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“Did Em get moved in okay?”
Alice nodded. “She texted Ginny a bunch of pictures. They’re going to breakfast in the morning with their roommates.” She was relieved Emily had been able to get out of her house, and that her mother had been the one to bring her to the city. She hadn’t been able to do much about the situation at home, and her mother had allowed her to stay at Alice’s over the summer.
Robin sipped her wine and said nothing, and Alice’s mind wandered. All she could see was Clara and Scott talking to Jennifer Golden, and she glanced over to her best friend.
“Have you heard anything about the inn?” she asked.
Robin met her eye. “The inn? Friendship Inn?”
Alice nodded and hid behind her wine glass.
Robin shook her head. “Clara’s really chatty on the text now, but she hasn’t mentioned the inn.”
Alice swallowed and committed to getting this secret off her conscience. “I have to tell you something.”
Robin looked over to her, her eyes halfway closed. She was probably so tired. Alice knew she was, and she didn’t feel things as deeply or as personally as Robin. “What is it?” she asked.
“I don’t know if it’s anything,” Alice said. “But I saw Clara and Scott and Tessa with your mother at The Glass Dolphin a few weeks ago.”
Robin’s eyes rounded. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I saw them leaving the restaurant together.” Alice set down her wine glass. “It was really weird, because your mom acted like she barely knew them, but it’s plain that she does.”
Robin’s face screwed up as she frowned. “She rents her house to them.”
Alice nodded and gazed into the distance. “Why would she pretend not to know them then?”
Robin’s frown deepened. “I don’t know.”
Alice didn’t know either, and she didn’t know what else to say.
“I’ll ask her,” Robin said. She sighed, then threw back the last of her wine. She met Alice’s eyes, pure energy in hers. “Thank you for letting us tag along with you today. I think it made it much easier for me to leave her in that dorm, knowing you were doing it times two.” She smiled at Alice, who returned it.
“I think I tagged along with you,” she said.
Robin shook her head. “Either way.” She got up and hugged Alice, then took the wine and her empty glass with her as she left. Alice finished her wine alone, hoping she’d done the right thing by telling Robin about her mother.
ChapterTwenty-Five
Robin pulled up to her mother’s house, her heartbeat already pounding out of control. It had been for a week, and Robin couldn’t keep living with the palpitations.
She’d mentioned her conversation with Alice to no one, not even Duke. Alice hadn’t brought it up again, which made her a very good friend.
Robin looked up to the front door, but she couldn’t see it from her position in the driveway. It sat past the garage, which protruded out from the front of the house, and around the corner.
Everything about her mother’s house was flawless. She made sure of that with her love of gardening, as well as quick and consistent repairs to anything that would bring stain or spot to her reputation or image.
“How you’ve managed to live in the cove all this time is a mystery,” Robin muttered to herself. Out of her siblings, Robin was definitely not the most accomplished.
She finally gathered the courage to get out of the minivan and head up to the door. She knocked and then opened the door.
“Mom?” she called. “It’s just me.”
Just me.
Robin felt so insignificant with those words. The idea that her mother had…Robin didn’t know what. But she knew that her mother had more than a landlord/tenant relationship with Clara and Scott Tanner.
She trusted Alice explicitly, and Alice was an excellent judge of character. She saw details others missed, and Robin just needed to ask a few questions.
