Tressed to Kill by Lila Dare

our expressions, showing a mouthful of braces. “His son Trey is in my biology class. He said his dad interviewed with a bank in New York City. Trey, like, really doesn’t want to move to New York. Or anywhere. Especially not with senior year coming up. He’s on the basketball team, you know, and he’s pretty sure he can get a scholarship to UGA.”
I couldn’t care less about Philip the Third’s sports aspirations, but it was interesting to hear that Philip Junior took his mother’s threats seriously enough to look for another job. “Why don’t you see what else Janelle knows about the situation, Stella? See if she can give you details. I’ll track down Mr. Morestuf and try to find out what he was up to after the meeting.”
“How will you get him to meet with you?” Stella asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll tell him I’m representing the SODS and want to see if we can come to a compromise. Or, better yet, I’ll tell him that committee Mom made me volunteer for at the town hall meeting—about a Morestuf’s impact on the environment and economy—needs some data from him.”
“That’s good,” she said, carefully aligning her polish bottles so the labels faced front.
“And I’ll get onto Trey and see what he knows,” Rachel put in.
“No,” Stella and I said simultaneously. We looked at each other, and I nodded for Stella, the mother of a young daughter, to continue. “This is adult stuff, Rachel,” she said gently. “If Mr. DuBois is involved in anything . . . iffy, we wouldn’t want him hearing from Trey that you were asking strange questions. It might make things . . . awkward for you.”
Rachel swung her legs and pushed off from the counter. She landed with a thud. “Give me some credit. Like, he’ll never know what I’m getting at.”
“But—” Stella tried again.
Rachel slung her heavy backpack over her shoulders. “Besides, I have as much right to help Miss Violetta as you do.” The level look she gave us was strangely grown-up, despite the braces and goth garb. Without waiting for an answer, she opened the door and slipped through, closing it softly behind her.
    Chapter Five
     
     

     
    STELLA LEFT SHORTLY AFTER RACHEL. I WAITED almost an hour for my mom, but she foiled my plan to ask about Althea’s outburst by not coming back. For all I knew, they had gone to a matinee or were having an early dinner at the Lucky Manatee tavern. After mopping the salon’s floor, watering the ferns, and grouting a loose tile by the sink, I was suddenly more tired than a hound after a day’s hunting. Locking up, I noticed a coating of pollen and dust on the veranda and promised myself I’d sweep it in the morning. I drove the couple of blocks to the apartment I rented from Genevieve Jones, an octogenarian whose only son had died of pancreatic cancer at sixty. She had converted her garage into an apartment for him—he’d never married—and she agreed to rent it to me when I moved back.
My mom, of course, assumed I would move back in with her, but I couldn’t. I’d lived with her until I married Hank and then I’d lived with him. I’d even had roommates for my two years at UGA and at beauty school. Now, at thirty, I needed my own place, needed to see what it was like to live on my own, to come and go as I pleased, to answer to no one. I knew if I moved back into my old bedroom, I’d wiggle into my old habits like putting on a comfy slipper. And so would Mom. Mrs. Jones showed no tendency to monitor my comings and goings. She kept busy with tai chi and bridge and visiting shut-ins, and I spent long hours at the salon. I checked in on her a couple of times a week and helped with the gardening in exchange for a reduction on the rent. Other than that, we pretty much left each other alone.
Today, however, she popped out onto her porch as soon as I pulled up to the curb. She was a tall, thin woman with the fragility of an origami crane. Her skin was tissue-paper thin, and I sometimes fancied I could see the bone glowing through. Snow white and