Chapter 13
Nowell followed Clarice into his apartment, then closed and locked the door. She hadn’t felt this giddy, hadn’t known this mixture of excitement and uncertainty in nearly forty years. Not since the first time she and Jonathan had made love. She’d been twenty-three then and living in Memphis, working at a dress shop, learning her trade. On a rainy Tuesday a young soldier, home on a month’s leave, came into the shop looking for a birthday gift for his mother. They had taken one look at each other and it had been love at first sight. Jonathan had been handsome, dashing, ardent. He’d simply swept her off her feet. Within two weeks of their first meeting, they were engaged. And the night he put the ring on her finger, he made love to her for the first time. Those had been the happiest days of her life. Three short weeks. Five months and a hundred love letters later, Jonathan had been killed in Vietnam.
Nowell slipped his arms around Clarice and drew her back up against his chest. While nuzzling her neck, he whispered, “I love you, Clarice. I love you more than life itself.”
She turned slowly, the warmth of his embrace, the tenderness in his expression enveloping her in a loving cocoon. His adoring gaze told her more than the words he had spoken what his true feelings were. She never should have doubted him. But she’d been confused since the first day Nowell Landers walked into her life. He’d just shown up one day at Belle Rose and asked to see her.
“I don’t mean to disturb you, ma’am,” he’d said. “I’m Nowell Landers, and I was a friend of Jonathan Lenz. We were in the same outfit in Nam. I—I was with him when he died.”
She hadn’t been as instantly attracted to another man since Jonathan, so was it any wonder that she kept finding similarities in the two men? Same height and similar builds, although Nowell was heavier, broader, probably the results of aging. Same piercing dark eyes. But there were differences, too. Enough so that she could usually differentiate between the two. Yet sometimes, when Nowell and she were alone together, like now, her heart longed for them to be the same man. Of course, that wasn’t possible, was it? Jonathan was dead.
“I don’t like that sad look on your face.” Nowell rubbed his index finger across the frown lines on her forehead.
“Sorry, I was just thinking about…It doesn’t matter.” Standing on tiptoe, she kissed him. Sweet and fleeting, just a brush of lips against lips.
“You were thinking about Jonathan, weren’t you?”
Clarice grabbed Nowell’s hand. “Don’t be jealous. I loved Jonathan dearly, but he’s been gone a long, long time.”
“You still love him,” Nowell said.
“I …yes. But I love you, too. And I never thought I’d ever love again.”
“It’s all right, honey.” He cupped her face with his big hands. “I don’t mind if you love both of us. Your heart’s big enough for that.”
“How kind you are. How understanding.” She tugged on his hand. “I thought you brought me back here to your apartment after our dinner date so that you could ravish me.”
He smiled. “I want to make love to you. But only if it’s what you want, too.”
“It’s what I want,” she told him. “More than anything.”
Nowell scooped her up into his arms. Sighing with delight, she draped her arm around his neck and laid her head on his shoulder. He carried her through the small living room and into the bedroom, then placed her in the center of the bed, on the brown quilted spread.
“I haven’t been with anyone in years,” she told him. “Not since…”
“No one?” he asked. “No one since Jonathan?”
“No one…until you.”
“God, Clarice.”
She was both surprised and yet deeply touched by the tears in Nowell’s eyes. Crying seemed so out of character for the big burly man. Opening her arms in welcome, she said, “Make love to me.”
His gentleness mixed with passion, showing her by heated romantic words and nerve-tingling caresses that she was precious to him. “Precious beyond words,” he said as he removed her beige silk blouse and unlatched the front hook of her bra.
Shouldn’t I feel the least bit embarrassed?
she wondered. Shouldn’t I worry that he will be disappointed when he sees my thin sixty-year-old body? But she felt neither embarrassment nor worry as Nowell slowly, tenderly removed her clothes, caressing her, kissing her, praising her each step of the way. When she was completely naked, he rose up and off the bed and quickly divested himself of his own clothing. Clarice watched with fascination as he stripped down to bare skin. He was big, thick chested, and very hairy. His chest hair was almost white and the rest was mixed with gray. She studied him, admiring his raw masculinity. And another comparison came to mind. He looked like Jonathan there, too. Although her experience was limited, she knew enough about men to know they weren’t all equally endowed.
“You keep staring at me that way, honey, and I won’t be able to wait. And I want to wait. I want to take a long time with you.”
Clarice swallowed. Her nerves sang a high-pitched melody of great expectations.
Nowell came down over her, bracing his weight so that he didn’t crush her. His lips moved over her face, down her throat and stopped to pay homage to her small breasts, her taut nipples. She quivered, the sensation an unbearably painful pleasure. While he acquainted himself with every inch of her body, every curve, every indentation, she caressed him—his shoulders, his hairy chest, his large biceps, his stomach, his penis. When she circled him, he drew in a deep breath, but made no move to stop her when she began pumping him. Odd how familiar everything was, the taste of him, the feel of him, the sound of his heavy breathing.
Making love must be like riding a bicycle
, she thought,
you never forget how to do it
.
With intimate lunges, Nowell’s tongue explored between her open thighs. When he laved the kernel of sensitive flesh between her feminine folds, Clarice’s hips bucked upward to meet his mouth. And then before she realized what was happening, she climaxed. While shudders of release racked her body, Nowell tested her readiness and found her moist from her orgasm. He lifted her hips and entered her, slowly, carefully, inch by inch embedding himself deeper inside her. When he’d taken her fully, she wrapped her legs around his hips and participated passionately as he thrust and retreated. Within a couple of minutes, he came, his roar of completion like that of a jungle animal.
“God, Ricie, I love you.” He eased off her, sliding down beside her on the bed.
Although she was in a state of shock, she didn’t protest when he pulled her close and held her. She lay there, her heart beating wildly, her mind filled with chaotic, incomprehensible thoughts. He had called her Ricie, but apparently wasn’t aware that he had. Jonathan had called her Ricie. No one else. Only Jonathan. There was a logical explanation for why he’d used Jonathan’s pet name for her. There had to be. But she couldn’t imagine what that explanation might be. She couldn’t believe that Jonathan would have shared something so personal, so intimate with anyone else, not even a comrade in arms. But what other explanation could there be? Unless…
Oh, Clarice, you mustn’t do this to yourself. Stop thinking crazy thoughts. Accept Nowell for who he is and be grateful that you’ve found love again. Don’t ask for the impossible
.
Tired, dirty, and feeling slightly waterlogged after drinking God only knew how many cups of coffee, Jolie dropped her head onto the old desk in the basement of the sheriff’s department and groaned loudly.
“Okay, I give up,” she said. “We’ve gone over every inch of this basement, looked through every damn file cabinet, every shelf, every drawer, in every nook and cranny. There are no Belle Rose massacre files.”
Theron cocked his chair backward, up on two legs, stretched his arms, entwined his fingers, and cupped the back of his head. “Either someone took them, probably years ago, or someone destroyed them. It really doesn’t matter. Either way, we’re screwed. Without those files—”
“Don’t say it.” Jolie lifted her head just enough so that she could look at Theron. “There has to be another way to get the case reopened. Just the fact that the files are missing should prove something.”
“Prove what?” he asked. “Prove incompetence? Files get misplaced all the time. We have no proof that they were destroyed or taken. All we have is my gut instinct.”
“Then we’ll just have to find another way to gather evidence. Find Sheriff Bendall, if he’s still alive. Talk to his deputies. It’s only been twenty years ago. Most of them probably still live around here. And there’s always the CIB report. The agent who came to Sumarville to investigate had to have filed a report. We need to find out his name and where he lives now.”
“I’m too tired to think about it tonight.” Theron checked his wristwatch. “Damn, it’s nearly eleven o’clock.” He scooted back his chair and stood. “Come on. Let’s go home. We can come back tomorrow and straighten up this mess. After a good night’s sleep, we’ll plot our new strategy.”
Jolie rose to her feet, arched her back, and groaned. “I’m not used to sitting that long. My neck, shoulders, and back are sore.”
As they headed for the stairs, Theron clamped his hand on Jolie’s shoulder. “Take a long soak in the tub before you go to bed. Then sleep until I phone you in the morning. Bright and early tomorrow, I’m going to make some calls and also talk to Ike to see if I can find out the whereabouts of everyone involved in the investigation. As soon as I have something to go on, I’ll call you.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.”
Upstairs they said good night to the deputies on the evening shift, then headed outside to their cars. Just as Jolie unlocked and opened the driver’s side door of her Escalade, Theron called to her.
“You realize that Ike was right about it taking somebody with money and power to pull Larry Newman’s strings, don’t you? The same holds true for whoever saw to it that those records disappeared. And since we have no way of knowing if those files have been missing for years or only for months—”
“What are you trying to say?”
“If the files were
misplaced
in the past few months or even the past few years, then I’d say either Roscoe Wells or Max Devereaux is the man behind the scenes.”
“And if they were misplaced twenty years ago?” She held her breath, knowing the answer, but needing to hear Theron say it.
“Then it would be either Roscoe or…” he hesitated a split second, “or Louis Royale.”
She released the breath she’d been holding, suddenly feeling like a deflated balloon. “Why would Daddy… Oh , my God. To protect Georgette.”
“Or Georgette’s son.”
Georgette lay awake in her bed. Alone and afraid. She’d never been afraid when Louis was with her. He always kept the demons at bay. Nothing would ever be the same without him. He had known her so well, understood her completely, and loved her unconditionally. Now that Louis was gone, Max would try his best to take care of her. But her son didn’t know the woman she’d once been, so he couldn’t truly understand her well enough to help her fight the monsters that lived inside her.
The room lay in shadows. The night-light in the corner didn’t banish enough of the darkness. She reached out and flipped on the bedside lamp. A creamy glow illuminated the room. Georgette slipped out of bed, grabbed her thin silk robe from the chaise longue, and went to the French doors that opened out onto the upstairs balcony at the front of the house.
As a young girl she had dreamed of living in a house like this, with servants to wait on her, and more money than she could spend in a lifetime. While she earned her living by giving her body to any man with the right price, she had kept her heart untouched. And dreamed of the day her prince would come. Philip Devereaux had been her prince. One of her customers for several years, using her services whenever he visited New Orleans, Philip had fallen in love with her. She had given Philip a little piece of her heart when he married her and took her with him to live in Sumarville. His home had been nice, better than anything she’d ever known, but it was nothing in comparison to Belle Rose.
The first time she saw Louis Royale, she knew that he was unlike any man she’d ever known. And the first time he touched her, she had felt that she was destined to be his in a way she had never belonged to another man. She had given her whole heart to Louis, loving him more than she’d ever thought possible. And he had loved her, with his body and his heart and even with his very soul.
But I had no soul to give you, did I, my love?
Georgette whispered the words as she opened the French doors and walked out onto the balcony.
Once you’ve killed, once you’ve taken another person’s life, you lose your soul
.
Chapter 14
Theron started the Ferrari’s motor, powered down the windows to release some of the stale oppressive heat that had accumulated inside the vehicle during the afternoon, and upped the air-conditioner setting. Glancing in his rearview mirror, he watched Jolie’s SUV pass by behind him. She threw up a hand and waved good-bye. Odd that a friendship forged in childhood and left unattended for years could remain so strong. Of course, discovering they had a common purpose—righting the wrongs of the past—bound them together now. But was that the only reason he felt a connection to Jolie?
It was just gossip. You know how people talk. They said Mr. Sam Desmond and Sadie Fuqua were
…Ike’s word played over in his mind, like a needle stuck in a groove on an old record. He didn’t want to believe it was true, that Sam Desmond had fathered his grandmother’s twins, that his mother was a half sibling to the Desmond sisters. He couldn’t deny that he’d wondered about his mother’s light skin and her hazel eyes, eyes he had inherited from her. But he had thought that whatever white blood flowed in her veins came from generations ago.
But if it were true, why hadn’t his mother told him? And why hadn’t he ever heard the rumor before today?
Theron removed his cell phone from the belt clip, fished in his shirt pocket for the number he’d written down this morning, and punched in the digits. She had told him to call anytime before midnight.
She answered on the fifth ring. “Hello.”
“Amy, I apologize for calling so late at night, but—”
“That’s all right. It’s not midnight. I hadn’t gone to bed.”
He loved the sound of her voice. Soft, light, slightly high-pitched, like a little girl’s. But Amy Jardien was no little girl. She was all woman. Beautiful, intelligent, and successful. The kind of lady he liked.
“I suppose it’s too late for me to drop by,” he said.
She laughed, a sweet tinkling sound that aroused him. “Yes, I’m afraid it is.”
Theron touched the button that lifted the windows closed, then he put the gears into reverse and backed out of the parking place. Bracing the phone between his ear and his shoulder, he put both hands on the wheel as he headed down Main Street.
“What about tomorrow night?” he asked.
“What about it?”
“How about dinner? Around six-thirty?”
“I usually start my rounds at the hospital at six. But if you’ll make it seven-thirty, then we have a date.”
“Seven-thirty it is.” As Theron turned off Main and onto Oak Avenue, he noticed headlights behind him. A vehicle had made the same turn a couple of minutes after he did. “Do you have any preferences for dinner? Italian? Chinese? Down-home cooking?”
“I’ll let you choose,” she told him. “I’m not picky and I’m afraid my indiscriminate appetite shows on my hips.”
“Your hips look fine to me.” He smiled when he heard her sigh. “As a matter of fact, everything about you looks fine to me. Mighty fine.”
“My, my, Mr. Carter, I had no idea you were such a sweet-talking man. But I should have suspected you would use words to your advantage, since you’re a lawyer.”
“I’ve found that words can be used to hurt, to heal, to seduce…Amy?”
“Yes?”
Theron turned again, off Oak Avenue and onto Pinewood, the street where his rented duplex apartment was located. Instinctively he glanced in the rearview mirror. No sign of headlights. A sense of relief eased through him. Hell, why had he been concerned?
You didn’t think somebody was following you, did you?
“You’ve lived in Sumarville all your life, so I was wondering…” He paused. Should he bring up the subject of old hometown rumors? “Nah, just forget it.”
“What? What were you wondering?”
Theron pulled his car into the driveway at the side of his duplex. “I heard a rumor today… an old rumor. About my grandmother.”
“Oh?”
“Ike Denton happened to mention that…Have you ever heard people say anything about my mama being Mr. Sam Desmond’s daughter?”
Amy sucked in a deep breath.
“Amy?”
Theron undid his seat belt, opened the car door, and got out; then he closed and locked the door behind him.
“You mean you don’t know if it’s true or not?” she finally responded. “If it’s true, wouldn’t your mother have told you?”
“You didn’t answer my question.” Using the streetlight to see by, Theron jiggled his key chain, seeking his door key.
“No, Theron, I’ve never heard that rumor. But come to think of it, I do remember my mother saying something I thought was rather odd at the time.”
“What was that?” He walked up the sidewalk toward his front door.
“I overheard Mama and Daddy talking not long after the Belle Rose massacre and Mama said that if it had been anyone else, she wouldn’t have believed it, but that Lisette Desmond was just the type of woman who would have taken her own brother as a lover. I wondered what Mama meant because the Desmond sisters didn’t have a brother.”
“My God!”
“You shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” Amy said. “Ask your mother. She’ll tell you the truth.”
Theron started to insert the key in the deadbolt lock on his front door. Hearing a car drive by, he glanced over his shoulder in time to see a dark sedan pull over to the curb and stop in front of the duplex.
“Amy, will you hold on for a minute,” Theron said. “I’ll—”
Three men emerged from the car. Three white men.
“Amy, call the police station and tell them to send a patrol car to my house, 118-B Pinewood.”
Theron’s hand shook as he tried to insert the house key into the lock. Three trailer-trash white guys trooping toward his duplex had to mean trouble. Big trouble. For him.
“Theron, what’s wrong?”
“Just do it!”
The damn key was upside down!
Leaving the phone on, he slid it onto his belt clip and turned to face the threesome coming right at him. He didn’t have time to unlock the door, get inside, and deadbolt the door.
“Good evening,” one of the men said, the tallest of the three, the guy in the middle.
“Evening,” Theron replied, trying for a show of bravado. “What can I do for y’all?”
They hadn’t tried to disguise their appearances, had done nothing to prevent him from recognizing them and identifying them at a later date. That meant one of two things—either they had no intention of physically harming him or they were going to kill him.
Jolie stopped at the closed gates, rolled down the window, reached out, and punched in the code numbers Aunt Clarice had given her. She had memorized the codes for the gate and for the house. When had her father installed the security system at Belle Rose? Not immediately after the murders, so it must have been sometime after he sent her away. Had he been afraid that someone might harm his new family?
As she approached the house, she noticed that lights were still on downstairs, but the upstairs was dark. Did that mean someone—probably Aunt Clarice—had left the lights on for her?
She parked her SUV in the drive. Tomorrow she’d have to inform Max that she expected a place in the garage to be vacated for her Escalade. It didn’t really matter to her whose car would have to be removed to make room for hers. Preferably Georgette’s Mercedes. But she suspected Max would leave his Porsche outside before he’d dream of upsetting his mother. After locking the Escalade, she kept the key chain in her hand as she headed up the steps to the front veranda.
Just as she started to insert the key in the lock, a voice said, “Coming home kind of late, aren’t you?”
After gasping and jumping simultaneously, Jolie jerked around, seeking the man who had spoken. Dropping her keys into the pocket of her linen jacket, she strolled across the veranda. With one leg crossed over the other, looking completely relaxed and right at home, Max sat in one of the big rocking chairs on the side porch. Light coming through a nearby window silhouetted the chair and its occupant. His blue shirt was completely unbuttoned and hung loosely around his hips. She scanned him from his damp hair—apparently he’d just showered—to his chest, lightly dusted with dark hair, over his faded jeans, then hurried past his crotch, and down over his legs to his bare feet.
“Waiting up for me, stepbrother dear?”
“Perhaps.”
He glanced up at her. Because she couldn’t see his eyes clearly, she felt at a disadvantage. She’d found that the best chance of discerning Max’s reaction was to study his steel blue eyes.
She removed her wrinkled linen jacket, hung it on the back of the rocker beside the one Max occupied, then sat down beside him. “Has everyone else gone to bed?”
“Mother and Mallory are in their rooms,” he replied. “Uncle Parry stays in town several nights every week. And Aunt Clarice isn’t home yet. She’s still out on her date with Nowell Landers.”
“You don’t like Mr. Landers, do you?”
“I don’t trust the man.”
“Why not?” Jolie began rocking back and forth.
“He wants something from Aunt Clarice. I just haven’t figured out what it is. Money probably.”
“Have you ever thought that the man is who and what he presents himself to be and all he wants is Aunt Clarice herself?”
“I had no idea you were such a romantic.”
She sensed rather than heard the humor in Max’s voice. “I’m not a romantic, not by any means. But I’m not totally pessimistic either. I don’t question everyone’s motives…unless they give me a reason.”
He turned his head in her direction. The interior light hit his face just right so that she saw the hint of a smile. “Maybe I should turn Aunt Clarice over to you, let you be her keeper while you’re here at Belle Rose.”
“I don’t believe Aunt Clarice needs a keeper. She’s a bit more high-strung than most, but she’s not crazy. Not the way people think.”
“I didn’t say I thought she was crazy. But she is vulnerable and easy prey for a con man claiming to have been with her beloved Jonathan when he died.”
If she didn’t know better, she’d swear that Max actually cared about Aunt Clarice. But that wasn’t possible, was it? Not Max Devereaux, the heartless bastard.
“Maybe Nowell Landers really was with Jonathan when he was killed.”
Max shook his head. “About a month ago Louis asked me to run a check on Nowell Landers. There was no one by that name in Jonathan’s outfit. No one named Nowell Landers was even in Vietnam the same year Jonathan was.”
“Oh.” She allowed her gaze to meet his in the semidarkness. “Did you tell her? Does she know he lied to her?”
“I told her. And she told me that I must be mistaken, that the information was incorrect.”
“Have you confronted Mr. Landers with the truth?”
“Not yet. I’ve been distracted by other things that required my immediate attention. Louis’s illness and death, to name two.”
Ah, yes, Max was Louis Royale’s right-hand man, the son he’d always wanted and never had. The heir apparent to her father’s power and prestigious position in the realm of Southern business and politics.
“I’m surprised, considering how close you two became that you didn’t call him Daddy or Father or Papa.”
“I was nearly nineteen when he married my mother,” Max said, his tone even and without emotion. “Besides, I’ll always think of Philip Devereaux as my father.”
“Hm—mm. I remember Philip. A quiet shy man. Very sweet.” She leaned over the arm of her chair and gazed straight into Max’s eyes. “What happened to all that hatred you felt for my father? You made no secret of the fact that you believed if Daddy hadn’t informed the police that Philip had embezzled money from their jointly owned businesses, the insurance company and the stove foundry, that Philip would never have killed himself.”
Max remained silent for several minutes. The cicadas’ stridulous buzz surrounded them, reminding Jolie of childhood summer nights spent on the porch with her family or in the yard chasing lightning bugs. A hoot owl’s cry blended with the other nocturnal sounds. But above the familiar summertime chorus, she could hear Max breathing. A peculiar sensation deep inside her made her shiver. She felt an overpowering urge to reach out and touch him, to lay her hand over his chest and feel the steady pumping of his heart.
“I did something for Louis that you refused to do for my mother,” Max said, his deep voice low and oddly soft.
“And what was that?” She sensed sorrow and pain radiating from him, but it was such a subtle realization that she knew she could be imagining it.
“I gave myself the chance to get to know my stepparent, to find out just what sort of man he was. When our parents married and my mother begged me to come to Belle Rose with her, I came. I did it for her. And with each passing year, the hatred I’d once felt for Louis changed to begrudging respect and then to liking and finally…. The only dishonorable thing your father ever did was have an affair with my mother, while your mother was still alive.”