Laina Turner - Presley Thurman 08 - Vows & Victims by Laina Turner Page B

want to drink, Dad?” I said, as he sat down and I walked to the refrigerator.
    “Iced tea, if there’s some left.”
    “Just made a fresh pot and stuck it in there,” my mom said. “Might need a lot of ice though, probably still hot.”
    I got the drinks on the table as my mom put out the eggplant, a bowl of noodles with butter and garlic, and some hot rolls she had just taken from the oven.
    We sat down and said grace, a tradition in our family, and then all dug in.
    The only sounds for a while were the cutting and chewing. My family was serious about eating.
    “This is great as usual, Sue,” my dad said.
    “I second that. I haven’t had this in a long time and it was exactly what I needed.” In more ways than one, I thought.
    “If you came home more often, you could eat this more often.”
    “C’mon, Mom, don’t start with that.”
    “Well, it’s true. And where is Cooper? I was looking forward to making his favorite bacon–wrapped filet with blue cheese crumbles. ” While the food she was mentioning made my mouth water, I had stopped thinking about him for a few minutes and really didn’t relish the thought of explaining the situation to my parents. Especially when I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what the situation was.
    “He won’t be coming this trip.”
    “He won’t be at the wedding? Why not?” she asked with concern.
    “He got a last minute job and he had to fly out today,” I said, just now realizing I had no idea where he was flying to or where the job was.
    “That’s a shame.”
    “Yes, it is.” In more ways than one. I still couldn’t believe he had told Chris and hadn’t told me. It made me wonder if he would have told me at all if I hadn’t called him about Dirt. Speaking of which…“I do have some interesting gossip, though.”
    “And what’s the scoop?” my dad asked.
    “Dirt escaped from jail.”
    “What?” my mom exclaimed, dropping her fork. “Oh my goodness. When did this happen? What is this world coming to?”
    “This morning, according to the police.”
    “What are they going to do?” she asked.
    “Who? The police,” I said, grabbing a second helping of eggplant. A helping I shouldn’t have taken, since I had an already–tight dress to wear in a couple days, but right this moment I didn’t care.
    “Yes, the police. We can’t have a murderer running around loose.”
    “Of course not, Mom. I’m sure they’re looking for him.” While I didn’t want the third degree over this either, at least it got her off the Cooper subject.
    “You better be careful.”
    “I will, Mom. Stop overreacting.”
    “Your mom’s right,” my dad interjected. “It’s not something to take lightly. He has reason to not be very happy with you.”
    That was probably a bit of an understatement, but he was right. No matter what he had done, it was still hard to reconcile in my brain that the Dirt I had grown up with was now a convicted murderer.
    “I will. I promise. Now let’s eat some brownies.”
    An hour later, I was stuffed, the kitchen was cleaned up, and I had changed out of my jeans into yoga pants to better accommodate my full belly. I was sitting on the couch with my laptop, putting the finishing touches on my first food blog post when my phone buzzed. It was Tobey.
    “What are you doing?” I asked when I answered the phone.
    “The question is what are you doing? Can you meet me?”
    “Now?”
    “Yes. Now!”

Chapter 9
    W hat do you have for me?” I said, sliding in the booth at Betty’s, where Tobey had said he wanted to meet when he’d called me twenty minutes ago.
    He slid a piece of paper toward me with names on it.
    “What are these?” I asked.
    “Names of some former associates of Bethany’s.”
    I looked over the list where there were names of three females and two males. I looked back at Tobey. “I guess I’m just a tad confused. Why did you need to meet me just to give me this?”
    “Because I wanted to see your face in person when I