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  “I don’t think it has anything to do with Susie,” Elizabeth said, frowning. “I think the fix is in. I think somebody told everybody to say no.”

  “Like there’s some sort of conspiracy?” Amanda asked disdainfully. “You don’t really believe that, do you? Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Take a look at our collective batting average,” Elizabeth pointed out. “Zero point zero. Don’t you think somebody in town would want to do something unless they’d all been told not to?”

  “By whom?” Amanda still didn’t believe it. “And why would anybody want to sabotage the Ball? I thought Heather and Sharon weren’t trying to destroy it. They were trying to save it.”

  “Nobody’s trying to sabotage the Ball.” Elizabeth shook her head at her daughter’s naïveté. “Somebody’s trying to sabotage you!”

  “That’s ridic—” Amanda began, but then she stopped, rubbed her chin, and thought. “When you look at what Sharon did with that gift card—she’s even worse than I remembered her. And Heather, with her ‘Ira’ ring on her finger. I wouldn’t trust either of those girls as far as I could throw them. But I thought they were acting out of some kind of decency when they asked me to help rescue the Ball. They were just trying to reintegrate me into society, or at least that’s what I thought.”

  “I’m actually feeling a little relieved,” Elizabeth said, crossing her arms. “You’ve turned into such a water-walker that I’m amazed to see you misinterpreting anything.”

  “I beg your pardon? Water-walker?”

  “You returned Mr. Black Mercedes’s black Mercedes,” Elizabeth began, cataloguing Amanda’s recent moral triumphs. “You returned all that nice clothing, even though it was absolutely perfect for you. Then you had the opportunity, and some might say the moral obligation, to cooperate with Neiman Marcus over Sharon stealing your card, and you come up with some crazy story and leave ninety-eight thousand dollars of somebody else’s money on the table. You’ve turned into Ms. Perfect. So it makes sense that you’d have a hard time believing that other people aren’t treating you just as perfectly as you’re treating everybody else.”

  “I don’t know whether I was just complimented or insulted,” Amanda replied hotly. “I’m just trying to do what’s right. Or is that inappropriate in your moral universe?”

  “I’m sorry.” Elizabeth waved a hand in apology. “I don’t know what I’m being so testy about. I think every decision you’ve made has been fabulous. It just seems kind of striking that somebody who could know her own mind so well could have such a hard time seeing what other people are trying to do to her.”

  “And what exactly are other people trying to do to me?” Amanda’s patience was waning.

  “I’m not exactly sure what it is. But when these women get together, they’re meaner than a bunch of rattlesnakes. Whatever they’re plotting, I can guarantee you that it’s not good.”

  Heather Sappington had dropped Sharon Peavy off at the home Sharon shared on the outskirts of Hillside Park with her aunt—a secret that Sharon shared with very few women. She could tell Heather since she, too, lived on the wrong side of the tracks with an elderly relative. This was the only way for both women to claim an acceptable address in the Longhorn Ball directory. The pricey rent in Hillside Park would’ve left virtually no money for anything else—surely not tickets to charitable luncheons, and definitely not the right wardrobe. And wasn’t that the most important thing? Sharon found it impossible to sleep. After a long hot shower to wipe any trace of the institutional smell of jail off of her body, she had collapsed onto her bed but found herself too exhausted to sleep, too angry, and too caught up in mentally replaying the events of the last eighteen hours. First, the betrayal by the seemingly duplicitous Neiman’s clerk, Travis; then the interrogation at the hands of that admittedly attractive head of security, Sam Horn, who proved shockingly impervious to her femininity; and then the indignity of the police station and the booking process, the ghastly smelling drunk tank, and then the sleepless hours she spent in county jail. It had been the worst experience, or worst sequence of experiences, in her entire life, and the more she thought about it, the more she knew there was only one person to blame for the entire thing. Amanda Vaughn.

  The ingratitude of that woman! That’s what burned Sharon up more than anything else. Here Sharon and Heather had handed Amanda the opportunity of a lifetime to reintegrate herself into the Hillside Park social scene and start her out at the top! And how did Amanda repay her for this extraordinary act of kindness? By leaving that damned Neiman’s gift card in plain sight on the desk, tempting her, daring her, inviting her, maybe even inciting her to take the thing and see what it was worth. In her heart, Sharon knew she never would have used the card. She was just curious. You see a gift card, you want to know how much is on it. She wouldn’t have taken it if she had thought it was Amanda’s. She thought it was Susie’s!

  Anybody would know that. Even the police should have known that. Even Sam Horn should have. But did they? No.

  Twisting and turning on her bed, too emotionally drained to cry anymore, Sharon suddenly figured out what Amanda’s whole scheme had been. Leave the gift card out—because if you didn’t want somebody to see it or take it, you wouldn’t have it sitting out somewhere; you’d keep it in your purse. It was to look like Amanda’s quiet way of thanking Sharon for the privilege of running the Ball. Everybody knew Sharon didn’t have anything like Amanda’s money. Amanda came from money, she made her own, and then she got a whole big chunk of it after she left Bill. This was supposed to look like an act of kindness or charity on Amanda’s part, almost a gratuity, not in a condescending way, but just as sort of a little thank-you. Or at least that’s what it was supposed to look like, Sharon told herself, so that Sharon would take it, and then go to Neiman’s, and one thing would lead to another and she would be behind bars. Sharon slowly worked her way into another seething mass of righteous indignation. She was just so angry at Amanda that there was only one place she could go in order to get herself straight—straight in her own mind, and straight with God. Sharon practically bolted right up out of bed, ran to the closet, and put on the Marni silk blouse and black silk skirt she’d gotten for a steal at a Hillside Park estate sale (her most conservative outfit). She jumped in her old Beemer and drove to the only place she knew where she could find total acceptance, total peace, and a totally receptive audience for the story she was about to tell.

  Sharon Peavy headed for Bible study.

  Chapter 20

  Meanwhile, at the Hillside Park police station, things were not going well for Sam Horn.

  “Drop the charges?” asked Mark Robinson, Hillside Park chief of police, his tone incredulous. “You had me arrest a Hillside Park woman and send her to county jail—and now you’re dropping the charges? This cannot be happening.”

  Sam Horn and Mark Robinson shared a background in the marines, and they were afraid of neither terrorists nor conventional enemies. The only thing that struck terror into the hearts of either man was the idea of an angry Hillside Park woman—angry at them, especially when she had cause to be angry.

  “She doesn’t exactly live in Hillside Park,” Sam said, grasping at straws, trying to put up a brave front. He was just as scared as Mark. “And she rents,” he added helpfully.

  “I don’t care if she lives under a bridge or in the Taj Mahal!” Mark snapped. They were seated opposite each other in his office. “Single, married, divorced—they’re all the same. They’re all hell on wheels if you piss ’em off. And she’s gotta be righteously pissed off.”

  “There’s nothing I can do about it,” Sam said, shaking his head sadly. “An absolutely beautiful open-and-shut case, but the woman whose card it was just went south on me. I’ve got no idea why somebody like Amanda Vaughn would want to protect somebody like Sharon Peavy.”

  “You know these women?”

  “I know who Amanda is. She’s been shopping here since she was a little girl. And her parents before t
hat. Pillars of the community.”

  “And this Peavy woman?” Mark asked, still not believing that he had arrested a woman on Neiman’s behalf and now would have to drop the charges.

  Sam was desperate. “As far as we can tell, she’s never shopped in the store in her life, at least not with her own money. She didn’t really look the type, either.”

  Mark thought about it for a minute. “I see your point. So how exactly would a woman who can’t afford to shop at Neiman’s, has never shopped at Neiman’s, probably never will shop at Neiman’s, come into possession of a gift card for ninety-eight thousand dollars, unless she stole it from the person whose name is on the card?”

  “That’s what I thought,” Sam said helplessly. “It made no sense to me, either. There’s no other explanation. Now I’m wondering what Amanda’s hiding.”

  “You think maybe Amanda set Sharon up?” Mark tried to figure out some logical explanation for the story Sam had told him about Amanda’s refusal to either condemn Sharon or take the substitute gift card.

  Sam shrugged. “These women get into all kinds of situations with each other. We’re just a store. We’re not therapists. Or referees.”

  “Is she married?” Mark asked. He was two years from retirement, and all he needed now was something like this to end his career prematurely. “To a lawyer?”

  Sam had done his homework. Sharon had been arrested a few years ago on shoplifting charges and was told never to come back in the store again as part of her “restitution.” He was keeping that card close for now in case he needed to play it later to try and redeem himself. “Maybe that’s the only good news I can give you. She’s not married, she’s never been married, and if she has a lawyer for a boyfriend, she would have made him come down either to the store or to the police station last night. So if it’s a lawsuit you’re worried about—”

  “Of course it’s a lawsuit I’m worried about!” Mark snapped. His tone became weary. “I’ll call the district attorney and get the charges dropped for lack of a corroborating witness. But Horn?”

  “Yes?” Sam found himself unable to look Mark in the eye.

  “Please make sure nothing like this happens for the next twenty-four months. I just want to retire and never see Hillside Park again. Or any of the women in it. Am I clear?”

  “Abundantly. I read you loud and clear.”

  Tuesday afternoon Bible study was ten minutes from wrapping up. The leader asked, “Before we close, do we have any prayer requests?”

  Sharon quickly raised her hand. All eyes turned toward her. News of her arrest and brief incarceration had already made the rounds in Hillside Park, and there wasn’t a single woman in the room who had not heard the story of her degrading and humiliating experiences. They’d all given her the obligatory, disapproving look down their noses when she came in. Sharon smoothed her silk skirt and spoke in a soft, wounded tone. “I’d like to ask all of y’all to pray for me,” she began. “I’ve just been through the worst experience of my life. I need to heal and find forgiveness in my heart for the individual who deliberately, intentionally, and cruelly set out to do me harm. I was in jail last night and I’m lookin’ at doing serious time in a state penitentiary, all on account of her deliberately setting me up. I won’t name names, because that would not be very Christian of me, but all I can say is what’s so extraordinarily cruel about this woman is that she’s in a really great place in her life. I mean, she’s the individual who has taken over the Longhorn Ball for this coming year, yet she’s gone out of her way to destroy me and cause me harm.”

  A wave of electricity swept through the room. Everybody in Hillside Park knew that meant Amanda. How or why Amanda might have taken steps that led to Sharon becoming branded a criminal was something no one knew. All leaned closer to hear the gory details.

  “Yesterday,” Sharon went on, “I stopped by the offices of the Longhorn Ball. I went in there out of a sense of Christian duty to Aman—I don’t want to say her name. Oh, I’ve already messed this up, y’all know who I’m talkin’ about? There’s only one Longhorn Ball, for goodness’ sake.

  “Anyway, I went in there because I wanted to assist my dear, dear friend Amanda, whom I had not seen in so many years, who has returned home to Hillside Park after a twelve-year marriage to a man who, as we all know, stepped out on her every chance he could, and the good Lord knows what kind of damage he did, not just to the moral fiber of that family, but also who knows what kind of sexually transmitted diseases he might have introduced into his marriage.”

  She caught herself for a moment. The sleeplessness, exhaustion, and terror she had experienced in the last twenty-four hours had clouded her judgment. She definitely wished she could take back the part about sexually transmitted diseases. But what the heck. It was probably true, anyway. “All right,” Sharon continued, her audience rapt, hanging on her every word. “It’s not about the STDs. It’s what Amanda did to me yesterday in the office. She took a gift card from Neiman Marcus, with a very large amount of money on it, and unbeknownst to me, while I was there trying to help them make sense of things and find documents and otherwise assist them getting the Longhorn Ball off the ground after what happened this past year, well, when I had my back turned, Amanda took that gift card and stuck it in my purse.”

  There were gasps from the ladies, who had never heard of such a terrible thing happening. What was Hillside Park coming to, anyway?

  “When I saw it, I said, ‘Amanda, what’s this gift card doing here in my purse? Why, it’s from Neiman Marcus!’

  “And she said, ‘It’s my gift to you for making me Chair of the Ball. It must have belonged to Susie. I found it here in Susie’s desk. She’s got more money than she knows what to do with, so I thought this might be a nice gift for you. Why don’t you go on down to Neiman’s, see how much is on the card, and why don’t you just buy yourself something nice with it. Susie’s not going to miss it, is she? Just don’t tell a soul what I did!’ ”

  The woman leading the Bible study tried to signal Sharon that she was both off topic and taking far too long. This wasn’t a request for prayer; it was the plot of a soap opera. But the leader was the only one in the room who didn’t want the story to continue.

  “Anyway,” Sharon plunged ahead, oblivious, “y’all aren’t going to believe what happened next. I went down to Neiman’s, and they told me the card was stolen. They roughed me up, taking me into an area of the store where they just had all kinds of boxes lying around. And then from there . . .” Now she began tearing up. “It was to the police station, where I was booked like a common criminal, and then they stuck me in a drunk tank and the men from the drunk tank across the way—I could go on and on, but I wouldn’t dream of it. Suffice it to say that all of this was Amanda’s wicked plot against me.

  “She set me up for all of this! I would ask for prayers for her, but frankly I wonder if she’s just too far gone for prayer. I know that where there’s life there’s hope, but I just don’t see how God himself could possibly forgive Amanda for what she’s done to me. It’s me who needs y’all’s prayers. I’m the one who has to learn to forgive Amanda for destroying my life.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong. I hope you all understand that. I was just accepting a gift from a person who I thought was my dear friend. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers, and please ask God to guide my heart and show me how to forgive someone who will never admit or acknowledge what she’s done to me, so she certainly can’t ever ask for my forgiveness.”

  They all prayed for Sharon to have patience, wisdom, understanding, and peace in her heart to forgive Amanda for her devious ways. The Bible study drew to a close as the women chorused, “In Jesus’ name, amen.”

  An hour later, when Amanda went to pick up her children at the school, there was a definite chill in the air that had nothing to do with the still-sweltering Dallas heat. The other mothers barely glanced in Amanda’s direction, as if she suffered from a very rare, highly contagious social disease. E
ven women who came from families far less stable or wealthy than Amanda’s, and were therefore way down in the Hillside Park pecking order, glanced at Amanda as if she were the survivor of a traffic accident but they had no interest in stopping to talk or find out how she was. Word had spread from the Bible study that Amanda had first tried to destroy the reputation of poor Susie, and was now going after Susie’s innocent best friend, Sharon. This bizarre and inexplicable series of behaviors could have only one possible desired outcome—establishing Amanda as the new queen and arbiter of taste in social matters for Hillside Park.

  Who would lie at a Bible study, the women had asked themselves, and the answer that came back to them was surely not Sharon Peavy. So pretty much everyone—all of the mothers involved in the social network of Hillside Park—found themselves believing, and believing fully, every word about Amanda that Sharon had spoken. On top of that, Heather had begun a smear campaign of her own, sending e-mails to everyone she could think of about how strange it was that Amanda could come back to Hillside Park and foster so much discord and even outright hatred in less than a full week.

  Amanda had no idea what had transpired at Bible study, and she greeted the other mothers as she had the day before while picking up Will and Sarah. This time though, things were different. No one talked to her. No one even offered eye contact. “I don’t understand. Am I imagining things?” she asked herself.

  “Why won’t anybody even so much as give me the time of day? I know I’m the queen of hurting my own feelings, but this is ridiculous.”

  Two women Amanda’s age approached, and she started to say hello. But before she could get out a single word, one of the mothers, a recent import to Hillside Park from somewhere else in Dallas, turned to Amanda with a glare. “How could you do that to Sharon?” she hissed. “Don’t you have any idea how hard she worked for you?”

  Amanda’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t think of anything to say. But she didn’t need to, because at that moment, another woman approached her.