Jolie looked at her stepmother, truly looked at her, and for the first time in her life, she saw the real woman. Sad. Fragile. And incredibly beautiful, even in her late fifties. Not a monster. Not a vile, wicked bitch.
“Mallory was a great deal of help,” Jolie said. “I think she and I both inherited Daddy’s bossy, take-charge genes.”
“Louis loved you very much.”
Don’t you dare cry!
“I could never forget seeing the two of you—the very day my mother was murdered—making love in the old shack in the woods.
“Yes, I know. And your father understood how you felt. He regretted…we both regretted so many things.”
Jolie turned and went back out to the balcony. Georgette followed her. The two women stood side-by-side.
“Belle Rose is a beautiful place and I’ve loved living here,” Georgette said. “But I would have loved living anywhere with Louis.”
“You really did love him, didn’t you?”
Sometimes the truth hurt
.
“I wanted you to know that I’m going to tell Max that we should leave Belle Rose. Mallory will go away to college in the fall and Clarice will probably marry Nowell Landers. I’m sure Max will stay on here in Sumarville, but I think Parry and I should move away, maybe go back to New Orleans.”
Jolie stared at Georgette. It was there in her eyes, in the odd expression on her face—she was hiding something. But what?
“Do you know who killed my mother and aunt?”
Silence.
“Lemar Fuqua didn’t shoot them,” Jolie said. “Whoever murdered them killed Lemar, too.”
Georgette nodded.
“And Gar Wells didn’t kill them, did he?”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
No response.
“Either tell me now, or tell Max and me later,” Jolie warned.
Georgette wilted like a hothouse flower exposed to the elements. She seemed to realize that she could no longer keep her secrets buried. “At first, I—I believed, as most people did, that Lemar killed Audrey and Lisette.”
“When did you first realize that he wasn’t the murderer?”
“I’m not sure. It wasn’t a conscious realization. Not at first. I didn’t want to believe what I suspected.”
Jolie closed her eyes, praying for the strength to endure, to hear the truth and find a way to live with it, whatever it was. Her muscles tensed.
“I didn’t actually allow myself to consider the possibility until recently.” Georgette’s voice was little more than a whisper, as if somehow saying it softly and quietly might make what she was saying less true. “Not until you and Theron decided to try to have the case reopened. With you back at Belle Rose and looking so much like Lisette…”
Parry called out from Jolie’s open bedroom door, “There you are, Georgie. I wondered where you’d gotten off to.”
Georgette gasped as she lifted her fluttering hand to her throat. “I’ll leave you now and see if I can’t get Parry back to his room. He’s never very nice when he’s been drinking.”
Jolie reached out and grabbed Georgette’s wrist. “Wait.”
“Not now.” Her voice changed to a harsh plea. “Later.” Georgette dashed to her brother, put her arm around his waist, and tried to turn him around and head him out of the room.
“What were you telling her?” Parry asked. “You two looked awfully chummy.”
“I was thanking Jolie for taking charge of things and getting everyone settled,” Georgette said. “Come on, Parry, let me walk you back to your room. You need to get some sleep. You’ll feel better if you—”
Parry broke free, shoved his sister aside, and stomped across the room toward Jolie, who watched from outside on the balcony. After catching the door facing to steady herself, Georgette reached out to grab Parry but caught thin air instead.
“Parry!”
Georgette rushed after him, but before she could reach him, he charged at Jolie with remarkable speed for a drunk. He grabbed her hands, whirled her around, clutched her hands behind her back and slung his arm across her neck.
“Did you really think I’d let you get away with it, Lisette?”
Georgette cried, “Parry, don’t…”
“Go on to your room, Georgie,” Parry said. “I’ll handle our little problem. I always take care of things for us, don’t I? Didn’t I make Jules Trouissant’s death look like a suicide, after you smothered him? Didn’t I take care of Philip for you?”
Georgette gasped. “Oh, dear Lord, you didn’t. Not Philip.”
“Of course, Philip. He had disappointed you. Let us both down when we were depending on him. He embezzled all that money and would have taken us down with him if he’d gone to prison. I simply helped him do the honorable thing.”
Jolie’s mind worked at lightning speed, trying to process all the jumbled information. “You killed Philip Devereaux? I thought he committed suicide.”
And everyone believed Lemar Fuqua committed suicide, too! Oh, God! Oh, God!
Parry tightened his arm at her throat. For a split second, Jolie couldn’t breathe. Gasping for air, she squirmed to free herself.
“Loosen your grip on Jolie,” Georgette said. “You’re hurting her.”
“Why do you want to help her?” Parry asked. “Why were you going to tell her that I was the one who killed Audrey and Lemar? We’ve never betrayed each other. Not when I hung Jules from the chandelier in his office to make his death look like a suicide. And when I shot Philip in the head, you didn’t tell anyone. And when I killed Lisette and Audrey and Lemar, you never told a soul.”
Jolie prayed more fervently than she’d ever prayed in her life. “Why—why did you kill them?”
“Who?” Parry asked, dragging Jolie farther out onto the balcony.
“My mother and Aunt Lisette and Lemar?”
Georgette rushed to the open French doors. “Parry, please come back inside.”
“I will, Georgie. Just as soon as I get rid of Lisette.”
“Lisette is dead,” Georgette reminded him. “This is Jolie, not Lisette.”
“I thought so, too…at first.” Parry flipped Jolie in front of him so her body pressed against the wrought-iron railing around the balcony. “But she is Lisette. She’s come back to haunt me. She wants to punish me for what I did. But I can kill her again. And this time, she’ll never come back.”
“Please, Parry, don’t do this…don’t…” Tears trickled down Georgette’s face. “I don’t want you to hurt her. Please, please don’t hurt her.”
“Sweet Georgie. So tenderhearted. I killed Audrey for you, you know. I could have gotten out of the house without her seeing me. She was outside talking to Lemar when I shot Lisette. They didn’t hear the shot because Lisette had the stereo in her room blaring so damn loud. I could hear them talking when I came downstairs. I watched while Lemar went around the house to get started on the yard work, and I thought to myself, ‘Why not get rid of Audrey for Georgie?’
“I sneaked up on her in the backyard, put my hand over her mouth, and shot her in the head, just like I shot Lisette. Then Lemar came around the side of the house asking her about the noise that sounded like a gunshot. That’s when my brilliant idea hit me. I made Lemar carry Audrey into the kitchen so he’d have her blood all over him. Then I made him go upstairs. When he saw Lisette, he went all to pieces, so while he was down on his knees, I knocked him out with the butt of the gun, then put the gun in his hand and…violà—suicide!”
Help us, God! Please help us!
Parry Clifton was insane. He was a homicidal maniac.
When Parry lifted Jolie off her feet, she kicked at him, but he seemed oblivious to the strikes against his legs.
He’s going to toss me over the railing
, Jolie realized.
He’s going to kill me
.
“Who was Jules Trouissant?” Jolie asked, trying to think of something—anything—that might buy her some time.
“Jules was Max’s father,” Parry said.
“No, no.” Georgette whimpered. “You believed he was Max’s father, but we don’t know that for sure. I told you then that it could have been any one of a dozen different men.”
“Jules sired your son. I’ve never doubted it,” Parry told her. “Our demon pimp. Our tormentor. The man who sold our bodies for his own profit. He deserved to die. You had every right to kill him.”
“You told me that I killed him, but I don’t remember doing it.” Georgette dropped to her knees. “Parry, you’re my brother and I love you. I’ve always loved you. I know everything you’ve done, you’ve done for me. Please, do one more thing for me. Let Jolie go.”
“I can’t do that.”
Max and Nowell barged into the room. “Uncle Parry, what are you doing?” Max eased farther into the room, bent down, and lifted his mother to her feet. “What the hell’s going on?” he asked her quietly.
“Max!” Jolie cried.
“He thinks she’s Lisette,” Georgette whispered to Max. “He—he’s the one who killed Lisette, and he thinks she’s come back to haunt him. Max, he’s drunk and…”
“And crazy.” Max released his mother and moved straight toward the French doors. Parry lifted Jolie higher; her feet dangled over the edge of the railing.
“She isn’t Lisette,” Max cried. “She’s Jolie Royale. Louis’s daughter. You don’t want to hurt her.”
“Lisette. Jolie. What difference does it make? She’s a woman and they’re nothing but trouble for us. I loved Lisette and I thought she loved me. I didn’t mind her sleeping with other men. I had my own little indiscretions. But when I heard her telling that damned Wells boy that the baby she was carrying was his, but that she was going to pass it off as mine, I knew she didn’t love me. She was going to lie to me. She was going to pass off her bastard as mine. Your mama might have been able to trick Philip Devereaux, but no woman was going to make a fool of me.”
“All women aren’t alike,” Max said. “Jolie is nothing like Lisette.”
“Felicia was. She liked it rough,” Parry said. “Did you know that? She enjoyed drinking and partying and experimenting the same as I did. Felicia and I were well suited, even more so than Lisette and I had been. And I didn’t love Felicia, so she couldn’t hurt me, couldn’t disappoint me. But the damn bitch was too good at listening to my drunken babbling, too good at remembering things she should have forgotten.”
“What did Felicia hear?” Max asked. “Did you tell her how you murdered Lisette?”
“She threatened me, the stupid cunt. I knew that sooner or later she’d destroy me, destroy everything Georgie and I had.”
“You killed Felicia?” Jolie knew she was going to die. Parry Clifton had murdered six people, what was one more?
“She didn’t leave me any other choice.” Parry’s gaze met Max’s. “Hell, boy, you were better off without her. You should thank me for getting rid of her.”
“Damn!” Max cursed loudly. “It’s all in the past. Nothing can be changed. But this time you can do what’s right. The woman you’re holding is not Lisette,” Max said. “She’s Jolie. And it does make a difference who she is. Do you hear me, Uncle Parry?”
“Why do you care? She’s nothing to you.”
“That’s not true,” Max said. “I love Jolie.”
“Then you’re as big a fool as I was. She’s not really Lisette or Jolie—she’s both of them. One and the same. She’s a damn witch who seduces men with her beauty and lures them to their deaths with her body.”
“If you hurt Jolie, then you hurt me,” Max said. “If you kill Jolie, you kill me. If she dies, I die.”
Jolie felt Parry’s arms around her loosen.
Oh, God, he’s going to drop me!
“Parry, if you love me, let her go,” Georgette pleaded. “Do this one last thing for me…please.”
Parry stared at his sister for a moment that seemed endless to Jolie as she hung between life and death. “I do love you, Georgie.”
“And I love you, Parry.”
“I know. You’re the only one who’s ever really loved me.”
Jolie suddenly realized that Parry was easing her down onto her feet. She held her breath, hoping beyond hope that Georgette had gotten through to him. In a flash, Parry released her; but before she could take even one step away from him, he leaned over the balcony railing, staring down at the ground below him.
“Take care of her, Max. Promise me to always take care of little Georgie.” Parry gripped the railing, lifted himself up and over the edge before anyone realized what he was going to do. Instinctively Jolie reached for him. Georgette screamed. Max rushed onto the balcony, half a minute too late to catch his uncle before he fell to his death. Max turned, jerked Jolie into his arms, and crushed her to his body. Trembling from head to toe, she wrapped her arms around Max and buried her face against his chest.
Chapter 30
Jolie neatly folded the last garment, then placed it in her suitcase. She had a late-afternoon flight to catch, back to Atlanta. She had stayed on for Parry’s funeral, a private affair for family only. She had thought Max would ask her to stay at Belle Rose. But he didn’t. After that traumatic morning five days ago, he had taken charge, as he usually did, making arrangements, caring for everyone’s needs, neglecting himself. And he had said very little to her, speaking to her only when absolutely necessary. She had tried to figure out what was wrong, why he was treating her as if they were little more than strangers. Hadn’t he confessed his love for her? Hadn’t he told his uncle that if she died, he would die, too? Had it all been a ruse, a trick to persuade Parry not to kill her?
Jolie zipped her suitcase, lifted it off the bed, and placed it on the floor. Now was the time to say her good-byes. Had it been only a month ago that she had returned to Sumarville? Odd that her life could change so much in such a short time. She had come home seeking revenge and instead she had discovered the truth…and had fallen in love.
As she passed by Mallory’s room on her way to the stairs, she heard an odd noise. She paused, listened, and realized someone was throwing a temper tantrum. Mallory? Who else? Her half sister had been unusually subdued since Parry’s death. Max had been too busy propping up Georgette and persuading her not to confess to Jules Trouissant’s murder to notice how lost and lonely Mallory was. Jolie peered inside Mallory’s room. A china figurine sailed past Jolie’s head and hit the wall behind her.
Mallory gasped when she saw Jolie. “Damn! I didn’t see you. I wasn’t throwing it at you, honest I wasn’t.”
“Are you all right?”
“What do you care? What does anybody care?”
Jolie walked into the bedroom and over to where Mallory sat on the edge of the bed. She held something in her hand. A narrow plastic stick of some kind. Jolie sat beside her, reached out and pulled the pregnancy tester out of Mallory’s hand. She looked at the indicator. Blue.
Mallory shrugged. “Yeah, I’m pregnant. Just what this family needs right now. Max is going to go ape-shit and Mother will probably have a heart attack.”
“What about the baby’s father?”
“He’s long gone. Drove off to Texas without a backward glance. Told me it was best to end it before we got bored with each other.”
“I see. A very immature attitude.”
“God, what am I going to do? I lied to him about being on the pill. But I—I had to have gotten pregnant the second time we did it, when he didn’t use a rubber.” Mallory covered her face with her hands and groaned. “I’m such an idiot. I thought if I got pregnant, he’d…I wanted…I needed…”
Mallory burst into tears. When Jolie draped her arm around her sister, Mallory turned and pressed her face against Jolie’s shoulder.
“What do you want to do?” Jolie asked. “I can help you, however you decide to handle the situation. If you want an abortion, I’ll make the arrangements and go with you. If you want to have the baby, you can come to Atlanta and stay with me. It would give us a chance to get to know each other.”
Mallory lifted her head and gazed at Jolie. “I can go to Atlanta with you?”
Jolie nodded. “You can leave with me this afternoon, if you’d like.”
“Mother and Max wouldn’t have to know that I’m pregnant?”
“Not yet. But if you decide to keep the baby, you’d have to tell them sometime soon.”
A soft knock on the door frame gained their immediate attention. Jolie and Mallory jumped, gasped, and turned around simultaneously.
“I’m sorry to bother y’all,” Yvonne said. “But everyone else is in the dining room and we’re waiting on you two.”
Max met Jolie and Mallory at the foot of the stairs. Jolie’s heart leaped with hope, but that hope was dashed when she saw the dark scowl on Max’s face.
“Go on in to lunch,” Max told Mallory. “I need to speak with Jolie for a moment.”
“After y’all have your little talk, then I need to tell you something that Jolie and I have planned,” Mallory said.
“Fine. Whatever it is, we’ll discuss it later.” Max indicated for Jolie to follow him.
He led her to the study, but left the door open after they entered. She looked directly at him, but he glanced away quickly.
“I thought you’d like to know that Hugh Pearce, my private investigator, ran a check on Jonathan Lenz, as you requested. He called this morning with a report. And he faxed me a couple of pictures.”
“And?”
“Jonathan Lenz didn’t die in Vietnam. He was listed as missing in action. He spent five years as a POW. When he returned to the U.S., he became a drug addict. He pretty much dropped out of sight until about eighteen months ago.” Max lifted the faxed photos off the desk and handed them to Jolie.
“Let me guess,” Jolie said. “These pictures are of Nowell Landers, aka Jonathan Lenz.”
“You suspected the truth all along, didn’t you?”
She nodded. “Have you told them?”
“I thought perhaps you’d want to.”
“She already knows.” Jolie laid her hand over her heart. “In here. Aunt Clarice knows he’s Jonathan.”
After lunch, when Georgette was once again conspicuously absent, Jolie told Mallory to pack and then they would speak to Max before they left.
“He’s going to wonder why I’m going off with you,” Mallory said. “He knows that you’re not… well, that you haven’t exactly been my favorite person.”
“We’ll tell him a half-truth,” Jolie suggested. “We’ll say that we want a chance to get to know each other and you need to get away from Belle Rose for a while.”
“I wouldn’t mind getting to know you. Maybe you’re not as bad as I thought you were.”
Jolie smiled. “I have a feeling we’ll find out that we have a great deal in common.”
When Mallory whirled around and ran up the stairs, Jolie went in search of Aunt Clarice. She found her with Nowell, outside in the gazebo, holding hands as they talked to each other.
Jolie waved and Clarice motioned for her to come to them. She paused just outside the gazebo.
“I’m leaving this afternoon. I want you two to come to Atlanta and visit me. Often.”
“We will,” Clarice said. “Perhaps on our honeymoon. We’ve decided not to wait to get married. We’re not going to have a wedding. It would be inappropriate. But we’ve decided on next weekend. Just a simple ceremony, here at Belle Rose. No one but family. I wish you would stay.”
“Oh, Aunt Clarice, I—I…I’ll fly in for the day. How’s that?”
“I’ve waited thirty-six years to become Mrs. Jonathan Lenz,” Clarice said. “I’d be a fool to wait any longer.”
Jolie looked at Nowell Landers. “I think you should know that I asked Max’s private detective to run a check on Jonathan Lenz.”
“And he found out that Jonathan didn’t die in Vietnam,” Clarice said. “Jonathan’s mother told me that he was killed in action instead of the truth, that he was missing in action. But in my heart, I never accepted that my Jonathan was dead.”
“Did you tell Aunt Clarice the truth?” Jolie asked Nowell. “Has she known all along?”
“No, I didn’t tell her. Not at first,” Nowell said. “But she guessed the truth and I finally told her, the night after I shot Roscoe Wells.
“When I returned from Nam, I was all messed up. I got on drugs, became an alcoholic, lived in the gutter, did time in the pen. I was glad my mother had told Clarice I was dead. I wasted most of my life. But eighteen months ago, I underwent rehab. And I promised myself that if I could stay clean and sober for a year, I’d look up Clarice. I figured she’d be married to somebody else. When I found out she was unattached, I chickened out telling her who I was. I made up a phony name and pretended that I’d been Jonathan’s friend.”
“How could I have ever married anyone else when I never stopped loving you?” Clarice stared adoringly at the only man she had ever loved.
Jolie hugged Clarice and Nowell—Jonathan—then hurried inside to see if Mallory was ready to face her brother with the news that she was going to Atlanta with Jolie. As she rushed down the hall, Georgette opened her bedroom door.
“Would you come in and talk to me for a moment?” Georgette asked.
Jolie hesitated. What could they possibly have to discuss? “All right. But only for a minute. I’m leaving this afternoon and I still have several things to do.”
“This won’t take long. Please, come in.”
Jolie followed Georgette inside and left the door open. “You know, I used to wonder if you and Daddy sleep together in my mother’s room…in her bed.”
“Neither of us could have done that. Louis had this room completely renovated before we married. The room your father shared with your mother has been one of the guest rooms for years now.”
“I couldn’t understand how the two of you could have…I had no idea that people could love so passionately that nothing mattered except their being together.”
“But you understand now, don’t you.” Georgette grasped Jolie’s hand. Their gazes met and locked. “You love Max the way I loved Louis.”
Jolie jerked her hand away.
“Don’t leave him, Jolie. If you leave him, he will die. Oh, not physically, but emotionally.”
“Max doesn’t want me here. He doesn’t love me. He—”
Georgette grabbed Jolie by the shoulders. “He thinks you couldn’t possibly want him. Not now. Now that you know his uncle murdered your mother and aunt.”
“But it’s not Max’s fault that—”
Georgette shook Jolie gently. “You must tell him that you love him, that learning the truth about his uncle Parry’s insanity, about his horrible deeds, and about me—that I killed Jules Trouissant—doesn’t change the way you feel about him.”
“Is this the reason he’s acted so strangely toward me? The reason he won’t even look at me? He believes I can’t love him because of Parry? Because of your past?”
“Yes. Yes. Please, go to him. Don’t leave Belle Rose. My son loves you…and he needs you.”
Tears collected in Jolie’s eyes and a few drops spilled over onto her cheeks. “Thank you for explaining. I—I’ll go find Max. And while I talk to him, you should talk to Mallory. She needs her mother very badly right now.”
Jolie rushed out of Georgette’s room, up the hall and down the stairs. Thinking she might find him still in the study, she went there first. Empty. She began searching the first floor rooms and came upon Theron in the library.
“Have you seen Max?”
“He just left.” Theron nodded the direction. “He said he needed to go to the office in town and catch up on some work.”
“I have to stop him.”
Jolie ran through the foyer and out the front door, then down the steps. She saw Max inside his Porsche, then heard the motor start.
“Max!” she screamed his name. “Max! Wait!”
At first she thought he hadn’t heard her, so she darted out into the circular drive, directly in front of the Porsche. Max killed the engine, opened the door, and got out of the car.
“What’s wrong?” He walked toward her.
Jolie threw her arms around his neck. Max stiffened.
“I love you, Max Devereaux. I love you more than life itself. And if you think for one minute that I’m going to let you go—now or ever—then you’re out of your mind.”
“Jolie, don’t do this.” He stood rigid as a statue.
She kissed him. He didn’t respond. She kissed him again. He grabbed her shoulders and shoved her away from him.
“Tell me that you don’t love me,” she said. “Tell me that you don’t want me so badly you ache with the need to hold me and kiss me and make love to me. Tell me that what we had—what we have—isn’t more important to you than anything in the whole wide world.”
“You know I can’t tell you that I don’t love you. But love isn’t enough. All the love in the world won’t change who I am.”
“And who are you, Max?”
“I’m the bastard son of a New Orleans whore, who can’t even tell me who my biological father is because she doesn’t know for sure. It’s possible that she killed a man who could have been my father. A sleazy pimp. And I’m the nephew of a man who murdered six people, including my wife and your mother. God only knows what kind of blood runs through my veins. How could you ever look at me, ever hold me in your arms, ever…without wondering.”
“You’re a good man, Max. It doesn’t matter who your father was or that Georgette was once a prostitute or that she might have killed an evil wicked man. And as for Parry…you’re nothing like him. You’re strong and brave and caring and everything a man should be. You’re everything I want.”
“Are you saying that you’ll stay in Sumarville, that you’ll marry me, that you’ll…”
“Yes, yes, yes. I’ll stay. I’ll be with you wherever you are. And I’ll marry you today, if that’s what it takes to convince you. And I want your babies. Our babies.”