Free Tea Leafing: A Novel by Weezie Macdonald

presents for one
another. Lena must have known that sooner or later Amanda would look to see
what lingering mementos were hidden behind the wall, only to discover the book
of Alex’s innermost thoughts and confessions. It was clear that if the storm
had blown over, Alex could have gone back, retrieved the diary and no one would
have been the wiser. If Amanda found it, Alex would have told her the truth.
    Amanda only stayed at
the loft for an hour or so, having to be back in Savannah by dark. She lied to
her parents, telling them she was going to a performing arts festival in the
historic district and would be out all day. She prayed they didn’t think to check
her odometer. Atlanta was a solid four-hour drive each way. She was exhausted
by the time she pulled past the guardhouse at the entrance of the gated
community where they lived.
    Amanda felt good about
leaving the diary and all its clippings and scribbled notes with the girls. She was comforted by the feeling they’d know what to do with it .
Her initial thought had been to give it to her parents, or perhaps the police
so Alex’s murderers could be tracked down. The investigating detectives had
filled her parents in on Lena’s job while they were questioning the family
about her murder. After the funeral, her parents made several comments about
her sister’s murder being a consequence of her lifestyle. Not that they felt
she deserved to die, but that if she’d walked the straight and narrow no harm
would ever have come to her. She could tell that they felt Alex invited her own
death. It broke Amanda’s heart to think about those spoken words. She knew it
was a defense mechanism. If they could name the reason, identify the fault, they could save Amanda from suffering the same fate.
Their protective grip on her had tightened since Alex’s death. Amanda hoped it
was a knee-jerk reaction that would ease with time. She was beginning to feel
like she was suffocating.
    She understood the
disdain for Alex’s job and friends, chalking them up to night crawlers that lived
on the underbelly of society. But Amanda saw things in a different light. The
light Alex had shown her during their long talks about her adventures, the
girls, and the side of life she’d never seen before. She was sure that if she
tried to talk to her parents about Alex, they would either dismiss her ideas as
sophomoric or be infuriated that Alex had somehow tainted her baby sister by
exposing her to dangerous elements. Life outside the walls of their sequestered
existence of golf, tennis and private education was to be discouraged. It was
dangerous.
    In the end, Amanda had
decided turning the diary over to the foursome was the best thing to do.
Something deep within told her they would not allow Alex’s death to go
unpunished. Even if no one else wanted to dirty their hands with the task,
these women would track her killer to the ends of the earth and make that
person suffer in the most thoroughly imaginative way.
    Amanda smiled to
herself as she punched the garage door opener.

 
 
 
    CHAPTER 14
    Sam set her bag down on
the kitchen counter and began sorting through the pile of mail she’d been
neglecting since the whole ordeal began. She dropped the envelopes into three
piles — bills, undetermined, and trash. Kicking off her shoes, she padded
over to the couch in her stocking feet. Even though she’d slept a solid eight
hours at Birdie’s, she was still feeling tired. Punching the ‘speaker’ button
on her cordless phone, she dialed into her voicemail system, making notes about
who had called and placing small stars next to those messages that required a
response.
    Logging onto her
laptop, she scheduled bill payments. She sifted through the “maybe” pile of
mail, sorting it into a new “keep” pile and the existing trash pile. She
straightened all the papers and carried the stack of rejects to her shredder.
Fishing her tablet out of her bag, she settled herself back into the