Her sister had been special all right. No one in her family cared that her mind hadn’t matured normally, trapping her in a world of her own while freeing her to be the child she thought she was. Marie had been an innocent who had done an admirable job of helping her take care of her son Hayden. Hayden and her sister had become so attached to each other, she worried about the effects her brutal death would have on him. He had already lost his mother; it didn’t seem fair to add Marie to the list.
The sprinkling of holy water dragged her away from her memories. All that was left to do was to place the casket in the family crypt so Marie could lie alongside their parents and their brother. For one eternal moment, Cain felt almost like an orphan as she stared at the headstones that marked the final resting place of her family.
She felt like crying but heeded well her father’s voice on this one unbending rule. As the head of the Casey family, she had been trained never to show weakness of any kind in public, so now was not the time to grieve. The priest came and momentarily took her hand before patting Hayden on the head. “The church is always here for you, Derby, if you’ve a need to talk. May God bless you and your son.”
Behind them, the line of mourners moved toward their cars, looking like dead flowers cast on a lazy river. None of the attendees wanted to bother them as Cain and Hayden said their last good-byes. The ever-present wall of guards had closed ranks around them, ensuring their privacy. When she didn’t answer, Father Andy joined the others and left them in peace.
Cain felt Hayden’s grip tighten on her arm, drawing her attention from the coffin to him. “Shasta daisies were her favorite. Aunt Marie always said they made her happy.” She stayed silent and listened. Hayden had been beside her when they went to identify the body. Like his mother, Hayden had stoically and with a dry face shown the world the strength the Caseys possessed in abundance.
That her son was almost a carbon copy of her was a relief. A relief not to have to confront the image of his blond birth mother every single day. For Cain, to see any resemblance to the person she hated in the face of the one person she loved more than life would have been one penance too many.
She plucked a flower from the arrangement and handed it to him. “Keep one, son. We’ll press it into one of the books she gave you.”
“Mom?”
She cocked her head to the side to acknowledge his question.
“Would it be okay to cry now? Everyone’s gone.”
God, it sucks to be a Casey heir, she thought. The boy had tried to be strong, but in the end he was only a child. “Honey, of course it’s okay to cry.”
“It’s okay for you too. No one’ll see.”
She put an arm around her son and a fist on the casket. How absurd that on such a rainy day the wood felt warm. She silently let a few tears fall. She held her son and cried for the injustices heaped in the road that marked her life.
When, eventually, Cain turned and signaled they were ready, the mantle of power was back in place. The time to grieve, along with all the other nightmares unleashed when her defenses were down, would have to come later. Now it was time to find those responsible for making this day possible. She knew who had put her sister here and vowed to make him suffer. It wouldn’t be long before he got his own wooden box for his family to cry over.
From a distance the people Cain trusted with her family’s lives tried to ignore the tears in their own eyes as they looked at the casket upon which their boss’s hand rested. They all thought it was a good thing she had such broad shoulders, since the world expected so much of her. But they weren’t the only ones watching. Parked farther up the drive, two vans with darkened windows were abuzz with shutter clicks. All of those in attendance as well as the family were photographed for later cataloguing.
The mantle Cain was born to and had inherited from her father was the reason for the huge amount of interest. Just as her friends had gone into their father’s professions after college, she too had joined the family business. For her, however, it meant becoming the head of one of the most powerful crime families in New Orleans. The strong woman had a reputation for being vicious and hard, but she did have her Achilles’s heel. He was walking by her side—Hayden Dalton Casey—her greatest gift and her only heir. She held the umbrella for both of them as she put her arm around her son and started back to the car.
“Derby?” said Merrick Runyon, Cain’s personal bodyguard. “The padre has guts, I give him that. I haven’t heard anyone except Marie call you that since your mother was alive.” She opened the car door for them.
Before getting in the car, Cain glared at the vans parked not that far away and snarled in their direction. “You’d think they’d give it a rest, especially on a day like today. Fucking vulture bastards.” She spoke loud enough so the mikes trained on her would pick up every word. With a deep breath she let go of the anger and turned to Merrick. “As to Derby, let’s not get into that today. If my parents had met in Paris or somewhere else besides the Kentucky Derby, I wouldn’t have had so much grief over my name.”
“It’s not that bad, Mom.” Hayden bumped shoulders with her and smiled. His eyes were swollen from the crying he had done over his aunt, but he was obviously trying to cheer her up. “Want to watch a movie with me when we get home?”
“Sure, I could use a day off in front of the television.”
“It won’t be the same without Aunt Marie there, but we’ll make it through. Maybe when all this stuff gets better you’ll tell me what happened.”
Cain put her arm around him and kissed his forehead. “Are you willing to give me some time, little man?”
“I trust you, so take all the time you need, but don’t forget I loved her too. I want to know who hurt her and why. I know she didn’t drive, so something else put those cuts and bruises all over her.”
Cain looked at her son and ran her fingers through his dark hair. “How’d you get to be so smart?”
“It’s the Casey genes floating to the top.”
She realized that her father’s old expression was coming back to haunt her, and despite the gloom outside the car window, she laughed. Hayden was right. She would eventually tell him what had happened to their beloved Marie.
Hayden was the rightful heir to the family business, just as she had been her father’s. And like hers, his education concerning the family business had started early. Hopefully, though, they would have more time together than she and her father had shared before circumstances stole him from her life. Hayden was eleven, but having been raised around adults, he was precocious and highly intelligent. He needed to learn what happened to those who hurt vulnerable innocents, especially when their name was Casey.
Chapter Two
Two months had passed since Marie’s funeral, and summer had faded like the fallen magnolia blossoms into an early winter in the city along the Mississippi River. Life had slowly returned to normal. School helped Hayden with his grief, and work helped Cain do the same. Over dinner one night, when he brought the subject up again, she told him what had happened to Marie and to the man who had taken her from them.
At first she didn’t know how to react to the grim face Hayden wore throughout her story, but all he wanted to know was if the guy was dead. She nodded, which he mirrored, and no other questions were necessary between them. It was the last time they had spoken of it, and she hoped the story had helped relieve his share of nightmares.