Page 6 of Kiss Me Now
I traded my wrinkled gray golf shirt for a collared button up appropriate for Gran’s country club casual dinner aesthetic, splashed cold water over my face, and headed downstairs.
“Hey, Mary.” I popped my head into the kitchen to smile at the woman tossing a salad. She was probably near sixty, but her plump face had a softness to it that always made her seem ten years younger, especially when she beamed at me.
“Ian!” she said, setting down the salad tongs and clapping her hands in delight. “It’s so good to see you.”
I sniffed the air. “All you have to do is cook this every Friday, and you’ll lure me out here every weekend.”
She laughed and held her arms out for a hug. I stepped into the room, happy to oblige. “You’re too skinny,” she complained.
“No good food in DC,” I said.
She released me and shooed me toward the door. “Go find your grandmother. Dinner is almost ready.”
I obeyed, wandering into the gathering room where Gran stood beside the drinks cart. “Bourbon?” she asked.
“Sounds great.” I accepted the glass and then sat beside her on the sofa to wait for the gold digger to arrive. “So, tell me about this new neighbor of yours,” I said, taking a sip. She might be a poor judge of neighbors, but she had great taste in whiskey.
“Brooke is a sweetheart, isn’t she?” Gran said.
“Mmm,” I offered, a noncommittal sound that she could interpret however she liked.
“She’s been a breath of fresh air around here. It’s good for Mary and me to have her youth and energy in the house. She’s smart as a whip and funny too.” She eyed me over the rim of her martini glass as she took a casual sip. “And pretty.”
Gran was never as subtle as she liked to think, and I ignored the bait. “Hope she comes soon. I’m starving.”To know what she’s up to, I silently amended. And for Mary’s roast. Only a fool wouldn’t be salivating over the aroma drifting from the kitchen.
The French doors stood open, and Brooke chose that moment to step in from the falling darkness outside. Speak of the devil and she shall appear. She’d changed to a sleeveless white dress that made her lightly tanned skin kind of glowy. If she’d put on any makeup, she’d used a very light hand. She was projecting the effortless dewiness that Washington socialites spent thousands at the high-end spas outside of the Beltway to achieve.
“Hey,” she said, gliding toward Gran to drop a kiss on her cheek. She waved Gran back down when she rose to prepare Brooke a drink. “I’ll get it. You relax.”
She poured herself vodka and tonic with a splash of cranberry, navigating the drink cart with ease, like she’d done it often. She knew exactly where to find everything, no hesitation as she reached for the ice tongs or seltzer water.
“When did you say you moved here, Brooke?” I asked.
“In February,” she said without looking up.
Not quite five months ago. That was no time at all in a place like Creekville where most families had lived for a minimum of three generations. How had she weaseled into Gran’s life so quickly? It didn’t smell right. At all.
“Do you like it here?” I asked, trying to draw her out. I needed a better sense of her so I could look for the cracks that would expose her.
“I do,” she said, taking a seat in the armchair opposite us, her drink in hand. “It’s a nice antidote to the way I grew up.”
It was a helpful clue and gave me a direction to follow. If she’d grown up opposite of Gran, that meant poor. The quiet wealth of Gran’s home and property would be dizzying to someone who came from less. Everything about Gran’s home was understated and welcoming, but there was no mistaking that a house of this size on grounds this large, all of it beautifully maintained, spoke of deep pockets.
I didn’t care about that kind of stuff. Not really. Not beyond liking that I could buy my dream car and afford a decent condo. Gran and Gramps had raised their three kids to work hard and value what they earned by their own hands, and my parents had passed that to me and my three siblings. One day, when I slowed down long enough to marry and have kids of my own, I’d teach them the same thing.
But I currently worked too hard to slow down and figure out the dating and marriage thing. Besides, in my line of work, I saw way too many cheaters. But Brooke, she’d gone one rung lower to gold digger, if I didn’t miss my guess. And I never, ever missed my guess. My work depended on it.
“So you’re Fred Sandberg’s niece, huh?” I asked.
“Great-niece, yes.” She sipped her cocktail.
“I didn’t know him well, but he seemed like a nice man.” All the Greene grandkids growing up had spent two weeks with Gran every summer at what she called Cousin Camp. She’d filled our days with all kinds of activities, and perhaps more importantly, plenty of unstructured time to play and explore. Often, we’d sent balls and frisbees sailing into Fred Sandberg’s yard, and if he happened to be out, he’d toss them back with a smile and a friendly wave, but not much conversation. “Fred didn’t have kids, did he?”
“No. His wife died when he was my age, and he never remarried.”
“Were you close?” I was careful to make my tone warm and curious, not interrogatory. She didn’t need to know she was now under investigation.
“Not really. He’s my mother’s uncle, and she’s from Charlottesville. Most of her family is still there, so I only remember coming to visit him a couple of times, once when I was a kid, and once a couple of years ago when...” she trailed off, taking another sip of her drink.
