The Homewreckers(76)
Ragan leaned over, his hands clutching the side of the table. “How come she’s just now remembering that? Huh? All those years of school counselors and therapists—how come she’s just now coming up with this fairy tale of hers? Emma was three when her mom disappeared. What kind of memory does a three-year-old have of anything? You tell me.”
Makarowicz waited until Ragan had finished. “In all the old police reports, I saw that you told investigators Emma was only three when Lanier vanished. Emma herself says that at the time she was four. I checked with the state department of driver services, and she’s telling the truth. She’s a tiny little thing, isn’t she? I’m betting the cops didn’t question her at the time because she looked so young. And because you told them she was three.”
“My wife had just disappeared!” Ragan said, his face growing red with rage. “Maybe I fuckin’ messed up her age. Who cares?” He slapped the tabletop with the palm of his hand. “Do you know what happened to my life? My career, after Lanier disappeared? At first, everyone was so concerned. Poor Coach. Poor little Emma. There were search parties and prayer vigils. Casseroles. My God, I thought I’d never look at a noodle again. And then the rumors started. The next fall, my starting quarterback tore his ACL, two of my seniors got pulled over for DUIs and got expelled, and nothing seemed to gel. At the end of the school year, the headmaster called me in and told me I’d become a ‘distraction’ at the school, and my contract wasn’t being renewed. I won the state championship just the year before. That same year three of my guys signed to play at Division One colleges and I was prep coach of the year. But none of that meant anything, because I was a ‘distraction.’ I had to scramble to find another job—assistant coach and teaching driver’s ed at a crappy public school the next county over. I’ve been hustling and scraping to keep it together for seventeen years. And why? Because my wife—the sainted Lanier Ragan—decided she didn’t give a shit about me or our kid.”
Ragan sat back in his chair, crossed one leg over the other, and let out a long breath. “Don’t come to my place of business again, Detective. Don’t leave messages on my phone. Leave me and Emma alone.”
40
Mo Knows
Trae sat in the makeup chair, staring down at his iPad while Lisa fussed with his hair.
“You’re up next, Mo,” Lisa said, gesturing to the empty chair next to Trae.
Mo sat down and peered over at Trae’s screen. “Is that a script?” he asked. “Movie or television?”
Trae abruptly closed the iPad’s hand-stitched leather flap. “It’s nothing, really. Just a concept I’ve been playing around with. But my agent thinks it has promise.”
“Great,” Mo said. “Hope it works out.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I still love being in front of the camera. It’s my passion, but I’ve always thought to succeed in this business you have to write your own material.”
Trae leaned over and lowered his voice to a near whisper. “I’d love for you to take a look at it, once I’ve got it a little more polished. You know, just share your thoughts.”
“What kind of show are we talking? Home improvement, scripted reality?”
“Neither. It’s a rom-com,” Trae said. “About a guy who produces a scripted reality show, and he falls in love with his star, but there are complications, because she’s in love with the hunky head carpenter on the show.”
“Let me guess. You play the carpenter?”
Trae shrugged. “Who else?”
“All done,” Lisa said, handing him a hand mirror. “See if you like what I did with the back.”
Trae put the iPad on the countertop, held up the mirror, and studied his image. “Nice. What do you think about my brows? Could they use a little more shaping?”
“Your brows could win an Emmy they’re so perfect. Now get out of here.”
* * *
Lisa waited until Trae was out of the trailer. “Sounds like he’s writing a movie about you, starring him.”
“A little bit,” Mo agreed. “Except for the falling in love with the star part.”
Lisa squeezed a bit of moisturizer into the palm of her left hand, added a squirt of bronzer, stirred them together with her fingertip, then began massaging it into Mo’s face.
“Mhmm,” she said. “Never happens in real life.”
* * *
According to Mo’s research, Jada Watkins’s great legs were her claim to fame. They were loooong and shapely, and exquisitely displayed beneath a very short, school bus–yellow sleeveless dress that seemed to be made out of a single piece of bandage material.
The Headline Hollywood star had a mane of glossy auburn hair and she had dark, almond-shaped eyes, a pronounced, beakish nose, and a generous mouth. He gave her a brief rundown of the Homewreckers premise before she moved on to the main attraction.
“You two,” she exclaimed, taking Hattie and Trae’s hands in hers. “I hear you’re the toast of Savannah! And I can’t wait to hear all about the house, and of course, the missing woman angle.”
Hattie seemed shy and ill at ease with Jada. She was wearing a kind of Rosie the Riveter getup, zipped low enough in front to expose some interesting cleavage, with a scarf worn as a belt. She somehow managed to look sexy and wholesome at the same time.