A Week From Sunday (8 page)

A sudden noise from the rear of the house stopped him in his tracks. Cocking one ear, he waited for another sound. Moments later, he heard it again.
Someone was here!
Setting the picture back down on the mantel, he hurried over and snapped off the lights, returning the room to darkness.

As he moved down a hallway toward the sound, his heart pounded in his ears with such force that he would have sworn that it could be heard by others. Another sound, the clinking of dishes, reached him. He pressed forward, creeping carefully, cautiously, but with purpose.
Could it be that Adrianna has returned? Has she come to her senses after all?
Light spilled from a crack in the door that led to the kitchen. Taking a deep breath, he flung the door open.

“Ahhh!” a woman’s shrill voice shrieked.

It was not Adrianna. His prospective bride was dainty and beautiful, but the woman he found in the kitchen was plump and especially homely. Her eyes bulged widely underneath her mop of straggly hair. One heavy hand flew to cover her heaving bosom. She was one of the Moores’ housekeepers, and his mind raced for her name.
Was it Stella? Blanche? Pansy?
Somehow, all of this served only to make him angrier.

“Where is she?” he thundered as he grabbed the woman’s arm.

“I-I-I don’t know what . . .” she stammered through ragged breaths.

“Don’t play stupid with me, you bitch!” As he spoke, he shook her viciously. Her large breasts jiggled as she was rocked one way and then the other. “I know damn well that you’ve got your eyes and ears glued to the goings-on in this house! Where the hell did she go?”

“I saw . . . saw Miss Moore pack up her . . . things but I don’t know . . .” Before she could manage any more, Richard raised one hand and slapped her hard across the face. The force of the blow knocked her head into the wall and she immediately burst into tears. She sobbed and tried to cover her face with her hands. But he grabbed her wrists and forced her hands down.

“Shut up your damn bawlin’ and look at me!” he shouted. In that moment, Richard was so angry he feared he would kill her if that was the only way to discover Adrianna’s whereabouts. Even as the thought settled over him, he was not surprised. He was tired of the battle to get what was justifiably his. He’d not allow it, especially not from
this
ignorant clod!

“Mr. Pope . . . Mr. Pope,” she pleaded, her face red and blotchy. She tried to choke down the sobs but could not. “Miss Moore asked me to come back and clean the house today and to take what I wanted from the garden. She didn’t tell me where she was going or why, I swear it!”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not! Honest, Mr. Pope! I only talked to her for a few minutes. She gave me a bag of her old clothes and paid me for today. I have worked for Miss Adrianna and Mr. Moore for a year. She gave me a key and trusted me to come and clean after she was gone.”

“When did she leave?”

“I don’t know, sir. But the day I was here, she put some things in the car.”

“What things?”

“Boxes and stuff like that.”

“I will ask you one more time,” he said, raising his hand as if to strike her again. “Where did she go?”

“I swear to you, sir,” she said quickly, fearful of another blow. Her eyes moved frantically across the lawyer’s face, as if she were searching for some crumb of compassion, anything that would make him believe she was telling the truth. “I don’t know where she ran off to! She didn’t make no mention!”

“Why do you say she ran off? Maybe she just went to visit someone. Damn you! Don’t you spread the rumor around that she ran off.”

“I won’t, sir . . . I swear I won’t.”

Looking into the woman’s frightened eyes, Richard knew she wasn’t lying, that Adrianna wouldn’t entrust a secret to this stupid woman. He had to try a different tactic. “Then where do you
think
she went?”

“I . . . I . . . don’t know.”

“Come on, you fat fool!” he shouted, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her viciously. “If she didn’t tell you her destination, you must be able to guess where she went. You’ve been here long enough to know her habits!”

“I don’t know!” she pleaded. “She ain’t got no family around here no more. All of Mr. Moore’s brothers died years ago! You got to believe me! You just got to!”

“Has she ever mentioned anything about the relatives on her mother’s side?” Richard continued to press. “Did she have any family that she would know of? You’d better come up with something or you’ll spend the next year in jail. I’ll swear you were stealing from this house.”

“No! No! I never did! I swear I have never taken anything that Miss Adrianna didn’t give me.”

“It makes no difference if you did or not, I’ll say you did, and you know my word carries a lot of weight in this town.”

“But sir!”

“Goddamnit! What about her mother’s brothers or sisters? I’m asking you for the last time.”

A flicker of recognition flashed across the woman’s face and her mouth quickly opened but was abruptly shut. Whatever she knew, she was reluctant to part with. An eruption of fury raged in Richard’s chest, and he raised his hand to strike her another blow, this one sure to be harder than the first. But before he could let it loose, the dam of her silence broke and she blurted out, “Her mother’s sister lives in Mississippi, I think.”

“Where in Mississippi?” he demanded, the hand still raised as a threat.

“I don’t know what town.”

“Do you know her aunt’s name? Well, never mind. I can find out.”

Suddenly, everything became clear to him—what she had done, how she had done it, and most important, where she had gone. It was as if a lightning bolt had blazed through his head, illuminating all that had been hidden. Shoving the housekeeper aside, he went out the rear entrance of the house and across the short lawn to the garage that sat at the rear of the property. Yanking open the twin doors, he found just what he had expected.

Charles Moore’s automobile was gone, taken by his wayward daughter.
How dare she take the car.
It was “his” car. It had been left to him in Charles’s will. He had already put the title in his name.

She has stolen
my
car.

As he stood in the cool night, the light wind pushing the wisps of his thinning hair in a bizarre dance, Richard Pope’s mind raced. As a lawyer he had been making decisions affecting life and death for years, and he knew what he had to do. If she had gone to Mississippi—and he had no reason to think anything else at this point—it would be easy to locate her with his resources.
Won’t she be surprised when she arrives and finds me waiting there for her.
He immediately began to feel better.

“Oh, my sweet Adrianna,” he said as he rubbed himself with her panties again. The anger that had filled his chest upon entering the house was slowly dissipating. As he calmed, he began to even look forward to the chase—wherever it might lead—and the challenges that lay ahead. “I’ll play your silly game for a while, you little hussy.” He chuckled. This time when he found her he would no longer be the gentleman she had known. He would show her, in no uncertain terms, that he was the master and she belonged to him.

Chapter 7

Q
UINN HURRIED DOWN
the steps, through the squeaky wrought-iron gate, and out into the gloomy night. As he walked toward the Whipsaw, his hands thrust deeply into his pockets, a light breeze stirred the leaves of the treetops, bringing with it the fresh smell of impending rain. Even though this day’s storm had passed, another would surely be close behind. Springtime in Lee’s Point was nothing if not wet! On the far horizon, the sun had nearly set. Deep crimson and purple streaks colored the tops of the billowy clouds.

Quinn’s father had named the tavern the Whipsaw, thinking it appropriate for the logging community. A whipsaw was a narrow, seven-foot, two-person, crosscut saw with hooked teeth, used to cut logs into planks.

Operating the Whipsaw was not a labor of love for Quinn; that honor had belonged to his father. As he had built the home in which Quinn now lived, John Henry Baxter had constructed the tavern with his own two hands, tending and caring for it as if he were a farmer trying to raise fields of crops. At first, the new business struggled to make ends meet but, through years of hard work and dedication, it had managed to find its legs and thrive. People had come from miles around to find a place to forget their worries for a while. It was assumed that the Whipsaw would always be a fixture in Lee’s Point.

That assumption had held true until the day John Henry Baxter died.

While Quinn had respected his father, he had never admired John Henry, and he’d certainly never wanted to follow in his footsteps. John Henry had been a pious man who rarely imbibed in the stock that he traded; he truly believed that you could achieve anything you wanted . . . providing you were willing to sacrifice for it. To that end, he had worked day and night, tirelessly trying to improve his lot, even if it meant neglecting his family. Such dedication had won him a heart attack and an early grave.

Quinn had marched to a different drummer. He’d chafed at going to school, but gone anyway and given it his best effort. He had attended church for his mother’s sake but was not interested in the piano lessons she had pushed upon him . . . although they might have come in handy, given the current circumstances! His father had wanted him to follow in the family business, but instead, Quinn had left home to go to the mill, promising himself that he would never be a tavern operator. He’d held that promise for nearly eight years. His father’s death had forced him to go back on his word.

Running the tavern had proven to be far more of a challenge than he had thought it would be. The responsibilities weighed heavily on his shoulders. He was determined to make the Whipsaw a success for Jesse’s sake. Jesse would need a way to make a living after he finished school. Luckily, he’d made one very good decision: hiring Gabe LeBlanc to tend the bar. Together, the two men had somehow managed to keep things running smoothly.

As he rounded a corner and moved onto Main Street, Quinn could see people milling about. After many long, hard hours of work, followed by the quiet of a family meal, quite a few of Lee’s Point’s residents longed to get out and relax. For many, relaxation meant nothing more than visiting friends for a game of cards. Others found church socials more to their taste. But for a large number, a night of singing and dancing, fueled by a touch of liquor, did the trick. To that end, there was the Whipsaw.

He waved a few greetings, shouted a “hello,” turned another couple of corners and minutes later was standing in front of the tavern. The Whipsaw was a squat one-story building that was only half as wide as it was long. A pair of rectangular windows looked out onto the street, spilling scant light from inside. Above the front door, a weather-beaten sign in desperate need of a new coat of paint spelled out the bar’s name.

Suddenly, Quinn thought of Adrianna. He’d been hard on her today, certainly harder than he’d needed to be, but he couldn’t deny that the accident had made him irritable . . . for a number of different reasons. The way she’d entered his life had been abrupt, much like the accident itself, but she now was a part of it . . . for a while anyway. Still, she was different from any woman he’d ever met. She was educated, well-mannered, and even a tad delicate, a far cry from the women he’d known. When she spoke, people listened; what she said, as well as the simple sound of her voice, seemed to grab hold of him, refusing to let go.
What am I thinking, bringing her to this place?

Shaking his head, he pushed open the door and entered the bar.

The first thing that struck him was the sound: pieces of conversation mixed with bursts of laughter and the clinking of glasses. Occasionally, the scrape of a chair leg against the hardwood floor carried across the din. Men and women sat in groups at the mismatched tables and chairs that were set haphazardly about the long, rectangular room. Some of the tables had cloth covers draped over their scarred tops, but most were bare. The light was much gloomier than the tavern’s mood; a dull glow came from the fixtures that were stuck to the walls and the naked bulbs that hung from the ceiling. Smoke from cigars and cigarettes floated above the tables. The Whipsaw wasn’t the fanciest place, but it was clean. Although it was still early in the evening, the tavern had begun to fill up. Even on a weeknight, there was a good chance that the Whipsaw would have a decent crowd.

“Well, if it ain’t Quinn Baxter, I done do swear!”

Quinn turned at the sound of the voice to see a disheveled mess of a man ambling toward him, a drink in one gnarled hand. Roy Long had been a fixture in the town for as long as anyone could remember. Topped with straggly white hair, his wrinkled face wore a perpetual stubble. Soiled clothes hung loosely from his rail-thin frame. Somewhere in his late fifties or early sixties (no one was really sure how old he was), Roy swore that he was a distant relative of Huey Long, the man who had been Louisiana’s governor up until a couple of years earlier. Since Roy, often quite drunk, was prone to exaggerate, no one gave this tall tale much credit.

“Evening, Roy,” Quinn greeted the older man.

“Damn shame what happened to all that there booze, I done do swear!” Amongst other things, Roy Long was known for the way in which he often ended his sentences. The phrase was like a caboose that always managed to hang on to the runaway locomotive that was his everyday speech.