Rhodium

Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

IF I’D HAD half a brain, I would have left town after disaster number two, Chrissie’s death. But common sense had deserted me when I got my first ruby.

No, it took disaster number four—an encounter with Mr. Rhodes himself—to send me running. After that, I gave up on the idea of the city, of making something of myself, and slunk back to Georgia to lick my wounds. And grieve.

Not only for Chrissie but for the victim of disaster number three. Another friend, dead. I’d always dreamed of meeting a man who loved me for who I was, in spite of what I’d been, and number three did. Lyle knew my history, and he still cared. It showed in the manner he spoke to me, the way he walked me back to my room at night in the temporary accommodation we both shared. The nervous smile that flickered when he asked me out on a date. A date we’d never got to go on.

What happened? Well, that’s a whole other story.

Perhaps Lyle wasn’t everyone’s idea of a catch, but I’d have been proud to take him home to meet Mom and Chester. Even better, he wasn’t a Rubies client. He’d had a heart, and he’d had a career. A lawyer, no less. Not the greatest one in the world, even he admitted that, but he was improving. A tadpole. One day he’d have become a frog, and who knows, maybe even a prince?

Not like Oliver Rhodes. Oliver Rhodes was a great white f*****g shark.

But now I was done. Done with murder investigations. Done with Oliver. Done with Richmond. Done with all the disasters. Done with the big city and college and the illusion I could make something of myself.

Welcome to Hartscross, Georgia. Population: 1,523.

“Pippi, breakfast’s ready.”

That damn nickname. From ages six through eight, I’d been obsessed with Pippi Longstocking, refusing to wear my hair in any style but pigtails or answer to anything but a fictional name. Every birthday, I’d begged my parents for a horse and a monkey, or even a ship. Money never ran to the horse or the ship, and the closest I got to the monkey was a stuffed toy. When I arrived back in Hartscross, it was still sitting on the shelf in my bedroom, exactly where it had been for the last thirteen years.

And the nickname stayed too, if only in my mother’s mind.

“Just coming,” I called out.

I rolled out of bed and trailed down the hallway. Back in Richmond, I’d had the luxury of an en suite, but now I faced the daily struggle of finding a bathroom slot. For a teenage boy, Mason sure spent a lot of time in there.

“Will you hurry up?” I banged on the door, desperate to pee.

“Almost done.”

Ten minutes later, I was crossing my legs as the door swung open.

“What do you do in there?” I asked.

Mason’s hair was half an inch long, he didn’t shave his legs, and as far as I could work out, his tan was natural.

He shrugged and flashed his teeth. “Flossing’s important.”

I shoved past him and locked myself in before doing my business then attempting to wash my hair in the old claw-foot tub. It didn’t have a proper shower, only one of those handheld attachments, and my hair was so thick it took forever to get the shampoo out. When I finally walked into the kitchen, Mom’s pancakes were cold and so was her demeanour.

“Pippi, you need to start waking up earlier. Half of the day’s gone by the time you get downstairs.”

I’d always been a night owl while Mom got up with the larks, but it wasn’t worth the argument. “I’ll try.”

“And if you’re staying in town, you’ll need to look for a job.”

“I know.”

Mainly because she’d said the exact same thing every morning for the last two weeks.

“I spoke to Mrs. Mackey at the store. She thinks Darly might have an opening for a shampoo girl at the salon while Patty has her baby. Think of that, Pippi—you’d get free haircuts.”

“Okay, I’ll think about it.”

Mom bustled around the kitchen, reheating my pancakes and fetching a jug of maple syrup.

“Don’t leave it too long. Jobs are hard to come by in this town.”

Yeah, I knew that. Once a girl graduated from high school, she had two options in Hartscross—work a dead-end job for minimum wage or start popping out babies. Neither appealed, not to mention the slight logistical challenge of the second option for a single girl.

Of course, that didn’t deter my mom.

“And you’ll need to keep your eyes open for a nice boy. How about Sheriff Bose’s son? His girlfriend ran off to the city the way you did, and Randy’s quite the catch.”

She managed to make leaving for the city sound like a disease, something to be cured before the symptoms could take full effect. And since I went to high school with Randy Bose, I knew he was a nasty piece of work. Not a day had passed without him pulling a prank that crossed the boundary from funny to cruel.

“He’s not my type.”

“But, Pippi, you’ve never dated, so how would you know? Randy’s got lovely manners.”

That was Mom all over. She meant well, but her execution made me want to thunk my head on the table. The easiest thing to do in these situations was to change the subject and hope she forgot.

“These pancakes are delicious. Is it a new recipe?”

“Funny you should say that. Marnie at the diner was watching one of those cooking shows, and…”

Mom was off. I blocked out her chatter as best I could and concentrated on forking in my food. Only one question plagued my mind: what should I do now?