They were done faster than anticipated and it was only midmorning when they arrived back home, Zona laden down with her goodies and Martin following her up the walk with the pile of clothes and mystery novels Louise had found.
Alec James was outside, wearing board shorts and a faded T-shirt, mowing his front lawn. Looking like a regular guy, a non-screaming, non-violent, nice, hot guy. A sheen of sweat made his arms glisten.
Zona told her awakening hormones to go back to sleep and averted her eyes. She was not ever going to allow herself toget interested in their neighbor. He wasn’t a murderer, she was sure of that. But he was verbally abusive. Scarily different from the charmer she’d first met.
She was halfway up the front walk when she realized her mother wasn’t with her. A little flutter ofoh, noin her chest told her to look to her right. Sure enough, there was Louise, swinging on over to talk to their neighbor. Zona gave the house key to Martin and sent him on to deposit her mother’s purchases, then hurried over to make sure Louise didn’t say anything that could upset the man.
He had turned off his lawn mower and Louise was talking. Doubleoh, no. The hurrying turned into bolting.
“We haven’t seen your company lately,” Louise was saying.
Alec James wasn’t smiling. Zona’s heart turned to lead and dropped down to her stomach.
“She left,” he said.
“Rather suddenly.” Louise sounded like an amateur sleuth, trying to grill a suspect.
“She found another place to stay,” he said shortly.
Zona stepped up before Louise could say anything more to antagonize him. “Come on, Mom,” she said, “Martin’s waiting.”
“Have a good day,” Louise said to their neighbor.
He nodded—still no smile—and started his lawn mower back up.
“What were you thinking?” Zona demanded as they walked up their own front walk. She cast a look in Alec James’s direction, half expecting to see him standing by the running lawn mower, glowering at them.
He was walking the opposite direction, but she was sure he was glowering.
“That man has something to hide,” Louise insisted.
“Don’t go looking,” Zona said. Her mother needed to rein in her runaway imagination.
So did Zona. She made the mistake that night of leafing through the book she’d bought at the garage sale. One paragraph in particular caught her attention.
We’re taught from a young age to believe the best about people. The problem with this is that it makes us unwilling to see the worst. A charming smile may hide a narcissistic personality or violent tendencies.
Zona slammed the book shut. She would not be reading any more of this, and she wasn’t letting her mother anywhere near it.
But what if Alec James was hiding... something?
Chapter16
THE SWELLING IN LOUISE’S LEG HADgone down and her temporary cast was swapped out for a sturdier, all-encasing one, which allowed her to finally shower with the proper precautions. Even though that brought its own challenges, she’d been happy to abandon washing her hair in the sink and was counting the weeks until her leg would be completely free.
June was on its way out. The temperature was rising into the high eighties and ice cream sales were up. Flags and buntings were starting to appear on houses, proof that the Fourth of July was peeking around the corner. “We need to have a party,” she announced to Zona.
Of course they did. Louise could never let a holiday pass without throwing a party, and she had no intention of letting a little thing like a cast on her leg stop her. When Zona was growing up, she’d made enough potato salad and three-bean salad to feed an army and had put Zona’s dad to work on the grill, serving up hamburgers and hot dogs. There was always a water balloon toss or three-legged race for the kids and enough ice cream to clog every artery in Glendora.
The first year after her husband died, Louise hadn’t been able to bring herself to entertain, but by the next year she had decided enough was enough and had thrown a big open house bash for the entire neighborhood. She had toned things down since then, but not much.
This party would be work and Louise wouldn’t be able todo much of it, but Zona didn’t mind picking up the slack. It was the least she could do for her mother. She, herself, wasn’t in a party mood, but maybe that was when you most needed to gather with friends.
“Don’t worry, we won’t make a big thing of it,” Louise promised. “Gilda can take me shopping and we’ll pick up a couple of rotisserie chickens, some salads in a bag, and garlic French bread and call it good. And maybe some ice cream bars,” she added. “And makings for a fruit salad. Watermelon. Pop. Chips. Candy for the kids.” Yep, Louise was on a roll.
“What kids?” asked Zona.
“You’re going to invite Gracie and her family, aren’t you?”
