Page 50 of Call Back

“Let’s make a deal. You quit lyin’ to me, and I’ll start tellin’ you what I know.”

I was sure I must have heard her wrong, but she stared at me with a look of determination. “Okay.”

She dug her cell phone out of her pocket and started typing.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Telling Tilly we’re gonna be late. Let’s go.” She started walking toward the catering office.

“Where are you going?”

“We can’t talk about it out here on the street, now can we?”

“No, I guess not . . .” I said as she took off without me.

She crossed to the parking lot and headed toward her car.

“Where are we going?” I asked as she unlocked her door.

“Somewhere private to talk.”

I suspected she meant her house, but when we were both seated and situated, she surprised me by pulling out in the opposite direction.

“Where are we actually going?”

“So impatient,” she said, but it lacked her usual bite. “You’ll find out when we get there.”

She headed south before turning west, out to the countryside to Leiper’s Fork. She turned again, this time down a country road, and then again, onto a private drive. I was sure she’d lost her mind, but I didn’t dare question her. Had her illness affected her mind?

Finally, she stopped on the side of the road, in front of what looked like a small century-old house that had obviously been restored but was looking a little run-down. She turned off the engine and shifted in her seat to study it. “This is where it all began.”

“Where what began?”

“The end.”

I shook my head, even more concerned about her. “What does that mean?”

She sat back in her seat and closed her eyes. “This is where your daddy met Bill James.”

“Bill James lived in this little house?” I asked in disbelief.

A grin cracked her face—and I had to admit, Bill James was about the last person I could imagine living in a homey place like this. “No. Your father and I used to live in this small house.”

“What? I thought you’d always lived in our house.”

“Sure, after we got married.” She gave me a wicked grin. “But we lived in sin first, and this is where we lived.”

The house didn’t look like much. It was pretty tiny on the outside, and the landscape was overgrown. “How did Daddy meet him?”

“Believe it or not, it was at a barbeque we hosted. We invited a lot of friends, and Bill was a friend of a friend. They both worked for financial planning firms, and they became instant friends. Bill convinced your father to leave his firm and start a firm with him.”

“I had no idea. But why are you showing this to me instead of just telling me?”

She reached for the door handle and got out of the car.

I got out too and walked to the front of the car to meet her. “Momma, what are you doing?” I found myself whispering even though no one else was around. “Somebody owns this place.”

“Yeah,” she said in disgust. “Bill James.”

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