Kane

by Jennifer Blake

  “I…It’s very kind of you to take pity on me,” Regina said, looking down at her plate and picking up her fork to cut into her cake.

  “Actually,” Vivian Benedict said, “I had an ulterior motive, or perhaps I should be honest and admit it was vulgar curiosity. I spoke to Mr. Lewis this morning, you see, and he told me about the incident yesterday with the old coffin.”

  “Oh.” Regina’s mouth was suddenly too dry to chew the bite of warm, moist and delicious cake that she’d just taken.

  “Just so,” the other woman said with a wry smile. “I didn’t tell Kane I knew, of course.”

  Regina gave her an inquiring look.

  “Why didn’t I? To be honest, I wanted to see if he’d tell me. The explanation should be entertaining, or so I thought.”

  Regina swallowed before she said, “That might depend on your point of view.”

  “You don’t think it’s funny, then,” Vivian said. “Perhaps I misunderstood the situation.”

  “It was just…embarrassing.”

  “Oh. Yes, I see how it might have been. Knowing Kane, I doubt he made it any easier.”

  Regina murmured something noncommittal, unable to correct the impression, but doubtful about agreeing.

  Laughter sprang into the other woman’s eyes. “I may have brought Kane up, my dear, but I have few illusions about him. He’s a rascal, like both his father and his uncle, my late husband. I had my hands full with that boy, I can tell you, after his parents were killed.”

  “Killed?”

  “Drowned, I should say, in a freak accident while deep-sea fishing off Grand Isle. Kane had stayed behind with me that weekend since he was only ten and recovering from the measles, and both our families lived here together in this monstrosity of a house. Afterward, we just kept on, my husband, Kane and I, and I feel blessed to have been allowed to do that since my John and I never had children.”

  “He was lucky to have you,” Regina said, thinking of her own experience with being left when her parents were gone.

  “Maybe, but you can see why he feels so strongly about the family he has left, particularly his grandfather. Also why he’s so protective.”

  “I suppose,” Regina said dubiously. “He was certainly suspicious of me.”

  Vivian Benedict pursed her lips, then sighed. “I’m afraid he has little faith in women except those who are related to him. He was engaged to a local girl a few years back, Francie, a blond beauty queen. But her mother was one of these women who live and breathe beauty contests, modeling, Hollywood gossip, and so on. She filled Francie’s head with big ideas. Her junior year in college, Francie dropped out of school and went off to New Orleans for a job at some television studio. After a few weeks, she called Kane and told him she was in terrible pain with an ectopic pregnancy and needed emergency surgery that was going to cost five thousand dollars. She’d lost her job, had no insurance, she said, and her mother wouldn’t help because she thought it was Kane’s responsibility. Kane drove down at once with the money, which he could ill afford since he’d just started his legal practice. He wanted to stay for the surgery, but Francie said no. Her mother would be with her and was furious with Kane and would likely cause a big scene if she saw him. Later, Francie called again and said there had been complications and she needed another ten thousand.” Vivian Benedict shook her head slowly as she held Regina’s gaze. “I suppose you can guess where this is going?”

  “It was all a lie,” Regina said, her voice taut.

  “Exactly. When Kane insisted on contacting the hospital, Francie wouldn’t tell him where she had been, wouldn’t name the doctor. It was only when Kane began to talk about legal action against whatever quack she’d seen that the truth came out. There had never been a pregnancy, ectopic or otherwise. The money was to have gone to finance a trip to Los Angeles.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  “Kane has never said much about it, but it hit him hard. He loved Francie, or thought he did. He had given her his promise and his ring and fully intended to marry her when she was ready to settle down. Family and children have always meant a lot to him. To use something so personal and intimate as the promise of a child to extort money from him—well, he was never quite the same toward women afterward.”

  “It seems unfair to blame all females for what one did to him.”

  His aunt lifted a shoulder. “Most men take that kind of thing badly.”

  “Even those with a nickname like Sugar Kane?”

  As Regina spoke, it occurred to her that she wasn’t so different from Kane. She mistrusted men because of what one had done to her, didn’t she? Strange that she had never considered it in quite that light before. Commonality with Kane, however, was the last thing she needed to feel at this moment.

  “You’re thinking there must have been times when the shoe was on the other foot?” his aunt asked. “Oh, Kane was a little wild, and he certainly loved the ladies, but he was never heartless or careless. Even when Francie first said she was pregnant, he had doubts because he had done his best to make sure it didn’t happen.”

  “Always in control,” Regina murmured.

  Vivian stared at her a moment. “I see he has his work cut out for him with you.”

  “Hardly,” she replied with dry humor. “I won’t be here that long.”

  “We’ll see,” Kane’s aunt said, and smiled.

  There was no answer for that. Regina ate the last of her cake and complimented her hostess on it as she pushed her plate aside. Vivian got up to refill their cups, then sat back down again. Regina brushed away a drop of coffee that had landed on her saucer’s porcelain rim before she spoke again.

  “So what can you tell me about the Crompton jewelry? I’m fascinated since there are some truly exquisite pieces in the collection.”

  “Most are Victorian since that was Miss Mary Sue’s preference. Mr. Lewis always called it his wife’s collection, but he gave most of it to her, you know, over nearly forty years of marriage. They used to scour the antique shops back when the pieces were plentiful and few cared much about them. His wife adored dressing up, and she and Mr. Lewis often went down to New Orleans for the opera and the symphony. They were active on the country club and political circuits in town, too. She wore the pieces often, so they are a potent reminder of the past to Mr. Lewis.”

  “I wonder why he chose to sell,” Regina offered carefully.

  “There may be a connection with the suit, as Kane thinks, but it could also mean he’s letting go because he’s getting serious about his lady friend, Miss Elise, after all these years.”

  Seeing a chance to segue into a subject of greater interest to her, Regina said, “From all appearances, Crompton’s Funeral Home has been around a long time.”

  “Appearances being, primarily, the age of the coffin in Mr. Lewis’s parlor?” the other woman said with a quick laugh. “I’d have really loved to have seen his face when he opened the lid and saw you two. He’s always saying he keeps that thing on hand in case of an emergency, but I don’t think that’s exactly what he had in mind.”

  “I should hope not,” Regina returned, then added, “No longer than I’ve known him, I can just hear him saying something like that.”

  “You’d better believe it. Black humor more or less goes with the job, you know.”

  “I imagine it might be necessary, a form of relief.”

  Vivian Benedict agreed. “Human beings aren’t always at their best in times of grief. The tales Mr. Lewis could tell if he just would! I’ve seen him shake his head a thousand times over families and how they come to blows or hair pulling over the simplest things, such as whether to have singing at the funeral, or their loved one’s favorite color. And, of course, the very worst arguments are always about money. You know, who’s going to pay and who will inherit.”

  “I’d imagine the skeletons sometimes rattle in the background, too.” Regina, listening to her own voice, was amazed at its lightness.

  “It can be interest
ing who shows up for the service,” Kane’s aunt agreed. “At the service for an elderly woman who died not long ago, who should walk through the chapel door except her arch enemy? They’d had words decades ago over a tree on their joint property line and had carried on a running battle about it ever since. But it seems the old dear was really broken up about the death of her adversary, that their feud was what kept her alive At any rate, she died herself a short time later.”

  “People do get irate over property and money,” Regina observed encouragingly as she swirled the dregs at the bottom of her coffee cup.

  “That’s certainly so. Another tale that went around was about the Widow Landry who had been married to an old skinflint. After the funeral, she searched high and low for the money he’d been squirreling away for years, but couldn’t find it anywhere. So she had him disinterred, and there it was, sewn into the lining of his suit.”

  “He tried to take it with him.” Regina laughed as she spoke; she couldn’t help it.

  “And almost succeeded, though I think, considering the state of it, I might have let him have it!”

  “I should think so,” Regina agreed, wrinkling her nose and shaking her head so that wisps of red hair, curling from the humidity, went flying around her face.

  “You two sound positively ghoulish,” Kane commented as he strolled into the room and headed for the coffeepot. His gaze lingered on her hair several seconds before he went on. “I might have expected it from you, Aunt Vivian, as one of the hazards of living with an undertaker’s kin, but I’m surprised at Regina.”

  “She’s very polite and has a well-developed sense of the ridiculous,” his aunt said, her expression amused yet loving, as she held her nephew’s gaze. “Unlike some I know.”

  He laughed. “You think I need a personality adjustment, too? I expect that’s something else you and Regina can agree on.”

  His aunt protested, and the banter, humorous and saying next to nothing, continued until he and Regina left the house. There were no further chances for questions or probing. She might almost have thought it was deliberate if she wanted to be paranoid. But that would mean Kane had guessed she was searching out information, and that was impossible.

  Wasn’t it?

  5

  Pops was a wily old fox, Kane thought. He’d categorically refused to alter his usual schedule to see Regina that morning. Now he was making himself scarce for the rest of the day. When Kane called the funeral home office to confirm the meeting with Regina, he was told his grandfather couldn’t make it. The tentative dinner afterward at Hallowed Ground was also off. Pops had received a call from a longtime friend who wanted to discuss hometown funeral arrangements for a brother who had passed away in another state. Naturally, such an appeal took precedence.

  Kane didn’t doubt the call had been received, but did question the necessity of his grandfather canceling the afternoon session with Regina in order to accommodate a friend. It was possible Pops felt Regina was being adequately entertained and had decided to get a sad task out of the way while it was on his mind. More likely, he was up to something.

  His grandfather could be reconsidering selling the jewelry, Kane thought, putting off the appraisal until he was more certain. He could also be matchmaking since he seemed to think Kane was working too hard and needed the distraction of female companionship, especially a certain redhead. Either way, it made Kane wary, very wary indeed.

  Regina showed no inclination to take advantage of their extended time together. She was pleasant enough over the lunch they shared at a local café, but no more than that. In fact, she seemed far more interested in his legal practice and the case he was working on than she did in him as a man. When he was forced to report the postponement of her meeting with his grandfather, she opted at once to return to the motel.

  Her attitude did little for his ego. He was used to women who at least pretended to enjoy his company and seemed reluctant to leave it. It felt peculiar to know the shoe was on the other foot. Not that there was anything personal about his interest; he was susceptible to Regina’s brand of attraction, yes, but that didn’t mean a thing except that he’d been too long without a woman. It was interesting to feel alive again in that way, though not particularly comfortable.

  Luke had also been taken with Regina, but then, his cousin just plain liked women—all ages, shapes and sizes. There was hardly a night went by when he wasn’t out with some female somewhere. How he kept them straight, Kane never knew. His cousin made it look easy, however—they didn’t call him Luke-de-la-Nuit for nothing. If Kane suspected Luke’s wicked ways hid problems he didn’t want to face, well, they never talked about it. Kane had demons enough of his own.

  As far as Luke taking a serious interest in Regina, that was unlikely. At least, not without his cousin making doubly sure Kane had no claim. There might have been a time when he and Luke had competed over everything, including women, but those days were long gone. All that remained was the camaraderie of pretending. Or Kane thought that was all.

  He noticed the burgundy Ford Taurus parked across the street from the motel as he returned to his own truck after seeing Regina to her room. He gave the guy behind the wheel a close inspection. There was nothing unusual about him; he was just a plain, ordinary guy reading a newspaper. Regardless, Kane caught himself frowning.

  One problem was that the man was a stranger, someone who couldn’t be matched with any local family resemblance. Turn-Coupe had been isolated for a long portion of its history and the resulting intermarriages had given most people a genetic similarity that allowed them to be placed in family groups with considerable accuracy. On top of that was the fact that people seldom sat waiting in cars in Turn-Coupe except in grocery or discount store parking lots, or maybe in front of a drugstore; there was just no reason for it. If the guy was from out of town but had a clandestine appointment at the motel, then he should have been holed up in one of the rooms instead of parked in plain sight. Add the fact that he didn’t seem to realize he was as conspicuous as a bump on a log, and it was easy to guess he was an outsider unused to small-town ways.

  So what the hell was he doing in Turn-Coupe?

  Swerving from his intended path, Kane headed toward the motel office. As he stepped inside, Betsy looked up from where she sat with her feet propped on an open desk drawer, a thick April Halstead romance novel in one hand and a juicy apple in the other. Kane jerked a thumb in the direction of the Taurus across the street. “That guy over there registered, by any chance?”

  Betsy raised herself up enough to take a look out the window, then gave a derisive snort. “Not so you’d notice. He came into the coffee shop around lunchtime, bought the cheapest thing on the menu, asked a lot of questions. On his way out, he picked up a free paper left over from this morning. He’s been parked over there ever since.”

  “What kind of questions?” Kane leaned on the registration desk as he waited for her answer.

  “All kinds. What kind of town Turn-Coupe is, main industry, jobs available, beer joints, stuff like that. He also wanted to know how many guests I have and what kind of place I ran. I think he suspected it was some kind of by-the-hour dive, but I told him it was nothing that profitable.” She grinned. “Then he wanted to know if I had anybody interesting, anybody different, registered.”

  “You tell him?”

  Betsy put her book down and tossed her apple core at a trash can. “I didn’t crawl out from under a cabbage leaf this morning, honey pie. No, I didn’t tell him. But you know what I think?”

  Kane shook his head, his gaze inquiring.

  “It’s my guess he’s some kind of private eye.”

  “You sure you haven’t been reading too many mysteries?”

  She ignored that. “He’s just got that look, you know? Could be he’s after some lowlife running around on his wife, or maybe a deadbeat dad.”

  Kane tilted his head as he noted her dubious expression. “But you don’t think so.”

  “There’s so
mething more interesting going on around here, now isn’t there?”

  “You think he has something to do with the trial?”

  “Makes sense to me.” She waited, her gaze expectant.

  “But why would he ask after your guests? Who’s he after?” Kane had his own ideas, but it couldn’t hurt to hear hers.

  “Your guess is as good as mine. The only people I have just now are a couple from out of town visiting their daughter, a construction crew, a cotton harvester salesman, and your Regina Dalton.”

  “She isn’t mine,” he said curtly.

  “Better luck next time.” Betsy grinned. “But you’ll have to admit she’s the kind a man might hang around to watch. Or could be your yo-yo out there is a boyfriend, maybe even a husband.”

  “What makes you say that?” It was an effort not to frown.

  “Just guessing. Could be he’s even looking out for you. Better watch yourself, Sugar Kane.”

  “I’ll do that,” he said with irony, then added as he turned to leave, “Thanks, Betsy.”

  “Any time.” She was absorbed in her novel again before the door closed behind him.

  As he drove out of the parking lot, Kane gave the man with the newspaper a closer look. He was nondescript only from a distance. Close up, he looked a lot like a possum, with ashy gray-brown hair, a straggling beard that made his face look dirty, eyes set far back in his head, and a nose as sharp as an ice pick.

  Kane felt his back and neck stiffen in primordial instinct. Two to one the Taurus was a rental, but he memorized the license plate number anyway. He knew someone who could trace it in about two seconds flat.