Chapter 11: The Members' Room

The Members' Room at the Peachtree Club had dark paneling, a hundred white roses, and thirty women in pearls eating salad.

I walked in at one o'clock sharp in my hoodie and cracked watch, with Raylan's thermos still in my bag.

A maitre d' with a tragic moustache stepped in front of me.

"Ma'am, this is the Foundation Women's Luncheon. Members and guests only."

"I'm a guest," I said. "Of Mrs. Merriman."

He glanced across the room.

Lucinda sat at a corner table in navy and pearls, with a single glass of water and a silver folder.

She lifted two fingers and he stepped aside.

I crossed the room slowly, and I felt the conversation thin and stop at each table I passed.

A woman I recognized from the engagement brunch put down her fork.

"Sit," Lucinda said.

I sat across from her.

"This was supposed to be private," she said.

"You picked a room with thirty witnesses."

"It's the only place I'm sure you can't make a scene." She smiled thinly. "Women like this don't gossip until they're gone."

She slid the silver folder across the cloth.

"Open it."

I opened it.

The first page was a draft press statement with the Merriman Foundation's seal.

I read it twice.

"It says Marlena and I co-wrote Lamplight," I said.

"It says there was a regrettable misunderstanding about authorship," Lucinda said. "A shared project between two talented sisters."

She tapped the page.

"The next sheet is the trust."

I turned it.

The Merriman Family Trust, a single paragraph with a number I had to read three times.

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