“Anything else you want to get off your chest?” He said it so smoothly I almost didn’t notice the steel in his voice.
“Uh, no. That’s it.”
Deliberately he slid his glass aside and folded his arms on the table. “What about your visit with Essie? In the interest of
All the air swooshed from my lungs. For a moment, I could only gape at him in awkward silence. Then I rushed into an embarrassed justification. “It wasn’t planned. I didn’t go down there to see her. I didn’t even know about her. We met in the cemetery…” I trailed off at the look on his face. “I’m sorry. I should have told you.”
His eyes were very dark, very cold, very unforgiving. “The next time you have a question about my private life, I suggest you ask me directly instead of going behind my back.”
Twenty-Two
Devlin’s anger hit me hard. I’d never handled disapproval well nor had I learned to let criticism roll off my back. Sometimes I wondered if being adopted had something to do with my almost obsessive need to please. Or maybe I over-compensated because of my father’s rules and my mother’s melancholy.
Whatever the reason, I knew that if I went home, I’d spend the whole day in a mood, so late that afternoon I called Temple and asked her to meet me for drinks.
We chose a place with a waterfront view, and by the time I arrived, she was already seated on the patio watching the sailboats put in.
“There you are,” she said as I sat down across from her.
“Am I late?”
“No, I’m early.” She picked up her drink, some potent-looking concoction in a tall, frosted glass, and sipped. “After ten days of babysitting undergrads, I needed this more than you. Although…” She cocked her head. “You do look a little flushed.”
“It’s summertime in the Deep South. What do you expect?”
“Hmm, yes, except you’re not exactly sweating.”
“We glow down here, remember?”
She didn’t take her eyes off me as she motioned for the waiter.
“What?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Something’s different about you. I can’t quite put my finger on it.” She waited until I’d given the waiter my order, then leaned in. “Are you sleeping with Devlin?”
“I hardly know him! And after today,” I said a bit glumly, “the possibility of that is even more remote than the last time we talked.”
“What happened?”
“Something stupid.” I rubbed a hand across my forehead. “I’m almost too embarrassed to tell you.”
She propped an elbow on the table, drink in hand, and waited.
“I drove down to Beaufort County yesterday to visit his wife and daughter’s graves.” I glanced up to view her reaction.
She arched a brow. “And why did you do that?”
“I don’t know. Curiosity, I guess. While I was there, I met Mariama’s grandmother—who is a root doctor, by the way—and a young girl named Rhapsody, Mariama’s second cousin. Anyway, one of them must have told Devlin I’d been there, and now he’s angry that I pried into his personal life and I’m completely mortified.”
“If that’s the worst thing you’ve ever done to a man, then you obviously have never been in love,” Temple said with a shrug. “But I still don’t understand why you went to visit those graves. What did you hope to accomplish?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to see where they were buried.”
“And so now Devlin’s upset with you.” She contemplated the matter for a moment. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Wait for it to blow over, I guess.”
“The fatalistic approach. I’m not a fan.”
I sighed. “What would you do then?”
“Try my damnedest to make him forget about Mariama—at least for a night. But that’s me. And for you, I’m afraid that might be a tall order.”
Her gentle ribbing went right over my head. “I don’t want him to forget Mariama. Why would I want that?” I thought of my encounter with Mariama’s ghost and shuddered.
Temple gave me a look over the rim of her glass. “I said for a night.”
The waiter brought over my drink and I used the opportunity to change the subject. “How did you get here so fast, anyway? You must have already been in town.”
“I was. We wrapped up early and now I don’t have a thing to do for the next couple of days but hang out by the pool and soak up some sun. Well, except for a report to file and a mountain of papers to grade.” She did look relaxed and quite exotic in a mustard-colored peasant blouse with embroidered flowers. In comparison, my skinny jeans and tank seemed a little too coed. A little too vanilla.
“When are you going back to Columbia?”
“Not until I take a look at your skeleton. And speaking of Devlin, he called. He’s rescheduled the exhumation for tomorrow.”
“Yes, I know. Ethan Shaw left a message on my voicemail earlier.”
“You’re planning on being there then?”
Was that a note of disapproval I heard in her tone? Or was I being a little too sensitive after Devlin’s censure? “I don’t see why not. I’ve been involved from the very beginning. Which is another reason I wanted to see you today. I’ve been trying to research Afton Delacourt’s murder, but I can’t find anything about it online or in the newspaper archives.”
Her relaxed mood faded as she sat back in her chair and gazed out over the water. A breeze tickled the dark curls at her nape and the palmetto fronds that hung over the railing. “Why are you so obsessed with that murder?”
“I wouldn’t call it obsessed,” I said a bit defensively. “But I am interested. Two, possibly three murder victims have been found in the cemetery where I spend a lot of time alone. I think my concern is understandable.”
“Maybe. But we both know what’s really going on here, don’t we? You’re overcompensating. Something exciting has come into your careful little world and you’ve latched on with both hands.”
“That’s not it!” But I wondered if my vehemence was due in part to her hitting a little too close to home. “And, anyway, I thought you said I needed some excitement.”
“I hardly meant involving yourself in a murder investigation.”
I stared at her across the table. “Why does it bother you so much to talk about Afton Delacourt?”
“I’m not bothered. It happened a long time ago and I don’t see the point of dredging up ancient history.”
“What kind of archaeologist are you?”
Her smile was ironic and she seemed to unwind a little. “Good point. I know this sounds odd, but it feels… intrusive somehow. Like maybe we should leave that poor girl alone.”
“It’s strange that you should say that. Daniel Meakin made almost exactly the same comment the other day.”
“Meakin?” She couldn’t have been more dismissive. “Where did you see him?”
“In the archives room at the university.”
“Figures. I suspect he spends most of his time down there. He’s like a mole.”
“I saw Camille down there, too, that day. I think she was spying on us.”
“That sounds like Camille. She’s always had a tendency to stick her nose in where it doesn’t belong. I used to hate the way she’d go through my things when I wasn’t around.”
“Did you really have a fling with her or were you just teasing Ethan the other night?”
“Camille and I definitely had our moments. But there’s darkness in that woman. It drives her to do impulsive,
