Page 37 of Perfect Order
I can hear her fuming over the phone. “Then that answers my second question.”
“Which was?”
“Whether you still want to meet with the investigators. If so, we have an appointment for a week from tomorrow at 7:30. I’ll pick you up.”
My lips curve upward. “Is that a.m. or p.m.?”
“In the morning. Be ready—these aren’t the kind of guys you mess around with.” With that, Carys disconnects the call.
“I sincerely hope not.” I wish Carys had left me the name of the investigators, but I’m certain I’ll know who I’m going to meet with before that meeting. In the meanwhile, I have some work to do.
It’s time to find out what I can dig up on Snowy-T to let the media hounds gnaw on for a while.
DECEMBER
Kane
Jack Daniels or Cristal? Rumors of a party at Beckett Miller’s are surfacing, but the details are unclear. All I know is I wish I was invited regardless of what was served.
— Viego Martinez, Celebrity Blogger
My hand is slapped with a spoon as I try to reach for another freshly fried piece of chicken, just like it would be when I was a child, then as a teen. I wrap my free arm around my mother and kiss the crown of her head. “Ma, give me a break. You’re frying enough chicken to feed twenty. And besides, how often do I get home to have any?”
She doesn’t look impressed with my logic, despite the fact this is the first time I’ve stepped foot on the farm in years, though I’ve paid for her and my father to meet up with Beckett's entourage whenever they can spare a few days away. While she doesn’t particularly care for his music, being a country lover her whole life, my mother adores the people I work with. It’s obviously mutual, with Beckett sending me off with a crooning “Tell your family hello. Be sure to give your mother a huge hug from me.”
So I’m surprised not in the slightest when she declares, “These are for you to take back with you. Beckett needs some meat on his bones. He’s looking too skinny.”
“I guarantee you, Ma, you’re the only woman in America who thinks that.”
She rolls her eyes as she uses a wire contraption to shift more chicken to the growing pile before salting them and adding more to the scalding hot oil. “It won’t be that many. Especially after your sister and her brood get their fingers on them.”
I eye the pile of chicken left to be fried warily. “Are you certain? Do we have any chickens left on the farm, or do you need money for more?” I whip out my phone and snap a picture of the chicken production. I quickly text it to Beckett, who is with a backup team provided by Hudson in Memphis this weekend.Your number one fan is sending me back with gifts.
His response makes my shoulders shake.If you eat any before I get some, I’m firing you on the spot.
I quickly type back.We’re having it for dinner.
HisI wonder if I can make it there in time?makes me laugh aloud.
Immediately, my hand is tapped with the wooden end of the utensil my mother is using to flip the chicken over for the golden crust. “Stop making fun of your mother,” she admonishes me.
“Yes, ma’am.” I step away and move over to the refrigerator. Pulling out a pitcher of lemonade, I catch sight of the big blue enamel bowls overflowing with potato and macaroni salad inside. Quickly closing the door so I don’t receive a lecture about letting the cool air out, I declare, “They remind me of all the times we’d bring casserole dishes to funerals.”
“What do, sweetheart?”
I pull down two glasses and begin to pour. “The huge bowls of food. I remember when someone would pass away, you’d cook not just for the service, but weeks later.” I set her glass next to her before returning the pitcher to the refrigerator.
“Grief isn’t something that’s immediately handled, Kane. You appreciate that. People who are left behind need to know they’re being thought about long after the initial blow of death has occurred.”
I deliberately drag up the feelings about Gene: the guilt, the sadness, the despair. I still feel all of these emotions all of these years later; how must Erzulie be feeling about her sister? Her twin, no less? I swallow the oily bile that tries to rise up with the cool, tart taste of my mother’s homemade lemonade.
“What made you bring it up?” she wonders.
“A friend of Beckett’s lost someone close to them. In addition to the fact they’re close, the media’s a bitch. I never realized before how difficult it must be just to have an honest-to-goodness friend at a time like this,” I tell her honestly. There’s no need to go into my lingering emotions. I probably don’t have to. After all, Brit and Maddie live only twenty miles away as the crow flies. And in this part of the country, that’s practically next door.
I could be at their front door in an hour, but I won’t be.
They need time and space.
