CHAPTER THIRTY
A Smoking Gun
SHANNON
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I’d planned to go to my room and pack, but the light spilling from beneath Uncle’s study beckoned me. Granny Mae had dragged Digger to Atlantic City with her church group. They weren’t due back until tomorrow. Uncle was still in the hospital, and unless my dates were wrong—I glanced at my watch—Auntie was playing tennis at the country club.
I breezed past the towering Christmas tree in the foyer and made my way down the hall to the study. Peering inside the two-inch door crack, I saw Auntie seated at Uncle’s desk fiddling with something in a side drawer.
A crystal decanter of brandy and an empty goblet topped the desk. Half past noon and she was drinking? Upon closer inspection, I noticed she hadn’t changed. She wore the same hunter green cashmere slit dress she’d had on yesterday at the hospital.
Auntie shoved a flyaway curl off her face, upended the decanter, and splashed a generous amount into the huge goblet. After taking a belt, she went back to messing with the desk.
I nudged the door open. It gave a low wail. “Auntie?”
Slamming the drawer, she speared a look of surprise in my direction. The woman appeared frazzled, her eyes wild. Everything about her was amiss. Her hair, usually kept neat and impeccable, lay in a messy heap atop her crown, with droopy and otherwise frizzy curls that floated around her head like Medusa’s snakes. Her face was pale and papery, her makeup a blur, her eyes and nose were bright pink.
I came in wholesale. “What’s going on?”
Auntie pushed her hair out of her face. She sagged in the chair and her chest heaved with relief. “I wondered when you would be home,” she said in a raw whisper. “Where’ve you been?”
“Out.” I stood in the center of the room, arms folded. “Tell me you weren’t up all night.”
“Okay, then I won’t.” Auntie raised the goblet to her chapped lips in one swift move. After she set the glass down, she made a face and tacked a hand over her heart, as if to force a sense of calm. “Jackson called. He told me everything.”
I kept my face expressionless. “So you were in on it.”
She threw a hand up. “Oh, what does it matter? The end justified the means. We were trying to protect you.”
“No. You were protecting yourselves. Obstruction is a federal offense. So is witness tampering.”
Auntie glowered, seeming to weigh the merits of responding, then made a dismissive gesture. “I can’t deal with this right now.” She grabbed her goblet. “Your uncle is divorcing me.”
The news hit me like a shockwave. I felt my way to the nearest chair. No matter how disgusted I was, Auntie had been a mother to me, and I still loved her deeply.
When I’d recovered my power of speech, I asked, “Are you all right?”
“No.” Her hand trembled around the goblet. She gazed into the brown liquid. “Are you leaving me too?”
I stared back dumbly for a second. “Yes.”
“But this is your home.” She made a coarse motion and the liquor swished around in the goblet. “You can’t just leave!”
“I’ll sign Briar over to you and Uncle,” I said in a quiet voice. “I can’t live here anymore.”
“What do you mean? After all I sacrificed to keep this family together? You’re all…you’re all so ungrateful!”
“Auntie, please.”
“Please what? How do you expect me to remain calm when everything I’ve built is crumbling around me?” She looked lost. Tears dripped down her face. “Sears says he’s moving out. Now you’re turning on me too.”
“I’m not. I’m just trying to fix a mistake.”
“You haven’t made any, save this Butcher Boy nonsen—” She stopped on a gasp and shoved to her feet.
“Good afternoon, ladies.”
I tore around. Trace was silhouetted in the hallway. We looked at each other, and I could still see the pain I’d left him with earlier, deep in his eyes.
He glanced away first.
“How did you get in?” Auntie demanded.
“The door.” Trace sauntered into the room as if he owned it. “I told the old woman with the nasty blue wig not to announce me. She didn’t care anyway. Said she didn’t work here anymore.”
I pressed a palm to my heart. “That was Mrs. Ordon. The housekeeper. Auntie, what in the world— Where’s Gerard?”
“I fired him. I fired them all.”
“But he’s been with me since…since Mother!”
“Obviously it was time for him to move on.” She flopped back down and drained her goblet. “Get out, both of you.”
I was still in stun-mode when Trace settled into a chair next to me. “I just stopped by to let you in on a little secret Tori Mills—”
“I found your sedatives,” Mead announced. He rushed in so fast he didn’t notice Trace and I sitting off to the side.
“I thought I told you to go home,” Auntie snapped.
“Mom, please.” Mead uncapped a prescription bottle, shook a pill out, and handed it to her. “I wasn’t about to leave you like this. Where is everybody? The house is completely empty. I can’t even find that stupid—”
Auntie’s panic-stricken features must have tipped Mead off because he dropped the pill bottle and spun around. His surprised expression slid into a murderous frown. “What the hell is he doing here?”
Trace grinned. “Tori says the mayor’s been decorating Lilith’s grave with calla lilies.”
My jaw dropped.
“What is he talking about?” Auntie asked.
Mead’s frown turned uglier. He scowled. “Who the hell cares? He’s lying.”
“If you don’t believe me, call the flower shop,” Trace said. “Tori’s got it on her computer—at least the past five years or so. Now why would you do that, Mr. Mayor? As I recall Shannon said somethin’ about Lilith not being on your list of favorite people. Naw, wait a minute.” He issued the rhetorical question to me. “Wasn’t the word you used ‘despised’?”
I sat forward, heart racing. “Mead?”
Auntie turned to her pale-faced son. “Is it true? Have you been visiting that whore’s grave?”
I blinked at her choice of words.
“Mead!” Auntie pleaded.
His expression turned defiant. “Yes! Yes! Yes! Every year on her birthday. Every year without fail I’ve laid flowers on Lilith’s grave. So what?”
“Why would you do that?” I asked, nonplussed. “After all the vile things you’ve said about her. It makes no sense.”
My cousin shoved his hands in his trouser pockets. He stalked to the window and glowered outside. “I have my reasons.”
“Reasons?” Auntie snapped. “You’ve been secretly pining!”
“Leave me alone,” Mead muttered.
She raised her voice. “Year after year, defiling yourself over a whore who couldn’t care less about you.”
“Tell me somethin’, Mr. Mayor,” Trace said through thin lips. “Did you happen to pop by my mama’s grave during one of your secret visits?”
Mead just chuckled to himself, his back still to us. Something dark and bitter vibrated beneath that laugh.
“Answer me!” Trace growled.
“Perhaps.”
Trace’s eyes narrowed. “What the fuck does that mean?”
Mead rounded on him, teeth bared. “That your low-life mother had no business in the same cemetery as Lilith! Dig her up. Get her out, you psychotic piece of shit!”
Before I could draw another breath, Trace barreled into Mead, head first. The two men went flying, slamming into the wall in a knot of arms, legs, and fists. Chairs writhed back and forth.