Within Temptation

by Tanya Holmes

  I did a double take. “What?”

  “Both your prints were on the spade, sweetheart.” He coughed again. “Any idea how yours got there?”

  Trace was quick to answer. “She grabbed it when she found her mama on the floor. It cut her knee, so she tossed it. What the hell does the spade have to do with some stupid pictures?”

  “More than you think, boy.”

  “All you had to do was ask her why she touched the damn thing,” Trace hammered back. “Why go through all this smoke and mirrors bullshit when a simple question would’ve sufficed?”

  I stared, speechless. A sick feeling festered inside me like gangrene.

  “It wasn’t just the prints, you ignoramus,” Jackson growled. He blotted his sweaty head with a flaky tissue ball. “It was everything. Her diary was filled with…with things that fancy lawyer of yours could’ve used against her.”

  “Like?”

  “Twenty-seven letters to Jesus Christ asking Him to do a Job on Lilith,” he snapped fast and furious.

  Trace blinked. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “A Job—as in ‘The Book of Job.’ The guy with the sores and boils. Then there were the ten letters to Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of lost causes, begging him to get Jesus to give her a new mama. Five to Lucifer himself, asking that he send Lilith on a three-day trip to hell.”

  Trace shook his head. “You’re outta your damn mind.”

  “Think so? Well, this next tidbit will make you a believer. There were over sixty entries where she poured her heart out about you. How she couldn’t let her mama touch you the way she did her other young men. How you’re the only person in the world who cared about her. Dozens of pages were filled with rage over how her mama was trying to steal your affections. Hell, she even wrote that she wished Lilith would go away so you could live at Cheltenham Manor! Then there was the nonsense about Paris, and much, much more.”

  Somewhere in the tumult, I heard the words I’d uttered during the hypnosis session. The diary. I’d written my frustrations in the diary. I’d drawn pictures too. My fingers had given voice to what my mouth didn’t dare utter.

  I couldn’t breathe. Shock reverberated like the cell phone vibration against my hip. The phone I’d ignored all day.

  “I don’t recall any of that,” I said in a shaky voice.

  “That’s ‘cause I made sure you wouldn’t,” Uncle Jackson retorted. “Your diary told every bitter thought you ever had. That’s how you purged yourself.”

  I narrowed my eyes on him. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Sweetheart,” Uncle Jackson said. “Your mama was killed an hour after you left for what everyone had presumed was school. Only you didn’t go to school. You went to the carriage house. That’s why I told you to say you were sick. That you’d planned to stay home all along.” He paused. “You drew pictures, disturbing pictures. Of a knight slaying a dragon, stabbing it in the heart. On one picture, you even wrote names for who they were supposed to be. The knight was Trace. The dragon with the dagger in its chest was Lilith. And that’s how she died.”

  I surged to my feet and the chair tipped over. Backing away, I shook my head. “It was just a p-picture I drew about Sleeping Beauty! The movie!”

  “That doesn’t explain the names you wrote,” Uncle Jackson said. “Look, we didn’t know what else to do. We figured if we got rid of everything, then influenced you….” He scowled at Trace. “We couldn’t let him use you as a scapegoat.”

  “You thought she put me up to it?” Trace asked, stunned and breathless.

  “Either that, or she did it herself. At least that’s what Sears thought. Him being a lawyer and all, he was playing devil’s advocate—tryin’ to out-think your scumbag ambulance chaser.”

  I backed into a wall.

  Trace stood over Uncle Jackson’s bed, barking out words. “Nobody would’ve believed that girl was capable of murder!”

  “She’d been physically and mentally abused. When we found her, she was sitting in a pool of her mother’s blood. The spade had both your prints on it. So we had to fix stuff.”

  “We? Who the fuck is we?” Trace demanded.

  I surfaced from my crestfallen daze. My eyes settled on my godfather. “All this time you thought I killed…that I had Trace kill—” I thrust my bangs off my face, my hand cupping my forehead. “Dear God. Whatever I wrote on those pages…I-I didn’t mean—I didn’t mean it the way you’re implying. I just wanted somebody to make her stop! I never wanted her dead! I loved my mother!”

  Fear and outrage pulsed hot. Trace moved to touch me, but I warded him off with a flash of both palms.

  No touch, not even his could comfort me now.

  “Who else was in on this?” I demanded.

  Uncle Jackson pleaded, “You gotta believe, I tried to broach the subject plenty of times with you under hypnosis, but you damn near went berserk. I had to back off. I had to let you be. Hesta accused me of abusing you all over again. Sears did too, so we were never really sure….” He stared at Trace, his furious eyes like switchblades. “I always knew you were guilty, boy. Still do. But I wasn’t about to let that fancy lawyer of yours drag her through the mud. When a man’s drowning, he’ll grab anything to stay afloat.”

  I crossed my arms and approached the bed with slow steps. It was all I could do to hold myself together. “I didn’t kill my mother, but neither did Trace. What you did is despicable.”

  The sheriff’s bony face twisted with rage. “Why you ungrateful—can’t you see you had a great childhood thanks to me? No bad memories haunting you. A clean slate. Something most only dream about. I gave you your life back! Be happy you don’t remember everything that bitch did! Hope you never do.”

  “They were my memories, damn you.” I slapped a hand to my chest for emphasis. “Mine! You had no right to take them.”

  “Don’t you realize what I sacrificed to help you?” Jackson hollered.

  “Help? What about Trace? You threw him to the wolves!”

  “It was either him or you! Harrison made me promise to protect you. I didn’t do the best job, but I came through when it mattered. Greased some itching palms. Dug up dirt on those who needed to keep their traps shut. I did what I had to do.” He flicked a dismissive glance at Trace. “That lawyer of yours—Gartner—was hungry. Would’ve eaten his firstborn to advance his flashy-ass career. Why you think he took you on pro bono? He was a publicity whore.”

  “I would never have let him go after Shannon,” Trace spat.

  “Nobody knew what y’all were plannin’. We figured you’d sell her out to save your sorry hide.”

  A horrific thought hit me. I was almost too afraid to ask, but the question gnawed its way out. “Did Darien know?”

  “Are you kiddin’? He’d’ve turned us all in if he had.” The old man inclined a brow. “A lawyer who actually respects the rule of law. Montgomery’s a rare one.” He lifted his hardened face, and his angry eyes narrowed to slits. “Damn it,” he rasped. “You should’ve let this alone. Why couldn’t you have let this alone?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Two Paths

  SHANNON

  ____________________________

  Trace and I pulled outside Fontana Exxon half an hour later. We’d driven in silence the whole way back, neither of us looking at the other for too long. I parked next to a line of pay phones.

  Behind us, customers crowded the gas pumps and a noisy Mack truck idled by the diesel pump. The truck driver, a thirtyish biker type dressed in a bomber jacket and corduroys, leaned against the truck’s rear and waited on his tank to fill. From the looks of it, the town’s so-called boycott had finally petered out.

  I rested my head against the window and slammed my eyes shut. Shock and anger swirled like a firestorm. Had my family actually believed I was capable of murder? Well, of course. Why else had they hatched such a convoluted plan?

  “You didn’t do it.” Trace’s earthy voice rescued me from the brink
of despair. “You hear me?”

  Tears threatened, but I tamped them down. I was too mad to cry. “I can count my memories of her on one hand,” I said, my reedy voice sounding strange to my own ears. “Everything else is gone.”

  “Maybe that’s a good thing,” he murmured.

  I flashed a look at him. “He burned my diaries. Destroyed my pictures. Screwed with my thoughts. All I have is the nonsense he stuffed into my head. How is that a ‘good thing’? Even bad memories are better than nothing.”

  “I beg to differ. Look at me, Shannon. Look real good.”

  I did. Long, hard, and extensively.

  With a sad smile, I said, “I see a man who used his misery to help someone who couldn’t help herself. Had you not remembered what Gary did, I would have been alone.” I touched his shoulder. “Don’t you see? Our memories shape us, make us—strengthen us. They had no right to steal mine.” I shook my head and scowled. “I’m calling the prosecutor’s office first thing in the morning.”

  Trace stared off in brooding silence. Finally, he said, “You sure you don’t want to wait until you have more sessions with Doc?”

  “Who knows how long that will take? No. I’m ready to move forward now. I’m sure we have enough to get the case reopened.

  “You’ll be implicated,” he said in measured tones. “You ready for that?”

  I was so ready it wasn’t even funny. I took out my cell phone. “I just want the truth. Whatever that is.” Typing with my thumbs, I emailed the sheriff’s recording to myself for backup. “Are you still in contact with Gartner?”

  “Nope. I call, but he never calls back. Screw him.” He rubbed his eyes. “That reminds me. I need to get over to the flower shop tomorrow mornin’. With all the chaos of the last couple days, I forgot about it.”

  “Me too.” I tucked the phone back into my breast pocket and stared into the cemetery of rusted cars Cholly had stored behind the station. “This is going to be a legal quagmire. Uncle Sears will have every lawyer in the firm on his side.”

  “Prob’ly, but we’ve got truth on ours.”

  I patted my phone. “Yes, we do have that.”

  Mrs. Campbell and Uncle Jackson had revealed some explosive information in those recordings, but my confidence waned when I thought about the difficult choices I’d have to make. How my life would change. How nothing would ever be the same.

  What the hell had they been thinking? Granted, some of the evidence did point to me, and maybe Trace’s lawyer could have used it to his advantage, but to go this far? To destroy evidence? To rape my mind?

  For my godfather’s part, I believed him. He’d done this out of obligation. But my family was a different story. Their actions had more to do with ‘other’ concerns than my supposed welfare. A dark and dirty secret like this would have ruined them for good. Sex. Envy. Matricide?

  Child stabs mother in jealous rampage. Film at eleven.

  Oh, yes, that would have flushed the family name down the toilet for good.

  Trace drew himself up. “What’s your game plan?”

  I thought about it, tried to sift through the myriad of emotions clouding my mind. At this point, one thing was clear. “I can’t live at Briar anymore.”

  He unhooked his seatbelt. “Where’re you gonna go?”

  The Victorian in New Dyer rose in my mind’s eye. “That’s part of the reason I was upset yesterday,” I said. “Some clients were set to close on the house I told you about. But the husband got orders for the Middle East last week. He’s a marine. So I put in a bid. It got them out of the contract and the seller accepted.”

  “Sounds like good news. At least for you.”

  I drew a sharp breath. Things weren’t what they seemed. “Darien never liked the house. He thought it was a money pit, but he called me last night, and when I told him about the contract, he said he hadn’t realized how much I loved the place. He doesn’t mind living there if it makes me happy.” I swallowed, hard. “He’s coming home. Today.” I shot a wary glance at the dashboard clock. “His plane should be landing any minute.”

  Turning to me, Trace drew his leg up on the seat cushion. Storm clouds brewed in his eyes. “What am I supposed to say to that? Congratulations?”

  “No, that’s not why I—” I raised a hand, but let it fall flat against the seat. “The wedding announcement appeared in yesterday’s society pages. My aunt has been working overtime planning everything. I’ve signed contracts. Hired a videographer. Caterers. The invitations are being printed.”

  “Ever heard of the word ‘cancel’?”

  “It’s not that simple. I don’t want to hurt him and…well…it’s…it’s just a very complicated situation.”

  He raked his fingers through his hair. “Here we go again with this crap. What the hell’s so complicated?”

  A tense silence filled the car. “There’s just…a lot to consider.”

  “We’re the only consideration here. Everything else is bullshit.”

  I stared off, my gaze wandering as the truth spilled out, a truth I was finally ready to admit. “You don’t understand. I thought—it’s always been in the back of my mind that if I married him, I’d finally be able to breathe. To relax. I planned my life so precisely that any deviation….”

  “Scares the hell out of you?”

  I hung my head. “Yes.”

  “The truth at last. So I’m the monkey wrench in your picture-perfect life.”

  “No, it’s-it’s not like that.”

  “Yeah, it is.” His nod was sharp. “See, all this time I thought it was a choice between me and Montgomery. But I was wrong. This is about the safe, little fairytale you’ve been trying to—”

  “Trying?” I snapped my head back up to search his face. “I’ve been building it my entire life! Brick by brick, and now I’m about to tear it down.”

  “Naw, you’re about to live—for the first time ever. You want to be with me. I know this. But I represent everything you’ve been trying to bury.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not about you. It-it goes even deeper than that.”

  “Oh, I know. Somehow you convinced yourself that you wanted Montgomery, or at least, what you think you’ll have with him. Respect. Privilege. Approval. Community standing—everything Lilith destroyed.” He shook his head. “But I can’t give that to you, darlin’. That’s what’s got you so spun up. It’s why you keep running away from us.”

  I blinked several times. “Us? What us? Do you think telling me you care is enough reason to break an engagement?”

  “That you’re not in love with him should be reason enough.”

  “Fine. But what you’re really asking me to do is to upend my life so we can be together. And that’s all well and good, but I need more from you. You say you want me, and that you care, but what else? Do your feelings go any deeper than that?”

  “Are you blind?” He tossed a hand. “I admitted to killing a man—to you, Shannon, despite a ton of reservations. What the fuck else do you want?”

  I pushed the hair off my face. “I used to know. Now I’m just—”

  “Confused! Were you even there at Miller’s Pond last night? What? Do you think that was just a dry hump for me?” He glared long and hard. “You won’t tell your ‘fiancé’ the truth, yet you expect me to open a vein? To bleed? Hell, you’re the one who needs to do some bleeding.” We stared hotly at each other for several seconds until he wrenched away to shove the door open. “Fuck it. I don’t need this shit. Go get your boyfriend!”

  “I already told you, he’s not my boyfriend!”

  “Boyfriend. Fiancé. Sugar daddy. Whatever.”

  “He’s none of those things.”

  Trace jerked back around. “Please enlighten me then. What the hell is he?”

  “My past.”

  “And what am I?”

  I swallowed and stared intently at him with a nakedness I couldn’t hide. “You’re…my everything.”

  The words had barely left my mouth
before he grabbed my face, crashing our lips together. He kissed me with a voraciousness that set the car ablaze. He was marking me. Possessing me. Staking his claim. Making it clear, that I belonged to him and none other.

  That I always had.

  His arms came around me, crushing me even closer. Not an inch separated us as our breaths mingled and our tongues did battle. Everywhere he touched me, I burned; every kiss ignited a new spark, but then he slowly released me and I gradually became cold again. Dazed, I blinked my eyes open only to see him scooting back. Chill air sliced a path between us.

  He canvassed my face for several moments, his breath coming in short bursts. When I reached out, he dodged my hand. “You’ve got two paths,” he said. “One is a straight shot. It’s safe and predictable.” He gazed meaningfully into my eyes. “But there’s this other path. It’s less traveled and it’s full of surprises and detours. So which one do you want?”

  “You. I choose you,” I insisted. “I’ll always choose you.”

  His eyes slowly turned granite hard, as if the kiss and my admission hadn’t affected him at all. Several heartbeats passed before he went for the door again. Over his shoulder he said, “In case you missed it, I chose you a while ago.” He glared at Darien’s ring, then lifted his eyes back to me. “Far as I’m concerned, you’ve been cheating on me with him. So until you give him up, we’re done.” With that, he slammed out of the car and disappeared inside the garage. He didn’t look back.

  I was still trembling when I pulled away from the gas station minutes later. He was right. How could I expect anything from him, much less a declaration of love, when I was engaged to another man? Besides, it wasn’t fair to Darien. As soon as I picked him up, I’d go somewhere quiet and tell him the truth. He deserved as much.

  Halfway to the airport, my cell phone vibrated. Would I ever remember to connect the thing to Bluetooth? Scowling, I hooked my headset into the phone, eyed the incoming number, and wilted against the seat.

  Auntie.

  I took a deep breath and told myself it was time for brutal honesty. There had been enough lies. So I pooled my courage and didn’t bother with a ‘Hello.’ Instead, I just started speaking in a mad rush of words. “We need to talk,” I said. “First, I-I’m on my way to break things off with Darien. I’m just not in love with him. The truth is, I’m in love wi—”