our feelings into words in person, we get emotional and embarrassed, and things get awkward. But he thought if I could explain it on paper, just the way I’d explained it to him, that maybe it would…how did he put it? Maybe it would foster understanding between us.”

Francine nodded, her gaze locked on Brenna, hanging on every word. Her father looked into his drink, but he was listening intently, Brenna could tell.

And Heath—she was almost afraid to look, but she made herself glance over at him. His eyes were fixed on her. He was utterly still, like a tiger scenting the air, trying to determine if what he smelled was predator, prey or maybe a potential mate.

She looked back at her mother. That was safer.

“Well, I tried to write that note,” Brenna continued, “because I thought it sounded like a good idea at the time. But I made two or three efforts, and they all sounded lame, and I realized a letter where I poured out my feelings just wasn’t my style. This was the last one. I got farther along, but still not very far. I crumpled it up and threw it away. Look, you can see the crease marks in the photocopy. I bet the original was wrinkled some, even if Seneca smoothed it out.

“The paper did have an odd quality about it,” her father said. “As if it had been artificially stiffened somehow.”

“It was probably ironed,” Heath said. They all looked at him. “The lab found traces of spray starch on the paper. They thought it might be some part of the stationery manufacturing process.”

The tightness in Brenna’s stomach eased slightly. She took a sip of her Sprite. Marvin had been very, very clever. He’d retrieved the note from the trash and fashioned a crime around it.

“So that’s why the note wasn’t signed,” Francine said.

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