Best Kept Secrets

by Sandra Brown

  “I’m too old for you. It’s stupid and probably wrong for me to want you. It’s complicated as hell. But, right or wrong, no matter whose daughter you are, I want you.” He imbedded himself firmly inside her. “Understand?” He pushed higher, harder, hotter, and groaned, “Understand?”

  He made himself understood.

  Junior woke up before sunrise, a rarity for him. He’d had a bad night. Following Reede’s suggestion, he’d spent several hours with Stacey. Her physician had given her a sedative, but it hadn’t worked well enough. Each time Junior thought she was asleep and left his chair at her bedside, she would wake up, clutch his hand, and beg him not to leave her. He hadn’t gotten home until well after midnight. Then he’d slept fitfully, worrying about Alex.

  The instant his eyes opened, he reached for the telephone on his nightstand and dialed the Westerner Motel. He instructed the clerk, who was tired and cranky during those waning minutes of his long shift, to connect him with her room. The phone rang ten times.

  Breaking the connection, he called the sheriff’s office. He was told that Reede hadn’t come in yet. He asked to be patched into his mobile unit, but the switchboard operator told him it wasn’t in use. He called Reede’s house and got a busy signal.

  Frustrated, he got out of bed and began to pull on clothes. He couldn’t stand not knowing where Alex was. He would find out for himself, starting with Reede.

  He crept past his parents’ bedroom, although he heard stirrings behind the door. He was sure Angus would want to talk to him about the deal with Judge Wallace concerning his marriage to Stacey. Junior didn’t feel up to discussing that yet.

  He left the house and climbed into his Jag. It was a clear but cold morning. The drive to Reede’s house took him no more than a few minutes. He was glad to see that the Blazer was still parked out front and that smoke was curling out of the chimney. Reede was an early riser. Hopefully, he had a pot of coffee already perking.

  Junior jogged across the porch and knocked on the front door. He stood there, hopping from one foot to another and blowing on his hands in an effort to get warm. After a long wait, Reede pulled open the door. He was wearing only a pair of jeans and a rumpled, sleepy, disagreeable expression.

  “What the hell time is it?”

  “Don’t tell me I got you out of bed,” Junior said incredulously, opening the screen door and stepping into the living room. “It’s late for you, isn’t it?”

  “What are you doing here? What’s going on?”

  “That’s what I was hoping you could tell me. Alex hasn’t answered her phone all night. Do you have any idea where she is?”

  From the corner of his eye, he noticed the pallet in front of the hearth, then a movement. Turning slightly, he saw her standing in the hallway leading to Reede’s bedroom. Her hair was tousled, her lips full and red, her legs bare. She was wearing the top to the pajama set he’d given Reede when he’d had his appendectomy. She looked wanton and well-screwed.

  Junior fell back a step as the breath left his body. Slumping against the wall, he looked toward the ceiling and uttered a short laugh.

  Reede laid a hand on his arm. “Junior, I—”

  Junior angrily shook off his friend’s hand. “It wasn’t enough you had her mother, was it? You had to have her, too.”

  “It’s not like that,” Reede said in a steely voice.

  “No? Then, you tell me, what’s it like? You gave me the green light the other night. You said you didn’t want her.”

  “I said nothing of the kind.”

  “Well, you damn sure didn’t say hands off. You moved faster than a sidewinder when you found out I was interested, didn’t you? What was your rush? Were you afraid that if she slept with me first, she’d never want to give up quality for low life?”

  “Junior, stop it!” Alex cried.

  Junior didn’t even hear her. He was focused on Reede. “Why is it, Reede, that whatever I want, you take? Football trophies, my own father’s respect. You didn’t even want Celina anymore, but you made damn sure I didn’t get her, didn’t you?”

  “Shut up,” Reede snarled, taking a threatening step forward.

  Junior aimed his finger at the center of Reede’s chest. “Stay away from me, you hear? Just stay the hell away from me.”

  He slammed out the front door. The racket echoed through the small house. After the Jag’s roar had faded, Reede headed toward the kitchen. “Want some coffee?”

  Alex was stunned by what Junior had said, and even more shocked by Reede’s cavalier reaction. She ran into the kitchen. Coffee grounds showered from the metal scoop when she grabbed his arm and spun him around.

  “Before I fall completely in love with you, Reede, there’s something I’ve got to ask one final time.” She took a sharp breath. “Did you kill my mother?”

  Several heartbeats later he replied, “Yes.”

  Chapter 43

  Fergus Plummet stood at the side of the bed, looking down at his sleeping wife, his body quivering with indignation. “Wanda, wake up.” His imperious tone of voice could have awakened the dead.

  Wanda opened her eyes and sat up, groggy and disoriented. “Fergus, what time—” Everything sprang into clarity when she saw what he was holding in his hand—five incriminating one-hundred-dollar bills.

  “Get up,” he ordered before marching from the room.

  Trembling in fear, Wanda got out of the bed. She dressed as quickly as she could and ruthlessly raked her hair back, not wanting him to find more fault with her.

  He was waiting for her in the kitchen, sitting straight and tall at the table. Like a penitent, she timorously approached him.

  “Fergus, I… I was saving it as a surprise.”

  “Silence,” he bellowed. “Until I tell you to speak, you will remain silent and soul-searching.” His accusing eyes pierced straight through her. She bowed her head in shame.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “It came in the mail yesterday.”

  “In the mail?”

  Her head wobbled up and down in a frantic nod of affirmation. “Yes. In that envelope.” It was lying on the table beside his cup of coffee.

  “Why did you hide it from your husband, to whom you are supposed to be submissive, according to holy scripture?”

  “I,” she began, then stopped to wet her lips, “I was saving it to give you as a surprise.”

  His eyes smoldered with suspicion. “Who sent it?”

  Wanda raised her head and looked at him stupidly. “I don’t know.”

  He closed his eyes and swayed as though entranced. “Satan, I command you to release her from your evil power. You have control of her lying tongue. Give it back, in the name—”

  “No!” Wanda shouted. “I’m not lying. I thought it probably came from one of those folks you’ve been talking to on the phone about what you did out at the Minton ranch.”

  He was out of his chair like a shot. Rounding the table, he bore down on her. “How dare you mention that? Didn’t I tell you never, never to utter a word about that?”

  “I forgot,” she said, cowering. “I thought maybe the money came from somebody who appreciated what you did.”

  “I know who it came from,” he hissed.

  “Who?”

  “Come with me.” He grabbed her hand and dragged her toward the door that connected the kitchen to the garage.

  “Where are we going, Fergus?”

  “Wait and see. I want the sinners to meet face-to-face.”

  “The kids are—”

  “God will watch over them until we get back.”

  With Wanda sitting shivering in the front seat beside him, Plummet drove through the sleeping streets of town. At the highway, he headed west. He seemed unaware of the cold, warmed by his coat of righteousness. When he took the turn-off, Wanda stared at him in total disbelief, but he shot her a look of such condemnation that she wisely refrained from uttering a peep.

  He pulled up in front of the large house and or
dered his wife to get out of the car. His footsteps landed hard on the hollow steps and his knock rang out loudly in the stillness of early morning. No one answered his first knock, so he pounded harder on the door. When still no one came, he emphatically banged on the window nearest him.

  Nora Gail herself pulled open the door and aimed the barrel of a small handgun directly at his forehead. “Mister, you’d better have damned good reason for beating down my door and getting me out of bed at this ungodly hour.”

  Fergus raised his hands above his bowed head and called upon God and a host of angels to cleanse the sinner of her wrongdoing.

  Nora Gail pushed him aside and moved toward her sister. They faced each other. Nora Gail, her platinum hair radiant, looked marvelous for someone who had just gotten out of bed. The constant use of expensive night creams guaranteed her a glowing complexion. She was resplendent in a rose satin robe trimmed with seed pearls. By contrast, Wanda looked like an overweight brown wren.

  “It’s cold out here,” Nora Gail remarked, as though they’d seen each other only yesterday. “Let’s go inside.” She led her gawking sister across the threshold of the whorehouse. Nudging Fergus in his skinny ribs as she went past, she said, “Preacher, if you don’t shut up that noisy praying, I’m going to shoot your balls off, you hear?”

  “Ah-men!” he cried, suddenly ending his prayer.

  “Thank you,” Nora Gail said with amusement. “I’m sure I can use the prayers. Come on in. I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

  Several minutes later, they were collected around the table in her kitchen, which looked very ordinary and not the least bit sinful. Coffee had been brewed and poured into fine china cups. Fergus commanded Wanda to avoid it, as though it was a poisonous concoction.

  “You can’t defeat us,” Fergus said heatedly. “God is on our side, and He’s sorely provoked at you, a whore who leads weaker brothers astray.”

  “Save it,” Nora Gail said with a casual wave of her hand. “I fear God, all right, but what’s between Him and me is personal, and no business of yours. The only thing that scares me about you, preacher, is your stupidity.”

  He took umbrage. His face puffed up like an adder. “Did you send my wife some of your ill-gotten money?”

  “Yes. From the looks of her and your kids, I thought she could put it to good use.”

  “We don’t need your money.”

  Nora Gail sat forward and, with a lazy smile, spoke softly to Fergus. “You haven’t thrown it back in my face, either, have you?”

  His mouth puckered like a drawstring purse. “I never reject a gift that God so generously bestows.”

  “No, I’m sure you don’t.” Nora Gail complacently dropped two cubes of sugar into her coffee. “That’s why I wanted to make a deal with you, Reverend Plummet.”

  “I don’t deal with the ungodly. I came here as a messenger of God, to warn you of His wrath, to hear your confession of—”

  “How would you like a new church?”

  The flow of evangelism ceased abruptly. “Huh?”

  Idly, Nora Gail stirred her coffee. “How would you like a new church? A big, grand church that would put all the others in town to shame, even the new First Baptist.” She paused to sip her coffee. “I can see I’ve left you speechless, which in itself is a blessing.”

  Again, she smiled like a cat that had just licked clean a saucer of cream. “As soon as Purcell Downs is completed, I’m going to be very rich and very respectable. It would be to your benefit, preacher, to accept my generous donations, which would be sizable and given on a regular basis. Then, when Texas Monthly or ‘60 Minutes’ comes out here to interview me as one of the state’s richest businesswomen, they can also report what a generous and benevolent person I am.

  “And in return for this fancy church I’ll build you,” she said, leaning forward again, “I would expect you to keep your loud mouth shut about racetrack gambling. There are plenty other sins to keep you occupied. If you run out of sermon material, I’ll be more than glad to provide you a list of sins, because I’ve committed them all, sugar.”

  He was gaping like a fish washed ashore. The madam definitely had his attention.

  “And, you wouldn’t be pulling any more stunts like you did at the Minton ranch a week or so back. Yes,” she said, holding up her heavily jeweled hand to stem his denials, “I know you did it. You caused a valuable horse to get put down, and that really chaps my ass.”

  Her eyes narrowed on him. “If you do anything that stupid again, I’ll pull the pulpit right out from under you, preacher man. I make plans, see, and I knock down anybody who stands in the way of them. If you have a problem you want solved, come to me. Leave the revenge-getting to somebody who knows how to get it and not get caught.” She leaned back in her chair. “Well?”

  “You’ve… you’ve given me a lot to think about.”

  “Not good enough. I want your answer today. Right now. Do you want to become a religious big shot with a shiny new church, or do you want to go to jail? Because, you see, if you don’t say yes to my offer, I’ll call my good buddy Reede Lambert and tell him I’ve got an eyewitness to that vigilante raid out at the ranch. What’s it gonna be, sugar—a pulpit or prison?”

  Fergus swallowed visibly. He struggled with himself, with his conscience, but not for long. His head gave one swift nod of agreement.

  “Good. Oh, one other thing,” Nora Gail continued in the same lilting voice. “Stop treating my sister like a doormat. You were overheard dressing her down in public at the sheriff’s office the other night. If I ever get wind of it happening again, I’ll personally cut off your pitiful pecker and feed it to the next dog I see. Okay?”

  He swallowed hard.

  “I’m sending Wanda Gail up to a spa up in Dallas, where she’ll stay and be pampered for two weeks, which is little enough vacation from you. How do you expect to attract folks to your new church if your own wife looks like a downtrodden toad? This summer your kids’ll go to camp. They’re gonna have new bicycles and baseball gloves, because I’m overturning your rule about no games of any kind and signing them up for Little League next spring.” She winked. “Their Aunt Nora Gail is gonna be the best goddamn thing that ever happened to those kids. Are you getting all this, preacher?”

  Again, Plummet gave a brusque nod.

  “Good.” She sat back in her chair, calmly swinging a shapely leg back and forth through the slit of her robe. “Now that we’ve cleared the air, let’s talk terms. You’ll receive the first donation the day after the licensing is finalized, and one on the first of each month after that. The checks will be drawn on the NGB, Incorporated account. I’m going to need the tax deduction,” she said with a throaty laugh.

  Then, dismissing Fergus, she looked at her sister. “Wanda Gail, don’t wait till I send you to Dallas. Use the money I sent you the other day to buy you and your kids new clothes. And for crissake, do something with your hair. It looks like shit.”

  Wanda’s eyes misted. “Thank you, thank you.”

  Nora Gail reached out to touch her sister’s hand, but thought better of it and lit one of her black cigarettes instead. Through a dense cloud of acrid smoke, she replied, “You’re welcome, sugar.”

  Chapter 44

  “Junior?”

  He turned away from the bar, where he’d been mixing his second drink in ten minutes. “Good morning, Mother. Would you like a Bloody Mary?”

  Sarah Jo crossed the room and yanked the bottle of vodka from his hand. “What’s the matter with you?” she asked, speaking in a much harsher tone than she usually used with him. “Why are you drinking this early?”

  “It’s not that early, considering what time I got up.”

  “You went out. I heard you leave. Where’d you go?”

  “I’d like to know that myself,” Angus said, coming into the room. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Let me guess,” Junior said with feigned cheerfulness, “it’s about Judge Wallace.”

  “T
hat’s right.”

  “And my marriage to Stacey.”

  “Yes,” Angus said reluctantly.

  “I’ll bet you’re going to tell me why it was so all-fired important that I marry her when I did.”

  “It was for your own good.”

  “That much you told me twenty-five years ago. It was a trade-off, wasn’t it? You got him to close Celina’s murder case in exchange for my marriage to Stacey. Am I getting warm? Apparently, so was Alex. When she confronted the judge with her hypothesis, he killed himself.”

  Looking faint, Sarah Jo covered her mouth. Angus responded with anger. His hands flexed into fists at his sides. “It was the best thing to do at the time. I couldn’t allow an in-depth investigation. To protect my family and my business, I had no choice but to ask the judge that favor.”

  “Did Stacey know about it?”

  “Not from me. I doubt that Joe ever told her.”

  “Thank God for that.” Junior dropped into a chair. His head hung dejectedly. “Dad, you know as well as I do that Gooney Bud was innocent.”

  “I know no such thing.”

  “Come on. He was harmless. You knew he didn’t kill Celina, but you let him be punished for it. Why didn’t you just let things take their natural course? In the long run, we’d all have been better off.”

  “You know that’s not so, Junior.”

  “Do I?” He raised his head and looked at his parents with hot, intense eyes. “You know who Reede has in his bed this morning, looking all soft and sexy and satisfied? Alex.” He flopped back against the easy chair’s cushions and rested his head. With a bitter, humorless laugh, he said, “Celina’s daughter. Jesus, can you beat that?”

  “Alex spent the night with Reede?” Angus thundered.

  Sarah Joe made a sniffing sound of disgust. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Why didn’t you keep it from happening, Junior?” Angus demanded.

  Junior, sensing his father’s rising temper, shouted, “I tried!”

  “Evidently, not hard enough. It’s your bed she’s supposed to be in by now, not Reede’s.”