haven’t decided yet.”
He cocked his head and narrowed his gaze. “Is that the best you can do? Disappointing, Arden. You used to be a much better liar.”
“I don’t have as much practice these days without you egging me on.”
His demeanor remained casual, but something dark flashed in his eyes. “As if I ever had to egg you on. About anything.”
She felt the heat of an uncharacteristic blush and turned away. “Funny. I don’t recall it that way.”
“No? I could refresh your memory with any number of specifics, but suffice to say, you were always very good at deception and subterfuge. Better than me, in fact.”
“No one was a better liar than you, Reid Sutton.”
“It’s good to excel at something, I guess. Seriously, though. How long are you really here for? The truth, this time.”
She sighed. She could string him along until they both tired of the game, but what would be the point? “I haven’t decided that, either.” She brushed off her dusty fingers. “The house needs work before I can list it and I’m not sure I trust Grandmother’s attorney to oversee even minor renovations. He’s getting on in years and wants to retire.” There. She’d owned up to Reid Sutton what she hadn’t dared to admit to herself—that she’d come back to Charleston indefinitely.
“Ambrose Foucault still handling her affairs?”
“Yes.”
“He’s no spring chicken,” Reid agreed. “First I’d heard of his retirement, though.”
“It’s not official. Please don’t go chasing after his clients.”
He smiled slyly. “Wouldn’t dream of it. What about your job? Last I heard you were the director of some fancy art gallery in Atlanta.”
“Not an art gallery, a private museum. And not the director, just a lowly archivist.”
His eyes glinted. “I bet you ran things, though.”
“I tried to, which is why I’m no longer employed there.”
“You were fired?”
“Not fired,” she said with a frown. “It was a mutual parting of the ways. And anyway, I was ready for a change. You should understand that. Didn’t you just leave your father’s law practice?”
“Yes, but I was fired. Disowned, too, in fact. I’m poor now in case you hadn’t heard.”
She was unmoved by his predicament. “By Sutton standards maybe. Seems as though I recall a fairly substantial trust fund from your grandfather. Or have you blown through that already?”
“Oh, I’ve had a good time and then some. But no worries. Provisions have been made for our old age. Nothing on this level, of course.” He glanced around the gloomy room with the gilded portraits and priceless antiques. “But we’ll have enough for a little place on the beach or a cabin in the mountains. Which do you prefer?”
Arden wasn’t amused. The idea that they would grow old together was ludicrous and yet, if she were honest, somehow poignant. “Go away, Reid. I have things to do.”
“I could help you unpack,” he offered. “At least let me carry your bags upstairs.”
“I can manage, thanks.”
“Are you sure you want to be alone in this house tonight?”
His tone altered subtly, sending a prickle of alarm down Arden’s spine. “Why? What aren’t you telling me?” When he didn’t answer immediately, she moved closer, peering into his eyes until he glanced away. “You didn’t come over here to clear the air, did you? What’s going on, Reid? For the last time, why are you really here?”
He peered past her shoulder into the garden. “You haven’t heard, then.”
“Heard what?”
His troubled gaze came back to her. “There’s been a murder.”
“The victim was a young female Caucasian,” Reid added as he studied Arden’s expression.
She looked suddenly pale in the waning light from the garden, but her voice remained unnervingly calm. “A single mother?”
The question was only natural considering Orson Lee Finch’s MO. He’d preyed on young single mothers from affluent families. It was assumed his predilection had been nurtured by contempt for his own unwed mother and resentment of the people he’d worked for. Some thought his killing spree had been triggered by the rejection of his daughter’s mother. All psychobabble, as far as Reid was concerned, in a quest to understand the nightmarish urges of a serial killer.
“I don’t know anything about the victim,” he said. “But Orson Lee Finch will never see the outside of his prison walls again, so this can’t have anything to do with him. At least not directly.”
Arden’s eyes pierced the distance between them. “Why are you here, then? You didn’t just come about any old murder.”
“A magnolia blossom was found at the scene.”
Her eyes went wide before she quickly retreated back into the protection of her rigid composure.
This was the part where Reid would have once taken her in his arms, letting his strength and steady tone reassure her there was no need for panic. He wouldn’t touch her now, of course. That wouldn’t be appropriate and, anyway, he was probably overreacting. Homicides happened every day. But, irrational or not, he had a bad feeling about this one. He’d wanted Arden to hear about it from him rather than over the news.
She’d gone very still, her expression frozen so that Reid had a hard time reading her emotions. Her hazel eyes were greener than he remembered, her hair shorter than she’d worn it in her younger days, when the sun-bleached ends had brushed her waist. The tiny freckles across her nose, though. He recalled every single one of those.
If he looked closely, he could see the faintest of shadows beneath her eyes and the tug of what might have been unhappiness at the corners of her mouth. He didn’t want to look that closely. He wanted to remember Arden Mayfair as that fearless golden girl—barefoot and tanned—who had captured his heart at the ripe old age of four. He wanted to remember those glorious days of swimming and crabbing and catching raindrops on their tongues. And then as they grew older and the hormones kicked in, all those moonlit nights on the beach. The soft sighs and intimate whispers and the music spilling from his open car doors.
The Arden that stood before him now was much too composed and untouchable in her pristine white dress and power high heels. This Arden was gorgeous and sexy, but too grown-up and far too put together. And here he was still tilting at windmills.
He canted his head as he studied her. “Arden? Did you hear what I said?”
“Yes, I heard you.” Her hair shimmered about her shoulders as she tucked it behind her ears. “I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to do with the information.”
“You don’t have to do anything. I just thought it was something you’d want to know.”
“Why?”
“Why? Are you really going to make me spell it out?”
“Murder happens all the time, unfortunately, and magnolia blossoms are as common as dirt in Charleston. You said yourself this has nothing to do with Orson Lee Finch.”
“I did say that, yes.”
“This city has always had a dark side. You know that as well as I do.” She glanced toward the garden, her gaze distant and