cost to get my sofa covered in fabric like this, and then I wondered how hard it would be to keep clean of cat and dog hair. I sighed sadly.
My bosses and the probie took the sofa that had been pointed out to them, which left them facing the windows, squinting in the brightness. Ms. Goode was holding her mouth a little tighter than she had at the door, likely because her client had just revealed crucial info and the lawyer realized she was flying half-blind. The special agents introduced themselves, all fancy-sounding titles, which did not seem to impress the lawyer at all.
When it came my turn, I said, “I really like this fabric.”
The lawyer closed her eyes, either trying to keep from cussing me out, or praying for patience. I was betting on the cussing option. Rick LaFleur raised his brows, fighting a smile, Racer shook her head, and FireWind’s eyes twinkled. “Special Agent Ingram, you have questions for Mrs. Merriweather?” he asked.
“A couple,” I said. I wasn’t a cat like Occam, but I had learned a lot about ambush hunting in Spook School and from my cat-man. I crossed my legs and my arms, elbows on my thighs, making myself look small, like a wereleopard on a limb. I leaned forward, staring at Merriweather. She was dressed in a bright shade of pink, almost matching the color of the rug. Her shoes were aqua, with pink bows on them. She’d never be able to walk very far or, say, work in her garden in the shoes, but they were pretty. “Can you tell us why you left the poly marriage with Connelly Darrow, Thomas Langer, Erica Lynn Quinton, Cale Nowell, Donald Murray Hampstead, and Stella Mae Ragel? You seemed happy in the photographs at the wedding ceremony. And now most of the poly marriage members are dead.”
Merriweather closed her eyes and dropped her head.
Goode went dead quiet for a half beat too long. More gently than I might have expected, she said, “Cadence, does Luther . . . ?” She stopped and began again. “We can postpone this. I think we need to talk more thoroughly, just you and me, before you talk to the special agents.”
“Why?” the CEO’s wife asked. “They know. All these years, all the money to get away from it all, and it’s out again. It’s come back to haunt me.” Eyes still closed, she leaned back against the sofa. Racine/Cadence looked as if she might cry, and I should have felt guilty, but I didn’t, because there was something about her demeanor that was off somehow, and also familiar. Almost as if . . . as if she was manipulating, like a churchwoman who kept secrets and engineered situations and controlled people from the background, a back-stage conductor or puppeteer, pulling strings. I couldn’t exactly put my finger on why I thought that, but it was there all the same.
“I was born Elizabeth Racine Alcock,” she said. She sat up and her eyes found mine before dropping to her hands, folded in her lap. There was a huge, multidiamond set of rings on the left one and they glittered with white fire. As if the rings gave her strength, her tone altered, going from quiet to pedantic and unemotional in a single heartbeat. “I killed my high school assistant principal for attacking me. I was fourteen. No one wanted to believe he was a pedophile, even after more girls came forward. They blamed me and . . .” She took a breath as if it hurt to speak. “They sent me away. I served my time.” Her tone said she had gone through hell doing that, but her words had hardened and she raised her eyes, looking from one to the other of us, staring us down.
“They sealed my records when I got out. I was eighteen and fresh out of juvie, back home and trying to find myself after all that had happened. A county councilman decided I was used goods and acceptable prey.” She took an unsteady breath. “He accosted me in a parking lot. I knew I had to leave. I’d never be safe in Florida. So I stole Mama’s cigarette and liquor money and got on a bus. I rode the bus until my money ran out in Tennessee. At a local diner, I ran into Stella and her friends. They bought me a burger. They took me in, no questions asked.”