Asking for Trouble - Leslie Kelly [57]
I glanced at my watch. “It’s three p.m.”
“It’s my dinnertime, then. Goodbye.”
I couldn’t voice a word of protest as the old-as-dirt guy put his hands on my back and literally shoved me out of the room. The door slammed shut behind me, punctuating the man’s distress.
“Crazy,” I whispered as I left the building. Did everyone in town have this horrible opinion about Simon? How could they when none of them appeared to even know him?
I was still muttering about it when I walked over to the pharmacy, deciding to see if they had any good vitamin supplements. Simon could use them.
“It’s her, the one who’s staying up there with him,” I heard someone whisper. But the whisper was so loud, I suspected I was meant to overhear it.
Turning to follow the sound, I saw the stoop-shouldered cleaning woman who’d been so nasty the other morning. “Well, hello to you, too,” I said, smiling pleasantly at her and her companion, a middle-aged woman wearing a purple ski cap. Indoors. On a nice autumn day. The cap was lumpy. Obviously covering a head full of curlers.
The pair of them whispered furiously, then the one in the hat trudged over. “It’s true then? You’re staying up there?”
“I am.”
The woman looked around, but her friend merely shrugged and rolled her eyes, as if saying she’d already tried to warn me and I’d been too stubborn to listen. For that’s what was about to come out of this one’s mouth, I knew it.
“You shouldn’t be up there, miss.”
“Yes, yes, I’ve heard that there are a lot of nasty, untrue rumors about Mr. Lebeaux.”
The woman shook her head, her expression dour. “Not just rumors, miss, I’ve seen the papers myself. I have a cousin down in Charleston who sent me clippings about the whole ugly mess.”
I wasn’t listening. La la la la, not listening.
“He’s dangerous. And I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight if I didn’t at least try to warn you.”
Spare me from people spewing gossip in the guise of doing good.
“You have to know the truth.”
Still not listening. Here are the vitamins. Big brand stuff, nothing natural. Too bad.
“Mr. Lebeaux was involved in some real ugliness down in South Carolina. That’s how he got that scar on his face.”
Okay, mostly not listening. I had wondered, so often, about that scar….
“It was right disgraceful. Sad what happened to him, of course, but not as bad as what he did.”
I stiffened, realizing I didn’t want to hear this from a gossipy stranger. Or a hateful cleaning woman who obviously had an ax to grind against her employer. I wanted to hear the truth—whatever it was—from Simon.
But before I could whirl around and dash out of the store, the woman rushed on. “He carries the scar out of shame, that’s what I think. It’s his scarlet letter. So all the world will know the truth about what he did to his fiancée.”
That was enough. I turned and started to walk away. The woman grabbed my arm, though, not letting me leave.
“Please, if you don’t believe me, do some looking on the computer over at the library. Because he’s a dangerous man.” Her fingers digging tight—tight enough to make me wince—she leaned close, so close I could smell cigarettes on her breath.
“Look and see for yourself. He threw a woman he supposedly loved off a tall building, not four months ago.”
I froze.
“Make no mistake…Simon Lebeaux is a murderer.”
10
Simon
SIMON HAD GOTTEN accustomed to Lottie being around, so spending the afternoon without her was surprisingly difficult. Having been alone for so long—by choice—he hadn’t anticipated just how empty Seaton House would be without her.
He’d gotten used to her company in a very short time. Even when she was off somewhere in the attic or the basement, knowing she was around gave him a level of pleasure. Without her, the place seemed as quiet as the grave.
It wasn’t until after he heard a clanging sound coming from the third floor that he remembered what else had disturbed him so much about being alone. In the days that Lottie had been here, there had been a few strange incidents. Her being locked in the attic and the carriage accident were the