Because one thing is certain—Hardshaw might be gone, but that doesn’t mean my father is no longer a threat. We’re still working on things on our end. I’ll be sure to let you know when we make progress.
Give everyone my love, especially those sweet babies!
Love,
C
Better to play it safe and not give her specifics like Marco’s name, where I was living, or even what I was doing to make ends meet. I hated holding back, but I still felt like my father was watching and waiting, a rattler curled up in Texas, waiting to strike.
If that made me paranoid, so be it.
After I sent the email, I stared at the computer screen, still numb from the news about Hardshaw. I knew I should be happier. Had Marco been disappointed by my reaction?
No, that was Caroline speaking in my head. Not Carly. Marco wasn’t disappointed in me. He loved me. He understood. He was worried that I’d leave him behind, and I’d do everything in my power to assure him he was wrong.
I tapped the keyboard, my mind shifting back to my mother. Had she loved my biological father? Was he really Uncle Will? While I remembered him being a part of our lives when my mother was alive, I couldn’t recall seeing him again after she died. He’d left Dallas, and as far as I knew, he’d never returned.
Grabbing my notebook out of my purse, I opened it to the page of notes I’d taken about William Blakely. My father made the news because he was Randall Blakely, the head of Blakely Oil, but how could his younger brother disappear without anyone noticing or commenting on it?
For the umpteenth time, I searched for William Blakely, coming up with the usual hits—old mentions of him at occasional charity events in Dallas. The last mention of him was from a few months before my mother’s death. After that, there was nothing. No obituary. No missing person’s report. Could I contact the Dallas or Highland Park Police Department and find out if one had been filed? Could Marco find out without calling attention to me?
This was getting me nowhere. I needed to focus on a more productive lead. Like my mother’s friend, Tiffany.
I remembered my mother having multiple friends, but Tiffany was the one I could recall best. While I knew they’d gone to college together, I was fairly certain their history went back further—high school and maybe even middle school. Tiffany hadn’t lived in Dallas, because she’d always arrived with suitcases and stayed in the guest room. I knew we’d gone to visit her once—flying on a plane to get there—but I didn’t remember any details beyond that Tiffany lived in a house with a big yard. It had been hot there, like Texas, and I vaguely remembered a huge aquarium.
Maybe I could find her if I googled my mother’s name with hers. I did a search for Mary Caroline Henderson plus Tiffany plus Auburn University. My mother’s name popped up, but not in conjunction with her friend.
I squeezed my eyes shut and struggled to remember her last name. Nothing. Then I searched for my mother’s married name and Tiffany, and the first hit was an article about a Tiffany Olson creating a scholarship at Auburn in memory of her best friend, Mary Caroline Blakely.
Tiffany Olson. I wrote her name down.
The next article was paired with an image of my mother in a flowing black evening gown standing next to a brunette woman in a deep red dress. The caption read, Mary Caroline Blakely and Tiffany Olson co-sponsor Hope in Action, which turned out to be a charity to benefit children with cancer.
A lump formed in my throat, and I tried to cough to make it go away. The charity sounded like something my mother would have been drawn to, although grade-school-aged me hadn’t had the first idea why my mother and father dressed up in fancy clothes at least once a month and left me with a sitter. I’d just thought they were going to parties. And while I’d known Caroline was her middle name, it surprised me to see the articles had all used her full name. My father and the people around her had always called her Mary. Then again, she’d been born and raised in Alabama, where both the first and middle names are commonly used together. She must have also gone by Mary Caroline.
The article said Mary Caroline Blakely was the wife of Randall Blakely, owner and CEO of Blakely Oil, and Tiffany Olson was the founder and owner of Simply Stunning Cosmetics, which was based in Atlanta.
I knew Simply Stunning Cosmetics. They were in every department store in the country and likely several countries around the world.
A new memory popped into my head of the one trip Mom and I had taken to see “Aunt Tiffany.” The woman in those pictures had greeted us at the airport and brought us to her big house. My mother had cried in her room, and Aunt Tiffany was the one who’d taken me to the aquarium that week.
I did a search for Tiffany Olson and Simply Stunning cosmetics. Multiple hits filled the screen.
Tiffany was still the CEO of Simply Stunning Cosmetics, and she still lived in Atlanta. I sucked in an excited breath. Atlanta was close. About a four-hour drive from here, but then reality hit me. Tiffany was a very important and likely wealthy woman. Which meant I had little chance of getting in touch with her. I knew this from watching my own father. No one got close to him. His address and phone listings were private. If you called his office and asked to speak to him, you’d never get through. I suspected the same was true for Tiffany. Carly Moore didn’t have a chance in hell of getting through to her. Caroline might, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to risk approaching her with my real name.
“Who’s that?” the woman next to me asked, leaning over to check out my screen.
Oh, crap. People usually paid me and my searches no mind, but then again, my searches were usually articles about car crashes and house fires. Not a confident, gorgeous woman sitting on the edge of her desk wearing a smug smile, the city skyline of Atlanta behind her.
“Good question,” I said. “I was looking for a recommendation for a new bronzer, and the next thing you know, I’m learning about the CEO of a cosmetic company. Gotta watch out for those rabbit holes.”
I x-ed out of the page, and the image of my mother and a younger Tiffany appeared behind it.
I quickly went to close it, but the woman said, “Hey. She looks like you. Only she’s blonde.”
I gave her a tight smile and laughed. “I wish.”
“No,” she said, “I’m serious.”
I chuckled as I continued to close everything out. “Well, that has to be the most flattering thing I’ve been told all day. Shoot, practically all week.”
Her cheeks flushed, and I closed my notebook and stuffed it into my bag.
I signed out and shut everything down. Hardshaw Group might be dead, but this was not the time to be careless or let my guard down.
Chapter Four
As I’d predicted, Ruth had a royal hissy fit when she walked in shortly before five.
“What in the hell are you wearing?” she shouted from the door to the back.
There were only a handful of customers in the dining room, all of them regulars who were used to Ruth’s temper. Even so, the fifty-something man who’d been giving me his order, Elwood Harper, stopped midstream and gawked at Ruth.
I shot Max an I told you so look.
“Now, Ruth . . .” Max said in a cajoling tone.
She pointed her finger toward me. “What is she wearin’?”