Saltwater Secrets - Amelia Addler Page 0,45

The silence hung between them for a moment before Laura broke it.

“I’m so thankful that Matthew got there when he did.”

“Oh,” Jade touched her hand to her chest. “Me too. I mean – I’m not exaggerating when I say he saved my life.”

“He’s amazing,” Laura said with a smile. “You know, I’m really glad that I decided to give us another chance. After the whole, you know, incident.”

“Oh definitely.” Jade nodded, trying to figure out what she was talking about.

Laura tilted her head, smile frozen on her face. “Did he tell you about that?”

Jade took a big sip of her soda. “Oh I’m sorry, what?”

“The cheating.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m uh – ”

Laura’s smile brightened. “It was nothing, really. How could I ever fault him? He’s a dream.”

Jade nodded. She felt like she had a stupid smile stuck on her face but didn’t know what else to do. “You guys make a great couple.”

“Thank you! You’re too sweet. Well,” she said with a sigh, “I think he owes me a dance. Have a great rest of your night!”

“You too!”

Jade needed to sit down. She had no idea what had just happened; all of a sudden she felt sweaty and too hot.

“Whoa, are you okay?” asked Tiffany, returning with two glasses of champagne. “I was trying to find Sidney to harass him a little but the man is nowhere to be found. Anyways, I got you a drink.”

“What’s the point?” Jade said, crossing her arms. “We don’t have a chance. This party is amazing. They have a ton of money and support and they’re going to beat us. Unless someone kills me first, then I’ll be dead and they’ll beat us.”

“Oh come on,” Tiffany said gently. “You don’t believe that.”

“I just…I think I want to go home.”

“Okay! You don’t have to tell me twice. This champagne isn’t even good anyway.”

Jade turned and pushed her way to the door. She couldn’t spend another moment in there.

Chapter 17

Finally, Margie had her chance.

She’d spent weeks waiting for this. It was unfortunate, then, that it happened to be on a Tuesday when Hank asked if she’d like to get lunch. It was rare that he’d have time during work to do that, so she usually jumped at the opportunity. But now she had to make up an excuse as to why she couldn’t.

“I’m sorry honey, I actually have some clients coming to see the barn. They’re planning…an anniversary party.”

“Oh? Anyone that I know?”

“Nope, I don’t think so. They live in Burlington.”

“And they’re making the trip out here today just to see the barn?”

Margie swallowed. “Yep!”

He stared at her for a moment. “Huh, weird. Alright, good luck with that. I’ll see you tonight?”

“Of course!”

She hated fudging the truth, but she had no choice. It wasn’t a complete lie – there was someone coming to see the barn for an anniversary at some point that week. She needed to keep her real plans private…for now.

Hank was the Chief Deputy Sheriff, after all. If he knew what she was up to, he’d be obligated to stop her. Or worse – if she got caught, and it came out that he knew what she was doing…well, that would just be too terrible. It could ruin his career. It would ruin his credibility.

Margie just had to make sure that she wasn’t caught.

When all of this craziness started, Margie had to make excuses to go over to Jade’s house to check on her. After Jade’s car was broken into, Margie liked to stop by any chance she had; she just needed to make sure that Jade was okay. But then Morgan and Hank started teasing her, so she had to be more sneaky about it. Whenever she ran an errand, she’d stop on the way there or on the way home.

Nothing crazy – she might drive past Jade’s house once or twice a day to make sure that nothing unusual was going on. Sometimes she’d pop in to say hello, and sometimes she’d just sit outside for a bit. And after the house was broken into, sure, maybe some of her errands were unnecessary, but who cared? Hank only asked her once why it took her an hour to get milk, and when she told him she’d “swung by” Jade’s, he stopped asking questions.

She knew that it sounded crazy, but she had a terrible feeling about it all. From the very beginning, Margie was terrified that something bad was going to happen to Jade.

But Jade refused to even talk about