Deception (9 page)

“Bastard! He’s just trying to scare you to keep you under his thumb,” Bailey stormed.

“Does Alan make a habit of visiting you at work?” Mr. David asked from the head of the table.

“No, I thought he was in New York.” Her throat burned as she swallowed the knot that had formed. “Usually his visits are once per month or less.” Mr. David’s head cocked to one side as he pondered her words. Thank God she’d moved out of that house. Alan had been more brutal with her than ever before. She reached for her water glass but her trembling hand knocked it over. Water rolled in a river, slow motion-like, across and over the edge of the table between her and Julian. He received most of the moisture. With wide unblinking eyes she looked into his. She was in shock from the fear that gripped her.

Julian took her right hand into his healing grasp. Near her ear he whispered, “You’re going to be fine. He’s never going to lay his hands on you again.”

She believed him.

Mr. David cleared his throat in preparation to give his orders. “Everett, we need dirt on him. I know it’s only a matter of finding it. He’s merciless in his practices. Figure out why he’s loitering in Louisiana when he makes a home in New York. Maura, I’ll want details tonight, the whole story from beginning to end. You and Bailey are family now, so anyone messing with you will incur the wrath of the entire David clan.”

Fiona regarded Maura with wide eyes. Her shoulders slumped and she mouthed, “
I’m sorry
.” Maura nodded slightly, vowing to confide in Fiona by telling her the whole sordid story.

The gumbo arrived, but unfortunately Maura couldn’t taste her food. When Max asked what she thought about the dark soup Maura just nodded. At some point Mrs. David had endured enough of the boys’ sparring and lured all the women to the patio area of the restaurant for drinks. She’d also ordered a pan of what she’d called “the best bourbon bread puddin’ this side of the Mississippi.” Maura had to agree, as it went down much better than the gumbo.

Maura had become tired and was glad when she’d finally been able to send Max on his way. Back at the David estate he’d wanted to linger and talk, but he’d acquiesced when she’d related that she’d had a long day and was tired. She turned the kitchen light off and meandered through the massive home on her way to the staircase. As she passed the office she glanced through the open door and saw Julian and his father engaged in a subdued exchange—totally out of character for either of them—and she surmised that they didn’t want to be overheard. Julian turned and made eye contact.

“Maura please come in, and close the door behind you.” His voice was authoritative but soft.

Hating herself for feeling like an errant child in the principal’s office, she swiftly followed his command. Maura walked over to an armchair and perched herself delicately on the edge. Mr. David swiveled his plush leather desk chair in her direction while Julian watched her from the couch.

“Maura, we’ve spoken some about the residual problems stemming from your ex-husband.” Mr. David leaned back deep in his desk chair and massaged his upper lip with his thumb and forefinger. “With Bailey’s kidney transplant and my youngest boy’s surgery my focus was diverted.”

“Of course, Mr. David. I completely understand and am very grateful to your family.”

“As we are to yours, child. What I would like is for you to relate your entire relationship with Alan Douglas from the beginning. Rest assured everything you say will remain between these four walls and myself and Julian. I must know details in order to best help you.”

Maura began to frantically fidget with her fingers. The thought of divulging her entire life with Alan was not pleasing. Not at all. Especially with Julian sitting perpendicular to her, their knees almost touching. His intense eyes uncovered more than she wanted him to know. Suddenly he stood and walked to the bar, poured a glass of whiskey, and offered it to her. She shot it down in one swallow. “Gah.” Maura wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as she felt the whiskey burn all the way down.

Another finger of whiskey appeared and she drank that one down as well, welcoming the warmth in her stomach. Her knee shook violently as she tapped her foot up and down on the floor. Julian’s hand on her leg quieted her movement immediately. “Ask me to leave and I’ll go.”

The pain in his eyes ate at her already swimming stomach. This was a trust- building moment. Perhaps if she extended trust he’d one day do the same. “Please, stay.” The worry lines around his eyes faded with her plea.

“Why don’t you start with how you met Alan?”

That was easy—those were the good parts. She could definitely talk about that. Maura leaned back in the chair and was catapulted back to New York. It was the holiday season. “I met him at Bloomingdale’s. I had been doing some last-minute Christmas shopping and found myself being propelled by a sea of desperate procrastinators, me included.” She giggled nervously. “Anyway, I picked up a scarf for Bailey and a nice pair of earrings for my mentor at Columbia. I also purchased some little chocolates for a few peers I’d become close with. I realized I was running low on the gardenia oil I use in my bath water so I fought my way into the middle of the cosmetics department and saw one lone bottle. I reached for it at the same time as Alan, our hands making it to the bottle at the same time. We squabbled back and forth about who should be allowed to purchase the bottle. In the end I let him have it, both of us deciding that he was the more selfless shopper as he was purchasing the oil for his mother.”

Maura took a sip from the whiskey in her glass that had once again been refilled. “I thought I’d never see him again, but on Christmas morning my doorbell rang. I answered it of course, but no one was on the other side of the door. Instead a package leaned against the wall. It was the gardenia bath oil with a note from him. He wanted to take me ice skating and to his table at Zino’s for dinner.” Maura looked around nervously. Julian and his father regarded her with kind patience. “I’m not much of a namedropper so Zino’s didn’t mean anything to me. Bailey explained that Zino’s was some fancy Italian place run by the mob and in order to have your own table meant that you were somebody important and probably rich.”

Maura cleared her throat. “What can I say? He swept me off my feet. I thought I was Cinderella, that I was being offered a second chance at life.”

“At what point did your marriage take a turn for the worse?” Mr. David asked.

Maura inhaled deeply, the whiskey in her system doing its job, offering the liquid courage she’d need to get through the next part. “We honeymooned for almost a month on the island of Mykonos. It was wonderful. So wonderful it doesn’t even feel like it happened to me. When we returned to New York he was a different person. As the months turned into years he became progressively worse. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what I’d done wrong.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. Some people don’t need a catalyst to turn dark. Whatever caused his turmoil had nothing to do with you. Alan is solely to blame.” Julian caressed her shoulder—his face was a myriad of expression—frowns, worry lines, soft smiles. She wondered what he was thinking.

“I know that now, but it can still be difficult to go back and recall the events.”

Mr. David leaned forward, “I know it’s hard, but you’re doing a great job.” He leaned back once again, expecting her to continue.

“After about a year and a half I became pregnant and things got better for a little while. Alan seemed genuinely happy.” Maura swallowed back the pain. She was glad she’d exposed this scene to her therapist and hoped the process would make this telling easier. “One day I had to leave school early because the pregnancy was giving me bad acid reflux. I was eight months along at the time.”

For the first time she saw Julian begin to fidget. He’d always been so poised, so still around her, but now he rubbed his palms back and forth on the cloth of his trousers.

“I opened the door to our apartment and heard noises. Within the first few seconds I knew what I’d find. There’s no mistaking the lusty moans that are borne of intercourse. I made my way to our bedroom and found Alan in bed with two women doing things I’d never even heard of before. He actually told me that’s why he needed the women—so that he wouldn’t have to subject me to those fetishes. Of course I became upset. Irrational even. I’d learned not to lose my temper because when I did he’d slap and push me around, but as I said I was eight months pregnant and the hormones were flying. I was so upset at him. I acted like a lunatic, screaming and using my nails to scratch him. To get me to stop he pushed me hard and I fell into our glass coffee table.”

The room was so quiet she could hear her breathing. “I lost her—Audrey. I’d held her so many times with my hands around my stomach, soothing her when she was restless, speaking to her when I was lonely and thought maybe she was too. I longed to hold her in my arms after carrying her for eight months. It was my duty to protect her, but I failed her.”

Julian’s hands had balled into tight fists while his father had closed his eyes. They wouldn’t say anything—after all, what was there to be said? She’d relived that moment so many times in therapy and in her own mind that she could relate the events with an aura of calmness. There had been a time when she couldn’t fight the pain and she’d let it wash over her until it consumed her. During her darkest moment she’d been institutionalized for a few weeks.

“After that Alan became brutal so I filed for divorce and, to my utter astonishment, it went off without a hitch. He left me with nothing because there had been a prenup. That was a problem because I was in school. I had no money, no apartment. Nothing. Plus he was no longer paying Bailey’s medical expenses. I didn’t know what we were going to do. I’d applied to several doctoral programs and student assistantships. I chose LSU because the cost of living is cheap and along with the assistantship there was a job working at the international school. I immediately put Bailey on my insurance, but she had so many doctors that it was difficult to obtain new specialists with any kind of efficiency. Everything had to be accessed through her primary care physician and his office moved at a snail’s pace. I called Alan and begged for help. He related that there had been some money left in a trust that my mother hadn’t known about. Alan had programmed me not to ask questions so I never did. The medical bills were sent to him and paid.”

Mr. David rubbed his upper lip as he took in what she had to say.

“Later I learned that it was all a ruse to make me dependent on him again. He paid her medical expenses. There was no trust fund.”

Julian’s mouth pursed before she heard his tongue click. “So let me get this straight . . . your entire life you struggled to make ends meet and then miraculously you happen to have this long-lost trust money? You didn’t think to question that?”

“I had no reason to question it.” Oh God, he thought she was the biggest fool, or worse.

“You’ll have to excuse Julian. He’s got problems of his own, like not being able to recognize genuine honesty. Mr. David shot his son a look that would have had Maura shrinking. “Can you estimate how much money he paid?” Mr. David asked.

“I wouldn’t even begin to know . . . hundreds of thousands.”

He leaned forward. “Since Bailey’s union with Parker, I’ve been covering all her medical expenses.”

“You’ve been very generous, Mr. David. Your entire family has been so wonderful. I don’t know how—”

He placed a hand on her knee. “Hush now, child. I’m only bringing it up because that is one tie that has been severed. I want a bill for any and all medical expenses he paid on Bailey’s behalf. Would you be able to obtain that information?”

“I guess I could go back through her medical records.”

He nodded. “Work on that.” He patted her leg. “Maura, you’ve been very strong and shown tremendous courage. You took exceptional care of Bailey. We should all be so lucky as to have a Maura looking after us.” If he didn’t stop, he’d make her cry. “Now, tell me about your research grant.”

Maura chanced a look at Julian. His mouth was set in a grim line as he stared intently at her. Suddenly she wished he wasn’t hearing all of this.

“I was in shock that the grant I had written was being funded at all. No questions asked, no rewrites needed. It’s hard to obtain grants in literature, so I couldn’t believe my desperately needed good fortune. My main study has been British literature, specifically women’s literature, and the name on the letter that accompanied the check was the American Brontë Association. I’d not known about the association so I was pleasantly surprised. With the money I was able to offer four scholarships to graduate assistants working on the project with me. At the university level I was honored and given special recognition for promoting student research.”

Julian sat forward with intent. “Wait a minute… you’re awarded this large grant that almost never happens in literature from a society that you’ve never heard of—Miss I’m-an-expert-in-British-women’s-literature—has never heard of the American Brontë Association and you don’t think to question it?”

She bit her lip to keep it from quivering. Undoubtedly he thought her a fool, but she had no
street
smarts
as they say. She’d never developed the skills to deceive because she never thought she’d need them. “No, I didn’t think to question it.”

“I guess the excitement of winning overshadowed the rational side of your brain.”

“Julian, the door’s there if you can’t contain your emotions.” Mr. David pointed toward the door.

Her foot resumed its tapping from earlier and drew the attention of both men, but her brain was no longer sending messages to her nervous system and so she was powerless to stop it.

Mr. David had a yellow legal pad on his lap and had started to take notes. “Tell me about the house. The home you rented is his as well?”

Maura sighed. “As it turns out yes, the house belongs to him. I didn’t know that when I signed the one-year lease. I only found out after I’d been living in the home for a few weeks. It was quite late and Alan came in, using the keys he owned to unlock the door.”