Apples, Appaloosa and Alibis by Maria Swan (feel good novels TXT) 📕

over, the rest was splashed on the bed and furniture in the extra room where I kept my mother’s things. The fire eventually got to my bedroom. Also she must have tried to burn some of her old documents and the hair coloring box she used to change her appearance.”

“Angelique? How do you know for sure?”

“The detectives. Avondo insisted he didn’t burn the car. He told them Lois was alive, asleep in the back seat when he left the Kia in the desert. Angelique, or whatever her name is, had put sleeping pills in Lois’s drink and convinced him they would leave her there—that by the time Lois woke up and found her way back to civilization, the two of them would be on a flight to France.”

I stopped and turned to look at him. His eyes gave me the answer I sought.

He too believed Rogelio Avondo. Angelique double-crossed her own lover and left him there to take the blame.

OMG! It wasn’t just his eyes, so hard to read, mere slits as if to keep a seething rage from spilling over. His whole expression seemed frozen. I slowed my pace and reached for his hand. He attempted a smile, but his lips looked tightly drawn.

“Do you think Lois knew he killed Silvia De Aguilar?

He shook his head. “She died before the news was made public. We found a letter addressed to Angelique from the law office I had hired to help speed up her green card application. They needed to see her, something about fingerprints. I haven’t reached the lawyer yet, I’m guessing her false documents weren’t going to fool the pros, and she panicked. Lois had a copy of the letter in her belongings down at the ranch. She must have questioned Angelique about it.”

“I’m guessing Angelique was in a hurry to leave the country before you got back in town, huh?”

He stopped cold, as if I had sucker punched him. Wow.

“Now you see why I must get rid of the house and anything connected to this.”

I kept quiet.

“You don’t agree?” he asked. His tone should have been my fair warning.

I missed it.

“I don’t know, Tristan. Maybe I read too much into things, but it seems like a pattern, the way you react to emotional pain, I mean.” I could have died after I let the last word out. Because he looked as if I had just shot him through the heart.

“Do you care to explain?” Now the hurt in his eyes washed over me.

“I’m not judging you,” I said, not sure I could trust my own voice. “Just thinking about how after your mom died you ran off to Colorado. You moved to Arizona from France at your father’s death, and now... you’re getting rid of everything connected with Angelique and your own past, and running away—”

As if on cue, his cell chimed. He looked at it.

“Got to go.” He turned around and broke into a jog.

TWENTY-FOUR

I LOOKED LIKE hell and felt even worse.

Yesterday, after dropping off Dior, I had made a beeline to my place where I hid for the rest of the day. I didn’t even peek out the door afraid of bumping into Brenda and having to explain why my eyes were red and swollen from all the crying.

At the time of the tiff, I had felt confident that Tristan would know my comments didn’t have a speck of bad will in them. Maybe I watched too many movies where the two main protagonists have a shouting match, but in the end it helped clear the air, and they lived happily ever after. Sadly, I left out the part that said this wasn’t a movie.

It was now the morning after, and I had to do something, anything, to apologize to Tristan without sounding like a complete halfwit posing as a home-schooled psychologist. So I did what came naturally under those circumstances. I got dressed, piled a pound of makeup on my face and puffy eyelids and drove to the office.

There was a large U-Haul truck backed up to the rear door, the one none of us Realtors were encouraged to use. I could see that furniture was being move—in or out? That sounded like my favorite hamburger joint, so I suddenly got hungry.

The bell chimed as I closed the front door behind me. Kassandra’s head peeked out from the closet she fancily called the mail room. I headed straight to the closet.

“I’m hungry,” I said.

“So? I’d like a Vodka martini. You get me one, and I’ll get you a donut,” was Kassandra’s answer. All my puffed-up, fake enthusiasm deflated instantly. “What happened to your face?” she asked.

“My face?” A pound of makeup hadn’t done the trick?

“Do you see anyone else here? Have you been crying? Shit. You’re upset over all that hoopla on Facebook, aren’t you?”

“Facebook? Huh?”

“Don’t huh me. It’s normal. I’d be upset too. Except this is Tristan Dumont we are talking about—the Frenchie who only has eyes for you. It’ll blow over. I mean, you have to admit, it was a pretty unselfish and spectacular idea he came up with. Of course he can afford it... wish I was the lucky girl who’ll get it.”

I was stunned. Speechless. Dumbfounded. I stood there, my mouth open, my brain frozen.

“The lucky girl who gets what?” Were the first coherent words I managed to spit out.

“The reward of course.” Kassandra stopped doing whatever it was she had been organizing in there and, hands on her hips, stepped in front of me—well, towered over me would be more accurate. “You really don’t know what I am talking about. Do you? Where have you been hiding? It’s all over the Net. Hell, even our local channel was there for the announcement. If you ask me, that Jessie chick called them. She still has connections from when she wrote the gossip page of that thing, that trash paper, remember?”

I nodded, then I went into the kitchen and sat. Kassandra followed me.

“Wait.” She punched a number on her cell. “Hey,