The Ex Who Wouldn't Die (36 page)

She moved directly in front of the window.

There!

She distinctly saw the shadowy shape of a man walking among the trees, moving away from the house. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and a cold chill skittered down her spine.

"Charley!"

He appeared so quickly, she wondered how far away he'd been, but the possibility of his spying on her while she undressed was the least of her worries at the moment.

"Go outside and see if there's somebody in the yard." She pointed toward the shadow. "Hurry! He's leaving."

Charley ran through the window.

Fingers clutching the sill, heart pounding double-time, Amanda watched as he disappeared through the trees.
Please come back and tell me I'm being silly,
she urged mentally.
Come back and laugh at me.
Any of that was preferable to thinking someone was really out there,
spying on
her.
Seeing the man at the high school football field was creepy, but it was daylight and he could be a
n
innocent pervert. This was scary.

After what seemed like an eternity, Charley returned, frowning.

Amanda held her breath.

"
I couldn't get close enough to see who it was, but there was a man out there."

"Lost," Amanda whispered hopefully. "Maybe he was wandering around lost. Did he look lost?"

"Yeah, like we were lost when Kimball caught us. He's watching you. You're in big trouble. We need to go tomorrow and get that gun for you."

At that moment, Amanda didn't feel like getting a gun. She felt like running away and hiding. "No. Tomorrow we go talk to the cops. I'll tell that
damned
Detective Daggett what I found out about Dianne, and I'll tel
l him
somebody's following me.
Surely that will get his attention.
"

"
You better hope he doesn't decide to arrest you as long as you're there.
"

"You better hope that, too, since, if I go to jail, you to jail, too."
As soon as she spoke the words, Amanda realized that was a double-edged threat. Going to prison would be bad enough. Being trapped in prison with Charley would be even worse. "
But just in case, you might be thinking about who would sell us a gun."

Chapter Seventeen

"You've been drying that same plate for a good five minutes," Irene said.

"Oh." Amanda put the plate into the cabinet and reached for another wet one. Herbert had left for work, Paula and Penny had gone to school, and Amanda stood in the sunny kitchen, drying the breakfast dishes while Irene washed. However, her mind was far away, formulating what she could say to Jake Daggett to make him believe her and help her.

She'd phoned him as soon as she got up and scheduled a meeting
for
that afternoon. He'd seemed a little surprised to hear from her, and she couldn't decide if that meant he was surprised she'd put herself in a position to be arrested so easily or i
f it meant Charley
's murder
was
a cold case
,
and he was surprised she'd bring it up again. Neither possibility made her eager for the meeting, but she could think of no alternatives.

Sandy's story of what happened with Dianne brought home to her how dangerous Kimball was, and the man outside her window
convinced her she could be next on his list of dead people
.
Between the two events, she'd had terrible dreams all night.

"Everything okay?
" Irene asked.
"
You've been a little preoccupied the last couple of days."

A part of Amanda wanted to do something she'd never done in her life—tell this kind woman everything, dump all her problems on Irene's comfortable shoulders, accept the sympathy and caring she knew would be forthcoming.

She would not, of course, do that. If nothing else, she knew Irene would worry about her, and she didn't want to upset her mother-in-law.

"Everything's fine," she said, forcing a smile.

"Paula told me you've been talking to Charley at night. I think that's a good thing, a healing thing. We all have to
cope with grief in our own way
."

Grief? Terror and anger more closely described her feelings, though she would certainly be grief-stricken if she got sent to prison for killing Charley or if Kimball murdered her.

"I have a surprise for you that should put a smile on your face." Irene beamed, her pale eyes twinkling. The sunlight streaming through the window over the sink sparkled on her silver curls. The image alone put the promised smile on Amanda's face.

"More pecan pie?"

Irene laughed. "We can do that. But my surprise is that your mama's coming for lunch."

The handful of flatware Amanda was drying slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor. "What?" She leaned over and hastily retrieved knives, forks and spoons. "My mother? Here? How? Why?"

"She's worried about you, so I invited her down for lunch." Irene took the flatware from Amanda's paralyzed hands and tossed them back into the soapy dishwater.

"You called my mother?" Though calling her visiting daughter-in-law's mother was probably a perfectly normal thing to do, Amanda felt somehow, irrationally, betrayed.

Irene's brow wrinkled. "Your mother called me this morning."

"Oh. I—I'm just a little surprised. My mother—well, she doesn't usually worry about me."
And she was pretty adamant that she didn't want to come to Silver Creek.
Amanda could not see her uptight mother having lunch in this comfortable old farm house, eating ham sandwiches and pecan pie, drinking sweet tea from a fruit jar.

Irene reached over to give her a quick, one-armed hug. "Of course your mother worries about you. She may not say it, but mothers always worry about their kids. You'll understand one day when you're a mother."

This was going to be interesting, and probably not in a good way.
Not bad enough she had to worry about being murdered by Kimball or arrested by Daggett, now she had to deal with her mother.
What was
the woman
up to? Surely her father hadn't told her mother about the trespassing incident. Usually she could count on her father to keep her more erratic behavior from her mother in the interest of not upsetting her.

Amanda could only hope her mother wasn't going to make a scene and say something unintentionally cruel to Irene. Beverly Caulfield had impeccable manners and would never do something like that deliberately. But she had always lived in a rarefied atmosphere, out of touch with the rest of the world.

At least Amanda wouldn't have long to wa
it and worry and stress about that event
.

***

Beverly Caulfield arrived just before noon, parking her white Mercedes on the dirt between Amanda's bike and Irene's car
.

From the living room window, Amanda watched in delight as her mother, every hair in place, wearing a beige silk blouse, tan linen slacks and beige heels with red soles teetered across the patches of dirt and scruffy grass in the yard. Her lips were tightly clenched, but she came gamely up the wooden steps and across the porch.

Amanda stepped in front of the screen door and pushed it open before her mother could
search in vain for the doorbell
. "Come in, Mother. Irene's putting the finishing touches on lunch."

Beverly patted her immaculate hair and smiled tightly, her gaze taking in Amanda's jeans and tee-shirt. "Hello, Amanda. You're looking…relaxed."

Amanda returned the smile.
Relaxed
was definitely not a word she'd use to describe herself, but she knew her mother was
only referring to her clothing,
nothing below the surface. "I hope you're hungry," she said. "Irene's been cooking all morning."

"It smells wonderful."

At that moment Irene came through the door from the kitchen, pulling off her apron. "This must be Amanda's mother." She crossed the room, beaming, unaware of a smudge of flour on the back of her blue cotton dress, and took Beverly Caulfield's hand between both of hers. "It's so nice to finally meet you. Amanda's told me so much about you."
Huh?
"Come in and sit down. I'll bet you're hot after that drive. Let me get you a nice cold glass of iced tea."

"Thank you. That would be lovely." Beverly sank onto the worn sofa, sitting primly on one of the faded cabbage roses.

Amanda sat next to her mother, one
careful
cushion away. "Hello, Mother."

"How are you doing, dear?" Beverly asked.

"I'm doing fine."
If you don't count spending time with Charley's
ghost and worrying about being murdered and/or
going to jail.

"You don't look fine. You look like you're not sleeping well. You have dark circles under your eyes."

"Thank you.
That makes me
feel so much better."

Beverly gave a small, exasperated sigh. "Your father and I are worried about you. He said you're going to stay
here
another week, and I just don't think that's a good idea."

"He told you about the trespassing thing? Geez!"

Immediately Amanda realized her mistake. She could tell by
Beverly
's expression that
her father
had not told her
mother
about the trespassing thing.

"No, he didn't. Perhaps you could tell me."

Fortunately Irene arrived at that moment with three glasses of iced tea.

***

Amanda should have known her mother's ubiquitous manners would see her through any situation, even lunch at the Randolphs'.

Beverly tackled the crispy fried chicken, creamy mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans flavored with bacon, and fried green tomatoes as if she ate such fare every day. From earliest memory, her mother had taught Amanda that only sandwiches should be eaten with fingers. Watching her mother eat a drumstick held daintily in greasy fingers was definitely one of the high points of Amanda's day.

"This is delicious," Beverly assured Irene, patting her lips with the paper napkin. "I must get your recipe for mashed potatoes."