“That was very wise of you,” Dane said.
“Oh, we didn’t want anything spoiling Annie’s birthday surprise,” Jennifer said.
Placing himself behind Annie’s chair, Dane scanned the room. Many of the faces seemed familiar and he realized he’d seen most of them at the Robinsons’s home after Halley’s funeral. The two people he didn’t expect to see were Richard and Gloria Hughes. They stood across the room, champagne flutes in their hands. Richard nodded at Dane and gave him a broad, politician’s smile.
One by one Annie opened the gifts, dutifully thanked each person as she gushed and gooed over the individual items. She dreaded the thought of spending hours writing out appropriate thank-you notes. But despite her abhorrence of many old Southern customs, thank-you notes were an ingrained part of her personality.
Three gifts remained. Jennifer handed her a small rectangular box, covered in plain white paper, with no bow or ribbon.
“We want to save my gift and Aunt Vera and Uncle Royce’s till last,” Jennifer said.
Annie ripped open the paper and tossed it into the sack at her side where she’d placed the other wrappings. She held a plain brown cardboard box in her hand. Someone certainly hadn’t gone to any trouble or expense, she thought, then lifted the lid. A stack of five cassette tapes lay nestled inside. Annie dumped them into her hand and looked through them. An eclectic assortment of music tapes—from country to classical. The tapes looked as if they’d been well used.
A shiver raced up Annie’s spine. There was no note to acknowledge the gift, but she had an odd feeling she knew who had sent it.
“Isn’t there a card?” Vera asked.
“No, there isn’t.” Annie grabbled in the sack at her side, pulled out the crumpled white wrapping paper and turned it over. Her heart skipped a beat as she recognized the handwriting on the back side of the paper.
“It’s from Halley Robinson, my dear,” Vera said innocently. “She mailed the birthday gift to me before—” she sighed “—before she died. I’ve kept it in a safe place for three weeks, knowing how much it would mean to you.”
Annie sensed the tension in the room and noticed that Richard Hughes had disappeared. Uncle Royce edged his way toward Annie.
“Goodness, Vera,” Jennifer said, agitation in her voice. “Didn’t you know that Annie has been expecting a package from Halley, something to do with a story she was working on when she was murdered?”
“Oh, my!” Vera swooned. “I had no idea. No one told me. Did they? Besides, those tapes aren’t evidence of any kind. They’re a birthday gift.”
Royce Layman planted a sturdy arm around his wife and patted her consolingly. “No harm done. It would appear that this is indeed what it appears to be—a birthday gift—and nothing more.”
“Does that mean that the package Halley mailed from Point Clear was this birthday gift and not some sort of criminal evidence?” Jennifer asked.
Gathering all her strength, Annie forced herself to reply calmly, “Looks that way, doesn’t it?”
Dane knew something was amiss. Annie might fool everyone else, including her mother, but she couldn’t fool him. Leaning over the arm of her chair, he said softly, “Want me to take care of those tapes for you?”
She nodded, then handed him the tapes and the wrapping paper, which he promptly slid into his pockets. Afterward, Annie opened the two remaining gifts. She gasped when she lifted the lid from the velvet box that held her aunt and uncle’s gift.
“It’s your grandmother’s cameo,” Vera said. “You’re the only grandchild, so it’s rightfully yours. Something you can pass down to your own daughter someday.” Using a lace handkerchief, Vera wiped the tears from her eyes.
Annie hugged her aunt, thanked her profusely, then tore into her mother’s gift, which turned out to be a week’s vacation in Paris.
“After all this is over, you’ll need to get away for a while,” Jennifer said.
Annie counted the minutes until she thought it wouldn’t seem odd that she wanted to leave her own birthday party. But after several guests bid the family good-night, Annie tugged her mother up to her side and said, “Would it be rude if Dane and I left now? I’m tired and—”
“Was there something in Halley’s gift?” Jennifer asked.
Annie nodded.
“Y’all go on. I’ll make your excuses. But be sure you thank Aunt Vera again. She worked very hard to make tonight perfect for you.”
Within fifteen minutes, she and Dane were inside the Navigator, the first of the five tapes playing as they drove through the Florence streets toward Annie’s house.
“I can’t believe that Aunt Vera had the package this whole time. And bless her sweet heart, she had no idea what she had.”
“Read Halley’s note again,” Dane said.
Annie smoothed out the wrinkled paper.
“‘Happy Birthday. I’m sending you my favorite tapes. Hope you don’t mind that they’re slightly used or that I didn’t have time for ribbon and a card. I thought it wise to send these tapes to your aunt Vera, disguised as a birthday present. That way, if anything happens to me, you’ll be sure to have the evidence you need to make things right. My cousin Rene still has the original, by the way. Hope I’m there to celebrate your birthday with you.
Love, Halley.”’
“Your uncle Royce and Richard both know that these tapes are from Halley,” Dane said. “There’s a good chance that they suspect what we do—that there’s some sort of evidence on one of these tapes.”
“We have to find the evidence before…” Annie blew out a tense breath. “You know what? I am scared to death. Afraid the evidence isn’t here and even more afraid that it is.”
Dane pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed a number.
“Who are you calling?” she asked.
“Milton Holman.” Dane spoke into the phone, “Yes, this is Dane Carmichael, will you please contact Chief Holman and ask him to get in touch with me as soon as possible at Ms. Harden’s home. It’s urgent.”
Dane replaced the cell phone just as he drove into Annie’s driveway. He scanned the area for anything suspicious and when he found nothing, he quickly ushered Annie into the house.
They spent the next hour and a half listening to music. Annie fidgeted in her chair. Dane paced the floor. Then he removed the third tape from the player and inserted the fourth. Marty Robbins’s distinctive voice drifted through the den, telling of his love for a Mexican girl. Annie groaned as she continued tapping her foot on the floor. Dane cursed under his breath. About halfway through the tape, in the middle of a song, the voice of two men interrupted the musical rendition. The two voices were instantly recognizable.
“Richard, it was the only way. Martin was going to blow the whistle on you. If we hadn’t stopped him, the whole world would have known that you authorized the illegal PCB dumpings.”
“I wish there had been another way, Jason. Did you have to kill him?”
“No one will ever know that his death wasn’t suicide. I made sure of that and with the coroner in your hip pocket, there won’t be any questions asked.”
“I don’t want Gloria or the children to ever know. Lorna is so delicate, so much like her mother was. And I don’t want Dickie involved. He’s just a kid.”
Annie glanced up at Dane. She could tell that the mention of Lorna’s name had affected him. “Dickie wasn’t involved,” Annie said.
Dane nodded. The tape continued, Richard Hughes’s and Jason Webber’s words a confession of murder.
“Jason, I think Hughes Chemicals and Plastics should give Mrs. Edwards a nice fat check and perhaps a couple of one-way plane tickets for herself and her daughter to somewhere up north.”
“Consider it done. What about Alice Renegar?”
“How much do you think she knows?”
“I doubt she knows that her boss took the rap for you, if that’s what you’re asking. She may have her suspicions, but she could never prove anything.”
<
br /> “Give Ms. Renegar two months’ severance pay and glowing recommendations, and if she makes a fuss about leaving, give her reasons to keep her suspicions to herself.”
Dane didn’t know Richard Hughes—the real Richard Hughes. He had never known him. He had loved, admired and trusted Lorna’s father, a man of integrity and kindness. The man on this tape was a stranger to Dane.
“I’m so sorry, Dane.” Annie rushed over to him, wrapped her arms around him and hugged him fiercely. “I know how I’d feel if it had been Uncle Royce.”
Dane held on to Annie. “I have to accept the unacceptable. Richard knew that Jason had killed Martin Edwards and he is no doubt responsible for Halley Robinson’s murder, as well.”
The telephone and the doorbell rang simultaneously. Annie looked to Dane, who motioned for her to answer the phone.
“Harden residence.”
“I got Dane Carmichael’s message. What’s up?” Chief Holman asked.
“I think you should come over to my house right now. We’ve—” The phone suddenly went dead.
The insistent doorbell ringing echoed through the house. Dane peered through the viewfinder. Richard Hughes and Royce Layman stood on the other side of the door. Dane removed his Ruger from his hip holster, checked it and then returned it to the holster, leaving the flap undone. He opened the door.
“We must speak with Annie, immediately,” Royce said. “It’s urgent.”
Dane allowed the two men inside. “Go into the den,” he said, and followed them when they walked down the hallway.
Annie stood by the windows, the telephone receiver in her hand.
“Annie, I don’t know what you believe of me at this precise moment,” Richard Hughes said. “But you must believe that whatever evidence you have has been somehow faked. I’m being framed.”
“Richard isn’t the kind of man who’d order someone’s murder,” Royce told his niece. “I’ve known him for the better part of thirty years and I—”
“Move away from the windows,” Dane ordered Annie, his voice deadly soft.
Just as Annie absorbed Dane’s order and acted to obey, Dane noticed a shadow outside the window. Simultaneously, he drew his Ruger and knocked Annie to the floor. A shot cracked a glass pane in the window on its path into the house. Dane shoved Annie to the other side of the large mahogany desk in the corner of the den nearest the kitchen.
“Aren’t you going after him?” Royce Layman crouched behind an armchair.
Richard Hughes stood in the center of the room, ramrod straight and unmoving, his vision focused on the window.
Annie jerked open the bottom drawer in the desk, pulled out a revolver and a box of bullets. Her hands shook as she loaded the gun, but she accomplished the task quickly.
“Go get him,” she told Dane. “If Richard makes a move, I’ll shoot him with my father’s old Smith & Wesson.”
Dane’s lips curved in a hint of a smile before he nodded and hurried through the French doors that lead out onto the patio. When Annie rose to her feet, she noticed Richard Hughes fumbling with the CD and tape player on the wall shelf.
“Turn around, Richard,” she ordered. “Slowly and carefully. I have a gun. And it’s loaded.”
“Annie? My dear?” An ashen-faced Uncle Royce grasped the arm of the chair to steady himself as he rose to his feet. “I don’t understand any of this.”
Richard turned. He clutched the Marty Robbins tape in his hand. About three inches of tape had been pulled loose from the cassette.
“Lay the tape on the floor,” Annie told him. “And stay right where you are.”
“You can’t call the police,” Richard said smugly, overly self-confident.
“Why? Did Jason Webber cut the phone wires while you and Uncle Royce were ringing the doorbell?”
Richard smiled like the cat who’d eaten the canary, then when realization dawned, the smile vanished. “How did you know?”
“What is she talking about?” Royce asked, his eyes filled with puzzlement.
“You really are in the dark, aren’t you, Uncle Royce?” Annie said, not moving her gaze from Richard. “I was talking to Chief Holman when the line went dead. I’m sure he’s on his way here right now.”
Somewhere nearby, in the yard, repeated gunshots rang out. Annie cringed as each bullet was fired.
“Jason has probably killed Dane and will be in here shortly to take care of you and Royce,” Richard said.
Royce sputtered, then came out of the corner, marched over, picked up the tape on the floor and offered it to Annie. She took the tape from him, all the while keeping her father’s gun aimed at Richard.
Royce stood steadfastly at Annie’s side. “Should I go see if I can help Dane?”
“I’m sure Dane can handle things,” she said, and the ring of truth in her words comforted her, reassuring her that Dane was all right. “But you can let Chief Holman in when he arrives.”
“It will be my pleasure.” Royce gave Richard a sternly disapproving look.
The French doors flew open. With his Ruger held to the man’s head, Dane escorted Jason Webber into the den. Blood oozed from a wound in Webber’s shoulder. Annie let out a sigh of relief. In the distance a siren wailed loudly, announcing the approach of Florence’s finest, led by Chief Holman.
Richard glowered at Webber. “You assured me that you could handle things!”
“I’d suggest you not turn on your accomplice,” Dane suggested. “After all, he was just following your orders when he took care of Martin Edwards and when he hired a guy who was probably a local Mobile thug to murder Halley Robinson.”
“Dane, you could make things all right for me,” Richard said, a tentative smile teasing his lips. “Do this one last thing for me. For…Lorna.”
“For Lorna!” Dane shouted. “God, Richard, you’d actually try to use my relationship with your dead daughter to try to get out of this? You disgust me!”
After the longest seven minutes of Annie’s life, Royce Layman opened the door and welcomed Chief Holman and four officers into the house. Outside a SWAT team surrounded the Harden home.
Richard Hughes’s downfall was front-page news the following morning and every radio and television station reported nothing else the entire day. Jason Webber turned on his boss, confessed everything and tried to make a deal with the district attorney. During the next few days, the Hughes scandal became a nationwide news frenzy. Four days after Richard’s arrest, Rene Edwards called Annie, who assured the frightened woman that it was safe for her to come out of hiding.
Annie eased open the door to the guest room and found Dane packing his bag. She’d known he wouldn’t stay much longer, but he hadn’t told her that he was leaving today.
“Where are you going?” she asked from the doorway.
He glanced over his shoulder. “I’m going to pick up a car and head out for Point Clear this morning, then take that long overdue vacation sailing in the Caribbean.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any reason for you to hang around here, is there?” She took a hesitant step over the threshold.
Dane zipped his bag closed, then turned to Annie. “None that I know of. What about you, know any reason I should stay?”
Annie wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back and forth on her heels. What did he want? Did he expect her to ask him to stay? “I want to thank you. For everything. You saved my life more than once and I’ll always be grateful.” Don’t go, she wanted to plead with him. Don’t leave me. I love you. But the last time she’d told him she loved him, he had dismissed her declaration and made her doubt her own sincerity.
But she did love Dane. She had come to realize that he was nothing like Preston. She wondered how she could ever have compared the two men. And she realized that Dane possessed only her father’s best qualities and none of the bad ones.
Dane Carmichael was a man she could trust, a man she could count on and a man who accepted her for the woman she was. If he loved her, he would never tr
y to change her. But that was the catch—he didn’t love her.
“I’m grateful to you,” he said. “You were right all along about Richard. About everything.” He lifted his bag off the bed. “I’m glad it turned out that your uncle wasn’t involved.”
Annie realized how Dane was suffering. He had been forced to accept the loss of all he had held dear. “I’m sorry that…I wish Richard had been the man you thought he was.”
“Tell your mother goodbye for me.” Dane hesitated as he passed by Annie. He leaned over, kissed her on the cheek and smiled. “Be happy, brown eyes.”
He walked out into the hall. Annie turned and watched him go down the stairs. Run after him, an inner voice screamed. Don’t let him leave!
“Dane!” She ran down the stairs and caught up with him at the front door.
He paused, then turned slowly and faced her. “What is it, Annie?”
“I wanted you to know, before you left, that I think you’re a fine, good man. A true Southern gentleman. You aren’t anything like my ex-husband. I’m sorry that I ever thought you were.”
Her words were like a balm to his soul. He hadn’t even realized how much he longed to hear them. The last thing Dane wanted to do was leave Annie, but he needed to be sure she could accept him for the man he was instead of the man she’d assumed he was. He couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing her again, of never holding her, kissing her, making love to her.
He’d had to face some unpleasant truths lately and perhaps the hardest one to face was admitting that his perfect Lorna had been imperfect.
But Annie isn’t Lorna! he reminded himself. She was nothing like his fragile first wife nor was the way he felt about her the same as he’d felt about Lorna. Annie was a strong woman, capable of being a true life-partner. And what he felt for her was far stronger and more powerful than the delicate love he’d known during his marriage. Real love would be strong enough to weather any storm. With Annie he could have that kind of love.
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