Wish You Were Gone(19)
Are you bringing home dinner or should I start pasta?
Lizzie texted back.
Start pasta. Will be there soon.
She was about to shove the phone back in her pocket when she noticed Gray’s Louboutins had paused at the corner. She toggled back to her thread with Willow, which hadn’t been cleared in at least a month, and deleted the whole thing.
GRAY
Gray had planned on making chicken piccata for dinner—one of Darnell’s favorites. The town council meeting had run over, partially because she’d been late. Gray Garrison. Late. It was unheard of. But the visit with Lizzie had been a last-minute addition to her day’s schedule and after that, she was all thrown off. She hadn’t even remembered it was New Business Monday until she’d seen Ben standing there with Lizzie, clearly smitten, which had given her pause. What the hell did those two have in common? What had they been talking about? She sincerely hoped Lizzie wasn’t gossiping about Emma and James and the accident with other Chamber of Commerce members.
Now it was after eight o’clock and starting to drizzle. She’d have to stop at Whole Foods on the way home and pick up something prepared, which would throw off her whole dinner plan for the week. Unless Darnell was running late as well, which was a definite possibility, all things considered.
She got behind the wheel of her Mercedes sedan and took a breath. Her hands were shaking. Even now, over an hour later. Lizzie had this effect on her on a good day—her Zen, yoga-lady demeanor and long, dreamy pauses burrowing right under Gray’s normally thick skin. That and the fact that she seemed to never want to let Gray have the last word. And Gray always got the last word. She’d just spent the entire council meeting having the last word.
There was something about that woman. She was just off. Not to mention her odd daughter. Gray hadn’t been around Willow much, but when she was, she always felt as if she were being studied for some invasive experiment, like a grasshopper pinned to a tray and set under a microscope. Gray didn’t know how Emma could stand to be around the two of them so much, let alone count Lizzie as a close friend.
When Gray asked Lizzie where she’d been that night—which she’d done offhand and really just to mess with her—Lizzie had almost fainted. Although Gray knew that Lizzie hadn’t had anything to do with James’s death. Not only did she not have the brains to pull off a murder, but she would never have had the guts—nor the fortitude to keep a secret like that in perpetuity. She was probably one of those weaklings who passed out at the sight of blood. But there had been something in the woman’s expression that made Gray ponder. Was Lizzie so obsessed with Emma that she’d thought about getting rid of James? Getting the competition for Emma’s time and attention out of the way? Gray knew that Lizzie used Emma as almost a surrogate spouse, after all, weighing decisions with her, consulting her about everything from parenting to diet to refinancing her mortgage. Maybe, in her darker moments, Lizzie had fantasized about having Emma all to herself.
If Lizzie was going to start throwing around Darnell’s name as a suspect in Emma’s ludicrous murder theory, maybe Gray would start throwing around Lizzie’s.
Gray started the car and shook off the last couple of hours. At the council meeting, Ben had made his statement and handed in his paperwork proving the work had been completed on the security cameras at the café, and then Clarissa Kay from the apothecary had asked for another police officer to patrol River Street during prime shopping hours because of the recent spate of shoplifting incidents. Disturbing that theft had become a problem in Oakmont, but she was sure it was just kids being kids. Nothing out of the ordinary. And she refused to let Lizzie ruin her whole night.
She checked her phone. No message. This was not normal. Darnell always called or texted when he was leaving the office, or—if it got too late—let her know what time to expect him.
Lizzie’s questions scrolled unbidden through her mind: Where was Darnell, for that matter? Do you even know where he was? She should have told that little bitch to mind her own business. Of course, she was the one who’d confronted Lizzie at her place of work. But then, where else was she supposed to do it? Lizzie practically lived inside that shop.
The truth was, no, Gray didn’t know where her husband had been the night of the accident. Not exactly. But she’d never admit that to the likes of Lizzie Larkin.
“Call Darnell mobile,” she told her car as she pulled out onto the street.
There were a few straggling shoppers jogging across crosswalks, and a gaggle of soccer players shoving each other around on the corner in front of the ice cream shop. The streetlights had come on just as Gray had arrived downtown earlier, and now it was dark enough that they were necessary.
The phone rang, filling the car with its noise. Three times. Four. Voicemail.
Gray jabbed her thumb down on the end call button on her steering wheel, frustrated, then looked up and saw the stop sign. She slammed on her brakes half a second before blowing through it and mowing down a couple of girls on skateboards. Across the street, parked in the alleyway between two shops, sat a cop car.
Shit. SHIT.
Gray lifted all her fingers from the wheel to loosen them, then curled them down again. She looked both ways, saw the coast was clear, and kept driving—slowly, responsibly—and prayed the cop didn’t pull out after her.
Which he didn’t. Once outside the business district, Gray blew out a breath. Lizzie had riled her, and she couldn’t let that happen again. She knew herself well enough to know that when she was riled she made mistakes—in the courtroom, in her relationships. She couldn’t let that Lilith Fair loser unravel everything.