Cradle Of Secrets

by Lisa Mondello

  Aurore’s face was ashen as Trudie turned to her.

  “Don’t you see? They tried to get to Tammie. They nearly killed her, Dutchie. You know Eleanor would never have wanted her baby girl put in harm’s way.”

  “Dutchie? You mean, as in Dutch?” Tammie said.

  Aurore shrugged weakly. “It was Connie’s nickname for me. A silly childhood game we used to play. I was the duchess, your mother was the princess and Eleanor was the countess. The nickname stuck.”

  “You were the one who sent that letter to my mother.”

  Aurore stood frozen in place.

  “How about we get beyond all the lies and start telling the truth to each other about what’s really going on?” Dylan said.

  Trudie nodded, her hands fisted at her chest. “It’s time, Aurore. This has gotten too big for us to handle on our own.”

  Aurore pressed her hands to her face. “You know what will happen—”

  “It’s already happening!” Trudie cut in. “It’s way out of control. One of them or both will be killed in the process, and I know you don’t want that.”

  A deep sob tore away from Aurore’s throat. “Oh, the day Byron Davco befriended those fiends…There’s been nothing but bloodshed and tears since.”

  “Tell me,” Dylan insisted, advancing toward Aurore. “Whose bloodshed?”

  Serena was still sobbing, her face covered and her head buried against Tammie’s shoulder. It was hard to hear over her cries.

  “Eleanor Davco’s death was no accident,” Trudie said, tears filling her eyes. “She was murdered by the very people who have haunted this family for years.”

  “Aztec Corporation?” Dylan said.

  Aurore’s eyes widened. “You know about them?”

  “Enough to know Cash learned about them and they’re here in this town right now.”

  Aurore began to pace and shook her head. “They said they’d kill the baby. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  Serena’s sobs increased, and Tammie shushed her as best she could. “What baby?” she asked.

  “My baby!” Serena sobbed, then threw her head back and cried harder. The rest of her words were muffled. “They stole my baby!”

  THIRTEEN

  The living room crackled with tension. Wide-eyed, Dylan took in the faces of the people in the room. “Serena and Cash had a baby? I’m assuming this baby is Cash’s child?”

  Aurore’s face showed resignation and distress. “She is.”

  “She’s a beautiful little girl,” Trudie said. “Looks just like her daddy.”

  “Ellie. Serena named her after Eleanor,” Aurore said, looking straight at Tammie.

  Trudie put a hand over her mouth to stifle a sob and pulled Serena into an embrace. “You poor child. You’ve been through so much.”

  Aurore continued to pace the room. “We didn’t mean to let it get this far. We didn’t know what else to do. When Byron became so ill, it all went to pieces.”

  “Why don’t you start by telling us the truth?”

  He thought of the Bible verse about the truth setting you free. He’d waited for this moment, and so had Tammie. And yet, he already had a deeper understanding of Cash and why he’d kept the truth from him.

  Dylan couldn’t sit. There were too many emotions running through him. His brother was a father, and he was an uncle. It wasn’t just about his brother’s life anymore. It was about a little baby who was his kin.

  In the quiet room, fear struck him. He looked at everyone and saw that they were all silent, as if everyone were waiting for someone else to make the first move.

  “Tell me what happened to the baby,” Dylan said as anxiety rose up his spine.

  “They took Ellie!” Serena cried. Her sobs were more under control now, making it easier to understand her words.

  Tammie stroked her sister’s head. “Tell me what happened, Serena,” Tammie asked. “Who did this?”

  Aurore nervously played with her hands, as if she were wringing out a wet towel. “Byron Davco was a prominent businessman in his early days. It was what drew Eleanor to him. Of course, she had always come from money and he, well…he was a poor child who’d made good after coming home from Vietnam. He’d gone to college and made a name for himself.”

  “What went wrong?” Tammie asked.

  She stopped pacing. “He got greedy. Oh, he loved Eleanor, but the fact that she had come from money always made him uncomfortable.” She swept her hand to take in the room. “He enjoyed what money could bring, but he always felt like he needed more, as if he needed to prove to Eleanor that he could provide for her as much as her daddy did. I wonder if he ever really knew Eleanor at all.

  “Eleanor was never one for looking at pretty clothes and fancy things. She looked at a person’s heart and decided whether they were worth the friendship. We were friends since the cradle, Eleanor and I, and I never once felt her money got in the way. She was good people.”

  Trudie continued. “But Byron never got over being poor. It was as if he felt unworthy, even with all that money in the bank. That’s why it was easy for Manuel Turgis to seduce him with the idea of more money.”

  She turned to Dylan. “Until about ten years ago, Manuel Turgis was a high-ranking executive in Aztec Corporation.”

  “So far, everything my contact in Chicago has managed to uncover about Aztec Corporation has been legit,” Dylan said. He didn’t mention that his contact was his sister. Suddenly he wondered if all the poking around she’d done would somehow get back to the people at Aztec.

  “And it would be,” Aurore said. “To the Colombian government, the head of Aztec Corporation might as well be royalty. And because of that, their illegal dealings are overlooked.”

  Tammie looked at Dylan and then Aurore. “Drugs?”

  Trudie laughed with disgust. “That’s not the half of it. It’s more than just drugs, although I’m sure that yields them a hefty bonus.”

  “Then what?” Tammie added.

  “Stolen artifacts. The real stuff,” Serena said, pulling away from Trudie and running to the statue Dylan had seen the other day. She picked it up and smashed it on the floor. “This is what was so precious to them that they took my family away from me.”

  “I don’t understand. I thought those were reproductions,” Tammie said.

  It finally dawned on Dylan. “That one might be, but I’m guessing not all of them are.”

  “You’re right,” Aurore said. “They use the auctions as a cover to move stolen art of all kinds and sell them on the black market. Byron used to be a middleman to help them launder the money into foreign bank accounts. For a while it worked for him. But then Eleanor got suspicious.”

  “She always did have a nose for sniffing out the truth,” Trudie said, then looked at Tammie and chuckled. “You’re a whole lot like her.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Your mother always spoke of you. It did her heart good to see you grow up a beautiful woman like Eleanor.”

  “You knew my mother, too? Connie Gardner?”

  “Eleanor’s dad used to call the four of us peas in a pod. Where there was one, there were the other three. It broke my heart to lose Eleanor, and then to lose Connie, too, when she left. But the friendship always remained. I watched you grow up from afar, with the pictures your mom and dad sent. It wasn’t often enough. We were careful to make sure not to attract attention.”

  “Did Cash find out about these stolen artifacts?” Dylan said.

  “He did,” Aurore said, “but it isn’t as simple as that.”

  “What about you and Cash?” Dylan asked Serena. She appeared much more in touch with reality than she had been in days. She was more like she’d been the day they arrived in Eastmeadow.

  “What do you mean?” Serena asked, her bottom lip wobbling with emotion. Her eyes were red from crying. The skin around them was puffy. But she was looking at him, really looking at him, for the first time.

  “Pastor Robbins said you two were cl
ose.”

  Serena rolled her eyes slightly and shook her head. “Your brother wasn’t just a man I had a child with, Dylan. He was my husband.”

  The room went silent for a moment. How was it possible that Cash had a wife and he’d never known? And a child? Wouldn’t he have told him something like that? Made his family a part of their life?

  As if reading his expression, Serena added, “It hurt him deeply to keep the secret. You have no idea. He did it for our safety. I know all about you. Cash spoke of his family often. He loved you all so much.”

  “Then why didn’t he ever trust us enough to tell us he was married?” He didn’t expect an answer. Still stunned from the news, he dropped down into a chair and scrubbed his hand over his face.

  “It wasn’t because he didn’t trust you. It was because he didn’t know if Turgis would go after one of you. He did it to protect you.”

  “He knew about Manuel Turgis?”

  “He was my husband. Of course he did. He knew it all, because I’d confided in him. Although we kept our marriage secret and very rarely went out in public together, especially after my father got so sick, we didn’t keep secrets from each other.”

  Dylan leaned forward in the seat. “What happened when Byron got sick?”

  Serena looked at Aurore, who nodded and walked to a cabinet, opening a drawer and pulling out a thick envelope. The paper was worn with creases, and smudged fingerprints stained the outside, showing it had been handled a lot.

  “What is that?” Tammie asked.

  “It’s a letter from your father to Serena,” Aurore said, handing it to her. “Byron knew he didn’t have much time. His illness struck him fast. He needed Serena to finally know what happened so she could carry on what needed to be done.”

  “Which was?”

  “Byron got in over his head,” Aurore said. “Eleanor had her suspicions, but nothing she could ever put her finger on.”

  Trudie motioned with her head toward the portrait of Eleanor and a young Serena with disdain. “He’d insisted Eleanor and Serena pose for that enormous thing. Eleanor hadn’t wanted to do it while she was pregnant.” Then Trudie laughed. “What woman wants to have a constant reminder of how big she got during pregnancy?”

  “But he was relentless,” Aurore added. “He kept at her. She’d wanted to wait until Tammie was born, so she could have both her babies with her. But he wouldn’t let up, and so she finally agreed.”

  “I don’t get it,” Tammie said, shaking her head in confusion. “Why would a portrait matter?”

  Dylan rose from the chair. “I’m guessing it wasn’t the portrait. It was the artist. Am I right?”

  Trudie nodded. “It gave Byron a reason to do business with the artist and help Aztec Corporation hide stolen artwork. There was a series of paintings that had been stolen from a private collection. It was worth a fortune back then. I can only imagine what those paintings would be worth in today’s dollars.”

  Aurore sat down. “Turgis needed a way to get the stolen painting to his buyer without there being a paper trail connecting him to it. He needed to hide it in case it fell into the wrong hands.”

  “How’d he do it?” Dylan asked.

  Trudie huffed. “He had this artist paint over the original. Then they hung it out at the auction for everyone to see. Of course, the price tag on the painting was ridiculously high by normal standards, and no one bought it—which they expected—so they packed it up and shipped it out like they do a lot of goods sold. Except this one had already been bought and paid for. We’re talking about millions of dollars here.”

  Dylan pulled out the postcard Sonny had couriered to him overnight. It was the one he’d seen at Cash’s apartment. He looked at the picture.

  “Is this one of them?” he asked.

  “Looks like it.” Trudie sneered. “It’d been in the papers a few years back, when the painting supposedly emerged from hiding.”

  “If the paintings were shipped out, what was the problem? Why is Turgis after the Davcos?” Tammie asked.

  “The money had changed hands. The buyer had put the funds into a foreign bank account, waiting for the painting to be shipped. Only that’s when Eleanor found out. The final transaction never went through.” Aurore broke down and wept then, turning her face away from them until she could contain herself. “Eleanor got ahold of Byron’s paperwork and wouldn’t let him have it.”

  Trudie’s face turned hard with anger. “Eleanor fought bitterly with Byron to stop. She feared her babies would be hurt somehow. You don’t underestimate people like this.”

  “High-level Colombian cartel disguised as businessmen,” Dylan said, mimicking the words Matt had used on the phone earlier.

  Trudie raised an eyebrow. “You have done your homework, young man.”

  Dylan pressed on. “Tell me what else happened.”

  “Eleanor was so upset. She was almost to term. The night of the fi—That night, she’d packed her bags and told Byron she was leaving him. Of course, he begged her not to go. He became—” Trudie glanced briefly at Serena “—enraged,” she said, almost apologetically.

  Serena’s eyes widened. “My father?”

  “You were too young, child. That night changed him. Eleanor threatened to go to the authorities. She was desperate at that point, and she refused to give him the paperwork that had the numbers to the foreign bank account. Looking back, I almost wish she had. She’d still be alive today.”

  “What about the fire?” Tammie asked.

  “Turgis set it,” Trudie said. “He’d threatened Byron, beat him nearly senseless. He’d…threatened to kill Byron’s family. But Byron insisted he’d pay back the debt if it was the last thing he did.”

  Aurore stood still, folding her arms across her chest as if she were cold. “He did, you know. Byron finally had the fortune he’d always hoped for, but it wasn’t enough. He’d made Turgis look like a fool to his people. There’s no price on that. The only thing that kept Byron alive was Turgis’s greed. He made Byron pay back the money tenfold, taking all the profits from his business, which was much more than the original money for the painting. He wanted to ruin Byron, not only in business, but in his life. The money in Eleanor’s trust took care of the house and Serena’s expenses, but all of Byron’s money went to Turgis. He’d gotten quite crafty at fixing the books to show there was no profit from the company.”

  “You said Turgis started the fire? Why? If he was content to get his money from Byron, why would he set the fire?” Dylan asked.

  Aurore looked at Trudie, then turned away. Trudie spoke next, her voice thick with emotion. “You can break a man’s legs and arms, you can torture him until he can’t stand any more. But nothing is more torturous than taking what is most precious to him. Turgis had intended to kill Eleanor and the baby that night. It was his revenge. Byron knew it, and came rushing home to get them. He begged Eleanor one more time to give him the paperwork with the foreign account, and I think she might have conceded, only she was so upset, she went into labor. Tammie came so quickly, there wasn’t time to call for help.

  “In those few hours before the fire, Eleanor confided only in the tight-knit circle she knew she could trust. Me and Aurore—” she looked at Tammie “—and Connie. We promised we’d take care of you both, and we’ve done the best we could.”

  Tammie had been reading the letter from Byron Davco to Serena, tears filling her eyes. “He knew he was losing his battle with Alzheimer’s when he wrote this.”

  “Yes,” Serena said. “He told me about you. He even showed me pictures of you that Connie sent.”

  “When Serena turns thirty years old, she’ll be able to do as she pleases with the money Eleanor had set up in trust. Your father urged her to give it all to Turgis—the house, the money, everything. It’s the family fortune, but Turgis wants it all. He’d never hurt Serena, because she holds the key to the money. But anyone connected with her is fair game.”

  Serena started to cry again. “That’s w
hy he took my Ellie.”

  “And Cash?”

  Aurore shook her head. “When they took the baby, Cash was beside himself. He went after Turgis. With his work in the DEA, he knew these people. He’d already been arrested on that drug trafficking charge, but he didn’t care. He’s quite a brave man.”

  Dylan couldn’t have agreed more. But the word stupid came to mind, as well. Why hadn’t he asked for help? This was too big for him to tackle alone. But he could see Cash walking through fire, fueled by his love for his wife and his baby, if it meant he could save them.

  “How’d they get to the baby?” Dylan asked, pacing, unable to sit.

  “That’s just it. No one knows.”

  He swung around and looked at the women in the room. “What do you mean, no one knows? You have to have some idea how they did it. Was the baby ever alone?”

  “Never.” Serena shook her head. “Cash didn’t want us to leave the house.”

  “And there were no signs of a break-in?” Tammie asked.

  Aurore shook her head. “I don’t know how they’re getting into the house. Byron had a security system put in place years ago. If he could have afforded an armed guard, he would have done that, as well. But it’s not the only time. Every so often, one of these statues appears, here in the living room.”

  Tammie’s eyes widened. “What do you mean appears?”

  “Just that. It isn’t there when we go to bed, but it’s there when we wake up.”

  Realization showed on Tammie’s face. “That’s why you wanted me to lock the bedroom door at night.”

  Aurore sighed bitterly. “Not that it would have helped. Turgis seems to have men everywhere.”

  “Why did Connie and Aaron take Tammie?” Dylan asked.

  Trudie closed her eyes and stood. “I can barely stand the memory of it. Eleanor called me. The stress must have brought labor on early. I raced right over, while Aurore helped her deliver Tammie in the upstairs bedroom.

  “Byron had already fled with Serena and brought her to the church. Aurore met me outside, with Tammie in her arms. I brought her right to Connie and Aaron. They knew they had to leave right then, leave everything they had, or Turgis would kill Tammie, too. It made sense for Connie to take Tammie. They had no children of their own. It was easier that way. Meanwhile, Aurore had gone back into the house to help Eleanor, but the fire was already out of control.”