Page 38 of The Next Mrs. Parrish

I nod. “She’s in Peru right now. I don’t even know how long it would take for her to arrange to get back here.” I hate the thought of ruining her trip, but it doesn’t seem like I have any choice. “Hopefully she has cell service on the boat.”

Dean raises his eyebrows. “I’m not sure that will work. Jackson has given a statement that she has dementia. It’s quite possible that she’d have to undergo psychological testing before they’d release the girls to her.”

“That’s ridiculous!” I say. “Why would they believe that?”

“Apparently your daughter, Tallulah, corroborated that. I can only assume it’s because she wants to stay with him. If he gets hisparental rights reinstated, he would take precedence over a grandparent anyway.”

My mouth drops open. I can’t believe Tallulah would agree to such a heinous lie. I shake my head. “I’m not going to drag my mother into the middle of this if it’s not even going to do any good.”

“I’m not at all confident that it would be an easy thing to have custody transferred in light of your daughter backing up Jackson’s assertion,” he says.

I can’t think of a response, and I stare at him mutely.

Dean stands up, and the meeting comes to an end. “We have to assume that he’s going to continue to play dirty. I have folks doing some digging. Try to keep your head while I put together a game plan.”

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to go on like everything’s okay. My older daughter won’t answer my phone calls, and I have no idea how Bella, my youngest, is coping. This is unbearable.”

Meredith reaches over and squeezes my hand. Dean gives me a kind look. “I’m going to move as quickly as I can. But you don’t want to do anything that could hurt your chances in the long run.”

My blood runs cold. All I’ve been thinking about is clearing up this misunderstanding and taking the girls back to California. I hadn’t considered the possibility that Jackson might actually be playing for keeps. “Are you saying I could lose custody?”

He puts a hand up. “Let’s not even go there.”

“But it’s possible?”

He gives me a somber look. “Anything’s possible.”

– 23 –

DAISY ANN

Daisy Ann wasn’t sure what to expect when she pulled up to the front of Amber/Lana’s childhood home. She’d phoned after leaving the Lockwood residence and recited to Lana’s mother the story she’d concocted—that her name was Annie and she and Lana had shared an apartment in Atlanta, and she was trying to get in touch with Lana to return her portion of the security deposit. Daisy Ann knew that Florence hadn’t spoken to her daughter since she’d left some years ago, but there was always the possibility that Amber might get in touch with her mother again. That’s why she’d given Florence a false name—she didn’t want to risk Amber finding out that she’d been here. The woman had been so eager for information about her daughter that she invited Daisy Ann to come right over. Turning off the engine, Daisy Ann sat for a minute, rehearsing what she wanted to say. She was intent on finding out as much as she could about Amber, or Lana. Sometimes the most seemingly insignificant information could be the key to unraveling a puzzle. And Amber was certainly a puzzle, a most vexing one at that.

As she got out of the car, she noticed the small but neatly manicured front lawn and the weedless garden bed filled with beautiful yellow coneflowers. She rang the bell, and moments later the door was opened by a woman who looked to be in her fifties. She smiled at Daisy Ann and extended her hand. Daisy Ann searched her face for any resemblance to Amber, but aside from the high cheekbonesthere was little else. The woman wearing a halter apron over her flowery dress was slight, with short graying hair and a face that looked weary, as if she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders. Daisy Ann felt a shiver of anticipation go through her. After all this time, she was closing in on Amber.

“You must be Annie. I’m Florence Crump. Please come in.”

“Thank you. It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Crump,” she said carefully, not completely confident that she could disguise her Texas accent, but she figured Florence wouldn’t know the difference between a Texas and Georgia accent.

“Oh, please call me Florence,” she said.

She followed Florence down a narrow hallway to the kitchen, where a plate of chocolate chip cookies sat on a round table covered in a bright yellow and blue cloth. It was obvious the cookies had just come from the oven, judging by the mouthwatering aroma in the air.

“Please sit down. Would you care for coffee or tea?”

“Oh, if you’ve already made it, coffee would be great. Just black. Thank you, ma’am.” Daisy Ann looked around while Florence got the coffee. The room was immaculate, the linoleum floor waxed to a high gloss, and the laminated countertop almost entirely clutter-free, with the exception of a silver toaster and an olive-green set of canisters. Starched white curtains hung at the window above the sink, and small pots of primroses lined the sill. This was a woman who took great pride in her home.

Florence set the mug on the table and sat. “I hope some of your good manners rubbed off on Lana while she roomed with you.”

Daisy Ann smiled. “That’s nice of you to say. I always found Lana to be polite, though.”

“You said you were roommates in Atlanta? So, she’s been in Georgia all this time? How long did you live together? When was the last time you saw her?”

Daisy Ann knew this part could be a bit tricky. “We shared the apartment for a year. She left when the year was up, but I stayed onanother year. Now I have the security deposit back and I want to give Lana her half, but unfortunately, the phone number she left for me is no longer in service, and I have no way to get in touch with her. Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”

Color rose in Florence’s cheeks. “It’s a sad state of affairs when a mother has no idea where her child is, but Lana always was…different. She disappeared one morning almost four years ago and at first, we worried that something had happened to her. She’s made some enemies.” She shook her head. “Then I found that all my emergency cash was gone, and I realized she’d left on her own.”

Daisy Ann assumed the enemies she was talking about were the Lockwoods, but she pretended to know nothing about Lana’s criminal activities. “Enemies?”

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