I wrote out WHAT WERE THEY FOR? and held it up to her.

“They were friendship pins, dear. A way to show they were a group.”

DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE OTHER PINS ARE?

She shook her head, a forlorn look in her eyes. “No, I know that Roberta Malcolm had one. Her grandmother was Viola. Roberta threw herself into the gutter when she married into the Malcolms. A bunch of malcontents and wastrels.”

That sounded like Skeeter Malcolm.

I lowered my face to hers. “And the other two?” I said slowly enunciating the words.

“I think Rosemary married a man named White. I don’t know about the other.”

“Thank you, Miss Eloise! Thank you so much!”

Miss Eloise pinched my cheek. “That’s a good girl, interested in Henryetta history. You were born and raised here, weren’t ya?’

I nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Don’t you listen to the young people today. Who you are is tied to where you’re from. Henryetta is in your blood.”

I couldn’t have disagreed more, but she wouldn’t have understood and I didn’t want to be rude after the information she gave me.

I hurried over to Violet, who was deep in conversation with the speaker, Mrs. Perkins. “Violet, I have to go. Now.”

“What on earth is so important that you have to go now?”

She was right. What did I have to rush to? Who was I gonna share my information with? I could tell Joe, but at this point, I knew he was placating me, trying to keep me out of trouble. Could I tell Mason Deveraux? I doubted he’d care. And besides, I’d been inexcusably rude. I doubted he wanted to hear from me anytime in the near future. Surprisingly, the realization filled me with sadness.

Mrs. Perkins stared at the program in my hand with pure evil in her eyes.

I glanced down to see if anything I’d written could be construed as rude. The front of the leaflet featured Mrs. Perkins’s face, which now sported a drawn in curlicue mustache and devil horns.

My eyes widened in horror. “Oh, no! I didn’t…this wasn’t…” I stopped. There was no way out of this. I pointed to row of chairs. “I’m just gonna wait over there.”

Violet didn’t say a word to me and continued her conversation with Mrs. Perkins as though my interruption had never occurred.

Traitor.

While I waited for Violet, the Henryetta social debutante, to stop making her rounds, I sat in the now deserted front row, trying to figure out who might have the other two pins. Part of me wondered if I should bother—the Malcolm family had been known to have one, and Skeeter was already on my suspect list. But Joe’s words echoed in my head. Just because a puzzle piece appeared to fit in a spot, it didn’t mean it belonged there.

I briefly considered calling Mason despite our last argument. I’d tried to find him after I left Neely Kate earlier, but he’d been in court all afternoon. Even if I apologized, he probably still didn’t want to hear from me, not that I blamed him. But he’d said he couldn’t charge Skeeter because he didn’t have enough evidence. Was this important enough to make a difference? I doubted it and a friendship pin sure wasn’t important enough to be calling Mr. Deveraux on his off hours, even though he still might be working. It could wait until morning.

After what seemed like an eternity, Violet wandered over, looking less surly. I’m sure the empty plate smeared with cake frosting had something to do with that.

“Are you ready to go?” she asked, her snippy tone barely in check.

“Does a bear—”

She shot me the look she saved for Ashley and Mikey when they misbehaved. The expressionless face with one eyebrow slightly raised. “A simple yes or no will do, Rose.”

“Yes.”

She threw her plate away as we exited the church hall. Her bad mood had lessened but she was still a bit cranky, and I hadn’t even told her my news yet. As she pulled out of the church parking lot, I knew it was now or never.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Wringing my hands in my lap, I squared my shoulders. “Violet, I need to tell you something.”

Her head swung side to side and her smile was forced. “No, I need to tell you something first.”

I groaned. “If this is about Joe, I don’t want to hear it. I’m sick to death of you belittling him.”

“It’s about me.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

She sounded so serious and so scared, my chest squeezed tight. “What is it?”

“Mike’s leaving me.”

Violet drove down Main Street as though it were an ordinary evening, like the world hadn’t just split open and threatened to swallow us all whole.

“I don’t understand.”

She inhaled through her nose, her chest expanding. A tiny smile tugged at her lips. “He’s tired of me.”

“Oh, Violet. No. It’s just a rough patch is all.”

She pulled up to the four-way stop at the main intersection in town and turned her head to look at me. “No. It’s more than that.”

“But you both were so happy. Before.”

Before Momma died. Before I had a midlife crisis at twenty-four. Before I stopped being Violet’s full-time project. Before Violet realized our childhood had been based on a lie.

A tear ran down her cheek. “Were we? I don’t even know anymore.”

“But…” I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t fix this.