After Dark

by Beverly Barton

  Contents

  NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH

  Johnny Mack slammed his fist in the palm of his hand. “Why marry a man you’d refused to marry a dozen times over just to keep Sharon from aborting her baby?”

  Lane swiped the tears from her cheeks. “He was your baby! All that I had left of you. I wouldn’t allow anyone to harm him! Not then and not now.”

  Johnny Mack remained silent. His throat closed tightly. He’d known Lane had had a crush on him for years before he’d left town, but he’d had no idea the depth of her feelings for him. She was probably the only woman in his entire life who had ever loved him. And loved him so unselfishly.

  He wanted to reach out and take her in his arms, but he could tell by her wary stance that she didn’t want him to touch her. She had loved him fifteen years ago, but how did she feel about him now? How much had the passing of fifteen years, marriage to Kent and a lifetime of lies changed Lane?

  “I was very foolish back then, wasn’t I? I’ve grown up a lot since then. I’ve learned a great deal about love. What it is and what it isn’t.” Lane’s voice softened and trailed off quietly. “I was so infatuated with you. Will is the only thing that matters to me now. I would do anything to protect him.”

  “Even murder Kent?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Even murder Kent.”

  Books by Beverly Barton

  AFTER DARK

  EVERY MOVE SHE MAKES

  WHAT SHE DOESN’T KNOW

  THE FIFTH VICTIM

  THE LAST TO DIE

  AS GOOD AS DEAD

  KILLING HER SOFTLY

  CLOSE ENOUGH TO KILL

  MOST LIKELY TO DIE

  THE DYING GAME

  THE MURDER GAME

  Published by Zebra Books

  AFTER DARK

  Beverly Barton

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  To the important men in my life, from whom I’ve

  learned what intriguing, complicated, infuriating

  incredible, fascinating and irresistible creatures

  the male of our species can be. Dee Inman, Sr.,

  Houston Montgomery, Dee Inman, Jr.,

  Billy Beaver, Brant Beaver, Roger Waldrep and

  Braden Waldrep. And a special thank-you to my

  dear friend, Wendy Corsi Staub, for her support,

  encouragement and understanding.

  Prologue

  Your son needs you. Come home.

  Johnny Mack Cahill read the note again. The damned thing didn’t make a bit of sense. He didn’t have a son, and his home had been here in the Houston area for the past fifteen years. He turned the hand-printed message over, noting the college-ruled notebook paper on which it had been written. Picking up the legal-size envelope he had tossed on the sofa along with his other mail, he tried to read the smeared postal service marking. All he could make out was “AL” and “35.”

  Alabama? Who from Alabama would be writing to him after all these years? Although he still sent Lillie Mae money from time to time, she never wrote to him. And he hadn’t left behind anybody else who cared whether he lived or died. Or had he?

  Who would be sending him such a cryptic message? Come home. Home to Alabama? Home to Noble’s Crossing? Hell would freeze over first!

  Holding the envelope up to the light, Johnny Mack saw the shadow of something that hadn’t fallen out along with the mysterious, succinct letter. He tapped the envelope. Two objects dropped to the open edge. He reached inside with the tips of his thumb and forefinger, then pulled out a folded newspaper clipping and a school photograph.

  Shoving the remainder of his mail to the left sofa cushion, he sat down and looked at the color photo. The face of a handsome teenage boy stared up at him. A tight knot formed in the pit of Johnny Mack’s stomach. There was something familiar about that young face, those sharp cheekbones, those dark eyes, that flirtatious smile. Looking at the picture was like looking into a mirror and seeing the reflection of the boy he had been twenty years ago.

  Come home. Your son needs you. Quickly scanning the article, Johnny Mack discovered that a fourteen-year-old boy in Noble’s Crossing, Alabama, had been suffering from amnesia since the day of his father’s brutal murder. His mother, Lane Noble Graham, was considered the number one suspect, but as of yet had not been formally charged.

  Johnny Mack stared at the newspaper photograph of the suspect. Lane. Dear God! Lane Noble. His gaze traveled back and forth from the school photograph of the boy, who someone claimed was his son, to the picture of Lane Noble, the boy’s mother. Lane Noble Graham. Hell, had Lane actually married Kent Graham? He’d thought she was too smart to be taken in by that son of a bitch. Apparently not.

  Come home. Your son needs you.

  Whoever had sent him the message had made one crucial error—they assumed he and Lane had been lovers. They were wrong. Lane had been the one Magnolia Avenue debutante he’d never fucked. But she’d been the one he had wanted most.

  Chapter 1

  A loud clap of thunder momentarily drowned out the minister’s words. Lillie Mae glanced at Miss Lane, standing so proudly at young Will’s side, and noticed the way the boy held the huge, black umbrella over his mother’s head. Protective. Caring. At fourteen, he was all long legs and arms. And piercing black eyes, so much like his father’s.

  “Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.” Reverend Colby ignored nature’s comment on this event as he continued to spiel off the inane words that held little true comfort for anyone who had genuinely cared for the deceased.

  A jagged bolt of lightning struck the earth nearby. Several ladies gasped loudly. Her body trembling, her face pale, Mary Martha Graham cried out and moved toward the open grave as if she intended to throw herself onto the coffin again.

  Lord Almighty. Lillie Mae groaned silently. That was all this day needed—for crazy Mary Martha put on another show for the townsfolk. Hadn’t they all endured enough having to listen to her hysterical tirade at the funeral, without having to witness more of her insane grief?

  “Oh, Kent, I loved you.” Mary Martha hovered over the steel gray casket. “You know I did. Please, brother, please come back. Don’t leave me.”

  James Ware stepped forward and slipped his arm around his stepdaughter’s waist, then drew her backward to once again stand between her mother and him. She turned quickly and buried her face against his chest, weeping uncontrollably.

  Lillie Mae noticed the look of pity on Miss Lane’s face and knew how much she longed to comfort her former sister-in-law. But due to the circumstances, it wouldn’t be proper for the suspected murderess to offer a loving embrace to the deceased’s grieving sister. Poor Miss Lane. It just wasn’t fair that she might be arrested, her a good woman who had never done an unkind thing in her life.

  The downpour continued, growing heavier as the graveside service progressed. A tepid, humid wind blew the rain beneath the dark burgundy tent under which the
family had congregated. Lillie Mae stood with Miss Lane and Will, just outside the protective covering. When Will had been asked to join the Graham family, he had declined and instead stayed loyally at his mother’s side.

  Lillie Mae knew that people would say it was a bad day for a funeral. Some might even imply that the heavens were weeping for Kent Graham. Not likely. She considered the nasty weather a statement on Kent’s life—dark, dreary, cold and destructive. That sorry SOB didn’t deserve to be put to rest on a bright, sunny day. Indeed, if the day and the service had been an honest tribute to Kent, the devil would have popped up from hell, bringing fire and brimstone with him to singe the hallowed ground. Then Old Scratch would have personally escorted Kent’s twisted soul straight to Hades.

  When the service ended and the gathering dispersed, Mary Martha’s shrill scream stopped the crowd’s quiet departure. Lillie Mae glanced over her shoulder in time to see James Ware and Police Chief Buddy Lawler physically restrain Kent’s little sister. She struggled with them like a madwoman, her wide-eyed gaze darting in every direction.

  Edith Graham Ware tilted her regal head, every strand of her perfectly coiffured red hair untouched by the moisture in the air. She glanced casually at her overwrought daughter, then stabbed Lane with her sharp glare. The accusatory look in her green eyes issued her former daughter-in-law a warning. Lillie Mae didn’t think many folks noticed that look. They were too busy watching Mary Martha being dragged, kicking and screaming, from the graveside. A shudder of foreboding racked Lillie Mae’s bone-thin body. She knew the power the grande dame of Noble’s Crossing had—enough to counteract any power Lane’s family name possessed.

  Lane reached out, slid her arm through Lillie Mae’s and gazed pleadingly into her eyes. Miss Lane was cautioning her, once again, that no matter what happened, no matter how difficult things became, nothing mattered except protecting Will.

  “Let’s go home,” Lane said, then turned to her son. “Do you want to say goodbye to your grandmother before we leave?”

  “I don’t have anything to say to Grandmother as long as she keeps treating you this way.”

  Lillie Mae didn’t think she had ever been prouder of Will than she had been today. A boy on the verge of young manhood, he was still part child, and yet his loving, caring attitude toward Miss Lane said a lot about the man he would one day become, the fine and honorable man his mother had raised him to be.

  She closed her umbrella and slid into the back-seat of Lane’s white Mercedes. When they got home, she’d fix a pot of coffee for them and prepare a light lunch. Miss Lane hadn’t eaten enough to keep a bird alive since Kent’s death. And no wonder, considering how quickly she had become the number one murder suspect. And even Will’s normally voracious appetite had lessened in the five days since life as they knew it had ceased to exist. The more she tried to blot out the memories of that horrible day, the more vivid they became—like a recurring nightmare over which she had no control.

  They drove in silence, away from Oakwood Cemetery, down through Baptist Bottoms, past the old trailer park, over the Chickasaw Bridge and straight onto Sixth Street. Lillie Mae’s gaze lingered on the rusted gates hanging open to where the trailer park had once existed. She had lived there in a small two-bedroom trailer for years, with her only child, Sharon. Every morning at five-thirty, she had driven her old Rambler from Myer’s Trailer Park on the west side of the Chickasaw River all the way across town to Magnolia Avenue, to the Nobles’ estate. And every evening at seven-thirty, she had driven home, back across the river that divided the town into the haves and have nots.

  She and Sharon had belonged to the have nots, and to this day she blamed herself for the savage, raging hunger that had been inside Sharon—the need to escape from poverty any way she could.

  Johnny Mack Cahill had been the most notorious of the have nots. Local society hadn’t just scorned the boy; they had hated him. He had shown no respect for their snobbish hierarchy, and he had thumbed his nose at them time and again. But when he’d entered their world, bedded their women and laughed in their faces, they had punished him severely.

  He had sworn he would never return to Noble’s Crossing, but Lillie Mae prayed that her unsigned note would bring him home again. If he did come back, all hell was bound to break loose since quite a few folks thought he was dead. But if ever Will needed his real father, he needed him now. And if it was ever the time for Johnny Mack to repay Miss Lane for having saved his life, now was that time.

  Lane stood in the doorway of Will’s room. Light from the hallway cast soft shadows over the bed and the long, slender form of her sleeping child. And despite the fact that he already stood six feet tall, John William Graham was still a child. A child approaching manhood—racing toward adulthood, bursting with the energy of raging male hormones.

  He was in so many ways his father’s son. Far too handsome for his own good. Black hair and eyes. Tall and lean. And possessing a killer smile that was already drawing the attention of all the teenage girls in Noble’s Crossing. But Will was also her son, and she had raised him with the love, security and wealth his own father had never known. She had instilled in her precious Will a sense of honor and dignity and respect for others that Johnny Mack had lacked.

  In her heart and mind, she never had been able to separate the father from the son, and now that Will was a young carbon copy of Johnny Mack, she realized how foolish she had been to think she could keep his parentage a secret forever. If Kent hadn’t been tall and dark, too, someone would have figured out the truth long ago. Maybe, just maybe, they would have all been better off if that had happened.

  But hindsight was twenty-twenty. If she had it to do over again, would she lie to Kent and allow him to believe that Will was his child? Even though Kent had been her boyfriend of sorts since they were little more than children, she had never been in love with him. Sometimes, she wasn’t sure she’d ever even liked him. Their parents had been friends—social equals—and distantly related. Both families had delighted in the thought that someday the Grahams’ only son and the Nobles’ only daughter would unite the two oldest and wealthiest families in the county.

  And despite his declarations to the contrary, she doubted that Kent had ever really loved her. Oh, he had wanted her, pursued her and scared away most of the other young men who had shown an interest in her. He had wanted to marry her, to possess her, to rule her, but he had never loved her. And when he’d realized that even as his wife, she would never truly belong to him, his desire for her had turned slowly to hatred.

  Lane stood over Will’s bed and watched him breathe, much as she had stood over his cradle when he had been an infant and stared at his little chest rising and falling in a reassuring rhythm. From the first moment she had held him in her arms, she had loved him and known that she would do anything—pay any price—to keep him safe, secure and happy. Not once in fourteen years had she ever looked at Will without thinking of Johnny Mack.

  “Oh, you were good, lady,” Kent had told her. “You had me convinced Will was mine. But I should have known better. I should have guessed. I saw the way you were with him, how you adored him. You’d never have felt that way about a child of mine. My God, every time you looked at Will, you thought about Johnny Mack, didn’t you?”

  Lane brushed a stray lock of jet black hair off Will’s forehead. “Sweet Jesus, don’t ever let him remember what happened the day Kent died,” she whispered. “Let the memories stay buried forever. Even if I have to spend the rest of my life in prison, so be it. Just take care of Will. He’s all that’s important.”

  The cemetery was shadowed and quiet. Moonlight spread across the large ornately carved monument and the new grave, mounted high with floral arrangements. John Kent Graham. His mother’s only son. But not his father’s only son.

  Smart. Handsome. Charming. A man who had been loved and cherished and desired. He’d had the world at his feet, like a gift from the gods. And he had squandered that gift, as if it had been a meaningl
ess trifle. He had taken everything and given nothing.

  The dark figure knelt, and a gloved hand caressed the tombstone. Beautiful, yet cold and hard. Just as Kent had been.

  Kent, who had known how to charm and connive, how to use and in turn be useless himself. Kent, who had possessed everything a man could want and hadn’t been smart enough to appreciate it.

  “You were a sorry son of a bitch! And I’m glad you’re dead. Do you hear me? I’m glad you’re dead!”

  The figure rose from the ground and glanced around, wondering if by chance anyone else might be paying a nighttime visit to a departed loved one.

  All would be well as long as Will didn’t remember what had happened that day. If his memories returned, he would have to be dealt with, one way or another. For everyone’s sake, maybe the boy would get lucky and never be able to recall the events of his father’s murder.

  Will’s father. Ha! No one, least of all Kent, had ever suspected that Will was another man’s son. And not just any man, but Johnny Mack Cahill’s bastard progeny.

  How had Kent felt, realizing the child he had raised as his own, the boy who bore his name and called him Dad, was in reality the son of the man he had hated most in this world?

  Ironic. Poetic justice. What goes around comes around.

  Had Johnny Mack, whose black soul was no doubt burning in hell, welcomed Kent when he arrived? Had he smiled that damn pussy-melting smile of his and had the last laugh on Kent?