“You’ve never dated a novelist, have you?” Leslie asked in an undertone. “A guitar player—two of them, right? A chef, a baseball player, a poli-sci professor—and God knows whoelse.”
Cherry grinned and ran a hand through her short, sassy platinum hair. “I’ve done a poet and a self-help author, so I think it’s about time I tried out a fiction writer, don’t you? Unless you’re interested—and he does seem to be checking you out. Although, if you are, then you have to back off on Declan. No fair for you to be hoarding all the foxymen.”
Leslie’s eyes widened and her cheeks warmed. “Keep your voice down,” she muttered, looking around to make sure no one had heard. “And don’t you want to hear what Ifound?”
“Oh, right. Do tell! Orbry, lean in—Leslie’s gotnews.”
But before she could begin to tell her tale, a smartly dressed woman approached thetable.
“Ah, Regina’s here,” said Underwhite, standing to greet hiswife.
Leslie had to agree with Maxine’s previous comment: the two made an unusual couple—at least visually. Though they both seemed to be the same age, Mrs. Regina Clemons Underwhite was much more slender than he—nearly as toned and fit as Cherry, but taller. Almost six feet, Leslie guessed, which put her five or six inches above her husband. She dressed as expensively as he did, however, in a tailored shift of Kelly green trimmed with black embroidery at the hem and ends of its long sleeves. Her hair was an unnatural blue-black without a hint of gray, and she looked as if she’d just left thesalon.
As it turned out, she had. “So sorry I’m late,” she said, glancing around the table. “Emily was running behind, and I was her last cut tonight. But I don’t trust my hair to anyone else, you know.” She turned to Leslie. “Emily Delton, at the Beau Monde Salon—best stylist and colorist in the county, if you’re looking for someone. Worth waiting for, even if she’s running late. You’re Leslie Nakano, aren’t you? The new owner at Shenstone? I’m so sorry we haven’t met before now—but better late than never. Regina Underwhite.” She smiled pleasantly, her teeth as perfect as her husband’s, which caused Leslie to wonder if they’d used the sameorthodontist.
“Pleasure to meet you,” she said, shaking Regina’s offered hand. “Thanks for the recommendation—I do need to find a new salon and stylist now that I’ve moved to the area, so I’ll give them acall.”
“Emily books up months in advance, but if you tell them I sent you, I’m sure they’ll fit you in. She always keeps a bit of padding for emergencies.” Regina looked around the table and laughed lightly. “Well, now that we’ve got that settled—I’m sorry I’m late, darling,” she said again. This time, she leaned toward her husband, who’d risen to pull out her chair, and gave him a warm kiss on thelips.
He smiled, moving a hand affectionately across her shoulder, then sat back down next to her. “We waited for you to order. I hope you’rehungry.”
“How sweet of you. Thank you, Aaron. I was hoping to have some news for you about the salon’s expansion plans, but all Emily Delton wanted to talk about was DeclanZyler.”
“Declan Zyler? What about?” Orbra demanded, flickering a glance across the table, and all of a sudden, Leslie felt a sudden sense of disquiet…and, strangely, it grew into a sense of disappointment at Regina’s nextwords.
“Oh yes, she was going on and on about how she’s been going to the football games with him to watch their daughters on the pom squad, and how he had her over the other night for a beer. The man is nice enough, I suppose, but he doesn’t really do a thing for me,” Regina said, sliding a sidewise look at her husband andsmiling.
He beamed and patted her hand. “You’re a brains over brawn kind of woman, Iknow.”
“Well, he sure as hell does a thing for me,” Trib said as he placed a new beer in front of Fischer, and another in front of Underwhite. “Too bad I’m almost twenty years too old forhim.”
“Not to mention the fact that he goes the other way,” Orbra saiddryly.
Trib sighed. “A man can dream, can’t he? I keep trying to think of excuses to stop by and see him working at that forge of his. He already did that fire pit for me up at the house, but I never caught him working.” He looked up and around the restaurant. “Been thinking about adding some wrought iron accents to the place here, you know. Lots of ’em.”
They all laughed, and Cherry said, “You let us know how that works out,Trib.”
Regina looked up. “Hello, Trib. I’ll have my usual, if you don’t mind.” Then she spoke to the table at large. “I suppose you’ve all been discussing business before I got here? Or plans for the class reunion?” She turned back to Leslie, who was beginning to wonder if she’d ever be able to tell Cherry about the speakeasy. “Aaron is the mayor, but of course he ropes me in to a lot of special projects.” Her eyes danced, indicating that she didn’t mind it one bit. “I have an interior design practice, but I’m very involved in anything related to the town or special events here. Including the big, multiyearreunion.”
“No, no, we weren’t actually talking business at all, Reggie,” Underwhite said. “You didn’t miss athing.”
“Would you all like to order, now that Madam Underwhite is here?” Trib asked, nudging her playfully frombehind.
The consensus was for the pizza with the “crack” sauce, and they ordered a vegetarian one for Cherry and Regina, and another two with a variety of toppings, and then, finally, Leslie was able to tell herstory.
“There’s a hidden room in the cellar.” She was mainly speaking to her aunt and Orbra, but the others could hear as well. “I think it was aspeakeasy.”
“A speakeasy?” Iva fairly squealed. She looked as if she were about to erupt from her chair and run to Shenstone House to see for herself. “Where? How big was it? Was there anything init?”
The Underwhites and Trib were listening too. (Hollis Nath had left the table to take a phonecall.)
Leslie was only too happy to fill in the details about where the entrance was and what she and Declan had found when they pulled off the patched-up piece of plasterboard. “There are bottles and glasses all over the place, and the furniture is in bad shape. But there are two oil paintings that are absolutely stunning—each of a woman wearing amazing jewelry. Though they’re portraits, the gemstones are really the focus of the picture, and as soon as I saw them, I couldn’t help but wonder whether they were paintings of the missing legendary jewels of Red Eye Sal. If they evenexist.”
“Oh, they exist all right,” Trib said. He’d pulled up a chair and spun it around, straddling it so he could rest his hands on the top of its back. “Well, at least one piece does—or did.” Regina, Underwhite, and Trib exchanged glances. “No one’s sure about whether there was a whole cache of jewels like the legend says, or just the onenecklace.”
“What did the jewels look like?” asked Orbra just as a waiter delivered two of the three pizzas they’d ordered. “The ones in the paintings, Imean.”
“One was all sapphires. It was as if the woman was wearing a collar just dripping with them—of all different shades of blue, too, so some might have been blue topazes. They covered the top of her chest like this.” Leslie used her hands to demonstrate. “And she had matching earrings and a bracelet. It was a ridiculous number of gemstones, all set in silver—or maybe platinum. And at the bottom of the necklace, the part hanging the lowest,was—”
