Shadow Notes Laurel Peterson (best reads TXT) 📖

I had a few ideas about that, ideas I would eventually need to talk to Ernie about, but I stayed silent, wondering where she was going with this lecture. She sounded as if she were reading off a campaign brochure.

“It’s critically important we get Andrew elected. New business development, new outside investment, we need that capital if we’re going to stay a premier community and continue to attract the right kind of people. Andrew believes in this community’s values, its sense of itself, its view of the world, and he wants to maintain that.”

And that view would be what’s ours is ours and keep the dirty rabble away from it? Maybe I was too hard on him, but the speeches I’d heard Andrew Senior give had more to do with preserving Andrew’s way of life than preserving anyone else’s. Perhaps I was jaded. Perhaps I’d lived behind the high fences too long myself.

Mary Ellen didn’t speak again until we had both dismounted and were walking our horses to the barn, and then she addressed my comment about marrying into the family. “Clara, I—It’s not that you’re not good enough to marry Andrew Junior, it’s just—”

“He was flirting, Mary Ellen. We don’t even know each other.” Relief flooded her body. Were those tears in the corners of her eyes? I handed Horace’s reins and my helmet to the barn attendant, a slightly chubby girl whose long blonde hair needed washing.

Mary Ellen followed suit. She waited until the girl and horses moved out of earshot then put her hand on my arm. Pain prickled through my muscles. The last thing I needed right now was an intuition. I wondered if Mother could control them. I removed Mary Ellen’s hand.

“I need to know—” Maybe all the power games earlier had been to psych herself up for this, whatever it was. “Could you ask your mother…or maybe you…” She looked into my eyes, as if she could read something there, the right thing, whatever it was she so desperately needed. “I know I’ve been cruel—today especially.”

“Cruel doesn’t even begin to cover it, Mary Ellen. Did you think that if you told me some titillating bit about my mother, I would do whatever you wanted? Or that your plea about your brother’s campaign might make me feel sympathetic? If so, you need to rethink your methods. If you want something from my mother, ask her yourself. Our deal is officially off. I will not give you any more information, nor ask for anything further from you. Whatever your agenda, work it another way.”

She reached for me again, but I stepped back. “I need to know about Andrew’s campaign, I need to know what we should do to win. He has to win.”

That was it? That was what she needed to know? Her exhausted, hollowed out face conveyed a desperation I found surprising, and which almost raised a shred of pity in me if my gut hadn’t been yelling so loudly about manipulation. Was the Democratic contender such a threat? Or was there something else?

“I don’t know what you think Mother can do for you, Mary Ellen.”

“She…knows things.” The third Winters to say that.

I ran my hands through my own unwashed hair, “What do you know about Hetty’s photographs and her little blue cottage? What do you know about Hugh’s death? I know you know something.”

She stared at me, silent and white.

“Right.” I paused so she would get that she didn’t get something for ­nothing. “I’ll tell Mother you want to speak to her, but I won’t do anything else.”

Her face twisted with spite and fear. “You do that. And tell her next time, I’ll let you fall off the horse and break your neck.” She pivoted and walked away to her car. I watched her go. She was even more bitter and distorted than I’d thought. Never mind all the stories she’d told me about Mother’s past. It was clear something had happened the night of the junior prom, but why would Mary Ellen lie and in such a flamboyant way? Roy and Ray—should they exist and not be clowns with Barnum and Bailey—were certainly trackable. Was she trying to shame me into giving her information about the cottage? Make me so off-balance that I would do what she wanted?

Was something that happened at a high school dance supposed to explain how my mother acted toward me? Threatening my life was certainly calculated to unhinge me, but it only made me more determined to find the truth, especially since her fear made me think I was on the right track.

Mother was in the kitchen drinking coffee and reading the business section of the Times when I returned. “How was your ride?” Then she frowned, as if remembering who I rode with.

“I hate it when you’re right,” I said.

She responded with raised eyebrows.

I sighed. “Let me get some food, first.” I opened the refrigerator and ­rummaged a bit before finding some relatively fresh English muffins. I put my breakfast together and brought it to the table. She’d moved on to the Arts pages.

“I have a message for you from Mary Ellen. She wants to talk to you.” I bit into my muffin.

My mother shrugged. “Nat told me when he visited me in jail.”

“She told Nat?”

“Apparently.”

“So you know she’s worried about Andrew’s campaign.” I decided not to mention her threat to my life.

She started to raise her mug, then put it down. “Why don’t you quit that job, Clara? I can’t imagine it’s giving you any satisfaction, and it gives me the willies thinking of you so intimately involved with that man’s run for election. Do you really want to see him in office?”

“All politicians are the same, Mother. They want power, because they think they can do right or because they think they know what’s right. Either way, it leads to hubris.” I took another bite.

“No, Clara, all politicians are not the same.” The intensity in her voice made me look