Leaving Carolina (29 page)

Uncle Obe grunts. “That’s kind of fitting.”

No comment. “So what do you think of the plan?”

“You make it sound easy.”

Hardly, especially as I’ll be the one doing the orchestrating, which will further jeopardize my job. And, of course, if something
is
going on with my uncle’s mind, I’ll be in even deeper. What happened to Get In, Get Out?

“You sure this is best for all?”

I hear his plea—for me to find a way to accomplish this without being “slick”—but honesty in its purest form can get you hurt.
Sorry, Lord
. “Yes.”

He sits back. The seconds and minutes tick by, and then he slaps the table. “It’s gettin’ mighty hot out here. I’m ready to go in.”

Hating that I feel like the enemy, I stand.

“But before I do, would you cut some daisies for my room?”

Daisies are his favorite. Because of his daughter? I retrieve clippers
from beside the back door and hurry to the glorious patch of white-and-yellow daisies. I’m careful about which flowers I cut to brighten his room since he’s particular about not taking those in their prime. This time I’m too preoccupied to pay much attention.

“Pity” Uncle Obe says when I return. “They didn’t get their day in the sun.”

Though the daisies are unfurled, they’re in the “first blush of beauty.” “Sorry.”

He starts toward the door. “By the way, Piper, did you ever find out if you’re immune to poison ivy?”

A reminder of the day he suggested to my ten-year-old self that I touch the plant to determine my skin’s reaction to its oils. “No idea.”

“Well, you’re about to.”

“What?”

At the base of the ramp, he tugs a scrap of leafy vine from among the daisies. “This here is poison ivy. You might want to wash your hands.”

O
h, please let me be immune
. I probably won’t be. The fiery, blistery rash will break out, and I will be downright miserable. In fact—

No. It’s in my head. My skin is
not
crawling. I pull my arms from the sink of sudsy water I immersed them in after enlisting Trinity to see Uncle Obe back to bed.
No blisters. See?
But that doesn’t mean they’re not forming.

In your head!
Then why is my skin prickling? I have to scratch—my palms, the backs of my hands, my lower arms. All the places that might have come in contact. Did I sniff the daisies? If I did…

I shake the water from my right hand and scratch my nose so hard I break the skin. Self-mutilation on top of blisters. Lovely.

So what is taking Trinity so long? At Uncle Obe’s suggestion, I sent her to Axel’s cottage for the lotion he uses to remove the oil when he comes in contact with poison ivy. That was fifteen minutes ago.

I check in on Uncle Obe. Satisfied he’s asleep and his cell phone is near should he need to call me, I go in search of Trinity. Hurrying down the garden path, I glare at the daisies. Poison ivy! Axel has a lot to answer for.

Though I expect to hear Trinity trilling as I near the cottage, all
is quiet. My other expectation—of finding her twirling as she wields her duster among Axel’s effects—is also unfounded.

I scratch my left hand as I cross from the small kitchen into the living room. “Trinity?”

A resounding thud is followed by an “Ow!”

I turn down the short hallway toward the bedrooms. “Trinity, I’m dyin’ here.” Did I just drop a
g
? Was that a twang? “Did you find the lotion?”
Every
word perfectly enunciated.

She pops out of the room on the right and rubs the back of her head. “I didn’t mean to snoop, but then I saw the box.”

“What box?”

“The
box!” She steps back inside.

I peer into the bedroom that Axel has transformed into an office. On the floor beside a neatly organized desk is a black-speckled box of folders. “What about it?”

“It was under your uncle’s bed. It disappeared last week after he came home from the hospital. I figured he asked you to do something with it, but Axel must have stolen it.” She shakes her head. “There are a lot of personal papers in there.”

I thought she didn’t mean to snoop. Regardless, if it is the same box, what is Axel doing with it?
Did
he steal it? No.

The first day Uncle Obe was home from the hospital, Trinity offered to move the rest of his personal effects downstairs, including a box of papers she found under his bed. Uncle Obe’s face had gone a bit gray, and he had declined. He must have asked Axel to bring the box here. Why? “What kind of personal papers?”

“Come see.”

I follow her to the desk and lower to my knees beside her, only
to startle when she jumps up. “I forgot that I have to go to the bathroom—bad.”

How do you forget that?

She hurries from the room, and I scan the folders: expenses, legal, checking account, assets, taxes, deeds and titles, insurance, stocks and bonds, medical—

“Medical.” A moment later, the file is on my lap. The first document is a summary written by a Dr. Dyer three months ago, and it answers what Artemis wouldn’t. Explaining the findings of the documents that follow, Dr. Dyer concludes that Uncle Obe has early onset dementia, defined as dementia that strikes before the age of sixty-five. For the most part, he is able to function on his own despite minor word retrieval problems. I suppose that’s good news, but only in light of the bad news, which is that it’s going to get worse before it
never
gets better.

I swallow a lump in my throat.

“I’m back!”

I snap the folder closed as Trinity drops to her knees on the other side of the box. “You okay, Piper?”

“Yes, fine.” As inconspicuously as possible, I slide the folder onto the floor.

“Let me show you somethin’.” She retrieves a folder from the chair behind the desk. “I know I shouldn’t have snooped, but that curiosity thing—wondering why Axel took the box—got the better of me. You aren’t goin’ to fire me, are you?”

She shouldn’t have looked, but then neither should I. “No.”

She sits back on her heels. “That’s a relief, ‘cause I need this job if I’m goin’ to get my business turnin’ a profit.”

I glance at the medical folder. “You didn’t look through the whole box, did you?”

She opens her eyes wide. “Heavens, no!”

So
glad she has some scruples.

“I mean, it’s not as if I had time, right?”

Er… right. I gesture at the folder she holds. “What’s in that?”

She taps the label that reads Last Will and Testament. “It has to do with your uncle’s will. And I’m in it.”

Holding my breath, I take it and open to a handwritten page that lists beneficiaries to be added to the will. Beside each name is a dollar amount, all of them revised several times as evidenced by strike outs. This has been on Uncle Obe’s mind for a long time.

Trinity leans across the box and touches her name. “I don’t know why he’s addin’ me to his will, but it’s awful nice of him. And I certainly could use the money. Not that I want him to die, but it’s a relief that some day Gran and I won’t have to struggle so much. We’ve had some real hard years since the knitting shop closed.”

The lump is back. I scan the list: Antonio and Daisy, Dorcas Stanley, the Biggses, the town of Pickwick, the IRS, the Calhouns—

Ugh. That’s a big dollar amount. Though my uncle originally valued the land he believes my great-grandfather cheated the Calhouns out of at two hundred thousand, the most recent figure is seven hundred and fifty thousand. But then, Pickwick is in the midst of renewal.

A quick calculation reveals that my uncle wants to make restitution to the tune of two million dollars. I inwardly groan. If there were any doubt the estate would have to be sold, there’s none now.

“Why do you think he wants to leave me fifty thousand dollars?” Trinity whistles. “Whew! You know how big that sounds? Fif…ty…thou…sand.”

You could tell her. Take responsibility for
your
wrongdoing
.

But she’s so talkative that even if she agreed to keep it between us, she probably couldn’t.

So? If it were made public, it would likely be yesterday’s news before the day was out. It was a teenage indiscretion, and it’s not as if you’re Cootchie Lear
.

What about Grant?

Come on, you’re pretty much kaput
.

It looks that way. So maybe I should just—Wait. Even if our relationship is strictly business, from a PR standpoint, it could reflect poorly on him to have been dating me. Strike Grant Spangler from my client list. No, my partners would not like that. Besides, what’s the benefit of telling Trinity? Money is what she needs, and money is what she’ll get—philanthropically speaking.

Whose money, did you say?

Closing the door of my conscience, I return my gaze to the medical folder. In Luc’s hands, it could be the ammunition to prove Uncle Obe is mentally incompetent. But that’s not going to happen if I have a say in it. I wish all this would go away, but I will help him make amends to those our family has hurt.

“Your uncle must think highly of my cleaning services.”

I look at Trinity. Does she not realize these papers predate her work here? “I know he’s appreciative of all you do.”

She frowns. “Still… that’s a lot of money for just doin’ my job.”

If not for the real reason Uncle Obe wants to make restitution, I would be relieved that she has enough sense to realize that. I close the folder and set it atop the medical folder.

Trinity wags a finger in the air. “Of course, he did say the other day that he was sorry the knitting shop had to close, but I can’t see as he had anything to do with that.”

That’s
too close for comfort. “Well, whatever the reason—”

“If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine. When that rumor started that I made the Lady Godiva ride down Main Street, I should have gutted it then and there.”

Oh, Lord
.

She tilts her head at me. “You heard about that, didn’t you? Or had you already left Pickwick?”

“It… happened right before my mother and I went to L.A.”

“Like everybody else, you probably thought I did it, but you’d be wrong.”

If jealousy is green, what color is guilt? My face is suddenly cold and prickly. “I don’t see you doing something like that, Trinity. In fact, I’m certain you didn’t.”

Her eyes get big. “Really?”

“Yes, and I’m sorry that you took the blame.”
How sorry are you?
“What I don’t understand is why you didn’t deny it.”

With a sheepish shrug, she says, “All that attention.”

“What?”

“It was like entering a pie-eatin’ contest. You know, enjoyin’ all them berries and peaches and buttery crusts and not havin’ to be the one to make and bake them.”

“What?”

“Uh-huh. Though I didn’t deny the rumor, I could never do somethin’ so nasty and wicked as ridin’ buck naked through town. And in a parade, no less!”

On top of being confused, I feel like pond scum. “Trinity, you’ve lost me. You enjoyed the attention?”

“Well, yeah. The guys looked at me different. I mean,
really
looked. Like they’d never looked before.”

I’ll bet.

“If not for Grandpa—God rest his soul—puttin’ his shotguns in the front windows of our house, I would have had me one date after another. But even better than havin’ a slew of suitors was that the family business my grandparents wanted me to run”—she jams her fist against her chest—“put a stake through the whole idea. That musty old place with all those balls of yarn and them pokey knitting needles… It makes keeping house seem like executive work.”

I lean toward her. “Then you weren’t harmed by the rumor? It was a good thing?”

“Well, mostly. My grandparents were so heartbroken when the knitting shop went under that I suffered guilt somethin’ terrible. After all, I’m pretty sharp, and I probably could have made a go of it.”

Could she have?

“Then when Grandpa was on his deathbed, he forgave me for my godforsaken indiscretion and made me promise I would never again do such a thing to shame the family. That’s when I told him and Gran it wasn’t me.” She sighs. “They didn’t believe me, and next thing I knew they were prayin’ for my salvation. Then”—she snaps her fingers—“Grandpa laid back, closed his eyes, and up and died.”

Pond scum—the slimy green stuff.

She gasps. “Why, you could help me, Piper.”

I could do better than help, but…

“You could tell my grandmother that you believe me, that I would never do somethin’ like that.”

“Me?” My voice breaks.

“She might listen to you, seein’ as you’re one of the few upstanding Pickwicks.”

She has no idea.

“And what I wouldn’t give not to have her prayin’ over me for sins I didn’t commit when her body is ready to pack up and go home.”

It’s the least you can do
. “All right, I’ll talk to her.”

She clasps her hands as if to pray. “Thank you. You’re a good friend. And God knows I could use one or two.”

Pond scum.

“Of course, I could also use the money.” She gives a blissful roll of her eyes. “Fifty thousand dollars. Why, one day I could have a half-dozen girls workin’ for me and a whole fleet of pumpkin coaches.”