“What do you know?” Honey yelled at her as she retreated. “You can’t leave me in here. I didn’t kill anyone.”
Cordelia exited the room and pressed her back against the door, hand on her chest to catch her breath. It had been stupid to come here. She couldn’t do anything for Honey without putting Daisy in harm’s way. And if Honey started wagging her tongueabout the wine, it could spell trouble for the Chickadee. Especially if there were still people who believed Edna’s story. Cordelia should’ve just left well enough alone.
If only she could find the real killer before anyone else got caught in the crosshairs.
Promptly after leaving the jailhouse, Cordelia pulled out her phone, her thumb hovering above her boss Betsy’s number. Word of Honey’s arrest would spread quickly. The heat would be off Daisy and the chicks would soon be busier than ever. Now was as good a time as she’d ever get to tell them she wanted to return to Dallas.
But she couldn’t do it. Not only was Honey innocent, leaving a real murderer to go free in Sarsaparilla Falls, but Cordelia felt more like herself at the Chickadee than she ever had in Dallas. There was really only one thing she could do.
She pressed call on her boss’s number.
“Hello? Betsy?” Cordelia paced beside her car. “I’m afraid I won’t be returning to Dallas. Please consider this my notice. I’m sorry I didn’t get in touch with you sooner.”
That was all it took. A two-second conversation to end the life she thought she’d always wanted. And the only thing she felt bad about was that she didn’t feel bad at all.
Her phone buzzed, and she answered without looking at the screen. “I know I put you in a tough spot, Betsy. I’m so sorry, but I can’t leave Sarsaparilla Falls.”
“I know my hearing ain’t what it used to be, so please tell me I misheard you and you’re not in that town?” The loud screech coming through the line most definitely wasn’t Betsy. Cordelia pulled the phone away from her ear in horror.
Only to see her momma’s number on the screen.
“Momma, listen.” Cordelia gripped her hair at her nape. “Before you freak out.”
“BeforeI freak out?” Her momma’s pitch could set off dogs from twenty miles away. “I’m way beyond freaking out. Just what in the hell are you doing in that town?”
She couldn’t even say the name. Twenty years away and nearly that many years sober, and she still couldn’t stand to speak the name of the place that had driven her out of her mind. Cordelia knew she was going to have to have this conversation with Sherilynn eventually, but she’d hoped to do it in person. In public. Where there were witnesses.
“You know how I told you I was exploring other job opportunities?” Cordelia just had to bite the bullet and come clean to her momma. “As it turns out, I inherited a motel.”
Silence. “A motel? What motel?”
“Um.” Cordelia clenched her teeth. Sarsaparilla Falls only had one motel, and her momma knew it. Squeezing her eyes shut, she forced out the words in a rush. “The Chickadee.”
“Oh my God.” A muted bounce like a tree branch hitting a trampoline came through the line. If Cordelia wasn’t used to her momma’s histrionics, she would’ve thought she’d fainted dead away on her couch. “And just how did a thing like that happen?”
“You know how Daddy told you all his relatives were dead too, and that’s what the two of you first bonded over? Welp, surprise. It turns out he was lying. Miss Penelope was his aunt.”
“I’m not concerned about the lies of a known liar.” Sherilynn’s voice sharpened. “What concerns me is why you seem to be taking after him by not telling me.”
Cordelia bristled. She wasn’t anything like her daddy. Unlike him, she wasn’t lying to her momma on purpose. She’d just been put between a rock and a hard place and chose the rock for thetime being. “I was going to tell you eventually. I was just working up the courage to do so because I knew this was how you’d react.”
“Oh, sure. Blame me.”
“I’m not—”
“My only daughter, running a cathouse.” Sherilynn groaned. “Where did I go wrong?”
“Is that a rhetorical question, or... ?”
Her momma released a long-suffering sigh fit for chaise longues and smelling salts. “I’m coming down there.”
“No. Please don’t.” The last thing Cordelia needed was to add her momma to the list of senior women she was in charge of minding. “This really isn’t a good time.”
“Why? What’s going on?” Her momma could dig up dirt from a soap factory.
“I’m still getting settled and figuring out my way around things.” She could hardly tell her momma she was trying to solve a murder that had happened on her watch. “How about I call you when things settle down?”
“I guess that would be okay.” Sherilynn West wouldn’t be deterred forever. She was born and raised in Texas, and the stubborn gene came part and parcel, but Cordelia hoped she could put her off for just a little while longer. “But if you don’t call me regularly, I’m going to assume something terrible has happened and then I’ll have no choice but to scurry down there.”
