Forever and Always Read online

  Instead, she was talking to me about the difficulty of transporting the food and keeping it hot.

  “So buy some of those food warmer carriers,” I said.

  “Like the pizza delivery guy uses. I’ll pay for them.”

  “Maybe,” she said, not looking up from her bowl of beans. “But it might be nice to cook the food there, at Henry’s house.”

  I was trying to figure out what she wanted from me. To buy Henry a good set of pots and pans? Or did she want to close her restaurant and go cook for Henry? While I was thinking, the back door opened and a short, plump woman came out. She had an angry face, an angry aura, an angry voice.

  “Onthelia,” she said, ignoring me. “Today’s biscuits were inedible, burned on the bottom and raw on the top. I cooked better biscuits when I was eight years old. And those—”

  I concentrated so hard, my eyes started watering. Go away! I told her, and she did. She stopped her tirade mid-sentence and went back into the kitchen.

  Onthelia looked at me as though she were drilling something into my head. “My mother-in-law. My husband ran off two years ago and left me with three kids and his mother. We would have been out on the street except for her. Her temper can curdle butter, but she is a great cook.” Her brown eyes burned into mine. “Great cook,” she repeated, to make sure I got her meaning.

  I thought about all my questions Henry had refused to answer. I felt a deep kinship with the man, but at the same time I wanted to scream because he hadn’t confided in me. “How about five hundred a week plus groceries? Think your mother-in-law could put in a little vegetable garden at Henry’s house?”

  Onthelia nodded toward four large paper bags near my chair. I’d been concentrating so hard that I hadn’t noticed them. They were all full of green beans. Hundreds of green beans. Maybe thousands.

  “That’s today’s pick from my mother-in-law’s garden.”

  Onthelia and I looked at each other and smiled in understanding.

  “She’s hired,” I said.

  “You ever need anything,” she said, “you let me know,” and we both laughed. She was getting rid of her bossy mother-in-law and I was getting someone to take care of Henry. Heaven knew the Montgomery family could afford five hundred a week for the short time that Henry had to live.

  After we worked out the financial details, I called Adam’s accountant and told him to send a check every month to Onthelia. I guessed she was going to tell her mother-in-law the salary was four hundred and fifty a week and keep fifty for her children. If she’d had to put up with that termagant for even a month, she deserved the money.

  Onthelia and I shook hands on the deal and I left. When I was in the car I looked at myself in the sun visor mirror. I don’t know what I’d been hoping: That one act of kindness would have taken the hatred out of me?

  No, my aura hadn’t changed. I’d had an adventurous afternoon, I’d received a message from a tree, been attacked by a bunch of lonely ghosts, and had met a man who was a kindred soul.

  However, I didn’t feel I was a millimeter closer to finding Linc’s son.

  Sighing, I drove back to 13 Elms to see if Linc had found out anything. As I drove, I thought of Onthelia’s wonderful meal. Didn’t I remember that Adam had said something about the Montgomerys and Taggerts opening a business in the South? Maybe this evening I’d give Michael Taggert a call and see if he knew of anyone anywhere who needed a cook.

  Linc

  Chapter Sixteen

  OKAY, SO IT WAS MY EGO. INGRID AND I HAD SPENT A night together, then I’d heard nothing from her. Except for Alanna—who often treated me like dirt so I was sure it was true love, ha ha—most women with whom I’d spent the night called me later. But Ingrid hadn’t so much as spoken to me during, much less afterward.

  When I went to the workout room, all six female guests followed me. It was a joke as a gym. The biggest dumbbells were fifteen pounds and only seventy-five pounds on the leg extension machine. I ended up doing donkey calf raises with Mrs. Hemmings sitting on my hips. After that all the women wanted attention so I ended up doing just what I swore I wouldn’t do: be a personal trainer to the lot of them.

  Somewhere in there I realized that Darci had set me up. She’d used her voodoo-witchcraft, whatever it was that she had, to get me out of her hair for the entire afternoon. I escaped from five-pound “beauty bells” (they were pink!) to look out the window. Sure enough, the rental car was gone. Our rental car, the one we were supposed to go places in together.

  Try as I might, I couldn’t seem to break the spell Darci had put on me, so I stayed in the gym with the women until four P.M. I guess that’s when Darci thought she’d return because, all of a sudden, the women said they had to leave, and seconds later all the giggling stopped and I was alone in the room. I looked at the clock. Exactly four P.M. What had she done? Said I was to be released from prison at four?

  I pulled on my sweat suit over my skimpy workout clothes—yes, I’m guilty of “showing off”—and decided to search for Ingrid. It took three minutes before I was told that she’d left the grounds, luggage and all. One of the solemn-faced housekeepers told me. The woman acted as though each word she spoke would be deducted from her pay. She’d met me on my way up the stairs to the attic, and I could see that she meant to stay there until I went back to the slave quarters where I belonged.

  With a warm smile—which had no effect on the woman—I went back down the stairs to step behind a potted palm out of her sight. I waited an entire three minutes, then headed back toward the stairs. When I got to the foot of the stairs I saw the housekeeper’s cart. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but there on the top was a set of keys. I could see the housekeeper inside a guest room, her back to me. I picked up the keys and glanced at them. It was a big ring with five little rings on it, one of the small rings labeled “attic.” Crouching down so she wouldn’t see me if she turned around, I removed the small ring of keys, then sprinted up the stairs.

  That’s one on Darci, I thought. Maybe when she returned from doing whatever she’d been doing for half the day, she wouldn’t be the only one with news.

  As quietly as I could, one by one, I opened all five doors on the attic floor. For the most part, the rooms were empty. One stored towels, sheets and bars of soap. I was glad to see I was no longer attracted to the lavender sachets.

  I went to Ingrid’s room last. I don’t know what I was hoping for, that maybe she and her long, lean body were waiting for me in the bed? Slowly, I opened the door, but the bed had been made, and all traces of an occupant removed.

  I knew I should leave the room. I needed to take a shower and I had to get ready for yet another dreary dinner, but instead, I walked to the window and looked out. The truth was, I was ready to quit this whole thing. Darci and I weren’t making any progress in finding my son and, as interesting as meeting a bunch of ghosts was, my son was my main interest. Maybe hiring a PI would be better, I thought.

  All in all, I was getting so frustrated I didn’t want to continue. I thought about what I’d say to Darci tonight. It was great to have worked with her and I’d always love her for having helped me find my grandfather, but I needed to go back to L.A. and see if I could scare up some work. Maybe I could do some guest shots or—

  I stopped my train of thought because I saw a reflection in the glass. I was seeing something shiny catch the faded sunlight. Turning, I looked at the bed and saw nothing. I looked back at the glass and there it was again. Looking in the reflection, I counted rows of stripes on the bedspread, then I turned around, went to the bed and counted.

  Being able to see the object in the reflection in the glass but not able to see it when I looked at it would have been something that, usually, I would have considered weird. But what was strange, eerie, and even frightening had changed for me in the last days. Truthfully, I didn’t want to question how this object was being shown for fear I’d find out.

  I moved the bedspread aside and there, caught between the fring