Free Stranger in the Room: A Novel by Amanda Kyle Williams Page B

tipping Tilison off. I wanted to surprise him, judge his steadiness with an unscheduled visit. But unless I ran the barricade and dinged up my currently unblemished Impala, it didn’t look like I was going to get inside.
    Neil punched in the number Miki had given us. The sun was heating up, beating down on us. He handed me the phone. “Mr. Tilison, my name is Keye Street. I’d like to speak to you about Miki Ashton.”
    “About Miki? What about Miki?”
    I recognized his howdy-ma’am country-singer voice. I’d heard it intelevision interviews. “I’m at the guard shack. Would you mind instructing security to open the gate?”
    The call came half a minute later, the arm lifted, and we pulled in to Cash’s multimillion-dollar neighborhood—a honeymoon of Old South and new money, with three-acre lots, weeping willows bending over garden bridges and koi ponds, gigantic shoreline homes overlooking Lake Lanier. And so far out of my price range I couldn’t have hit it with a high-powered scope.
    We found the address and pulled into a long driveway. The antenna on my old ragtop teased a row of twilight crepe myrtles and the blossoms drifted into my open convertible like lavender snowflakes. Tilison’s limestone mansion shimmered with the water behind it like it was the end of the rainbow.
    I parked in a circular drive in front of the house. We both got out. I looked back at my car and decided it looked good in this neighborhood. My sixty-nine Impala was in perfect condition, thanks to my dad, who’d pieced it back together after some bad luck last year—a serial killer with a tire tool and an angry subpoena recipient with a thirty-eight. Just so happens, as my dad loves to point out, I’m just as tough on cars sober as I was as a practicing drunk.
Thanks, Dad
. Why do people enjoy reminding you of the past? And when I say “people,” I mean parents. They hold on to
everything
. Doesn’t matter if you’ve recovered from alcohol, Jehovah witnessing, an attraction to guys in ball-gags, or once had a bout with gender dysphoria, your parents will clobber you with it eventually. And given the tiniest opening, they will share it with whomever you’ve decided to bring home for dinner.
    Cash Tilison came out his front door in western boots, a short-sleeve T-shirt that hugged his biceps and pumped-up pecs and was tucked into blue jeans. Thick crop of reddish-brown hair, brown eyes, wide-shouldered and tall.
Yum
. Just my type. Well, except for the stalker thing. And the Miki thing. Oh, and the Rauser thing. But, hey, it does not hurt to look, right? Neil elbowed me. I think my jaw had dropped a little.
    “Cash Tilison.” He extended his hand to me, then to Neil. I introduced them. “So tell me Miki’s all right.”
    “There was a break-in at her house Thursday night,” I said.
    He stopped. “Oh God. Was she hurt?” He was leading us down a sidewalk that twisted around the house. I saw a terraced rock garden, a pond, a bridge, a limestone patio with stone bar that matched the house. An elaborate outdoor kitchen.
    “No.”
    “Thank the Lord for that.” We walked up stone steps to the patio. He gestured toward the chairs. “So how can I help? Why didn’t Miki call me herself? How do you know her?”
    “Where were you Thursday night, Mr. Tilison?”
    “Where was I?” He looked confused. “Who are you again?”
    “My name is Keye Street. I’m a private investigator.” I didn’t want to tell him Miki was my cousin. I wasn’t ready to give up anything that a stalker could use later.
    “Miki hired a PI to find out who broke into her house?”
    “Where did you say you were Thursday night?”
    “You think
I
broke into her house?” He started to laugh. “Oh that’s sweet! Why on earth would I do that? First of all, I don’t need to rob houses for a living. I’m doing pretty good, as you can see.” He gestured to the excessive mansion we’d seen only from outside. “Secondly, I have a key.”
    He leaned