One Foot in the Grave - Denise Grover Swank Page 0,95
other things to worry about…like a group of cranky men and two barely trained waitresses.
The men got seated, and we started taking orders—Molly keeping up with the rush, and Ginger picking up the rhythm of it quickly enough for me to set her loose after only a few orders. Marco helped out by bussing tables and refilling drinks.
When we were at the height of the lunch rush, Max motioned me over, holding up the phone.
Crap. Talk about bad timing.
Molly noticed as I made my way to Max’s office, and she said, “Are you seriously takin’ a phone call now?”
“Yes. I am.” I understood why she would question the timing, but I’d been around months longer than her and had often worked the lunch shift alone. I sure as hell didn’t need her policing me.
Once I was in Max’s office, I shut the door behind me and picked up the phone, pushing the blinking button for line one. “This is Carly.”
“Is everything okay?” Wyatt asked. “Lula said you needed to talk to me right away.”
“I didn’t say right away,” I said, taking a seat in Max’s chair, “but yeah, I have to ask you some questions and I need some straight answers.”
“What do you want to know?” He sounded guarded, not that I was surprised, but I didn’t have time to beat around the bush, and neither did he.
“Tell me about Heather’s other boyfriends.”
He was quiet for several seconds. “Based on your tone and your appointment this morning, you’ve already figured out there were several.”
“Several? I only know about two, and only one by name. Fill me in.”
“I’m sure you know she had a fling with Bingham. She was up-front about that after we got back together.”
“I know about Bingham, and I know she had a boyfriend before she was murdered, but I don’t know much about him other than that he was from Ewing and she met him at the salon where she worked.”
“Well, you know more than me,” he said in a dry tone.
“What do you know?”
“That she was seeing him after I was arrested.”
“From what I learned, it might have started before that.”
He didn’t respond.
“You said you knew about him. What can you tell me?”
“Like you said, I’m pretty sure she met him at work. I figured he was a client at the salon.”
“Do you have a name?”
“No.”
I tried to rein in my frustration. “Look, Wyatt, if you want me to do this, you have to be more forthcoming. I shouldn’t have to drag every damn answer out of you.”
“I knew she was unhappy,” he snapped, but then his tone softened. “She wanted me to propose at Christmas, but I wasn’t sure I loved her. I just couldn’t seem to pull the trigger. I think deep down I knew she was wrong for me.”
“So you didn’t follow through, and she found a boyfriend on the side?”
“I didn’t know the timing overlapped, but I’m not surprised.”
“What do you remember about the night you were arrested?”
“Really? We’ve already covered this, Carly.”
“No. Not completely. You said your father had you followed and arrested to drag you back into the fold. Did he tell you that?”
“No, but we weren’t exactly speakin’ at that point. I knew the sheriff got an anonymous tip. It stands to reason it was Dad.”
“What if it was someone else?”
“Who else would do it?” he asked, sounding unconvinced.
“Heather’s boyfriend. What if he had you arrested so Heather could coerce your parents into paying her not to testify against you?”
Silence hung over the line for a moment. Then he asked, “Do you have any proof of that? Because my parents did pay her off to leave, but I’m pretty sure they offered, not the other way around.”
“But only five thousand dollars. That’s not much in the scheme of things. You know she was banking on so much more.”
He didn’t respond.
“I need to know what happened at her going-away party.” I steeled my back, preparing to put up an argument if he tried shooting me down. “Were you invited?”
“No,” he scoffed.
“What made you decide to go?”
He was silent for several seconds. “I heard she was pregnant.”
My stomach dropped. I hadn’t been prepared for that.
“I went to confront her,” he said. “To make sure it was mine.”
“What did she say?”
“She laughed at me. Told me she’d lied about takin’ the pill for the last six months of our relationship, tryin’ to get pregnant so I’d have to marry her, but it didn’t happen because I had bad sperm.”