Page 34 of Intrigued
“No. I’m just in town visiting a college friend for the holiday.”
“Oh. Because there’s a weird vibe I get from the Christmas mansion,” she said.
I brought exaggerated intrigue to my expression. “Ooh, why’s that?”
“They don’t really call for Ubers because they’re richer than God, but once I picked up this girl. I actually picked her up at the same spot where I picked you up from.”
“Oh, crazy,” I said.
“Yeah. And she was really young, much younger than I am. She had two swollen black eyes and a busted lip. I asked her if anyone hit her, and she said, ‘What do you think?’ With an attitude and everything. She was really tough, like from-the-streets kind of tough.”
“Oh. Then how did you know she was at the Christmases’?”
She cut a sharp left to beat the traffic light, and I had to hold on to the passenger’s-side seat to keep from hitting the door.
“Because when we passed by their place, she scooted all the way down so no one could see her and kept yelling at me to go faster. It was weird.”
“Wow. That is strange. So you think she was roughed up by someone at the Christmas mansion?”
“I do. Another time, I picked up the brother with the strange eyes. I was just trying to be nice, make conversation, you know. So I said it was strange he called us when they have a lot of cars and more money than God. He told me to just shut up and drive. Such a rude ass!”
Yep. That sounded like Jasper to me. “Yes, very rude.” I fought the urge to laugh.
Tiffany watched me through the rearview mirror, and I smiled at her.
“So where are you from?” she asked.
I took her change of subject to mean she was done talking about the Christmases and she wanted to engage me in conversation. Since I loved listening to people’s stories, I told her that my parents had moved a lot and that I’d been the happiest when we moved to Pittsburgh. Then I asked her where she was from. Tiffany was a talker and told me that her parents thought she was in school full-time at Rhode Island Art Institute, but she had taken the year off and used the tuition to travel to Costa Rica and Morocco. She had no idea what she wanted to do with her life other than travel.
“Why not start a travel blog?” I asked just as we stopped in front of a Dutch-style home with two bare trees on both sides of the yard.
“Nah. I’d rather not do all of that writing.”
I nodded as I took in the red, green, and white Christmas lights strung along the edge of the roof and the inflated Santa Claus and reindeer-drawn sleigh on the lawn. “I get it. Writing isn’t for everyone.” I opened the door and looked over my shoulder at Tiffany. “And you’re going to wait for me, right?”
“Absolutely,” she sang as though she didn’t have a care in the world.
I smiled thankfully at Tiffany and exited the back seat.
The sidewalk had been shoveled, and since the day was dank, the porch light was on. I stood up straight and made sure my expression looked confident but friendly as I rang the doorbell.
Soon, a plump woman who appeared to have had a hard life opened the door. She seemed to be wearing a permanent frown. “Can I help you?” she asked sharply.
The trick was not to falter. “My name is Holly Henderson, and I’m a guest at the Christmases’. Your daughter, Crystal, told me about you.”
Her frowned turned more severe, and she looked as if she wanted to club me to death. However, she didn’t slam the door in my face, and that was a good sign. But I could tell she was waiting for me to say something else that would convince her not to.
“I’m a friend of Bryn’s,” I said. “She’s the reason I’m here.”
“She’s the reason you’re at my door?”
“Sort of, yes.”
“Sort of? Explain sort of.”
“You worked as a maid for the Christmases for a number of years.”
Sally didn’t say anything. Jeesh, her personality was not as warm as the Christmas decorations around her house. But I had dealt with hundreds of Sallys during the course of my career.
