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All I know is that the Ashley Parker mystery gives me a reason to want to live. It gives me a reason to get out of bed in the morning. It gives me purpose, now that Cole and I aren’t speaking. I shift from having a full-on pity party to something that feels more like an intimate gathering for rage, and I have to say, it feels better.
It helps that I’ve kept myself busy. I’ve spent the past twenty-four hours making a ton of phone calls. I’ve searched the internet, combed through all the school websites in the greater New Orleans and surrounding areas, carefully scanned the staff profiles on each webpage, and when that didn’t turn up with anything, I called.
I’ve tried multiple searches using the name on the driver’s license, and none of them pulled up anything of interest. The search results did not get me any closer to finding out who in the hell this woman occupying my home really is.
In this day and age, I wouldn’t have imagined that it would be this difficult to determine a person’s identity. People post everything online. They tag their friends and relatives; they tell you what they ate for dinner and their opinions on just about everything. It leaves me baffled. But it also gives me a lot to think about. People post endlessly, but do they ever really tell you who they are?
I don’t simply want to know who Ashley is. I want to know what she wants. I want to know who she is hiding from and why she’s hiding.
I wish I could say that my mind comes up with a gazillion answers, a billion explanations, a million rationalizations, but it doesn’t. The cold hard truth is I’m no closer to finding answers than I was when I started. And it isn’t for lack of trying. This leaves me little choice but to go to the source, and as luck would have it, she’s sashaying into the parlor wearing a grin the size of Texas.
“It’s hot out,” she says, pretending to wipe sweat from her brow. “I didn’t know it got this hot here.”
“I’m finding there are a lot of things I don’t know.” I toss a stack of magazines on the table. “Like really anything at all about you.”
She looks at me like I’m a challenge she’s excited to face. “I’m probably less interesting than you think.”
“Try me.”
“Of course.” She picks up a magazine and studies the cover. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. But first—you’re going to want to hear what happened in town. Trust me.”
I don’t trust her. Nor can I wait to hear what she has to say. I plop down on the sofa and fold my legs underneath me.
“There were these suits,” she exclaims as she paces back and forth in front of the fireplace, and it’s like all the world’s her stage. When she speaks, her eyes are wild, and she gestures with her hands in a way I find confusing. “You know, like men. In actual suits.”
“Okay?”
“With cowboy hats.”
“Yeah? So?”
“So I struck up a conversat
ion with one of them and guess what? They’re looking to buy property here.”
“Shocker.”
“And I told him about Magnolia House and he seemed really interested—”
I cut her off. “Magnolia House is not for sale.”
“Right. But maybe you might want to hear what he had to say. You know, just for shits and giggles.”
“Shits and grins.”
“Huh?”
“The saying—it’s shits and grins.”
She gives me this light, school girl giggle that makes me want to stab my eyeballs out as she waves me off. “Anyway, I’ll come back to that—you’ll never in a million years believe who I also ran into!”
“It’s a very small town.”
“Someone I hear is…or was very special to you—I don’t know—you’ll have to spill the tea!”
I study her curiously. She’s good. I’ll give her that. The suspense should be killing me, but I know exactly where she’s going. She knows I know. Or at least I think I know. I can’t decide which it is. And I don’t think she can either.
She waits for an answer, and when I don’t offer one, she throws her hands in the air like we’re playing a game of charades. “Ryan Jenkins!”
