Page 5 of Trailer Trash

She moved closer. As she picked up the envelopes, she noticed the flowers scattered across my desk. Picking one up, she turned it over to examine it. “Azaleas? At the end of June?” Her gaze lifted to me. “Where did these come from?”

“A customer,” I lied. “A man came in and said he wanted some of those planted in his yard.”

“Where’d he get them? All the azaleas died out by the end of May.”

“Beats me.” I shrugged.

“That’s so strange . . . Did you set up a consult?”

“No. Turned out he wanted to buy the plants and do it himself. I told him to head over to the nursery.”

Rose lifted it up and breathed in. “This is a deciduous azalea. Their scent is stronger.” She set it back on my desk. “No wonder you kept them. They smell wonderful.”

I would have loved nothing more than to burn them to a crisp. But right now, I had a ton of questions that I couldn’t hope to answer myself, and if Rose was here, she could cover for me. “Do you plan to be here long?”

Her eyebrows lifted. “About forty-five minutes.”

“I need to run a quick errand. Can you cover?”

“Yeah . . . of course . . . How’d your car do coming in?”

“It sputtered along.” But we both knew it was on life support. I’d be better served to put the money toward a new one instead of fixing this one piecemeal. While Rose and I usually rode together, now that we were deep into summer, she was busy with consults while her business partner, Bruce Wayne, kept having to hire additional crew to keep up with the demand. She couldn’t worry about carting me around.

“Do you want me to drive you?” she asked. “We’ve been so busy this last week we haven’t had a chance for a good chat.”

I couldn’t help wondering if part of her wanted to come see what I was up to. I’d been anxious lately, kicking Rose’s mothering instinct into high gear, but she respected my privacy too much to outright ask.

Lord knew we both had secrets, some more obvious than others. I considered lying about where I was going, but I was tired of lying to her. Besides, if I really had to leave Henryetta for good—and I was beginning to think it might come to that—I wanted her to remember the good things about me, not a pack of lies.

“You stay here,” I said with a wave that suggested her offer was ridiculous. “There’s no sense in you wasting valuable work time to pick up some toilet paper at Walmart. Let’s plan aGrey’s Anatomymarathon this weekend.”

It wasn’t a lie if I actually did it. Or so I told myself.

She frowned as she studied me, worry filling her eyes. She would never push too hard, but I knew she would be there for me if I changed my mind and asked for help. This was what unconditional love looked like, although it had taken me a while to figure it out. Still . . . everyone had limits. A line they would refuse to cross.

What was Rose’s line?

I needed to get out from under her worried gaze. I grabbed my purse and hopped out of my seat, heading for the door. “I should be back in a half hour.”

“Neely Kate.”

I spun around to face her.

She paused and lowered her voice. “Have you gotten any more letters from Kate?”

Had she linked the azaleas to Kate?No.She was just worried. She’d probably been stewing about the letters and my refusal to tell Joe about them. “Nope. She must have realized she was barking up the wrong tree.”

“Huh.” I could see she had serious doubts. Especially since I hadn’t seemed quite like myself lately.

I’d regretted mentioning Kate’s letters to her as soon as the words had spilled out of me a couple of weeks ago. But I sure wasn’t telling her anything now.

If she found out what I’d done . . .

She wouldn’t find out. I’d make damn sure of it.

That’s why I was about to swallow my pride and pay a visit to Skeeter Malcolm, the king of the Fenton County crime world. Even if I was currently on his shit list.

Chapter 3

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