home, but in the end, it didn’t matter. The registration didn’t answer any of my questions, because the car was registered to Tom. It might have been Beth’s vehicle, as Taylor had said, or my stepdaughter might have been needling me. It was impossible to tell. The only way I’d know would be to ask Tom.
I shoved the registration back into the glove compartment and slammed it shut. “Okay, girls,” I said briskly. “Let’s do this!”
For a weekday afternoon, the store was busy. Lots of harried housewives and elderly people pushing their shopping carts up and down the aisles. Zippy muzak, designed to move shoppers along at the optimum pace for picking and choosing, blared out of overhead speakers. I checked Jeannette’s list. It was extensive, but not detailed. Standing in front of the milk case, I pondered all the choices, wondering what brand my mother-in-law usually bought. Did I dare to ask Taylor? If I did ask, could I trust her answer? Would she tell me the truth, or try to sabotage my already shaky relationship with Tom’s mother by pointing me in the wrong direction?
I wouldn’t put it past her. The kid was sly, and I’d once walked in her shoes. I could remember a time or two when I’d done just about anything I could to get rid of my father’s latest girlfriend. I hadn’t cared how obnoxious I was, hadn’t cared how childish some of my stunts were or how much trouble I might get into afterward. All that mattered was the end result: one more irritating woman out of our lives. One more opportunity for our nuclear family—that would be Dave and me—to remain intact. I’d been a real piece of work. And Taylor was so much like me it was scary.
From her perch high in the cart, Sadie kicked her legs and said, “Can I have orange juice?”
Orange juice hadn’t been on Jeannette’s list. I weighed the relative merits of garnering brownie points with Sadie against the pain of being reprimanded by my mother-in-law for the second time today, and decided to make the ultimate sacrifice. After all, I’m one tough chica. Just ask my friend Carmen. She’s told me that so often, I’ve started to believe her. I knew I could stand up to Jeannette Larkin and whatever she dished out. This was a simple matter of survival. “You tell me what kind of milk Grandma buys,” I told Sadie, “and I’ll let you have orange juice.”
Without hesitation, she pointed. “That one.”
My bribery skills were being honed to a fine edge. I opened the cooler door and took out the milk, grabbed two miniature bottles of OJ, and consulted my list. Next item: cat food. As descriptions go, it was beyond vague. There were eight trillion brands of cat food on the shelves, enough to take up one entire side of the pet food aisle. Was I supposed to guess? Did she want dry food or canned? Enough for one cat, or several? Were we talking kitten chow, or something specially designed for geriatric felines? I was clueless, especially considering that in the twenty-four hours since I arrived at Casa Larkin, I hadn’t seen any evidence that a cat actually lived there.
I was about to ask Sadie for clarification when I looked around and realized Taylor was nowhere to be seen. “Sadie?” I said, mildly alarmed. “Where’s your sister?”
She shrugged with childlike unconcern. “I don’t know.”
Great. This was all I needed. Tom’s mother already hated me. I couldn’t wait to hear what she’d say if I lost her grandchild.
With my heart thudding and visions of an Amber Alert dancing through my brain, I wheeled the cart around the corner of the next aisle. There, at the far end, was my missing stepdaughter, deep in conversation with some blonde who looked more like Julia Roberts than Julia Roberts.
I mentally cancelled the Amber Alert. Taylor and I were going to sit down later this afternoon and have a long talk about sticking together in public places. Pedophiles and serial killers lurked around every corner, even in small towns like this one. “Who’s that lady your sister’s talking to?” I asked Sadie.
Her head swiveled around. “Auntie Mel!” she shrieked so loudly they probably heard her in the next county. I struggled to regain my hearing, relieved to know that Taylor hadn’t been about to waltz out of the store hand in hand with some fabulous-looking stranger. Before I could stop her, Sadie had scrambled out of the cart and down to the floor. I stood glued to the spot as she ran the length of the aisle and wrapped herself ecstatically around the woman’s legs.
“Hey, yourself,” almost-Julia said, sticking a roll of price tags into the pocket of her teal-colored smock with the red-and-white Shop City logo stitched just above the breast. She gave me a long, assessing glance, then turned her attention back to Sadie and said, “How are you, baby doll?”
“I’m wonderful! When are you coming to visit?”
“I don’t know, hon. I’m pretty busy. But I’ll call your Gram one of these days soon and we’ll make plans.”
I maneuvered my cart to a stop. “Hi,” I said. “I’m Julie Larkin.”
The look she gave me was glacial. Crouching down, she hugged both girls and said, “Why don’t you girls run over to the bakery and see what Yvette has for you? I’m pretty sure she just baked a new batch of chocolate-chip cookies. Tell her I sent you.”
The girls hugged her and disappeared, their homing instinct infallible when it came to cookies. I propped a foot on the undercarriage of my shopping cart and said, “Tom doesn’t allow the girls to eat sugar.”
Almost-Julia stood up to her full five-foot-zero. “Yes,” she said, her expression challenging me to do something about it. “I know.”
Ah. A fellow subversive. We had something in common. “And who are you?” I asked, since she’d failed to provide me with a name, rank, or serial number.
“Melanie Ambrose. My sister used to be married to your husband. Before he killed her.”
“Come again?”
“You heard me. Tom Larkin murdered my sister.”
She was obviously deranged. While I gaped at her, an elderly man who smelled of sweat and pipe tobacco took an inordinate amount of time picking out a box of breakfast cereal. When he’d finally moved on, I said, “I don’t understand what you mean. Beth died in an accident.”
Melanie cocked her head to one side and looked at me with a sad, knowing smile. “Really? So that’s what he told you?”
“Well, I, uh—” I struggled to remember whether he’d used those exact words or whether I’d simply inferred them. For the first time, I wasn’t sure. “I think.”
“That lying sack of shit. Beth didn’t die in any accident. That’s just his guilt talking. He doesn’t have the cojones to speak the truth.”
My fingers tightened on the handle of the shopping cart. “Oh? And just what is the truth?”
“You want to know the truth? I’ll tell you.” Her pretty face twisted into a skeletal grimace of a smile. “Congratulations on your marriage. I hope you survive it.”
Four
I slid the meat loaf into the oven and set the timer. The girls, still on a sugar high, were in the living room watching SpongeBob SquarePants. I turned on the burner under the potatoes, opened the bakery box, and took out a jelly doughnut. If I kept this up, pretty soon the box would be empty. Nibbling, I mentally wandered back to what Melanie Ambrose had told me. Two years ago, on a lovely moonlit summer night,
