House of Strangers (Harlequin Super Romance) (19 page)

“You found him?”

“He’s retired, but his son is running the business. He said Tante Helaine was certain from the beginning that my mother was dead and that my father had killed her. She refused to entertain the idea that she might have run off because she wanted to get away, or that she’d been murdered in some random incident on the road. He was investigating only six months after Maman disappeared, so he didn’t have that suitcase to work from.”

“Did he find her?”

“He managed to trace her as far as Memphis. He made a list of seventeen Paul Delaneys within a hundred miles of the city, because Maman’s Paul had said he was from a small town. That’s where he quit when Tante Helaine fired him.”

“But you went on?”

“Tracing people is much easier now with the Internet. Within two days I had narrowed it down to two Delaneys in this area. One was dead. The other was alive. I flew down and met him. He was a small, dark man. Nothing like my father in the only picture I have of him. He also didn’t have an artistic bone in his body and had never been to France.”

“So you came to Rossiter?”

“That was where the other Delaney lived—the one who’d died. I knew this was it the minute I drove into town and saw the house. My father had told my mother stories about the wonderful house he grew up in.” Paul
paused. “I didn’t get angry until after I went through it with the real-estate agent.”

“You felt shortchanged because you hadn’t grown up rich and privileged?”

He turned a cold eye on her. “I got angry when I discovered he’d married another woman two months after he came home and had another son less than a year after that. A child raised with wealth and privilege and, most of all, two parents. I got angry because I knew what a difference child support would have made to my family. Tante Helaine and Uncle Charlie took a boy with no assets and no prospects into a family where both of them worked sixty to seventy hours a week and sweated every bill.”

“Uncle David didn’t know about you.”

“Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. My mother planned to tell him when she met him.”

“No wonder Trey tried to kill you.”

Paul shook his head. “Couldn’t have been Trey. He doesn’t know who I am.”

“Well, somebody sure did, and Trey’s the logical candidate. You said it yourself—you could take everything he has, everything he’s worked for. If Aunt Karen told him…”

“She doesn’t know, either. Nobody down here did until now.”

“Want to bet she knows what you ate for breakfast a year ago?” Ann said. “When Uncle David got killed, Trey was a child. Aunt Karen and Aunt Maribelle ran the business. Trey’s been under the thumb of some woman or another his entire life. Now Sue-sue’s taking over. He loves his family more than anything in the world. He’d kill you or anybody else if he thought they were threatened.”

“Please believe I wanted to tell you all this before.”

Ann laughed, but there was no amusement in the sound. “If you’d wanted to, you would have found a time and a place to do it. You would have trusted me if I’d mattered to you. What was I, a small-town diversion to keep you relaxed until you dropped the bomb on the Delaneys?”

He started to speak, but again she held up her hands. “Not one word. I don’t want to hear it. Not now, not ever. Now you listen to me, because this is what is going to happen. I will finish my part of your restoration. I don’t have much left to do, anyway. I’ve been putting off a job on a prairie house in Des Moines. I’m going to accept it. It should last at least three months. When I get back, you will have had your mudslinging fest with the Delaneys and have gotten your pound of flesh. After that, I suggest you sell the house. If you don’t get an offer right away, give the listing to Mrs. Hoddle—she’d love to sell it for you. Then you go on back to New Jersey and leave us country folk alone.”

“I won’t let you just walk away like this.”

She surged to her feet, snapped her fingers at Dante and started toward her truck. “I swore I’d never let another man use me. Travis used me for money, you used me for information. Same thing. I hope you find your mother’s body, but I can tell you this right now. Paul David Delaney never killed a fly, much less the woman he drew in those sketches. A woman he obviously adored. You better go back to the drawing board before someone really does kill you.”

She ran for her car. He could have stopped her, but he made no move to go after her. He sank into his chair and put his face in his hands. The worst thing about it all was that she was right. He’d wanted revenge. And all he’d done was alienate the first woman he’d ever truly loved—the woman he wanted to spend his life with.

Hack slunk around the edge of the building. “Bad, huh?”

“The worst.”

“Give her time to cool off, then send her some flowers.”

“Flowers won’t cut it this time.”

“The woman is in love with you, son.”

“And I’m in love with her.”

“Then what’s the problem? Nobody’s bleeding, nobody’s dead. Anything else you can fix.”

“Unfortunately somebody
is
dead, and I no longer know what to do about it.”

A
NN CAREERED
around the curves on the back road barely registering the wild dogwood that had burst into bloom almost overnight. The grief she felt was too deep for tears. She drove up her grandmother’s gravel driveway, slammed on the brakes, skidded to a stop and jumped out of the car while it was still rocking.

Dante followed her. He’d sensed her misery and had refused to stay on his side of the car. She’d driven most of the way with his huge head in her lap, nearly blocking the steering wheel.

Sarah Pulliam was digging the winter weeds out of her flower beds. She rose stiffly, pulled off her cotton gloves, adjusted her wide-brimmed straw hat and came forward with a broad smile on her face. “Ann, how nice—”

She froze, and a moment later rushed to Ann and took her hands. “What’s happened? Is it Buddy?”

“No, Gram, it’s not Buddy and it’s not Mama. It’s me.”

She’d thought her grief and anger too deep for tears. When she began to sob so hard that she had to gulp to catch her breath, her grandmother’s eyes widened. “Come in. Tell me.”

“I promised him I wouldn’t tell.” She sniffed. “He lied through his teeth to me. I don’t see why I should feel obligated to keep my mouth shut.” The tears started again. “I’ve got to talk to
somebody.
”

Her grandmother ushered her into a bentwood rocker on the front porch and sat in another rocker opposite her. Dante sat as close to Ann’s rocker as possible. “Are you pregnant?”

“What? No. Why would you think that?”

“When two people do what you two have been doing, the result is often pregnancy.”

“You know?”

“The whole county knows. Maybe the whole state. My gracious, child, where have you lived all your life?” Sarah sniffed. “So you’re not pregnant. Then what is it? I thought he was such a nice young man. Obviously I was wrong. What kind of a rat is he?”

Between sobs and gulps, Ann blurted out the entire story.

Sarah listened without saying a word, but the longer Ann talked, the faster her rocking chair rocked.

“So that’s it,” Ann said at last. “He wanted information, and I sure supplied it. I even took him to see Aunt Karen and Miss Esther. What an idiot I am. I should have known a man like that had to have a hidden agenda. When will I ever learn?”

“You love him, I take it.”

“Yes, I do.” Ann took a deep breath. “But I got over Travis. I’ll get over him.”

“This one’s not like Travis. Travis was a dream that turned into a nightmare.”

“And this isn’t?”

“He behaved like a scoundrel, but he had a reason. Was it a good enough one? I don’t know. Did he actually tell you any bald-faced lies?”

Ann thought back. “No…I’m not sure. Right now I can’t remember which parts he actually told me and which I inferred.”

“I’ve seen the way he looks at you. He didn’t lie about that. He’s in love with you.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Listen to me. I knew Harris Pulliam was the one the minute I saw him climb down off his log skidder at the logging trials. I think he knew it, too. If Paul Bouvet—or Delaney or whoever he is—is the one for you, then work it out.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. You feel betrayed and just plain dumped on as a woman at the moment when you were finally getting your self-esteem back. Tell me, what would you have done if your mother had just up and disappeared and you felt certain she’d been murdered?”

“I wouldn’t have to do anything. Buddy would do it. And woe betide the man who killed her.”

“This young man comes from a set of circumstances that might have turned him into a bank robber or a drug dealer. Instead, he’s a hero. I finally placed his name. That plane accident he got hurt in made the newspapers at the time.”

“I never saw it.”

“When you’re in the middle of a job, Ann, the world could fall down around your ears and you wouldn’t find out about it until they dug you out of the rubble. I don’t remember all the details, but he saved his plane and some lives. Does that sound like a scoundrel and a cad to you?”

“Pilots are notorious with women, Gram. Even I know that.”

“Tell that to those pilots in La Grange and their families. There are womanizers in every field. My point is, he came down here as much for closure as for revenge. And the better he got to know us—the better he got to
know
you
—the more unsure he became about what he was doing.”

“So he’s supposed to get off scot-free?”

“Certainly not. You punished him pretty well this morning, child, and he’s going to suffer a good deal more until he decides what to do with what he knows.”

“So what do
I
do?”

“Far be it from me to tell you what to do.”

Ann laughed for the first time since she’d driven in the driveway. “Come on, Gram. Tell me, please. If I don’t agree, I won’t do it.”

“Help him uncover the truth, if you can. Then step back and see what he does with what he knows. My bet is, he’ll try to find some way to stay in Rossiter. Then he’ll ask you to marry him.”

“Got the old crystal ball out, have you?”

“You know I have the sight,” Gram said huffily.

“Okay, suppose I believe you. How can I possibly help him learn the truth?”

“Try to find out what actually happened to his mother. If she was killed, figure out who did it, because I will guaran-damn-tee you David Delaney didn’t. He was far too gentle a man.”

“I hope you’re right, Gram.”

“Now, would you like a ham sandwich and a slice of my Lady Baltimore cake? I suspect you could use some sugar in your blood.”

“I sure could.” Ann hugged her grandmother hard. “Keep your mouth shut, okay? Don’t tell Mom and Buddy, whatever you do.”

“I promise.” She opened the screen door and went into the house.

“Gram?” Ann said as she followed with Dante practically attached to her hip. “How can I possibly find out
who killed his mother? Much less where her remains are.”

“I suggest you start by finding Addy’s journal. She was a much worse gossip than I am, and a whole lot meaner, to boot. If she knew, it’s in that journal.”

A
NN CHECKED
for Paul’s car before she went into his house, but it wasn’t in the parking area. He must still be at the airfield. For a moment she had the terrible thought that he might have flown away, never to return. Then she remembered he couldn’t, not in his own plane, at any rate. It was in pieces.

She wanted to finish this job. Buddy had given her a punch list. Now was as good a time as any to tackle a few of the final tasks.

She made her way through the garden to the summerhouse. Buddy said it would have to come down. They might save the summer kitchen where Paul’s studio had been, but this little pergola was infested with termites. Ann had drawn up a plan to rebuild it with new wood. Now she needed to save one of the Victorian sconces that held up the posts. If Paul wanted to duplicate them to use on his garage or another summerhouse, he’d have a model to copy.

The wooden seat that ran around all eight sides of the little building seemed solid enough when she tested it with her weight. She climbed onto it, took her cat’s paw and carefully pried loose the nails that held the sconce to the roof.

Every time she shifted her weight she heard an ominous creak from the wood beneath her feet. She worked quickly, removed the sconce and stepped down from the seat just as the wood gave way.

She caught herself before she fell, but managed to
scrape her elbow. It hurt like the dickens, but didn’t bleed. She’d have to clean it up before it got infected.

Could Aunt Addy have left her journal somewhere outside the house? The seats in the pergola opened to provide space to store pillows and linen for picnics. She checked all the openings, but found nothing except a couple of tattered pillows that had not seen service for many years.

Ann only knew Aunt Addy as her piano teacher and had no idea where the old lady would have hidden a journal.

Still, she was certainly familiar with all the hiding spots Victorians built into their houses. They adored nooks and crannies. She’d come across several obvious places in the course of her restoration. That left the ones that were truly hidden. Great.

Aunt Addy had been small and thin. She wouldn’t have had the strength to saw pieces out of the floor or cut away part of a baseboard. From the garden, Ann looked up toward the big bay window behind which the piano was silhouetted.

Could there be a hiding place somewhere in the piano itself? It would have to be somewhere that wouldn’t interfere with the tone or action of the keys.

In the library Ann got down on the floor and began her search. She started with the piano legs and progressed methodically to the lid and finally to the back. She did the same thing with the padded piano bench. No sign that anything had ever been disturbed. She pulled at a couple of tacks on the seat of the bench, and succeeded only in breaking a fingernail and raising a cloud of dust.

Then she sat on the floor with Dante’s head in her lap and cursed.

This was the first time she’d allowed herself to think about this morning. She found she was shivering. Her
teeth were chattering as though she was coming down with a chill.

Suddenly she wanted to see the photograph of Paul’s mother once more—the woman she’d become when the laughing girl in Uncle David’s sketches had been broken by sorrow.

She told Dante to stay and went upstairs, past a couple of painters who were finishing the front bedroom. There was no need to sneak around. She had a good excuse to go anywhere in this house she chose.

Where she chose to go was Paul’s bedroom.

Her heart lurched when she closed the door behind her. That dumb mattress! She ought to stick a knife into the thing. She brushed away angry tears and turned her head firmly away.

His suitcase was open on the floor in the corner. Despite his weeks of camping out, everything was in military order. She removed a dozen pairs of socks, picked up the framed picture of Michelle Bouvet with her young son, sat down on the mattress and stared at it.

The shot had been taken in front of some building that looked official. A library, maybe, or a bank.

She wore her hair in a severe style, pulled back in a bun, Ann guessed.

She had on short white gloves, which definitely dated the photo.

Her dress looked as though it had cost some money. It was a plain princess-cut coatdress with three-quarter-length sleeves. Something about the perfect fit, the drape of the cloth—some sort of cotton faille, Ann would guess—said that it had been created for her. French-women always dressed with such flair.

The fabric itself was a black-and-white geometric pattern that looked almost cubist. Her shoes had very high
heels and very pointed toes, and appeared to be patent leather. The outfit contrasted sharply with the expression of the woman herself. Had she owned it when she’d known Uncle David?

Ann wondered if Michelle had sewn the dress herself. Surely she couldn’t afford a dress that looked like a designer creation. Having a baby had not thickened her waist or swollen her breasts much, either. As a matter of fact, she was almost painfully thin.

Ann looked down at her own full bosom. Clothes never did hang right on her, but this woman could have been a runway model.

She put the picture carefully back into Paul’s suitcase. He’d never know she’d looked at it. She slipped out of his room and back downstairs in time to encounter her father coming up.

“I got that sconce from the summerhouse,” she said.

“What’s with you? You been crying? Your nose is all red. What’d you do to your arm?”

“Just a scratch. I’ll clean it up when I get home.”

“Where’s Paul?”

“Still out at the airfield, I guess.”

Buddy looked at her curiously, but she slipped by him and ran out the front door with Dante close on her heels.

She let herself into her loft and laid the sconce carefully on one of her cabinets. Cleaning her scraped skin hurt, but she refused to cry about it or anything else. Crying was counterproductive. She would not speak to Paul until she could be certain she wouldn’t break down in front of him.

She checked her answering machine to find a dozen calls. She listened to the first few. All Paul, all apologizing, all wanting to make everything between them right.

“Nuts,” she said to the answering machine. Then she sat on her bed and let Dante crawl up beside her.

If she hadn’t played right into Paul’s hands, maybe she wouldn’t feel like such an idiot. “Just want to find out about the family who built my house,” he’d said. Right.

He’d had the perfect opportunity to tell her about his mother when they’d found the sketches. But he hadn’t trusted her. The Delaneys had always considered themselves a class above the Pulliams and the Jenkinses, but they were still family. Ann had betrayed them with every nugget of gossip out of her noisy little mouth.

But none of her information would do him a whipstitch of good. Uncle David hadn’t killed Paul’s mother. Maybe he had run away from her, but men ran away from women all the time, and from everything Ann had heard about him, Uncle David hadn’t been the staunchest vessel on the ocean.

Possibly
nobody
had killed his mother. Maybe she’d had a heart attack, been sent to a morgue somewhere and was buried as a Jane Doe. Or met a real badass on the road. Heck, maybe Ted Bundy killed her. She certainly fit his profile. Maybe she’d accepted a ride with some trucker who’d gotten too friendly and had lost his temper when she wouldn’t put out in return for the ride.

There was not one smidgen of evidence she had ever gotten closer to Rossiter than the bus station in Memphis.

Ann leaned back against the pillows and pulled her knees up to her chest. If Michelle had made it to Rossiter, how had she traveled? She didn’t have a car, probably didn’t have a driver’s license and certainly didn’t have money to rent a car.

Ann called her grandmother. “Gram, can you get to Rossiter from Memphis by bus?”

“Not a city bus, but the local bus to Nashville goes
right by on the highway. You can tell the driver you want to stop. There used to be a bus stop where you could wait to be picked up to go to Memphis, but I think they took it down long ago.”