The Betrayed (10 page)

“I don’t know,” Carter said. “I hope not.”

He rose from his stool and tossed some money onto the counter. “I have a couple of things I need to get out of the way this morning. Eat your breakfast and I’ll meet you at the house as soon as I can get away.”

“Thanks,” Danae said.

Carter gave them a nod and headed out of the café. Sonia stepped back behind the counter and refilled their coffee, so Danae and Zach slipped back into silence. As she was restocking the napkin holder, Jack came back in from his break.

“Do you want breakfast now?” Sonia asked.

“I’ll have a vegetarian egg-white omelet,” Danae said.

“Sounds good,” Zach said. “I’ll take the same with a side of wheat toast.”

Jack shook his head.

“Is there a problem, Jack?” Danae asked, determined to get the unpleasantness out of the way.

Jack turned around and gave her a dirty look. “Yeah, there’s a problem, Miss Fancy Omelet. I should have known the first time you ordered it that you thought you were too good for this town. Plain ol’ eggs and bacon can’t touch those heiress lips of yours or you might explode, right?”

“Look,” Danae said, “I know what my stepfather did to you and it was wrong, but I had nothing to do with that. If you have a problem with the way things turned out, then I suggest you take that up with the estate attorney, but I will not take crap from you because you got a raw deal.”

Jack’s face flushed red. “You got a smart mouth now that you got a little money.”

Anger from her entire life flooded through her, and she clenched her hands to keep from throwing something at the man she used to work next to six days a week.

“You think you got screwed? Purcell sold us for twenty thousand each. Paid strangers less than what a bass boat costs to rip us from the only home we’d ever known. If there was a way to bring that bastard back and kill him myself, I would. Damn Purcell to hell all you want, but the line starts behind me and my sisters.”

Jack’s jaw dropped and he blinked before tossing his spatula on the grill and storming out of the café for the second time that morning.

It took Danae a second to realize that the entire café had gone silent. Without turning around, she knew every eye in the place was on her. Embarrassment washed over her like a tidal wave, and she grabbed her purse and ran out of the café.

Chapter Ten

Zach hesitated only long enough to toss some money onto the counter before he hurried out of the café after Danae. Her car was still parked at the end of the block in front of Doc Broussard’s office, and she made it almost all the way there before Zach managed to catch up with her.

“Hey,” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. “Wait up.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, staring at the ground. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I shouldn’t have poked at him. He’s always been mean-spirited, but I’m usually in a better place to tolerate it.”

Zach felt his heart tug at her obvious distress. He put his hand under her chin and pulled her head up until she was looking at him.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” he said. “Jack was out of line, and everyone in there knows it.”

“I made a fool out of myself, airing my family’s dirty laundry.”

“You’re not a fool. You’re hurt and you have every reason to be. I take it you didn’t know about the payoff until now?”

She sniffed, and he could tell she was trying to hold back the tears that were pooling in her eyes.

“I found a check register in the files I took home with me last night,” she said. “There were four entries for twenty thousand dollars. I recognized two of the names. One was the woman who took me and the other was the people who took Alaina.”

Zach stiffened. It was the same amount he’d seen in his father’s records. “And the other names?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t recognize them and the last is barely legible, but I figure one of them is the family that took Joelle.”

Zach struggled to control his own anxiety. The last thing he wanted to do was tip off Danae to exactly how interested he was. Then another thought occurred to him. “There are only three of you, right?”

Danae’s eyes widened. “Yes. Well, I guess as far as I know there are only three of us. I was too young to remember anything.”

She clutched Zach’s arm. “What if there was a baby? Oh, no, I need to call Alaina. Surely she would remember if our mother was pregnant after I was born.”

Instantly, Zach felt guilty for causing her more distress. He put his hands on her shoulders and gave them a squeeze. “Don’t outdrive your headlights. If your mother had another child, wouldn’t William know?”

“I don’t know. Everyone said Purcell locked us up in that house and no one saw my mother or us kids for a long time. Maybe long enough for her to have his child.”

“Okay. So as soon as you think it’s appropriate, you’ll call Alaina and ask her.”

Danae nodded. “You’re right.”

She took a deep breath and blew it out, then gave him a small smile. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You calmed me down and reminded me that I’m not in this alone. I have Alaina and I need to remember that.”

“And you have me.”

Her eyes widened a bit, but he saw the flicker of hope in them before the wall went back up.

“None of this is your problem. I can’t ask you to get involved. You’ve already done too much and you’re injured because of it.”

“You didn’t ask. I’m volunteering.”

She cocked her head to one side and studied him for a couple of seconds. “Why would you volunteer for this?”

“Maybe because I find it all kinda fascinating, like an old movie-of-the-week story. Maybe because I always wanted to be Sherlock Holmes. Maybe because I like you and want to help.”

She stared a second more then gave him a small smile. “You need to get out more. If you like me, then your friend card must be seriously low.”

“There’s always room on my card for beautiful maidens.”

She raised one eyebrow. “Are you going to rescue me from the dragon?”

He smiled. “I didn’t bring my chain mail with me, but I can have it delivered.”

She laughed. “I bet you can. Well, I suppose we better get back to the house. I need to cook you some breakfast, since I’m responsible for your missing the special. Alaina stocked basics at the house. I can rummage up something.”

She stepped back and out of his grasp and pulled her keys from her purse as she turned toward the car. He watched her for a moment, thinking how lovely she looked when she actually let her guard down. When she trusted someone else with a small piece of herself.

Part of him felt incredibly guilty about being one more in a likely long list of people who’d deceived and used her, but he couldn’t afford to tell her his true agenda. What if his father had somehow been part of selling off the sisters? How could he expect her to remain impartial to him?

He stepped over to the car and slid into the passenger’s seat. The only way this would work was if Danae never knew who he really was. After he got what he wanted, he needed to disappear back to New Orleans and forget he’d ever met her.

If that were even possible.

* * *

C
ARTER
FILLED
W
ILLIAM
IN
on everything that Danae and Zach had told him at the café. The attorney’s expression shifted from concerned to angry to fearful in a matter of minutes.

“Is Mr. Sargent all right?” William asked when Carter finished.

“Yeah. He took a good crack on the head, but Doc Broussard doesn’t seem to think there’s any permanent damage.”

William shook his head. “It’s like everything’s repeating.”

Carter nodded. “I thought the same thing. Even though I know someone else broke that window, I guess I was hoping the entire mess would go away when Alaina’s situation was resolved. Shortsighted of me, I know.”

“Not shortsighted. More like wishful thinking, and you can put me on the list right next to you. I really hoped all the attention Alaina’s situation drew would prompt whoever else was lurking around the estate to rethink their plan. Apparently, he’s as brazen as ever.”

“Maybe even more so, and that’s what concerns me the most. Before we latched onto the situation with Alaina, I was going to talk to you about potential suspects from an inheritance angle. We already know Jack is none too happy about the situation, but I thought there could be others. And I’d like to know what happens to the estate if the sisters don’t meet the conditions of the will.”

William nodded. “All very good questions, and a line of thinking I’d already taken to just before Alaina’s situation was resolved.”

The attorney pulled a pad of paper from his desk drawer. “I made some notes as I went through the terms of the will. First off, the cash and securities are to be distributed among several New Orleans charities and two churches.”

“Are the directors of any of the charities or the ministers aware of the terms?”

“I don’t see how they could be. Even if there was gossip to that effect here in Calais, it would be a long shot that any of it made it back to key people in those organizations.”

“And the house?”

“The house and land, including mineral rights, would go to the town of Calais.”

Carter frowned. “What was the point of that?”

“It was Ophelia’s way of preserving the town as she knew it and wanted it to remain. If developers or oil companies came in, they might tear down the house and strip the land, and that would change what Calais was.”

“She was assuming that the Calais city council felt the same way. They could just as easily choose to do that themselves, make a ton of money, vote themselves huge raises and bonuses, and retire in Fiji.”

“Yes, that’s absolutely true. I’m afraid Ophelia was overprotected by her own parents. She had the naïveté of a far younger person, and such a thing wouldn’t have occurred to her.”

“Does anyone on the council know about this?”

“It’s quite possible. Of course, I’ve not told anyone the terms of the will except you, Alaina and Danae, but Purcell could have told someone.”

“That wouldn’t have been in his best interests, though,” Carter pointed out. “If Purcell let others know he didn’t have control of disbursing the estate, then people like Jack wouldn’t have worked for him all those years for nothing. Surely Jack wasn’t the only one to be taken in by the man.”

“No. Bert Thibodeaux was in my office a few days ago, yelling.”

“Really?” Carter’s interest perked up. Bert was a fifty-year-old long-haul trucker with a list of offenses a mile long. He’d even taken a swing at Carter the year before when he’d told him he couldn’t park his semi on Main Street, where it blocked the alley.

“Yes, seems he did some delivery-service work for Purcell between here and New Orleans. Claims to have done quite a lot of it over the last ten years.”

“And Purcell was supposed to leave him money?”

“That’s his claim. Says Purcell promised him the money for a brand-new semi in lieu of charging him for all the deliveries.”

Carter whistled. “There’s no small price tag on those trucks.”

“Definitely not.”

“This is what I don’t get. Why did Purcell promise them all money when he could have just paid them? Was it some perverse game on his part?”

“To an extent, certainly, but it went beyond that, I believe.”

“What do you mean?”

“Purcell had access to the estate, but not in the form of large cash withdrawals. It was a very irregular arrangement, and the more I learn about it, the more I understand some of Purcell’s more odd behaviors.”

“Like what?”

“Like remaining in Calais, for starters. The way the estate was set up, Purcell could purchase whatever objects he desired as long as the value was sufficient to substantiate the cost, and the estate accountant in New Orleans would write a check for it. But other than a reasonable living allowance, he couldn’t withdraw cash from the estate at all.”

Carter leaned back in his chair and stared at William. “So he closed himself up in that house and bought a bunch of stuff with the estate money because that was the only way he could get his hands on it, then sent Bert running to New Orleans to get it?”

William nodded. “After gaining a full understanding of how the estate has been managed, that’s what I believe.”

“How is it that you didn’t know all this before?”

“Remember, I wasn’t Ophelia’s attorney. Her parents established a relationship with the firm in New Orleans long before her birth, and Ophelia maintained that relationship with them. She was young when she passed. I tried to convince her to make an appointment with me and let me review all the documents, but she never did.”

Carter sighed. “She didn’t think she was going to die. She thought she had plenty of time to deal with that sort of thing.”

“Yes,” William said, and Carter could hear the sadness in the older man’s voice.

“So the firm that manages the estate hired you to oversee it—is that how this works?”

“Exactly. I have formed a relationship with the firm over the years, and they felt it was a good answer to the problems created with the stipulations for the inheritance. My living here makes it easier on everyone.”

“Ha, and easier for you to cajole the local sheriff into being hall monitor for the sisters.”

“Yes, well...that was supposed to have been a bit easier than it’s turned out to be—the hall-monitoring part, that is.”

Carter held in a smile at the attorney’s obvious chagrin. “You think? There’s still an intruder on the loose, I’ve had to kill a man and now I have a fiancé. I hold you responsible for all of this.”

William looked so stricken that Carter’s smile finally broke through.

“I’m joking,” Carter said. “About holding you responsible, anyway. The rest of it’s kinda true.”

William laughed, then sobered. “I know this isn’t what you signed up for, and it’s not what I had in mind, but I’m glad you’re here in the middle of this, Carter. You’re a good man and a good cop. I wouldn’t trust those women with anyone else.”

Carter rose and shook William’s hand. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”

“I’m counting on it.”

* * *

D
ANAE
PLACED
A
PLATE
of eggs and toast in front of Zach along with a glass of milk and one of the pain pills Doc Broussard had given him. “Eat some of that before you take the pain pill,” she said.

“Thanks,” he said and gave her a smile. “What about your breakfast?”

“I’m too wound up to eat. I need to work off some of this nervous energy, then I’ll have something.”

“You sure? There’s plenty here. I don’t know if I can finish it all.”

“I’m going to try to give Alaina a call.”

“Okay. I’ll be here if you need me.”

She gave him a nod and left the kitchen, pulling her cell phone from her jeans pocket as she walked down the hall. She glanced at the display and blew out a breath of relief—it had a signal.

Seven-thirty a.m. She bit her lip. Alaina was an hour ahead in Boston. Hopefully, she’d be up. Danae pressed her sister’s number on the display and put the phone to her ear, clenching it harder with every ring that went unanswered.

Just when she figured it was going to go to voice mail, Alaina answered, sounding a bit breathless.

“Did I wake you?” Danae asked.

“No, I’ve been up for hours. My brother came this morning to take our mother to her doctor’s appointment and to have her hair done, and I just finished up a quick morning run. I was going to call you later. Is everything okay?”

“Yes... No. I don’t know.” Danae filled Alaina in on the intruder the day before and the attack on Zach, leaving out the part about ghostly lights and terror-filled screams.

“Oh! Is he all right?”

“Doc Broussard says he’ll have a headache for a couple of days, but he’ll be fine.”

“What did Carter say to do?”

“He hasn’t said much yet, but he’s supposed to meet us here later this morning.”

“Good.”

Danae bit her lip, trying to come up with a good way to ask her next question, but she couldn’t think of one. Finally, she just blurted it out. “Did Mom have another baby after me?”

Alaina sucked in a breath. “Heavens, Danae, where did that come from?”

“Just answer me. Did she?”

“No. Not that I remember. I mean, my memories are sketchy, but I don’t think I could have blocked out her having another baby.”