I sighed, so tired of this back and forth with Jeffrey. “Can you tell us who Cora’s fiancé was?”
“Miss Cora was engaged to Ross Yates.”
I turned to Alice. “Do you know him?”
She grimaced. “Unfortunately.”
Alice and I rose. “Jeffrey, please thank Tallulah for her time.”
Without waiting to hear Tallulah tell Jeffrey to tell us goodbye, we left.
“Who is Ross Yates?”I said to Alice once we got outside.
“Oh, you don’t want to know,” Alice replied.
“What do you mean?”
Ruth jumped out of the bushes. I threw my hands in the air and screamed.
My body pulsed with fear. It felt like a bolt of electricity had zapped its way down my spine to my toes. I hadn’t felt a jolt like that since my Ghost Team days. “What in the heckabaloo are you doing? Trying to give me a heart attack?”
Ruth pointed a finger at Alice. “You just had to talk about him, didn’t you?”
Ruth sighed and shook her head. “I knew we shouldn’t have talked about him.”
“What is going on?” No one answered me, so I turned to Ruth. “You,” I said angrily, “aren’t even supposed to be here. What are you doing beside the house?”
Ruth didn’t answer. Instead she sucked her teeth.
Alice glared at her. “She was reading lips is what she was doing.”
“What?” My gaze darted from Alice to Ruth. “Is that true? Were you reading our lips?”
“Maybe.”
“You’re supposed to be laying low,” I screeched. But then I stopped. “Can you really read lips?”
Ruth wiggled her eyebrows. “I sure can, and I know y’all were in there talking about Ross Yates.”
“What’s he to you?” We’d reached my vehicle, and I unlocked the doors. “The two of you pile in. We’re going somewhere to talk.”
Ruth and Alice got in, and I drove us around town. “Well? Who is Ross?”
Alice, who sat in front, pulled down her mirror and fluffed her gray curls. “Ross Yates was Ruth’s boyfriend when they were twenty. He broke up with her, and she never got over it.”
“He was a player, as you young kids say,” Ruth explained. “Doesn’t mean the heartache was any easier to bear.”
I gripped the steering wheel, trying to piece together what theyweren’ttelling me. “I don’t understand. Wait. Do you stillhave a thingfor him?”
“I prefer not to answer,” Ruth mumbled.
“But could Ross have done it?”
“How?” Alice said. “He wasn’t even there. Someone who was there had to cut the fabric from Ruth’s jacket.”
“And we all split up,” I said quietly. “Okay. Who appeared near Cora first? Roan and I. Then Ruth, right? You were next, isn’t that correct?”
“I believe so,” Ruth said. “It was dark. Unless we can find the knife or get a confession out of anyone, I don’t see how we’ll be able to piece together what happened.”
