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  Lane took an uncertain step backward, away from him. Johnny Mack had been the most dangerous young man she had ever known, and her instincts told her that he was far more dangerous now. There was something about him, an air of confidence that had been lacking fifteen years ago. What had given him the aura of self-assurance that had replaced the mask of cocky bravado he had worn as a youth?

  “Ten o’clock tomorrow at the Four Way. Room seventeen,” he said. “And don’t be afraid of me, Lane. You’re the last person on earth I’d ever hurt.”

  Before she could respond, he turned away. She caught up with him just after he opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch. She hung back, hesitant to move too close. Lingering in the doorway, she called his name.

  “Johnny Mack?”

  His body stiffened. But when he glanced back over his shoulder, his seductive smile was in place. “Yeah?”

  “I didn’t send the note.” She swallowed hard. “I had no idea where—” She stopped abruptly when she heard footsteps behind her. She eased back inside and slammed the door in Johnny Mack’s face.

  She knew before she turned around that Will had come out of the kitchen. He stood in front of her, his eyes filled with questions.

  “Is he gone?”

  “Yes, he’s gone,” she said.

  “He’s Johnny Mack Cahill, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.” Heaven help us all, yes, he’s Johnny Mack Cahill. Your father. And my destroyer.

  “I’m glad you made him leave. I don’t want to ever see him again!”

  Will rushed past her, his long legs taking him quickly up the spiral staircase to the second level of the house. Lane hurried after him, but halted halfway up the stairs.

  “Will!”

  The sound of his door slamming reverberated in her ears. She sank down on the steps, a feeling of hopelessness encompassing her. How much more could her son endure? What was his final breaking point? She had to keep him safe from anything and anyone who might harm him. And that included Johnny Mack.

  “Has Johnny Mack gone?” Lillie Mae stood at the bottom of the staircase.

  Lane glanced at the rail-thin old woman who had been her only confidante and dearest friend for the past fifteen years. “Did you send that note to Johnny Mack?”

  Standing at attention, like a proud soldier, Lillie Mae said, “Yes, I sent the note. Even if he doesn’t realize it right now, Will needs his father—his real father. And whether you’ll admit it or not, you need Johnny Mack, too. You need a strong man at your side if you’re going to fight and win this battle. And it’s way past time for Johnny Mack to pay the piper.”

  Edith Ware opened the door to Mary Martha’s room. Jackie Cummings jumped up out of the chair in front of the television in the sitting area and smiled a warm greeting to her employer.

  “Come on in, Miss Edith.”

  Jackie all but bowed to her. Edith liked subservience in her employees. Actually, she appreciated subservience in all her relationships, even in her marriage. There had been only two people she had never been able to bend to her will. Her first husband, John Graham. And his bastard son, Johnny Mack Cahill.

  Edith motioned for Buddy Lawler to follow her as she entered her daughter’s sanctuary, a room that had changed little since Mary Martha was twelve. Pastels and lace and girlish frills. French Provincial furniture and a wall curio filled with dolls.

  “How is Miss Mary Martha doing tonight?” Edith asked.

  “She ate a few bites of supper,” Jackie reported. “She’s been sitting peacefully over there in her rocker for the past hour.”

  Edith turned her attention to her child. Her thirty-three-year-old child. Her only child, now that Kent was dead. Mary Martha possessed an innocent beauty that was deceptive. Flawless pale skin. Waist-length strawberry blond hair. And pale brown eyes that seemed incapable of seeing into the real world.

  “What’s that she’s holding?” Edith took a step closer and barely stifled the gasp that came immediately to her lips.

  “It’s just a baby doll,” Jackie said. “She’s been toting it around all day. And tonight she’s been rocking it and singing to it. I hope that’s all right. I didn’t see any harm in her playing with her doll.”

  “No, of course not.” Edith bit down on her bottom lip. No harm at all for her mentally unstable daughter of thirty-three to play with a doll as if she were a six-year-old. Without glancing back at the hired nurse, Edith said, “Why don’t you take a break, Ms. Cummings. Buddy and I will sit with Mary Martha awhile.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Thank you. I wouldn’t mind a smoke.”

  “Remember to go outside for that,” Edith said. “No one has smoked in this house since Mr. Graham died. The day he died, I burned every damn box of cigars he had.”

  “I’ll go on the back porch.” Jackie nodded hello to the police chief as she excused herself.

  Edith moved slowly toward her daughter, halting as she came up behind the rocking chair. “She’s been like this since the afternoon after Kent’s funeral. I thought surely by now she would have improved.”

  Mary Martha rocked back and forth in the white wooden rocker. Holding the life-size baby doll in her arms, she crooned to it as a mother would to a child.

  Edith caressed the top of Mary Martha’s head. “I’m afraid to let a psychiatrist examine her. There’s no telling what she might say.”

  “Then, we’ll make sure she’s taken care of until she’s ready to come back to us on her own terms.” Buddy Lawler knelt in front of Mary Martha and spoke to her in a soft, caring voice. “How are you tonight, sweetheart? I hear you ate a little bit of supper. That’s good. You gotta eat more. Gotta keep up your strength. As soon as you get well, I’m going to take you down to the Gulf, and we’ll gather sea-shells on the beach the way we did the last time we were there.”

  Ignoring him, Mary Martha continued humming, continued rocking, apparently oblivious to all that was around her. Buddy reached out and caressed the doll’s cheek. Mary Martha gathered the doll close to her chest and held it there as if she thought Buddy was going to snatch it away.

  “Don’t take my baby! Don’t you take my baby!”

  Mary Martha’s pathetic cry pierced her mother’s heart. This tragedy was her fault. Everything was her fault. But it was too late to do anything that could help Mary Martha. And too late for recompense on her part. Nothing could change the past. The most she could do now was protect her child.

  “No, no, sweetheart,” Buddy said. “It’s all right. I’m not going to take your baby away from you.”

  He rose to his feet and turned his back, but not before Edith saw the sheen of tears in his eyes. If anyone on earth loved Mary Martha, Buddy did. He had been in love with her since they were children, and his devotion to her was touching. There was nothing Buddy wouldn’t do for Mary Martha. She envied her daughter on that count.

  Edith clasped the top round on the rocker with white-knuckled ferocity. Taking a deep, calming breath, she nodded toward the settee by the fireplace and said, “Why don’t you sit down, Buddy? We’ll stay a few more minutes. Our just being here with her will somehow reassure her, don’t you think?”

  Buddy nodded, then sat on the settee. His gaze rested sorrowfully on Mary Martha. “Do you think it’s all right to talk in front of her? I mean, you don’t think she’d get upset, that she’d actually understand what we’re saying?”

  “Just what did you want to talk to me about?” Edith asked.

  “Well, we haven’t had much chance to discuss the current situation, not with Kent’s funeral and then Mary Martha going to pieces the way she did.”

  “And what is the current situation?” Edith walked over to the vanity, picked up a silver brush and returned to stand behind her daughter’s chair.

  “For one thing Lane is the main suspect in Kent’s murder. How do you want us to handle that? Do you want to see her arrested or not?”

  “Oh, yes, that situation.” Edith ran the brush through Mary Martha�
�s fiery gold hair and wished that she had taken the time to do this when her daughter was a child. “Lane deceived Kent. She made his life miserable and all for what? For a baby she knew had been fathered by Johnny Mack Cahill. Even if she didn’t strike the blows that actually killed Kent, her part in the deception helped to kill him long before he died.”

  “You know what the local gossip is, don’t you?”

  “Tell me.”

  “I hear folks are saying they think Will killed Kent, and Lane is just taking the rap for him.”

  Edith had loved her grandson—the boy she had thought was her grandson. Even now, knowing Will wasn’t her own flesh and blood, she still cared for him. But she couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow Johnny Mack’s son to inherit anything from John Graham’s estate.

  “Hmm…Interesting. But we know that poor boy is as innocent of any wrongdoing as…as my Mary Martha,” Edith said. “He’s a good boy, even if he is the spawn of the devil.”

  “Yes, of course.” Buddy stared directly at Edith and nodded agreement. “And speaking of the devil—I plan to call on our visitor and find out just who he is and what he wants.” Buddy rubbed his hands nervously up and down the front of his thighs. “If by some chance he really is Johnny Mack, then we don’t want him hanging around and muddying the water, do we?”

  “By all means, pay this man calling himself Johnny Mack Cahill a visit. Tonight. If he is who he says he is, give him fair warning that he’s not wanted here now any more than he was fifteen years ago.”

  “I don’t see how it can be Johnny Mack. Not after the beating we gave him.” Sweat dotted Buddy’s forehead and upper lip. “My guess is that what’s left of him is at the bottom of the Chickasaw River.”

  “Then, if this man isn’t who he says he is, find out who he is and what he wants. And get rid of him!”

  “Eavesdropping, Ms. Cummings?” James Ware asked as he came up behind his stepdaughter’s private duty nurse.

  Jackie gasped and jumped, then turned to face her accuser. “Mercy, Mr. Ware, you scared the bejesus out of me!”

  “What’s going on in Mary Martha’s room?”

  “Oh, Miss Edith and Buddy Lawler are visiting with her.” Jackie gave James a provocative, come-hither smile. “I’ve just come upstairs after taking a smoke on the back porch. I wasn’t eavesdropping. I was waiting. Didn’t want to disturb their visit.”

  “Hmm…I see.”

  James would bet his bankroll that Jackie would be more than willing to scratch any itch he had. She had had that kind of reputation as far back as he could remember. But he wasn’t interested in her. The only woman for him was Arlene. He had loved her since they were teenagers, but had been a gutless coward back then. He’d allowed his family to keep them apart. However, after all these years, finally, if his plans worked out, they would have the rest of their lives together. With Edith consumed by Kent’s murder, now was the perfect time to tie up all the loose ends.

  “You’re in kinda late, aren’t you, Mr. Ware? Business in town?”

  James searched Jackie’s eyes for any hint that she knew about his affair with Arlene, but her expression revealed nothing.

  “A mayor’s work is never done,” he replied, hoping he had infused his words with just the right amount of humor.

  “Is that so? Would you believe my beautician says the same thing—that her work is never done? You know my beautician, Arlene Dothan, don’t you?”

  Jackie’s tittering laughter sliced like a razor blade along James’s nerve endings.

  “Yes, of course I know Ms. Dothan.”

  “I thought you did.” Jackie snuggled up to James’s side. “I’ll make you a deal, Mayor—you don’t mention anything about my eavesdropping to Miss Edith, and I won’t mention anything to her about how well you know my beautician.”

  Chapter 7

  Light from a full moon bathed the old boathouse with a soft, creamy wash and danced across the river in shimmering ripples. A fresh coat of white paint on the aged wood and new hinges on the side door told Johnny Mack that Lane had kept the structure in tiptop shape. He wondered if William Noble’s boat still resided inside or if it had been sold years ago. Since leaving Noble’s Crossing, he had often thought about this place, about the times he and Lane had met here. She had been so young. So naive. So innocent. God, how he had wanted her. And he could have had her. She would have given herself to him without reservations.

  Johnny Mack tried the door. Locked. In the old days, Lane had always left the door unlocked for him. This had been their place, a sanctuary from the real world. Here, he hadn’t been a trailer trash bastard, and she hadn’t been the princess of Noble’s Crossing.

  Lane sure had been in a hurry to get rid of him tonight. He’d seen the fear in her eyes. Had she been afraid that he would ask to be introduced to her son? Surely she knew that he’d never do anything to hurt her or the boy. Even if Will turned out to be Kent’s son, he would never hurt him. Because he was Lane’s child, too.

  Johnny Mack strolled by the river’s edge, the ground soft beneath his feet, the heels of his boots branding the damp soil. Ancient willow trees dripped their long, feathery branches into the thick green grass, creating secluded little tents around their trunks. The one and only time he had ever kissed Lane had been beneath one of these willows.

  Nighttime insects chortled late summertime choruses, the sound blending with the gentle rush of the river. Southern humidity seeped into the skin of man and beast alike, creating a heat within and perspiration on the flesh. Even the buildings weren’t spared the effects of the weather, sweating and moaning and waiting for the relief of autumn.

  As a young man, he had loved summertime. Swimming in the river. Drinking cold beer over at Goodloe’s Tavern. Watching the girls walk by in their short-shorts. Getting all hot and sweaty by heating up the sheets with a willing woman. And watching Lane Noble watching him while he mowed their grass and pruned their hedges. He had usually worked in cutoff jeans and without a shirt, getting himself a dark tan and giving the ladies an eyeful.

  Johnny Mack chuckled. He had been such a cocky SOB. A white trash rounder who hadn’t had sense enough to stay where he belonged. The ladies on Magnolia Avenue had been Off Limits to him, but he hadn’t let that stop him. He had sampled the delights of the rich, pampered, spoiled debutantes—and a few of their mamas, too. But he had drawn the line at bedding Mary Martha because he’d known she might be his half sister. Even a bad boy like him had had his principles, few that they were. And even a guy who had prided himself on screwing his way through the country club set had known true quality when he had seen it, when he’d touched it, when he’d loved it. And in his way, he had loved Lane. God, he had worshiped Lane!

  She had represented everything he had wanted, everything that was good and kind and genteel. Breeding and character and a gentle heart. He had known that she was far too good for the likes of him. But hell, she had been way too good for Kent Graham, too. So why had she married the sorry son of a bitch? The thought of Kent even touching Lane made him sick.

  With her mind a jumbled mass of confusion, Lane escaped to the rose garden behind the house. She gazed up at the night sky as memories long buried deep in her heart resurfaced. Johnny Mack was back in town! Dear Lord, what was she going to do? She had truly believed that she would never see him again, that he would never return to Noble’s Crossing.

  Will hated Johnny Mack. Kent had seen to that with his vile, vindictive ranting, giving her son the worst possible scenario of Johnny Mack’s life from birth to twenty-one. She had known Kent could be cruel, but until he had tried to destroy Will with his bitter hatred, she hadn’t realized just how cruel her ex-husband could be.

  God forgive her, she had wanted Kent dead. And thoughts of killing him had crossed her mind. But except to protect herself or Will, she never could have taken Kent’s worthless life. But someone else had done the deed for her. Someone who hated Kent even more than she did. Someone who had been pushed over the edge.
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  Her greatest fear was that Will had murdered Kent. When she had found her son, dazed and confused, standing over Kent’s body, she had decided then and there that she would protect her child, no matter what the cost to herself. She was as much at fault as Kent or Sharon or Lillie Mae. She had been a perpetrator in the great hoax. Every day of her married life, she had lied to her husband.

  I did it for Will.

  And for yourself, her conscience reminded her. You wanted Johnny Mack’s child. You would have done anything to have prevented Sharon from aborting his baby.

  If only she could go back fifteen years. No, she would have to go back farther than that. Back nineteen years. Back to when she was fourteen. Back to the first moment she laid eyes on Johnny Mack Cahill.

  But what good would going back in time do? Would it change the fact that she had fallen head over heels in love, the way only a young girl can? No, of course it wouldn’t change the inevitable. Nothing short of an act of God could have prevented her from loving Johnny Mack. She hadn’t chosen to love the town bad boy, the womanizing hell-raiser to whom she had been nothing more than a friend.

  “You’re the only girl I’ve ever been just friends with,” he had told her. And that admission had broken her young heart. She had wanted to be so much more than his friend. She had foolishly longed to be the love of his life.

  Without even realizing what she had done, Lane found herself moving along the path that led from her mother’s flower garden down to the old boathouse and pier on the river. How many hours had she spent in that boathouse, sitting on the deck of her daddy’s small yacht with Johnny Mack? Alone. Secluded from the outside world. Talking, laughing and falling more and more in love with him.

  She could not—would not!—allow those old feelings to rise from the ashes. She had burned her bridges years ago, when she’d finally realized that the price she had paid for loving Johnny Mack had been too high. In the beginning, every time Kent touched her, she had tried to pretend he was Johnny Mack. The fantasy had been a dismal failure. Eventually she had grown to hate Johnny Mack even more than she despised Kent.