“That’s enough!” Auntie screamed.
I scrambled toward the rolling ball of testosterone in an attempt to grab something—an arm, a leg—anything to make them stop. But then Trace crouched on his knees, straddling Mead who lay flat on his back.
He proceeded to pummel my cousin’s face, barking out words in between each powerful blow. Twelve years of rage thundered in his voice. “Mother fucker!”
“Trace, no!”
He ignored me. “Tossed dog shit on my mama’s grave!” Whap! “Pissed on it too!” Whap! Whap! Whap! “Let me rot in Gainstown!” Whap! Whap! “Left Lilith bleedin’ like a stuck pig!” Whap! “You gutless cunt!” Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap—
BOOM!
The gunshot exploded off the walls in an ear-popping roar. Trace froze mid-punch. I wheeled around. Auntie stood with her hand raised to the ceiling, her body looking ridiculously small, compared to the huge smoking gun she clutched.
“You’ll stop this madness right now,” she shouted.
After the men uncoiled from the floor, she dropped her arm, as if the gun weighed a ton. Trace righted the chair. Mead staggered to his feet.
“Why?” She tossed the bulky weapon inside a drawer. “Whatever possessed you to visit that woman’s grave?”
Mead wiped at his bloody face with the back of his hand. His left eye was swollen shut, his nose looked to be broken, and his bottom lip was split. This was not the pompous Mead Bradford I’d always known. This was a man stripped of the last vestiges of arrogance, an arrogance he’d worn like a shield.
“I never stopped loving her,” Mead whispered.
Auntie fell into her chair and stared up at her son, eyes wide. “How could you after everything she did?”
Mead didn’t answer, just joggled a shoulder.
Trace righted his chair, sank onto the arm, and braced his knees. The knuckles on both his hands were bloody.
I looked from Mead to Trace, then back to Auntie. “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen next. My lawyer and I have an appointment with the prosecutor’s office tomorrow morning.” When Auntie’s eyes widened even more, I glared at Mead. “You’re lucky West Virginia doesn’t have the death penalty. If it were up to me, you’d fry for what you did to my mother.”
“Go to hell!” Mead yelled.
I ignored him and glared at my aunt. “Everyone else involved will pay the piper too.”
She looked stricken. “Shannon—”
“Don’t ‘Shannon’ me. You’re all liars!” I screamed, giving in to a sudden rise of hysteria. “You’ve covered up the truth just to keep Mead’s sorry ass from prison. Trace didn’t kill my mother. Your son did. You let an innocent man go to jail to save this worthless excuse for a human being!” Auntie wept as I stalked to the desk. “Admit it! For once in your life tell the truth!”
She buried her face in her hands. “Not my son, no.”
“Stay in denial,” I spat. “I don’t care anymore!”
Blood dripped from Mead’s face. “Well, I didn’t kill her!”
“Sure you didn’t, you crazy fuck!” Trace hammered back.
Auntie sobbed to herself as the yelling escalated, with the three of us going at it at once. The men barked obscenities and threats while my high-pitched voice rose above their thunderous shouts every so often.
A minute into it, Auntie pounded her fist on the desk and the arguing abruptly stopped. “Enough!” she blurted, her face painted in misery. Silence reigned for a few spellbinding seconds until she whimpered, “It wasn’t Mead. It was me.”
I stared saucer-eyed and dropped into a secretary’s chair in front of the desk.
Trace came to stand beside me, his steps uneven. Mead, who’d gone snow-white, shook his head in denial, then slowly retreated until he’d backed into a bookcase. He slumped to the floor, speechless.
“No….” It was the only word I could form and it came out a breathless sound.
Auntie’s weeping continued for several moments before she lifted her head again, her red eyes dripping with tears. “Shannon,” she rasped in between sobs, “when you started asking questions, the secrets began taking a toll on Sears—on our marriage. But neither of them—Sears or Jackson—knew I was the one who….” She pulled a hanky from her breast pocket and wiped her eyes. “That’s what put Sears in the hospital. That’s why he’s leaving. I told him. I told him everything. Oh, God.”
“Why did you kill her?” Trace asked, his voice shaky.
She drew a deep breath and stared out of the window. Her eyes appeared vacant, detached. “It wasn’t enough that Lilith came from money. Or that she had a life of unbelievable privilege and her choice of every boy in town.”
Mead wept quietly in the corner, his angry eyes downcast.
“I knew how she felt about my husband. I just never said anything.” Her voice was almost tranquil now. “And when Harrison died, she went after Sears with a vengeance, but he despised her. He’d always thought her shallow, and secretly blamed her for Harrison’s heart attack.”
I listened in bemused silence.
“Sears’ rejection sent her over the edge,” Auntie continued. “There she was, an ex-beauty queen from old money. She couldn’t see how a rich boy like Sears had fallen for a mousy girl from Temptation. Trailer trash at that. It drove her crazy.”
“So that’s why you did it?” Trace asked. “Because she wanted your husband?”
She closed her eyes briefly. “No. It was one thing to go after every man in town—my husband included—but when she went after my son….”
“I already told you,” Mead exploded from his corner. “I went after her!”
Auntie spoke in monotone. “He was barely 21. A baby. And she slept with him. I-I couldn’t just do nothing. She’d already violated my marriage. Was I to let her get away with violating my son?” She shook her head, trance-like. “Mead was destroyed.”
I managed to throw some words together to form a question. “Is that why you almost flunked out of Yale, Mead?”
“I didn’t want to live without her,” Mead whispered. He glared at his mother. “I could have changed her!”
“Fool,” Auntie murmured. To me she said, “Lilith used him to get back at Sears—and to take a swipe at me. That’s what was behind Mead’s acid tongue where she was concerned. He denies it, but deep down he knows she used him like a pawn. He’s been confused about her ever since. And over the years…his feelings for Lilith evolved into a twisted love-hate—”
“Shut up!” Mead snarled.
She looked at me. “The morning Lilith…died, I went to the estate to confront her about you.”
“Why?” I said, bits of my heart falling away.
“The abuse. I overheard Mrs. Campbell and her servants talking during one of Lilith’s dinner parties. Then I saw the bruises myself. I had no choice but to ask her about them. I knew she’d deny it, but I still needed to gauge her response. At that point, I didn’t know about her and Mead. My only intention was to speak with her about you.”
“And?” Trace asked, his tone hard.
She palmed her forehead, lifted the tangle of hair from her eyes. “I didn’t tell Sears. I wanted to confront Lilith first. We were supposed to play tennis that afternoon at the club, so I got there early that morning to invite her to brunch. I found her by the carriage house. In the garden.”
“Oh, God.” Tears gathered in my throat. “I was asleep in the loft. Mother must’ve gone looking for me.”
Auntie sniffed. “I tried to broach the subject carefully. But she…she just snapped. All her rage and bitterness exploded. She told me how stupid I was. That she’d been screwing my son for months. That she’d even had him in my bed!”