by Sandra Brown
“I’m curious, Mr. Merchant.”
“So am I. I’m curious to know why you don’t call me Beck.”
“How did Huff know I was at the funeral? Did he get advance notice that I was coming?”
“He hoped you’d come but had no guarantee that you would. All of us were on the lookout for you.”
“In the church, neither he nor Chris gave any indication they knew I was there.”
“They knew.”
“Something in the air?”
“Something like that, I guess. Bloodline vibes.” He paused as though waiting for her to laugh. When she didn’t, he said, “Realistically, did you think the dark sunglasses and hat would conceal your identity?”
“I knew there would be a crowd attending the funeral. I had hoped to get lost in it.”
Again he paused before saying quietly, “I don’t think you could get lost in any crowd, Sayre.”
The compliment was subtle, rife with insinuation and suggestiveness. She hadn’t invited, nor did she welcome, the flattery, so if he was expecting a simpering thank-you, he was in for a disappointment.
“If you hadn’t worn the hat, Huff and Chris would have spotted you immediately,” he said. “I would have, and I don’t even know you.”
Her hat had begun to give her a headache, so she had removed it. She’d also unclasped her hair and let it hang free. The humidity had encouraged the natural curl that she controlled every morning with her blow-dryer and straightening device. When she’d happened to catch her reflection in a hallway mirror a short while ago, she’d noted that her hair had reverted to the disobedient mane it had been in her youth.
The sunlight streaming through the tall windows of her mother’s conservatory was catching each strand and setting it ablaze. The manner in which Beck Merchant was watching the play of sunlight on her hair made her wish for shade.
She also didn’t like having to tilt her head back in order to look up at him. The alternative was to address his belt buckle. Either way, she was at a distinct disadvantage. With the intention of leaving, she slid toward the end of the bench. “Excuse me.”
“Interesting name.”
She stopped and looked at him over her shoulder. “Pardon?”
“Sayre. Who named you that?”
“My mother.”
“Family name?”
“Her paternal grandmother.”
“I like it.”
“Thank you. So do I.”
“For the longest time, after I came to work for your family, I wasn’t sure how it was pronounced.”
“Like it’s spelled.”
“Wouldn’t that be S-a-y-e-r instead of r-e?”
“Does it really matter?”
“Obviously not.”
She made to leave again, but he forestalled her. “You didn’t answer my original question, Sayre with an r-e.”
This time, she swiveled all the way around to face him. “Are you trying to be cute?”
“No, only conversational. But I can’t seem to say a damn thing, no matter how inconsequential, that doesn’t irritate you. Why is that?”
She released an audible sigh and folded her arms across her middle. “I don’t recall a question.”
He nodded down at the piano. “Do you play?”
“No, regrettably. Mother enrolled me in piano lessons when I was eight and mandated an hour of practice every day. ‘Because every young lady should know how to play a musical instrument,’ she said.”
Sayre smiled at remembered reprimands for her failure to practice. “Mother tried to curb my wild streak but eventually gave up on me, declaring me a lost cause. Piano required musical talent and self-discipline, neither of which I had.”
“Really?” He sat down beside her, crowding her, with his back to the keyboard so that they were sitting hip to thigh, and face-to-face. “You lack self-discipline?”
“I did when I was eight,” she said, making her voice crisp. “I’ve cultivated some since then.”
“I hope not at the expense of that wild streak. Restraint in a redhead would be a shameful waste of natural impulses.”
She didn’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction, except to say, “You’re living up to my preconceptions of you. I would expect you to be insulting.”
“Insulting? I was trying to pay you a compliment.”
“Perhaps you should consult your dictionary.”
“What for?”
“The definition of a compliment.”
She slid off the opposite end of the bench and strode across the room, making it only as far as the portiere that separated the conservatory from the central foyer, which was crowded with a group of people about to leave. Several of them paused to offer her a murmured expression of sympathy.
In the midst of this group was Sheriff Red Harper. His face had grown longer and thinner in the past ten years, but she would have known him anywhere. Before he left, she saw him shake hands and exchange whispered words with Huff and Chris. Witnessing this hushed conversation reminded her of why she had returned to this house she had sworn never to enter again.
Beck Merchant had moved up behind her. She sensed him standing close. Speaking softly, but loud enough for him to hear, she said, “Red Harper doubts that Danny’s death was a suicide?”
“Let’s go outside.”
He cupped her elbow, but as she turned to face him, she pulled it away. “Let’s stay here.”
He looked annoyed at her rebuff but kept his voice low. “Are you sure you want to talk about this where we might be overheard?”
Their long stare amounted to a war of wills, but eventually she left the room and headed toward the back of the house, trusting that he would follow her. As they moved through the kitchen, Selma, who was loading the dishwasher, asked if they’d had anything to eat yet.
“I’ll get something later,” Sayre told her.
“Same here,” Beck said.
As they went through the back door, she called after them, “Y’all need to eat something. You need your strength.”
Without having to think about her destination, Sayre walked across the manicured lawn in the direction of the bayou. The muddy creek bank behind the house had been her special retreat when she was a girl. She had come here to pout when things didn’t go her way, or to escape the charged atmosphere of the house when Huff was displeased, or to seek refuge from Chris, whose favorite pastime had been to torment and tease her.
She would lie for hours beneath the branches of the cypress and live oak trees, nursing whatever emotion was governing her life on that particular occasion. She made grand, ambitious plans for her future. Sometimes she plotted retribution for a slight. Often she dared to dream of a home life where family members laughed more and blustered less, where there were more hugs than hostility, where parents and children truly loved one another.
Now, as she neared the familiar spot, she was disappointed to see that the dense shrubbery under which she used to hide had been replaced by a bed of begonias. They were pretty, but they wouldn’t provide concealment for a little girl seeking solace.
However, the old wood swing was still there, hanging from a stout horizontal branch of one of the oaks. The ropes from which it was suspended were as big around as her wrists. It had weathered, but it hadn’t been removed and she was glad of that.
She ran her finger up and down the prickly rope. “I can’t believe it’s still here.”
“Was this your swing?” Beck had moved to the opposite side of it.
“Old Mitchell . . . that’s the only name I knew him by . . . did our gardening. He put up this swing for me. He told me that the ropes had come off a ghost ship that had been sunk just off the coastline of Terrebonne Parish. It was a pirate ship, dashed by the worst hurricane in history. Everyone on-board had perished.
“But the spirits of the pirates liked Looz-ana so much that they opted to stay rather than to go on to heaven. They probably wouldn’t have got very good positions in heaven anywa
y because of their evil deeds on earth, Old Mitchell said. So they elected to stay put. And once a month, on the night of the full moon, the ghosts came out to barter with anyone who was brave enough to do business with them.”
“And Old Mitchell was?”
“To hear him tell it,” she said, smiling. “In exchange for a pint of rum, he got a gold bracelet that he melted down to cap his teeth.” She laughed. “I envied his gold teeth and wanted some for myself. I threw a temper tantrum because Huff and Chris laughed at me when I demanded them. Mother just became distressed.”
“Fortunately they didn’t let you have your way.”
“Fortunately. Anyway, in exchange for the rum, Old Mitchell got the bracelet and a coil of rope. He said he told the captain of the ship, the most fearsome pirate of the lot, that the rope was going to be used to make Miss Sayre a swing. And because it was for me, the pirate threw in a piece of the ship’s plank for him to make the seat out of.” She gave the swing a gentle push.
“He told you quite a tale.”
“I believed every word of it. He had me convinced of his magical powers. He said he learned them from a one-eyed voodoo priestess who lived with a panther in the swamp. He wore a leather pouch around his neck with his gris-gris in it. He never would show it to me, and Selma threatened to knock him senseless if he did.
“He would get mad at me when he was fishing. He’d tell me to hush up or I’d scare the fish away. Once he caught me up in that tree,” she said, pointing. “He told me to get down before I fell out and broke my neck and had to spend the rest of my days in a wheelchair.
“Despite the scoldings, I thought of him as my best friend, which horrified my mother and scandalized Selma. Sometimes when he was finished with his work for the day, he would let me ride in the wheelbarrow as he pushed it back toward the toolshed. It’s odd,” she said upon reflection, “that I didn’t spot Old Mitchell at the funeral. I would have thought he’d be there.”
“Sit down. I’ll push you.”
Beck Merchant’s offer roused her from her nostalgic reverie and made her feel silly for having engaged in it. “No thanks.”
“Okay, then you can push me.”
He sat down in the swing and took hold of the ropes. He smiled up at her, his eyes squinting against the sunlight. Bottle-green eyes, she noticed. Besides being attractive, they were also intelligent and intuitive, and she didn’t know which attribute annoyed her most.
Snubbing him and his smiling eyes, she walked past the swing toward the channel of water that moved slowly but inexorably toward the Gulf. The muddy current already gave off a briny scent. A pelican on the opposite shore rose with a perturbed flap of wings.
A light breeze stirred the feathery branches of the cypress trees and caused an occasional flutter of the Spanish moss, but it wasn’t strong enough even to disturb the more substantive foliage of the live oaks.
The heels of her shoes sank into the spongy ground, so she slipped the shoes off and carried them by the narrow heel straps. The mud felt cool against the soles of her feet. If not for her companion, she might have lain down in it.
“Was it something I said?” he asked.
She turned toward him. “Stop with the charm, all right? It’s wasted on me. I grew up with charming men. I know firsthand just how false it can be. In any case, Mr. Merchant, it lost its allure a long time ago.”
“Call me Beck. And what is it exactly that you don’t like? Charm or men?”
The swing wasn’t moving in a very wide arc, but he was actually swinging, and it irritated her no end. “I don’t like you.”
“You don’t know me.”
She gave a bitter laugh. “I know you. I know you because you’re just like them,” she said, motioning in the direction of the house.
“How so?”
“You’re unscrupulous, unethical, greedy, and smug. Shall I go on?”
“I don’t think my ego could withstand any more,” he said dryly. “What I’d like to know is how you formed such a low opinion of me so quickly. We’ve just met.”
“I’ve formed it over time. I read the company reports that have continued to be sent to me even though I’ve repeatedly requested that I be dropped from the mailing list.”
“Then why do you read them?”
“Because I’m staggered by the lengths to which my family will go to make a buck for Hoyle Enterprises.”
“You’re a partner of Hoyle Enterprises.”
“I don’t want to be,” she said, raising her voice. “I spent a year of my time and thousands of dollars in attorney’s fees trying to extricate myself. Your crafty machinations prevented me from pulling out.”
“Those machinations were legal.”
“Barely.”
“Barely counts.”
He left the swing rocking upon its ropes and walked toward her. “I work for Huff. He wanted you to remain a partner in the family business and told me to pull out all the stops to make certain you did. I only did what he paid me to do.”
“Then we know what that makes you, don’t we?”
“You’re calling me a whore?” Dropping his voice to a lower pitch, he said, “I don’t think you want to go there, do you, Sayre?”
The implication stung, but she was more angry than hurt. She no longer empowered anyone with the ability to hurt her. “You even fight dirty like they do.”
“I fight to win.”
“Of course you do.”
“What do you fight for?”
“Survival,” she fired back.
Then willfully getting a grip on her temper, she took a deep breath. Realizing that her hands were clenched into fists at her sides, she relaxed them. She shook back her hair and wet her lips.
When she was steadied, she said, “I fought to survive them. And I did. The only conceivable circumstance that could have brought me back here was to bury my brother Danny. Although I mourn his death, and will always—” She stopped herself from telling him that she would always be haunted by those two telephone calls she didn’t take from him. “I’m grateful that at least he’s finally escaped them. I hope he’s found peace. But I’d like to know—”
She stopped abruptly when he raised his hand to her cheek and brushed it with the back of his fingers. Startled into silence, she gaped at him.
“Mosquito.”
“Oh.” She touched her cheek where his fingers had been. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Seconds ticked past before she refocused on the subject. “I’d like to know how Danny died. Give me the details.”
“I would have told you everything on Sunday. I made several calls to your office. You wouldn’t talk to me.”
“I wasn’t prepared to hear about it then.”
That wasn’t the reason she had refused to speak with him and he knew it. Nevertheless he didn’t dispute her. Instead, he said quietly, “He was killed by one gunshot to the head. There was no . . . Well, he wouldn’t have felt a thing. Death would have been instantaneous.”
She could do without any more description than that. That was bad enough. “Who found him?”
“Fishermen on the bayou. Their outboard had started smoking. They stopped at the fishing camp to see if they could borrow some oil. Danny’s car was parked out front, so they assumed someone was there. When they went inside the cabin, they found him.”
She tried not to think about the scene that would have greeted the fishermen. “It was ruled a suicide.”
“Initially.”
“But Red Harper is having second thoughts?”
“Not Red. There’s a new detective in his department, a younger man named Wayne Scott. Red assigned him to investigate the scene. He thought it would be routine. A form to be filled out, rubber-stamped, and filed. End of case and Danny becomes a statistic. But Scott came back from the fishing camp with more questions than answers.”
“Such as? Does he think it could have been an accident?”
“He’s not sure
. As I said, he has more questions than—”
“You’re hedging, Mr. Merchant,” she said impatiently. “I’m a grown-up. Don’t talk down to me.”
“Deputy Scott hasn’t revealed his hand to me. I swear it,” he said when she looked at him skeptically. “I just have a gut feeling that he’s not one hundred percent convinced that the coroner’s ruling is correct.”
He leaned against the tree trunk behind him, bending one knee and planting that foot flat against the bark. He turned his head away from her to gaze out across the channel and reflexively whisked away a bead of sweat that was trickling down his temple.
He said, “For a brief time, before I realized that criminal law was not my forte, I worked in a prosecutor’s office. From that experience, I learned how cops think. And the first thing they always think is foul play. They rule that out first.
“I don’t know Wayne Scott or what makes him tick. I don’t know how adept he is at investigating crime scenes, or how much experience and training he’s had. I only met him on Sunday evening when he and Red came to the house with the news. He looks wet behind the ears, but strikes me as being eager and aggressive.
“Maybe he’s just trying to play the big shot or impress his new boss. Maybe he’s looking for clues to support the theory that Danny didn’t take his own life simply because that would make for a juicier investigation.”
Sayre had listened carefully, read his body language, and realized where he was going with this verbal meandering. She also understood his reluctance to say it outright, because the alternative to a suicide or accidental death was unthinkable.
“Are you saying that this detective thinks Danny was murdered?”
His gaze moved back to her. “He hasn’t said that directly.”
“Why else would he be looking for clues and asking questions?”
He shrugged. “He’s new in town. He’s been on the job only a few weeks. He doesn’t know—”
“He doesn’t know that his boss takes graft from my family and then looks the other way whenever they break the law?”
“Huff subsidizes Red’s insufficient salary.”
“He bribes him.”
“Huff’s subsidies make for more money in the parish till,” he said tightly. “Which prevents a tax increase.”