After the Night (7 page)

He put the car into gear and drove away, leaving the last remnants of his boyhood behind on the rutted dirt track.

He went first into Prescott, to Alex’s office. He would have to move fast to salvage anything. Andrea broke into a smile when he came in, something women often did at the sight of him. Color heightened a little on her round, pleasant face. She was forty-five, old enough to be his mother, but age had nothing to do with her instinctive female reaction to his tall, muscular presence.

Gray automatically returned the smile, but his mind was racing with plans. "Is anyone with Alex? I need to see him."

"No, he’s alone. Go on in, hon."

Gray walked past her desk and into Alex’s office, firmly closing the door behind him. Alex looked up from the well-ordered mountain of files on his desk, and got to his feet. His good-looking face was taut with worry. "Did you find him?"

Gray shook his head. "Renee Devlin’s gone, too."

"Oh, God." Alex collapsed back into his chair and shut his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I can’t believe it. I didn’t think he was serious. My God, why would he be? He was – " He stopped and opened his eyes, flushing a little.

"Fucking her anyway," Gray finished bluntly. He walked over to the window and stood with his hands in his pockets, looking down on the main street. Prescott was a small town, only about fifteen thousand citizens, but today traffic hummed around the courthouse square. Soon everyone down there would know that Guy Rouillard had left his wife and children and run off with the Devlin whore.

"Does your mama know?" Alex’s voice was strained.

Gray shook his head. "Not yet. I’ll tell her and Monica when I go home." The original shock and pain had gone, leaving behind a ruthless willpower and a certain remoteness, as if he were standing at a distance watching himself go through the motions. Some of that distance leaked into his tone, making him sound cool and steady. "Did Dad leave a letter of proxy with you?"

Until then, evidently, Alex had thought only of the personal ramifications of Guy’s defection. Now the legal aspects dawned on him, and his eyes widened with horror. "Shit," he said, lapsing into unusual vulgarity. "No, he
didn’t. If he had, I’d have known he was serious about leaving and tried to stop him."

"There may be a letter in the desk at home. He may call in a day or so. If so, there’s no problem with the financial side of things. But if there isn’t a letter, and he doesn’t call… I can’t afford to wait. I’ll have to liquidate as much as I can, before news of this gets around and stock prices drop like a rock."

"He’ll call," Alex said feebly. "He has to. He can’t just walk away from this kind of financial obligation. A fortune is involved!"

Gray shrugged, his face a careful blank. "He walked away from his family. I can’t afford to assume that the business means more to him." He paused. "I don’t think he’ll come back or call. I think he meant to walk away from everything and never come back. He’s been teaching me as much as he could, and now I know why. If he had meant to stay in charge of everything, he wouldn’t have done that."

"Then there should be a letter of proxy," Alex said insistently. "Guy was too sharp of a businessman not to have taken care of that."

"Maybe, but I have Mother and Monica to think about. I can’t wait. I have to liquidate now, and get as much money as I can, so I’ll have something to work with and rebuild. If I don’t, and he doesn’t make arrangements, we won’t have a pot to piss in."

Alex swallowed, but he nodded. "Okay. I’ll start doing what I can to shore up your legal position, but I have to tell you, unless Guy gets back in touch or left a letter of proxy, it’s a mess. Everything is tied up unless Noelle divorces him and the court awards her half of his assets, but that will take time."

"I have to plan for the worst," Gray said. "I’ll go home and look for a letter, but don’t wait until you hear from me to get started. If there isn’t a letter, I’ll call the broker immediately and start selling. Either way, I’ll let you know. Keep it quiet until I call."

Alex got to his feet. "I won’t even let Andrea know." He shoved his hands through his dark hair, an indication of his
worry, because Alex wasn’t given to nervous gestures. His gray eyes were dark with misery. "I’m sorry, Gray. I feel like this is my fault. I should have done something."

Gray shook his head. "Don’t blame yourself. Like you said, who would have thought he was serious? No, the only people I blame are Dad and Renee Devlin." He gave a wintry smile. "I can’t imagine anything she had being good enough to make him walk out on his family, but evidently it was." He paused, lost for a moment in the grimness of his thoughts, then shook himself and headed toward the door. "I’ll call you when I find out something."

After he had gone, Alex sank back into his chair, his movements stiff and feeble. He barely managed to control his expression when Andrea popped into the office, alive with curiosity. "What’s going on with Gray?"

"Nothing much. A personal matter he wanted to talk over with me."

She was disappointed that he didn’t confide in her. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"No, everything will be all right." He sighed, and rubbed his eyes. "Why don’t you go on to lunch, and bring me back a sandwich or something. I’m waiting for a call, so I can’t leave."

"Okay. What do you want?"

He waved his hand. "Anything. You know what I like. Surprise me."

She rambled around in the outer office for a few minutes, cutting off the computer he’d bought the year before, storing the disks, collecting her purse. After she’d gone, Alex waited a few minutes before going into the other room and locking the door. Then he sat down in her chair and turned on the computer, and swiftly began typing. "Damn you, Guy," he whispered. "You son of a bitch."

Gray parked the Corvette in front of the five wide steps leading up to the covered porch and double front doors, though Noelle frowned on that and preferred that the family’s cars be properly protected and out of sight in the attached garage behind. The front drive was for visitors, who shouldn’t be able to tell which family members were at
home by the vehicles parked in front. That way, one felt no obligation to admit to being there, and thus forced to receive unwanted guests. Some of Noelle’s notions were positively Victorian; usually he indulged her, but today he had more important things on his mind, and was in a hurry.

He leaped up the steps with two strides, and pushed open the door. Monica had probably been watching from her bedroom window, because she was hurrying down the stairs, anxiety twisting her face. "Daddy
still
hasn’t come home!" she hissed, glancing toward the breakfast parlor, where Noelle was evidently lingering over a late breakfast. "Why did you break the window in his study, then light out of here like a cat with its tail on fire? And why did you park in front? Mother won’t like that."

Guy didn’t answer, but strode rapidly down the hall to the study, his bootheels thudding on the parquet floor. Monica rushed after him, and slipped into the study as he began examining, one by one, the papers on Guy’s desk.

"I don’t believe Alex told the truth about the poker game," she said, her lips trembling a little. "Call him again, Gray. Make him tell you where Daddy is."

"In a minute," Gray murmured, not sparing her a glance. None of the papers on top of the desk was a letter of proxy. He began opening drawers.

"Gray!" Her voice rose sharply. "Surely finding Daddy’s more important than looking through his desk!"

He stopped, took a deep breath, and straightened. "Monica, honey, sit down over there and hush," he said in a kind tone that nevertheless was underlaid with steel. "I have to look for a very important paper that Dad may have left here. I’ll be with you in a minute."

She opened her mouth to say something else, but he gave her a look that changed her mind. Silently, vague surprise on her face, she sat down, and Gray returned to his search.

Five minutes later, he sat back with the taste of defeat bitter in his mouth. There was no letter. It didn’t make sense. Why would Guy have gone to so much trouble to teach him everything, then leave without providing the proxies? As Alex had said, Guy was too smart not to have thought of it. If he intended to stay in charge himself, why
had he bothered to give Gray such intense instruction? Maybe he had intended to turn over the reins to Gray, then changed his mind. That was the only other explanation there could be. In that case, they would be hearing from him again, within a few days at the most, because his financial dealings were too complicated to leave for longer than that.

But, as he’d told Alex, he couldn’t afford to assume things would be taken care of. He couldn’t imagine Guy
not
taking care of business, but until this morning he hadn’t been able to imagine Guy leaving them for Renee Devlin, either. The impossible had happened, so how could he blindly trust in anything else he had always assumed to be true of his father? Responsibility for his mother and sister weighed heavily on his shoulders. He couldn’t risk their welfare.

He reached for the telephone, but it wasn’t there. Dimly he remembered throwing it earlier, and glanced at the window that was now boarded over, awaiting new panes. He got up and walked out into the hallway, to the phone on the table at the foot of the stairs. Monica trailed after him, still silent but plainly resenting the restriction.

He called Alex first. Alex answered the phone on the first ring. "No letter," Gray said briefly. "See what you can do about getting power of attorney for me, or anything else that will shore up my position." Power of attorney was a long shot, but maybe a few strings could be pulled.

"I’ve already started," Alex said quietly.

Next Gray called his broker. His instructions were brief, and explicit. If worst came to worst, he would need every bit of ready cash he could scrape together.

Now for the hardest part. Monica was staring at him, her big, dark eyes filled with alarm. "Something’s wrong, isn’t it?" she asked.

He mentally braced himself, then took Monica’s hand in his. "Let’s go talk to Mother," he said.

She started to ask something else, but he shook his head. "I can only say it once," he said, his voice rough.

Noelle was enjoying her last cup of tea as she read the society section of the New Orleans newspaper. Prescott had its own small weekly paper, in which she was regularly mentioned, but being in the New Orleans paper was what
really counted. Her name was listed there often enough to make her the envy of the rest of the parish society. She was dressed in her favorite white, with her sleek dark hair pulled back into a French twist. Her makeup was minimal but perfect, her jewelry expensive but understated. There was nothing gaudy or frivolous about Noelle, not one bow or ruffle or jarring bit of color, just clean, classic lines. Even her nails never wore anything but clear polish.

She looked up as Gray and Monica entered the breakfast parlor, and her gaze flicked briefly to their clasped hands. She didn’t comment on it, though, for that would express personal interest, and perhaps invite the same. "Good morning, Gray," she greeted him, her voice perfectly composed as always. Noelle could violently hate someone, but the person would never be able to tell by her voice; it never revealed warmth, affection, anger, or any other emotion. Such a display would be common, and Noelle allowed nothing about herself to sink to that low standard. "Shall I call for another pot of tea?"

"No, thank you, Mother. I need to talk to you and Monica; something serious has happened." He felt Monica’s hand tremble in his, and squeezed it reassuringly.

Noelle put aside the newspaper. "Should we be more private?" she asked, concerned that one of the servants would overhear them discussing a personal matter.

"There’s no need." Gray pulled out a chair for Monica, then stood behind her with one hand on her shoulder. Noelle would be upset because of the social nuances, the embarrassment of it, but Monica’s pain would be worse. "I don’t know of any way to make this easier. He didn’t leave a note or anything like that, but Dad seems to have left town with Renee Devlin. They’re both gone."

Noelle’s slender hand fluttered toward her throat. Monica was motionless, not even breathing.

"I’m sure he wouldn’t take a woman like that on a business trip," Noelle said with calm certainty. "Think how it would look."

"Mother – " Gray cut himself off, stifling his impatience. "He isn’t on a business trip. Dad and Renee Devlin have run away together. He won’t be coming back."

Monica gave a thin cry, and pressed both hands to her mouth to cut
off
the sound. Noelle’s face lost its color, but her movements were precise as she placed her teacup in the center of the saucer. "I’m sure you’re mistaken, dear. Your father wouldn’t risk his social position for – "

"For God’s sake, Mother!" Gray snapped, his tenuous control on his patience snapping like a thread. "Dad doesn’t give a rat’s ass about his social position. You’re the one it’s important to, not him!"

"Grayson, it isn’t necessary to be vulgar."

He ground his teeth together. It was typical of her to ignore something she found unpleasant and focus on the trivial. "Dad’s gone," he said, deliberately emphasizing the words. "He’s left you for Renee. They’ve run away together, and he won’t be coming back. No one else knows it yet, but it’ll probably be all over the parish by tomorrow morning."