SAVAGE BEAUTY

by Peggy Webb

A rebellious part of her wanted to stalk out. She knew that sometimes famous people were targeted for all sorts of reasons. And though the detective seemed sincere, perhaps he was getting pressure from above to wrap up the case. The video was giving him an easy way to do it, particularly since Cee Cee had last been seen on the Allistair estate.

  Still, Cee Cee was suffering from her experience, and there was no telling what the other missing girls were going through.

  Lily studied the two men on the screen once more. “The gentleman at the table is Clive Allistair, and I believe the man in the shadows is his employee, Graden Young.”

  “I appreciate your help, Mrs. Perkins.”

  “Anytime, Detective.”

  “There’s just one more thing. I’d like to get a search warrant for the Allistair home, but I don’t have enough evidence to establish probable cause. I wonder if you could dig around and see if you can find anything connecting Clive Allistair and Graden Young to the missing girls.”

  Fear is a chill that freezes blood and bones. It coats the tongue and encases the skin, making speech and movement impossible.

  “Mrs. Perkins? Can you help me?”

  “I…” Breathe. Breathe! “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thank you,” he said, but Lily didn’t even acknowledge him. She was already sprinting toward the door, phone in hand, calling her daughter.

  Every hollow ring sent icy fear coursing through Lily. “Pick up, pick up!” By the time she got to her Jeep, her daughter’s voice message had kicked in. “Annabelle, when you get this, call me. I don’t care where you are or what you’re doing. CALL ME!”

  She told herself not to panic, but then she did exactly that as she screamed at Siri to call Jack’s cell phone. As she climbed behind the wheel she heard the dreaded unanswered ring tone then Jack’s voice mail: Jack Harper. Leave a message and I’ll call you back. She was so upset she didn’t even leave a message.

  What would she say, anyhow? Clive and Graden might be involved with the missing girls, and she might find enough evidence for Yancy to get a search warrant? There were too many mights and too much speculation to pull Jack away from his practice.

  Lily nearly hit a silver Mercedes as she peeled out of the parking lot. That mistake earned her a blast from the car horn and a spew of invectives from a window the driver had powered down.

  She told herself she had to calm down. How many hundreds of people had she seen in the casino on that video tape? Graden and Clive being there could mean absolutely nothing except the ex-con had driven the senior Allistair there to indulge his secret passion for gambling.

  And there was no hint of suspicion against Stephen, no reason to think Annabelle was in any danger from him. Going around like a wild woman would do nothing except get her a citation for reckless driving.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Still, when Lily got close to the Allistair estate, she took the road that led to Stephen’s office. She had to know where her daughter was. Period.

  Stephen’s dour assistant took diabolical pleasure in telling her Stephen and Annabelle had already left on their shopping trip.

  “Can you tell me where?” Lily asked.

  “I don’t know which stores he was going to, and it’s none of anybody’s business.”

  Don’t slap her was Lily’s mantra as left the office and climbed back into her Jeep. When she got to the manor, she tried not to hurry or look anxious as she entered the front door. Graden didn’t answer the door, a plus, and he didn’t turn up in a quick tour of the downstairs living quarters. But where was everybody else? She couldn’t go snooping around and risk getting caught.

  As Lily continued her search of the first floor, the only staff member she found was the cook in the kitchen, making stew.

  “Josephine, can you tell me where Clive is?”

  “He’s resting, ma’am. I think the hullabaloo of Miss Toni leaving was too much for him. ”

  “Toni’s gone?” The news only increased Lily’s growing sense of urgency. Toni had said nothing to her about leaving. Why would she do that right before the holidays?

  “She’s at the beauty shop now, but she’ll be back so Graden can take her to the airport this evening. She was asking where you were before she left.”

  “Did she say why she wanted to see me?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Where is Graden now?”

  “In town doing errands for Mr. Clive. This is errand day.”

  The coast was clear. That should have made Lily feel better, but it only ratcheted up her anxiety. She didn’t believe in coincidence. Toni’s abrupt departure coupled with what Lily had found out from Yancy painted a suspicious picture that was getting darker by the minute.

  “Josephine, I’m going to be working on renovations in Stephen’s office and on the second floor. Can you make sure nobody disturbs me?”

  “Of course, ma’am.” Josephine drew herself up, huffy and red-faced, and Lily felt guilty. “There’s not anybody in the house to bother you except me, and I don’t go nosing around. I tend to my business in the kitchen, that’s all.”

  “Thank you, Josephine. I know you do, and I appreciate that.”

  Lily went straight to Stephen’s office to rifle through his desk drawers and his filing cabinets. Most of them were locked, and she couldn’t find a key. The only drawers that were unlocked yielded nothing except the usual files you’d find in the office of any businessman.

  If there was any evidence against Clive and Graden in this house, it was likely to be on the second floor, east wing, under lock and key.

  Though she’d never picked a lock in her life, not even that time when Annabelle accidentally locked herself in the bathroom and Lily had to call the fire department to get her out, she detoured by the master bathroom in search of a hairpin. Wherever she went, she left a trail of hairpins. That was just a fact of life for a woman with long, heavy hair. She was constantly putting it into a French twist then taking it back down, depending on whim and the weather.

  The sight of the second sink she’d had installed in Stephen’s bath hit her like an accusation. Every bad choice she’d made, starting with the day she’d met him and followed her head instead of her heart, rose up to haunt her.

  Furious at herself for getting sidetracked, she was reaching for her hairpins when she spotted a sight that chilled her. Long black hair in the bottom of the wastebasket. A wad of it. Too long to belong to Stephen.

  She knelt and picked it up. The hair was silky and curly, several long strands, as if somebody had come along, glanced into the mirror, and then brushed it off his shoulder and into the wastebasket.

  Cee Cee’s hair?

  It couldn’t possibly be. As far as Lily knew, Cee Cee had never been into this part of the house. She had no reason to be in Stephen’s bathroom. And why would her hair be on Stephen’s clothing?

  A vision of Glenda Jane’s wig came to mind. Could it possibly be that she and Stephen and had bent over some project and she’d shed some of that long black hair onto his shirt?

  Or had Graden or Clive been in Stephen’s bathroom, brushing a captive girl’s long, black hair off their clothing? Had they entered through the kitchen door and sneaked back here to clean up so they wouldn’t get caught coming out of the bathrooms in the less private sections of the house?

  Following her instinct, Lily carefully wrapped the hair into a tissue and went upstairs to stow it in the drawer of the French provincial desk. That’s when she spotted the file of engagement photos she’d brought home from her office.

  She remembered that Cee Cee was on some of them, as were Clive and Graden. Sometimes a still shot could reveal more about a person than seeing them in the flesh, especially if you were looking at them from a fresh perspective.

  Kicking off her high heels, she spread the photos across the desktop and was shocked by what she saw. Clive and Cee Cee were in several group shots together, and he didn’t try to disguise his avid interest in the teenager. Was it j
ust admiration for her spunk and beauty, or was it something more sinister?

  Lily’s search for Graden was less successful. He appeared in only three photographs, always fading into the background, expressionless. The ex-con apparently preferred the shadows. What did else that say about him?

  She set those pictures aside for Yancy. He hadn’t been specific about what he needed, and she was certainly no expert in gathering evidence.

  She quickly searched the other pictures. There she was on the landing with Clive and Stephen, but the smile she’d shown to the guests at her engagement party was make-believe. Only in the three photos with Jack did her true self shine through. With him, she was open and vulnerable, her eyes shining with such an unmistakable affection a perfect stranger seeing the photo might describe it as love.

  It couldn’t possibly be. But there was the proof in an eight by ten glossy. And Jack was looking at her in the same way.

  That shining look was missing between her and her fiancé. Her smile was fake, his was polished. Her eyes were flat, his distant, as if his mind were a million miles away.

  But wait. There in the conservatory was a great shot of Stephen, his face lit with excitement and pure wonder. It was the shot where he stood at the front of the conservatory and gazed across the crowd at Lily, standing at the back.

  She picked up the photo to study it closer. The lighting in the room and the angle of the camera put Lily in clear focus. But just beyond her and to the right in slight shadow stood Cee Cee, gorgeous in blue velvet.

  Even worse, Stephen’s electric gaze was not on Lily. It was angled to the right where Cee Cee stood.

  Sick at her stomach, she unfolded the tissue of dark hair. In searching for evidence against Graden and Clive, she’d uncovered something unthinkable about Stephen.

  Suddenly her door flung open. Lily jumped as if Satan had come calling.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you.” It was Toni. Her nails were a shining and vivid red, her hair was freshly styled, and she was dressed in a black designer suit. The distraught, disheveled woman of the last few days had been replaced by a supermodel, who was every inch the matriarch of an iconic family.

  “Toni, I…”

  “I don’t have much time, and this is not a social call. I’m probably crazy to be here.” Though Toni appeared to be ready to meet the press when she stepped off the plane, there was something haunting about her eyes, a deeply felt emotion she was keeping under tight control.

  “Won’t you sit down?” Lily nodded toward the wing chair beside her desk.

  Toni glanced around the room, lingering over the second-floor windows that made it impossible for anybody to see them, then sank into the chair.

  “That’s better.” She dug an old-fashioned key out of her purse and passed it to Lily. “It’s to the second floor east wing. I want you to have it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Wyler is there, and he’s asking for you. He’s been there all this time.”

  Lily felt as if a bomb had detonated. The aftershock left her numb and speechless. The lie that had been perpetrated on her and the entire world was too much for her to absorb, especially on top of events that had already tipped her off the side of the earth.

  “I don’t understand…any of this.”

  “You wouldn’t. You’re normal. What Clive did to my husband would only make sense to an Allistair.”

  Clive again. What kind of man was hiding behind that gentleman’s mask?

  “I have so many questions I don’t even know where to start,” Lily said.

  “Let me just tell as much as I can in the time I have. Graden will be back soon to take me to the airport. Clive and Stephen must never know I was here. Do you understand?”

  Lily’s terror made it hard to breathe. Still, she didn’t dare take away a second to explain what she knew to a woman who might have to flee at any moment.

  “I understand completely,” she said.

  “Good, then. I met Wyler in New York. He’d left the family business. At first I thought he was just another wealthy playboy living high on family money. But he wasn’t narcissistic or opportunistic like the others. He was sweet, almost shy, and incredibly handsome.”

  “Like Stephen.”

  “Yes, Stephen looks very much like his dad, but that’s where the resemblance ends. Anyway, we had a whirlwind courtship followed by a wonderful marriage that lasted five glorious years…until Clive decided it was time for Wyler to return to the fold to produce an heir to the Allistair throne.”

  Clive’s horrible remark about her breeding possibilities played through Lily’s mind.

  “Is he doing the same thing with Stephen?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened with Stephen?” Though she considered the chances of changing her mind to be zero, she would still like to know what had shaped him.

  “Clive insisted Wyler return to Ocean Springs so our child would be born in Allistair Manor. We left New York, Wyler entered the business again, and everything went horribly wrong from there. He was developing his rose.”

  “The Vanishing Red?”

  “Yes. He became more and more distraught, and when I’d ask him what was wrong, he’d clam up. I’d given up my career and left my home to embrace family life and motherhood in Mississippi. I was isolated and miserable, and I was slowly losing the love of my life.”

  Toni paused for moment’s reflection. “Wyler got worse after Stephen was born. He became distant and brooding. I didn’t know how to help him. I was trying to cope with a new baby and all the rules and regulations of living the life of an Allistair wife in a house I hated.”

  “I’m so sorry, Toni.”

  Every word she said was an arrow aimed straight at Lily’s heart. Seen in light of this new information, her decision not to marry Stephen had been the best one she’d ever made.

  “By the time Wyler’s breakdown came, I was a wreck. Wyler broke my heart, and I knew the son who looked so much like him would do the same thing. When Clive presented me with his plan, I thought it was the best thing for everybody concerned.”

  “That he’d raise Stephen?”

  “Yes, and take care of Wyler. Stephen was almost a year old, and he already had a nanny he preferred over me. Why wouldn’t he? All I had done since the day he was born was mope and cry over Wyler. Clive had mental health experts flown in from around the world, and at first I held out hope I’d get my husband and my son back. I had this pipe dream that we could live in New York and rebuild what we’d once had.”

  “I once had a pipe dream about Stephen.”

  “Had?”

  “Yes. It’s over. I’m only staying through the holidays for my daughter’s sake.”

  “I knew you had grit. Good for you.” Lily was so surprised she almost got out of her chair for a hug. Toni held up a hand. “Don’t expect me to hug you. I stopped being the warm and cuddly type when Wyler stopped talking.”

  “Then how do you know he wants to see me?”

  “When he stopped talking to all of us, we assumed he couldn’t speak.”

  “By all of us, you mean the family?”

  “Yes. And Graden. Either Clive or Stephen checks on Wyler at five every morning, and Graden checks on him at nine in the evening, like clockwork. They take his food and make sure he eats and takes his medicine. They stay exactly thirty minutes to tell him what’s going on in the family.”

  She paused to check the time on her wristwatch. “I talk to him, too, of course, and have through all these years. He’d never responded until I came for the engagement party. I was shocked when he begged me to help him talk to you. He told me he’d started reading aloud to himself about a year after they moved him into the east wing so he could keep his voice intact.”

  “Why on earth does he want to see me?”

  “I don’t know anything. I can’t know. I’m the glamorous face of a dynasty.” She made a rueful face. “And I sold my soul to the devil a long time ago.”

/>   “I understand, but surely you must have some idea.”

  “I have my suspicions. I think Clive is keeping a terrible secret, and Wyler knows about it. He’s a devious, wicked old man. Looking back, only someone with a certain level of evil in their hearts would force a son back to the business he hated for the express purpose of producing an heir, and then take that child and keep the father behind locked doors.” Toni took a tissue from her purse and dabbed at her eyes. “And I let him. I was a party to that. What does that make me?”

  “You’re not a monster, Toni.”

  “Oh, yeah? I was the one who let Wyler out to put the note in your room, and then I pretended I didn’t know where it came from.”

  “Do you know what it means?”

  “No. I was telling you the truth about that.” She glanced at her watch. “I have to go. Take the key. Talk to Wyler.” Toni slipped a business card out of her wallet. “You can send the key back to me at this address. Make sure no one sees you go into the east wing.”

  Toni checked the time again, then stood and shouldered her bag.

  “Wait. What am I supposed to do after I talk to Wyler?”

  “You decide. If you go to the press, do not under any circumstances reveal that I know my husband has been kept in a locked apartment for thirty-eight years. It’s medieval.”

  “Or maybe worse.”

  “Exactly. Graden will be here to take me to airport within the next thirty minutes. He’ll stay to make sure I get on the plane. Don’t go in there until we leave. Then you’ll have only a small window of time before Graden gets back.”

  “How can you be so certain of that?”

  “I know Clive and Stephen. They leave nothing to chance, and they want me gone. Good luck, Lily.”

  “You, too, Toni. Now that Wyler’s talking to you, I hope there’s a chance the two of you can be together again.”

  Toni’s only response was to twist the wedding ring on her finger then walk off, her head high and her step firm. Lily knew she’d probably never see her again. But she was determined to call, just to see how she was doing. Living a lie had to be the loneliest job in the world.