Holly let everything sink in. “So what's he like?” she asked, and Lizzie's eyes lit up.
“Oh, Holly, he's everything I've ever dreamed of. Romantic. Kind. Sweet. He calls me five times a day for no reason, just to hear my voice. He brings me little giftsâwildflowers that he picked in the woods, a book of photography that he thought I'd like. He makes me feel like the most special person in the world.”
“Oh, Lizzie, I'm so happy for you,” Holly said, and meant every word. “You deserve this.”
Lizzie squeezed Holly into a hug. “He proposed last month, and we decided to do it as fast as we could. In just a few days, we had the invitations printed. It was the happiest day of my life.”
“Well, I'm honored to be your maid of honor, Lizzie. Is the bridal party just the four of us?”
“Well, it would have been five,” Lizzie said, frowning, butâ”
“But what?” Holly asked.
Lizzie stared down at the ground and didn't answer.
“Lizzie?”
“I asked Dylan's sister to be a bridesmaid. But Pru declined,” Lizzie explained. “I asked her in person, too. I told her I'd be honored if she'd stand up for me as one of my bridesmaids, andâ” Lizzie took a deep breath.
Holly let her cousin take her time. Clearly, this was painful for her.
“Pru just stared at me for a moment, and then she laughed. She actually laughed, right in my face. âYou're not serious,' Pru said. âYou can't possibly be serious.' And then she walked away.”
Holly's mouth hung open. “That bitch.”
“Holly ...”
“How dare she!” Holly growled. “Did you tell Dylan?”
“I prettied it up for him,” Lizzie said, “but he got the idea. He was upset about it and said he was going to have a word with her. I told him it was okay, that we might never be friends, and he said that Pru and I were going to be family and that his sister had better start showing me respect.”
“Has she?” Holly asked.
“If dirty looks and innuendos could be construed as respect,” Lizzie said, then giggled. Clearly nothing could sink her buoyant mood.
Holly shook her head. “Well, you don't need Pru Dunhill. You've got your three best friends as your bridal party.”
Lizzie hugged Holly. “C'mon. Let's go. I can't wait to show you my house!”
They hopscotched to the end of the walk as they always did as girls and teenagers, then crossed the street and walked down Piper Lane to Lizzie's house.
The moment Lizzie opened the front door, she broke into a huge smile. “Dylan is so sweet! He left a trail of rose petals!”
Holly followed Lizzie inside the cozy home, and there, indeed, was a line of rose petals leading to a door at the end of the hall. She felt so happy for her cousin. “Lizzie, you've got one romantic guy.” She glanced around the bungalow. “Your home is so cozy and wonderful. I love how you decorated the place.” Lizzie's favorite color, fuchsia, was everywhere, in accent pillows and rugs and even on the walls.
“Thanks, honey,” Lizzie said, picking up a rose petal and bringing it to her nose. “Ahhh, I could smell roses all day.” She gestured toward the end of the trail of rose petals. “That's my bedroom,” Lizzie said, grinning. “I'll bet Dylan's covered my bed with dozens and dozens of roses! Oh, Holly, he is so romantic.”
Lizzie ran down the hall and threw open the door. But there were no roses on the bed. Only a pile of dirt, on which was a note:
Lizzie gasped, then dropped to her knees. In an instant, Holly was beside her.
“Come on,” Holly said gently. “Let's get out of here.”
Lizzie let Holly lead her into the living room. She fell back against the couch. “I can't take this!” She covered her face with her hands. “Who's doing this?”
“I don't know, honey,” Holly said. “But whoever it is is very jealous. And very immature.”
Lizzie nodded. “Maybe I should just cancel the wedding. Who knows what this person is capable of doing? Whoever it is is going to a lot of trouble to make my life miserable.”
“So you
are
worried,” Holly said. “The way you sounded in the diner, I didn't think you were taking any of it seriously.”
Lizzie took a deep breath. “I really wanted to believe everything that's happened was just coincidence. Just silly stuff. The usual crap. But I can't deny it any longer. This is the first time someone's come inside my
home
. Notes in my mailbox are one thing, but someone came into my bedroom. Whoever's behind this is serious. I don't want my friends or family to get hurt. I'm canceling the wedding.”
“You are doing no such thing,” Holly said, surprising herself with her vehemence. “You have every right to marry the man you love, and no one's going to stop you! Not some jealous lunatic. Whoever's behind these incidents isn't going to win the way those who treated us like trash in school won.”
Tears welled in Lizzie's eyes. “I am trash and I'm always going to be trash.”
“Lizzie Morrow,” Holly scolded gently, “you are not trash! People treated us that way and we were too young and too confused and too insecure to know how to handle it. But we knew who we were then and we know who we are now. You are a beautiful, intelligent, wonderful person, Lizzie. Whoever's behind this is the one who's trash!”
Lizzie took a deep breath. “I'm just so overwhelmed, Hol. Ever since Dylan and I announced our engagement, I've been besieged by hatred. Everything from terrible stares and comments on the streets to hateful notes.”
“Oh, Lizzie, you made everything sound so nice on the phone,” Holly said. “Why didn't you tell me how bad it was? I could have helped.”
“How?” Lizzie asked, tears falling down her cheeks. “You're so far away. So removed from all this.”
“But not from you, Liz,” Holly said. “I love you so much. You're my family. My blood. My best friend, no matter how far away I am.”
Lizzie flew into Holly's arms, her chest heaving. And as her cousin slumped against her, Holly vowed to get to the bottom of what was going on in this rotten town.
CHAPTER FOUR
Hey, Jake, here's a joke for you: How many private investigators does it take to figure out that Holly Morrow would come home for her own cousin's weddingâeven if that wedding was in Troutville, where Holly had vowed never to step foot in again?
Ba-dum-pa
. If Jake had been willing to think of Holly, willing to let his mind conjure up her face, her body, his memories of her, perhaps it would have occurred to him that of course she'd come. But the sight of her sitting in the Troutville Café a few hours ago had come as a complete shock. When he'd walked into the restaurant behind Dylan and realized that the elegant brunette with her back to him was Holly Morrow, he felt as though he'd been punched hard in the stomach. For a moment he'd been unable to form a thought, a word, a sentence. He's used what few wits he had left to force all expression from his face. He had thought of Holly over the past decade; his heart had won the battle over his mind many times, yet he never expected to see her again, especially not here in Troutville. He knew that Lizzie and her friends went to visit Holly in Hoboken, where she'd moved after high school and become a teacher. Those first couple of years, when the wounds were so fresh, when his love for her was still burning in his gut, he'd hang around Morrow's Pub, where Lizzie and her mom worked, having two or three helpings of whatever just so he could listen to their conversation while pretending to be absorbed in the ball game playing on the overhead television.
But he'd paid very close attention. Sometimes he wondered if Lizzie were giving so much detail for his benefit because she knew how he felt about Holly. Jake wasn't sure, but it was more likely because Lizzie adored her cousin and missed her so much.
He'd listen as Lizzie and her motherâor Felicia and Gayle, too, if they stopped in for lunchâtalked about how nice Holly's apartment was,
where
it was (as if he'd ever visit her), how lovely she looked, how she wasn't dating anyone or anyone special, how she'd put herself through college and become a teacher like she always wanted. How she baked amazing cakes and was thinking of trying to start a side business of baking for restaurants or special events.
As the women talked, he'd feel as though he'd been there, too, and he'd leave satisfied instead of conflicted. He supposed that was because he had loved her so much, and regardless of how she'd treated him in the end, her happiness was important to him.
Holly Morrow in the flesh. Back home in Troutville. Jake shook his head. If he hadn't seen her with his own eyes, he might not have believed it if someone said she was in town. He'd been honestly shocked.
But he hadn't been shocked by how beautiful she was. Holly Morrow had been a very pretty teenager, fine-boned with wildly curly light brown hair she was always trying to control into a ponytail, and those dark blue eyes that mesmerized him. Yet now, as a woman, she was stunning. Truth be told, he preferred the wild, curly, messy hair to the pin-straight style she wore now, but she was absolutely beautiful no matter what her hair was like.
He leaned back in his chair, ignoring the case file on his desk and the two new messages from Pru Dunhill “regarding the reunion” and stared out the window of his third-floor office.
Perhaps it's a good thing that she's in town
, Jake thought.
I can finally get her out of my system. I'll be able to see that she's just a woman, just a snob-in-reverse. Not the goddess of my fantasies that she'd been for the first eighteen years of my life.
The intercom on his desk beeped. “Jake, there's a Holly Morrow to see you,” came the voice of Jake's secretary.
He immediately straightened, smoothing his tie and his hair as though he was a teenager about to see the girl he worshipped, instead of the woman who'd broken his heart. He leaned back in his chair, adopting a more carefree position, and forced himself to remember what she'd said that terrible night ten years before. He needed his heart and mind on red alert against her, or he could get himself into very big trouble.
His intercom beeped again. “Jake? Shall I have her wait?”
“Yes, Sally,” he responded. “For just a moment. I'm just finishing up some paperwork.”
Holly Morrow was here to see him.
Surprise, surprise
, he thought. She'd managed to shock him twice in one day. He hadn't expected her to come seek him out.
“Sally, send Miss Morrow in, please,” he said, then took a deep breath.
Holly's perfume, a light, clean floral scent that she'd worn since she was fifteen, preceded her into the room. He breathed it in, and for a moment, he was his fifteen-year-old self again. His sixteen-year-old self. His seventeen-year-old self. A boy deeply in love. With a girl who had no interest in the likes of him. Only he hadn't realized it was disdain that had kept Holly from him.
His entire body jerked in response to seeing her. There was no hiding her curves, despite the conservative beige jacket and matching pants she wore. Tasteful was the second word that popped into Jake's head. That was what Holly had always wanted to be. Tasteful. Her family had been too poor to afford stylish clothes, let alone new ones, so Holly had done her best at sales with her babysitting money and thrift shops and dressed as well but plainly as she could.
As she sat down in the guest chair opposite his desk and looked everywhere but at him, Jake studied her.
She's still living in the past
, he realized, his investigative instincts kicking in. He could see it in how guarded she was, how carefully dressed she was, how “proper” she looked. She was trying to overcome who she used to be.
But who she used to be was absolutely wonderful. Until Jake realized he'd been wrong about her.
“I heard from Lizzie that you're a private investigator,” she said. “And I'm here about a case.”
He nodded. “I assume it's about Lizzie and what's been happening to her and her friends lately.”
Her eyes widened. “You know about that?”
“I've been on the case since Dylan told me about the first of the anonymous notes in Lizzie's mailbox,” Jake explained.
She nodded again. “Did you find out anything?”
He shook his head. “It was impossible to know if the so-called pranks were connected to the notes or just a coincidence. Felicia being locked in the back room of her shop, the stink bomb thrown into Lizzie's bedroom window, Gayle's car being keyed. I couldn't ascertain whether those incidents were connected to the threatening notes in Lizzie's mailbox.”
“There were two, right?” she asked.
“Yes. Computer typed and printed and impossible to trace.”
“Do you
think
the incidents and the notes are linked?” she asked. “Do you think the same person is responsible?”
“My gut says yes,” Jake responded. “The timing gives it away. The first incident and the first note happened on the same dayâFlea being locked in her shop and the note in Lizzie's mailbox saying: Lay Me Lizzie will never marry Dylan. It's possible it was coincidenceâsomeone playing a mean trick on Felicia and someone being spiteful to Lizzie, but both happened the day the wedding invitations were received. The next day, Gayle's car was keyed. The third day, there was the stink bomb and the second note.”
“Gayle and Flea are in Lizzie's weddingâthey're going to be bridesmaids,” Holly said. “Do you think whoever is behind all this is after them because they're part of the wedding?”
“Yes,” he said. “Whoever wants to stop the wedding knows that Lizzie cares more for the safety of her friends than her own. Which is why I have to caution you to be very careful while you're in town. I assume you're in the wedding, too.”
“Maid of honor.”
“Just make sure you're with someone at all times,” Jake said.
“I hear you're the best man?” The way she said it registered her disbelief.
I thought I was the best man for you at one time,
he thought out of nowhere. Get a grip, Boone!
“Yup, the best man,” he said. “Although Dylan and the groomsmen have been spared such petty immaturity.”
She stared at him. “So it's just Lizzie and her friends, her bridal party, who are being hurt. That seems a clue in itself. Whoever is behind this is not a fan of Lizzie's but has no problem with Dylan or his buddies.”
“I've thought of that, too,” he said. “Although, it's only been a week since the invitations went out. No one's gone after Dylan or me, and his two other groomsmen live out of state. They're his close friends from college.”
“I'm surprised he doesn't have ten of his high school best friends standing up for him,” Holly said, her tone icy.
“Actually,” Jake responded, “Dylan didn't have many close friends in high school. He was very popular and had a ton of acquaintances and everyone wanted to be his friend, but he never really clicked with any of the guys in his crowd.”
“Didn't click with them? I don't understand. A crowd is made up of people you click with.”
“Not always,” he told her.
She glanced at him, and he could see she didn't understand what he was talking about, but she didn't press him. Dylan wasn't who she thought he was, a snot-nosed rich kid who ran with a mean, reckless bunch who got away with everything. Dylan was a smart, sensitive person who'd been under his father's thumb for too long. Rather than risk his dad's wrath, Dylan had done what was expected of himâwas at the center of the popular crowd, was captain of the football team, dated the right girls, got into every Ivy League school he wanted, and came back home after college to one day take over the family empire. Dylan might have revolted on his own eventually, but the truth about Dylan's father's own way of living had made itself uncomfortably clear one fateful day, and Dylan had become his own man. He might have left Troutville years ago if he weren't so involved with the Boys' Center that he and Jake both volunteered a lot of time to.
“Well,” Holly said, “I imagine it'll be tough to figure out who's behind these âincidents' and the notes. There are a lot of people in this no-good town who'd like to see Lizzie hurt rather than marry a Dunhill.”
“No-good town?” Jake repeated. So he was right. She was still living in the past.
“You know what I mean, Jake,” Holly said.
He stared at her. “It's been a long time since you've been in Troutville, Holly.”
“I was in Troutville for one minute when I was called Holly the Whore. Five minutes before my cousin was insulted in a restaurant.”
He winced. “I understand all that. I know that Lizzie and her friends are still picked on for absolutely no reason at all. What I'm saying is that they don't let it affect them anymore. They took the power back.”
Sparks flew in her blue eyes. “Excuse me?” she asked, incredulous. “Are you saying we had the power back then to change how we were treated?”
“Not how we were treated,” he said. “How we
responded
to it.”
Holly shook her head. “That's very healthy, Jake. And very difficult to do when you're thirteen years old.”
“I'm not talking about then. I'm talking about now. If someone called you Holly theâ” He stopped. “If someone called you a name, would it hurt? Or would you think the person was an immature loser with nothing better to do?”
“The latter,” she said.
“Exactly my point.”
The sparks were back in her eyes. “Well
my
point is that Lizzie and I arrived back at her house an hour ago to find a mound of dirt on her bed with a note atop it that read: You're nothing but dirt. How do you propose she
respond
to that?”
He let out a deep breath and shook his head. “Dammit. How's she doing?”
“As expected,” Holly said, the angry sparks changing to concern. “She's very upset, scared. It took me a half hour just to calm her down.”
Jake slammed his fist down on his desk. “I will find out who's behind this. You can count on that.”
She seemed relieved. “So you are officially working on the case?”
“Yes. I officially am.”
She nodded. “Who are your suspects?”
“You're not my client, Holly.”
“Excuse me?” she asked, eyeing him.
“You're not my client. I've hired myself here. I don't discuss a case with anyone.”
“Fine. I'll discuss
my
thoughts of the case, then,” Holly said, the sparks returning. “Lizzie told me that Pru Dunhill declined her invitation to be in the bridal party. In fact, Pru was downright mean about it. I'll assume she's number one on your list.”
Jake leaned back in his chair. “She's not, actually.”