Free Center Stage: Magnolia Steele Mystery #1 by Denise Grover Swank Page A

“Hey, y’all! I’m standing right here! Mind including me in this conversation?”
    “This might take an hour or more,” Emily said to my mother, ignoring my request.
    “You better get going,” Momma said, not looking at either one of us.
    I wanted to protest, but it wasn’t like I had a lot of options. My entire life was fresh out of options.
    “Come on, Magnolia,” Emily said. I started to follow her, but then a horrifying thought occurred to me. If the detective knew about my infamy, it was only a matter of time before everyone knew. Wouldn’t it be better if the information came from me? I turned back to my mother.
    “Let me see your phone.”
    “What on earth for?” she asked.
    “Just give me your phone.”
    She pulled it out of her pocket, entered the password, and handed it over.
    Magnolia Steele wasn’t exactly a common name, and a quick search was all it took to find a slew of posts about my humiliation. I pulled up a New York Post story—it was one of the kinder reports—and handed the phone back to her without fully releasing my grip on it. “After what Detective Holden said . . . you need to see this. You need to be prepared.” I let go and hurried out the door before she could watch it.
    Emily led the way to a shiny black BMW. The car chirped and the headlights flashed as I walked around to the passenger door.
    Neither of us spoke after we got in the car. Emily simply started driving, west and then south.
    Luke lived in the rolling farmland north of the Harpeth River, still in Franklin. The area was full of trees and hundred-year-old low stonewalls. It was beautiful and ordinarily peaceful, but my nerves were on edge and my stomach was churning.
    “It hasn’t changed all that much since I left,” I said, looking out the window. “Lots of trees and meadows.”
    “Plenty of places to hide bodies,” Emily said dryly, her hands at two and ten on her black leather steering wheel.
    “Planning on killing me and disposing of my body?” I asked.
    “Please . . .” she drawled. “You wouldn’t be worth the effort.”
    I pursed my lips together, too worried to come up with a retort. “Why did you take my case?”
    She gave me a look of disgust. “I sure as hell didn’t do it for you.”
    “That’s comforting.” I remember her earlier suggestion that I plead guilty. “How do I know you won’t do a bad job of defending me just to make me pay?”
    “So you’re admitting guilt?”
    “I didn’t kill Max Goodwin.”
    “I know that.” She shot me a snide look. “You’re a lot of things, Magnolia Steele, but stupid’s not one of them. If you argued with the asshole in public, you wouldn’t have killed him an hour later.”
    “How do you know it wasn’t an act of anger? Or passion?”
    She smirked. “That would suggest you had a soul.”
    “Wow. Thanks . . . I guess.”
    “And I was talking about Tanner McKee.”
    “For God’s sake, Emily. He asked me to homecoming twelve years ago. If you wanted him so badly, why didn’t you go after him after I left?”
    “He was too devastated to even think about another woman. Everyone was devastated after you left,” she sneered. “Everyone but you. But then that was you, narcissistic Magnolia Steele who thought the sun rose and set on her.”
    “That is so not true,” I spat out. “And you have no idea what I went through after I left.”
    She pulled up to a stop sign and turned her piercing gaze on me. “You’re right, Magnolia. Why don’t you fill me in?”
    Oh. Shit. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid .
    I should have never come back, but it was too late for that now. I was good and stuck here. Tears welled in my eyes, so I turned and looked out the window into the dark night.
    “That’s what I thought,” she said, turning left. “It was always all about you. I see things haven’t changed. Lila didn’t tell me that you were coming back. I bet you just showed up on her doorstep, nearly giving her a heart attack.”
    I wanted to ask