The Sassy Belles. Beth Albright

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      We were still all crowded inside room 106 with the bright sun streaming in like a laser beam through the open door. It made it difficult to see anyone except in silhouette. But the next image I saw coming through that door was a shape that I knew well. At six foot three, he looked ominous in the shadows, even with his slender frame. Shadows or not—I knew that body all too well. I’d know that man anywhere.

      Sonny Bartholomew had been all mine at one time. From my first year of high school to my first year of college, Sonny was my on-again, off-again love. Over those years we went from harmless exploration to seriously discussing forever. And now, on the rare occasion that Harry and I had a heated conversation, Harry would say, “Why don’t you just go look up your cop? I’m sure you should have just married him anyway.”

      This was my cop. My detective, actually.

      Sonny Bartholomew. Homicide Investigations.

      I fell in love with him back when he was the yearbook photographer during our freshman year of high school. Back then, he was sort of a misfit like me. Sonny had the cutest smile I had ever seen. He would cock his head to one side as he grinned at me. That’s all it took. His smile turned up at both corners of his mouth. He was precious, with his sandy hair and oversize feet and it all came together to make him even cuter. And he sure grew into those feet.

      At fifteen we were just the right age for the beginning of the end of our innocence. But we never did go all the way. I was the good girl—at least in that respect. Though, somehow, I have always wished I hadn’t been so good back then. He should have been my first.

      It felt really good—and really odd—to see him standing there in the doorway of the motel room. It had been a long time since I had run into him last, at a Bama game a few years back. It was a fall football Saturday, with bright blue skies and a bite in the air. We were in line for a beer at one of the bars along the strip. I’d asked him about his life and prodded him for information about his wife, a wallflower of a girl, Laura Logan. She’d gone to Catholic school with me and Vivi. She was so quiet and certainly was never involved in any of our infamous pranks. Laura was so shy and good that we believed she might actually become a nun.

      Obviously, she did not.

      Sonny had seemed uncomfortable during our chance encounter in the beer line. I told him I was married.

      “I know,” he said. “I saw it in the paper.”

      At that moment, standing in line on that football Saturday, I suddenly couldn’t imagine a life without Sonny. We should be friends, I’d thought. At least friends.

      I had loved him for as long as I could remember and so I’d grabbed his hand in mine and said, “Look, we’re both married now. Can’t we all get together sometime, all four of us? For a cookout? I know Laura, for heaven’s sake. She was at my birthday parties growin’ up. We made our first communion together. Whatdaya say? I really miss you, Sonny.”

      Sonny still had a face full of freckles and the darkest brown eyes. They could always see right through me. And I could still see that fifteen-year-old in him. As he paid for his beer, he looked at me with that smile and his famous one eyebrow up, cocked his head and said, “Blake, we run in different circles now. You’re all elite with your law school buddies and your near-blue-blood husband. My friends are good ol’ boys, rednecks, ya know? On the weekends we got longnecks in one hand and a remote in the other. And I always said, Blake, if I can’t have you in every way, I can’t bear seeing you, knowing somebody else is lovin’ you.”

      I had been lost in his words and that curled-up smile when the beer lady’s shrill voice had shattered the moment. “Honey, you want yer change ’er what? C’mon now.”

      Sonny tipped his baseball cap to her and shoved his change into his too-tight jeans. He’d looked back at me, leaned in and kissed my cheek. “It was good to see ya, Blake. Hi to Harry.”

      With that I had felt a sudden chill in the October air. I’d watched him walk away for only a second, then I turned to the lady with the shrill voice. “I’ll have one of those longnecks, please.”

      Room 106 was now filling to capacity. Nobody knew if it was really a crime scene or what. The police took a few notes and never even cordoned off the scene. No one seemed to know how to classify it. Vivi, now revived, sat on the side of the bed sipping water from one of those little square glasses from the motel bathroom. Harry moved toward her and Sonny stepped fully inside the room.

      “Hey, Blake. How are ya?” Sonny greeted me with a quick kiss on the cheek. He sounded happy with his deep baritone, honey-dripping, slow Southern drawl. Seriously, he had me at “Hey.”

      I swallowed instead of speaking and smiled at him. But I couldn’t stop myself. I stood.

      “Hey, Sonny!” I stepped in closer and gave him a hug. That’s how Southerners say hello. We hug everyone, all the time, both hello and goodbye. It’s bad manners not to. In fact, it’s downright hurtful. I heard the heavy Southern drawl in my hello. When I’ve had a few drinks or I’m feeling a little flirtatious, my accent seems to intensify. And Sonny, well, I guess he just brought out a tinge of my inner redneck. We all have some. Inner redneck, I mean. There’s someone in everyone’s family that’s a teeny bit red. Think about it. For me, it came from my dad’s side. Way back in his line were the moonshiners. Yep. I know. Unreal, huh? My mom’s family is a bunch of lawyers. One story has the moonshiners on my dad’s side being defended by the lawyers on my mom’s side. And of course, if you think about it, you can imagine what the payoff was—yep, fresh whisky, right from the backyard! I’m not from stupid lawyers!

      As I stood, Harry caught Sonny’s reflection in the mirror. He left Vivi and came over with his hand extended. Harry’s not a hugger anyway, but he would never hug Sonny. This was my cop, remember?

      “Hey, Sonny. Thanks for coming.” Over the years, these two men I loved had come to an understanding through work. This was not the first case they had worked on together and I’m sure it would not be the last. Harry and Sonny stepped outside into the late afternoon sun and I sat down on the bed next to Vivi.

      “You okay, hon?”

      “Oh, I’m just fine, but you’re lookin’ a little red,” she teased.

      “Oh, stop it,” I said.

      “He does it to you, doesn’t he?” She scooted back on the bed to make room, but kept one eyebrow cocked.

      “He who?” I shot back as if shocked at the insinuation.

      “You know, there was a time I thought you’d marry that boy.” She looked at me, seeing right into my soul as only Vivi could.

      “I’m taking the Fifth,” I said, grabbing her water and taking a swig. I decided to get the conversation back on track. We needed to talk about the body, or lack thereof. This was no time to be gossiping about my love life.

      Just then, in walked Bonita Baldwin, the newest investigator on Sonny’s team. She was African-American, plus-sized and drop-dead gorgeous. Sonny had just hired her from Mobile and it was in all the papers that she’d be joining the force. The daughter of Tuskegee professors, this apple sure didn’t fall far from the tree. She’d graduated top of her class and her loud, opinionated mouth had all of our attention, as did her designer shoes. She could size things up in seconds, and she wasn’t afraid to tell it like it was. That’s why Sonny hired her.

      “Hey, СКАЧАТЬ