Authors: Beverly Barton
“Just a little. So what do you say?” Dante asked.
“Okay. We’ve got a deal.”
“Now, talk to your mother,” Dante told Leslie Anne. “And be nice to her. She loves you a lot, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.”
He handed Tessa the phone.
“Dante and I won’t be gone too long and I’ll be only a phone call away,” Tessa said. “Are you sure you’re all right with my going away?” When Leslie Anne said something to her, Tessa laughed. “Okay. I’ll keep that in mind. I love you, sweetheart.”
Tessa closed her phone and dropped it into her coat pocket.
“What did she say?” he asked.
“She told me that if I was half as smart as she thought I was, I’d seduce you.”
“Are you sure she’s only sixteen?”
“Sixteen going on thirty. She’s become a little too worldly-wise to suit me.”
“It’s not your fault,” Dante told her.
“No, not entirely. But I should have done a better job of protecting her.”
“What more could you have done?”
“I could have told her the truth sooner,” Tessa said.
H
OW OBLIGING
of Tessa to leave town. But how inconsiderate of her to instate that redheaded Amazon to protect Leslie Anne. Then again, Lucie Evans being assigned to guard duty won’t make much difference in the grand scheme of things, not now that I’ve revised my plans somewhat. I’ll simply work around the Dundee agent, as I will any obstacles thrown in my path. I still have to get rid of Leslie Anne, but I’m more convinced than ever that the best way to do that is to persuade everyone that the girl is suicidal. It shouldn’t be too difficult to push the little brat over the edge. A nudge here and there. Subtle but deadly. If I can make her believe that there is no hope for her, that she will never be able to overcome her heritage, then perhaps she’ll come to realize that she should end it all—before it’s too late and she exhibits some type of deviant behavior. Or at least before everyone finds out the truth and they believe it’s only a matter of time before she zones out and commits some terrible crime.
Naturally, the death of her only child will devastate Tessa. She’ll never be able to recover from such a loss.
Oh, yes, that would be the ideal outcome, wouldn’t it? Poor little Leslie Anne Westbrook, so overwrought finding out her biological father was a serial rapist/killer that she
takes her own life. And then her mother has a complete nervous breakdown. Two birds with one stone. Eliminate the daughter and the mother self-destructs.
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
And if Leslie Anne doesn’t do the job herself? Considering that stubborn streak she inherited from G.W., as well as the grit, determination and strength that G.W., Anne and Tessa passed on to her, it’s possible she’ll resist the idea of doing away with herself. In that case, she’ll leave me no other choice than to arrange for her suicide. After all, how difficult could it be? A goodbye-cruel-world note left on her computer, after days of erratic behavior, should cinch the deal.
I must put my plan into action immediately. If I work things just right, those closest to Leslie Anne will see just how disturbed the child really is.
L
ESLIE
A
NNE
woke with a start. She thought she heard someone calling her name. A strange voice. Neither male nor female. Just eerily jarring.
She sat up on the side of the bed and listened. She heard only the rapid beating of her heart, the rhythm strumming in her ears. Not fully awake and halfway convinced the voice hadn’t been part of a nightmare, she scanned her bedroom.
Get real. There’s no way anybody could have gotten into the house and be hiding in the closet or under the bed.
She’d imagined the voice. Either that or dreamed it. She should forget all about it.
But instead of putting the voice out of her mind, she suddenly remembered that the voice had spoken more than her name.
Think, Leslie Anne, think. What did it say?
Leslie Anne. Leslie Anne. Who’s your daddy, little girl?
Oh, God, that’s what the voice had said. Not just her
name. And it hadn’t been a dream. It couldn’t have been, not when it had been the sound of that voice that had awakened her. Someone inside the house had come into her room and—
Leslie Anne jumped out of bed and searched high and low. Under the bed. Behind the drapes. In her huge, twelve-foot-square closet. Inside the shower enclosure. When she dropped to her knees and peered into and up inside the fireplace, she fell back onto the floor and laughed. What an idiot she was, searching for an intruder up the chimney. Who did she think the weird voice belonged to—Santa Claus?
“What’s so funny?” Eustacia asked as she walked into the suite carrying Leslie Anne’s breakfast tray.
“Nothing you’d understand.” Leslie Anne scooted around on her bottom and staying put on the floor, looked up at the cook. “What time is it? I suppose everyone else has had breakfast already.”
“It’s ten ’til eleven, young lady,” Eustacia said crossly. “Mr. G.W. insisted I bring your breakfast to you by eleven o’clock, but I’m telling you right now—” she placed the tray on the round table flanked by two striped silk chairs “—this had better not become a habit. I’m too old to be toting your meals up here to you when you’re perfectly capable of coming downstairs to eat.”
“I’m sorry you had to bother with this.” Leslie Anne bounced to her feet, then went over and gave Eustacia a hug. “Am I forgiven?”
“Of course you’re forgiven.” Eustacia swatted Leslie Anne’s backside. “I don’t know why, and I don’t want to know what possessed you to run away. All I know is that you’re worrying your granddaddy to death. You ought to make a point of calling him at the office right now or maybe even—”
“He went into work today?”
“Sure did. Some reason he shouldn’t have?”
Leslie Anne shook her head. “No, of course not. I guess the house seems pretty empty with Granddaddy and Mama both gone.”
“It would, even with Miss Sharon home, but we’ve got a houseful today, not counting that Lucie Evans person.”
“Who else is here?” If they had visitors, wasn’t it possible that the strange voice that had awakened her with such a hateful taunt belonged to one of them?
“Your great-aunt Myrle and Miss Celia came to visit Miss Sharon and naturally Mr. Charlie came along. I swear that man is here more than he’s at work. It’s a wonder Mr. G.W. doesn’t get on to him about that.”
“Charlie’s just Charlie,” Leslie Anne said. “And nobody, not even Granddaddy, would change him, even if they could. Besides, when he and Celia get married, he’ll be one of the family for sure and you know how Granddaddy is about family.”
“Family means everything to Mr. G.W. and if that Miss Olivia has her way, your family will be expanding even more. That woman has set her sights on your granddaddy and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if she doesn’t finagle a marriage proposal out of him before Christmas.”
“Hush your mouth.” Leslie Anne frowned. “Granddaddy isn’t going to marry that awful woman.”
“Well, if he doesn’t, it won’t be for her lack of trying. Her and that worthless pup of hers is downstairs, too. Just showed up about twenty minutes ago. Unannounced and uninvited. But you know Miss Sharon, she made them welcome.”
“If Mama had been home—”
“Where’s your mama gone off to anyway?” Eustacia
asked. “And what would she think about your missing school again today?”
“Mama’s off on business over in Louisiana. I expect she’ll be gone several days. And as for school—I don’t care what anybody thinks. But fall break starts next week, so I just got a head start on it. Believe me, my missing a few days of school is the least of Mama’s worries.”
“Just what do you mean by that?”
Leslie Anne groaned, shook her head and clicked her tongue. “I didn’t mean anything, just that she’s busy. That’s all.”
Eustacia gave Leslie Anne a skeptical look, then said, “That Evans woman wanted me to let her know when you woke up. She came down around seven for breakfast and since then she’s checked on you I don’t know how many times. Just what’s she doing here anyway? I couldn’t get a straight answer out of your granddaddy or your aunt when I asked them.”
“She’s my guard dog.” Leslie Anne offered the cook a genuine smile. She loved old Eustacia, who was for all intents and purposes a member of the Westbrook family, just as Hal was. “Lucie’s here to make sure I don’t run off again while Mama’s gone.”
“If that’s the case, I’ll be especially nice to her.” With that said, Eustacia left, waddling out of the room as quickly as her short, fat legs would carry her.
Leslie Anne walked over to the table, lifted the white linen cloth that covered the tray and studied the neatly arranged items. A bowl of her favorite cereal, Sugar Pops. A cup of two-percent milk. A glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. Two slices of cinnamon toast. Silverware, a linen napkin and—
What’s that?
Leslie Anne dropped the white linen cloth to the floor, then reached out and touched the piece of folded paper stuck inside her napkin. Her heartbeat accelerated. She shouldn’t be so afraid. After all, it was only a piece of paper. Before she had a chance to think about it and chicken out, she grabbed the sheet of paper and yanked it away from the napkin. She held it in her hand for a couple of minutes before she managed to gather up enough courage to open it and take a look.
What she saw turned her stomach. Her hand trembled, but she held the paper tightly and continued staring at a computerized splicing of two pictures so that it looked as if both had been only one newspaper photograph. This photo of her had been snipped out of the
Fairport Journal
, the town’s weekly newspaper. When she’d been elected sophomore class president at the beginning of school, her photo, and those of the other class presidents had appeared in the
Journal
, along with a brief article on each of them. The other photo in this spliced picture was one that had run in a Texas newspaper and showed Eddie Jay Nealy the day he’d been arrested on murder charges.
Above the spliced photo was a typed caption.
Who’s Your Daddy, Little Girl?
Oh, God, she hadn’t imagined the voice. It had been real. Someone had actually been in her room, whispering to her. And that same someone had managed to put this damn little message on her breakfast tray. Without thinking what she was doing, Leslie Anne ripped the photo into pieces and threw the fragments down on the floor.
A loud knock sounded at her door. She jumped.
“May I come in?” Lucie Evans asked.
“Yeah, just a second, okay?”
Should she or shouldn’t she tell Lucie about the voice that woke her and about the photo? Leslie Anne glanced down at her handiwork lying on the floor. Damn, she’d destroyed the evidence. But what difference did it make? She didn’t need to show Lucie the photo or ask her help in figuring out what it meant. It hardly took a genius to figure out that whoever had awakened her with cruel taunts and had managed to sneak the photo onto her breakfast tray had to be someone inside her house right now. Someone who was visiting. Someone her family trusted.
Oh, God, what if it was a member of her family?
If only Dante was here, she would tell him what had happened. He would know exactly what to do. But she didn’t trust anyone else, not even Lucie. She would do a little investigating on her own and maybe by the time Dante and her mother got back into town, she would have some real evidence to give them. But maybe she should call them to let them know there was no point in searching in Louisiana for the person who’d sent her the newspaper clippings because he or she was here at the Leslie Plantation right now.
No, I can’t do that. Not yet. Mama needs time alone with Dante so they’ll both realize how perfect they are for each other.
Okay, so maybe snagging Dante for a stepfather was an impossible dream, but didn’t she and her mother deserve someone great like Dante Moran? If she were his kid, he would never let anything bad happen to her ever again.
“W
ELL, THAT DIDN’T
amount to anything,” Tessa said as she and Dante left the Rhymes Memorial Library on Louisa Street. “After searching through months of seventeen-year-
old newspapers, we found only two small articles that might or might not have been about me.”
Dante opened the door of the rental car for Tessa. Then after she was safely inside, he rounded the hood, opened the driver’s side door and slid behind the wheel.
“We knew it was a long shot.” Dante tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “But I’m puzzled by those two articles. They appeared nearly a week apart. The one about an unidentified woman’s body being found was dated six days before you were admitted to the hospital. And the other one, about a car wreck that left a young woman critically injured, came out four days after your hospital admission.”
“Okay, so neither article was about me,” Tessa said. “Puzzle solved.”
“Or what if both articles were about you.”
“How’s that possible?”
“Maybe you were found a week before the date on your hospital admission,” Dante said. “Maybe for some reason, G.W. told you the wrong date. I assume you don’t remember the exact date yourself.”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t remember very much about those days I spent at the medical center before Daddy had me transferred back home.”
“G.W. could have had the second article put in the paper when he decided on the cover-up story about your being in a car wreck.”
“Possibly. But what difference does it make? The bottom line is that we didn’t find any new information. So where to next?”
“The sheriff’s office is next,” Dante said. “Then from there to the City Café. I spoke to our spy at the medical center
while you were still in your room this morning and he told me to meet him at the City Café at one this afternoon.”
“Did he say whether or not he’d seen my medical records?”
“All he said was that he’d have some info for me by then.”
L
ESLIE
A
NNE
joined the others for lunch. She had taken extra pains to look nice, to show them all that she wasn’t some crazed teenager who might follow in her father’s footsteps. Among these genteel members of her family and family friends was someone who hated her, someone who had deliberately destroyed her safe and happy world. And she intended to find out just who that person was.
When Lucie had told her that her grandfather had called to check on her and would be coming home for lunch at twelve-thirty to see about her himself, she’d decided to make an extra effort to be nice to him. After all, she was well aware of the fact that her grandfather had a heart condition. The last thing she wanted was for her actions to cause him any health problems. If she’d been thinking straight several days ago, she would have realized how her running away might affect him. Even if he and her mother had lied to her all her life, she knew, deep down in her heart, that they’d fabricated a fictitious story about her father in order to protect her.
She might not fully trust her mother or her grandfather, but she did love them. And they loved her. If she didn’t believe anything else, she believed that.