But before Byrdie can sit, Vonn rises from his crouch in front of Lydia and moves the second chair away from the desk so it’s closest to the wall. He doesn’t trust Lydia anywhere near Byrdie, and neither do I.
“Here, darlin’,” Vonn says.
Byrdie crosses the room and takes a seat.
Lydia watches her until Vonn prompts Lydia, “You were telling us who paid you to hide Nash’s mom’s necklace in Byrdie’s room.”
“Byrdie?” Lydia frowns.
She didn’t know that the name Byrdie used before wasn't her real name. We’ve all been careful not to call her Byrdie while Lydia was around, but it was only a matter of time before it came out.
“Talk,” Vonn demands.
Lydia gives him a nervous look and twists her fingers together in her lap. “I needed money for my wedding, and he said he would give me twenty grand if I did a couple of things for him.”
“How could you after everything we’ve done for you?” Nance demands.
I don’t know when she slipped into the room, but from the frustrated look Nash shoots her and the fact that he doesn’t order her to leave, he must know it would be a waste of time.
“I needed the money,” Lydia says defensively. “And it wasn’t going to hurt anyone.”
We all stare at her.
Lydia glances at Byrdie’s shaved hair and then looks at the floor.
“You were saying,” I prompt.
Lydia continues, “Nash’s uncle wanted me to look for something, and I couldn’t do that if there were maids coming and going all the time.”
“Youwere the reason they never stayed,” Nance exclaims.
Nash has never had luck keeping maids. Some were locals, and others he hired from external agencies. They all had one thing in common: none had stuck around beyond a week.
Lydia nods. “It wasn’t hard to scare them off by telling them there was a murderer under this roof. They never wanted to stay long after that. And it meant I was free to keep searching.”
“Searching for what?” Byrdie asks.
Lydia glances at Nash, and she hesitates.
Nash pierces her with a hard stare. “With what?”
“A diary,” she says.
When Nash’s face goes blank, I ask him, “Whose diary?”
Nash shakes his head without looking away from Lydia. “What else did he pay you to do other than get rid of the maids?”
She shoots Vonn a nervous look that almost makes me forget my curiosity about the diary that Nash doesn’t seem to want to talk about.
“A couple of men came into town looking for her,” she reluctantly admits.
From the sudden tension in Vonn’s shoulder and the fear that crosses Lydia’s face, I know where this is going.
“You told them that Byrdie was here,” Nash says quietly.
“I didn’t think they would hurt her,” she blurts out. “I just heard they were looking for a guy’s wife. When I met Nash’s uncle, and I told him what I’d heard, he said if I couldn’t scare Jessica—Byrdie—away with stories about the murder, then I should tell the men that the woman they were looking for was here, and I should open the gate when they came looking for her.”
“Youopened the gate to strange men when you didn’t even know who they were and if they were here to hurt her,” Nash bites out.
