Authors: Sharon Sala
Portia eyed the fading marks on Julie’s face and arms.
“You know I’ve loved having you here, but it’s your call.”
“I couldn’t have gotten through these past weeks without you,” she said and kissed her grandmother’s cheek.
Portia snorted lightly. “Of course you could and would have if the need had arisen. You are a March, and you are a survivor. So are you going back to your apartment?”
“Thank you for the vote of confidence, Nonny, and yes, I’m going back. Brendan needs help, and I need to feel useful again. In the grand scheme of things, who would ever have imagined that my abduction would actually become a useful experience? I can relate to what his little sister is going through better than anyone.”
Portia eyed her granddaughter thoughtfully. “You are a very special young woman. I would never have thought to look at it from that point of view.”
Julie’s smile slipped. She struggled not to fall back into that dark place where she’d put Chub Walton and his whip.
“I’m ready to live my life again, whatever that means... whatever it brings.”
“You are a brave girl, and I’m very proud of you.”
“Thank you, Nonny. I’m going to go pack and I’ll leave after lunch.”
“Call your father. Make him take you home.”
Julie frowned. “I’ll call a cab. I’m not in the mood to put up with him today.”
Portia shook her head. “Call him. Do it for me.”
Julie relented. “All right, I will, but only because you asked.”
Portia patted her hand. “That’s my girl. Now go tell Janie we’ll have an early lunch today in honor of your departure.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Julie said and hurried back into the house.
****
Grayson March was as chastened as a man could be and not be groveling. Like the rest of the world, he’d watched the rescue take place while acknowledging to himself that he wouldn’t have had the guts.
Twice in the space of just weeks, Brendan Poe had shown not only remarkable courage, but sharp foresight in coping with two equally dire situations. The media was all over the event and how it had played out, right down to the harrowing showdown.
Grayson was still finding it hard to believe what Anson had done. Grayson loved his daughter so deeply he couldn’t imagine ever doing something as cold and callus as what Poe had done.
He was coming out of an early morning meeting when his cell phone rang. When he saw it was from Julie, he stepped aside into a foyer to take the call.
“Good morning, darling.”
“Hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”
“No, it is the perfect time. Are you okay? Do you need something?”
“I’m fine. In fact, that’s the reason I’m calling. I told Nonny this morning that I’m ready to go home, and she insisted I call you for a ride.”
He frowned. “I’m sorry you wouldn’t have thought that for yourself.”
“Look, Daddy, every time we’re together, I get the third degree from you and Mother about my personal business, and frankly, it hurts my feelings. Surely you can understand why I wouldn’t immediately want to thrust myself right back into that environment.”
“Yes, I’m sorry about that, and we need to talk.”
Julie groaned. “No. We do not need to talk. In fact, never mind. I’ll call a cab to take me back to my apartment.”
Grayson flinched. “No, no, you misunderstood me. I want to apologize.”
“You’ve apologized before and it didn’t take. Why would this be any different?”
He winced. Truth was hard to take.
“Look, I can be hard-headed and resistant to change as much as the next man, but when faced with an impeachable truth, I like to think I’m man enough to back down. Once again, your Brendan has proven himself to be a most remarkable, even heroic man. I get it. I get him. And honestly, I think it was his looks that made it so hard for me to separate him from his father. Maybe because they looked so much alike, I kept thinking they would be alike in personality as well.”
“Well, they’re not,” Julie said.
“And I finally see that. I’m sorry. I’ll tell him the same thing. And, yes, I will happily take you home. Just tell me when to come pick you up.”
“Has Mother reached the same understanding?”
Grayson paused. “You know your Mother.”
Julie frowned. “Then don’t bring her with you.”
“I won’t. I promise. I’ll be there about half-past one. Is that okay?”
“Yes and thank you.”
“You’re very welcome, Juliette.”
Grayson dropped his cell phone back in his pocket and then headed back to his office with a new mantra—one thing, one day at a time.
He went home for lunch, purposefully to speak to Lana about his revelations, and he was in the dining room reading his newspaper while waiting for her to arrive.
Lana came in minutes later, pleased that Grayson had come home to have lunch with her, and greeted him with a perfunctory kiss, then looked over his shoulder to see what he was reading.
“So, isn’t that just shameful about that Poe family?”
Grayson looked up, frowning at Lana as the maid came in with two servings of crab salad and a basket of hot croissants and served them at their seats.
Grayson nodded his thanks, and the moment they were alone, responded. “On the contrary, Lana, the family isn’t shameful. Anson is the only degenerate in the bunch.”
She arched an eyebrow then forked a bite of the crab salad into her mouth, talking as she chewed, a trait that irked Grayson to no end.
“Now, Grayson, you know what I mean. They are a disreputable lot, to say the least.”
“I don’t agree.”
She frowned. “But they were growing and selling marijuana, then Anson sold that poor little girl. Why, she’ll never be able to hold her head up as long as she lives. People will—”
Grayson felt his gorge rise. It was people like Lana who would ostracize that child, if for no other reason than the belief in their own superiority.
“Damn it! That’s enough!” Grayson said and slapped the table so hard it made Lana jump.
She frowned, then laid her fork across her plate and dabbed her mouth with a napkin.
“I won’t be yelled at, at my own table,” she said. “You don’t—”
“No,
you
don’t, Lana. Don’t ever let me hear you say a bad word about Belinda Poe again. She’s an innocent, beautiful nine-year-old child, and-“
Lana sniffed. “How do you know she’s so innocent now? I mean, those men—”
Grayson’s eyes narrowed angrily. “You heard me. Not a fucking word, and if you do, I will make you sorry.”
She started to snap back at him and then something in his eyes made her stop.
“Whatever,” she said and broke off a piece of croissant, popping it into her mouth as well. “I have Garden Club this afternoon.”
“And I’m taking Julie home. She called me this morning and asked for a ride back to her apartment.”
Lana frowned. “I can’t believe you’re doing that. She needs to come home where she belongs.”
“Actually, Lana, she’s a grown woman capable of making her own decisions. I’ve also come to the conclusion that Brendan Poe is a remarkable and honorable young man, and that she’s lucky to have him.”
Lana gasped. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Well, no it’s not. Don’t you pay attention to anything but the gossip in your social circles? It’s because of him that we still have our daughter, and now he and his brothers have pulled off what some considered an impossible rescue. He’s an impressive man, and I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to see that.”
Lana was pouting now and he could see through the ruse. He stifled a grin. He might as well ruin the rest of her day while he was at it.
“I’m going to get a lawyer for LaDelle and her boys. The DEA is already involved, and they don’t deserve to be dragged into anymore of Anson’s hell.”
She looked up, horror etched on her face. “You’re going to get a lawyer for them? Why on earth would you involve us in such a disgusting situation?”
“Because your daughter will likely marry Brendan Poe, which will make them our in-laws, that’s why.”
“No!” Lana cried and clutched her heart as if it was about to leap from her chest. “I won’t have it. Did she tell you this? When did she tell you? We have to do something!”
“She didn’t tell me, but I know it. I knew it when I saw them together at the hospital and I wouldn’t acknowledge it. He saw her at her worst and loved her anyway. He didn’t turn away in disgust. He didn’t even ask if she’d been raped because it wouldn’t change the way he felt about her. He’s better than both of us, my dear wife, and after what he did to save Julie, and then the brilliance in the way he helped rescue his little sister, he should be lauded, not shamed.”
Lana’s face was flushed with anger. “Our friends will laugh at us behind our backs.”
“Then they won’t be our friends, will they?”
“It’s all so simple for you,” Lana said. “You don’t have to deal with the evil, back-stabbing bitches of this city. They can break hearts and reputations without blinking an eye.”
“Be careful how you describe your friends and yourself. From the way you were talking about an innocent child moments ago, I thought I was married to one of them.”
She glared.
“And, Lana dear, you must remember that if you say that about one child, what do you think people will say to you about yours? It’s the same situation, my dear. They were two innocent people who got caught up in something not of their making.”
The flush on Lana’s face slowly disappeared as the truth of what he’d said soaked in.
They finished their lunch in silence. Grayson had done what he could to foster good feelings between mother and daughter. The rest was up to them.
****
DEA agents Faro and White came on the scene within two hours of Anson and Riordan’s arrest. Faro was a tall, skinny redhead. White was a tall, skinny blond. Their features were Nordic but their Boston accents gave them away. They looked enough alike to pass for brothers, which they were not.
Anson asked for his lawyer upon arrival at the jail, which ended an early attempt to interrogate him, and then, in the words of the jailer, Anson Poe began to unravel.
They issued his prison garb, which he managed to set on fire, and when they issued the second set of clothing, he refused to put it on. The agents had been given to understand he was in his cell, naked and raving about curses and God.
They moved on to Wesley Riordan, at which point he politely asked for his lawyer, and again, their attempts at interrogation came to a swift halt.
The next morning, the three sons were brought in for questioning. They came in together and were immediately taken into separate rooms for interrogation.
After a quick conversation with each of the three, they quickly learned Brendan Poe had never been a part of his father’s lifestyle and that he and Anson were actually enemies—a statement which was backed up by the older brothers. But when they confronted Brendan as to why he hadn’t turned his family in to the authorities, since he was aware his father’s illegal business dealings, his words came out in short, angry bursts.
“Because the damn courts would have bonded him out before nightfall, and everyone involved in turning him in would’ve been dead before morning. As for why he’d never been arrested for his illegal activities, you might want to start looking at the local cops. He had plenty in his pocket, making sure that didn’t happen.”
“Do you have any names you could give us?” Faro asked.
“I haven’t lived there for over seven years. I didn’t witness anything. I never saw any money change hands. Without true knowledge of who he did and didn’t pay to look the other way, I’m not commenting. I believe it’s the law’s stance that gossip doesn’t hold up in court, so you do the digging. I’m staying out of that, just like I did everything else connected to Anson Poe. So either arrest me, or I’m leaving. My mother is in the hospital with sixteen staples in her head, and I have a little sister who’s afraid to close her eyes now because her daddy sold her for some pervert to fuck.”
“We might need to—”
Brendan stood up. “I promised Belinda I’d be back and it’s about damn time someone keeps a promise to her. I’d just as soon it was me. Am I under arrest?”
Faro hated to lose control, but since both of the other brothers had willingly admitted Brendan had nothing to do with anything at Wisteria Hill, they watched him walk out, and directed their attention to Anson’s older sons.
Both Sam and Chance freely admitted to working the drug crops at their father’s bidding, claiming it was his daily threats and ruthless personality as well as their fear of what he’d do to their mother and sister that kept them under his thumb. They both denied knowledge of which cops Anson might have paid off, although they both agreed that they believed it was so.
The agents’ questioning was long and exhausting, but both of the brothers stayed true to their stories without wavering.
Faro kept pushing at Chance, trying to get him to admit they were willing participants in their father’s business until Chance finally lost his cool.
“Look, I already said this every way I know how, and I’ll say it until the day I die. I hated my father and everything he stood for. He is a mean, heartless bastard with a pretty face. I put up with him and his behavior because as long as Sam and I continued to show up at Wisteria Hill, our mother and sister stayed in one piece.”
Faro smiled. “That’s real noble of you, padding your pockets with easy money, and justifying it by calling yourselves babysitters.”
Chance reeled as if he’d been slapped. “There wasn’t anything noble about it. It was hell on earth and our pockets weren’t padded. I have a note on my truck, and rent due on an apartment in town. So does Sam. Daddy pocketed the money. We got a salary from the bamboo business, which is perfectly legal, and that’s it! I hated his fucking weed patches, and I hated him, and I finally grew some balls and burned him out. He still doesn’t know it, and I don’t care. I should have done it a long time ago.”
Faro’s surprise showed. “You burned him out? Why?”
Chance smiled. “One of those final-straw moments.”
The interrogation went on up into the night before they let them go.