The Night Before (8 page)

“Damn.” She clicked off the computer and with Oscar at her heels, hurried downstairs, where she peeked out the front blinds and saw no trace of reporters on the street. Still, she’d be careful. She slapped a pair of sunglasses over her eyes and added a baseball cap to her disguise, as if she were some high-profile celebrity, for God’s sake, then clicked on Oscar’s leash. She pushed her way through the iron gate of the back courtyard and hit the street at a brisk pace.

Later, she’d deal with her family.

Later, she’d deal with the reporters.

Later, she’d deal with the police.

Later, she’d find out what the hell happened last night.

 

 

Adam checked his watch and frowned. He’d intended to stay only an hour and nearly three had passed. He didn’t dare stay any longer. It wouldn’t be long before the police had figured out that Rebecca was Caitlyn Montgomery Bandeaux’s therapist. Which might be a good thing. Then they’d start looking for her, which, of course, would eventually lead them to him. He didn’t have much time.

Carefully, he took the files he needed, stuffing them into a backpack he found in the closet. A backpack he recognized. One that had hung on a peg near the back door when he’d been in college. He’d thought she’d probably thrown it away, but there it hung, dusty, a few cobwebs clinging to it, empty except for an old parking receipt, a grocery list and a nearly empty tube of lipstick.

An image of her gulping the last of her coffee as she eyed the kitchen clock in their crummy upstairs apartment sliced through his mind. “Oh, God, I’m late. Dr. Connally will kill me!” She’d brushed a coffee-flavored kiss against his cheek, grabbed the backpack from its peg and flown out the door. “Don’t forget to feed Rufus!” she’d called over her shoulder as the screen door slapped shut.

Rufus was their new kitten—snow white and big trouble. Cradling his cup, Adam had walked barefoot to the screen door, stared through the torn mesh and watched as she’d lithely thrown a leg over the seat of his mountain bike and pedaled into traffic. With no helmet, her red hair streaming behind her, she’d headed uphill toward campus while the new kitten had attacked his bare ankles and feet.

Now, in her abandoned office, his throat tightened as he remembered the girl she’d been nearly fifteen years ago. A lot of time had passed. Their lives had taken divergent paths. The carefree twenty-two-year-old had grown up and matured into a woman he’d loved and hated; adored and despised.

It was funny how time had a way of tarnishing even the brightest futures.

So where the hell was she?

He glanced around the room one last time. Not that he wouldn’t be back. He’d found a key ring in the top desk drawer and had pocketed it.

He didn’t figure Rebecca would mind.

The walk helped.

Caitlyn’s head was clearer than it had been when she’d woken up, but her memory was still fragmented and dull, the night before coming at her in shards of frosty glass, images in murky color and slow motion. In the kitchen she noticed that there were sixteen new messages on her answering machine, and she refused to listen to any of them. Most likely they were all reporters. She checked the numbers on Caller ID. Some were anonymous, others unfamiliar; none were from Kelly’s little cabin on the river.

Upstairs, she threw on a sleeveless cotton dress that she covered with a lightweight but long-sleeved sweater, then walked across the hall to her den.

Snagging her keys from her desk, she figured her hair would dry on the way to Oak Hill. But she stopped when she saw the digital readout of her office clock. It was correct. Hadn’t lost so much as a minute of time. Showed no sign of a power interruption.

Unlike the clock radio in her bedroom.

She looked at the other clocks in the house. All were keeping perfect time. There was no sign of any interruption of electricity to them.

The hairs on the back of her neck rose.

If there hadn’t been a power outage, then there had been some kind of power interrupt, as if the clock had been unplugged. But when she’d cleaned up earlier in the day, the plug had been firmly in the light socket. And it wasn’t that particular socket because the lamp, attached to the same source, had been just fine.

A fleeting image burned behind her eyes.

The image shrank away as quickly as it had appeared, and Caitlyn was left knowing no more of what happened than before. But she couldn’t dwell on it now. Her family was expecting her.

She double-checked that the doors were locked, then was out the door and on the road, driving east out of the city, glancing in her rearview mirror to make sure no one from the press or police was following her.

“You’re paranoid,” she muttered, catching her reflection in the rearview mirror as she stopped at a traffic light. The other vehicles seemed innocuous, no dark van or SUV with tinted windows hovering a few cars behind. She made a few extra jogs though the shady, narrow streets just to be sure, then berated herself for her apprehension. As she turned onto the main highway and cruised out of the city limits, she stepped on it, needing to get out of the city, away from the police, away from the press, away from the blackness that surrounded last night.

She pushed the speed limit, her thoughts spinning as rapidly as the wheels of her Lexus. So why hadn’t Kelly called? she wondered, flipping down the visor.

Gnawing on her lower lip, Caitlyn realized her mistake. She should have checked the messages and tried once more to catch her sister before she faced their mother. Now, she’d have to wait several hours and she didn’t dare mention Kelly’s name at Oak Hill.

Caitlyn’s fingers tightened over the steering wheel and her palms began to sweat as the suburbs gave way to fields and marshes. She shoved in a Springsteen CD and tried to get lost in the music of the E Street Band, but it proved impossible. She couldn’t forget that Josh had been killed, that the police seemed to think she was somehow involved, and even she herself couldn’t explain her whereabouts or actions at the time of his death.

She swallowed hard, nearly missed a corner, the car’s wheels sliding in loose gravel strewn upon the road’s shoulder. Heart racing, she eased off the gas.

So whose blood was it? Josh’s? But he was blocks away in his own house.

Her stomach clenched.

Sweat dotted her forehead and she slid a glance into the back seat. No dark stains. Nor on the passenger side. Of course she hadn’t killed Josh and taken him home. What was she thinking? This was crazy. Nuts.

She began to tremble. First her abdomen, then her calves.
Don’t do this . . . don’t think this way.
She concentrated on the road. The ribbon of asphalt with its middle broken stripe, up and down, over small rises and into shallow gullies. Her breathing was coming in short gasps. Horrid images sped through her mind. A quick vision of Josh at his desk, of the blood. On the corner of the desk was a copy of the damned lawsuit claiming she’d been negligent in their child’s death.

Negligent!
As if Jamie hadn’t been everything to her; the very reason for her life. “Bastard!” she spat, tears beginning to well as she thought of the hours she’d spent at her daughter’s bedside, the mad rush she’d made to the hospital, the mind-numbing terror as the doctors and nurses in the ER tried and failed to get her precious baby to respond and then . . . then . . . the horrible words, wrapped in sympathetic looks, kind gestures, a gentle touch on her arm when she was told that Jamie had “passed on.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Bandeaux,” Dr. Vogette had said softly to her in the hospital’s waiting room with its soothing blue and green couches, potted palms and piped-in music. His expression had been sober, his eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, concerned. “Sometimes this happens with a virus. We did everything possible . . .”

“No,” she said vehemently, nearly veering off the road. “No, you didn’t, you bastard. None of you did all you could!”

An oncoming truck blasted its horn, the driver holding a hand outward with fingers extended as if to remind her that she was an idiot as all eighteen wheels sped by carrying a load of gasoline. “Yeah, yeah, I know,” she muttered under her breath, trying to regain control not only of the Lexus but of her composure as well. Checking the rearview mirror, she saw the semi disappear around a corner.

You’re cracking up Catie-Did. You are absolutely cracking up.
She could almost hear Kelly’s voice, heavy with recriminations.

“Pull yourself together.” She slowed for the bridge, then caught a glimpse of the plantation just on the other side of the river.

Oak Hill.

Symbol of all the Montgomery wealth.

A reminder of days and grandeur long past.

A hint of Old Georgia and genteel Southern ways.

And a facade. A damned sham. Behind the solid oak doors, beveled glass windows and thick white siding lurked secrets and lies and tragedy. So much pain.

Determined not to fall apart, she gritted her teeth and wheeled into the long straight lane guarded by ancient oak trees. There were thirty-nine trees, one having blown over in a storm and never replaced. She and Griffin had counted them time and time again. “I’ll meet you at number seventeen,” he’d whispered to her often enough. Seventeen had been his favorite.

She slowed as she approached the main house. Three full stories above the ground, the first two complete with verandahs and railings, the third peeking out of dormers in the sloped roof. Once grand, it now stood in a state of disrepair. White paint had grayed and was beginning to chip and blister.

Tall black shutters, once gleaming, now baked to a dull sheen beneath the unforgiving Georgia sun, surrounded paned windows of old, watery glass. And the shrubbery was no longer manicured, but overgrown and rambling despite the work of a year-round gardener. Where once there had been parties and laughter and gaiety, there now was silence and shadow, ghosts and wraiths, tragedy and lies.

Only Berneda, Caitlyn’s mother, and her sister Hannah continued to live here. There were a handful of servants, of course, and fortunately Lucille Vasquez had remained. Caitlyn understood why her mother stayed on—this was the only home she’d known in over forty years—but she couldn’t fathom why her youngest sister elected to stay in this tomb of a plantation. At twenty-six, Hannah should have been out with people her age, living on her own, not holed up in this huge, decaying reminder of the Old South. But then, Hannah had always been a little off, out of step, and even out of touch.

Caitlyn ignored the nagging voice in her mind and followed the driveway to the side of the house. Her heart sank. Troy’s black Range Rover was already parked in the lengthening shadows behind her mother’s Cadillac. So he’d beaten her to the punch. Great. Troy had probably hightailed it here the minute his important appointment had ended. So much for breaking the news herself.

She climbed out of her Lexus.

Hushed conversation and a hint of cigarette smoke drifted on the breeze.

“ . . always trouble . . . since the accident . . . hasn’t been herself . . .”Her mother’s soft, dulcet tones floated over a honeysuckle-scented breeze and Caitlyn tensed. So she was the topic of conversation. Again. Today, she supposed, it made sense. Other times she wasn’t so sure.

“She needs help,” Troy said over the sound of clinking ice cubes. “Serious help.”

“I thought she was seeing someone . . . after Jamie passed on . . . Oh, Lord, trouble just never stops, does it . . . the twins were always . . .”

Caitlyn’s spine stiffened, and her mother’s voice was more muted, as if she’d turned her head away.

“. . . I just never knew what to do . . . so fragile, not strong like the rest of you . . . sometimes it’s difficult to be a mother.”

Give me that strength.
Caitlyn was tired of everyone handling her with kid gloves. Yes, she’d been frail and had fallen apart after the accident and then again when her baby had died, but who wouldn’thave? She ducked through a clematis-draped arbor and hurried up two brick steps to the back porch.

Conversation dwindled. Her mother turned to look over her shoulder as she sat, back to the stairs at a glass-topped table. Sipping iced tea, she fanned herself with the fingers of her free hand. She was dressed as if for a social tea—a long gauzy skirt and print top, polished pumps on her feet, a string of pearls around her throat.

Troy was standing, smoking a cigarette, one hip propped against the railing, his expression as grim as that of an undertaker as he watched a hummingbird flit through the fragrant honeysuckle blossoms. Through the partially opened window, Caitlyn caught a glimpse of Lucille, her mother’s private maid. With the pretense of folding napkins, Lucille hovered close enough to eavesdrop.

It was little wonder Lucille knew everything about the family. She had raised her daughter, Marta, here. Sometimes Marta, Kelly and Caitlyn had played together long ago.

“Caitlyn!” Troy greeted her in an obvious effort to quickly change the subject and warn his mother that her difficult child had arrived.

“I thought you had an important meeting,” Caitlyn told Troy.

“I did. Important but short.”

“Right.”

Berneda’s pale cheeks colored a bit. “Oh, Caitlyn, I’m so sorry about Josh,” she said, swallowing as tears suddenly glistened in her eyes. “I know you loved him.”

“Once,” Caitlyn admitted, determined not to break down.

“It’s difficult.” She patted Caitlyn’s hand as Caitlyn brushed a kiss against her wan, bony cheek. Berneda was fighting heart disease and slowly losing the battle.

“I’ll be all right.”

“Lucille,” Berneda called to the open window, her strong profile visible. She had been a striking woman in her youth, with intense green eyes, reddish brown hair and a regal carriage that hinted at snobbery and added to her allure. She’once modeled, she’d reminded her children often enough as they’d grown up, and had she not married their father and borne seven children, which had wreaked havoc on her once wasp-thin waist, she could have posed for the covers of magazines in Europe as well as the United States. She’d always made it clear that she’ taken the higher ground, decided to have babies and yet, whenever any one of them screwed up, she threw the modeling card on the table. “Think what I sacrificed for you! A fortune of my own making and all that fame. I could have made it in movies, you know. Had an offer once . . .” But now she was playing the role of concerned mother. “Lucille, see that Caitlyn has some iced tea.”

“I’m not thirsty, Mom,” Caitlyn assured her.

“Nonsense. You’ve had a horrible shock.” Berneda forced a tired smile. “Oh, Caitlyn, I’m so sorry.” She held out her arms and waved her fingers inward rapidly, inviting a hug. As Caitlyn embraced her, she drank in the scent of her mother’s perfume, a fragrance Berneda had worn for as long as Caitlyn could remember. They clung to each other a moment as Caitlyn heard the screen door bang shut and Lucille, balancing a tray, stepped outside.

“I think we could use something stronger.” Troy eyed the glass pitcher and tumblers arranged around a small plate of ladyfingers, grapes and pecan tarts.

Lucille’s expression didn’t change, but Caitlyn noticed her neck stiffen a bit, and her eyes seemed a darker shade of brown as she set the glasses onto the table and began pouring, refilling Berneda’s glass and offering Caitlyn a new drink with a sprig of mint in the glass. “I’m sorry about your husband,” she said to Caitlyn.