by Karen White
DeSalvo glared at him. “You’re damned right, it’s terrible. And you’re going to pay for this. We’re late for a meeting already, and I certainly don’t want to show up anywhere like this. What the hell are we going to do?” He turned to Stinky, who looked in the dim light like a fat, dark pinecone.
“Shit,” was all he said.
The brothers chuckled as Chip stepped forward. “You got that right.”
His brother moved next to him. “Hey. We might be able to help you out some, seeing as how you’re in a hurry and all. Why don’t I call Mr. Parker to come tow your car, and we’ll drive you to wherever you’re going in our truck?”
DeSalvo and Stinky climbed out of the car, each wincing as his hands smeared more dung onto the car as he touched it for help in getting out.
Chip looked at his brother. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want that stuff in the cab of the truck. Daddy just had it cleaned, and he’ll have our hides.” They looked in unison at the two dung-covered men. Then Chip spoke again. “We got those blankets in the front cab. They could use those until we got them home to change.”
DeSalvo began unbuttoning his light-colored jacket, which was now smeared with dark patches. “I don’t care. I’ve got to get out of these clothes before I die from smelling this shit.”
Chip pointed to the side of the road where Maddie was hiding, and she ducked back farther into the overgrowth, out from under the billboard’s glare. “Why don’t y’all go over there into the bushes and take off your clothes and I’ll bring the blankets? I got an oil rag, too, to get off some of the stuff in your hair. You’ll just need to share, ’cause I got only the one.”
“Just do it,” deSalvo grunted as he headed off toward the side of the road and out of view of the road.
Maddie moved into position with her camera, trying not to look away in disgust when bare flesh was exposed. She didn’t want to miss any shots.
When their clothes had been thrown into heaps as far away from them as possible, they stood, naked and shivering. DeSalvo called up to the road, “Hey, where are our blankets? We’re freezing down here!”
In answer, they heard the sound of the truck’s engine start, and Maddie looked up to see the truck moving faster than she’d ever known the ancient vehicle could move.
In their haste to make it back up to the highway, the nude men bumped into each other and fell, then tripped over each other again as they tried to make it up the slight embankment.
Neither of them seemed to notice the whirring click of Maddie’s camera going undetected in the overgrowth behind them. Then, when she was sure she had enough shots, she backed up from her spot and ran back down the road to where Rob was waiting to pick her up. With a thumbs-up, she jumped into his car, and he peeled out down the road in the opposite direction of the stranded car and headed toward the photography lab at Walton High School.
“You’re free to go.”
Hank Adams stood at Joe’s cell door, holding it wide open.
“What’s going on?”
“My deputy is bringing in Suzanne. She’s turned herself in and explained how the picture got in your house.”
Joe stood, uncertain. “Suzanne’s coming here?”
Hank nodded. “Yeah. Did you want to stick around and talk to her?”
Feeling a renewed sense of hurt and anger, Joe followed Hank out of the cell. “Yeah. I’d like that very much.”
Joe had fallen asleep in the waiting room at the front of the station when Suzanne arrived. Hank and his deputy discreetly retired behind the desk, giving Joe and Suzanne some privacy.
She stopped and stared at him, those gray eyes wide with uncertainty. “Hi, Joe.”
Just the sound of her voice made him want to pull her into his arms and tell her he would make it better. But then he remembered what she had done to Maddie. And how she had left without a glance behind her to see the devastation. A thought niggled at the back of his mind, but he pushed it away. Maybe he was making it easier to end their relationship, to go back to the half life he’d been living before she’d ever arrived. It was safe, it was familiar. Maybe everything that had happened was just enough to tell him that he wasn’t ready for another relationship. And probably wouldn’t be for a very long time.
“Welcome back, Suzanne. Thanks for all the letters.”
She looked down at her feet, and he saw her cheeks flush. “I did write you. But I tore up all the letters. I didn’t think you’d want to hear from me again.”
He stared at her, at her pale skin and the way her red hair brushed her cheeks, and he couldn’t speak. Mostly because he didn’t want her to know the truth. Instead, he said, “Maddie seems to have lost a lot of her anger at you. I don’t think I’ll ever get there, but I’m really proud of her.”
“You should be. She’s a remarkable person. She’s the one who found me in Myrtle Beach and told me you were in jail.”
He looked at her, surprised. “Maddie found you?”
“Yeah. She and Rob.”
“What in the hell was she doing in Myrtle Beach?”
Suzanne took a deep breath, and he could tell she was getting angry. “Trying to save your ass.”
“I guess she learned that from you, huh? I’m surprised you didn’t take the next bus to the West Coast.”
She stared at him solemnly, her chest rising and falling, and he hated himself for hurting her so deliberately. He wasn’t even sure why he was doing it. It could have been hurt or humiliation—he could take his pick. Didn’t matter. He still felt like a jerk.
He was surprised when she answered calmly, “No, instead I drove down here with Maddie and Rob and turned myself in.”
His throat dried as the guilt hit him. “I guess I should thank you, then.”
“Don’t bother. Besides, Maddie promises me that it won’t be for long.”
Joe recalled deSalvo telling him that he would drop the charges if Suzanne would go back to Chicago with him. Joe regarded her closely, his heart thudding sluggishly in his chest. Slowly he asked, “What does Maddie know about it?”
“She’s got a plan. She hasn’t told me all of the details, but she’s implementing it now as we speak.”
“She’s what? I don’t want her to get into any more trouble because of you. Don’t you think she’s been through enough?”
Suzanne glared at him, and it was almost a relief to see her old fire coming back. “I tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn’t listen. You know how she is. She said she was doing it for you as much as for me. And she promised that it wasn’t illegal.” She swallowed, and he could see she was trying hard to keep control. “She wanted to thank us both for all that we had done for her.”
He didn’t want to listen. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know. Cassie does, though. She’s been helping Maddie.”
He rubbed his forehead, feeling another headache beginning to pound at his temples. “Oh no. There’s no telling what the two of them could come up with.”
Suzanne lifted her hand as if to touch him, then dropped it. “She’s all right, okay? Rob’s with her as well as a few of the guys from the football team. They won’t let anything happen to her.”
He looked at her as relief at seeing her, then worry and anger over Maddie, rushed over him. “Don’t try to help me with Maddie anymore, okay? We don’t need your help. Last time you tried, I ended up in jail, and my daughter with a broken heart.”
She looked at him with so much hurt in her eyes that he wanted to take the words back. Instead, he fought the niggling thoughts in his head and simply stared at her, mute.
“You know something, Joe? All my life, I have wanted what I have found here in Walton these past few months. More than anything else in the world, I wanted a family, a place to belong. And I guess I shouldn’t be greedy and want it for more than my allotted time. I’m sorry. Really, I am. I won’t interfere with your life anymore.”
Feeling gut-punched, he turned away from her, not able to loo
k in her eyes. He motioned to Hank to let him know he was through. But before he left, he faced her again. “If I don’t see you again before you leave, good-bye, Suzanne.”
She didn’t answer, and he left quickly, pushing hard on the glass door of the police station and making it swing open with a bang. Then he used the pay phone outside to call Cassie, wondering what in the hell had happened to his cell phone.
Joe banged loudly on the door of the photography lab until Maddie opened it and let him in.
“How did you find me?”
“I just had a long and illuminating conversation with your aunt Cassie. She told me everything. Where’s Rob?”
“Looking for you, to tell you I’m fine and not to worry. And now that you know, you’ll let me get back to developing these pictures.”
“What are you planning to do with them?”
“We need deSalvo to drop the charges against you and Suzanne and get his butt on the next plane to Chicago as soon as possible.”
“This isn’t some kid’s prank, Maddie. Extortion is not a joke.”
“This isn’t extortion. It’s just getting somebody to pay attention to you while you make a point. Suzanne didn’t steal those pictures. We want to make sure Mr. deSalvo agrees.”
“I’m not going to let you do this.”
“You can’t stop me. And before you even try, remember that Suzanne only came back to Walton to get you out of jail. She didn’t have to, but she did. The least you can do for her is to help us get Anthony deSalvo off her back forever.”
He was silent a moment, the fact that Suzanne was in jail instead of him starting to sink in. “But I thought you said you’d rather die than ever have to speak to her again.”
She regarded him with such fire that for a moment she looked just like Harriet with all her strength, spirit, and determination, and it tugged at his heart. Maddie had grown up into a woman, and he was just noticing it now. “A moment of forgiveness is a whole lot easier than a lifetime of loss, Daddy. I would have thought that Mama and Aunt Cassie had taught you that by now.”
He felt a little sick, remembering the hurt in Suzanne’s eyes when he’d left her at the jail. He’d been angry at her—for leaving him, for hurting Maddie. In his heart, he’d known why she had done it, but it was so easy to push her away. So much easier to go back to the comfort of his loneliness, where the business of his days kept grief and loss out of reach.
He and his daughter stared each other down for a long moment, and he knew that he was losing this battle. When had she learned to be so strong?
“Daddy, Suzanne didn’t leave you to desert you. She left because she thought it would save you. Don’t let her go. Can you really imagine the rest of your life without her?”
He looked away, ashamed. “No,” he said quietly. “I can’t.” And he couldn’t. How could he have been so stupid, and why had it taken a seventeen-year-old girl to point it out to him?
He faced her again. “Can I see the pictures?”
“Only if you promise not to touch them.”
“I’ll try.”
Maddie regarded him with narrowed eyes.
“Okay, I won’t touch them. But I can’t promise you that I’ll go along with all this.”
He followed Maddie through the revolving door and to the counter, where a dozen or so photographs were propped on paper towels as they dried. “Wouldn’t a digital camera have been quicker?”
“Yeah, but the only camera I had quick access to with a high-end lens that could take pictures at night without a flash wasn’t digital.”
He hardly heard her as his attention was captured by the photographs. He looked up at Maddie. “You took pictures of naked men.”
She rolled her eyes, and it reminded him so much of Suzanne for a moment. “I’d hardly call those ‘men,’ Daddy. It’s Mr. Harden and Mr. deSalvo. Please.”
“And what, exactly, are you planning on doing with these pictures?”
“Not me—Aunt Cassie. I already scanned and e-mailed the worst of them to her. She and Uncle Sam are on their way over to Mr. deSalvo’s hotel room in Monroe right now.”
The words were out of his mouth before he’d even had a chance to think about it. “Give me a few pictures.”
“What?”
“Give me some pictures. I’m going to go pay a visit to Mr. deSalvo, too. But I want to be prepared in case I get there before Cassie and Sam.”
“What are you going to do?”
He paused for a moment, admiring this beautiful girl he had somehow helped bring into the world. “I’m going to try and show the world that I can be half as forgiving as you.”
He took the pictures and looked at them closely. “You’re going to have a lot of explaining to do, missy.”
“Not as much as you are if you don’t get Suzanne to stay.”
Without another word, he kissed her on the forehead and left, hoping he wouldn’t be too late to show Mr. deSalvo a little Southern hospitality.
Suzanne sat in the Dixie Diner, opposite Cassie and Sam, and stirred her coffee. She’d been surprised when Sheriff Adams had told her that Anthony had dropped all charges, and even more surprised when the Parkers had shown up to take her to breakfast.
Tired of waiting for either of them to tell her, Suzanne finally asked, “So, what happened last night? How did you get Anthony to give in so easily?”
Cassie handed her a stack of photographs, and Suzanne took them and began to go through them, one by one. They were dark and some were too blurry to see the subjects’ faces clearly, but the majority were clear enough that she could make out who was in the photos.
“Oh . . . my . . . ,” was all she could say at first. Then: “Um, I’m assuming Maddie did the photography?” Suzanne smiled weakly. “I’m so proud to say I taught her everything she knows, although it’s definitely not her best work.”
Sam winked. “Yep, the girl’s an avid learner, that’s for sure. Said it was a real challenge to get the photos at night without a flash.”
“I bet.” Suzanne brought one of the photos closer to her face to see it better. “What’re all those dark splotches on their skin?” Suzanne asked.
“That would be mostly cow manure on their heads and necks, but some of it’s mud from the embankment,” Sam said.
“And they’re naked,” Suzanne said.
“Yep. Like a couple of jaybirds.” Sam grinned.
“It looks like they’re having dirty sex together.”
“It sure does, doesn’t it?” Sam stacked the coffee mugs and moved them over to the counter.
“How on earth did Maddie get these?”
“All it took was a note, presumably from you, to both men, telling them that you were in jail and willing to discuss things with them. You suggested they come together since what you had to say would benefit them both. Unfortunately, they had a little accident with the Slappeys’ manure truck.” He smiled amiably. “The rest, as they say, is history.”
“Joe’s going to be so mad when he finds out how involved Maddie was in all this.”
Cassie and Sam looked at each other before Cassie spoke. “He already knows. He was at the hotel when we got there, and we filled him in. He’s the one who spoke to Mr. deSalvo.”
Worry tightened in her chest. “He spoke with Anthony?”
“Sure did. Joe was able to overlook the stench long enough to show him a few pictures and have a conversation. He said Mr. deSalvo was most impressed by Maddie’s talent. Joe also said that it wasn’t hard to convince him that releasing the pictures to all the Chicago papers, as well as sending them to his competitors, could really hurt business, not to mention officially end any political aspirations I happen to know he harbors. Joe also mentioned that I had mailed the negatives to my lawyer in New York with a letter explaining that it should only be opened if instructed to do so by someone here in Walton, who shall remain nameless. He was most agreeable to Joe’s suggestion that he make it clear that the Gertrude Hardt photographs were a gift
to Suzanne, that he drop all charges, and that he return to Chicago first thing this morning.” Cassie took a deep breath and smiled. “I think that pretty much covers it.”
The diner was completely silent for a moment, and Suzanne could almost hear her blood race through her veins. “But he stole those photographs from the Winthorpe estate. All he needs to do is contact the heirs, and they’ll do all the dirty work for him.”
Cassie nodded. “Good point, and one I’d already considered, which is why I called my lawyer in New York. He has contacted the estate’s heirs, and they have agreed that a payment at today’s fair market value from Mr. deSalvo would be agreeable. And Mr. deSalvo was kind enough to agree, thanks to Joe’s insistence. They also mentioned that they had already received a significant, although anonymous, cash payment for almost the entire amount.”
Suzanne looked away. “Yeah, well, I didn’t feel it belonged to me.” She regarded Cassie and Sam again. “Thank you—for everything. I don’t know what else to say.”
“Don’t say anything. Just stay.” Cassie took Sam’s hand and held it.
Suzanne took a deep breath. “Is Joe going to use these pictures to get Stinky to back off from the mayoral race?”
Sam shook his head. “He did say that he’d use them just to help convince Stinky not to press charges against the Slappey boys. They were the ones driving the manure truck that accidentally let go of its load on Mr. deSalvo’s car. But Joe won’t use the pictures to help him with the election. He says he can win it fair and square. He said that if this town could rally around you when you needed it, then he hasn’t been giving them enough credit for how smart they are.”
“He said that?”
“Believe it or not. Joe’s not always as dumb as he looks.”
Cassie elbowed Sam. “So, what are you going to do now—now that you’re free from deSalvo?”
Ignoring the heaviness in her heart, Suzanne smiled. “I think I’d like to travel awhile, see more of the South. Maybe find a town to set up a photography studio, do some freelance work. That kind of thing.”
Cassie regarded her closely. “Sounds like something you could do here in Walton. We don’t have a local photographer. And you know that I’d be more than happy to give you some of the agency’s business.”