Page 108 of Call Back

Chapter 22

I doubtI would have been more excited if I’d just gotten the role of Glinda in Wicked on Broadway. “Are you kidding?”

“You don’t have to come . . .”

“Oh, I’m coming.” Realizing I sounded too eager, I said, “If for no other reason than to be your designated driver. You’re sauced.”

She laughed. “I had to get drunk to get up the nerve to suggest it to you.”

“You really thought I’d say no?”

“I knew you’d say yes.”

I chuckled even though my stomach was flipping in anticipation. I planned to look for a whole lot more than a couple of files. “If we’re snooping, there’s another place I want to search afterward.”

“Where?”

Crap. I’d promised Momma I wouldn’t tell anyone about it, but she hadn’t said anything about not bringing anyone there. “It’s a surprise. We can go there after we finish up in Nashville.” When I saw her hesitation, I said, “Trust me. This will be worth it.”

In fact, every time I thought about that basement, I got more and more ticked that I hadn’t pulled myself together enough to do a proper search. There could be real evidence in that filing cabinet, not to mention . . .

No, I didn’t want my thoughts to go there just yet.

Belinda got up and insisted on helping me clean, but when she said she needed to change clothes, I sent her upstairs. After I started the dishwasher and wiped down the table and counters, I left the kitchen for the living room. While I was curious about Roy’s home, I was more interested in anything personal belonging to Belinda.

Bookcases flanked the fireplace. Most of the shelves were filled with books, and the few tasteful knickknacks on display looked generic. But one caught my eye, a tiny blue bird. I picked it up and instantly regretted it when I realized how delicate it was. It was obviously old, and there were cracks in the paint underneath the shiny surface.

Belinda came down the stairs wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

“This is yours,” I said, holding up the bird. “I know it’s not Roy’s.”

“It was my grandmother’s,” she said, looking nervous. “She used to call me her little blue bird because she said I sang like a songbird. I got it when she died.”

I realized I was making her anxious, so I set the bird back down on the shelf. “You never talk about your family.”

“The past is in the past.”

I realized I knew very little about her past. All I knew was that she’d come to Nashville five or six years ago after growing up in Mississippi, she was an only child, and both of her parents were dead. She didn’t much like to talk about her loss, and whenever the topic came up, she’d quickly brush it aside, telling me she was stronger than her past.

I wished I were stronger than mine.

I moved in front of her. “I used to think so too, but now I know better. If we don’t acknowledge the bad things in our past, they become festering wounds, Belinda. Mine have come back tenfold, and I’m dealing with them now.”

“Your father?”

“And other things.”

Tears welled in her eyes again. “I’m still too drunk to have this conversation,” she said as she walked past me and picked up her purse off the breakfast table. She handed me the car keys. “Let’s go. You’ll have to drive.”

“I’d already figured that out.”

I intended to ask her more about her family on the drive up to Nashville, but all the wine and the motion of the car put her to sleep. I parked in the garage Daddy had always used when I was a kid and turned off the engine.

Belinda was still asleep in the passenger seat, and I briefly considered going up to the office without her. There was probably a key on her key fob, and I was worried she’d still be too drunk, but I needed her. If someone saw me snooping around, they were likely to call the police. But if Belinda was with me, we could say she was getting something from Roy’s office.

“Belinda,” I said as I gently shook her arm. “We’re here.”

“The Duncans are okay with the gardenias instead of peonies . . .” she mumbled with her eyes closed.

---