She nodded briskly before returning to the conversation. “What do you know about Kent?”
“I’ll tell you everything in exchange for breakfast.”
Abruptly a grin danced across her face. “I get to drive the high-performance toy?” At his pained look, she shrugged guilelessly. “You aren’t dressed. You can’t expect to go to the grocery store like that.”
“You aren’t dressed, either, darlin’. You go shopping like that, and Tommy’s gonna have to arrest you for inciting a riot.”
“He won’t mind. We knew it would come to that someday.”
Robbie took her hand and pulled her toward the stairs. “Let’s both get dressed—then we can go out to eat. Ellie’s does a pretty good breakfast, I’ve been told. Not that I’m usually up in time to find out.”
Her steps slowed until she stood still halfway up the stairs. When he turned to face her, her cocoa eyes were shadowed. “You’ve avoided even driving through downtown when I’m with you, and now you want to walk into a busy restaurant with me? Why?”
Because I’m hungry? Instinctively, though, he swallowed down the words. In his experience, women didn’t do well with flippant when they were serious. “Because it’s right.” Not an adequate answer, but the best he could give.
“For you? Or me?”
“For us.”
She looked as if she wanted to argue that there was no us, that if there were, he wouldn’t get to make unilateral decisions about them. In fact, she pointed one finger at him, a habit she’d probably learned from Mama Odette, then she lowered it again. “Mama was right,” she said defiantly. “When she told Marguerite that what mattered wasn’t what those men felt, but what she felt. She wanted what she wanted, and so do I.”
“And what do you want?” he asked somberly.
She stared a moment, emotion flickering through her eyes, then she pushed past him. “Breakfast. At Ellie’s. With you.”
When he reached his room, she was digging through her still-unpacked suitcase, discarding clothes on the bed until she came to the dress she wanted. It was black, sleeveless and skimpy enough that he could fold it into a neat square and slide it into his pocket, like a handkerchief. Immodestly she slipped out of his shirt, wearing only tiny pink panties underneath, then tugged the dress over her head.
For all its lack of substance, there was nothing immodest about the dress. The neckline reached up to the hollow at the base of her throat. The hem stretched down to an inch or two above her knees. The fabric clung everywhere in between, but she had a body made for clinging to. She looked perfectly demure. In fact, she looked so damned demure that suddenly all he could think about was stripping the dress off again and hauling her back into bed.
“I’ll be ready in five minutes,” she said as she headed toward the bathroom. “Put your tongue back in your mouth and get dressed, or Tommy will have to arrest you.”
“We always figured it would come to that someday,” he mumbled as he took a pair of jeans from the closet.
She took longer than five minutes. He used the time to lock up the wooden chest in the closet in his study, where he kept his hunting rifles, a few heirlooms of monetary value and a few of sentimental value. He left Glory’s Copper Lake notebook with Anamaria’s purse—better safe with them—and locked the others away, as well.
When she came down, it was well worth the wait. She wore black sandals to go with the black dress, and huge silver earrings dangled from her lobes. A wide matching bracelet glinted around her left wrist, and the sexiest fragrance he’d ever smelled floated around her.
Though he would have been just as dazzled without the jewelry, the makeup, the perfume.
The drive downtown took less than five minutes. He didn’t look for a parking space on the square—there was no such thing on Saturday mornings—but pulled into his office lot. Anamaria glanced at the building as she got out. “This is where you work?”
“When I can’t avoid it.”
“Things must be backing up.”
“I have a very efficient staff.”
They crossed River Road and walked the few hundred yards to Ellie’s. Inside they bypassed the nearly full main dining room and went to the smaller one in back. About half the tables there were filled, including one with his brother and sister-in-law.
“Aw, hell,” he muttered, stopping short to make room for a waitress clearing an empty table.
Anamaria didn’t need an explanation. Strangers could pick those Calloway boys out of a crowd, and she was damn sure not a stranger. She stiffened, though. “Bet you weren’t counting on running into family on your first public outing with me, were you? Because that first time we came here doesn’t count. You followed me, and you weren’t sleeping with me.”
“No, but I was thinking about it.” He gave her a wry grin. “Honey, this is Copper Lake. I run into family every damn time I step outside. And I don’t mind seeing Rick. It’s Amanda I try to avoid.”
Anamaria looked from his sister-in-law to him. “A scorned woman doesn’t forgive easily.”
Scorned. A mild word for what Amanda had felt. They’d been fifteen years old, and he’d treated her like scum. Worse, he hadn’t even had the sense to regret it until years later. It was with her that his drinking had last gotten him into trouble—and he’d worn the bruises from Rick’s fist for the next two weeks. That was when he’d stopped drinking and decided he’d better grow up. He’d had good luck with the one, but had been a slower learner with the other.
“They’ve noticed you,” Anamaria prodded.
Pasting on a grin, he circled around the waitress and led the way to the back table. “Hey, bubba. Amanda. You guys are in awfully early.” He was careful to stay out of Amanda’s reach. She was smaller than he and hadn’t grown up settling disagreements with a fight, but she’d worked twelve years as an exotic dancer, so she could probably kick the hell out of him.
“Robbie,” they said in unison; then Rick went on. “We drove in from Atlanta last night.”
Anamaria had stopped slightly behind him. Robbie placed his hand in the small of her back and drew her forward. “This is Anamaria Duquesne. My brother Rick, and his wife, Amanda.”
In tandem, their gazes flickered from him to Anamaria. Amanda said a polite hello, while Rick nodded. “Why don’t you join us?” Amanda asked.
There wasn’t a man in town Amanda would less like to spend time with, but she tolerated him for Rick’s sake. Just as the Duquesne family would tolerate him for Anamaria’s sake, Robbie thought hopefully.
With a taut smile, he held her chair for her, then slid into the other empty seat. After small talk and placing their orders, he laid his hand on the back of her chair. “Did I mention, Anamaria, that along with all the scoundrels and wastrels, I’ve got two cops in the family? Mitch is a special agent with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, and Rick’s with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.”
“Really.” Her gaze settled on Rick. “So you solve crimes.”
“I do my best. You have one in need of solving?”
“Actually, I’m in need of information.”
Robbie tore a piece from the toast on Rick’s plate and munched on it. “I told her I’d tell her everything there is to know about Kent in exchange for breakfast.”
“Our cousin Kent?” Rick asked, then scowled. “Jeez, why would anyone want to know about him? He’s a whiny-ass punk who was born without a backbone and never bothered to develop one.”
Robbie gave her a wink. “Rick, Mitch and Russ come from the hardworking, committed, making-a-difference side of the family. Kent and I are in the lazy, wouldn’t-amount-to-anything-if-not-for-the-Calloway-name branch.”
Rick’s scowl deepened. “Knock it off, bubba. Okay, so you’re lazy. And you’ve never been particularly good at responsibility. At least you’ve never blamed your problems on anyone else. Everything that ever went wrong in Kent’s life is his parents’ fault. His father was too hard on him…. His mother neglected him�
�. No one was ever there for him except his aunt Lydia.
“He got kicked out of college because he drank too much—he drank too much because of his problems with his parents. His first marriage ended in divorce because his parents set a bad example for him. He couldn’t relate to his kid because they’d never shown him how to be a father. Every disappointment he’s had—always Cyrus’s or Mary’s fault.”
Robbie gazed at Anamaria. “That’s pretty much all there is to say about Kent. But it doesn’t explain why he lied about knowing Glory.”
“You want to fill us in?” Rick asked.
Robbie left the decision to Anamaria. She gazed around the table. There was nothing like being asked to tell the brother of the man you’d just fallen in love with—a cop, no less—that your mother had made a living taking money from men for sex. She still couldn’t call it by its rightful name. She couldn’t think of Glory, of Mama Odette, Auntie Lueena and Auntie Charise as prostitutes. They were businesswomen. Duquesne women. That, apparently, absolved them of guilt.
But Robbie’s mother knew, and it hadn’t made her look at Anamaria as if she had horns and a tail. If you make my son happy, she’d said. Surely the cop married to the ex-stripper wouldn’t be less tolerant than their mother.
So she told Rick and Amanda everything—how Glory had lived, how she had died, the men with whom she’d done business, the name of Charlotte’s father and Kent’s lie about meeting her.
“Jeez, and we thought old Cyrus had only the one time in him,” Rick said.
“Do you guys exaggerate a lot, or was he really that bad?” Anamaria asked.
“Both,” Amanda answered. “Cyrus had those gorgeous Calloway eyes, a rock for a heart and a demeanor that made Scrooge as cuddly as the Easter bunny. But maybe your mother saw something different.”
She’d seen dollar signs, Anamaria thought glumly. Two of them, every week for three months.
“So your mother was pretty sure that Cyrus was the baby’s father, but she quit seeing him soon after,” Rick said. “Was that her choice or his?”
“It goes both ways. A guy has his fling and is ready to go back to his wife, or he gets bored and wants new excitement. A woman gets tired of a man—maybe he’s not as good as he thinks he is, or his money doesn’t make up for his behavior. Sometimes one of them will fall for the other. He wants to leave his wife and rescue her from the sordidness of her life, or she starts to believe his promises of leaving his wife. He’ll get possessive and threaten her other clients, or she’ll get jealous and start calling his wife.” Abruptly Anamaria realized the intensity with which Rick and Amanda were studying her, and her skin flushed. “I come from a large family with a lot of, um, business arrangements. I’m speaking from their experience, not my own.”
“So Cyrus was out of the picture,” Amanda picked up. “Did she continue to see other men during her pregnancy?”
“Until about five months, probably about when she started showing. That was when her, uh, arrangements ended. But she did continue dating, someone she’d started seeing right after she got pregnant. They were together every week until the beginning of February. He’s identified in her journal only by the initials KK.”
“How about the obvious?” Rick asked. He glanced around the table but saw no spark of understanding, so he filled them in. “The guy we were just talking about. Kenton Keith Calloway. If he’s kept an affair with Glory secret for more than twenty years, that would be reason enough to lie to you. If he was sleeping with her at the same time his old man was…”
Anamaria felt the simultaneous wave of disgust that went around the table. “He might have been Charlotte’s father. Theresa Carlotta was his grandmother—the connection is as valid for him as it is for Cyrus.”
“He’s certainly capable of slashing your tires and kicking in your door,” Robbie agreed. “And if he was Charlotte’s father—or thought he was—he’d have reason to steal her baby bonnet.”
Anamaria thought of the man she’d met the afternoon before, so full of bitterness and resentment that it had radiated from him. He was a wasted soul, Auntie Lueena would have said, all the good inside him eaten away by years of wanting what he couldn’t have—his father’s respect, his mother’s attention, the easy life he’d thought he deserved.
And Glory’s love? Her daughter? Was he one of those who’d fallen in love, who’d wanted to rescue Glory and their baby and run away to a new life? And when she’d refused—Anamaria had no doubt she would have refused—had he turned on her? Bitterness and resentment could easily spawn rage; hate could make a man stand by while the woman he’d loved died. Hate could make him take their child, hide her someplace, give her to someone else and let everyone else who loved her and had a right to her believe she’d died tragically and alone.
Poor Charlotte. No matter which man had fathered her, cold cruelty and sickness ran through her veins. But Duquesne blood could overcome bad blood.
“Maybe Glory’s meeting that night was with him,” she murmured to Robbie, then explained to the others. “She had two appointments the night she died. One was with Lydia Kennedy. The other…” She pulled the journal from her bag and flipped through it to the loose sheet of paper, holding it out for them to see. Tuesday, 6:30, Lodge. “We thought maybe Lodge was a name, but we haven’t come up with anyone.”
Amanda took the paper and turned it over. “For what it’s worth, this is Calloway Industries stationery from twenty-some years ago. My father worked for the company, and he was left a quadriplegic from an on-the-job accident. He had a letter from their grandfather thanking him for his service, framed and sitting beside the bed for the nine years it took him to die.”
Rather than Kent’s all-encompassing resentment, it was regret that emanated from Amanda. She may have thought her father deserved more than a letter of thanks from the elder Calloway, but it was a minor thing amid the love she’d felt for him.
“Both Cyrus and Kent would have had access to it,” Rick said.
“It was Cyrus,” Anamaria said at the same time Amanda spoke his name. She gestured to the other woman to go on.
“If I were a single mother about to give birth to a wealthy man’s child—or grandchild—I’d be asking for money. Cyrus would have more to spare than Kent.”
“And lodge isn’t a name.” Robbie tapped the paper. “Jeez, it’s a place—that old fishing camp of Cyrus’s upriver. Remember? Granddad used to call it a damn cabin just to get Cyrus’s nose out of joint.”
“Everyone called it a cabin except him.” Rick’s expression was grim as he locked gazes with his brother. “So Cyrus sets up a meeting. Glory goes. She’s found dead back in town, and her car is found in town, as well. Why? Why would a woman in her condition go for a walk at night along the river when it was cold and raining? Why would she drive past her house to the park when there’s a path to the river right beside her house?”
Anamaria moved her plate to the empty table beside them, unable to face the food any longer. Her stomach was knotted, her skin cold, and just the smell of food made her queasy. Because of the conversation? Because of the baby? Or because she knew more had happened that night than a walk.
“Her first appointment that evening was at Lydia’s house.” Her voice was low but steadier than she’d expected. “Lydia didn’t try to keep her meetings with Glory secret from the people close to her. Harrison, Sara and Kent knew about them. Kent spends a lot of time at their house. He was closer to them than to his own parents.”
“He could have seen her there that evening.” Robbie clasped her hand in both of his. “He could have been waiting for her and followed her. And when he realized that she was going to meet his father…”
That would have brought out the rage, Anamaria acknowledged. Maybe Glory’s death had been accidental, or maybe it had been murder. Either way, one or both of her Calloway lovers had been involved. One of them had taken her baby. Her mother was dead because the passions she’d inspired had been too great, but her sister w
as alive. True to her name, Charlotte Duquesne had survived.
Abruptly Anamaria pushed back her chair, sprang to her feet and fled the dining room. She bypassed the ladies’ room and headed out the door, bumping into guests entering the restaurant, mumbling apologies as she stumbled down the steps. She walked with long steps, not slowing when Robbie called her name, not looking when running steps pounded behind her.
He caught up with her as she started to cross River Road, grabbing her arm, pulling her back as a car sped past, horn blaring. It would be so easy to go into his arms, right there on the main street in town, with people all around, but she didn’t…until he pulled her there. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly, and when she tried to point out that people could see, he shushed her.
When the shudders stopped rippling through her, when the sun had warmed the ice from her skin, she raised her head to gaze into his worried blue eyes. “I’m sorry. I just…it just got to be too much.”
“She’s your mother. Sometimes the rest of us forget that.”
“I want to know, but I don’t. Maybe I was better off not remembering anything.”
He cupped his palm to her cheek, tilting her head back. “You still remembered the night she died. You always remembered the vision you had of her. But you’d blocked out the good memories, too, of baking cookies and walking in the rain and having picnics on that shawl of hers. You’d forgotten about her tucking you in bed, then crawling in beside you to read stories from that book you found in the chest. All of those things are worth remembering, Annie. Those are the kind of memories you treasure for a lifetime.”
The kind of memories she intended to make with her own daughter. The kind of memories, God help her, that she wanted Robbie to make with her, too. Fishing out on the river, tramping through the woods, giving her personal tours of the Calloway Plantation. He could teach their daughter what it was like to live in wealth, and Anamaria could remind her what it was like to live in slavery. And she would grow into a wise, understanding young woman—the best of both their worlds.
Scandal in Copper Lake Page 18
