by Meryl Sawyer
“The truth.” Her mother laboriously scooted into a more upright position.
The word truth rang a warning bell of dread deep inside Tori. Her mother hadn’t been harboring a secret, had she? Tori always believed they were close in a way that other mothers and daughters weren’t. They seemed more like sisters or best friends. They didn’t keep secrets from each other.
As soon as that thought rushed through her brain, Tori admitted that she didn’t tell her mother everything. Even now with death so close, her mother didn’t know her doubts about Clay. But Tori had always believed she knew everything about her mother.
“Truth?” Tori asked. “What are you talking about?”
“My deepest shame.” Tears filled her mother’s stricken eyes and trickled down her cheeks.
What on earth was she talking about? Tori grabbed a tissue from the nightstand and dabbed at the tears. Her mother brushed her hand away.
“I never wanted to taint you and ruin your chances of being part of society.”
Tori didn’t doubt it. Her mother had been obsessed with what passed for society in Twin Oaks for as long as Tori could remember.
“You did your best,” Tori assured her. She silently added that she’d done her part as well. She’d worked hard and made something of herself. Until the fiasco at the town square, Tori had discounted her achievements. Seeing how easily the judge had been taken down made Tori realize she didn’t have to rely on family position. She had a track record. She could start all over again in Atlanta and be just as successful.
Judge Kincaid and his family relied too much on name and reputation. Even though May Ellen had a family name and a degree in botany from Ole Miss, she wasn’t in any position to support herself. Clay and the judge had law degrees but she wondered how they would fare with the legal sharks in Atlanta or Memphis. Their success here was based too much on who their families had been.
The judge might come out a winner again, she decided. He had a predator’s cunning that his wife and son didn’t. She tried to imagine Clay going head-to-head with the cutthroat lawyers she’d encountered in Jackson—but couldn’t. She loved him, yet sometimes she wondered if his heart was really in the law. What would he have become if he’d been raised in a single-wide trailer like Justin Radner?
Would she have wanted to marry that Clay Kincaid? He’d still be handsome and charming, but her mother wouldn’t have relentlessly pushed him at her. Would Tori have been so determined to marry him?
“I didn’t want the truth to ruin your life.” Her mother’s words came out in an agonized rush. Her mother’s flat, unspeaking eyes prolonged the silence between them. Finally, she went on, “Your father didn’t die in a car accident in Florida. After you were born, Vince just up and walked out. He didn’t want the responsibility of a baby.”
It took a moment for the words to register. Her father had loved her dearly. He’d been tragically killed while on a business trip to Miami. Even though she’d never known him, never heard him speak her name, she’d felt his love.
Love.
The word floated through her brain. It took several seconds to realize what she’d felt wasn’t her father’s love. It had been her mother’s love. Always. What little she’d known about her father had been filtered through her mother.
His love had been nothing more than an illusion. She closed her eyes for a moment in an attempt to come to grips with reality. The ghost of a father she’d always adored and had believed loved her—hadn’t existed. He’d deserted her mother because he didn’t want…Tori.
It had happened a long time ago, she reasoned. It shouldn’t ache like a raw wound, but it did. It wasn’t easy to let go of a lie you’d lived with for over thirty years. It became part of you, who you were, how you saw yourself. How others saw you.
“What was I supposed to do?” Tears strangled each word from her mother’s lips. “I had a baby and rent to pay but no job. What do you think people would have said if they knew Vince had up and left me?”
Still numb with shock, Tori silently acknowledged that people sympathized with widows in a way they didn’t with women who’d been divorced or deserted. It wasn’t fair but it was true.
Torn by conflicting emotions, Tori asked, “What about Daddy’s family in Memphis?” She’d never seen her aunt and cousins. Her mother had always made excuses not to visit them. Now Tori knew why.
“Vince’s mother died just after we were married. His only sister married a no-good bum. Vince’s pa had up and disappeared just after Vince was born. Like father, like son.” Her mother shook her head. “There was no getting help from our families. I was on my own.”
Tori tried to imagine how frightening that must have been. True, she’d worked to make something of herself, but she’d always known she had her mother as a fallback. What would it be like to have no one?
Unbidden, Kat’s image appeared in her mind. Kat had known love—her father’s love—just as Tori had been assured of her mother’s love. But after her father had died, when Kat had needed her mother the most, Loretta had turned her back on her. Having been deserted herself, their mother must have known how devastating it could be, but she hadn’t cared. And neither had I, Tori reluctantly conceded. Oh, she’d been tempted to help Kat, but it had been easier to walk away without getting involved.
At the time she’d assured herself that she’d chosen the best course. She’d been convinced she didn’t have the knowledge or the money to help Kat. But had she been honest? Not really. If she’d put up a fight, at the very least, Kat might have been assigned a more competent public defender. Don’t go there, Tori warned herself. There had been hard evidence against Kat. Getting mixed up in her problems wouldn’t have helped.
“I went to work in Dr. Cassidy’s office, keeping patient records and filing,” her mother continued, “but I was barely earning enough to get by. I had no choice but to look around for another husband while I was still young and pretty.”
“Without getting a divorce? What if Daddy returned?”
Her mother let out a derisive snicker. “I’m not dumb. I scraped together enough money to hire a private investigator in Jackson. Seems your daddy only made it as far as Panama City Beach before hopping in the sack with another woman. They claimed to be married.”
Dazed, Tori attempted to compare the various images of her father that she’d culled from the few pictures her mother had of a handsome young man with a wide smile and twinkling eyes. She’d always thought of him as loving and supportive, a man who would be with her every moment he had to spare.
A father like…like Parker Wells.
She’d never envied Kat. Actually, she’d felt superior to her sister because she had a mother and a father who doted on her. True, her father was dead, but she’d basked in his love just the same. Tori had always assumed her father would have been exactly like Parker.
If only he’d lived.
The opposite had been true, she realized with a wild flash of grief.
As if reading her thoughts, her mother said softly, “You had me. I loved you more than I should have to make up for the loss of your father.”
“I’d like to—” Tori stopped herself before she asked how to contact her father. It could wait, she decided, until her mother was gone. What would be the point in hurting her by letting her know how much Tori had dreamed about her father? How much it now hurt to know he had been living a few hours away and had made no attempt to see her in all these years.
Again seeing through to her soul, her mother said, “Your father died ’bout eight years ago. Lung cancer. He’d been a chain smoker. No one—not even his new woman—could convince him to give it up.”
Tori stared out the window, her heart unable to accept what she’d just heard. Her world was shutting down like a curtain falling after the final act. The play was over. Life as she knew it was over.
For a fleeting second she wondered if this was how Kat had felt when she’d been alone in jail. She let the thought go as quic
kly as it had come. This was different; Tori’s life was special. She’d made something of herself. Nothing could take that away from her.
She’d been a winner from the day she was born. Kat was—and always would be—a loser. Kat had suffered—she’d grant her that much—but if she’d had character she would have been more like Tori.
“I wanted to protect you,” her mother added. “I didn’t consult a lawyer—least of all the Kincaids—and have to explain why I didn’t want to write a will.”
Tori didn’t get it. “Why not?”
“I was afraid someone might find out that I had inherited Parker Wells’ money illegally. Your father and I never divorced. As his next of kin, Kat should have inherited everything her father had.”
“Why didn’t you divorce him when you found out the skank was living with another woman?”
Her mother shrugged as if it didn’t really matter. “Parker came along before I had time to scrounge up enough money to go to Florida and get a divorce.”
Now Tori understood. “You’d said Daddy wasn’t alive. You couldn’t file for divorce here without everyone knowing you’d lied.”
Her mother’s mouth quirked as if a bolt of pain had lanced through her. A moment later, she said, “I didn’t want to ruin your chances with folks like the Kincaids.” She slumped back against the pillows. “Right away Parker was smitten with me…”
And you saw a meal ticket, Tori silently added.
“I never wanted another child. Kat just happened. I didn’t love her.” She managed a low snicker. “I didn’t have to. Her daddy loved her enough for both of us.”
The way you loved me.
“Now you can marry Clay and take your rightful place in society like I’ve always known you would.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
KAT LEANED against Justin’s sturdy shoulder and gazed out at the gathering dusk casting an amber glow across the yard. Lola Rae had dropped Kat off after a long, hot afternoon on an amateur stakeout of the fallen tree. Justin had been home waiting for her, Redd and Max at his side. The relief on his face told her just how worried he’d been.
When was the last time anyone had been concerned about her?
Images of her father sprang into her mind. The look on his face as she rode her bike up the drive for the first time without training wheels. His puckered brow as she’d competed in a spelling bee, which she’d ultimately won. His attempts to control a grimace as Tori had swanned out the door with Clay on prom night, when they both knew Kat wouldn’t have a date when her own prom rolled around.
It had been years ago, yet the memories triggered a bittersweet ache. What would her father say if he could see her now? She wasn’t a shy, ugly duckling any longer. She knew he would be proud of her—despite the years she’d spent in prison.
“Okay,” Justin said, his warm breath fanning her cheek. “Give me the details. What I heard over our cell phones was garbled. I could tell you weren’t in trouble but the signal kept cutting out.”
She’d already explained she’d seen the money being picked up, but she went over the story again, taking care to give him every fact she could recall. “After we arrived on the motorcycle Lola Rae’s brother loaned us, we hid it in the underbrush and walked over to the old log.”
“Good thinking.” He gazed down at the area rug where Max and Redd were snoozing.
“Several other packets had been placed on top of the one Lola Rae had seen Gary Don leave.”
“Lola Rae must have realized this wasn’t about another woman.”
“Of course. We talked it over. She believes Gary Don must be dealing drugs. She doesn’t want anything to do with him. She’s terrified she’ll end up in jail.”
“Did she know he’d already served time?”
“Yes.” Kat looked up at him and tried for a mischievous smile. “I gave her the whole spiel about the rate of recidivism that you dished out at me. She promised not to tell anyone about this. She doesn’t want to be involved.”
He chuckled and kissed the top of her head. “Finish telling me about the pickup.”
“The sun was dropping behind the trees, but it was still hotter than Hades. Swarms of mosquitoes were eating us alive. We were about to leave.” Her body was still hot and sticky despite the swamp cooler blowing right on her. “We’d been so sure the money would be picked up during the day that we hadn’t bothered to bring flashlights. We knew it would be useless to stay after dark.
“That’s when Lola Rae heard a motor. She thought it was a dirt chopper like the motorcycle her brother had loaned us. I noticed a chugging sound, and I knew it must be a motorboat.”
“The levee meets the river not far from there, but the inlet is choked with kudzu,” Justin interjected.
“Did you know exactly where we were?”
Justin’s smile seemed a tad guilty. “I planted a mini-GPS transmitter the size of a button in your shoe—just in case.”
“Without telling me?” Sometimes she didn’t understand him. It would have been comforting to know the device was there.
“People act differently if they don’t realize they have a fallback.”
“I see,” she replied slowly. He came from a different world, where drug busts were an everyday occurrence. In some ways she’d been through hell, but this was her first brush with the dark underworld of drug dealing.
“Go on,” he prompted.
“A guy neither of us recognized tromped up the trail. He made no attempt to conceal himself or to stay quiet.”
“Young? Old? How tall? What did he weigh?”
“It was a little too shadowy to say for sure, but I thought he was in his late twenties. Average height. About one-eighty. He was dressed in beige slacks and a navy polo shirt. A little dressed-up for the backwoods. He must have come from work somewhere.”
“A navy blue polo. Did it have the casino’s logo above the pocket?”
Kat shrugged. “Possibly, but neither of us got a close enough look. He knew exactly where to go. He marched up to the old log, loaded the packets into a backpack, and was out of there in less than a minute.”
“He’s done this before. Lots of times.”
“Probably. I listened carefully when he started the motor. The engine wasn’t more than fifty horses. I know because my father fished. Bigger engines have a deeper rumble.” She didn’t add how much her father had wanted a larger motor for his small skiff, but insisted on banking the money for “his girls’ education.”
“Figures,” Justin replied with a thoughtful nod. “Meth generates lots of cash in small bills. New York, Chicago, L.A.—every major city you can name and authorities have found money stashed away, waiting to be picked up. Sometimes it’s left so long the bills are mildewed. Boxes have been found in storage units when people fail to pay the rent. There’s so much cash floating around that people forget or lose track of it.”
“Amazing.” She thought of how little money she had. It was difficult to imagine allowing a dollar to get away from her.
“Someone working a double-blind operation doesn’t want anyone to know who he is. So how is the cash counted without a lot of workers?”
Kat considered his question for just a second. “They must have machines at the casino to automatically count money and slot machine change, right?”
“Hey,” he said with a teasing smile, “you’re smarter than the average blonde.”
“Ya think?”
“Absolutely.” His expression turned serious. “There’s nothing average about you.”
She kissed him lightly on the cheek. “You think there really is mob money behind the riverboat? Are they pushing drugs, too?”
“Gambling has always been tainted by the mob. The Sartiano family operates out of New Orleans. They control the riverboats there but not with a heavy hand. Gambling is regulated by the state. Getting around their accounting procedures is tough but not impossible.”
“You’re saying the mob wouldn’t funnel a lot more cash into the casi
no and make the state auditors suspicious.”
“Exactly. The take from every table, every slot machine is recorded, then checked in and placed in steel cases with a special lock.”
Kat thought a moment. “Couldn’t the supply boat that delivers goods take the drug money back to New Orleans to avoid state inspectors? Remember, we thought the supply boats might be delivering the supplies needed to make meth.”
“It’s possible, but I have the feeling the ringleader wouldn’t want to involve that many people. Crews on small service boats change overnight. Having those boats transport cash would mean letting more and more people in on the secret. Our guy doesn’t operate that way.”
“Guy? Why not a woman?”
“A woman could be involved,” he conceded, “but this is still the South. Guys rule.”
“Get out!”
He smiled, then compressed his lips. “Sad but true. A woman may be involved, but she wouldn’t deal directly with the Sartianos. They’re Italians from Chicago who intermarried with a Cajun family living outside of New Orleans. It’s a male-dominated society. I suspect the drug money is processed through the counting machines at the riverboat to quickly and accurately tally the cash. I’ll bet the Sartianos take a cut, then turn over the rest of the money to someone locally.”
“What happens to the money then?”
He gazed off across the room for a moment, then said, “Good question.”
Kat couldn’t imagine how the drug operation might be connected to her—except through the bank. She verbalized her hunch. “It goes through the bank somehow.”
“That’s my guess, but it’s just speculation. Question is: Why did Bitner ask to meet you? I can’t see him telling you about the operation.”
Kat had no idea either—unless it was somehow tied to the undercover operation the Feds had going. She was tempted to tell Justin, but decided to wait until David returned. With luck, he would know more about what had gone on with the bank examiners. It might explain what had happened without her having to go back on her word and tell anyone why she was here.
