Page 81 of Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

I could do this, and I would be stronger for it.

The door opened a few moments later and an older woman walked in. She had short brown hair and wore a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. She took off her sunglasses and propped them on top of her head as she glanced around the room, her gaze lingering on me for a few moments before she turned her attention to Summer. “Sorry if I’m a few minutes late.”

“That’s okay,” Dixie said with a warm smile as she closed the door behind her. “Rachel, this is Magnolia Steele, her sister-in-law Belinda Steele, and her boyfriend, Colt Austin.” Then she turned to me with a tight smile. “Magnolia, this is Rachel Lyons.”

Rachel looked me over. “You don’t look much like your mother.”

“I look more like my father, but we’re not here to discuss my genetic makeup,” I said, sounding more brusque than I’d intended, but while I used to love that I looked like my father, now it shamed me. “Summer and Dixie say you have some information about what happened to my aunt Bethany.”

Rachel’s face went blank and she looked like she was about to walk out the door. I’d been too blunt.

Dixie must have picked up on the possibility of her running too, because she quickly said in an octave higher than her normal voice, “Would you like some water or some tea, Rachel? We also have cookies.”

“Well,” Rachel said, looking indecisive, then flashed a nervous grin, “if they’re the same cookies you had yesterday, I might take one.”

I wasn’t sure how Rachel could eat. My stomach was churning with nerves.Shewas the one with the secrets, so surely that made her more anxious than me.

Dixie gestured to the chair she’d brought out and hurried to the back to bring out several bottles of water and a plate of cookies.

Rachel took a bottle and a cookie. Belinda and I both took a bottle of water, but then I promptly set mine on the floor.

Summer and Dixie sat behind their desks, watching and waiting for Rachel to begin.

Rachel nibbled on a cookie, then glanced over at me. “I knew your mother, back before…” She trailed off. “I just knew her before.”

Since she’d opened that door, I decided to walk right through it. “I know that my mother left Sweet Briar after she graduated, but that’s all I know. I didn’t know she inherited her family’s farm. I didn’t even know I had an aunt until we came down hereand searched through the house.” I took a breath. “Rachel, I just want to know what happened. Why she left and why she never talked about her life here in Sweet Briar.”

Rachel glanced down at the cookie in her hand.

“I don’t care if she robbed a bank, or if she murdered half the town. Ineedto know.”

Rachel lifted her gaze to mine. “You really don’t know why your mother kept that farm all these years?”

“No.I had no idea she even owned the farm until just this past week. My mother’s attorney says they have someone interested in buying it. I fully intend to sell, but I wanted to see it first. I wanted to find out why my mother ran away from this place and never come back.”

Rachel took a sip of her water.

I was starting to get ticked off that she wasn’t saying much, and I wondered if Summer and Dixie were right, that she was just wasting my time. But I decided to give it one more try. “I hear you’re the person who can tell me. That you’ve been keeping my mother’s secrets for years.” I gave her a grim smile. “But I’m here to relieve you of them. I’ll carry that burden now.”

That caught her attention. “What makes you think this is a burden?”

My lips twisted into a wry grin. “Are you telling me that keeping my mother’s secrets hasn’t been a burden?”

She started to protest, then sat back in her seat with a defeated look. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, Magnolia.”

“Maybe I don’t,” I said. “I admit that I don’t know anything. Butyoudo, so tell me.”

Her eyes downcast and glistening with welling tears, Rachel ran a hand over her head, mussing her short hair. “I don’t know where to start.”

“The beginning is usually the best place,” Belinda said in her soft, soothing voice. “Why don’t you start there?”

Rachel nodded, then said in a defeated tone, “You’re right.” She took a breath, and her shoulders slumped a little as she said, “My family moved to Sweet Briar when I was a junior in high school, and Ihatedthis backwater town. Especially when I thought we were moving to New York City, and we landed here instead.”

“That seems like night and day,” I said. “What happened?”

She shifted in her seat. “We were living in Atlanta. My father was in advertising and had just gotten a job offer with a firm in New York, but then my grandfather got sick and needed help with the farm. The next thing I knew, my father turned down the offer and we were moving to Sweet Briar to help my grandparents. I was horrified. I’d visited Sweet Briar often enough to know it was ass-backwards.” She grimaced and turned to Dixie. “No offense.”

Dixie laughed. “Hell, you’ve been living here longer than I have now, no offense taken.”

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