Page 137 of Call Back

“Maggie!”

“What?” I asked quietly.

“Watch your back. Do you have the gun? It’s under the seat.”

“I have it.”

“Good. Bring it tonight.”

I hung up and looked up the address I’d decided to visit. When I found it, I plugged it into the GPS on my phone and tried to talk myself out of this rash decision. I suspected it wouldn’t end well.

Like that had stopped me before.

I headed out of the parking lot, and thirty minutes later, I pulled up in front of a house I barely remembered. Shivers cascaded down my spine. This was utterly stupid, yet I was determined to see it through. I picked up my phone, opened an app to record conversations, and then tucked it into my purse. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too muffled. My gun was in there too if I needed it.

Before I walked up to the door, I sent Colt a text with the address of where I was and told him to come looking for me if he hadn’t heard from me in twenty minutes. Then I stuffed my phone back into my purse before he could talk me out of it.

I rang the doorbell, and it was only a few seconds before a young woman who looked to be in her early twenties opened the door. “Oh,” she said, sounding surprised. “Magnolia.”

My eyebrows rose. “Do I know you?”

She giggled. “No. But I know you. Come in. He’ll be excited that you’re here.”

“He’s home?”

“Yeah.” She gestured to the living room full of black leather furniture. “Have a seat. I’ll go get him.”

I was too nervous to sit, so I moved around the room, pretending to look at the artwork and the view out the window. But I saw him in my peripheral vision as soon as he entered the room. Steeling my back, I turned to face him.

Bill James filled the doorway, looking very pleased. “Magnolia. I’m so happy you changed your mind.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say. Everything I’d planned on the way here had fled my brain.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked. “Gemma made some lemonade earlier.”

“No, thank you,” I said, moving toward a leather chair. “I’m fine.”

He sat on the sofa and watched me take the chair, and it occurred to me that I’d spent the afternoon in the living rooms of two murdering co-conspirators. It was as if I were making Sunday social calls in hell.

“What made you change your mind?” Bill asked.

“My mother is in the hospital,” I said. “She’s dying from cancer.”

He sat up, looking alarmed. “Magnolia, I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“No one did. She kept it to herself. But it’s made me miss Daddy even more,” I said, the words tasting bitter on my tongue. If Daddy really was alive, I’d probably spit in his face if I saw him again. But I wasn’t about to let Bill James know that. Not yet.

“Your father was a good man. But sometimes good men get caught up in bad things.”

I looked Bill square in the eye. “Was he a good man, Mr. James?”

His smile faded. “Call me Bill, and what do you know?”

What was I going to confess to? Though it was the most benign of all the accusations I could level, it stung horribly. Especially with Momma lying there in that hospital room. “I know he had an affair.”

Bill held up his hand in protest. “He regretted it, Magnolia. It killed him that he was weak.”

“I know he slept with Rowena Rogers.” The thought of my father sleeping with that vile woman made me want to puke. “However, I don’t know many details other than that it supposedly didn’t last long. I want to know more.”

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