Laying the dress on the daybed, she turned back to the trunk. The clothes were neatly folded—too neatly folded for things that had been stored away for years and years. She lifted out several other dresses, all antique. Black satin caught her eye. She knew it was the duplicate of her wedding dress before she even lifted it out. The veil was underneath it.
Harlan and Renata.
It was as simple as that. All her suspicions were confirmed. Harlan had hired an actress to hide in the house and torment Connor, and she’d used the third floor as a base for her disappearing act. Connor now had all the proof she could possibly want. All she had to do was take the black wedding dress and the blue dress downstairs and show them to Clay.
And what would be the end result? Grief, dissent, accusations, lies, Renata forced to endure her father’s wrath. No. Connor refolded the dresses and tucked them back in the trunk. She and Harlan had come to terms with each other, as strained as their relations might be. Without her uncle’s help, Renata couldn’t do much damage. The wise thing was to close the trunk and never open her mouth about any of it. Let the past finally die at Oaklawn.
The trunk snapped shut with a solid sound. Dust motes jumped into the pale light. Kneeling beside the trunk, Connor smiled. Now that she knew for certain, she could put it out of her mind forever.
The sound of Danny and Renata running up the stairs came to her and she started to rise. The toe of her shoe caught on a tear in the old rug that was on the floor. As she felt herself falling, she had the ironic thought that at long last she was actually having an accident at Oaklawn. Several times someone had tried to kill her, or at least frighten her so badly that she’d leave. Now, just when the future seemed perfect, she was going to bust her butt through a careless action.
She fell against the trunk, and the force of her momentum tore the carpet.
“Shit!” She whammed her knee into the chest. The curved back of the old trunk caught her ribcage, but she managed to block most of the fall with her hands. As she settled down on the floor, she grimaced. “Double shit.” Her foot was caught in the carpet.
As she pulled it loose, she saw the outline of the door beneath. Crawling to the edge of the carpet, she rolled it up. The trapdoor was cleverly made, but once the carpet was removed, it was easy to spot.
In the distance she could hear Danny and Renata yelling at each other about the bootjack. They would be changing for their riding lesson, expecting her to be at the barn. Connor opened the trapdoor and peered down at the ladder that descended into darkness. She hadn’t even bothered to grab a flashlight.
Before she lost her nerve, she eased her body into the opening and started down. At worst, it could be three flights that ended somewhere within Oaklawn. She wasn’t a foolish teenager with a fear of the dark. If she really wanted to put the secrets of Oaklawn behind her, she was going to have to look at them first. Step by step she began the descent.
Her foot struck solid floor before she ever expected it. After only fifteen steps, the ladder ended in a small space with walls on three sides. Feeling along the wall, she eased forward. All her instincts told her to go back to the third floor and get a light and a companion. Her determination to resolve the matter pushed her on. If Renata had other nasty secrets to discover, Connor wanted to know them and to deal with them before Clay returned home.
The passageway was short, only a few feet, before Connor found another ladder. In total darkness now, she eased down another short span. Totally disoriented, she fumbled in the darkness, reaching her hands out in front of her to grasp at air. At last she found wall and her questing fingers closed around a doorknob.
“Here goes,” she said, startled by the sound of her own voice in the thick darkness. Very slowly she turned the knob and pulled the short and narrow door toward herself.
Light crept toward her in a two-inch bar. Light and silence. She opened the door wider and found herself standing within the wall of the second-floor landing. Directly across from her was the door to her old suite of rooms.
“I see,” she said, whispering. “So this was how she came and went. How she put the knife on the stairs and then removed it. How no one else ever saw her. A secret passageway.” She stepped into the landing, pulling the door shut behind her. A large mirror lapped over the edges of the opening at the top of the door, and the heavily varnished wainscoating hid the lower half. Looking at the wall, no one would have suspected in a million years.
“Well, well, maybe Sally had good reason to feel spooked by the hall and stairway.” She turned away and hurried down the stairs. Renata and Danny would be looking for her to give them a lesson.
It didn’t take long to get the children on their ponies and riding around the ring. Connor hadn’t taken time to change, but she’d brought some breeches and boots out to the barn. She had every intention of changing and riding in the woods with Danny and Renata.
When the delivery truck pulled up at the barn, Connor didn’t even give it a glance. She’d grown accustomed to the hustle and bustle that surrounded Oaklawn. It wasn’t until Jeff called her name that she gave Danny and Renata a series of exercises to do until she returned. Jeff and a young driver were standing at the barn beside the truck which bore the name Bayshore Boutique. She recognized it as the store where she’d purchased her wedding gown, and where Clay had made a number of interesting purchases for her.
“Yes,” she said, walking toward the driver and Jeff.
“I came up here to get payment for a dress.” The driver looked uneasily from Jeff to Connor.
“Payment?” She couldn’t believe it. “What are you talking about?”
The young man looked to Jeff for help.
“He said the store sent him up here because Mr. Clay promised to pay for a wedding dress more than a week ago.” Jeff frowned. “The woman who had to work on it had to stay up nights to get it ready, and there’s a need for the money. Family illness.”
“I paid for the dress. Cash.” Connor was puzzled. “Mrs. Butler, the store owner, gave me a receipt.”
“No, ma’am.” The delivery man was polite but determined. “I’ve got the bill here. It was billed to Clay Sumner, and signed by him.” He shifted his gaze to Jeff for a split second. “We don’t normally come up to people’s houses, but Mr. Sumner is an old customer and a good friend of Mrs. Butler’s. He knew about her husband’s heart surgery, and he said he’d get the money down to her. Since I was out this way, she asked me to stop by and get it.”
“There’s been some kind of mistake. I selected and paid for that dress myself.” Connor felt her ears burning with embarrassment. “Mr. Sumner never had a thing to do with it. I have my receipt at the house, if you’d like for me to get it. I paid the balance in full when I picked up the dress after the alterations were made.”
The delivery boy reddened, too. “Ma’am, I only know they sent me from the store to get the money. They said Mr. Sumner had always been real good about paying his bills.” He repeated the last with his gaze on the ground.
“Mr. Clay’s got plenty of money,” Jeff said, amusement glinting in his eyes. “Go on and pay the boy. Let him get on with his business. It’s not easy on a guy to dun the rich folks.”
“I don’t owe anyone any money.” Connor planted her feet, realizing that Danny and Renata had stopped riding and were listening. She’d bought the dress with the money she’d earned. It was a matter of principle, and of pride. Clay might have paid for everything else, but she’d bought her own dress.
The delivery man walked forward, pulling a yellow slip from his pocket. “Here’s the bill, ma’am.”
Connor took the paper and quickly scanned the page. The first thing she noticed was Clay’s signature at the bottom. The bold C and the half-formed S were there. She’d memorized that signature, written so surely across the check and contract that had brought her to Mobile, Alabama. She’d know Clay’s signature anywhere.
The description of the dress stopped her cold—black satin with scallope
d lace hem.
“Mrs. Sumner, anything wrong?” The man tentatively reached out a hand to steady her.
“Come into the barn and I’ll give you a check.” Connor’s gaze slowly lifted from the page. She could feel Jeff staring at her as she walked away, and she didn’t care. She wanted the bill paid and the delivery man gone. Then she’d have time to think. Time to examine the yellow slip of paper that threw her entire world out of kilter.
When the delivery truck had driven away, Connor sat at her desk and stared at the bill. Clay’s signature was real. No matter how she tried to deny it, she couldn’t.
Tucking the bill deep in her pocket, she got up and walked to the arena. “Renata, Danny, I have to go to the house. Why don’t you ride in the woods for a half an hour? The ponies might appreciate a little run.”
“Great!” Danny’s face widened with his grin. Even Renata smiled her appreciation for an afternoon of freedom. Since school had resumed after the holidays, Connor had kept them busy in the ring.
The walk to the house seemed like a million miles. Instead of entering at the kitchen, Connor went to the front. She wanted to go to her room and lie down without talking to anyone. As soon as she stepped onto the porch, Willene opened the front door. Her face was drawn with concern.
“Connor, there’s something I’ve got to tell you. It’s been nagging at me for weeks now, and I have to get it off my chest.”
“What is it?” Connor acted out of habit, wiping her feet on the mat. Willene’s agitation and distress were apparent, but she felt nothing.
“It’s about that ring business. You know, the outlaw rings.”
From a long distance, relief tweaked at Connor. So it wasn’t anything too bad. Willene had a way of letting unimportant things eat at her. “What about the ring?”
“Well,” Willene actually wrung her hands. “I didn’t tell you the whole truth. James Dickerson and a few of his clan did wear that ring, but it is also …” She looked up. “The Sumner family ring.”
The alarm Connor felt was also distant. She knew something was wrong, but her mind didn’t want to make the connection. “I’m not sure …”
“James Dickerson was the bastard child of old Charleston Sumner. That’s why he was held prisoner here at Oaklawn, and that’s how he came to be hanged here on this estate. His own kin killed him to keep him quiet. They couldn’t risk his involving them in his criminal acts, them and all their high-and-mighty friends, so before he could go to trial, they hanged him from that oak tree.”
Connor’s gaze followed Willene’s pointed finger. The white oak was the tallest tree on the front lawn. It was surrounded by the lusher live oaks whose branches arched and touched the ground. In contrast, the white oak was upright, severe.
“That’s why that book on the gang was so dangerous. Folks that had committed murder, them that had spilled the blood of their own, couldn’t let a book destroy them.”
“I have to go to my room.” Connor could think only of the dimness of the bedroom. She had to find a safe, dark place to think, to let things settle in her mind.
“Is something wrong?” Willene asked, following her inside and down the hallway. “I’m sorry, Connor. I should have told you before this. There just wasn’t a right time. The wedding and all … but even though we cling to the past, that was a long time ago. It was just that it involved Hilla Lassfolk. There was talk that Hilla was going to be killed. She knew too many of James Dickerson’s secrets, and she was threatening to tell them if James wasn’t given a fair trial. That’s why her family carted her off like that. To keep her alive.” Willene stopped at the door of the bedroom.
“It’s okay,” Connor said, wanting only to close the door. “It’s not. You look terrible. I shouldn’t have told you this.”
Connor met the older woman’s gaze. “No, the problem here is that I haven’t been told enough. This house is like a riddle that never ends. One secret leads to another, and another, and on and on.” Her voice cracked. “There’s no end to it. Just when I think I finally understand, something else turns up and it starts over again.”
“Connor …” Willene was shocked. “I tried in my own way to warn you about the Sumners. I did try, but I know it’s my fault for not telling you everything. Is that what’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong is that someone has been living on the third floor of this house. Someone who’s tried to frighten me half to death, if not kill me outright. And now I think my husband put her up to it.”
Willene’s half step backward was involuntary. “Someone in the house?” Her breathing came fast. “Are you certain? You found her?”
“I haven’t found her. Not yet. But she was here. A woman in a black wedding dress who tried to hit me with a hammer.”
Willene paled. She reached out her hands toward Connor, but she made no effort to move forward. “She, uh, tried to kill you?”
“More than once, I suspect. I know there’s someone in this house. A woman. I’ve seen her and Renata has seen her. She’s tried to hurt me, and I think Clay knows about it.”
“Sweet Jesus on the Cross.” Willene put her hand over her heart. “Connor, you can’t start talking this way. You can’t.” She stepped into the room and caught Connor’s hands to her heart. “Stop it right now! Don’t even breathe another word of this.”
“Why not? It’s the truth.”
“No, ma’am, it is not! This is just the way Ms. Talla started behaving before all the trouble really got cranked up. She was having visions and claiming that someone was in the house. Little baby Jesus!” Willene started crying. “This can’t be happening.” She rocked back and forth over Connor’s hands and moaned.
“What do you mean, this is just the way Talla behaved?”
“She was talking out of her head, imagining things, going on about how someone was after her. Someone in this house. She just went into that garden room of hers and took pills and refused to come out. She said someone was going to kill her. That’s when she called Richard Brian and Dr. Sumner.”
Connor opened her mouth to speak, but the pounding of her heart stopped her. “I have to go to town,” she whispered. “The children will be back from their ride soon. Make sure they have supper and do their homework.”
“Go, Connor!” Willene put her hands on Connor’s face. “Go now, Connor, before it’s too late. Get out of this cursed house and away from this family. They bring nothing but pain and suffering on the women who love them. They’re marked, cursed by their own evil past. Save yourself, and get away from here.”
Connor picked up her purse and a jacket off the bed. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Save yourself.”
“I wish it were that easy.” She slipped into the jacket. “I’m married now, Willene. I can’t just walk out. Whatever is happening here, I’ve got to get to the bottom of it. Somehow.”
“It’s not worth your life, Connor. Not your sanity, either. This place is running you crazy. I’m begging you to go.”
Connor wiped the tears from Willene’s face. “What about the children, Willene?” she said softly. “I can’t just abandon them. If there is something wrong with Clay, some disorder, I can’t allow him to warp or injure them.”
“They’re Sumners. They’ll survive. It’s you who’ll suffer.”
“I have to go now, to think. But I’ll be back.” Connor eased past the cook, her footsteps hollow on the polished floors. As her fingers curled on the front doorknob, the telephone rang. She heard Willene answer as she walked across the porch.
“Connor! Wait! It’s for you.”
Connor ignored her and kept walking, down the steps, toward the garage. The only person who ever called her was Clay, and she didn’t want to talk with him over the telephone.
“Connor! It’s Old Henry at the barn. It’s an emergency.”
Connor turned back “What kind of emergency?” She had the keys to the truck in her pocket and fished them out.
“You’d better ge
t to the barn quick. Old Henry says that mare of yours is cut pretty bad.”
“Which mare?” Connor felt her stomach drop.
“The pregnant one. I’ve never heard Old Henry carry on so. He’s ranting and raving. He says she may be crippled.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Old Henry insisted on holding Cleo’s lead line as Dr. Sam McSween stitched the mare’s back leg. Watching the rise and fall of the veterinarian’s hand, Connor counted each stitch—all thirty-five—as they went in. She intently noted the vet’s movements and slight noises as he worked. They told her what she needed to know about the mare’s condition—serious.
The cut had been packed with filth. Someone had deliberately shoved dirt and muck into it. Connor knew it, and so did Dr. McSween, even though he couldn’t swear to it.
“It’s a nasty wound,” Dr. McSween said, as he finally stood. “Keep it clean and keep her confined. Wash the leg below the cut with cold water three times a day for at least twenty minutes each time. Maybe that’ll help keep the swelling out. You know, if infection gets in that joint, she may be crippled.”
“What about the foal?”
“The mare’s been put under terrible stress. Let’s hope she doesn’t colic from it.” Dr. McSween rubbed the sweat from his forehead with a kerchief he extracted from a back pocket. The stitching had been a tricky business, and he was tired. “The sedative I gave her was the lightest possible dose, but still not the best for a mare as pregnant as she is.” He shrugged. “Keep her calm. Cut her feed for a few days. Just watch her. Try not to let her get excited.”
“I’ll put her back in the stall,” Old Henry volunteered. He patted the mare’s neck and spoke softly into her ear as he led her away.
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