Best Kept Secrets(92)

reason she had had for inviting her here. The need to apologize

had been a ruse. Apparently, Sarah Jo wanted to vent a long-harbored

grudge.

"How much do you know about your mother and her

relationships with Junior and Reede Lambert?"

"Only what my grandmother told me, coupled with what

I've gathered since talking to people here in Purcell."



"They were like a unit," she said, lapsing into a faint,

reflective voice, and Alex realized that she had slipped into

her own private world. "A little club unto themselves. You

rarely saw one without seeing the other two."

"I've noticed that in candid shots in their high school

yearbooks. There are lots of pictures of the three of them."

Alex had pored over the photographs on those glossy pages,

looking for clues, anything, that might benefit her investigation.

"I didn't want Junior to get so deeply involved with them,''

Sarah Jo was saying. "Reede was a hoodlum, the son of the

town drunk, of all things. And your mother . . . well, there

were many reasons why I didn't want him to become attached

to her."

"Name one."

"Mainly because of how it was between her and Reede.

I knew Junior would always be her second choice. It galled

me that she could even exercise a choice. She wasn't worthy

of the right to choose," she said bitterly.

"But Junior adored her, no matter what I said. Just as I

feared, he fell in love with her." Suddenly, her eyes focused

sharply on her guest. "And I have a sick feeling that he'll

fall in love with you, too."

"You're wrong."

"Oh, I'm sure you'll see to it that he does. Reede, too,

probably. That would round out the triangle again, wouldn't

it? Don't you want to pit them against each other, like she

did?"

"No!"

Sarah Jo's eyes narrowed with malice. "Your mother was

a tramp."

Up to this point, Alex had carefully controlled her tongue.

But since her hostess was maligning her late mother, she

dismissed her manners. "I take exception to that slanderous

remark, Mrs. Minton."

Sarah Jo gave a negligent wave of her hand. "No matter.

It's the truth. I knew she was common and coarse the first



I met her. Oh, she was pretty, in a lush, flamboyant

f. Much like you."

Her eyes moved over Alex critically. Alex was tempted to

get up and walk out. The only thing that kept her sitting in that spindly chair was the hope that Sarah Jo would inadvertently

impart some scrap of valuable information.

"Your mother laughed too loud, played too hard, loved

too well. Emotions were to her what a bottle of liquor is to a drunkard. She overindulged, and had no control over exhibiting

her feelings."

"She sounds very honest," Alex said with pride. "The

world might be better off if people openly expressed what

they were feeling." Her words fell on deaf ears.

"Whatever a man needed or wanted her to be at the moment,"

Sarah Jo continued, "she was. Celina was an unconscionable

flirt. Every man she met fell in love with her.

She made certain of it. She would do anything to guarantee

it."

Enough was enough. "I won't let you disparage a woman

who's not around to defend herself. It's ugly and cruel of

you, Mrs. Minton." The room, which had been as fresh as

a greenhouse when she had come in, now seemed suffocating.

She had to get out. "I'm leaving."

"Not yet." Sarah Jo stood up when Alex did. "Celina

loved Reede as much as she was capable of loving anyone

except herself."

"What concern was that of yours?"

"Because she wanted Junior, too, and she let him know

it. Your grandmother, that stupid woman, was giddy over

the idea of a match between our children. As if I'd let Junior

marry Celina," she sneered. "Merle Graham even called me

once and suggested that we, as future in-laws, get together

and become better acquainted. God, I would have sooner

died! She was a telephone operator," she said, laughing

scornfully.

' 'There was never any chance of Celina Graham becoming

my daughter-in-law. I made that quite clear to your grand





mother and to Junior. He moped and whined over that girl

until I wanted to scream.'' She raised her small fists, as though

she still might do so. "Why couldn't he see her for what she

was--a selfish, manipulative little bitch? And now you."

She stepped around the small tea table to confront Alex.

Alex was taller, but Sarah Jo had years of cultivated anger

to make her strong. Her delicate body was trembling with

wrath.

"Lately, all he can talk about is you, just like it used to