Chasing Shadows Read online

  “We’ll be on the way as well,” Avery said, steering her grandmother and Jane toward the exit and away from Rutherford and Ms. Reinhart. “Don’t think this is over,” she hissed at them as she pushed open the funeral home’s heavy glass door.

  The cool night air felt like heaven against her face. With a tired sigh, she motioned in the direction of her car. “I’m parked over there.” Seeing her grandmother toss Jane a grin that bordered on triumphant, Avery frowned. “We’re going to have a long talk about this once we get home.”

  “Oh, I’m sure we will,” Mildred said with a roll of her eyes. “C’mon, Jane,” she continued, looping their arms together before brushing past Avery. “We’re going to catch our death standing out here in this cold night air.”

  ****

  Cameron Reinhart wheeled her rental car out of the darkened parking lot of Millican’s Funeral Home and headed back to her great-aunt’s house, where she’d be staying until she managed to wrestle Loralyn’s affairs into some kind of order. With her mother two weeks into an around the world cruise, there was literally no one else to do it. Though it meant calling in every favor she had with the producers of her show, she had finally received their grudging permission to take a couple of weeks off from the filming schedule to settle the estate and get the house on the market. Even with that, she’d gotten two text messages today alone asking when she’d be back.

  Pulling up to a four-way stop, Cam glanced up at the rear-view mirror and caught her own reflection staring back at her with a distinct smudge of mascara under one eye. Outstanding. She fumbled in her purse for a tissue to wipe away the offending smudge and sighed. Thank God she’d had the presence of mind at that hour of the morning to apply any makeup at all. With any luck, the little black mark under her eye hadn’t been noticeable.

  At this time of the morning, hers was the only car on the road. The faded glow of streetlights gave rise to looming shadows around the yellow brick, 1970s style buildings that dotted the downtown area. Had she not been engrossed in ghosts of the past, Cam would have found the effect wonderfully eerie.

  “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world…” Cam muttered with a shake of her head before continuing on through the intersection. Avery Fucking Smith. What were the odds of seeing her at the funeral home at this ungodly hour of the morning?

  Avery had been a year ahead of Cam in school. She’d been a sophomore and already polished and popular when Cam was a lowly, awkward freshman. An outstanding basketball player, as well as an academic superstar, Avery was always accepting some award or other during assemblies at Brooks County High School. At lunch, she had always been surrounded by a large group of friends while Cam struggled to find a warm body to sit next to, usually winding up with poor old Jennifer Douglas. Jennifer, between being the not-so-proud recipient of what had to be the world’s largest orthodontic appliance and having curly, muddy-blonde hair that frizzled in the Alabama humidity, had been as much of a social outcast as Cam.

  As for Cam, she was new to Bethel Springs, having been exiled to Alabama just prior to her freshman year of high school, a casualty of her parents’ divorce. Theirs had been a completely unamicable separation, and, in the aftermath, her mother had decided to leave Los Angeles and return to her childhood home to regroup. Though Cam had vociferously disagreed with the move, her wishes had, as usual, been ignored. Separated from her friends, the mall, and any semblance of decent Chinese food, she may as well as have been on a different planet—one inhabited by smelly, camo-wearing boys who slid her sidelong glances and tried to cop a feel when in the hallways during class change, and big-haired girls who giggled and made faces over Cam’s California accent and stylish clothes.

  She endured the three years she and her mother had spent in Bethel Springs as gracefully as she could, but had vowed never to return. The only high spot of the entire ordeal had been the enormous baby dyke crush she’d developed on Avery Smith—who had no idea she was even alive. Avery was everything she wasn’t. Strong, independent, and—with her caramel-colored hair and sinfully dark eyes—totally gorgeous.

  Even after that torturous time was finally over and she was allowed to return to civilization, Cam had never forgotten Avery Smith. Over the years when she’d talked to her great-aunt over the phone, Cam had occasionally and with casual indifference asked about her. Loralyn, world class gossip that she had been, dutifully reported on Avery, along with some of the other students she had gone to school with—not that Cam gave a damn about any of them. Although, she had stayed somewhat in touch with Jennifer Douglas, who had finally gotten rid of her dental hardware at the end of junior year and gone on to be the valedictorian of their class. Cam remembered seeing on Facebook sometime back that she’d married her college sweetheart and was working at one of the top accounting firms in northeast Alabama.

  Avery, Aunt Loralyn had reported, returned to Bethel Springs about three years ago after having lived in Georgia for a while, and had taken a job at the local police department. According to a slightly scandalized Loralyn, Avery was unmarried and openly gay. Looking back, Cam wasn’t sure which of the two her aunt had found more appalling.

  “Not that I’m prejudiced, you understand,” Loralyn had told her after doling out the juicy gossip. “To each her own, I’m sure. But I did tell that grandmother of hers what I thought about her being so out in the open with it. The old bitch told me to mind my own business and asked me why I was so interested in her granddaughter’s affairs,” Loralyn had huffed. “Do you know she had the nerve to ask me if I was hoping to date her myself! Why, I never.”

  She’d had to stifle her laughter and not let her aunt know how amused she was by the remark. Sharing that aspect of her personal life with Aunt Loralyn had not been something that Cam had ever felt comfortable doing. Loralyn had always been too much a product of the Old South. Cam’s parents, for their part, had taken the announcement about her sexuality with the same causal indifference they’d always shown toward her. What was scandalous in rural Alabama was just another day in Los Angeles, she supposed.

  Not that she had much of a love life these days, Cam thought grimly as she pulled into the driveway of Loralyn’s house. Instead, she was concentrating more on her career, which had finally begun to take off. Cam had her own show on the E! Network, and so far, it had gained quite a following. She’d finally made it. Achieved at least a few of the things she’d wished for all those years ago as a freshman in high school. She had to work at it, of course. Not like Avery Smith, who was so effortlessly gorgeous that, standing there in the funeral home wearing nothing but a pair of old workout clothes, she still looked better than Cam with her three-hundred-dollar hair and Versace skirt.

  Speaking of which… It occurred to Cam that she should rethink her outfit for the funeral tomorrow. She did have that black dress that she had put aside as too sexy to wear to a funeral. Maybe she’d pull that out again and take another look at it. After all, Cam mused, she might be seeing Avery again tomorrow and, if she did, she’d need all the confidence she could possibly get.

  Chapter Two

  Watching the traffic signal turn to green, Avery accelerated her six-year-old Honda and wondered—not for the first time that morning—how she’d let herself be talked into returning to Millican’s Funeral Home.

  “I don’t know why you’re so insistent on going to the funeral,” she muttered, sliding in behind a beat-up Dodge pickup truck. “Despite what you told her great-niece last night, you didn’t even like Loralyn Baker.”

  “What’s that got to do with the price of tea in China? Just because I didn’t like her, doesn’t mean we weren’t friends,” her grandmother quipped from the passenger seat. She was resplendent in a silvery gray dress with neatly cut sleeves. A hat of the same color gray, a single black rose pinned to its side, was perfectly positioned atop her short, salt and pepper hair. To the casual observer, she looked to be the epitome of the gentile Southern lady.

  “Jane, did you remember to
put my flask of whiskey in your purse before we left?”

  Of course, Avery knew better.

  “Wouldn’t leave home without it,” the other woman chirped from the backseat.

  Avery glimpsed Jane in the rear-view mirror, quietly filing her nails with an emery board, popping her head up every so often to gaze out the window at a passing car. The oversized floral-print of her dress perfectly matched her typical rosy disposition. She looked as though they were out for a Sunday drive and not on the way to bury someone she’d known longer than Avery had been alive.

  Apparently feeling Avery’s eyes on her, Jane met her gaze in the mirror and, with a smile, nodded her head forward. “Avery, dear, you might want to keep your eyes on where we’re going.”

  Avery looked back to the road to see that they were rapidly approaching the one working brake light on the Dodge stopping in front of them. Slamming down on the brake pedal, she gripped the steering wheel and bit back a curse as the Honda’s tires made a screeching sound.

  “Damn it, you almost hit the ass-end of that truck,” Mildred snapped. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not die on my way to the funeral home.”

  “No one’s going to die on the way to the funeral home.” She glared at the Dodge as it eased off the road and into a gas station parking lot before adding under her breath, “At least not in a car accident.”

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing.” She straightened up in the seat before casting a quick glance in her grandmother’s direction. Avery’s eyes caught a glimpse of Mildred’s Wonder Woman tattoo peeking out from under the left sleeve of her dress. She shook her head before turning on her “official police business” voice. “Now, look, ladies, I want the two of you to swear to me that there’ll be no funny business at this thing.”

  That earned her an indignant glare. “Funny business? What are you trying to say?”

  “I’m trying to say that you’re lucky Rutherford Millican went along with your little story last night and didn’t have you charged with breaking and entering.” She cast a stern eye in the mirror at Jane. “Both of you.”

  “Pearl Moody was the one who broke in, dear,” Jane said sweetly. “We just followed her inside.”

  “You tell her, Jane.”

  “And Loralyn’s casket? Do I even need to bring that up again?”

  “No, I think you covered that quite nicely last night,” Mildred grumbled. “And again this morning at breakfast.”

  “Don’t forget, she also mentioned it when we were getting into the car.”

  “That’s right, Jane, she did.”

  Avery’s jaw clenched. “Then you know that if you even so much as look sideways at that casket, we’re out of there.”

  Slowing to turn into the funeral home parking lot, Avery almost missed the silent exchange between Jane and her grandmother. Almost.

  “Avery, beyond what did or did not happen last night, Loralyn Baker is…was…a very old friend. As silly as it may sound, I’m going to miss arguing over nonsense with her.” Placing a hand that seemed surprisingly cool on Avery’s arm, she continued, “I’m heartbroken that she’s gone.” Avery caught her reflection in Mildred’s misty eyes and felt an uncomfortable lump form in her throat. As much as she knew her grandmother was probably just feeding her a line…well, it was a good one. “So many of the people I’ve known my whole life are dying off. I just hope that when it’s my time, I’ll still have friends left to go to my funeral.”

  “Don’t worry, Millie, I’ll go to your funeral,” Jane supplied from the backseat.

  Good lord. “Nobody’s going to anybody’s funeral today,” Avery said with an exasperated sigh.

  “Well, except for Loralyn’s,” Jane interjected matter-of-factly.

  Having pulled into an empty parking space, Avery turned in the seat to face her grandmother. “Now, look, I’m really sorry about your friend. I know that this must be hard for you, but if it’s possible I’m just asking that you and Jane please try and not…”

  “Embarrass you today?”

  I was going to say commit any felonies, but that’ll work just as well, Avery thought as her grandmother reached out to pat her on the leg. “Avery,” she said in an uncharacteristically quiet voice, “regardless of what you might think, I know how to act in polite society.”

  “I’m not saying that you—”

  “No, that’s enough,” Mildred said, flashing a wrinkled hand up. “I did not spend six dollars on a new pair of pantyhose to sit in a car and argue with you about foolishness.” She glanced over her shoulder into the backseat. “Jane, dear, are you ready to go?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  With that they exited the Honda, leaving Avery to watch as they strolled toward the white marble columns of the funeral home. Reaching the sidewalk that ran the length of the building, they paused—Mildred adjusting her little gray hat and Jane pulling out a compact from her purse to check her makeup. Seemingly satisfied that they looked the part, the pair continued on to the main entrance. Rutherford Millican stood by the heavy, plate glass doors greeting the mourners. It did not escape Avery’s notice that he stiffened and notably paled as the pair breezed past him.

  Damn, but it was going to be a long day.

  ****

  Avery had never been one for funerals. She’d been to what she considered more than her fair share over the years. A few here and there for relatives of friends and coworkers. And then, of course, those in her own family. Avery’s Great-Aunt Peggy had died back when she was in elementary school, and then her cousin Grady the year after they graduated high school, Grady having had the dubious distinction of being the first soldier from Brooks County to die in battle since Vietnam. His funeral had been a pompous affair, with the whole town coming out to pay their last respects. Nothing like the one for Avery’s own parents’ funeral three years ago, which had been a small, somber gathering attended by a handful of family and friends.

  As they go, Loralyn’s funeral was one of the nicer that Avery’d attended over the years. A smattering of country music mixed with a couple of old hymns played in between words from a Methodist preacher. After a thankfully short sermon, the roughly thirty people in attendance all filed out of the funeral home chapel and convoyed to the cemetery on the far edge of town to pay their last respects. There was a short graveside service and then doves were released to end the proceedings. Had she not been engrossed in the spectacle that ensued when one of the doves defecated on the preacher’s wife during the fly over, Avery would have heard the invitation to dinner at the Baker residence go out. But as it was, she was caught up watching the preacher’s wife flutter about the cemetery in a semi-hysterical state instead of intercepting her grandmother before she had the chance to accept.

  “Avery, be sure to get yourself some of that bacon-wrapped shrimp. It’s really good.”

  Turning her attention from a shelf lined with a rather impressive collection of cookbooks, Avery saw her grandmother and Jane approaching the little corner of Loralyn’s living room that she had staked out. Each held a food-covered plate in one hand and a small, clear plastic glass of sweet tea in the other.

  Avery nodded and, knowing that they were in mixed company, tried to keep her voice low as she spoke to the pair. “I still can’t believe I let you talk me into taking you here.”

  “What are you talking about? We couldn’t have not come to the repast. What kind of people do you think we are, Avery?”

  The kind who bring Maker’s Mark to a funeral is what she wanted to say, catching the distinct aroma of the whiskey wafting from her grandmother’s glass, but instead just shook her head. “Never mind.”

  “Avery, sugar, why don’t you go fix a plate?”

  She smiled back at Jane, who was nibbling on a deviled egg. “I may in just a minute.” A whiff of fried chicken caught Avery’s attention. Nothing like a southern funeral to get people to empty out their refrigerators, she mused, looking past Jane to the impressive amount of fo
od on Loralyn’s dining room table. Although, it occurred to her, there were relatively few events in their little corner of Alabama where she wouldn’t have expected to see copious amounts of fried food amassed. Avery had long thought that there may actually be a state law that mandated if three or more people gathered in one room, at least one of those people must bring a casserole. She’d actually seen buffet lines in Las Vegas that didn’t have the selection currently laid out. “I’m not particularly hungry right now.”

  Jane took a swig of her drink and nodded. “Millie,” she said, motioning towards the other side of the room with the glass, “do you want to go and try again? It looks clear over there now.”

  She hadn’t spoken loudly, but Jane’s words set Avery’s nerves on end. “Clear? What’s clear? What are you two up to?”

  Mildred dropped the shrimp that she was eating and scowled, “Why do you constantly accuse us of being up to something?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Avery said, crossing her arms as she drew out the words. “Maybe because you constantly are.”

  “I think the only constant is your overreaction to the least little thing.”

  “Seriously? How many drinks have you had?” She did a quick scan of the area to make sure there was no one within earshot before continuing in a harsh whisper, “Do I even need to mention what happened last night?”

  “Oh, sweet Jesus, here we go with the funeral home crap again.”

  “Jesus isn’t the one who rolled Loralyn out of her casket, now is he?”