Breath of Scandal

by Sandra Brown

  “Before you could build anything larger than an outhouse on this land, it would take millions to get it ready.”

  “We’ve got millions.”

  Her flippancy annoyed the hell out of him. “Well, since you’ve got all the answers, why bring me along?”

  “Protection.”

  Angrily, he regarded her for a moment, then threw the transmission into reverse, stretched his arm across the back of the seat, swiveled his head around, and guided the truck back to the intersection with the highway. Against the fingertips of his outstretched hand he could feel Jade’s hair. It was damp and soft, and it made him mad that he noticed. He wanted to grip handfuls of it and rub it against his face. The falling rain had cooled the windows. They were beginning to fog up. He could smell Jade’s perfume in the still, sultry air.

  Jade’s hair. Jade’s perfume. He was far too aware of Jade.

  Searching for something to distract him, he noticed a rural mailbox leaning precariously on a rotting post. Through the rain, Dillon read the name that had been painted on the dented metal years ago. The letters were faded, but he was still able to make them out: O. PARKER.”

  * * *

  “I want to know what the little bitch is up to.” Querulously, Ivan waved away the housekeeper who was trying to serve him a second helping of sweet potatoes. Four years earlier, Eula had retired. Her daughter had taken her place, assuming the additional responsibilities of taking care of an amputee.

  “Bring me a bottle of brandy,” he ordered brusquely. As she left to do his bidding, Ivan glared at Neal, who was slouching in his chair, toying with the food remaining on his plate. “Well, have you gone deaf? Say something.”

  Moving nothing except his eyes, Neal glanced up at his father. “How many times do I have to say it? I don’t know any more than what I’ve already told you.”

  Ivan snatched the bottle from the housekeeper and poured a hefty amount into a snifter. The maid removed Neal’s plate when he signaled that he was finished. When she returned to the kitchen, they were left alone in the dining room—two people at a table that would easily seat twenty.

  Neal said, “That contractor, Burke, just awarded the excavation job to an outfit out of Columbia. They’re already hauling in earth-moving equipment.”

  “Well, they can just as well haul it right back outa here,” Ivan growled as he poured himself another brandy.

  He wheeled away from the table and into the den. “Get in here,” he hollered through the empty rooms of the house. The interior hadn’t changed beyond the modifications required to accommodate Ivan’s wheelchair.

  Neal entered the den behind his father, bringing a snifter of brandy with him. “You can’t stop this thing by willing it to disappear, old man. You made a damn fool of yourself at that town meeting, snarling like a wounded gator. That isn’t the way to go about it, Daddy.”

  Neal threw himself onto the leather sofa. “We’ve got to beat Jade at her own game. We were asleep at the switch while she was buying that land where the plant is going to be. We won’t be caught napping this time.”

  “What’ve you got going?” The brandy had helped mellow Ivan’s sour mood.

  Besides, these days it drained his strength to be tyrannical. Since the train accident had so seriously impaired his health, Neal had assumed more responsibilities. Having avoided work before, he had been pleasantly surprised to discover that it was like a game. He always played to win—and he was a sore loser.

  “I’ve been sniffing out everything Jade does,” he told his father. “She’s set up shop out there at the construction site in a portable building, right next to the trailer where that Burke fellow lives. About the only curious thing she’s done is go out to the Parker place twice.”

  “The hell you say!”

  “Twice that I know of,” Neal added with a frown. “Once with Burke, then next time alone. She doesn’t go to visit them, you understand, just to snoop around. The second time, she didn’t even get out of her car, only drove around the perimeter of Otis’s fence several times. Yesterday, she went to the courthouse and asked to see the plats.”

  “You’re sure they were for the Parker place?”

  “I’m sure. I complimented Gracie Dell Ferguson’s fat ass,” Neal said, referring to the courthouse clerk. “After that she was willing to tell me everything. Jade asked to see all the records on the Parker place and its surrounding property.”

  “I own most of the surrounding property.”

  “That’s right, Daddy, you do. Gracie Dell pointed that out while making sure I noticed her big tits.”

  “Did Jade tell Gracie Dell why she was interested in looking at the plats?”

  “No.”

  As Neal poured them each another brandy, Ivan asked, “Why do you think Jade is interested in the Parker farm?”

  “I can’t imagine, but I don’t like it,” Neal grumbled. “I want to know what she’s got in mind.”

  “Well, she’s not likely to announce it ahead of time. And sooner or later she’s bound to find out that you’ve been following her and asking questions.”

  “No problem. I found a couple of boys who are halfway smart and can keep their mouths shut. They’re watching her in shifts and reporting back to me. And in the meantime,” he added with a slow grin, “I’m being my charming self. I sent her flowers yesterday.”

  Ivan regarded his son shrewdly. “She’s a better-looking woman than she was a girl.”

  “So it didn’t escape your notice, either?” Neal laughed. “She blew into town and made a big splash, but beneath her corporate image, Jade’s just a woman. They can cry equality all they want to. But when it comes right down to it, all they’re really good for is what’s between their legs.”

  “Ordinarily, I’d agree with you. But this one worries me. She hasn’t forgotten what happened right before y’all graduated.” Ivan stabbed his blunt finger at the space separating them. “She’s out to bury us, boy. She wasn’t a dim-witted child, you know. If anything, she’s smarter now. She’s out for blood. Our blood.”

  Neal’s eyes glittered above the rim of his brandy snifter. “All I know is, if there’s a new industry in Palmetto, it’s going to belong to the Patchetts.”

  Ivan cackled. “That’s the way I taught you to think. It does my heart good to know that some of the lessons took. Nobody’s gonna come in and muscle us out.”

  “No, but Jade can sure as hell muck things up temporarily. For beginners, she can cause a wage war. If she offers a dime more an hour to her employees, who do you figure folks will want to work for?”

  “Our employees are loyal.”

  “Loyal, my ass,” Neal said scornfully. “This is the new South, Daddy. Wake up. All that generational crap is just that—crap. If Jade promises to pay them more than we do, we’ll lose them. It won’t matter if their daddies and granddaddies worked for us. Damn! Every time I think about it, I wish I had my hands around her throat.”

  Ivan looked at Neal from beneath his brows. “Y’all probably should have gone ahead and killed her that night, then blamed it on niggers or white trash.”

  “Yeah. Wish I’d known then what I know now.”

  “She’s out for revenge all right. I’ve gone after it enough times myself to recognize the signs.” Ivan smacked his lips with disgust. “Wouldn’t you know it, that chickenshit kid of Myrajane’s had to up and die. Our venerable sheriff sure as hell ain’t in any condition to fight this thing. So, guess who’s left?”

  Neal clamped his hand on his father’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Daddy. We’re all we need.”

  * * *

  Jade pulled the Jeep Cherokee into the yard, which looked remarkably, and lamentably, the same as it had the last time she had seen it. The chickens were probably several generations removed from the previous ones, but they still pecked about the yard. A sow grunted from her muddy sty.

  Through the kitchen window she could see Mrs. Parker wiping her hands on a cup towel and looking through the w
indow to see who had arrived. Jade experienced an eerie sense of déjà vu. She should have come at another time of day, one not so reminiscent of that other dusk when she had made the grisly discovery in the barn. But suppertime was the only time she was certain to catch Otis in the house.

  She approached the front door and knocked. With the cup towel slung over her shoulder, Mrs. Parker answered the door and peered at Jade through the loose screen, shading her eyes against the setting sun. “Can I help you?”

  “Hello, Mrs. Parker. It’s Jade. Jade Sperry.”

  Jade heard her quick intake of breath. It gave a brief rise to her bony chest. She adjusted her hand against her brow and took a closer look.

  “What do you want here?”

  “I’d like to come in and talk to you.”

  “We got nothing to say to each other.”

  “Please, Mrs. Parker. It’s important or I wouldn’t have come. Please.”

  Jade waited anxiously through a seemingly interminable silence, then the screen door squeaked loudly as Mrs. Parker pushed it open. She inclined her gray head; Jade stepped into the front room of the house. The upholstery on the sofa was so threadbare that, in spots, the cotton stuffing showed through. There was a stain on the headrest of the easy chair. The rug had unraveled around the edges. No improvements had been made in the room since Jade had last been in it. It was a gloomy room with dingy wallpaper, derelict furniture, a loudly ticking clock, and a framed picture of Gary in his graduation cap and gown, which he had never worn to commencement.

  Since her return, Jade had visited Gary’s grave. Seeing his face smiling at her now from the dimestore frame gave her a start, but strengthened her resolve. She turned back to Gary’s mother, who had aged beyond the fifteen years that had passed. Her hair was thin and unkempt, and her clothes fit loosely. Beneath them, her skin sagged, covering nothing but bone.

  “Where are the younger children, Mrs. Parker? What happened to them?”

  Without any elaboration, she told Jade that two of the girls were married and had children. One of the boys lived in town with his wife and worked at the Patchett soybean plant; another had joined the navy; another had left home without saying where he was going. The last postcard they had received from him had been mailed in Texas.

  “The baby’s still here at home,” she reported tiredly. “She’ll graduate high school next year.”

  Sadly, Jade remembered all that Gary had wanted to do to pave the way for his younger brothers and sisters.

  She heard a door closing in another part of the house.

  “That’ll be Otis,” Mrs. Parker said anxiously. “He won’t cotton to your being here.”

  “I need to see him.”

  Otis Parker had aged even more than his wife. He was stooped, and what hair he had left was white. The elements, along with fatigue, despair, and grief, had carved deep ravines into his face. He drew up short when he saw Jade.

  “We got comp’ny, Otis.” Mrs. Parker had removed the cup towel from her shoulder and was wringing it between her hands.

  “Who is it?” He moved forward in his rolling, bowlegged gait and stopped a few feet from Jade, squinting at her through nearsighted eyes.

  “It’s Jade Sperry, Mr. Parker.”

  The breath left his body in a slow hiss. Jade almost expected him to deflate. Instead, he pulled himself to his full height. “I can see that now. What are you doing here?”

  Jade wanted to put her arms around them. Embracing them would almost be like touching Gary again. She resisted the impulse. She had tried to share their grief at Gary’s funeral and had been rebuffed. They believed, as everyone else did, that her unfaithfulness to Gary had caused his suicide.

  “I’d heard you were back in town,” Otis said. “What do you want with us?”

  “Could we sit down?”

  The couple silently consulted each other with exchanged glances. Otis turned his back and went to sit in the chair with the dark stain on the headrest. Mrs. Parker indicated the sofa to Jade, then sat down in a straight chair with a ratty cane seat.

  “You said you’d heard that I was back in town,” Jade began. “Do you know why?”

  “Heard you was building a new plant of some kind.”

  “That’s right.” She gave them an elementary explanation. “My company is already considering several ways to diversify. In order to expand, we’ll need more land. That’s why I came to see you this evening, Mr. Parker.” She drew a breath through her tight chest. “I want to buy your farm on behalf of GSS.”

  Mrs. Parker raised a hand to her lips but didn’t utter a peep. Otis continued to squint at Jade. “This place? What for?”

  “There are several possibilities,” she replied evasively.

  “Like what?”

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss them, Mr. Parker. I would also ask that you keep this offer in strictest confidence.” She glanced at Mrs. Parker, then back at Otis. “I hope you understand that. Absolutely no one must know.”

  “It don’t matter. I ain’t interested in selling.”

  “I realize that the property has been in your family for a long time, Mr. Parker. There’s certainly a sentimental attachment to consider, but—”

  “It ain’t for sale.”

  Jade rolled her lips inward. She was making them remember, pushing them into painful recollection. Her presence in their home was a reminder of the son they had loved so much and lost so tragically. She was tempted to leave and alleviate their misery. Instead, she forced herself to go on.

  “Would you at least grant me permission to have the property appraised by an impartial third party? It would be done with the utmost discretion and with no inconvenience to you, I promise. Once I review the appraisal, I’d appreciate an opportunity to speak with you again.”

  “It won’t hurt nothing, will it, Otis?” Mrs. Parker asked.

  Otis regarded Jade with animosity. “You hurt my boy. You broke his heart and his spirit right in two.”

  Jade bowed her head. “I can’t explain to you what happened that spring, but you must believe that I loved Gary with all my heart. If I’d been given a choice, I never would have hurt him.”

  “You think buying this place is going to ease your guilty conscience?” Mr. Parker asked.

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, neither you or that highfalutin company you work for has enough money to make up for our Gary.”

  “You’re absolutely right, Mr. Parker. A price tag could never be placed on his life. It’s just that your farm lies in the path of our progress. GSS is prepared to pay you a premium price for it.”

  “It ain’t for sale. Not to you.” He rose to his feet and left the room.

  After a moment Jade reluctantly stood to go. Mrs. Parker led her to the door. “Do you think it would be all right if I have the property appraised?”

  The woman cast a worried glance toward the rear of the house. “He didn’t say a flat-out no, did he?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Then I guess it’d be okay.”

  “Afterward, may I come to see you again?”

  Her pursed mouth began to work with emotion. “Jade, we loved that boy. We like to never got over what he done to hisself.”

  “Neither have I.”

  “It almost kilt Otis, too.” She wiped her nose on the cup towel. “He’s proud, you know, the way men are. Me, I figure we got something coming for all the grief we suffered over Gary. Somebody ought to pay for what happened.”

  Jade reached out and pressed her arm. “Thank you. I’ll be in touch soon. And please remember not to say anything to anyone about this.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Say, Mom?”

  “Say, what?”

  Graham looked up from the Sports Illustrated he was thumbing through. He was stretched out on the floor of their living room, lying on his stomach. “That sounded funny coming from you. Mostly black guys say that to one another.”

  “I met a man
once—a white man—who began most of his sentences with ‘say,’ and it annoyed me so much I sent him to jail.”

  Graham rolled to his back, then sat up. “No kiddin’?”

  “No kidding.”

  His dark hair was tousled, his eyes bright. Unabashedly, Jade took a moment to adore him. Since his and Cathy’s arrival in Palmetto the week before, Jade couldn’t seem to look at him enough. She had missed him terribly during their six-week separation. It was the longest stretch of time they had ever spent apart, and she hadn’t enjoyed it.

  “If you don’t believe me,” she said, “ask Mr. Burke the next time you see him. He knows better than I that the man belonged in jail.”

  “Mr. Burke’s so cool.”

  “Cool?”

  Jade tried to apply the slang adjective to the man. He worked incessantly and took every delay—such as inclement weather or malfunctioning equipment—as a personal affront. He elevated conscientiousness to the degree of fanaticism. Building the plant had become his crusade. He was almost as obsessive about it as she.

  “I guess you could call him cool.” She deliberately kept her tone noncommittal.

  Dillon had no vices that she knew of. He had never been drunk or hung over in her presence. If he saw women, he saw them away from the trailer. To her knowledge, he had never brought a woman to the construction site.

  “When I first met him, I thought he was sorta mean,” Graham told her.

  “Mean?”

  “He doesn’t smile a lot, does he?”

  “No, I guess he doesn’t,” she said thoughtfully. On the few occasions she had seen him smile, it had been a self-derisive expression.

  “And the first day you took me out to the site, he yelled at me when I climbed up on the bulldozer.”

  In the brief time he’d been in Palmetto, Graham had talked her into taking him to the site three times. He was fascinated with it. Now she wondered if it was Dillon and not the excavation that attracted him.

  “I’m glad Dillon yelled at you. You had no business playing around that machinery. It could be dangerous.”

  “That’s what Mr. Burke said, too. He told me that people who flirt with getting hurt like that have shit for brains.”