Page 88 of Call Back

“No, I understand. It’s like the Grim Reaper is following you around. If you had no outlet to ease the stress, you’d go mad.”

“Yeah,” I said, shuddering at the thought of a guy with a hood and a sickle following me around. A hooded serial killer with a hunting knife was enough.

“Magnolia?” Belinda asked, and I realized I’d missed something she’d said.

“I’m sorry. I think I had a bad connection there for a moment.”

“I said I hope you can get out of your plans tonight.” The desperation in her voice caught my breath.

“I’ll talk to Brady . . .” I said, feeling anxious at the thought of canceling, but truth be told, I wasn’t eager to go back to that house, and for some reason, I was unnerved at the thought of going back with Brady. “Belinda, I have to go, or Ava’s gonna kill me. I’ll text you when I find out if I can come by tonight. But be careful, okay?” I pleaded. “There’s obviously some homicidal maniac out there.”

“You too,” she said quietly. “Promise me you won’t take any chances today.”

Something had her spooked, and I suspected it had more to do with Roy than the killer. All the more reason to try to see her. “I promise,” I said as I started to open Ava’s back door. “You too.”

The clock on Ava’s wall read 9:14, one minute before the time she’d told me to return, which I figured would win me some brownie points, but she wasn’t in the kitchen, or anywhere downstairs for that matter. I decided to send Brady a text after the Bible study to see if we could postpone our hike into the woods. I needed to figure out where I was going to stay tonight, not to mention what excuse I was going to come up with for leaving.

I shook my head. Time to stop obsessing about my love life and get to work.

I’d only helped set up one of her Bible studies before, but I remembered how we’d prepared for the last one. I started carting the dining room chairs out to the living room, then covered the table with one of the tablecloths and used the other to create tiers for the food. It helped that I’d worked in the kitchen and knew what we were serving. At nine twenty-five—five minutes or so before the guests would start arriving—Ava finally descended the staircase. After her gaze swept over the living room, she made her way into the dining room and surveyed the food table.

“We never discussed how you wanted the food arranged today,” I said, feeling more nervous than I’d expected. Ava may have been more amicable this morning while we were preparing the food, but she had a reputation to maintain, and I knew she’d micromanage every last detail.

I pointed toward the tiers. “I spread the baked goods around the quiches, and I used your blue set of china to switch things up from last week. The coffee’s almost finished brewing, and I squeezed fresh orange juice for the special drinks.” Special drinks were what Ava and her guests called the alcoholic beverages that quite a few women had requested last time. I’d been shocked to discover that guests at a Bible study imbibed at nine thirty on a Thursday morning, but who was I to judge a few old women for wanting to feel good while they gossiped under the guise of studying scripture?

Her face looked pinched. She opened her mouth to say something and then folded her hands neatly in front of her. “This is acceptable.”

From anyone else, I would have considered this an insult. I suspected that was high praise from Ava Milton.

Her gaze dropped to my neckline, and for a moment, I thought she was going to chastise me for my lower—yet still decent—neckline. “I see you removed the necklace.”

I reached for it, and panic rushed through me when I realized it was gone. I didn’t remember taking it off. Where was it?

I didn’t have time to go over my past day’s activities to figure out where I’d lost it because the doorbell rang—an old-fashioned tone that lasted several moments.

Ava turned to me looking irritated. “Are you planning to just stand there gawking?”

I hadn’t answered the door last time. She’d instructed me to stay behind the table and remain silent unless I was helping her guests.

“Did I stutter?” she asked after I still hadn’t moved.

“No, ma’am. I’m going,” I said as I hurried for the front door. I plastered on a warm smile. Magnolia Steele will be filling the role of the “good hostess” for this morning’s performance. I opened the front door, already in character. “Good morning!”

I recognized the older woman in an ivory silk blouse and ivory linen pants from the previous week. Her eyes widened when she saw me. “Magnolia. Does Ava know you’re answering the door?”

So I wasn’t the only one who found the arrangement unusual. Was Ava setting me up? “Yes, Miss Blanche,” I said. “Miss Ava sent me over to greet you. Please, come in.”

She brushed past me, then gave me a questioning look before heading straight to Ava, probably trying to figure out what was going on. Eavesdropping on that conversation seemed like a good idea, but the doorbell rang again.

I spent the next five minutes greeting the women, but it occurred to me that I’d never get answers managing the door. Bombarding the guests as they walked in with “What can you tell me about Rowena Rogers?” obviously wasn’t the way to go. Better to butter them up with Ava’s delicious food and maybe go a little heavier on the special drinks.

I approached Ava and discreetly suggested that perhaps I should be attending to the guests at the refreshment table. The gleam in her eyes told me she knew exactly what I was up to. She gave me a curt nod.

I took over my serving duties, much more comfortable behind the scenes than in Ava Milton’s spotlight. I suspected there’d be a price to pay for the attention she was giving me, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. This was my chance to glean more information, although I had yet to figure out how to broach the subject of Rowena Rogers.

The opportunity came ten minutes later when two of the women were loading their plates with quiches. They were alternating between convincing themselves the quiches were practically calorie-free since they were so small and discussing an upcoming bond election for the library. Though I could have settled their argument about the quiches by telling them Ava had used heavy cream, that didn’t seem like a good ice breaker. The library, on the other hand, was an ideal lead-in to questions about Rowena.

“Williamson County has one of the best library systems in the state, don’t you think?” I asked in a super-sweet voice.

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