Death Threads (9 page)

Sure enough, Tori’s self-appointed southern etiquette-coach-turned-reluctant-sewing-pupil stood guard, her slight figure set off by the pale pink skirt and jacket she wore with an air of regality.

“Can you handle things up here for a few moments?” She looked from Leona to Nina and back again, her gaze drawn to the conflicting emotions playing on the elderly woman’s face.

“Of course. Take your time. If I need anything, I’ll buzz you.”

“Great, thanks. I won’t be long.” Tori stepped out from behind the information desk and made her way over to the woman whose pursed lips suggested irritation while concern ruled her eyes. “Leona, is everything okay?”

“You tell me, dear.” Linking arms, Leona Elkin fairly tugged Tori down the hall and into the tiny office she shared with Nina. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

She stared at her friend as the woman continued on, her mouth moving at warp speed. “Rose called me first thing this morning. At first I thought maybe it was all wishful thinking on her part after the article, but seeing you just now . . . I knew it had to be true.” Leona pushed the door closed and led Tori to the pair of cushioned chairs in the corner of the room. “But, dear, no matter how difficult a morning you might have, you must always—always—apply makeup to de-emphasize your flaws. Which today”—she leaned forward as they both sat, her left thumb sweeping the skin beneath Tori’s right eye—“would be some mighty big black circles that are making you look just like one of those stuffed raccoons Carter Johnson hangs from the wall as art.”

“Which isn’t to say they’re not understandable, dear, because they are. But even under the direst of circumstances you must always be prepared to meet a man.” The woman sat back in her chair, gently clasping her hands in her lap. “Gold doesn’t just fall in one’s lap.”

“I—uh.” She stopped, sputtered a few nonsensical words, and then stopped again, her mouth at a total loss for words.

“Close your mouth, dear. Gaping it open like that is most unbecoming. It makes you look as if you’ve given up on a flyswatter and opted to collect those pesky creatures with your mouth instead.”

She nibbled her lower lip inward, her mind reeling from the unexpected yet irrefutable impact that was Leona Elkin. There was so much she wanted to tell her, so much she wanted to vent to a willing pair of ears, yet the surge of loyalty toward Debbie prevented her from saying anything.

Sure, the actual unfriendliness at last night’s circle had come from Rose and Georgina, but Leona had sat by and let it happen, her nose buried in her travel magazine. Did that kind of loyalty—or lack thereof—deserve answers?

“I feel just awful to know Debbie is suffering right now. And with two such young children to care for.” Leona brushed her hands down the length of her pale pink skirt. “You’d think that sabotaging her business, ostracizing her children, and taunting her husband would have been enough.”

“Then why didn’t you say anything last night while Rose and Georgina were all but attacking her? Why did you just sit there and act as if it wasn’t happening?” Tori stood, strode across the room toward her desk, and then leaned against it, her hands braced against the steel gray metal. “Do you have any idea how much they hurt her?”

Leona tilted her head downward, peered at Tori atop her glasses. “I do. But I also knew you’d take care of her—you two are much closer in age.”

“Age? Being supportive is about age?” She knew her voice was rising to a level it shouldn’t, but she let it go. “Oh . . . I’m sorry . . . the last I checked, being supportive is part of what it means to be a friend. Then again that’s something you could use a refresher course on, isn’t it?” Surprised by the vehemence behind her words, she looked down and swallowed, waited for the sound of the office door opening and Leona’s footsteps as she left. But they never came. Slowly, she raised her head, met Leona’s unreadable eyes. “I’m sorry, Leona, that was uncalled for. All I can say is I’m more than a little sleep deprived and absolutely heartsick about Colby.”

A moment of silence ensued before the woman finally waved a manicured hand in the air. “No, you’re right. I was lost in my own little world last night and by the time I caught up with what was going on, it was too late.”

“Lost in your own little world?” she echoed.

“Yes, lost in my own little world.”

“Was something wrong?”

“I was planning. And plotting,” Leona explained.

“I’m not following.” She rubbed her right hand over her right eye as she released a deep exhale.

“Have I not taught you anything about personal maintenance these past few months, dear? Never, ever rub the skin around your eyes. We want it to be firm yet supple. Rubbing removes the natural glow in your skin.”

She stared at her friend. “You’re worried about my skin?”

“As you should be. You have it until the day you die. Unless you opt to have a little nip and a little tuck.” Turning her body ever so slightly in the chair, Leona crossed her legs at the ankles and straightened her back. “Just make sure if you go that route that you find a reputable doctor to do it and not some backwoods quack.”

On any other day, Tori would have laughed at the absurdity of the conversation playing out in her office. Never in her wildest imagination could she have anticipated receiving plastic surgery advice before she was officially thirty. Then again, she’d never known someone like Leona Elkin before, either.

“Anyway . . . where was I? Oh yes, while Rose was being her normally charming—and may I point out—spinster self, I was deciding the most appropriate way to meet William Clayton Wilder.”

She felt her mouth gape open. “The magazine guy?” Leona waggled her finger back and forth until Tori clamped her mouth shut. “The wealthy and widowed publishing genius.”

“You’re not serious. . . . Okay, wait. You are.” Pulling her hands from the edge of the desk, Tori dropped her head into them. “Can’t you just be in the kitchen when Margaret Louise meets him next?”

“And run the risk he thinks I cook?”

She laughed as she slid her hands down her face. “Um, Leona? He runs a culinary magazine. Don’t you think he has an interest in . . . I don’t know . . . maybe cooking?”

“Well, I sew, shouldn’t that count for anything?” Leona asked with a sniff.

“You sew? Since when?” Suddenly the tension that had knotted itself throughout her body began to ease as she allowed herself to enjoy the easy repartee she’d enjoyed with this woman since the first day they met.

Leona’s chin jutted in the air in defiance. “I’ve worked with buttons . . .”

“Worked with buttons?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve worked with buttons, Leona? Hmmm . . . I remember buttons . . . and I remember you . . . but I don’t recall you ever touching them, let alone sewing them.”

“Semantics, dear. Semantics.”

“Oh, is that what they call it in the south?” Tori pushed off the desk and walked over to the window, her face instinctively tilting toward the sunlight. “What is it about men that makes you shut down on your friends?”

“My friends don’t wine and dine me, dear. And they don’t have that stubble on their chins in the morning.”

She turned toward her friend, eyebrow cocked. “Stubble?”

Leona nodded, a knowing glint in her eye. “Don’t tell me you don’t think it feels wonderful in the morning against your bare skin.”

“Leona!”

“Thou doth protest too much, dear.”

Shaking her head, Tori stepped out of the path of the sun, the warm rays doing little to offset the sudden heat in her cheeks. “You’re going to quote Shakespeare now?”

“Who else?”

“How about this one . . . men come and go but friends stay forever.”

“Touché.” Leona uncrossed her ankles and rose from the chair, her short yet shapely legs lessening the distance between them. “What can I do?”

“Do, Leona?”

The woman rolled her eyes in dramatic fashion. “To help Debbie.”

“I’m sorry, my ears must not be working. Could you say that again, please?”

“Vic-tor-ia . . .”

“I’m sorry, I was just yanking your chain.”

“Yanking what?”

Tori waved a dismissive hand in the air before resting her forehead against the warm glass. “I’m not sure what we can do for Debbie. Maybe help out with the kids when she returns to work?” She stopped, stole a sidelong glance at Leona. “Okay, scratch that one. I know how you are about kids.”

“You’re a fast learner, dear.”

“Maybe find ways to help her keep things as normal as possible?”

“I could patronize her little shop,” Leona chimed in.

“But you said women must always be mindful of their figures, remember? Debbie owns a bakery in case you’ve forgotten . . .”

“I could stop by and gush over her cakes. Help her drum up business that way.”

“Let’s leave that to Ella May, shall we?” Tori took two steps back from the window and plopped into her office chair, swiveling it so she was, once again, in the path of the sun. “I think the most important thing we can do for Debbie is simply be there to listen and—”

“What does Ella May have to do with cakes and Debbie?”

At the risk of being tarred and feathered, Tori rubbed her hands across her eyes, the nearly sleepless night finally taking its toll. “She’s hiring Debbie to make her wedding cake.”

A sharp intake of air made her look up—mid-eye rub—just in time to watch the color drain from Leona’s face.

“Ella May is getting married?”

“That’s right.”

“Sir Billy is about to become Mr. Ella May Vetter?” Leona raised up her forearm just long enough to tap the face of her sterling silver link watch with her perfectly polished fingernail. “Oh dear, would you look at the time? I really must be getting back to the shop.”

“It’s Tuesday, Leona. Elkin Antiques and Collectibles is only open on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, remember?”

“I-uh . . . need to help my sister . . .”

“Doesn’t Margaret Louise look after Melissa’s brood on Tuesday mornings? So Melissa can attend a mom and me swim class with Sally?” she asked as the corners of her mouth turned upward in amusement. “Surely you wouldn’t stop by a home with six children in it, would you? Unless, of course, you’re preparing for your upcoming babysitting job?”

“Rose said something about needing help . . .”

“Rose visits the nursing home on Tuesday mornings, Leona. And you’d be sooner caught dead than go there.”

Stamping her foot, Leona turned toward the office door.

“I have something I have to do, Victoria. Something I’d rather not discuss.”

“You have gossip to spread, don’t you?”

Leona reached for the doorknob then looked over her shoulder and smiled ever so sweetly in Tori’s direction. “It is my duty, as a good southern neighbor—one who realizes the importance of friendship—to gather together the women of this town in celebration of Ella May’s wonderful news.”

“To spread gossip, you mean.”

With a ladylike shrug, Leona yanked open the door and stepped in the hall, a smile lighting her face from the depths of her soul. “As Margaret Louise would say . . . you’re darn tootin’.”

Lowering her sandwich to her lap, Tori leaned back against the brick exterior of the Sweet Briar Public Library and lifted her face to the noon sun.

“Do you remember what you said the other day . . . at the festival? About the loyalty in this town being a good thing so long as it’s in your favor?” She turned her face to the left and studied the man who’d become such a bright part of her daily life. A man who’d stood by her through thick and thin during the investigation into Tiffany Ann Gilbert’s murder and stayed by her side even after it was all over.

Milo took a bite of his ham and cheese sandwich and nodded, his gaze focused somewhere in the distance.

“You were right. It can really get ugly when it’s not, can’t it?”

“I think you probably know that better than anyone.” Wiping his mouth with one of the paper napkins he brought to accompany their impromptu picnic lunch, he, too, leaned his head against the brick wall.

“But I was an outsider, a newbie. Someone like Debbie Calhoun has lived here her entire life. She was born here, went to school here, was married here, is raising her family here, has opened a business here. Shouldn’t the loyalty extend a little deeper and a little truer for someone like that?” It was a question that had nagged at her from the moment the woman had shared tales of the backlash her family had endured on the heels of Colby’s article in the Sunday edition of the
Sweet Briar Times
. Backlash that had not only extended to Colby as the author, but to Debbie and her young children as well.

He shrugged, his strong capable frame rising ever so slightly. “It seems like it should, doesn’t it? But the loyalty isn’t for any one person. It’s for the town . . . the image.” Balling his sandwich wrapper in his left hand, he tossed it into the empty paper sack beside his thigh. “The image is what matters most.”