Chapter Five
February 13th. 2009© 2005 Kimberly J. Fish
An Emerald Marks the Spot
Chapter Five
Kali closed her cell phone and washed her sweaty hands at the sink. She hated to call people from the rest room, but with tall, dark and obsessive shadowing her every step this place proved a last resort for privacy. Since Brad announced he ‘didn’t trust her’, she’d endured him hovering during her cheese processing, sharing her lunch of tuna salad and interfering with the way she stacked the delivery van. All the while questioning every conversation she shared with relatives about the contents of Aunt Annalise’s attic.
Kali stared at the mirror’s reflection of her almost thirty-year-old face and wondered if Brad noticed the tiny lines punctuating her hazel eyes. Leaning closer to the glass she pushed bangs off her forehead and guessed she was about five years overdue for a facial. And highlights. And a total cosmetic makeover.
Dropping her hand she banished the vanity. She’d not worried about her appearance since the last cheese festival and she sure wasn’t going to dig out her make up just because Brad Williams decided he wanted the antique engagement ring returned. Hello, she reminded her reflection, this man had not looked her up because he missed her sweet disposition. Two hundred thousand dollars was on the line, not her faded romantic illusions.
“Knock, knock.” Lacy pushed open the bathroom door.
“It’s a good thing I wasn’t ‘indisposed’ as Aunt Annalise used to say.” Kali hid her cell phone in the back pocket of her Levis.
“Oh, please, we’re sisters.” Lacy squeezed into the narrow room and propped her hip on the sink basin. “Okay, what did Marguerite say when you called her?”
“Are you even going to pretend you’re embarrassed for accosting me in the bathroom?”
“If I thought you were doing anything other than hiding from that gorgeous hunk of manhood then maybe I’d blush. Oh, who am I kidding, I haven’t blushed at finding you in the bathroom ever, so tell me what did you find out after the phone call? Did Marguerite put you on to Olivia? I bet Olivia has the keepsake box. She’s just that kind of person who’d steal another girl’s romantic mementos.”
Kali knew Lacy had good reason for her patent disregard for Uncle John’s daughters. They’d been born from his first marriage and from the moment John eloped with the high school French teacher the teeaged girls had made Annalise’s life a living hell. When Annalise took in Kali and Lacy, John’s orphaned nieces, Marguerite and Olivia had all the ammunition they needed to launch a full-scale, no holds barred, inheritance war. A stalemate ensued when John’s will revealed all the money had been spent.
”For the record, Marguerite said she’s never gone into the attic, too musty and too many potential spiders, but Olivia moved into the house after the other cousins moved out so she might know something about my old college boxes. But the big O’s not answering the phone.”
The door pushed open again. “You really trust your relatives, don’t you?”
Kali folded her arms over her t-shirt and looked at the man leaning into the tiny room. “This is a restroom. Do you mind?”
“Oh, I mind,” Brad said. “I could hear your conversation half way to the cold storage and I’m thinking if Lacy doesn’t trust Olivia then neither do I.”
Kali shooed Brad into the hall as she marched forward. “Lacy has unresolved trust issues toward our cousins over shoes that were never shared, but that doesn’t mean they stole my college keepsake box. We’ll just have to drive into San Antonio and look for it ourselves.”
”With or without their permission, it sounds like.” Brad righted a stack of catalogs he’d backed into. “Breaking and entering. . . I always liked the way your brain worked.”
Lacy playfully socked his arm. “You expect me to believe you were attracted to Kali’s brain? She was the high school home coming queen and when she’s dolled up she can still turn heads.”
“Lacy, I’m not denying your sister wasn’t, and still is, the most gorgeous girl to walk through the doors of an Economics class, but there is more to a woman than the outside packaging.”
Kali laughed. “Brad Williams, you are so full of baloney. As penance, you get to stay back at the farm and help Joaquin herd the goats to the east pasture.”
“We need his smarminess,” Lacy said stopping Kali from walking away. “You’ve got to make up a convincing story for M and O, right? We can just say you’re old college sweetheart showed up on your doorstep stirring old memories and you want to revisit nostalgia lane. They’re going to want proof. Just don’t let Brad talk to much.”
“I will not lie,” Kali insisted as she threw her leather purse over her shoulder.
Brad reached his arm around Kali’s waist and drew her to his side. “Oh, honey. That’s no lie. I’ve been swimming in regret all day.”
Kali scooted away from his electric touch. “You don’t have to flirt with me anymore. I’m prepared to help you find this ring even though Miss Manners would validate my claim to keep it. And, and this is huge, if the chef at the Blue Door doesn’t speak to me again because I failed to deliver his order of Bucheron then Lacy doesn’t get the table with the view. Lacy is vindictive. Consider yourself warned.”
Brad’s smile flickered. “Lacy will forgive me when I offer you some of the money from the ring’s selling price.”
“Like a finder’s fee,” Lacy said.
“Like a consolation prize,” Kali corrected. Then fishing her car keys out of her purse she said, “But before we get started there’s just one thing I need to clarify.”
“Shoot,” Brad said.
“When this is over, when we find the emeralds,” Kali swallowed a bitter reality pill. “We agree never to see each other again.”
Lacy blanched. “Why? You’re both single. And it’s obvious you still like each other.”
Kali wouldn’t let her eyes connect with Brad’s penetrating gaze, so she focused on the calendar beyond his shoulder. “This is a business matter, not a relationship, and it’s all about the ring.”
“Oh, there’s more here than just the ring. And to prove it Kali, I’m taking you out to dinner so we can discuss the finer points of our . . .relationship.”
”You’d better make that a drive-through,” Lacy said. “Because if I remember correctly Olivia teaches an art class on Thursday nights and she’ll be back home by nine.”
“So if Kali and I are going to break into Olivia’s attic, we’d better hurry?”
“You’d better fly. I learned all my best vindictive tricks from the big O.”
To be continued