Free A Veiled Deception by Annette Blair Page A

couldn’t see her face.
    After a minute, Sherry pulled a bit away from Justin to address us. “Somebody told them that I called Jasmine a bitch and threatened her life.”
    Denial echoed around the group, with one exception.
    “Deborah!” Cort snapped.
    Justin growled. “Damn it, Mom!”
    Deborah furrowed her brows attempting to look innocent. “The woman detective asked me if anybody had said anything incriminating. We were supposed to tell the truth, weren’t we? Did you all lie when they asked you that? I mean this is a horrible scandal we’re being dragged into.” She slid her gaze to Sherry and away so fast, blame might not have been assigned, but it was. “I mean,” she said, “it’s all embarrassing enough without lying.”
    Cort looked disgusted with his wife, but the questions he shot at her revealed that Deborah had been the only one interviewed by the female detective who might, or might not, have asked about incriminating statements.
    Deborah patted Sherry’s shoulder in the way one might so as to keep from catching guilt cooties by association. “I’m glad you weren’t arrested, dear.”
    Deborah turned to me with a smile. A smile, the stitch. “Madeira, you have something to drop off, don’t forget. And dinner at our house tonight at seven.” Deborah waved as she left, got into her powder blue Mercedes, and drove away. Cort didn’t look happy as he got into his taupe version of the same car and followed.
    Justin and Sherry exchanged glances. “Eloping sounds good about now,” Justin said.
    “I can’t leave the state,” Sherry whispered.
    “Screw work,” Justin snapped. “I’m not leaving you today. Let’s get out of here.”
    He put Sherry in his car and they left together.
    “I couldn’t ask for a better son-in-law,” my father said. Given Justin’s past connection to Jasmine, I sure hoped Dad was right. Nine
    Zest is the secret of all beauty. There is no beauty that is attractive without zest.—CHRISTIAN DIOR
    I touched Fiona’s arm. “Aunt Fiona, can I follow you home? I’d like to talk to you.”
    “I was going to suggest it myself, dear. I’ll make us some lunch. Eve, will you be joining us?”
    “No, thank you, Fiona. Mad can drop me at home on the way. I need to go over to UConn. Get my paperwork settled. Scope it out for fall courses.”
    I made sure my dad was okay before I got in my car, and I let him leave first, so I could follow and make sure he got home all right. I dropped Eve at her parents’ with a promise to call her after tonight’s dinner at Deborah’s.
    Dad’s car sat in our drive when I went by and I saw him walking down our sloping lawn toward the Mystic River. This must be hard on him, but he tended to suffer in silence, my dad, so who could tell what he was thinking?
    I appreciated being home again with nature all around me. The house lots here in Mystick Falls were huge and staggered so that the riverside houses had a front-door view of the woods and the wood-side houses had a front-door view of the river. Fiona’s house looked more like a small Irish manor, mystical, inside and out, as if it belonged on a hillside surrounded by moors facing the Irish Sea. Not that I expected to see the occasional leprechaun, but I did find myself humming the theme song to the Wizard of Oz as I pulled into the driveway. Oy.
    A tribute to her personality, her home spoke of her zest for life in all its intricacies, a quality I had always admired.
    Perhaps because I’d seen that zest up close and personal during the occasional moon dance as a toddler? Add to that my formative years, during which I’d earned the right to walk in without knocking, a habit I took advantage of at this moment. Aunt Fiona was on the phone and she signaled that she’d be another minute. Inside, her textured earth-tone walls covered a spectrum of colors from clay to sand to Connecticut’s wild honeysuckle. Celtic symbols adorned fabrics and artwork, even floor tiles . . . suns,