After Dark

by Beverly Barton

  “I’m not going to cross-examine you, Will, if that’s the reason you’re looking at me that way,” Quinn said.

  “Sorry.” Will took a seat at the table, and within seconds, Lillie Mae placed a plate of bacon, eggs and hash browns in front of him.

  Quinn helped himself to a cup of coffee and sat down at the table across from Will. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

  “Not much,” Will admitted as he speared a bite of scrambled eggs with his fork. “I guess you think I’m a pretty rotten kid for keeping quiet and letting my mother take the rap for something I probably did.”

  “Hush up, Will,” Lillie Mae scolded. “You didn’t kill Kent, so stop saying you did.”

  “You think I killed him, don’t you, Mr. Cortez?” Will glared at the lawyer.

  Quinn took a sip of coffee, then set the cup down in front of him. “I don’t know, Will. I think it’s possible that if Kent Graham pushed you too hard, you might have snapped and beaten him to death. But it’s just as possible that you simply witnessed the murder, and the shock of it caused your partial amnesia.”

  “Do you think Johnny Mack is right about me seeing a psychiatrist?” Did seeing a psychiatrist mean he was nuts, crazy, the way Aunt Mary Martha was?

  “I think we need to do whatever is necessary to help you remember what happened the day Kent was killed. Your mother hasn’t helped the situation by lying to the police.”

  “Mama did what she did to protect me.” Will lifted the egg on his fork, stared at the food for a second, then shoved it into his mouth and followed it with half a strip of bacon.

  “I understand your mother’s reasoning,” Quinn said. “But now that we know the truth, the best thing we can do for you and for Lane is help you recall everything that happened that day. You and your mama”—he glanced over his shoulder—“and Lillie Mae aren’t fighting this battle alone anymore.”

  “That’s for damn sure.” Johnny Mack entered the kitchen. “We’re all in this together.”

  Will jerked around to face his father. A man he hadn’t known before a few weeks ago. A man Kent Graham had tried to make him hate. But he didn’t hate Johnny Mack now. Begrudgingly he was beginning to like his father, maybe even to trust him.

  “Want some breakfast?” Lillie Mae asked.

  “Yeah, a big breakfast,” Johnny Mack said. “The works, with a couple of your delicious biscuits.”

  “Where’s Lane?” Quinn asked.

  “I imagine she’s sleeping late,” Johnny Mack replied as he exchanged a quick, conspiratorial glance with Lillie Mae. “She probably had a restless night.”

  “Mama doesn’t usually sleep this late.” It was after seven, and as a general rule his mother was in the kitchen by six-thirty every weekday morning. “Maybe I should go up and check on her. Make sure she’s all right.”

  “I’m sure she’s—” Johnny Mack said before he was interrupted.

  “You do that,” Lillie Mae told Will. “You go check and make sure she’s okay. And if she’s still sleeping, then don’t disturb her. I can take her breakfast up on a tray later.”

  Will glanced around the room, noting the expression on each adult face. Something was up. He sensed the tension in Johnny Mack as well as Lillie Mae, not to mention the speculative look Quinn Cortez had in his eyes.

  “Y’all want to talk about me, don’t you?” Will looked directly at his grandmother. “You want to discuss what to do with me. How to handle the situation.”

  “You’re too smart for your own good,” Lillie Mae said. “How about scooting on upstairs for a few minutes. I’ll put your breakfast in the oven to keep warm.

  “Should I take Mama a cup of coffee?”

  “Why not?” Lillie Mae lifted the glass pitcher, poured the coffee and handed the cup to Will.

  As he headed upstairs, he heard Johnny Mack say, “We’re not going to do anything unless Lane agrees to it. If it’s all right with her, I’ll bring in the best psychiatrist in the country to help Will.”

  Lane woke slowly, languidly, and stretched as she rose to a sitting position. The satin sheet dropped to her waist when she lifted her arms over her head. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so wonderful, so alive, so much a woman. One passionate encounter with Johnny Mack had done all that for her—and more.

  And for the first time since Kent’s death, she truly believed that there was a solution to her problems, that there was a way to save both herself and Will. In her desire to protect Will, she had disregarded common sense and charged forward with a flawed plan to keep him safe. She should have realized that Will’s conscience would plague him, that deep inside he longed to know the truth about what happened the day Kent died, even if that truth turned out to be unbearably horrible.

  Johnny Mack was right about their trying to help Will remember. And she knew now that no matter what, she and Will could count on him to stand by them and see them through the bad times ahead.

  Kicking back the sheet, Lane swung her legs off the side of the bed and slid her feet into her yellow terry cloth slippers. After a shower, she would dress in something feminine before she left her room to find Johnny Mack. Glancing at the clock, she wondered if everyone else was up. If so, she wouldn’t have a chance to see Johnny Mack alone. They really needed to talk about what had happened between them. When they had returned to the house earlier this morning, they had both still been in a fog of sexual satiation and in a hurry to return to the house and their separate bedrooms before anyone discovered them together.

  Lane got up, hugged herself tightly and twirled about the room. So, this was what it felt like to have been loved by Johnny Mack Cahill. Indescribable. Gloriously, marvelously indescribable. She sighed as she came to a halt in front of her cheval mirror. Did she look different now? Did what she had done with Johnny Mack show on her face? On her body? Surely she had changed outwardly as much as she had inwardly.

  “Mama, are you all right?”

  Lane whirled about to find her son standing in the doorway, a china cup and saucer in his hand. “Will, sweetie, what are you—”

  “I brought you some coffee,” he said. “It’s past seven and I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  “I’m fine.” She motioned for him to come to her. “Bring me that coffee. I can sure use it. I’m a real sleepyhead this morning, aren’t I?”

  Will grinned, then met her halfway in the middle of the room. She took the coffee from him, then kissed his cheek. Suddenly the telephone rang. Once. Twice. Then silence.

  “Lillie Mae probably got it,” Lane said. “So, tell me how you’re feeling this morning?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Do you want to talk?” she asked. “All you wanted to do last night was be left alone.”

  “Yeah, I know. I needed time to think. Time to make a decision about what I should do.”

  “And have you made a decision?”

  “Yeah. I want Johnny Mack to bring in a psychiatrist. I want to remember what happened the day Kent died. If I killed him—”

  “You didn’t,” Lane reassured him.

  “I hope I didn’t, but if I did, then you and I and Johnny Mack…and Lillie Mae, we’ll deal with it together, won’t we?”

  Lane bit down on her bottom lip in an effort to stem the tears lodged in her throat. “You bet we will.”

  Lane started to set her coffee on the nightstand; then in her peripheral vision she caught a glimpse of movement in the hallway. Glancing over Will’s shoulder, she took a better look and saw Johnny Mack and Lillie Mae walking down the hall toward her room. A nerve-wracking sense of foreboding overwhelmed her.

  “What’s wrong, Mama?” Will asked. “You’ve got an odd look in your eyes.”

  Johnny Mack entered her bedroom, standing only a couple of feet behind Will. Lillie Mae hovered in the doorway, a stricken expression on her face.

  Will whirled around when he realized Lane was staring at someone behind him. “What is it?” he asked. “What’s happened?”


  “That phone call was from Miss Edith’s housekeeper,” Johnny Mack said. “There’s no easy way to say this—”

  “Just say it, dammit!” Lane set her cup on the nightstand and grabbed Will’s trembling hands.

  “Jackie Cummings is dead. The police…that is, Buddy Lawler is saying it looks like suicide.”

  “Aunt Mary Martha!” Will cried.

  “She’s in the hospital.” Johnny Mack walked over to Will and Lane, stood behind them and wrapped his arms around their shoulders. “Somehow Mary Martha got hold of her sleeping pills and took an overdose. They aren’t sure what happened. Maybe she woke, saw Jackie’s body and panicked. They don’t know.”

  “How is she?” Lane asked.

  “Mrs. Russell said that Mary Martha was still alive when the ambulance took her away.”

  “I want to go to the hospital.” Will broke free, heading for the door.

  Lillie Mae blocked his path. “You aren’t going by yourself. You’ll wait for Lane and Johnny Mack. They’ll take you to the hospital to see about Miss Mary Martha.”

  Lane’s gaze met Lillie Mae’s, and they exchanged a knowing glance. What would it do to Will if, when he went to the hospital, he found out that the aunt he adored had died?

  Chapter 19

  Johnny Mack hated the smell of a hospital, the medicinal and antiseptic odors that mixed with the stench of human waste and sickness. He disliked the clamoring nurses and technicians who went about their jobs like robots, some thinking less about their patients than about what they would eat for lunch. The sight of the old, the infirm and the helpless, their doors often open for the world to view their plight, created tension in his gut. And the sad, forlorn faces, the silent tears and the mournful cries of loved ones waiting for death to claim a husband, wife, child or parent unnerved him.

  He had been in this hospital twice before. He’d been just a kid when Faith Cahill died, after being stabbed by her latest lover’s jealous wife. Wiley had brought him to the emergency room, and they had stood by Faith’s bed. She had opened her eyes, stared up at him and said, “Screw ’em before they can screw you, baby boy.” Those had been her last words. He hadn’t shed a tear at her funeral or afterward. He had learned long before Faith died that tears didn’t help.

  When Wiley Peters succumbed to years of alcoholic binges and emphysema caused by his chain-smoking habit, Johnny Mack had been sitting with him all night. He supposed he had loved Wiley as much as he’d ever loved anyone up to that point in his life. In an odd sort of way he had seen Wiley as a substitute father. God knew, the old drunk had been the only permanent male fixture in his life. He’d been eighteen when Wiley died. The government had taken care of the funeral, since Wiley had been a decorated Vietnam veteran. Johnny Mack had taken the hundred bucks he had saved up and bought flowers for the grave. The big spray of red roses had been the only floral arrangement at the funeral. Nobody else had given a damn that Noble’s Crossing’s war hero had been put to rest unappreciated and unmourned, except for the town bad boy.

  The elevator doors opened, bringing Johnny Mack back to the present. He hurried along behind Lane, who rushed to keep up with Will. His son had been distraught on the ride to the hospital, so afraid that when he arrived he would find that his aunt had died.

  Will didn’t hesitate when they reached Room 310. He flung open the door and marched into the dimly lit interior. The window blinds were closed, and only the light over the bed shined softly, enough to illuminate all the bells and whistles that could summon help if necessary. An intravenous bag hung from a stand, like a silent sentinel, protecting the patient’s body. Sitting beside the bed, Miss Edith held Mary Martha’s limp hand. Buddy Lawler stood behind her, his fingers curled over her shoulder. James Ware leaned against the wall, his arms crisscrossing his chest.

  “How’s Aunt Mary Martha? Is she going to be all right?” Will asked.

  Edith glanced at Will, then lifted her free hand to him. “Come here, dear.” Tears flooded Edith’s eyes.

  She appeared haggard, her eyes red from tears. But her appearance was immaculate. Not a hair out of place and her makeup perfect. Not knowing, at the time, whether her daughter was going to live or die, had she actually taken time to apply lipstick before leaving the house this morning?

  Johnny Mack surmised that Edith Graham Ware was capable of almost anything, including love for her only remaining child. But would the selfish, self-centered woman ever be able to put anyone else’s needs above her own?

  He glanced from mother to daughter. Mary Martha looked pale and fragile, her face void of color and her light strawberry blond hair tangled about her shoulders. Lying there so quietly, unmoving except for the barely noticeable undulation of her chest as she breathed, she still maintained that unique Mary Martha aura of delicate innocence.

  Will walked over and knelt down beside Edith, who immediately leaned her head over and kissed his forehead.

  “Will, sweet boy, how did you know?” Edith asked.

  “Mrs. Russell called and told us what happened.”

  “It’s been a nightmare,” Edith said. “That awful Jackie Cummings killing herself right there in Mary Martha’s room. And my poor baby waking up and finding her dead body or perhaps even seeing…She wasn’t supposed to awaken. She had been given a sleeping pill and—”

  Johnny Mack couldn’t help but notice the way Buddy’s hand tightened on Miss Edith’s shoulder and how she suddenly stopped talking.

  “Is Aunt Mary Martha going to be all right?” Will repeated his question.

  “The doctors pumped her stomach,” Buddy said. “They think she’ll be just fine.” He released his tenacious hold on Edith’s shoulder, then reached out and urged Will to stand. “Your grandmother…that is, Miss Edith is tired. Why don’t you persuade her to take a break and get some coffee?”

  “I don’t want to leave my baby.” Edith gripped her daughter’s hand tightly.

  “I’ll stay here with her,” Buddy said. “You’ve tired yourself out and you aren’t thinking clearly. Why don’t you go with Will?”

  “Come on, Grandmother,” Will said. “Buddy’s right. You do need a break. You look exhausted.”

  When Will helped Miss Edith to stand and then walked her out of the room, Lane and Johnny Mack stepped aside to allow them into the corridor. James eased away from the wall and followed. When he passed Johnny Mack, he nodded, but didn’t speak.

  “Why don’t you go with Will,” Johnny Mack suggested to Lane. “I want to ask Buddy a few questions about what happened.”

  Lane gripped Johnny Mack’s arm, her eyes questioning him, but all she said was, “We’ll take Miss Edith to the lounge. Join us when you finish your conversation with Buddy.”

  “I’ll be there shortly.”

  The minute he and Buddy were alone in Mary Martha’s room, Buddy all but snarled at him. “What the hell do you want, Cahill?”

  “The answers to a few questions.”

  “What makes you think I’ll answer any questions you have?”

  Johnny Mack sat down in the large chair that converted into a cot and was standard equipment in all the hospital rooms. He leaned back, crossed his right leg over his left knee and relaxed. “One suicide and one attempted suicide in the same house. Even in the same room. On the same night. Strange, don’t you think?”

  “Nothing strange about it. Jackie Cummings killed herself, and when Mary Martha saw her dead body, she went berserk and for reasons we’ll never know took an overdose of her sleeping pills.”

  “Now, why would she do that?”

  “Who knows why Mary Martha does what she does?” Buddy hovered over the peaceful, serene figure lying in the bed. “She hasn’t been herself since Kent was murdered.”

  “She sure did take his death hard, didn’t she?”

  Buddy’s angry gaze pierced Johnny Mack. “He was her brother. She loved him.”

  “Hmm…that she did. Loved him almost as much as she hated him.”

&
nbsp; Buddy clenched and unclenched his fists. “Whatever you think you know, leave it be. For everybody’s sake.”

  “For Lane’s sake?”

  “There’s no jury that’ll find Lane guilty,” Buddy said, his voice pleading. “She’ll never be convicted.”

  “If you’re so sure of that, then why do you suppose Wes Stevens took his evidence to a grand jury and was able to persuade them to hand down an indictment?”

  “You’ll have to ask Wes that question.” Sweat popped out above Buddy’s upper lip.

  Aware of Buddy’s nervousness, Johnny Mack rose from the chair and faced the police chief, then smiled at him. “I just might do that.”

  “Do whatever you want, you always did. But I’m warning you that if you spread any dirty lies about Mary Martha, I’ll—”

  Johnny Mack nailed Buddy with a warning glare. “I’ve never hurt Mary Martha, and I can promise you that I’m not out to hurt her now. But then, I figure you already know that. Somewhere along the way, you found out that I wasn’t the evil brother, didn’t you?”

  Buddy did not respond, but the look of sheer horror in his eyes told Johnny Mack all he needed to know. Buddy was privy to the secret, just as he was. Breaking eye contact, Johnny Mack turned and walked out, then stopped and glanced back into the room as Buddy sat beside Mary Martha’s bed. The look of adoration and longing on Buddy’s face almost stopped Johnny Mack from asking one last question. Almost.

  “By the way, how did Jackie Cummings kill herself?”

  “What?” Buddy’s head snapped up, his eyes round with shock.

  “How did—”

  “Shot herself in the head.”

  “Strange that no one heard the shot.”

  “She used a silencer on the gun.”

  “Damn nice of her not to want to disturb the household, wasn’t it?”

  Before Buddy could reply, Johnny Mack headed down the hall. There was a great deal more to this situation than met the eye. He would bet his last million on it. Two women, a nurse and her patient, both attempt suicide on the same night. Why? And was there any connection between what happened and Kent’s murder? Somewhere there were answers to his questions. All he had to do was find them.