Page 163 of Hello, Summer
“That’s insane. Are you accusing me of being a petty thief?”
“Technically, it’s not petty theft. Those diamond earrings you took were worth more than $25,000. So that’s a felony. I don’t know about the cost of a Yeti cup and a transponder, but I think the police could look that up.”
Kennedy glanced down at her daughter. “Look,” she said, her voice low. “I don’t know what you’ve got against Charlie, but you’re dead wrong about him. And me. I never took any earrings. There weren’t any earrings in that car.”
“The owner filed a police report that said the earrings were there.”
“The owner’s a friggin’ liar,” Kennedy said. “I’m telling you I didn’t take any earrings.”
Graceanne looked up, interested. “Mommy. I want my earrings. I want to play dress-up.”
“Not now, honey,” Kennedy said. “Why don’t you go in Granddaddy’s office and get some paper from the printer. Then you can color him a pretty picture.”
“A picture of earrings,” Graceanne said. “Purple earrings.”
“Whatever,” Kennedy said, making a shooing motion. “Okay, what’s your point?” she asked when the child was out of earshot. “What’s the big deal? Yes, I borrowed the transponder. Vanessa was being such a bitch. Charlie knew she was cooking up some plot against him, poisoning his dad’s opinion of him. He just wanted to see his dad. Talk to him before he was gone. Is that so wrong?”
“You mean, talk to Symmes and tell him he’d found his long-lostex-wife and kids? Maybe stir up a little trouble in paradise?” Conley asked.
“Symmes was thrilled to get a chance to reconnect with his family. It had been eating at him for years, the way Vanessa forced him to abandon them. We knew he only had weeks to live. It was an act of mercy.”
“Do you really believe that bullshit?” Conley asked. “C’mon, Kennedy. You’re a smart girl. When was the last time you saw Charlie do something—spontaneously—out of the kindness of his heart?”
“He’s wonderful with Graceanne,” Kennedy said. “And she adores him.”
“You haven’t answered my question. So I’ll answer yours, the one you asked me earlier. You want to know what I have against C. Symmes Robinette Jr.? He’s a fraud. A charming, entitled, vicious fraud.”
“No. He was just a kid when the two of you had your silly little breakup. He told me about it. He’s changed in ways you can never appreciate.”
“Skunks don’t change their stripes, Kennedy. I’ll tell you what really happened, if you’re interested. I came home from boarding school the summer before my freshman year of college. Symmes and Vanessa had shipped Charlie off to military school for reasons nobody ever disclosed, but I guarantee it wasn’t because he was interested in marching and drilling. I didn’t really know him, but I was hanging around the pool at the club, and I thought he was cute, and the other girls thought he was quite the catch. He asked me out a couple of times, and I went, but then on our second date, when he tried to get in my pants, I told him no. He was furious but polite. Took me home at nine o’clock. The next thing I know, he’s texting all his guy friends, telling them about how I pulled a ‘train’—you know what that is, right?”
Kennedy’s face paled a little. “Group sex. Charlie wouldn’t do that. He probably thought it was a joke.”
“It wasn’t a joke,” Conley said, looking her straight in the eye. “Guys were calling me up, saying the vilest, most obscene things you can imagine. They drove past my house at night and tossed packages of condoms in the yard. In my grandmother’s yard, Kennedy! Somebody keyed the side of my car—they wroteWHOREin foot-high letters. Ididn’t have a lot of girlfriends in town before that, because I’d been away at school, and people thought I was some kind of snob. After Charlie started that rumor? They thought I was a slut and a snob. Everybody believed that shit. He made my life a living hell because he could. That’s the kind of man you’re engaged to.”
“I don’t believe you,” Kennedy said, her lips quivering. She blinked back tears.
Graceanne was back now with a sheaf of printer paper in her chubby hands. She plopped down onto the floor, found a basket of crayons, and began scribbling away.
“That’s your choice,” Conley said, speaking in a low voice. “But ask yourself why I’d lie about something like this. Ask yourself about this clan of vipers you’re about to marry into. Take a good, long look at that family tree. Symmes Robinette walked away from his wife and kids after he got Vanessa pregnant. He might have been feeling pangs of regret three decades later when he was facing his own mortality, but he was perfectly content to leave Toddie for the next shiny thing that came along. And then there’s Charlie’s mama, Vanessa. You’ve seen firsthand the kind of evil she’s capable of.”
“You have no idea what it’s like to be a single mother in this town,” Kennedy said, twisting the diamond solitaire engagement ring around and around on her finger.
“And the Robinettes are rich, right? Well, financially rich but morally bankrupt,” Conley said. “I’ve seen Symmes’s recent financial disclosure statements.Filthy richis the applicable term here. The old man made his first millions defending his pal Miles Schoendienst’s railroad after they poisoned dozens of people with toxic chemicals stored at a switchyard they abandoned in Plattesville.”
She looked up sharply. “What about Plattesville? My aunt and uncle lived there.”
“Did they die of cancer?” Conley asked.
“My uncle did, but he was a heavy smoker, and this has got nothing to do with Charlie and me.”
“Okay,” Conley said wearily. “I’ve got to get to work. I only stopped to see you as a courtesy call today. That first time we met, right here inthis office, I thought, ‘She seems pretty nice. Smart, funny, somebody I’d want to be in a book club with.’ Believe me, Kennedy, you are better off single than with a man like Charlie Robinette. You deserve better. And so does your daughter.”
She stood up to go.
“Bye-bye,” Graceanne said, smiling and waving a purple crayon.
Kennedy followed her to the front door. “You’re not going to tell anybody about the transponder, are you? It could be bad for Charlie’s campaign.”
