They were laughing as they entered the sunroom, but inside Keiley could feel the worry beginning to build. She didn’t believe in coincidence. Coincidence didn’t account for the rumor that Mac and his friend were now sharing her bed. Somehow, someone knew something.
Perhaps one of the farmhands? Keiley wondered. Had someone overheard something?
They couldn’t have. The farmhands lived off the farm, they came in the morning and left in the evening. They couldn’t have seen or overheard anything.
But what else?
She was aware of the interested looks she received through the meeting as well as a general air of speculation. She hated it. But even as she hated it, feared it, it began to piss her off. She wasn’t a child anymore. And by God, these people had no control over her life now.
Jethro had been at the house one night. One damned night. They had no right to begin gossiping so soon. To want to see her ostracized so easily.
These women whom she had laughed with for the past three years, whom she had helped at various times. She had babysat for several of them. She had helped out in Lissa Ryker’s store when she had been sick last year. She had helped Beulah Paddington the month before in her florist shop. At one time or the other, Keiley had lent a hand to each of these women, and yet they were whispering about her.
Max was one of the few whom Keiley doubted was joining in the gossipfest. Max generally waved gossip to the side and treated it like an amusing little joke.
By the time the meeting came to an end and Keiley had received her receipt for the booth she had rented in the charity’s name, she was more than ready to head home. Paranoia was beginning to get the best of her. She was feeling so paranoid that as she headed for the doors she came to an abrupt stop, certain she had heard something she couldn’t have heard.
Ménages. The insidiously muttered word had her freezing before she whirled around, searching the small group of women behind her.
They appeared innocent, chatting among themselves, though she couldn’t hear what they were saying.
Shaking her head, Keiley moved quickly from the house and to her car, certain that her own imagination at this point was making her hear things that hadn’t been said.
Grimacing at her own overactive imagination, she strode quickly to her car, unlocked the door, and moved into the stifling interior before turning the key and lowering the windows.
As she drove from the Staten mansion, she was pensive. The ringing of the cell phone at her side dragged her out of her thoughts as she flipped it open and brought it to her ear.
“Hello?”
“Kei, let’s take lunch in town.” Max’s cheerful voice came over the connection. “Joey’s mother has the kids and I can bum around all day if I want to.”
Keiley grinned. “I’m game. Where do you want to meet?”
“I’m sick of the Goody Two-shoes,” Max snorted. “Let’s hit Casey’s outside of town. We can enjoy a beer in peace rather than having to pretend enjoy that sucky wine we’ll have to stick to in town.”
“Your roots are showing, Max,” Keiley teased her. “Better be careful or Delia will learn your daddy worked the dockyards before he came to Scotland Neck with all that money.”
“I could only get so lucky,” Max retorted dryly. “Just think of all the bullshit I could get out of that way. Old Victoria Staten wouldn’t harass my husband whenever I didn’t sign up for her little pet orgs anymore.”
The charity “orgs,” or organizations. Keiley laughed in genuine amusement.
“I’ll meet you there,” she promised her. “If you get there first, order my beer. I’m going to need it.”
“No kidding,” Max agreed with her. “The place was like a school of sharks moving in for the kill. Maybe I need two beers. I’ll see you in a few.”
“In a few.” Keiley hung up, frowning at the edge in Max’s voice. Just what the hell had gotten into those damned women on the charity committee? At this rate, she wouldn’t have to worry about working a booth at the festival because she would be blacklisted before she bought the supplies.
She sighed wearily. Maybe the planets or something were just out of phase. What else could explain it?
8
“Okay, what do you have?” Mac sat down at his desk and powered up his laptop as Jethro opened his own at the side of the desk.
“Dell hasn’t been able to track down anything on our playboy,” Jethro said. “That boy just doesn’t have what it takes to investigate sex crimes. He doesn’t have a clue.”
“Neither did I,” Mac grunted.
“Only because you left too soon,” Jethro grunted as Mac opened the P2P port between the two computers to access the information Jethro had brought with him.