Kara glanced over her shoulder and spied a Cadillac roll into one of the spots in front of the shop while Celeste strapped on the apron, black plastic now covering her tunic. “Look, that’s really all I can tell you. My day is booked solid, and the other stylists show up just before ten.” There was worry in her eyes. “I can’t afford to have anyone recognize . . . Wait. Here.” She reached into small flat dish positioned near her station, plucked off a business card, and handed it to Kara. “That’s got my cell on it. You can call me,” she said as the door open, a bell dinged, and a plump fiftyish woman swept through.
“Sorry, I’m late, Celeste!” she said breathlessly. “Oh, thank the Lord, you’ve got coffee going!” Unwrapping a scarf and hanging it and a long coat over a hook near the coffee table, she let out her breath. “You wouldn’t believe the morning I’ve had! A nightmare! With Chuck and the kids? I’m telling you, it’s a living nightmare!” She was already pouring herself a cup of coffee from the half-full carafe and didn’t even cast a look in Kara’s direction. Which was probably good since Kara’s picture had been in the papers and on the news and she wasn’t in the mood for a discussion of the McIntyre Massacre with Ms. Nine O’clock who sloshed some of the coffee, drips sizzling on the hot plate of the coffeemaker.
Kara took the hint and left, pushing out the glass doors to the cold day beyond, but she couldn’t help but think, as she slid behind the wheel of her Jeep, that Celeste’s client had no idea what a living nightmare really was.
Unfortunately, Kara did.
CHAPTER 11
He’d blown it.
His one big chance to nail an interview with Kara McIntyre, and Wesley Tate had flat out blown it. He finished his breakfast burrito in the corner café, scooted his chair back, and slipping on his ski jacket walked outside, into the cold, all the while mentally beating himself up. He should have gone at her another way, he thought as he melded with a thin stream of pedestrians walking briskly under the awnings of the stores lining the street, their breaths mingling in a visible cloud.
As Tate crossed the street, he passed a couple of teenage girls bundled in thick coats, hats and gloves. One was eating a donut, crumbs clinging to her glossed lips, the other was deep into her phone, scanning the small screen as she walked, somehow avoiding people hurrying in the opposite direction. Both girls’ noses were red, their cheeks flushed from the cold, though they seemed unaware of the temperature.
It was freezing. An east wind blasted through the canyon, whipping along the jagged river, creating white caps before slicing through the streets of Whimstick, and rattling windows of some of the original buildings built upon its shores. The town had been originally erected at the bend in the river, the first buildings circa 1840, and huddled around what had been a single-lane bridge built for horses and wagons. Over the course of nearly two centuries, the population of Whimstick had steadily grown, buildings encroaching on the surrounding hills and sprawling around the point where the river curved backward on itself, like a snake that hadn’t quite coiled.
Tate’s family had lived here for four generations. He figured that was long enough and had sworn at his high school graduation that he was moving out and moving on, heading to college in California and from there? Who knew. All he’d been certain of at the time was that he was never returning.
And he’d been wrong.
Dead wrong.
So much for idealistic dreams and teenage declarations, he thought as he rounded a corner near what had once been a mom-and-pop grocery but now sold antiques and “gently used” furniture. He sidestepped a man walking a dog, some kind of beagle mix that nosed every crack and cranny in the building’s fa?ade.
Tate had fantasized that by this age he would be a famous photojournalist who jetted off to all of the hot spots in the world, reporting on wars and military coups and juntas. Or, failing that, a sports reporter.
Instead, he’d settled for crime journalist and returned to Whimstick when his sister had called and informed him that his mother needed help. She’d been in a car accident that had crushed her pelvis and broken both legs while trying to take care of his stepdad. Darvin had been diagnosed with dementia for three years when she had been in the near-fatal accident, so she’d needed help. Badly. His sister, at the time, had two jobs, a kid under two, and had been separated from her loser of a husband.
That had been ten years ago.
Now, he was still here in the converted warehouse with its unique view of the river.