"So Jolene's behind it, huh? I don't buy for a New York minute that she had Sheila's best interests at heart." In fact, little pieces of the puzzle were all starting to come together in my head.
"Maggie! I can't believe you would think such a thing as that!" Vernell said, but his words were wasted. The cell phone began to chirp and we both grabbed for it.
Vernell snatched it out of my hands. "Give me that! What if it's Jolene?"
"What do you care, Vernell?" I said sarcastically. "She's just a big mistake!" Vernell put the receiver to his ear and leaned away from me, causing the truck to lurch across two lanes of highway.
"Vernell!" I hissed. "Pay attention!"
"Hello, sugar," he cooed into the receiver. "Hey, who is this?" he said, his voice shifting angrily. "Oh!" Vernell was all cooperation now that he knew it was the cops. "Yes, Officer, she's right here. I'll put her on. You have a good evening, now, y'hear?"
Vernell glared over at me as he shoved the phone into my hand and whispered, "Why didn't you tell me you gave a cop my number?"
"And when could I have gotten a word in edgewise?" I hissed back.
"Hello?"
"Maggie Reid?" I didn't recognize the voice and my heart lurched. Where was Weathers?
"Yes," I answered.
"Maggie, it's Bobby, Marshall Weathers's partner."
"Oh, hey, Bobby." His voice was tinny and faraway sounding.
"Listen, Marshall got your message and your page, but he's out of town. He asked me to call and see what you needed."
Well, I wasn't going to tell him. It was one thing to ask Marshall Weathers for a favor; but it was another thing again to ask an almost total stranger.
"When's he coming back, Bobby?"
"Well, I don't know for sure." Bobby's voice had taken on a formal, "I can't talk about police business" tone that I knew all too well from Weathers.
"Well," I hedged, "it can wait awhile, Bobby. I didn't mean to trouble him."
"Well, Maggie, you punched nine-one-one in after your number…"
I decided to play dumb. "I'm sorry, Bobby. My daughter ran off to Holden Beach with her boyfriend, and I panicked. But I know where she is now and I've got it all under control. I'm on my way there with her daddy. We've got it covered."
Bobby was not at all sure, but he had no choice. "I'll be calling him back," he said. "Do you want me to give him a message?"
"No," I said. "It can wait. Good night."
I hung up the phone without waiting for him to end the call. I didn't want any more questions. He'd already given me the one piece of information I needed: Marshall Weathers was not available. Taking care of my daughter would be entirely up tome.
I stared at down at my lap, my eyes slowly focusing on Jimmy's will. Sheila and I stood to inherit a large amount of money. Of course, we couldn't inherit if we were dead; Vernell would cash in then. I looked over at him; his roughened hands gripped the wheel, and he bit into his lower lip like a kindergartener. Vernell was not a murderer. He was foolish and bad to drink, but he wasn't a killer.
"Vernell?" I asked softly. "Think back a second. Jolene sure didn't seem too upset when I got that threatening phone call about Sheila. Remember that night? Jolene doesn't care about Sheila." And she doesn't care about you, and she pure-T hates me. "How sure are you that Jolene's with her mother?"
"Well, God, Maggie, where else would she be?" He looked across at me and saw the frightened look on my face. "Maggie, you don't think…"
Vernell's face crumpled for a brief moment, then hardened.
"Vernell," I said, my voice shaking, "hit the gas. I think Sheila's in a world of trouble."
Chapter Thirty-One
Vernell took the bridge over to Holden Beach doing eighty-five miles an hour. It was life-threatening and I attempted to tell him so, but Vernell was in full panic mode. When he nearly lost it on a curve near the top of the span, he got in touch with our mortality.
"Now, will you slow the hell down?" I yelled. "We've got hard thinking to do here."
Vernell scowled. "That's your problem," he said. "Ever' last one of you women's gotta think. Act!" he said. "Actions speak louder than words, remember? I'm gonna grab that young sport up by his dog collar and shake his ass loose of my daughter. Then I'm gonna haul her butt into this truck and drive my baby on home. That's when I'll think!"
"Pull over," I said, as we neared the bottom of the bridge. "Just pull over right now, Vernell." I reached for the ignition, like I was going to snatch the keys out, so he'd know I was serious.
"All right, all right!" Vernell whipped into a realty company parking lot, slammed on the brakes, and turned to face me. "I hope you know you're wasting precious time," he said.
"Vernell, has it not occurred to you that Keith and Sheila may not be alone?" Vernell frowned, but I continued. "Have you thought that Jolene might be down here, too?"
"How would she know to come here?" he said. "And why would she?"
The man was dumber than dirt sometimes. "Because, Vernell, she has just as much of a reason to stop this wedding as you and I do. She wants all that money to stay in your family. And she could've found out where they were headed the same way you and I did. So let's be on the safe side. Let's scout the situation out before we go bursting in." Vernell was working hard to listen.
I reached over and took one of his weathered hands in mine. "Vernell," I said, "I want you to listen to me. I'm gonna say something that we both know is a home truth, but it's gonna break your heart." Vernell looked at me, his eyes pooled-up brown spots of pain. He knew. "You were right a while back when you said Jolene don't love you and Sheila. She's in this for the money, just like Jimmy tried to tell you. I think Jolene killed Jimmy and I think she killed Jerry Lee. I think she could be aiming to kill Sheila and you, and maybe even me."
Vernell's head dropped to his chest and a sound escaped his lips, half-sigh, half-moan. Then he lifted his head and looked straight into my face. "Oh, God, I think you're right," he whispered. "Let's go get our little girl."
I squeezed his hand, leaned over, and rested my head on his shoulder for a brief moment. "Okay. But let's be smart about this. If she's down here, she could already be at the beach house. She's killed twice, Vernell. We don't want her to panic."
"What are you thinking?" he asked.
"I'm thinking we park the Day-Glo Jesus, walk along the beach until we're level with the house, and scout it out."
Vernell nodded. "Yeah, that's good. But if she ain't there, I'm goin' in and kickin' that young skinhead's hairy behind!"
"Vernell! All right! But first, we do it my way."
It was kind of strange, walking along the Spivey beach with my ex-husband. It was still early morning and the sun was just beginning to edge its way over the horizon. Vernell and I were moving fast, his thick black work boots kicking up sand as we made our way closer and closer to the Spivey house.
Vernell and I had covered this beach every summer of our youth, hand in hand, laughing and cutting up. Then we'd lost it, and times had turned hard. We weren't talking about the future anymore, or looking at the past, we were here to save our daughter.
Vernell was the first to spot the car. He stopped in his tracks, holding me back with one muscled arm as he pointed up the beach. Jolene's white Cadillac was parked underneath the house, next to Keith's shiny red truck. As we stood staring, the sliding glass door leading to the deck slid open and a man walked out onto the deck. It wasn't Keith the skinhead.
"Who's that?" asked Vernell.
I reached up and spun Vernell toward me, away from the beach house, using his body to shield my own.
"It's Don Evans, and I don't want him to recognize us."
When I saw Don Evans, the last pieces suddenly flew into place. What was it Bertie Sexton had said? A high-dollar, married girlfriend with a white Cadillac… comes running whenever she calls.