“You want to ruin me,” she says dramatically, lifting her chin as I approach her. “The least you can do is buy me some wings.”
“Nice to meet you too, Augusta,” I say. “I’ve heard such nice things. Barry says hi,” I add, using her BS name for Harry from the book.
I glance at the menu and laugh a little internally at the names before asking, “What’ll it be? A dozen Gunslingers or Thistle Gristles?” I make a face. “Personally, I’d steer clear of those.”
“Two dozen Gunslingers,” she says.
So I go ahead and order them at the counter. Let her think she has the upper hand. She may feel differently when her hands and face are covered in finger-licking hot sauce.
I sit down and shove the basket across to her. “I suppose you won’t mind if I record this conversation?”
“I’d like to make a deal,” she says, her gaze barely skating across the wings.
“It’s a little late for that,” I say. “It was a little late when you submitted that manuscript full of lies to your publisher.”
She makes a face. “Lies. Truth. It’s all in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it?”
I let the laugh out this time. “You’ll find plenty of people who disagree with that. Lawyers, in particular.”
“I shared my interpretation of the club,” she says, picking up a wing and waving it through the air like she’s conducting a symphony. “There’s plenty of room for interpretation in literature.”
“Not in nonfiction,” I say. Something pops in my head—an idea or the trace of one—but I can’t dwell on it now, not in the middle of our high noon standoff. (Four thirty just doesn’t have the same ring to it.) “You picked the wrong lane. Now, can I record this or not?”
She nods, but in a way that tells me she’s not happy about it, and rips into the wing so violently sauce sprays across my phone.
I dab it off, making sure the recording is still running.
“Cal wanted to keep the club to himself, you know.” She makes a disgruntled sound, made disgusting by her mouthful of food. “He obviously still does. I noticed neither he nor his father were named in your article.”
“That’s their prerogative, if they did indeed create the club. Several past and present members have confirmed to me that they did, along with both men themselves,” I say. And because I don’t want to be here for longer than I need to be, I add, “Augusta, tell me, did Cal and Bear Reynolds create the Bad Luck Club, or did you?”
“They created their version of the club,” she says. “I created mine.”
My lips twitch. This woman has a way of getting around the truth.
“And whose version came first?” I ask.
“You know the answer,” she says. “You’re just being petty.” Her gaze narrows on me, her eyes becoming reptilian. “How did you get mixed up in this? You were nothing but a sex columnist last week.”
“Maybe I can’t pick a lane either,” I quip.
She grunts. But those eyes don’t let up. “What did Cal tell you about me?”
“Not very much,” I admit.
My poker face is typically good, when I want it to be. So I’m surprised when she sees straight through me. “He’s very handsome, isn’t he? There’s something about a tortured man that reels people in and makes women drop their panties.” She rips into another wing in a way that conjures an image of dinosaurs and their prey. “I noticed him in a coffee shop, the first time.”
This doesn’t match with Bear’s car accident story, and my brows wing up. “Is that so? I heard you had a fender bender.”
“I thought he didn’t tell you anything?” she asks, and for some reason the words score me as if delivered by the claws of a bird of prey.
“It’s like you said, Wolf likes to talk.”
“The accident came afterward,” she says with a dismissive wave, which I can only interpret to mean that Augusta purposefully got into that hit-and-run to meet him. Good lord. This woman really is a sociopath.
Before I can say anything, she says, “I can tell he’s gotten to you.”
“Bear?” I say innocently. “He’s not really my type. I have loads of daddy issues, just not like that.”
But she’s already shaking her head. “I see it now. He found a pretty little thing to fight his battles for him, huh? I’m surprised he finally found the balls. Maybe I gave up on him too soon. It might be time to take a second run at him.”
“His car is plenty scarred, don’t you think?”
“Not as much as his wife’s,” she says, her head cocking to study me. “I’ll bet you’re wondering why he hasn’t come forward.”
Augusta Glower is an awful woman. Awful. I know that as clearly as I do that she’s eating the wings like that to aggravate and disgust me. I know it as clearly as I know I should be hearing Cal’s secret from him, not her. I could leave now. I have what I came for. She admitted to the obvious, or as close as she’ll come, and now the article can be published. The truth will come out, or as much of it as the general public is owed. But I can’t seem to leave my seat.
“I doubt your stories are going to help clarify anything. What with you being a documented liar and all.”
“I’m not the only liar,” she says viciously, taking another mouthful of chicken. Her hands are glistening with the sauce, and a wave of nausea rips through me. Not just because of the gross display, however. I know she’s talking about Cal.
“I’ll bet he played it off like he didn’t want the attention. Now, you ask yourself, what red-blooded man who enjoys the company of beautiful women wouldn’t want to be portrayed as a hero? A sad widower who turned it all around to help other people?”
“One who’s not a sociopath,” I suggest.
Still, I can’t move. I can’t. I feel glued to my seat.
The gleam of victory in her eyes suggests she knows it. “A man who feels the weight of guilt. Guilt is an awful thing, Molly. It festers. It eats you up inside.”
“Not for someone like you, I’d expect.”
“No, guilt is for the weak,” she agrees. “Like your man. Because he is yours, isn’t he? That’s what this is all about.”
It’s another ploy to gain the upper hand, and I’m not going to fall for it.
“It’s about bringing the truth to light,” I say.
“How’s this for truth? Your man was unfaithful, and after his wife found out about it, she drove off upset and smashed her car into a tree. Wouldn’t you think a man like that deserves to feel guilty?”
For a second, I can’t say anything. The accusation spears into me, and for a second I’m back behind that rhododendron bush, watching my father kiss Lacy Caser like she was the last woman alive.
Cal wouldn’t do a thing like that. And even if he did, even if he had it in him, he would have told me when I told him about my father. He would have.
But I can’t deny there’s doubt. Because she’s right. Why was he so adamant about hiding the truth, about letting Augusta get away with her lies, if there wasn’t a good reason? I knew he had a secret—I’ve known from the beginning—and he himself had admitted he thought karma was his enemy. Then there’s the way he’s only taken two direct sponsees, Augusta and Harry, and Harry doesn’t seem to know squat. But this?