'’I know one woman who wouldn't have
helped him," a distinctly feminine voice said.
Both men turned toward the door
which had just opened. Edith Ware's red lips curved into a closemouthed
smile as she walked into the room. Thin and petite, with her cinnamon
hair cut in a stylish chin length bob, Edith did not look like a woman nearly
sixty.
‘’How much did you overhear?"
James asked.
"Oh, don't fret, my love. I've
known your dirty little secret for quite some time. You men were all too
adamant about Johnny Mack being dead. I finally confronted Kent with
my suspicions one night when he'd had a little too much bourbon."
"Why didn't you say-"James
glared at his wife.
"Miss Edith, I promise that
whoever this man is- Johnny Mack Cahill or somebody just using his name-he's
not going to cause any problems for this family as long as I'm police chief."
Edith clasped Buddy's shoulder,
her perfect, sculptured red nails biting into the material of his
jacks "I know I can count on you to keep things under control. But if
this man is Johnny Mack returned from the dead, then I suggest we bide our
time and see exactly what he's up to. Could be he's come back for revenge."
When James groaned and Buddy slapped
his right fist against the open palm of his left hand, Edith narrowed her gaze
on the portrait hanging over the ornate Jacobean desk. John Graham posed
with his arm around his son. Their son. John Kent Graham. "Or perhaps
Johnny Mack has come back for Will.’’ Edith speculated.
"Or to help Lane," Buddy
said. "If he knows about Will, he might know what Lane did for that
boy.'’
Edith slid her hand down Buddy's arm
and ran her fingertips over the bulge in his jacket created by the shoulder
holster he always wore. "Someone in this town has known all along
where Johnny Mack was and that person is the one who summoned him back to
Noble's Crossing. We want to make sure he doesn’t stay long enough to make
waves. It shouldn't be too difficult for you to find a way to make him disappear
again. Give him fair warning that he isn't wanted in Noble's Crossing
now any more than he was wanted fifteen years ago."
"And if he doesn't heed the
warning?" Buddy asked.
"Let's take this one step at a
time," Edith said. "First let's find out who this man is and proceed
from there."
"It's going to rain."
Lillie Mae cleared the dishes from the kitchen table. "I feel it in
my bones."
"I wish it would rain,"
Lane said. "It's so hot and humid I can hardly breathe when I go outside."
"I don't see how you two can
discuss the weather as if everything's all right!'' Will shoved back his
chair, shot straight up and stomped out of the room.
"Go see about him." Lillie
Mae nodded toward the den. "God only knows why Sharon wrote that letter
to Kent. If she'd had any idea what her confession would do to Will and to
you and-"
Lane placed her arm around her housekeeper's
shoulders. For many years, she and Lillie Mae had shared a special relationship,
closer than many mothers and daughters. For fifteen years they had been
bound together by two secrets, one that had been revealed a few months
ago when Lillie Mae's only child, Sharon, had died.
"Maybe what she did was wrong,
but I think she did it for the right reason." Lane hugged Lillie Mae,
then turned and headed toward the den.
Lane found her son standing by the
row of windows overlooking Magnolia Avenue. She walked up to him, hut
didn't touch him. Knowing him so well, she gave him enough time for his quick
temper to cool.
The street outside lay in early
evening shadows. A hot breeze shimmied through the trees that lined the
enormous brick walkway outside their antebellum home. The home her
ancestors had built before the Civil War. The home that had been part
of her parents' legacy.
"The only way to stay sane
when the whole world's gone crazy is by keeping things around you normal
by going on with life's little mundane matters." Lane glanced at
her son, the child to whom she had devoted her life. Not a boy any longer
and yet not quite man. Fourteen and fragile and vulnerable as only the
very young and innocent can be. Her poor, sweet baby. Innocent no longer.
Kent had taken that away from him, too, when he had heartlessly ripped
Will's heritage from him and unmercifully shattered his sense of identity.
"Whose child am I?" he had
asked her as he lay ill her arms and cried the day of Kent's death.
'You're mine," she had said.
"Mine."
"Our lives won't ever be normal
again, will they?" Will's voice caught with emotion. A voice already
as deep and husky as his father's had been.
When he laced his long fingers together
and moved them back and forth, Lane watched her son's nervous habit and
remembered another young man who used to lock and unlock his fingers whenever
he felt agitated or uncomfortable.
"You're right. Our lives won't
ever be the same," she said. "But someday we'll put all of this
behind us and-"
"Why won't you let me tell them
the truth about what happened that day?" Will faced his mother, his
gaze colliding with hers.
"You don't know what happened
that day. The police understand that the shock of Kent's death has caused
your partial amnesia."
"I know you didn't kill
Da-Kent. We both know you weren't even here when I found his body." Moisture
glimmered on the surface of Will's black eyes. "If you'd just let me
tell Chief Lawler what I do remember."
"No!" She reached out
for him, took his big hand into her small one and gave it a reassuring
squeeze. "We've been over this time and time again, Will. If you
tell Chief Lawler what you remember, it will look as if you might have
killed Kent. And we know that's impossible, don't we?"
"Do we, Mama? Do we really
know it's impossible? If I can't remember anything that happened after
I hit him, then how-"
"You hit Kent once," she
reminded Will. "Once. You do remember tossing the bat aside after
you hit him that one time. And the autopsy plainly stated that Kent was hit
repeatedly. Someone else picked up your baseball bat and killed
him." She grabbed Will's shoulders and gave him a stern shake.
"Do you hear me? You did not kill him!"
"Then, who did?"
Standing on tiptoe to reach her
six-foot teenager, Lane wrapped her arms around him. "I don't know.
But I know that you didn't."
"And I know you didn't."
He hugged his mother fiercely, holding on to her for dear life.
She stroked the dark, straight hair
that hung to his collar. Like silk in her fingers. Shiny and soft and almost
blue-black in the evening sunlight spilling through the windowpanes.
Lane pushed him away gently.
"Why don't you go help Lillie Mae finish cleaning up in the kitchen?
I bet she'd like the company."
‘’I'll apologize to her. She's
put up with a lot from me lately, and she doesn't deserve my anger."
Will's lips curved into a smile. Lane caressed his cheek, then gave him
a little shove toward the door.
"No, she doesn't," Lane
agreed. "Lillie Mae has suffered as much as any of us. And she loves
you more than anything in this world."
"Yeah, I know. I-I-"
"Go help her. You don't have
to say anything. She'll understand."
When Will joined Lillie Mae in the
kitchen, Lane slumped down in the enormous leather chair that had been
her father's favorite seat. She still missed her parents and probably
always would. Her father's death in a needless accident, caused by a
reckless drunk driver, had reminded her how very brief life is and how
very, very precious. When she had come out of the foggy, grief-induced
haze following Bill Noble's death, she realized two things. One being
that her mother, whose injuries in the accident had left her little more
than a vegetable, would require constant care. For eighteen months,
she, Lillie Mae and several private nurses had seen to Celeste Noble's
every need. She had died peacefully in her sleep, with her daughter at
her side. And Lane's second realization was that she couldn't continue
in her marriage to Kent. They had both been miserable, and with each passing
year, Kent had become more and more abusive. He had never struck her,
but he had verbally tormented her, making their lives unbearable. And
a part of her had lived in fear of him, never forgetting what he had once
done to her
Even though Kent hadn't been the
best of fathers, he had loved Will, and Will had adored Kent, the way little
boys so often hero worship their fathers. Will's adoration of Kent had
ended the first time he overheard Kent berating her. And Kent's love for
Will had ended the day he received Sharon Hickman's letter.
Why couldn't Sharon have taken
their secret to her grave? Why had she felt twangs of conscience when
she was dying? She might have eased her own burden of guilt by her deathbed
confession, but in freeing herself, she had damned the rest of them to
hell. Will. Kent. Lillie Mae. Her. And even Kent's family.
Lane had been taught that lying
was a sin. And sins required punishment and atonement. She had never realized
just how terrible the punishment would be for their lie. Or how costly
the atonement.
Will was an innocent child. The
one person who shouldn't have to suffer for the adults' sins. But he was
the one suffering the most. He was the one who stood to lose everything.
He had already lost the only father he had ever known. And now, if she was
arrested, put on trial for Kent's murder and was found guilty, he would
lose his mother, too.
The distinct chime of the doorbell
echoed through the quiet house. Lane rose to her feet and walked into
the hallway.
"I'll see who it is," Will
called out as he emerged from the kitchen.
She nodded agreement and turned
to go back into the den. But something stopped her. A tightening in her
stomach. A gut reaction warning her that something was wrong. She glanced
over her shoulder as Will opened the front door.
"Hello," the deep, husky
male voice said. "Does Lane Noble still live here?"
"Yeah, but she's Lane Graham
now," Will said. "Who are you?"
"Will!" Lane screamed
his name.
When her son turned around, obviously
startled by her outburst, he moved a fraction to the right, giving Lane
a better view of the front porch. The tall, broad-shouldered man wearing
a tan Stetson filled the doorway. He had changed. Grown older. Tiny age
lines surrounded his mouth and eyes.
"What's wrong, Mama?"
Will asked.
"Nothing," she replied.
"This man is here to see me. You go in the kitchen and tell Lillie Mae
to put on a fresh pot of coffee."
Hesitantly, Will obeyed her, leaving
her alone to face a ghost from her past.
"Hello, Lane," the man said.
"Hello, Johnny Mack."
Chapter 6
' 'Who was that at the front door?''
Lillie Mae asked.
"I don't know. Some tall guy
wearing a Stetson," Will replied. "Mama said he was here to
see her and for me to come tell you to put on a fresh pot of coffee. Wonder
who he is?"
"Tall man? Wearing a Stetson?"
Lillie Mae's heart beat in an erratic rat-a-tat-tat rhythm. Had her prayers
been answered?' 'Black hair, dark complexion? About thirty-six?"
"Yeah, I guess that describes
him. I didn't get that good a look at him before Mama ran me off."
With his message delivered,
Will turned to exit the kitchen. As his hand reached the doorknob, Lillie
Mae rushed across the room and grabbed his arm. A startled gasp rounded
his mouth as his gaze questioned her.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"Don't go in there and disturb
your mama. Her business with that man is private."
"You know who he is, don't you?"
She tightened her hold on the
boy's arm-the boy who meant more to her than life itself. He was all she
had in this old world. Lane's son. Oh, she knew that Miss Lane hadn't nurtured
him in her body, that she hadn't given birth to him, but he was her child all
the same. Will belonged to Lane as surely as if he had grown inside her.
Together she and Lane had loved Will, sacrificed for him and protected
him at all costs. But in the end, they hadn't been able to protect him from
the truth. Or from Kent's vindictive rage.
"I think I know who he
is," Lillie Mae admitted, as she released her tenacious hold on
Will's arm. "I sent for him, to help your mama."
' 'Is he a lawyer? Somebody you
think can do a better job for Mama than James can?"
"We'd best wait and let your
mama answer your questions."
Will narrowed his eyes, squinting
them so that the expression on his face was identical to the look she
had seen on Johnny Mack's face a hundred times in the years she'd known
him as a boy and a young man. Such an angry, embittered young man. But
then he'd had a right to be all that and more. Life had dealt him a pretty
sorry hand, and he had played it the best way he'd known how.