by Stacy Green
Her legs wobbled, and she teetered, bracing herself against one of the house’s columns. She needed to go to the hospital, but she had to get herself together.
“Dani.”
She turned to see Lee Walker looking ten years older than the last time she’d seen him.
“You’re Billy’s uncle.” Fresh rage kicked in. “You knew!” She started across the porch, her weak knees barely supporting her. “All this time? How could you?”
“I swear I didn’t. I wasn’t even sure Billy stole the keys. It could have been someone else.”
“But it wasn’t. And you knew that if he did take them, he was a suspect. You protected him, and now Cage is dying.” She slapped his face, digging her short fingernails into his flesh. “If he does, I will do everything I can to see you brought up on charges.”
He hung his head but said nothing.
“And you lied about the master skeleton key, didn’t you? It was with the set stolen from you, and you never said a thing.”
“No,” Lee said. “I never saw the master skeleton key. CaryAnne kept them both with her diary–she only trusted herself. That’s clear on the pages. I assume Billy got them when he discovered the cache.”
“Both keys? What?”
Leaning against a weathered pillar, his skin nearly as gray as the house’s graying paint, Lee stared into Ironwood’s foyer. “There was a house servant–a freed slave. She’s mentioned several times in the diary, and the last entry is devoted entirely to the servant’s story. Her name was Sadie. Her daughter’s name was Camille. And you were right about John James’s relationship with them.”
The picture she and Jaymee had found with the blueprints–John James had fathered a child with a black servant. “Billy’s ancestor?”
“I had no idea,” Lee said. “It’s on his father’s side, and he never told me much about them.”
Dani was afraid she already knew the answer to her question, but she asked it anyway. “What happened to Camille?”
Lee again gazed up at Ironwood. “She died here.”
Grace’s words came back to Dani. “CaryAnne said when the truth was discovered to remember she had to protect him. She meant her father, didn’t she? Protect him from the truth of his black offspring, of them sullying his legacy?”
“I wish it were only that,” Lee said. “CaryAnne was ashamed of the union between her father and his mistress, but more than that, she resented Camille. She’d always known that Camille’s mother, Sadie, had been born a slave on the plantation. She and John James were the same age. They’d been playmates.”
“This is all in the diary?”
“CaryAnne’s deathbed confession,” Lee said dryly. “I suppose she purged her sins in hopes of salvation.”
“Good luck to her.”
“On his death bed,” Lee continued, “John James told CaryAnne about Camille. How her mother, Sadie, had been his true love, but the color of their skin kept them apart. When she got pregnant, John James made sure she was quickly married and set up on her own farm. He didn’t want her name sullied–or his white daughter’s. But he kept Sadie and Camille close, where he could watch the child grow up.”
“The Semple farm,” Dani guessed. “John James sold it to Isiah Semple to keep the women close and probably for hush money. He must have known Camille wasn’t his.”
“According to the diary, Isiah didn’t care as long as he was free,” Lee said. “And the arrangement continued until John James’s death. That’s when CaryAnne found out, and she was appalled. She was afraid that if this ever got out, his legacy–and hers–would be ruined.
“But that’s not what made her snap. After John James died, Camille showed up. Her mother had given her a master key to the house–the same one John James had made for her so she could move about freely.”
“When they were having their affair,” Dani clarified.
“Right. When CaryAnne realized Camille knew about the secret passage, she lost it. She thought her father had built it to protect the family during the War. In truth, he’d built it so he and his mistress could sneak around behind his daughter’s back. CaryAnne saw it as the ultimate betrayal. And then Camille made the mistake of demanding a stake in Ironwood.”
“CaryAnne attacked her, then.” It was Dani’s turn to stare up at the silent house.
“Yes. Used one of her father’s hunting knives.”
“And buried Camille in the basement,” Dani finished. “But how is Billy a descendent?”
“Camille had a child. She begged CarryAnne not to let the child grow up without a mother, but it was too late.” Lee dragged his hand across his temple. “Dani, if I’d had any idea about Billy, that he was a Laurent descendent, I would have said something.”
“But you did suspect him.” Another scrap of evidence finally made sense. “When I suggested the child in that picture we found could be an illegitimate daughter, you acted offended. I figured you were just being a snob, but you were protecting Billy.”
“By then, I was worried.”
“And you said nothing.” She tasted bile and considered spitting in his face.
“I didn’t think he was a killer.”
Another EMT emerged, guiding Billy on a stretcher. He stared straight ahead as he was carried off the porch, jaw clenched in hatred.
Lee watched his nephew being loaded into the ambulance. “Billy had a hard life, you know. His parents didn’t get along and didn’t treat him great. Never had any real sense of family except for me. He loved history, so we bonded over it. I’m the one who got him started researching his family tree. Like I said, he knew very little about his father’s side, and I wanted to help him discover his lineage. I don’t know if he already knew he had ties to the Semple family or if he discovered it during research. But he never told me.”
“You should have voiced your suspicions.” Dani wasn’t ready to feel sorry for Lee. “I’ve got to get to the hospital and be with Cage.”
38
Dani hadn’t moved in five hours. People had come and gone. Cage’s parents had cried and prayed.
They all drifted around, talking to God. But Dani simply sat, his dried blood on her shirt. She didn’t have the energy to take it off.
“You should change.” Jaymee held out a fresh tank top. “Cage wouldn’t want you sitting around like this.”
“He’s not here, is he?”
Jaymee sat down. Her face was pale, her eyes swollen from crying. She wrapped her arm around Dani. “No. But he will be.”
An hour later, the surgeon came to find them. Billy hadn’t been lying. He’d missed Cage’s major organs, but the blood loss had nearly killed him.
Nearly.
Cage’s parents burst into tears. Jaymee dropped her head into her hands and cried.
Dani got up to change her shirt.
* * *
Paperweights rested on his eyes. Try as he might, Cage struggled to get his eyes open. Finally, the weights slid away, and he found himself staring at a gray, speckled ceiling.
“Hey.” Dani squeezed his hand. “We’ve been waiting on you.”
Cage blinked and then cleared his throat. “What happened? Why are you all here?”
His mother leaned over him, unable to say anything. His father grunted. “Don’t scare me like that again, boy.”
“He won’t.” Jaymee stood behind Dani. Both of them looked exhausted. Dani’s face was smudged with dirt, her hand bandaged.
“What happened to your hand?” His tongue felt thick.
“I cut it on Billy’s dagger.”
Everything rushed back with a painful bolt of memory. “Billy. Why? How?”
“You need to rest,” Dani said. “We’ll tell you everything when you are stronger.”
“No. Tell me now.” Cage touched the burning spot on his stomach. “I’ve earned it.”
“And I’m the stubborn one,” Dani grumbled.
He started to argue, but the weights slid back over his eyes, and his mind dr
ifted.
The next time he woke, his head felt less like an immovable anvil. His body was stiff and unyielding as he tried to shift on the bed. A searing pain tore through his stomach, and he gasped.
“Settle down.” Dani’s hand closed over his. “You’ve got a knife wound that needs to heal.”
Dark circles beneath her eyes made her fair skin look even more washed out. He reached up to brush his hand across her face, and another hot pain rippled down his arm.
“What’s wrong with my arm? Did I fall on it?”
“It’s a mild infection,” Dani said. “Thankfully we knew you were stabbed with a 150-year-old dagger, so the hospital started treating you for the bacteria right away. It’s not at full force, but it’s going to cause you some pain until the antibiotics kick it.”
He looked at her hand. “What about you?”
“They’re treating me as well. But you got sliced first, so I think you got the worst of it.”
“Better me than you.”
“Chivalrous. I’m just thankful it wasn’t sharp enough to kill you.” She wiped a rogue tear off her cheek. “He knew how to miss vital organs, but if the blade had gone in much deeper, you would have bled completely out.”
Shadows bathed the room, and the quiet that comes in the night hours filled the hospital. “What time is it?”
“Around three in the morning. Jaymee made your parents go home to sleep. I promised I’d stay.”
“You should sleep, too.”
She nodded toward the uncomfortable looking chair in the corner. “I did.”
“I thought I was dying.”
“You came close.” She leaned down to softly kiss his forehead. “But it’s all over now.”
“Tell me why Billy did all of this.”
“For a jaded sense of family.”
He wrinkled his nose and then groaned at the pain. “Go on.”
“Billy is Lee’s nephew. About a year and a half ago, he helped Billy get started on researching his family history. Shortly after, his keys disappeared. Billy had stolen them to get into Ironwood.”
“Why?”
“He’s descended from the Laurents. And related to the Semples–by name only.” Cage lay in stunned silence as Dani explained about John James’s affair that led to the birth of Camille, who was raised a Semple, and her fateful attempt to collect what she believed to be rightfully hers.
“She left behind a son,” Dani said. “Her line continued to Billy, and he’s the one who put everything together.”
“So CaryAnne did bury someone in the basement of Ironwood,” Cage said.
“The plantation was CaryAnne’s only true love. She wasn’t going to lose it, especially not to her father’s illegitimate, mixed-race child.”
“And no one ever came looking for Camille?”
“They did. She had a family of her own by that time, and she’d told her husband what she was up to. He tried to get authorities to look into it, but this was Mississippi in 1917, and he was a black man accusing a white woman. Nothing happened. But the story was passed down throughout the generations. That’s how Billy heard of it. His father’s side didn’t know Camille wasn’t a true Semple. Their stories only said she’d gone into Ironwood and never returned. Lee had no idea. But he did suspect Billy stole the keys. Still, he couldn’t believe Billy would have killed anyone. So he kept his mouth shut. And nearly wound up getting you killed.”
“Why did Billy start restoring the house?”
“He feels it belongs to him.” Dani shrugged. “He wanted to do right by the house in his own twisted way.”
“What about Martin? Why kill him?”
“It got out of hand. And that’s where Ben comes in.”
Cage listened as Dani laid out the rest of the story. As soon as Gina had Ben inside the interview room, he started singing like a frightened bird. Ben had hired Martin and his buddy to snoop around Ironwood to see what they could find before Norton Investments made their offer. When they didn’t return, he figured they’d bailed on him.
“So his only crime is being a douchebag.”
Dani chuckled. “Right. But they’d actually found the passage and were going to clean it out. Billy discovered them. Apparently the buddy was downstairs when Billy jumped him. He tied him up in the butler’s pantry and then went for Martin. He said he only meant to scare them.”
“And you believe him?”
She shrugged. “I think so. But the other guy had a heart attack. And then Martin started saying Billy was going down for murder, he’d spend the rest of his life in jail. Billy panicked and smothered Martin, and he already had the skeleton key that opened the door to the winter kitchen. You know the rest.”
“And Lee knew none of that?”
Dani’s lips pinched together. “No. He was blind.”
“How’d Billy discover the passage without comparing the house plans?”
“I think he just got lucky.”
Cage’s head grew foggy again. He struggled to keep his heavy eyelids open.
“Go back to sleep. All of this will be here when you wake up.”
There was something else he wanted to ask. He worked hard to form the words. “Why did Billy leave you that letter? All it did was keep you digging.”
“He didn’t. That was Ben’s attempt at getting closer to me. Apparently Martin had discovered it on his first trip through Ironwood and delivered it to Ben. That’s how he convinced him that he and his scavenging partner could find the hidden room. And Ben thought he could charm me and use the letter to get me to keep digging, then convince me to sell.”
“Ben in trouble?”
“He didn’t do anything illegal. Gina can’t charge him for being a jackass.”
He started to laugh, but the pain snapped his mouth closed. Soft lips pressed against his. “Rest now.”
“Will you be here when I wake up?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
39
Dani sat back on her heels and wiped the sweat off her forehead. The two window air conditioners Cage had installed on Ironwood’s second floor barely made the heat tolerable. Thank God the central air was coming next week.
She’d spent all morning trying to save the window in CaryAnne’s room. Sunlight streamed in through the old glass making prisms dance on the wall.
“That sofa fits through the panel door with about five hairs to spare.” Cage appeared in the bedroom’s doorway. He was sweating too, and dust streaked down the muscles of his bare arms. “I hope the furniture restorer can actually repair the thing.”
He played with the dog tags resting against his chest. They’d only been released from evidence last week, and Cage hadn’t taken them off. They were one of Billy’s strangest strokes of luck. Cage actually had lost the tags right after he moved into the carriage house. Billy had found them along the side of the mansion, the chain broken. Instead of returning the tags, he’d kept them. And when he’d smothered Martin Robertson, he’d slipped the tags into his struggling hand. A back-up plan, Billy had called it. The same reason he’d tossed some of the men’s belongings into the well.
He was in Jackson awaiting trial for two counts of murder and one attempted murder.
Now, two months after his stabbing, Cage had finally been given the all-clear for physical labor, and he and Dani had set about getting the big items out of Ironwood’s passage. Cage and a friend had removed the couch, and it would soon be on its way to a specialist.
News of the historical finds in the passage had spread to the National Register, and Ironwood was granted a spot on the list without hesitation. The historical foundation was already fielding requests for tours, and Dani had been busy deciding which Laurent family items to use in the house and which to donate to the foundation.
Lee had groveled and begged her to stay. With Cage on the mend and her temper eased, she was able to start down the path of forgiveness. Lee had made some big mistakes, but his intentions had been in the right place. And if he h
adn’t contacted Gina when he had, she and Cage would both be dead.
“The restoration guy does good work.”
Cage grunted as he came to sit next to her. “He better after that ordeal.”
“You feeling okay? No pain?”
He kissed her shoulder. “I’m fine. You’re red-faced and looking melted, though.”
“Thanks so much.”
“Jaymee’ll be here to help soon. I can get her to make you some sweet tea if you want. I know how much you love it.”
Dani gagged. “Awful stuff. You Southerners have questionable tastes.”
“Hey now.” Cage stretched out his long legs and propped himself up on his elbow. “I happen to hate that sugary goop. And I have excellent taste.”
“Well, you did fall for me. That gives you some bonus points.”
“There you go.”
Dani rubbed her face. “Ugh. I need a shower. What time is the service again?”
The bones of Camille Semple were being laid to rest in the Roselea Historic Cemetery in the family plot, and the descendants Ben Moore and Norton Investments had run off the farm had invited Cage and Dani to the service.
“Two hours.” Cage trailed his fingers down her arm. “And we haven’t christened the bathroom since the new shower was installed.”
Heat raced through Dani. She leaned down to kiss Cage, her lips lingering against his. “Then we’d better get moving.”
She pulled him to his feet and then allowed him to lead her through the hallway to the bathroom. The heavy pall that had hovered inside Ironwood was lifting. They had the floors shined and the marble restored in the past month. A crime scene crew had cleaned the basement and a cement floor would be laid eventually, but the rest of the house smelled clean and fresh thanks to the restoration efforts.
As Cage led her into the bathroom, Dani glimpsed her new life over her shoulder. The grand dual staircase had been made safe, and hours of elbow grease had the mahogany gleaming in the afternoon sun. So much work left to do, but so much promise lay ahead of her.