Grace Anne (23 page)

“You must think I’m a ninny. I’ve
been through all this crap over the past few days and here I am upset because I
have a few bruises on my face.” She looked at all of them before she said what she
really thought. “I should have told you all. It’s…this is totally my fault that
all of this happened to you—”

“That’s enough. You had nothing to
do with the insanity of one person. My God, you were hurt just as much as any
one of us,” Jazzie snapped. “Had you told us then, I’m sure that the same
things would have happened. We were all duped by her.”

Grace didn’t believe that for a
minute, but she didn’t say anything. It was hard enough trying to get a grip on
what had transpired in that house without adding the burden of trying to
explain why she felt the way she did.

“Spill it,” Sin told her quietly. “If
you don’t then your head will explode and poor Michael will be all alone. By
the way, I kinda like him. He’s an ass most of the time, but I can take him
down a peg or two on the range quick enough when he gets out of hand.”

Grace knew that she had to tell
them. She looked to the door when the others walked in. She smiled at Cain and
the other men in her family now. Most of them she didn’t know very well, but
she did know that they loved their spouses with all of their hearts.

“Mother wasn’t always evil like
she was toward us. There was a side of her, Guinnie; that was the kindness in
her that the others couldn’t…no, that’s not right, the others wouldn’t show. Even
Mother couldn’t be what Guinnie was.”

“The child, Guinnie was the child,
right?”

Grace nodded at Quinn’s question.

“I met her then. I was really
sick. I think I was about ten and Mother came into my room. I had the feeling
that Mother was there and when she began to speak I realized she wasn’t acting
the same. Like her voice was even different.”

“They all had very distinct
mannerisms and voices. Even their dress was different.” Grace smiled at the
women who were dressed so differently that it was amazing. Alyssa was dressed
in torn jeans and a sloppy t-shirt, tennis shoes with no socks. Quinn had on
dress pants, a tailored blouse, and heels. Then there was Jazzie who, even in
her glowing maternal state, looked as if a cockatoo had been the color idea for
her clothes. Sin was dressed as one would think of a woman who’d spent the last
ten years of her life in the armed services—cargo pants, black t-shirt, and
boots. Grace was willing to bet that she had a gun somewhere on her person,
more than likely two of them. Sin’s twin Lilliane was dress in a denim dress
with sandals, and a huge purse.

“Tell us what happened at the
house. I know you spoke to the police already and they cleared you. Tell us
what happened after you left the house.” Michael came to sit beside her as
Lilliane asked her. He took her hand as she began.

“Thomas tried to…he wanted me. He
said that I was going to die anyway and that Verrie had promised that he could
have me. I was in the backseat with him when he tried to rape me.” She looked
at Michael before she continued. “Verrie was driving and she told him to wait.
But he wouldn’t. He told her that he wanted his payment now. I don’t know what
she owed him for, but he was collecting.”

“Thomas had been trouble all his
life. His problem was that his mother hadn’t made him do anything he didn’t
want and when he did something that got him into trouble she simply paid off
whoever he had injured.” Michael looked around the room before looking back at
her. “He hated me. I never understood why until the funeral. His friends…well,
the ones that had been his mother’s acquaintances, had told me that they could
never understand why she let him get by with so much. And that his hatred
toward me was because my mother had always been so good to me.”

“So he was jealous,” Payton said. “I
knew that little shit. Sorry, but he was. And the longer I was around him, the
more I wanted to kick is fucking ass. There wasn’t a kid around that had it so
easy yet seemed to think it wasn’t enough.”

“I’m not sure. I only met him the
one time and that was at the birthday dinner for Trace.” Grace flushed a
little. “He made a pass at me then. I didn’t know how to react. It was as if he
thought I was…well, it matters little now. But back to the house. I was in and
out of it by then. There was this man and he lifted me out of the limo. I’m not
sure what his relationship was to the others, but he did everything they told
him to. He also seemed to understand that they were four separate people, yet
he only listened to Verrie.”

“His name was Bob Smith, if you
can believe it,” Shamus told them as he opened a folder. “He took care of your
mother off and on over the years. He was her keeper, I guess. Especially when
your father spent time behind bars, he’d hire him to make sure she didn’t get
into trouble. Or too much trouble, it seemed. She was in a great deal of it by
the time she made it back here.”

“That explains a lot. When we got
to the house, every time she would become another he would simply start calling
her by that name. At one point they had an argument with him and he fought with
each of them as if they were three separate beings.” Grace remembered how
surreal that had been. “There were times when I would swear that he was more
their father than anything else.”

“So he took you into the house,
then what?” Cain asked. Grace felt sorry for him the most. He’d been the
protector of them all for so long. To have this happen and it be out of his
control was probably eating away at him.

“I was taken to the basement and
put on the floor. The room was small, but they’d been prepared for me. The
plastic on the floor had been the first clue that they planned to actually kill
me, but I think something went wrong. Verrie said that they had to keep me or
they wouldn’t get anything.”

“They ransomed you,” Alyssa said. “We
got a call just after Thomas was killed and she said that she wanted ten
million dollars and they’d give you back. We think it was because of the police
being on them so quickly.”

“Thanks to you.” Nathan handed Grace
the broken phone as he walked over and kissed Jazzie. “You turned it on and
activated the GPS. That was a great way to find you and, even broken like it
was, it still let us pinpoint you within a few yards. Do we even want to know
how it got broken?”

She held it in her hand and looked
at Michael. “I was trying to call you. I was sure you could hear me and I
actually thought of you finding me that way, but Guinnie told me to run. I
forgot it in the car when I took off. After I was shot the first time I also
managed to drop my gun.”

“I told you she had the bead on
her,” Sin said with a laugh. “Didn’t I tell you my Gracie would get the jump on
her and wouldn’t let me down?” She laughed again as she high-fived her husband.

“Yes, you did. Now sit down and be
quiet before I have to paddle your bottom. Go on, Grace,” Payton told her. “Tell
us what happened next and miss know-it-all will hush.”

Grace burst out laughing. Then she
looked around the room again. These people were her family. All of them held
her safe when she needed it, and even when she didn’t think she did.

“I love you guys. All of you so
very much.” She wiped at the tears on her cheeks. “You’ve no idea how much I
wished I could have come home, but…I should have known you’d be there for me.”

“Well of course we would. You’re
our family, aren’t you?” Alyssa looked at her, then around the room. “Now let’s
finish this up so that we can get this show on the road and get you home
tomorrow. And I, for one, would like to know when the wedding is.”

Grace was afraid to look at
Michael. She was sure he was going to change his mind about them. Before she
could come up with any kind of answer, he answered. But not the way she’d
thought.

“If we can hold off until she’s
committed then I think we can do it anytime you can get it together. But not
too long. I want to be able to claim her before we start a family.”

Grace started to ask him what he
meant when she suddenly got what he’d said. “Committed? Who? Mother?”

Chapter 23

Guinevere tried to talk to any of
the others, but it was entirely too much effort. She wanted to ask them what
had happened, when they were going to get their money, and what the fuck they
thought they were doing shutting her out. She had to force her eyes open, but
it, too, was a chore.

“It’s time for your medications,
Mrs. Waite. Come on now, you know they won’t let you go out into the world
without some nice happy juice.”

Guinevere looked up at her with
half-closed eyes.

“Come on now. It’s time to get up
and get ready.”

“Ready,” was all she could manage.
What the hell,
ready
? All she could think to do was sleep. She certainly
didn’t want to go anywhere.

“Yes. Come on. The courts won’t
wait all day for you. If you can put your good arm around me, I’ll lift you to
the chair.”

“Verrie. Where?” She needed
someone there to tell her what the hell was going on. She couldn’t function
without at least one of them to help her.

Suddenly she was out of the bed
and into a sitting position. There was nothing for her to do but let the person
put the handcuffs on her arms and attach her to the chair. She tried to think,
tried her very best to bring someone to her, but nothing. Then there was the
small burn of something on her arm.

“There you go. Nice and calm now. As
soon as I get you wrapped up in the blankie, I’ll get you going. There’s a good
girl.”

“Verrie,” she tried again. “Where…where
am I? Where are the…where are the others?”

“You can’t see anyone just yet. Not
until the trial is over at any rate. Then if I don’t miss my guess, and I’ve
never been wrong about one of these, you’ll be spending the rest of your life
in the State House for the Criminally Insane.”

Guinevere looked at the man
standing in the door way.

“After that, well, it’s anyone’s
guess.”

“Who?” Guinevere asked. She felt
the stirring of one of the others, but they didn’t speak to her. She had a
small memory from one of the others, but there wasn’t enough of a connection to
help her figure out any more than he was a man who Verrie wanted to fuck.

“I told you before, Miss Waite,
when we’re here there is no need for you to pretend. And if you do it again I
will have someone else come and talk to you.” He sat on the bed as he pulled
out files and spoke to her. “The trial is set for two hours from now. Once we
get into the courtroom they’ll take you to your seat. Now, as I’ve said before,
you can’t cause any sort of ruckus or the judge won’t let you speak on your
behalf.”

She sat up a little straighter in
her wheelchair and looked down at her body. She had on a pair of jogging pants
that were bright orange and her shirt, one that had something printed on the
front that she simply couldn’t make out, was just as orange. Her socks, also an
orange that was more suited to pumpkins than clothing, were barely on her feet.
They sort of reminded her of her husb—

“Jail? I’m in jail? No. That can’t
be right. There’s been a mistake.” She felt another stir of one of the others,
but again, not enough to tell which one. “There’s something wrong.”

The man sitting across from her
glared for several minutes. Guinevere might have been uncomfortable by his
stare if she wasn’t still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that she was
in jail.

“Miss Waite, for the tenth time,
you are not in jail. This is merely a holding place for you until the judge
makes the decision as to what sort of facility you will go to. Then when the
time is right, you’ll be taken before the court to determine if you are able to
stand trial and if you are sane enough to be tried on the crimes against you.”

“What crimes?” she asked him. “I
didn’t do anything wrong. It was all that money-grubbing whore’s fault. She’s
the one who killed my Roscoe.”

“Yes, that’s it. Keep up that sort
of talk and you’ll be spending the next fifty years of your life in a place
just like this one, only the state tends to be little less friendly when they’re
footing the bill.”

The laughter in her mind made her
skin crawl. She hadn’t been prepared for it to sound so chilling. And when Guinnie
spoke, Guinevere felt her blood run just a little colder.

“You should have listened to
me. Had you or any of the others just given me my due then I wouldn’t have had
to resort to such extreme measures. Especially in light of what has happened to
you.”

Guinevere waited for Guinnie to
continue. When she didn’t, she asked her what she meant. What had she done?

“Done? Why, I did what you
should have done many, many years ago. I ended this. I wish his aim would have
been just a little better, but… Well, how do you like our new home? Not fancy,
but we’re safe.”

“What have you done? Tell Verrie I
need to speak to her this minute. I want to speak to Verrie or Ginny right this
fucking minute.” Guinevere looked at the man as he stood. She hadn’t realized
she’d spoken out loud until that moment. The laughter made her think that
Guinnie knew much more than she was letting on.

“Miss Waite, this is not the least
bit funny. If it weren’t for the fact that I know you can’t move then I would
leave here and never return.” He moved his chair back from her a few feet
before he began to speak again. “Now, the trial is set for today. Then when the
findings find you—”

“You should know that his aim
killed Ginny. She was in the front when he fired. Too bad that he only managed
to put the bullet into your frontal lobe and not all the way through your sick mind.”
Guinevere ignored the man for the child in her mind.
“And poor Verrie. She
went off the deep end…well, deeper end just after they tied us down after
surgery. I swear, there are times when I can still hear her scream.”