Page 19 of A Little Bit Whiskey
“Thanks, dear.” He kissed her sweet lips. “You tossed and turned all night.”
“So did you.” She leaned against the windowsill. “Can I safely assume your thoughts were with Tamsyn, Noir, and that damned stupid note?”
“Among other things,” he said. “I understand why you didn’t tell her everything, but did we make the right decision in keeping that from her?”
“We reported it,” Weezer said. “It should be in the missing persons file. She should know.”
“She’s never once asked me about it and she and I have had some long conversations over the years. Not a day has gone by where I haven’t wondered what happened to Elizabeth. If she’s dead or alive. If she’s dead, was she killed? Did she take her own life? And if so, was it because of what we said or did?”
Weezer rested her hand on his shoulder. “We never did anything but try to help Elizabeth, and you know it. Elizabeth was in the wrong, and we were defending your honor and protecting our children. Let’s not forget we were trying to protect Tamsyn as well.”
Deep down, Carter knew that was true, but it didn’t change that hindsight was perfect vision, and he could see twenty years later that he could have done things differently. “I’m hoping Noir can get his hands on a copy of that letter. I’d like to see it.”
“Since Noir isn’t going to try to talk me into asking the committee to have a vote, she might hold true to her threat to show the committee this afternoon.” Weezer waggled her finger. “Which burns my ass because everyone on that committee wants me to step up. No one, except Mrs. Cummings, wants to take on the showcase this late in the game.”
Carter arched a brow. “Honey. While that may be true, you do tend to take over.”
“Someone has to do it, and I’m not going to change because Anna wants the spotlight and believes I’m doing this because I want to drum up business for the winery or because she thinks I’m an attention whore.”
“The latter is a little bit true.” He made the inch sign.
“Carter River.” She hip checked him. “I should cut you off from pleasure for a week for that statement.”
He kissed her cheek. “I know your heart is in the right place and you’re doing this more to help Silas, Claudia, and the community. Just own that you enjoy coming to the rescue.”
Her lips curled into a smile. “I do put on a good show.”
“That you do, darling,” he said, letting out a long breath. “I wish I knew who Tamsyn’s father was. That’s all she wants to know, but that’s like finding a needle in a haystack and my list of suspects is few and far between.”
“I didn’t mention to Tamsyn that Elizabeth sold her body for money and drugs. She’s a smart young girl and a cop. I would think she knows.”
“She never came out and said it, but she saw men coming in and out of the house. We discussed it because she wondered if any of them could have been her father.” Carter blew into his mug as he watched Tamsyn’s police vehicle roll past the house toward the cottage. “She didn’t recognize any of the men. They weren’t locals, except for three. Me, Fred, and Sheriff Morton. We know why I was there, and Fred and Morton were only there to arrest Elizabeth or warn her for something.”
“Morton is in prison. We know what kind of man he turned out to be. And Fred always went too easy on Elizabeth,” Weezer said.
“It was a difficult situation and jail wasn’t where she belonged.” Carter set his mug on the dresser. He looped his arm around his wife. “She needed more than any of us could give her. I tried. I really did. The year before she disappeared, she was doing so well. She was back on her meds, going to therapy. I don’t understand what happened.”
Weezer put her mug next to his and cupped his face. “You always believed she was in her right mind when she came after us. That she hadn’t been drinking or doing drugs. But why would she blatantly lie about you being Tamsyn’s father after all that we did if she was stable? It makes no sense.”
“It’s weighed heavily on my mind all these years. Our son has been in love with that girl since middle school. We knew it was only a matter of time before this happened. I’m contemplating giving that girl what little I have from the private investigator I hired to find Elizabeth.”
“The only thing Gino has uncovered is that Elizabeth never boarded any train.”
“The cops have a ticket purchased in her name,” Carter said. “But Gino—nor the cops—could never find a witness to her getting on that train or any evidence she landed in Florida. She never used her credit card again. The one clue we had turned out to be a dead end. But what concerns me is that her bank account was depleted hours before your fight. And what we still haven’t told Tamsyn is that Elizabeth texted you an hour before that altercation, asking you to meet.”
“I should have never gone,” Weezer said.
“Why didn’t you tell Tamsyn about that text?”
“The conversation was mostly about Anna’s problems with us. It only circled to Elizabeth near the end and that text is just one more thing that shows how unstable Elizabeth was, especially because it didn’t make sense,” Weezer said. “She wanted to talk. To clear the air. She made it sound like she wanted to apologize; instead, when she saw me, she went right into how I needed to get you to do the right thing.”
“But even you said Elizabeth didn’t seem like she was on drugs. That she seemed angry and nervous. But we both know how she was when she was not on her meds and using. I’ll agree that she was acting strangely, but it wasn’t because she was out of her mind. Something happened a couple of weeks before your public fight with her. Something that made her accuse me. That’s what I need Gino to focus on. That’s where we’ll find the answers to her disappearance.”
“I’ve always wondered who took that video of us fighting and anonymously sent it to the press.”
“That could have been anyone.”
“Including Anna,” Weezer said.
