“Bridget Peters?”
Her eyes widened.
“I need to talk to you,” I said. “It won’t take long, just a minute of your time.”
The look on her face was the perfect blend of confusion and panic.
“Please,” I said, “let me explain who I am. I can help you.”
Her driver’s side window started to lower, but before I could say anything more a glimmer of pink sprinted past me. By the time the word NO! formed on my lips, Bridget tore out of the parking lot like someone who just received a call that their house was on fire. Within seconds she was gone. I looked over at Maddie who wiggled her shoulders and looked at me as if to say oops.
“Maddie,” I said. “You were supposed to stay in the car.”
“I wanted to help.”
“I had it under control,” I said.
“I’m sorry, I thought I could get to the car and––”
“And what?” I said. “She might be the one person who can tell me what I need to know, and now she’s gone.”
I put the key in the ignition and pulled out of the parking lot. A few minutes went by which seemed more like a few hours and we sat in silence. I focused on the road and Maddie looked out the window. After a few minutes she made eye contact.
“I guess I wasn’t much help.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’m sorry I lost my temper. Something tells me Bridget’s the key to all this but she’s afraid; I could tell when I looked at her.”
“Maybe you’ll get another chance.”
“I hope so,” I said. “In the meantime, we still have Zoey.”
CHAPTER 39
It was late afternoon when we pulled up at Zoey’s place. The exterior of her squarish house was red brick and looked old, like it was built in the late 1800’s. It stood out amongst the other grandiose houses on the street because of its miniscule size. I recognized Zoey’s car in the parking lot as the same one from the restaurant a few days before.
I closed my door and looked at Maddie who hadn’t said much over the past half hour.
“You can talk now, you know.”
“I know,” she said. “I don’t want to screw up anything else for you so I’m just going to keep my trap shut and let you do your thing.”
Zoey peeled back the corner of a crimson red curtain and watched us approach. The door opened before we reached it and she peeked out. She looked me up and down and then switched her focus to Maddie.
“Zoey Kendrick?” I said.
“Sounds like you two know who I am, but I’ve never seen either one of you in my life.”
“I’m Sloane and this is Madison,” I said.
I handed her my credentials.
Zoey had bits of what appeared to be dried orange paint on her face and she wore a tank top and a pair of overalls which were rolled up at the bottom. Her feet were bare except for a small silver toe ring on her pinkie. She glossed over what I handed her with minimal interest and handed it back to me.
“I wondered if I could ask you a few questions about Parker Stanton,” I said.
She shrugged.
“Why should I answer any of your questions?”
“A woman is dead, and I would like to find out what happened to her,” I said.
She pulled back on the door.
“Come in.”
The inside of Zoey’s house reminded me of an artist’s showroom. Modern art was represented on each one of the colorful walls. One painting had several pastel colors blended together in a swirled pattern. It hung on a red wall. Another painting consisted of a series of vertical lines in all different colors. It hung on a blue wall. And on a yellow wall in the dining room was a painting of a young girl scolding her cat.
“Wow, your house is amazing,” I said. “It’s so colorful.”
“Thank you.”
I gestured to one of the paintings on the wall.
“Did you get this somewhere in town?” I said.
She laughed and shook her head.
“Come with me and I’ll show you.”
We followed her into a bedroom that doubled as an art studio. The floor was lined with canvas cloth and had splatters of dried paint all over it. A table was set up in the middle of the room and a coffee can sat on top with various sized brushes inside.
“You painted all these?” I said. “Do you have a studio somewhere in town?”
She laughed again.
“I give away most of my art before I have the chance to sell it. Either that or I keep it.”
She took a half-painted picture in her hands and stared at it the way a mother looks upon her newborn.
“My paintings are like children to me. I grow attached to them. It’s hard to give them up at any price.”
“You do this for a living?” I said.
“I live for a living. Art is one way I express that.”
Maddie and I exchanged glances, but she stayed quiet. We walked back out to the living room and sat down on a vintage red sofa. Zoey sat across from us in an oversized purple shoe.
“I wanted to ask you about your relationship with Parker Stanton,” I said.
“What about it?”
“Are you in one?” I said.
She nodded.
“You could say that.”
“For how long?” I said.
She thought about it for a moment.
“On and off for the last few years.”
“Did you know he was involved with Charlotte Halliwell at the same time?” I said.
“He told me they were engaged.”
“Did you see him while they were together?” I said.
“On occasion. Parker and I have known each other for years, long before he committed himself to Charlotte.”
Her candidness shocked me. It wasn’t often that I asked a question and received a straight answer. I couldn’t decide whether I found it refreshing or arrogant.
“So you knew about Charlotte, and you still continued to see him?”
She smiled at me with a look of entitlement on her face.
“That’s right.”
“Was your relationship with him an intimate one?”
“Is there any other kind?”
“If he married Charlotte, do you think he would have continued to see you?”
She reclined back in her chair and took a sip of a drink that sat on a table next to her.
“Care for some iced tea?”
Maddie shook her head. Zoey looked over at Maddie and then back to me.
“Does she ever talk?” she said.
“Not if she can help it,” I said. “Can we get back to my question?”
“Parker takes care of me. He pays for this house and gives me money for anything I need. We have an arrangement.”
I imagined Parker had found the perfect woman in Zoey. No complaints, no restraints, no rules of any kind.
“By arrangement you mean he’s involved with other women and you don’t mind?” I said.
“Should I?” she said. “I get what I want, and he gets what he wants.”
“Do you see other men too?” I said.
“I don’t see why you need to know that.”
I didn’t, but I couldn’t help myself.
Zoey pulled her legs up and sat Indian style in her chair.
“Parker is my soul mate. It doesn’t matter what I do or what he does. We’re bound to each other. I get him. I understand him. I’m sure he cared for Charlotte, but whether or not he loved her, I doubt it. She saw what she wanted in him. Maybe because he showed her what he wanted her to see, a side of himself but not the whole person. With me he had the freedom to be who he wanted.”
“And his other women?” I said. “Do those same rules apply to them?”
“Don’t you feel in today’s society everyone follows a bunch of useless rules? One man and one woman. It’s stuffy and restricted and so blah. Why restrain yourself when you can live a life of complete openness with the freedom to do whatever pleases you.”