She pointed out the front windshield, adding, "This land abuts ours, so that's how and when I knew the mayor or someone at city hall had a hand in the play that was in motion. Ross Parsons's property abuts another small, now city-owned, property. Mayor Howell says the land-use consultant is surveying several sites, but mark my words, if David's plans go forward, everything you're seeing right now will be paved over. That will be asphalt instead of apple trees, and that barn over there," she said, indicating a picturesque red barn with horses grazing nearby, "will be a big-box retailer open twenty-four hours a day and offering every imaginable convenience known and unneeded by man."

Cecelia chuckled, a deep, throaty sound of amus.e.m.e.nt. "Your pioneer roots are showing."

Spring glanced over at her and grinned. "They can't be," she said. "I just had a touch-up."

"Ha! I knew those blond-"

"CeCe, look," Spring interrupted and pointed out the front window.

Cecelia's gaze followed the direction of Spring's hand.

In the middle of the road, a good fifty yards in front of them, was a man. Although the day was fairly warm, he had on a long duster jacket reminiscent of something from the Old West.

"I think that's Sweet Willie up there," Cecelia said.

"Willie?" Spring said. "From Manna?"

She knew he was partial to her sister Summer's cooking and always complimented her on the meals at Manna, the soup kitchen operated by the Common Ground ministries, whether it was a simple turkey sandwich on wheat bread or more elaborate fare.

"What is he doing way out here by himself?" Cecelia asked.

"The better question," Spring said, "is how did he get out here? We're a good twenty miles from downtown. Surely he didn't walk."

Since neither woman had an answer readily available, Spring continued driving toward him, closing the distance between them in a manner of moments.

He'd turned at the sound of the car and shuffled to the side of the road.

"I have a first-aid kit in the trunk," Spring said. "I hope he's not injured. He's such a sweet man."

The man known as Sweet Willie stood at the side of the road. A scowl marred his pecan-brown features; the mouth that was usually turned up in a smile of welcome didn't seem at all pleased to see them.

"What is he up to?" Spring said.

Cecelia glanced at her. "Why does he have to be up to something? Because he's a black man on a country road?"

Spring heard a note of defensiveness in her friend's voice. "I didn't mean anything by it, Cecelia. I'd ask the same question of anyone out on this road, black, white or otherwise."

"I know," Cecelia said, conceding the point. "There's just something off about him."

"What do you mean?" Spring asked as they drew up alongside the man, who was suddenly smiling from ear to ear.

"Like there's another layer or layers to him," Cecelia said as Spring put the car in Park. "It's just a vibe I get," she added. "He's very well-spoken."

"Now who is doing the stereotyping?" Spring asked. "An elderly black and homeless man can't be well-spoken? And are we talking about the same Sweet Willie? When I talk to him, he sounds like an older man, someone who came of age in a time when things were different."

"That's just it," Cecelia said, slipping on sungla.s.ses. "I don't think he's as elderly as he lets people a.s.sume."

By the time they got out of the car, Sweet Willie looked the way he usually looked, of an indeterminate but advanced age, slightly stooped and bearing the smile that warmed so many hearts at Manna, the Common Ground soup kitchen.

"Well, look at what the good Lord has sent my way," he said. "Two pretty ladies to rescue me in my time of need."

"Sweet Willie," Spring said, giving him as thorough a once-over as she could-for the second time in two days. She was relieved to see that he suffered no visible wounds or distress. "What in the world are you doing so far out here in the country?"

"The country is a good place to think, Doc," he said. Then, with a nod acknowledging Cecelia, he added, "Dr. Jeffries."

The tall black woman nodded but didn't say anything, her inscrutable expression hard to read. Spring thought it contained more than a smidgen of suspicion. She wondered about her friend's reaction to the homeless man. Cecelia was a fairly decent judge of character, so her suspicion of and response to Willie were fairly disconcerting.

"Can we give you a ride back into town?" Spring asked.

Willie's gaze left hers and focused on something over Spring's shoulder. She turned to see what had captured his attention.

A motorcycle driver was headed down the road, the lone figure a dark blur at the moment. She turned back to face Willie, concerned about the elderly man.

"It's a nice day for a ride," Willie said, watching intently as the biker approached and then pa.s.sed them.

Spring and Cecelia shared a glance. Spring held out her arm, directing him toward the car. "Come on," she said. "We can drop you off wherever you'd like."

With a final glance toward the disappearing motorcyclist, the man let them lead him to the car, where Spring got him settled and buckled into the front seat while Cecelia slipped into the backseat.

Their conversation back into town was short. Willie fell asleep almost as soon as the car started moving. His head lolled against the window, and he issued periodic snorts and snuffles.

"He was wide-awake not five minutes ago," Cecelia said from the backseat.

"I hope he's all right," Spring said. "I wonder when he last had a physical checkup. I wish he'd come to the clinic for an a.s.sessment. Hand me my purse, will you?"

"Not while you're driving," Cecelia said.

Spring met her friend's gaze in the rearview mirror and shook her head. "Between you and Summer, you could do a commercial for the DMV about distracted driving. Every time I turn around she's telling someone, 'No texting and driving.' As if I text a lot."

"Autumn does and can be a bit reckless," Cecelia pointed out.

"True," Spring agreed of her youngest sister.

"You still up to going out to the house with me after we get Willie settled?"

Cecelia glanced at her watch. "Sure. I have some papers to read, the thesis outlines for a couple of my grad students. But I'm good. Let's get those leaves in the table and see what else you might need for this ill-advised dinner."

Because he hadn't stated a destination, Spring drove to the Common Ground homeless shelter. She parked in front and turned toward him. "Willie? We're here."

Cecelia pa.s.sed Spring's handbag up to her.

When there was no response from the sleeping man, Spring gently shook him awake. "Willie?"

"Huh? What?" the man said, rustling into a sitting position. He looked around as if not sure where he was.

"We're at the shelter. Is that all right?"

He smiled. "Oh, thank you, Dr. Darling. I was dreaming I went up to the Pearly Gates and the good Lord had two beautiful attendants there to greet me. One was tall and blonde and pretty and the other was tall and dark and had a voice that sounded like honey and mola.s.ses."

Spring laughed as she pulled a bill and a small card from her wallet. "I'm sure it'll be a while before you're ready to meet Gabriel or anyone else at the Pearly Gates. You do have to stay healthy and well, though. You know, you can always stop by the Common Ground clinic anytime for a free checkup just to make sure everything's okay."

"So you told me yesterday, Doc. The good Lord willing," he said as he struggled to undo the seat belt, "these old bones will keep moving for a while."

"Let me get that," Spring offered, reaching to unclasp the seat belt mechanism. "Everyone always has trouble with it."

"Much obliged," he said. "For the ride and your kindness. Both of you."

With the clasp loose, he reached for the door handle, but Spring halted him with a gentle hand on his arm. "Will you take this?" she said. "It's just a little something and the card has my number on it if you ever need anything or want to come in for that health a.s.sessment."

He looked down at the twenty-dollar bill she offered. Willie smiled. "You keep giving me them cards. Keep your money, Dr. Darling. There's others out here who need it more than me."

"Please," she said.

He plucked the business card from her hand but left the currency. "Much obliged again for your kindness."

He was then out of the car with an agility that seemed incongruous with the rest of him.

As Cecelia moved from the backseat to the front, they watched him. Instead of heading into the shelter, he loped off and turned onto a side street. When Cecelia shut the door, she faced Spring.

"What homeless person turns down a free twenty?"

Spring started the car. "I don't know," she said. "He has a lot of pride."

"He has a lot of something," Cecelia said. "He's awfully spry for an old man. And those boots were not your run-of-the-mill discount-store type. Those were expensive."

"When did you have time to study his footwear?" Spring asked. "Which could easily have been picked up at a clothes closet."

"I doubt it," Cecelia said. "And I noticed when he got in the car. I'm very observant, you know."

"So you've told me," Spring said on a dry note.

"Scoff if you want," Cecelia insisted. "But there's something not as it should be about that man. I still say there's something under the surface."

"What?" Spring asked before putting on the turn signal and pulling into traffic. "You think he's pretending to be homeless?"

Cecelia's brow furrowed. "I don't know. I do know one thing for sure."

"What's that?"

"He was pretending to be asleep. He was wide-awake and heard everything we said."

"Well, it's a good thing we didn't say anything bad," Spring said. "And what makes you think he wasn't really asleep?"

"I'm a college professor," Cecelia said. "I know when people are asleep for real."

"Experience with those grad students who sleep through your esoteric lectures, huh?"

"Ha-ha," Cecelia replied in ill humor.

"Aren't you Miss Rosy Sunshine today."

Cecelia folded her arms with a "Humph." When Spring just chuckled, she added, "I'm telling you-Sweet Willie is hiding something. He never answered the question of why he was out there and just conveniently fell asleep. I think it was so he wouldn't have to tell us what he was doing just walking along a country road."

Although she was hesitant to admit it, the same thing had bothered Spring.

What was he doing out there wandering around? There was nothing to see or do that far outside the downtown or Commerce Plaza districts. But she wasn't going to give credence to the seed of Cecelia's conspiracy theory. Despite having earned multiple doctorate degrees and being a preeminent scholar at Duke University, Cecelia had a tendency to make connections where there were none to be made.

So instead of addressing that topic, she responded to an earlier comment her friend had made. "Why do you think the dinner party is ill-advised?"

"It's not the dinner or the party part that I'm concerned about," Cecelia said. "It's your plan to ambush David Camden there that has me worried."

The man known as Sweet Willie watched as the Volvo car continued down the street, the two women talking as they drove and unaware of his scrutiny. After the car made a turn, presumably to head back out to the Darling property off Orchard Road, he pulled out a mobile phone and stepped farther back into the side street where he'd ducked to get out of their line of sight.

He punched in the familiar phone number and skipped the pleasantries when the connection was made.

"I couldn't make the meeting," he said, without the slow and polite drawl of a Southern gentleman of a certain age. "A couple of the city's resident do-gooders saw me on Orchard Road. They know me as Sweet Willie, and I couldn't chance arousing their suspicions any more than they are."

He listened for a moment as he glanced around to make sure no one was nearby; then he nodded. "Yeah. I saw him. Luckily he accurately a.s.sessed the situation and kept rolling...Nope, there's no way they saw his face. He was just a guy on a motorcycle taking the scenic route. He didn't even slow down. I barely managed to get out of an explanation on what I was doing out there," he told the person on the other end. "If a biker had stopped to chitchat, there'd be no way to explain that."

"Yeah, I know. Time's running out. The Elmhurst Street situation is getting dire. We're going to have to make a move to get both operations...Yeah, even though we don't know that."

He listened for a bit, then said, "Tell him to get what he can. I'll need to come up with another meet site. We can't risk getting caught out there again."

He pocketed the phone and glanced each way before making his way back out and onto the main street.

The man a.s.sumed the lope-shuffle of Sweet Willie and ambled along his way.

Chapter Nine.

Spring felt a pang of guilt but knew that what she was about to do was for the good of a greater cause. She kept telling herself that and hoped that she would believe it...eventually.

She stared at the number David had put on the back of his business card and dialed it before she changed her mind.

It was a good plan. Nothing would go awry. It was actually the ideal way to do what needed to be done.

When David answered, she took a deep breath and plunged into the deep end.

"I'm so glad you called," he said. "Jeremy has been asking for you."

Immediately thoughts of subterfuge left her mind. "Is he all right? Where are you? Has he had some sort of setback? Do you need to get him back to the hospital? I can meet you there."