Real Bad Things(64)

“Well hello to you too,” Jane said after Georgia Lee knocked and then pushed through, shutting the door tight behind her.

Before knocking, Georgia Lee had rushed to the trailer hitch and overturned the flowerpot. The envelope of cash, gone.

Jane looked annoyingly good in her sweats and braless T-shirt even though she also looked hungover. She hated how Jane’s breasts hadn’t drooped with age or childbirth. More than that, Georgia Lee hated how her own body responded to Jane’s. She squelched her traitorous biology and let anger take its rightful place. But the room began to spin.

“Diane!” Georgia Lee screamed.

Jane gripped her head. “Jesus. Why are you yelling?”

“Diane. Your mother. Where is she?”

Before Jane could answer, Diane wandered in from the hallway, her whole demeanor a far cry from when Georgia Lee had last seen her. She sauntered into the kitchen in a black, sleeveless sequined top, tight jeans, and sky-high heels, a trail of perfume following her. Probably still had the tags on everything she wore. Probably bought it with the money Georgia Lee had given her. Probably would return it all after she’d sweat in it at the bar and after it’d been crumpled on some man’s floor all night.

“Should’ve known you’d show up eventually,” Diane said.

“I paid you.” The room darkened like she was looking through a pinhole camera as Georgia Lee’s anger narrowed on Diane and her betrayal. “I did what you asked, so why are there reporters hanging outside my workplace?”

Jane watched them, suspicious. Georgia Lee couldn’t worry about her right now.

Diane paused as if to think. “I’d remember if you’d paid me.”

“I left the note on your car.” She gestured toward the front of the trailer. “I left the money outside. I hid it under a flowerpot.” Five thousand dollars. Cash. Taken from her personal savings account. One she’d hidden from Rusty. Her voice edged higher. “I left a note on your car!”

Diane contemplated, shrugged, and then stared into a cabinet. “Maybe it blew off.”

“I taped it on the underside of your door handle so it wouldn’t blow off and so no one else would see it.” She wasn’t stupid. She wouldn’t have left the note on the windshield for all to see.

Jane looked back and forth between Diane and Georgia Lee. “What are you talking about? What note? What money?”

“For the funeral. Your . . .” Georgia Lee’s throat tightened as her pulse quickened. “She blackmailed me.”

Jane’s mouth fell open, and she looked to Diane. “I paid for—”

“Blackmail?” Diane slammed the cabinet and launched herself at Georgia Lee, which made her jump back, startled. “I kept my word to your parents, didn’t I? For over twenty years. Yet you come into my house, accusing me of blackmail? If it weren’t for me, you’d’ve been locked up just like her.”

Jane scrunched her face in confusion. “What the fuck is going on?”

Georgia Lee grumbled and scrambled through the depths of her purse for her phone. An onslaught of text and phone notifications had popped up since she last looked. She’d have to deal with all that later. She showed her phone to Jane while glaring at Diane, daring her to move closer. She refrained from showing Jane the post from Let’s Talk About Maud that mentioned Georgia Lee as Jane’s accomplice. She’d learn soon enough. For now, Georgia Lee wanted to know what had happened to her money. Savings that had taken her years to collect. She had no plan for it. But she needed it. She needed to know it was there if she needed to . . .

Run.

She needed the money. Her money.

Jane rubbed her eyes. “Why are these photos online?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.” Georgia Lee directed the question to Diane.

As if a switch had been flicked, Diane had gone from rage to calm. She tossed an arm across her chest. A cigarette dangled from her free hand. “Let me see.”

“You’ve already seen it! You gave it to them.” Georgia Lee shoved her phone into her purse. Despite her trepidation at angering Diane again, she added, “You lied. And you stole my money. And I want it back.”

“I didn’t get your note. And I didn’t give no photo to no one.”

“Then how’d they end up online?” Diane smoked; Jane blinked. Georgia Lee didn’t know what to believe. Maybe Diane was right. Maybe someone had taken the note. Maybe it had somehow blown off. This was worse than telling Let’s Talk About Maud. This was showing them. How had the photo even stuck around this long? Did Jane know what had really happened? Had Jason confessed to her? Were they plotting with Benjamin to get Georgia Lee to confess to the crime?

Before she could stop herself, she punched Jane’s arm, but it did little to assuage Georgia Lee’s desire to afflict pain on her. Her arms were all muscle. Infuriating. Georgia Lee hadn’t meant to do it. But Diane’s lies lit her like a match.

“Why are you hitting me?” Jane rubbed the spot.

“You told me no one would ever see those photos.” Georgia Lee’s voice cracked an octave higher as she tried to wrestle her emotions. When she noticed how closely Diane listened and how a slight smile had crept up, she whispered to Jane, “You said they’d be our secret. You promised. Did you give the photos to them?” The words came out too whiny, girlish. She wished she could take them back.