After Dark (11 page)

    "Yes. Tomorrow. He invited
himself to lunch."

    "Sounds like Johnny
Mack." The corners of Lillie Mae's mouth lifted slightly, with just a
hint of a smile. "Why don't you go in the den? I'll make us some herbal
tea, and we can have that talk."

    Lane nodded. "Tea sounds good
about now."

    As Lane made her way to the den,
she wondered if she should go over to the Graham house next door and
check on Will. No, she shouldn't. Her son considered himself a capable
young man. At fourteen, he often resented Lane's smothering motherly
attention. It had been difficult enough before Kent's murder to allow
Will breathing space, but now-dear God, now!-she couldn't bear for her
son to be out of her sight for more than a few minutes. What if his memory
returned when she wasn't with him? What if he remembered that he had killed
Kent?

    Easing down into the tan leather
chair near the windows overlooking the west side of the house, Lane sighed.
Mentally and emotionally weary, tired from carrying heavy burdens in
her heart, she lifted her feet to rest them on the huge leather ottoman.

    Her gaze scanned the room, which
she had left unchanged since her parents' deaths. This den had been her
father's sanctuary, a place to escape from his busy work schedule as
the owner of Noble's Crossing's only daily newspaper-the Herald-begun
by William Alexander Noble in 1839 and co-owned today by Lane and Edith
Graham Ware.

    Shortly after her marriage to
Kent, her father's newspaper had been on the brink of being gobbled up
by a New York conglomerate, but Edith had come to the rescue, saving
the paper from Yankee invasion. Now Lane depended on the revenue from
the paper to support herself and Will and to keep up the Noble estate.
No matter what happened, she would never touch the trust fund her father
and Edith had jointly set up for Will.

    Lately Lane found herself gravitating
toward this room, this small, cozy haven nestled away from the activity
of the rest of the house. Dark paneled walls and wide crown molding in
rich wood tones recalled the elegance of a bygone era, as did the heavily
carved desk and the antique Persian rug. A portrait painted by renowned
Atlanta artist Gower Mayfield hung over the fireplace-a portrait of
a young, beautiful Celeste Noble and her only child, lime, at the age
of five.

    She missed her parents terribly
and probably always would. Although she and her mother had seldom seen
eye-to-eye on anything, she had adored Celeste, the royal social butterfly
of Noble's Crossing. No one could give a party the way Mrs. William Noble
had. Her lavish soirees had been the talk of Alabama in the late sixties
and early seventies. Perhaps if her mother hadn't spent so extravagantly,
her father might not have found himself between the proverbial rock
and hard place when the family's ownership of the Herald had become endangered.

    She had not only loved her father,
but she had admired him greatly. Bill Noble had been a gentle man who
had possessed a strong moral character and a charitable soul. He had known
almost everyone in town by name and treated rich and poor with the same
respect. He had been the one who had first hired Johnny Mack Cahill to do
yard work on Magnolia Avenue.

    When Celeste had protested about
Johnny Mack's presence, Lane's father had said, in his calm, yet authoritarian
voice, "The poor boy needs someone to give him a chance. He has no
one, except that drunken Wiley Peters, to see after him. I don't like the
idea of anyone going hungry, and I have an idea that Johnny Mack has gone
to bed hungry more than once in his life."

    "Mark my word, Bill Noble, we
will all rue the day you brought that young hellion into our lives!"
Celeste had said. In retrospect, her statement had been eerily prophetic.

    After having overheard that conversation
between her parents, Lane had made a point of checking out this dangerous
boy. Sitting in the window seat in her upstairs bedroom, she had watched
him as he mowed the grass and pruned the shrubs. She had been all of fourteen
and filled with sexual urges she simply hadn't understood. All she had
known was that every time she looked at Johnny Mack Cahill, her body tingled
and her mind created images of his muscular brown arms holding her close
as he gave her her very first kiss.

    "Tea's ready." Lillie
Mae stood in the doorway, a silver tray in her hands. She smiled tentatively
at Lane. A peace offering? Are you upset with me? Lillie Mae

    was asking silently. And if you
are angry, will you forgive me for summoning Johnny Mack?

    "Put the tray over there."
Lane inclined her head toward the large mahogany desk with elaborate
ribbon detailing on the drawers. "Please, pour us both a cup. Then
come sit over here by me and we'll talk."

    Lillie Mae's hesitant smile broadened,
creasing lines into her pale cheeks. "We need him, Miss Lane. We need
him bad. Otherwise, I never would have sent for him."

    Lane only nodded, uncertain how
she should or could react. She didn't doubt for one minute that Lillie
Mae had acted out of love and concern for Will and her. But she couldn't
share Lillie Mae's certainty mat Johnny Mack would be their savior. How
could a man who had once wreaked so much havoc on this town, whose irresponsible
acts had damaged so many lives, suddenly become the solution to their
problems? If trouble possessed a name, that name was Johnny Mack Cahill.

    Lillie Mae handed Lane a Royal Doulton
china cup filled with hot Earl Grey tea. No lemon. No sugar. No cream.
"I figure that with him being fifteen years older, he's not the same
boy who left Noble's Crossing in the dark of night, letting a lot of folks
think he was dead. He's thirty-six. Older and maybe a lot wiser. And I
know for a fact that he's got money. He's been sending me a check every
month for years now, and I've been putting it in a savings account in case
you and Will ever needed it. If Johnny Mack don't offer to pay for you a good
out-of-town lawyer, we'll use that money to do it."

    Lane accepted the cup, then set it
aside on the small table to her right and grasped Lillie Mae's hand.

    I love you dearly and I understand
why you wrote to Johnny Mack, but… what makes you think can help us?"

    Lillie Mae squeezed Lane's hand
as she looked into her eyes, her expression one of devotion and love,
"Johnny Mack never took advantage of you, of your innocence, and
we both know he could have. And when he left this town, he refused to take
you with him. You're the only woman I know he ever treated special. And I
figure after you saved his life, he knew he owed you. All I did was call
in your marker."

    Lane released Lillie Mae's hand,
leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. "He told me that he's
very rich."

    Lillie Mae eased her thin body down
into the wing chair across from Lane. "I figured as much. He could
hardly afford to send me so much money every month if he wasn't."

    "He hired a private investigator
who somehow got hold of Will's original birth certificate." Lane
massaged her temples with circular swirls of her index fingers.

    "Did he think Kent was Will's
father just because that's what Sharon put on the birth certificate?"

    "He asked me if he or Kent was
Will's father."

    "What did you tell him?"

    "The truth."

    Lillie Mae released a long, relieved
sigh. "Did you tell him everything? I mean about how Sharon came to
you wanting money for an abortion and how y'all tricked Kent into adopting
Will?"

    Lane picked up the cup of tea.
"Yes. I explained how and why Kent and I married and adopted Will
and that until Sharon's deathbed confession, Kent believed Will was
his son."

    "Why that girl of mine had to
get religion before she died and confess her sins is beyond me."
Tears gathered in the corners of Lillie Mae's faded gray eyes. "I loved
her, my Sharon. But Lord knows she wasn't worth shootin'. I guess folks thought
that her dying the way she did, from AIDS, was punishment for her sins. But
it wasn't God's punishment. It was her own doing. If she hadn't been hooked
on them drugs, she'd never have come down with that horrible disease."

    Lane kept silent. She agreed with
Lillie Mae's assessment of Sharon's wasted life, but where Lillie Mae
had a right to malign Will's biological mother, Lane didn't. After all,
Sharon had given her something she otherwise would never have
had-Johnny Mack's baby.

    "So, Johnny Mack knows the
truth." Lillie Mae glanced at Lane, her gaze speculative.' 'But
you didn't tell him any details about your marriage to Kent, did you? You
didn't tell him what a high price you paid for Will's life."

    "No, I didn't tell him. And I
don't want you sharing my secrets with him, either. Do you understand?"

    "Yes, I understand. I understand
only too well."

    The fact that his grandmother met
him at the door instead of one of the servants told Will how eager she was
to see him. Maybe he shouldn't think of Edith Ware as his grandmother anymore,
now that he knew Kent wasn't his father. But how could he turn off his emotions?
Miss Edith, as everyone referred to her out °f respect for her position
in the community, had always been his doting grandmother, someone who
had lavished attention and money on him all his life.

    Edith reached over and squeezed
his arm, a sad, ^certain look in her eyes. "Thank you for coming,
Will. I know that things have been strained between us since your father's-since
Kent's death."

    "Yes, ma'am. I suppose, since
you believed Ken was my real father, finding out that he wasn't came as a
big shock to you."

    "Yes, of course. It was a major
shock to all of us except Lane, who had known all along that-"

    ''I don't want you to say anything
against my mother, Will said. His stomach knotted painfully. He wasn't
going to listen to Miss Edith making accusations against his mother.
Not now or ever. He might be only fourteen and others might consider him
just a kid, but he knew things. He knew that his mother had suffered more'
than anyone else. He had heard the things Kent had said to her before
their divorce. He knew the way Kent had treated her. And now, with Kent dead,
people thought she had murdered him. But he knew better. His mother couldn't
kill anyone. Not unless it was in self-defense or to protect someone
she loved.

    "As you wish," Edith replied.
"We won't discuss Lane. Not tonight. At the moment I have a more urgent
problem.'' Edith ushered Will into the marble-l floored foyer and closed
the door behind him. "Mary Martha is quite agitated and we can't
calm her. Jackie has suggested giving her a sedative, but my poor girl
has been overmedicated since Kent's death. And sometimes the medication
has an adverse effect on her. I was hoping that you could calm her. All your
life, you've been able to work wonders with Mary Martha."

    "You know that I'll do what I
can, but if she's, still in as bad a shape as she was the day of Dad… Kent's
funeral, then I doubt she'll even know who I am."

    "She hasn't spoken a word to
anyone since the day; after the funeral," Edith said. "Not until
tonight. She'd been rocking one of her dolls for several hours and she
kept calling it her baby. Then suddenly she flung the doll aside and said
it wasn't her baby, that her baby was a big boy now. That's when she started
calling for you."

    Tears pooled in Edith's eyes. When
she closed them, droplets glistened on her eyelashes, and moisture
trickled onto her cheekbones. "You've always played that little
game with her. You know, where you pretend that you really are her child.
I was hoping that you'd play along with her tonight." Edith opened her
eyes and looked squarely at Will.' 'And if she says anything… you know,
about Kent-"

    "Don't you think you should
call the doctor?" Will asked. "Not just old Doc Morgan, but a real
psychiatrist. Someone who might be able to help her."

    "If she doesn't improve,
then of course we'll have to seek psychiatric help. You know we've taken
her to numerous doctors in the past, and she's even stayed at several
private clinics; but no one's ever been able to help her."

    Will started up the stairs, then
halted when he noticed that his grandmother remained in the foyer.
"Aren't you coming up with me?"

    "No." She shook her head.
"I think it's best that you see her alone. She always preferred to have
you all to herself. But after your visit, please… Just let me know how
things went"

    Will nodded agreement. "Sure."

    Mary Martha's room was at the end
of the hall. He stood outside the closed door for a couple of minutes,
took several deep breaths and mentally prepared himself for whatever
he found when he walked into his aunt's bedroom. When he knocked, Jackie
Cummings opened the door immediately.

    ' 'Well, hello, Will. "Jackie
stepped back just enough to allow him entrance. "Miss Edith said
you were on your way over. I sure hope you can calm your aunt down. As you
can see, she's made a mess of this room, but Miss Edith wouldn’t let me give
her another sedative. And I guess she's right. We've kept Mary Martha
pretty doped up ever since your daddy's… er, Kent's funeral."