Lauren glanced up at him. “I’m pregnant.”
Ben felt as though someone had kicked him in the gut. He let out a harsh breath of surprise and then seated himself on the chair in which he’d been sitting for over an hour. “When did you find out?”
She lowered her head. “Yesterday morning.”
The Sheriff studied her for a moment and then made up his mind to say what had come into his thoughts at her confession. “Could he have known you were pregnant?”
Lauren looked up. “What?”
Ben squirmed in his chair. “I mean, could he have suspected you were expecting?”
A confused look came over Lauren’s face only to be replaced with anger. “We wanted a baby, Ben,” she informed him. “We were trying to have one.”
Hurlbert shrugged. “You know sometimes a man gets kinda skittish when his wife’s gonna have a baby, Lauren. Some men think it ties ‘em down, gives ‘em more responsibility than they’re ready to take on.”
She pursed her lips in annoyance. “That was not the way it was with Syntian.”
Ben nodded. “Maybe not.” He smiled at her. “I hope not. Anyway, I guess congratulations are in order, huh?”
Lauren tried to smile, but his insinuation about Syntian not wanting the baby had struck a chord and she was remembering her husband’s reluctance to start a family. She didn’t think that had had anything to do with his sudden disappearance six weeks earlier, but she couldn’t honestly say for sure that it didn’t.
“Lauren, honey,” Ben said, standing up and then going to her to hunker down in front of her. “You know you got friends here.” He looked up into her face, gathered his courage and reached for her hands, taking them in his own big paws. “If there’s anything I can do, you know you don’t have to hesitate to ask, don’t you?”
Her heart filled with tenderness at his words. “I appreciate that, Benny.”
“I ain’t saying there’s been foul play, you know?” He winced at her immediate flinch and was quick to gloss over his suspicions, “but I want you to be prepared, darlin’, if that’s the case.”
“He’s alive, Benny,” she whispered, tears forming again. Her voice quivered. “I know he is.”
“Then where is he, honey?” Ben asked kindly. When she shook her head, he hated to remind her, but he felt it was necessary. “You don’t really know that much about him, do you? Where he came from? Who his people are? Who his friends are?”
“Mrs. Hellstrom,” she answered, looking up at him. “He was friends with her.”
Ben nodded. “Yeah, he was, but she ain’t seen him, either.”
“You investigated him, Benny,” Lauren said. “You didn’t find out he was some kind of criminal, did you?”
“No,” Ben drawled out. “We weren’t able to learn much at all about him. He was a private man. What we did find out was precious little and that was kinda suspicious if you ask me.”
Lauren knew they had traced Syntian back to New Haven, Connecticut where he had been part owner in a stock brokerage. His partner had supplied them with scant information about a man he had supposedly known for over ten years.
“If he has family here in the states, I don’t know about it,” Rutherford Langly had told Ben. “There used to be some cousins or such over in Boston, but I don’t think Syn ever discussed them. I couldn’t tell you their names if my life depended on it.”
The Florida Bureau of Investigation had come up with very little other than a valid social security number, unimpeachable tax returns, a deed to the old Herndon estate, a birth certificate which listed Massachusetts as Syntian’s home state, various grade school, high school and college diplomas from that same state. There had been a military deferment from active service, a stock broker license, bank accounts listing a great deal of money and assets, and a valid Florida driver’s license that had been taken out to replace the Connecticut one.
“This man is so squeaky clean,” Ben said the deceased Sheriff had told him, “he ain’t for real!”
Which made Lauren wondered even more what Angeline Hellstrom could possibly know about Syntian that would have kept him tied so securely to her. But when she had brought the subject up, Mrs. Hellstrom had denied there was anything other than an occasional bout of mutual lust that kept them together.
“Syntian is a man of great appetites, Lauren,” Angeline had said sorrowfully. “It wouldn’t surprise me to know he had moved on.”
Lauren had been dumbfounded. “Moved on?” she’d echoed, disbelief running rampant through her voice.
The older woman had put a comforting hand on Lauren’s shoulder. “He likes women, Lauren. Do you remember me telling you that once? He has a hunger for women; all kinds of women. I really had my doubts about him ever being faithful to you.”
A shaft of fury had driven deep in Lauren Fowler’s being. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Mrs. Hellstrom had looked at her with pity. “Do you remember calling him a gigolo once? Well, he might not prey off women to get their money, but he does like variety, Lauren. He’s slept with more women than either of us will ever know. If you want to know what I think—”
“No,” Lauren had answered coldly. “I don’t want to know what you think, Mrs. Hellstrom.” She had grabbed her handbag and rummaged inside for the keys to the bookstore. She slammed them down on the counter and stared the older woman down. “As a matter of fact, I think you’re just a vicious, jealous woman who is angry because he left you for me!”
To give Angeline Hellstrom her due, Lauren had to admit the woman had seemed genuinely upset by Lauren’s actions. She had reached out to take Lauren’s arm, real hurt showing in her eyes when Lauren had snatched her arm back and stepped away from her.
“I didn’t mean anything by what I said, Lauren,” Angeline had apologized. “Please, accept my apology. Don’t let this end our relationship.”
“Syntian would not have left me for another woman,” Lauren said in a stiff voice. She closed her purse with a snap. “I asked for your help in trying to find him and all you want to do is try to make me think he’s screwing around on me.”
If Angeline had been shocked by the word Lauren had used, she didn’t show it. Instead, she had tried once more to get Lauren to calm down.
“You’re right, of course, and I’ll do whatever I can to help you find out what’s happened to him. Please stay on here at the store, Lauren. You need something to keep you occupied and the money will certainly be a help.”
Lauren had lifted her chin and with all the dignity she could muster, she had told the older woman that she had plenty of money in the joint checking account Syntian had opened for her.
Angeline Hellstrom had shaken her head with sadness. “How long do you think that money will last you, sweetheart?”
“Until my husband comes home!” Lauren had snapped and left the store, her shoulders squared and her face set. She had not seen the look of guilty triumph that had passed over Angeline’s; nor did she hear the words that sealed Syntian Fowler’s fate:
“Your husband will never come home!”
“Lauren?”
She looked up, brought back to the present by the concerned look on Ben’s face. “I’m sorry, Benny,” she confessed. “I was thinking of something else. What did you say?”
Ben Hurlbert stood up and looked down at her. “I just said I think us not being able to learn that much about Cree is kinda suspect.”
Lauren sighed. They’d been through this before. She also stood up. “Well, like you say: Syntian was a very private man.” She started walking to the front door, knowing he would follow.
“You gonna be all right out here by yourself?” Ben asked as they reached the door and he took his hat from the hall tree.
Lauren wrapped her arms about her. “There’s no ghosts in this house, Benny,” she said in exasperation.
“That ain’t what I meant and you know it,” he said, not unkindly. “It’s just so far out here and if any
thing should happen...” He blushed. “Well, you know.”
She smiled. “I know.”
Ben let out a long breath. “Why don’t you have your Mama come out and stay with you a while. She’s back from down south, ain’t she?”
Her mother living with her, even visiting, was the last thing Lauren wanted, but she didn’t want to tell Ben that. She shrugged away his question. “If I need anything, I’ll call you. How about that?”
Hope rose in the man’s dark eyes. “Promise?”
Lauren smiled and reached up to cup his cheek. “I promise.” She took his arm and propelled him through the door.
As he drove away, Ben Hurlbert glanced only once in the rear view mirror of his patrol car. Lauren Fowler, a woman he had fallen helplessly in love with over the last year, was standing in the doorway of her home, her shoulders slumped, her head down, and he knew she was crying.
“What you think happened to him, Ben?” Nate asked, breaking the silence between the two lawmen.
Ben’s jaw jutted out with anger. “I think the bastard deserted her, is what I think!”
Nate nodded as he picked at his dirty fingernails with his pocketknife. “Yep. Me, too.” He glanced at Ben. “Shame, too, ‘cause she’s a real nice lady, don’t you think?”
Ben’s face lost some of its anger. “Yeah. I do.”
Chapter Nineteen
Maxine Fowler had been told all about her daughter’s misery. It seemed as though everyone in Milton knew about the troubles that had fallen on Lauren’s fragile shoulders. No one seemed to mind regaling Maxine with what they thought had happened to the girl and no one seemed to see the anger in Maxine’s expression when they did.
“He up and left her, Maxine,” Peggy Johnson had said at the beauty parlor that morning. “It’s just a damned shame, it is.”
“Imagine how that poor child must feel,” Nancy, the beautician had commiserated. “Never having had a man make over like that before and then all of a sudden, he’s done traipsed off with some other gal.”
“Your daughter is just the sweetest thing, Maxine,” one of the old maid Black sisters had been quick to tell Maxie at the Piggly Wiggly later that day. “I just don’t know why Syntian did her the way he did, but I’ve told her if she needs anything, Sister and I will be glad to help out any way we can.”
The more she had heard, the angrier Maxine Fowler became. It had been all she could do to act civil to the busy bodies that had sought her out to discuss Lauren’s problems. Nor was it an easy thing to do to answer the questioning looks those same old biddies had given her when they’d made sure Maxie knew Lauren was no longer a social outcast in their little town.
“Maybe you were just a little too hard on her,” Henrietta Malone had had the nerve to say at Rollo’s fish market. “Didn’t let her stretch her wings and try new things. You treat a girl like she’s a hothouse plant, Maxine, and the next thing you know she’s getting herself mixed up with a man like that Syntian Cree.” The old woman had shaken her head sadly. “He broke her heart and left her with a baby she’s going to have to take care of all by herself.”
Maxine looked at the crippled old bitch and said, “Lauren has a mother to help her take care of that baby!”
The girl behind the fish counter had exchanged a knowing look with old lady Malone and Maxine had exploded with fury, pushing past several customers to rush outside and away from the accusing stares.
The drive to Lauren’s house, no, Maxine corrected, Syntian’s house, had been a blur. She couldn’t remember driving down the highway, stopping or even slowing for any red lights although there were several between the fish shop and the turn off to the old Herndon homestead. Everything had just passed without her noticing until she was sitting in front of the ante bellum home, her car engine idling, suddenly more afraid than she had ever been in her life. Her hands had a death grip on the steering wheel and she could not seem to reach down to turn off the ignition. It wasn’t until Lauren opened the front door and stepped out onto the veranda that Maxine found the strength, and courage, to shut off the engine and get out of the car.
Lauren held her hand up to shield her eyes for the house faced the west and the sun was low on the horizon, nearly blinding her. When she had heard the car approaching, she had known immediately who it belonged to. She’d dreaded hearing that engine for nearly two weeks, the length of time since her mother’s return from Wewauhitchka. Taking a deep breath, Lauren ventured out to the top step and watched her mother walk toward the house.
“How’s everybody in Wewah?” Lauren asked, hoping to forestall the words she knew her mother would say.
Maxine’s lips tightened. “Fine. Just fine.” She stopped at the bottom step and stared up at her daughter. The anger went out of her like the air released from an over-expanded balloon.
Lauren had deep dark circles under her eyes. She had lost weight everywhere but at her midsection where the slight bulge of impending motherhood was already beginning to form. The girl was pale, far too pale, and she looked as though she hadn’t slept in days. There was a haunted look in her too thin face and her hand trembled as she held it up to block out the sun. She appeared weak and frail and listless and the haunted look that peered at Maxine was piteous.
Maxine took a step up the stairs. “Are you all right, Anna Lauren?” she asked, taking another step.
Lauren shrugged. “As right as I can be, I suppose.” She turned around and headed for the door. “Come on in, Mama.”
Even the girl’s voice was sluggish, without tone or expression or life. She seemed to stumble when she walked and Maxie couldn’t help but wonder if the girl was eating right and she said so.
“I haven’t had much of an appetite,” Lauren admitted as she showed her mother into the parlor. She turned and looked blankly at Maxine. “You want some iced tea?”
Not once in her daughter’s life had Maxine really noticed the girl. Oh, she had cared for her when she was little. Well, she had to admit, as much as she had wanted to care for her. Most of the time, both Lauren and her older sister, Joanne, had fended for themselves: getting up to get their own breakfast; getting themselves to school, listening to one another’s problems. That was until Joanne had hung herself.
Maxine shook away the memory and really looked at her daughter for the first time. What she saw made her feel as guilty as sin and twice as heartless.
“Mama?” Lauren asked. “Do you want the tea?”
The older woman shook her head. “I want to talk,” she said in a gruff voice and winced as her daughter nodded wearily.
“I knew you did.” Lauren sighed. She seated herself in one of the Queen Anne chairs and folded her hands in her lap, waiting patiently for the diatribe she knew was coming.
Maxine glanced about the room, knowing Syntian had prepared this room to please Lauren. Everything spoke of good taste and wealth. Not a stick of furniture scattered professionally about the place would be of poor quality. Only the best would have been brought to this place. Only the best for the woman Syntian Cree had wed.
Deep, abiding jealousy ranged through Maxine’s soul and she shivered, casting aside the emotion. Syntian had never cared anything for her. He had used her as she had once used him. His vengeance had been swift and exacting when she had broken the pact between them and he had made sure she knew he had taken pleasure in seeing her hopes and dreams smashed. Now, her daughter’s dreams and hopes had been destroyed, but Maxine knew Syntian was not at fault this time.
She knew who was.
“How long has he been gone?” Lauren heard her mother ask.
Lauren shrugged. “Three months, now.”
“And there has been no word?”
Lauren smoothed a wrinkle in her skirt. “No word,” she repeated.
Maxine heard the abject sorrow in her daughter’s voice and for the very first time, her child’s pain had meaning for her. She took a deep breath and looked away from Lauren’s bent head.
“Have you asked Angelin
e Hellstrom where he is?”
Lauren looked up, a faint glimmer of interest showing in her wan face. “She says she doesn’t know.”
“They were having an affair; have been for years,” Maxine grumbled. She could have bitten off her tongue when she saw the immediate tremor that tugged at Lauren’s lips.
“I know all about that, Mama,” she admitted.
Maxine didn’t say anything for a moment. She was trying to find the best way to relate to her daughter what she knew without making the girl think she was crazy. As she sat there, pondering what, if anything, she should say, she became aware of Lauren staring quizzically at her. She squirmed in her seat, but held her daughter’s gaze.
Lauren’s brows drew together. “Do you know something you aren’t telling me, Mama?” When her mother appeared to silently shrug away the question, Lauren let out a bone-tired sigh. “Mama, I really don’t feel like doing this today.” She stood up. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I really don’t feel all that well and I’d like for you to go.”
“He’s with Angeline,” Maxine blurted out, causing her daughter to take a step back from the fierceness in her mother’s voice. She held up a placating hand. “Just hear me out and if you think I’m a raving lunatic, then you can call the little men in the white coats to come get me.”
“Mama, I’m not feeling well and I haven’t been sleeping.” She pushed herself up from her chair. “I’m not trying to be rude, but I’m not up to listening to you...” She stopped and put a hand up to her forehead. She wavered for a moment and then looked at her mother. “I...”
Maxine squinted, watched what little color Lauren’s face had, bleach away. She stood up slowly. “Lauren?”
The room shifted about her and Lauren’s eyes rolled up in her head. She dropped to the floor, falling in a crumpled heap, one arm flung out.
“Lauren!” Maxine shouted and ran to her daughter, kneeling down beside her. “Lauren?” She put her hand on Lauren’s cheek, shocked to find the flesh ice-cold. Scrambling to her feet, she ran to the phone and dialed 911.
NightWind 1st Book: HellWind Trilogy Page 25