Page 97 of Silent Threat
“You were pretty focused on marrying one or the other.”
Kelly lifted her head, frowning. “What I really meant was, I’d like a man who knows how to work hard and has initiative. A man who sticks with things. I can’t afford another deadbeat husband like Ricky. I need someone self-supportive. An adult.”
“How long do you have to pay alimony?”
“Three more years.” The words floated on a pool of misery. “But I’m off the hook if he gets married again.”
“Are we rooting for the hairdresser?”
“I guess. But we’re still wishing that she pokes her own eyes out with her giant fake fingernails.”
“Are we mean girls now?”
“We’re wishing for immediate injury. Any wounds she suffers will heal by the wedding. No ruined wedding pictures.”
Annie stirred her soup and deadpanned, “We are two classy ladies.”
Kelly looked away.
Annie lowered her bowl to her lap. “Aren’t we?”
Long silence. Then Kelly said quietly, “I had a breakdown at the grocery store the other night.” She pressed her lips together.
Annie waited her out.
In a couple of seconds, Kelly gave a big sigh and made a face. “I was getting chicken breast and looked at the steaks. You know how Ricky always liked a good steak. No matter how I was scrambling to pay off the mortgage early, he liked his food, and he liked his cars. I used to beg him to cut back on spending, at least while he was out of work.”
Annie didn’t know much about all that. Kelly was divorced by the time Annie had returned to Broslin. But Ricky sounded like a jerk, so she nodded.
“Anyway, I had a hard day. I was tired. It was the day the alimony gets deducted from my account, and I was thinking how I was still paying for his steak dinners. So there I was, standing at the meat counter, and I broke down in tears.” She covered her face.
Annie put an arm around her.
Kelly looked up. “So then Loretta Bailer stops next to me, and, of course, she thought I was crying because I was missing Ricky. So she says, ‘He ain’t worth cryin’ over, honey. Hell, he messed around with me long before the hairdresser floozy. With other women too. He was always a dog, Kelly. You were just too busy with work to notice.’”
Annie’s jaw dropped. “Are you kidding me?”
“I wish.” Kelly groaned. “She thought she was consoling me! Like she was doing me a favor by telling me Ricky had slept with her, so I could stop crying over Ricky.”
Annie couldn’t find the words, so she made what she hoped was a suitably horrified expression.
“That’s not the worst,” Kelly said.
“It has to be the worst.”
“I threw a lamb chop at her.”
Kelly’s flinch said she was embarrassed beyond words. She always tried to remain professional and upbeat. She had clients she needed to think of. Everybody knew her in town. She’d helped half the people with their houses. She had to protect her reputation.
She was not the type of woman to lose it in public.
Annie understood all that, but the image of a lamb chop in Loretta’s face was too much. She broke out laughing.
Kelly threw a pillow at her. “Not funny.”
Except, a second later, she was laughing too. They were laughing so hard, they collapsed against each other.
“Who do we know on the grocery-store security team?” Annie asked when she could breathe and speak. “I want to see the security video. I’m willing to pay for it.”
