Tell No Lies Read Online Free PDF Page B

to inspect it, too, and then realizing what it was, her cheeks flamed and abruptly, she turned away, saying only, “Pretty.”
    She settled at the kitchen bar, listening to her sister and their longtime housemaid and mother’s friend chatter away while she tried to block out all memories of last night’s dreams.
    “Sweet as honey . . .”
    “Where on earth did you find it?” Sadie asked.
    “A great little shop in Mount Pleasant. Jack and I had lunch on Shem Creek last week while we were shopping for a wedding dress.”
    “Love it!” Sadie announced. “Have you two set the date yet?”
    “Not yet,” Caroline said.
    Augusta was betting they never would. Caroline’s fear of commitment bordered on paranoia. To her dismay, Sadie set the honey pot down on the island in front of her. Augusta eyed the ceramic gewgaw with no small amount of chagrin and tried not to think about Ian.
    It wasn’t as though she didn’t have enough on her plate.
    And today, before she even got started with the final inventory of the relics they were getting rid of at the auction she’d organized, she was going to have to call her office in New York and make her leave of absence permanent. She’d been kidding herself that none of them would last here more than three months, because here they were, each of them buried deep in her own task, and the truth was that, no matter how much she liked to think she was above bribery—because that’s all this inheritance really was—she wasn’t. There was no way she was going to walk away from her share of thirty-seven million dollars.
    Neither would her sisters.
    Maybe she would buy a calendar and hang it in her room so she could tick off the days like a forgotten prisoner in a stone cell. The thought made her smirk. Pinning up a calendar would infuriate her mother’s ghost—tacks in the walls—just like old times.
    “I have just the thing to put into it!” Sadie said. “I bought some local honey from Bee City. But you girls will have to come over to my place to try it out ’cause I’m taking this lovely thing home with me.”
    “I hoped you would,” Caroline said. “You do so much for us, Sadie. I just wanted you to know how much we appreciate you.” She pointed to the base of the object. “See, it’s signed.”
    Sadie gasped with delight and gave Caroline a swift kiss on the cheek. “You know what I appreciate? I appreciate you did the dishes last night, baby girl.”
    Caroline peered over at Augusta. “Actually . . . it was Augie’s idea. We figured if you can cook for us, we can pull together to clean up after.”
    Sadie hurried to Augusta’s side and planted an unexpected kiss on her cheek.
    Augusta’s face heated. “Cripes!” she said. “All this saccharine crap is making me ill.” But she smiled, warmed by Sadie’s heartfelt kiss.
    Her heart gave a little kick of protest when Sadie pulled away. Hers was the only bit of warmth Augusta could really recall from their youth. She missed those loving arms.
    As usual, the kitchen smelled delightful, with the aroma of freshly baked bread competing with apple-smoked bacon. The best she had ever managed in New York was the lingering scent from a box of H&H bagels or freshly roasted coffee—free trade, of course.
    Okay, so maybe there were some things about Charleston that were better than up north. At least this prison sentence gave her the opportunity to get reacquainted with her sisters and Sadie, though it galled her that even from the grave their mother was still controlling their lives.
    “Coffee, Augusta?”
    Augusta gave Sadie a wide-eyed, exaggerated nod. “Please!” But she got up and went for a mug herself, hardly expecting Sadie to wait on her. She was just a little distracted this morning.
    “Here you go,” Sadie said, bringing her a clean spoon as Caroline’s phone rang.
    As she always did these days, Caroline dove for her cell phone, probably hoping it was Jack. The two of them had become inseparable after