Blue Blood: A Debutante Dropout Mystery by Susan McBride Page A

after you soon.”
    “P-promise?” the boy softly wailed.
    “Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye,” Sandy told him, the closest thing to a sure bet that I’d ever known.
    The little boy nodded against her chest.
    My heart tightened, and I closed my eyes, fighting tears of my own.
    “Don’t worry, David, your mama loves you,” Sandy soothed him, muffling his sobs against her shoulder. “She’ll be home soon.”
    Even I wanted desperately to believe her.

Chapter 10
    I waited to head home until after David had fallen asleep, glad for the cozy solitude of my condominium. Being at Mother’s house even for a few minutes had made me feel tense from head to toe. With all that was going on, I was beginning to grind my teeth.
    I changed from my wrinkled clothes into a pair of boxer shorts and a much-washed, oversized Tee. Victoria’s Secret had scratched me off their mailing list years ago, no doubt putting me in their “hopeless” file. Well, it wasn’t as if I had anyone around to impress with silk teddies or lacy negligees. I didn’t have to worry about how I looked, and I liked it that way.
    For now.
    The beige wall-to-wall carpeting flattened underfoot as I padded to the galley kitchen and fired up a Stouffer’s macaroni and cheese in the microwave. With that in one hand and a glass of milk in the other, I plunked myself down in front of the boob tube and tried to relax for the first time that day.
    I didn’t have cable, so there weren’t many channels to choose from. I found a rerun of Matlock and ate with my bare feet propped up on the blanket chest that had been my mother’s and her mother’s before that. It was a hope chest, actually, though I think Cissy had already given up hoping I’d ever store a trousseau in it. I wasn’t in the market for a husband. I was simply enjoying the freedom of living each day on my own without too many eyes peering over my shoulder.
    As I finished up the last bite of mac and cheese, I looked around at my walls, thinking how different my place was from Mother’s. No real antiques, save for the chest and an Eastlake bed handed down from an uncle. Whatever else I owned I’d purchased at consignment stores and flea markets. My mother thought my idea of conserving money and sticking to a budget was silly. Maybe it was my way of asserting my independence, of distancing myself from the child who had grown up with everything, but had lost what was most important of all.
    My father.
    I liked knowing what I had was mine. Most of the framed art consisted of charcoal etchings or acrylic work I’d done through the years. A few were original oils I’d dug up at estate sales, someone else’s castoffs that suited me beautifully. The pretty 1930s dresser in my bedroom had been refinished with my own elbow grease, the black drippy varnish replaced by a warm walnut. I’d done the same with the four dining room chairs I’d bought for a steal at the Junior League rummage sale (five bucks apiece!). I felt proud just looking at them, like I’d accomplished something.
    “Why does a well-endowed girl like you with no need to work live the way you do?”
    Anna’s query seeped into my consciousness, and I wiped the back of my hand across my milk-damp mouth, wondering if I was truly as eccentric as everyone seemed to believe.
    Daddy had set up a trust fund for me when I was born. He’d wanted to make sure I could go to any college of my choosing and could become whatever kind of person I wanted to be without student loans or financial insecurity hanging over my head for eternity.
    I used the money only when I simply couldn’t afford not to; but most of the interest and annuities I reinvested carefully.
    I wondered if all my money—hell, all my family’s money—could have gotten me out of jail had I been in Molly’s shoes.
    I’d like to believe that justice was truly blind and could neither be bought nor sold, but I’d seen quite a few of Mother and Daddy’s