Shades of Twilight (15 page)

"It doesn't matter," he said, and gently but firmly removed his hand from her grip.

The rejection was like a blow to the face. Roanna swayed under the impact, her expression stark with despair. Webb muttered a curse under his breath and reluctantly lifted his hand to steady her, but Roanna stepped back.

"I understand," she said, still in a whisper.

"I won't bother you anymore." Then she slipped away, as insubstantial as a black-clad ghost.

Somehow she kept her control. It was easier now, as if the layer of ice that encased her kept everything from spilling out. Webb's rejection had almost cracked the ice, but after the initial blow, the layer had thickened in self-defense, becoming even stronger. The hot sun beat down on her, but Roanna wondered if she would ever be warm again.

She had scarcely slept since the night she'd found Jessie's body. Every time she closed her eyes, the bloody image seemed to be painted on the inside of her eyelids, where she couldn't escape it. Guilt and misery kept her from eating more than a few bites, and she had lost even more weight, The family was being kinder to her, perhaps because of their own guilt about the way they had treated her immediately after she'd found Jessie's body, when they had thought Roanna had killed her cousin, but it didn't matter. It was too little, too late. Roanna felt so distant from them, from everything, that sometimes it was as if she wasn't even there.

After the grave had been filled and the multitude of flowers positioned to cover the raw earth, all of the family and a good many others drove back to Davencourt. The upstairs had been off-limits for two days, then Sheriff Watts had simply sealed off the murder scene and let the remainder of the floor be used, though everyone had felt strange at first. Only Cousin Baron and his family were staying at the house, though, since all of the other relatives lived close by. Webb hadn't slept at Davencourt since Jessie's murder. He spent his days there, but at night he went to a motel. Aunt Gloria had said that she was relieved, because she wouldn't have felt safe with him in the house at night, and Roanna had wanted to slap her. Only a desire not to cause Grandmother more stress had restrained her.

Tansy had prepared huge amounts of food to feed the expected crowd and had been glad of the opportunity to keep herself busy. People wandered in and out of the dining room where the buffet had been arranged, filling plates and returning to gather in small groups where they discussed the situation in hushed voices.

Webb shut himself in the study. Roanna walked down to the stables and stood at the fence, finding comfort in watching the horses graze. Buckley saw her and trotted over, thrusting his head over the fence to be patted. Roanna hadn't been riding since Jessie's death; in fact, this was her first visit to the stables. She scratched behind Buckley's ears and crooned soothingly to him, but her mind wasn't on what she was saying, it was just automatic noise. He didn't seem to mind, though; his eyes half closed in delight, and he made a grunting noise.

"He's missed you," Loyal said, coming up behind her. He had changed out of the suit he'd worn to the funeral and was now clad in his more familiar khakis and boots.

"I've missed him, too."

Loyal propped his arms on the top railing and surveyed his kingdom, his gaze warming as he watched the sleek, healthy animals he loved.

"You don't look too good," he said bluntly.

"You need to take better care of yourself. The horses need you."

"It's been a bad time," she replied, her voice lifeless.

"Sure has," he agreed.

"It still don't seem real. And it's a

shame how folks are treating Mr. Webb. Why, he no more killed Miss Jessie than I did. Anybody who knows anything about him would know that." Loyal had been extensively questioned about the night of the murder. He'd heard Webb leave and agreed with everyone else that the time was between eight and eight-thirty, but hadn't heard any cars after that until the sheriff had been called and the county vehicles arrived on the scene. He'd been awakened from a sound sleep by Roanna's scream, a sound that could still make him wince when he remembered it.

"People only see what they want to see," Roanna said.

"Uncle Harlan just likes the sound of his own voice, and Aunt Gloria's a fool."

"What do you reckon will happen now? With them living here, I mean."

"I don't know."

"How's Miss Lucinda holding up?"

Roanna shook her head.

"Dr. Graves is keeping her on mild sedatives. She loved Jessie a lot. She still cries all the time." Lucinda had been frighteningly diminished by Jessie's death, as if this had been one blow too many for even her nature. She had pinned all her hopes for the future on Webb and Jessie, and now it looked as if her plans had been destroyed, with Jessie dead and Webb suspected of her murder. Roanna. had kept waiting for Grandmother to go to Webb and put her arms around him, tell him that she believed in him. But for whatever reason, whether Grandmother was too paralyzed with grief or maybe because she did think Webb could have killed Jessie, it hadn't happened. Couldn't Grandmother see how much Webb needed her? Or was she in so much pain that she couldn't see his?

Roanna felt nothing but dread for the coming days.

"We got the results of the autopsy back," Booley said to Webb the day after the funeral. They were in Booley's office again. Webb felt as if he'd spent more time there since Jessie's death than he had anywhere else.

The initial shock had passed, but the grief and anger were still bottled up inside him, all the more potent for having to be kept under restraint. He didn't dare let his control slip, or his rage would explode over everyone: his so-called friends, who had stayed as far away from him as if he'd been a leper; his business associates, some of whom had seemed secretly pleased at his trouble, the bastards; and most of all his loving family, who all apparently thought him a murderer. Only Roanna had approached him and said she was sorry. Because she'd accidentally killed Jessie herself, and was afraid to say so? He couldn't know for certain, no matter what he suspected. What he did know was that she too had avoided him, Roanna who had always done her best to stay right at his heels, and that she was definitely feeling guilty about something.

He couldn't help worrying about her. He could tell that she wasn't eating, and she was alarmingly pale. She had changed in other, more subtle ways, too, ways he couldn't analyze because he was still so angry he couldn't focus on those tiny differences.

"Did you know Jessie was pregnant?" Booley asked.

If he hadn't already been sitting, Webb's legs would have folded beneath him. He stared at Booley in silent shock.

"I guess not," Booley said. Damn, this case had as many hidden little twists as a maze. Webb was still the best bet for Jessie's killer, which -wasn't saying much, but the evidence wasn't there. There wasn't much evidence, period; no witnesses and no known motive. He couldn't convict a gnat on the evidence he had. Webb's alibi had checked out, Roanna's testimony had established that Jessie had been alive when Webb had stormed out, so they had nothing but a corpse. A pregnant corpse, as it turned out.

"She was about seven weeks along, according to the report. Had she been puking or anything?"

Webb shook his head. His lips felt numb. Seven weeks. The baby wasn't his. Jessie had been cheating on him. He swallowed the lump in his throat, trying to consider what this meant. He'd had no indication she'd been unfaithful, and there hadn't been any gossip either; in a small town,

there would have been gossip, and Booley's investigation would have turned up something. If he told Booley that the baby wasn't his, that would be considered a believable motive for killing her. But what if her lover had killed her? Without even a guess as to who the man might be, there was no way of finding out, even assuming Booley would listen to him.

He had kept quiet when he thought Roanna might have killed Jessie, and now he found himself forced into the same position again. For whatever reason, because he couldn't bring himself to destroy Ro or because disclosing that Jessie's baby wasn't his and bringing even more suspicion down on his own head, his wife's murderer was going to go unpunished. The impotent rage welled up again, eating him alive like acid; rage at Jessie, at Roanna, at everyone, and most of all at himself.

"If she knew," he finally said, his voice hoarse, "she hadn't told me."

"Well, some women know right off, and some don't. My wife didn't miss a period for four months with our first; we had no idea why she was throwing up all the time. Don't know why they call it morning sickness, because Bethalyn puked all hours of the day and night. We never knew what would set it off. But now, with the others, she knew pretty soon. Guess she learned how to spot it. Anyway, I'm sorry about this, Webb. About the baby and all. And, uh, we'll keep the case open, but frankly we don't have jack shit to go on.”

Webb sat for a moment, staring at the whiteness of his knuckles as he gripped the arms of the chair.

"Does this mean you're not investigating me anymore?"

"I guess it does."

"I can leave town?"

"Can't stop you."

Webb stood up. He was still pale. He stopped at the door and looked back at Booley.

"I didn't kill her," he said. Booley sighed.

"It was a possibility. I had to check it out."

"I know."

"I wish I could find the killer for you, but it don't look good."

"I know," Webb said again and quietly closed the door behind him.

Sometime during the short drive to the motel, he made his decision.

He packed his clothes, checked out of the motel, and drove back to Davencourt. His gaze was bitter as he surveyed the grand old house, crowning a slight rise with its graceful and gracious wings spread wide, like welcoming arms. He had loved it here, a prince in his own kingdom, knowing that one day it would all be his. He had been willing to work himself into the ground for the sake of his kingdom. He had married the chosen princess. Hell, he had been more than willing to marry her. Jessie had been his since that long ago day when they had sat in the swing beneath the huge old oak and fought their first battle for dominance.

Had he married her out of pure ego, determined to show her that she couldn't play her little games with him? If he were honest, then yes, that had been part of the reason. But the other part had been love, a strange love compounded of a shared childhood, a shared role in life, and the sexual fascination that had existed between them since puberty. Not a great foundation for marriage, he knew now. The sex had burned itself out pretty damn fast, and their old bonds hadn't been strong enough to hold them together after the attraction was gone.

Jessie had been sleeping with another man. Men, for all he knew. Knowing Jessie as he did, he realized she had probably done it out of revenge, because he hadn't kowtowed to her every whim. She'd been capable of just about anything when thwarted, but somehow he'd never expected her to cheat on him. Her reputation in Tuscumbia and Colbert County had been too important to her, and this wasn't some fast-lane big city where lovers came and went and no one paid much attention to it. This was the South, and in some ways still the Old South, where appearances and genteel manners held sway, at least in the middle and upper echelons of society.

But she'd not only slept with someone else, she had neglected to use birth control. Again, out of revenge? Had she thought it would be a delicious joke on him to present him with a child not his own?

In one short, hellish week, his wife had been murdered, his entire life and reputation had been destroyed, and his family had turned on him. He had gone from prince to pariah.

He was fed up with it all. Booley's bombshell today had just topped it off. He had worked like hell for years to keep the family in the manner to which they'd become accustomed, meaning the lap of luxury, sacrificing his private life and any chance he might have had of making a real marriage with Jessie. But when he'd needed his family in a united front, supporting him, they hadn't been there. Lucinda hadn't accused him but neither had she backed him, and he was tired of dancing to her tune. As for Gloria and Harlan and their bunch, to hell with them. Only Mother and Aunt Sandra had believed in him.

Roanna. What about her? Had she set this entire nightmare in motion, striking out at Jessie without any regard to the damage she would do to him? Somehow, on a different level, Roanna's betrayal was more bitter than the others. He'd gotten so accustomed to her adoration, to the comfortable companionship he'd had with her. Her quirky personality and unruly tongue had amused him, made him laugh even when he was so dead tired he was about to fall on his face. Grand Pricks, indeed, the little imp.

At the funeral, she'd said that she hadn't deliberately set up that scene in the kitchen, but guilt and misery had been written all over that thin face. Maybe she had, maybe she hadn't. But she too had avoided him, when he'd have sold his soul for comfort. Booley didn't consider Roanna a suspect in Jessie's murder, but Webb couldn't forget the look of hate he'd seen in Roanna's eyes, or the fact that she'd had the chance. Everyone in the house had had the chance to do it, but Roanna was the only one who'd hated Jessie.

He just didn't know. He'd kept his mouth shut to protect her even though she hadn't supported him. He'd kept his mouth shut about Jessie's baby not being his, letting another possible murderer off scot-free, because he himself would have been the more likely suspect. He was goddamn tired of being caught in the middle, To hell with them all.