by Sandra Brown
“Graham!”
“He said it, Mom, not me. I’m just telling you.”
“What other quaint expressions have you picked up from Mr. Burke?”
He grinned. “I think he likes me now, but he totally lost it when Loner and me got up on that gravel heap.”
“Loner?”
“His dog. That’s what Mr. Burke calls him. Anyway, I was just scaling it like a regular hill when Mr. Burke came running out of his trailer yelling at me to get the hell down from there—that’s what he said, Mom. Then he took my arm and kinda shook me and asked me didn’t I have a lick of sense and didn’t I know that kids smother in gravel heaps all the time.
“I told him I wasn’t a kid. He said, ‘You aren’t grown, either. And while you’re around here, you’ll do as I say.’ He was scary, ’cause when he talks all quiet and mean like that, you can’t see his lips move under his mustache, you know?”
“Yes, I know.” She’d seen Dillon lose his temper. Like Graham, she had caught herself watching his mustache and his lips for signs of movement.
“He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
“Hell no. I mean, heck no. Later he apologized for grabbing my arm. He said when he saw me and Loner up on the gravel, he was scared shitless it would swallow us whole.” She frowned at his language. Again Graham grinned up at her guilelessly. It was fun to be saying words he was ordinarily forbidden to use. “He’s gotta grip that would break bone.”
His strength had never been in doubt. On more than one occasion Jade had paused at the window of her portable office to gaze at him while he was at work and unaware that anyone was watching. His stride was long and sure as he moved about, overseeing the excavation. Even at a distance, she could pick him out from the other workers because he always wore a white hard hat and aviator sunglasses… and there was his mustache, of course.
“… if I could. Can I?”
“I’m sorry, Graham. Can you do what?”
He rolled his eyes the way teenagers do when their parents demonstrate incredible stupidity. “Can I ride my bike out to the site? I know the way.”
“But it’s several miles.”
“Please, Mom.”
“It sounds like some big-stakes negotiating is going on here,” Cathy said. She entered the room carrying a tray of cookies and drinks. There was a glass of milk for Graham and coffee for Jade and her. “You’ll need sustenance to carry on.”
In the brief time she’d been there, Cathy had already exercised her knack for making a house into a home. Jade hadn’t realized how vital Cathy was to her until she’d had to do without her for six weeks. She did all the shopping, cooked all their meals, and managed the house. That’s what she wanted to do, and she was excellent at it. Without someone to fuss over, Cathy would consider her life meaningless.
She set the tray on the coffee table and took a seat beside Jade on the sofa. “What topic are we debating tonight?”
Around his first, oven-fresh chocolate chip cookie, Graham explained. “Mr. Burke said I could come out to the site anytime I want. What’s wrong with riding my bike out there, Mom?”
“In the first place, it’s too far to go on a bicycle. Second, the construction site isn’t a playground. You could get in the way of the workers or you could get hurt. Finally, you should be making friends your own age.”
“I’ve already met several boys in the neighborhood.”
She hoped he would develop some friendships over the summer, which would make enrolling in school easier next fall. Being with boys his own age would be a much healthier pastime than hanging out with her reclusive general contractor.
“Mr. Burke has better things to do than entertain you.”
“But he said I could, Mom. You don’t want me to have any fun,” he grumbled.
Cathy, ever the diplomat, said, “Maybe I could ask Mr. Burke to dinner one night soon.”
“Gee. That’d be neat,” Graham said, smiling again.
“I’m not so sure,” Jade said hastily.
“Why not, Mom?”
“Unless he goes out, he eats alone in that trailer night after night,” Cathy argued gently. “I’m sure he would appreciate a home-cooked meal.”
“If he wants to live like a hermit, I think we should honor his privacy.”
That was a feeble excuse. Even if their expressions hadn’t told her so, she would have known it. The truth was that she and Dillon were together a great deal each day. He was so competent that she found herself asking for his opinion or advice on a number of decisions. They were friendly, but strictly professional in their treatment of each other, and that’s the way it would have to stay.
“You still haven’t said whether I could ride my bike out there,” Graham reminded her. “Please, Mom. Palmetto’s not like New York. Nothing bad happens here.”
Unsteadily, Jade returned her cup and saucer to the tray.
Cathy quickly interceded. “Give her a day or two to think about it, Graham. Since you’ve demolished that plate of cookies, you can help me clean up the kitchen. Take the tray in, please. I’ll be there in a minute. Now scoot.”
Graham reluctantly came to his feet and carried the tray from the room. Once he was out of earshot, Cathy covered Jade’s hands which were tightly clenched on her knees. “He didn’t know any better than to say something like that, Jade.”
“Of course he didn’t. Until I was gang-raped, I never would have believed that anything bad could happen here, either.”
Cathy chose her next words carefully. “I know you’ve never wanted Graham to know how he was conceived.”
“I haven’t changed my mind.”
“But what if he finds out from someone else?” Cathy asked worriedly. “What if someone comes right out and asks him which of the three men was his father?”
“The people who know about the rape aren’t going to tell about it. And even they don’t know that Graham was conceived that night.”
“Your enemies are the most important men in town—the Patchetts and Sheriff Jolly. When they hear about Graham, they’re bound to put two and two together.”
“And then what? Confess to rape? Hardly.”
Cathy searched her young friend’s face. “Jade, I’ve never interfered in your personal life. If I had, I would have had you married to Hank Arnett years ago. I’ve never presumed to tell you what you should do.”
“Why do I feel that’s about to change?”
The older woman ignored her sarcasm and, in an urgent whisper, said, “Let it go.”
“Let what go?”
“I’m not stupid, Jade. You didn’t whimsically select Palmetto as the site of the TexTile plant. Why would you return to a place of such unpleasant memories if not to get revenge?”
She squeezed Jade’s hands tighter. “Your achievements should be revenge enough. You’ve overcome every obstacle put in your path. You’ve got Graham, and he loves you dearly. What more do you need? Let it go.”
“I can’t, Cathy.” She didn’t even attempt to deny Cathy’s charge. “I’ve waited years for this. I won’t back down now.”
“I’m afraid for you. This thing is consumptive. It might destroy you before you can destroy them.”
“I don’t want to destroy them. If I had, I would have killed them fifteen years ago. I thought about it.” She shook her head. “But killing them would have been the easy way out. No, I want them to lose something that they cherish, the way I lost my innocence and the boy I loved. I want to see them stripped of their dreams just as I was stripped of mine.
“More than that, I want Gary’s death avenged. They killed him, Cathy, just as surely as if they had put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. I won’t rest until they’ve paid dearly for his life.”
Her tone softened, became wistful. “He was such an idealist. We dreamed of someday dethroning the Patchetts, to stop their economic tyranny over Palmetto. They prey on victims who have no wealth, no strength or influence, just as I was fifteen years ago. They’
re lawless and unconscionable, and they’ll continue to hurt people and suppress this town until somebody stops them.” Her expression hardened again with resolve. “I worked for fifteen years toward having this opportunity. I can’t squander it.”
Cathy said nothing for a moment, then lifted imploring eyes to Jade. “Tell Graham what happened to you. If these men are as villainous as you say, they’ll fight back. They could try and get to you through him. Tell him, Jade, before someone else does.”
She recognized the wisdom in what Cathy was telling her, but she could also recall Velta laying the responsibility of her father’s suicide on her. If she told Graham about the rape, he might wrongly assume the blame for his conception. She refused to burden him with a guilt that would last a lifetime.
“No, Cathy. He must never know.”
* * *
The question of whether Graham had permission to bicycle to and from the construction site was temporarily shelved when Dillon went out of town to interview several concrete contractors.
“He asked me to make sure that Loner had food and water while he was gone,” she told Graham that evening when she returned home. “There’s no point in you even asking to ride your bike out there. We’ll discuss it again when Mr. Burke comes back.”
Graham was crestfallen. “When will that be, a hundred years?”
“Two weeks, he said.”
“A hundred years,” he mouthed as he walked away dejectedly.
He wasn’t pleased by the turn of events, but secretly Jade was. Cathy’s caution couldn’t be dismissed lightly. She had been so single-minded about her plans that she had failed to consider the kind of countermoves the Patchetts and Hutch might make. Since the town meeting, they had kept a low profile. That alone was suspicious. No doubt they were up to something. Until she knew what it was, she couldn’t relax her guard for a moment. She didn’t want Graham roaming freely about town.
Despite Dillon’s absence, work at the site continued. He had appointed the excavator as temporary overseer. Because Dillon’s standards were so high, Jade trusted the man to do the job correctly, but she felt safer and more confident when Dillon was within reach.
The site had almost become a tourist spot, drawing curious onlookers by the hundreds. Rarely a day passed when Jade didn’t grant an interview to a media reporter. Lola Garrison, a freelance features reporter from Charleston, spent almost an entire day with her. She was writing an article about the TexTile plant for the Sunday supplement, which was circulated by several major newspapers throughout the South.
Spring was gradually becoming summer. The days grew longer. One evening Jade decided to work overtime after the excavation crews had turned off their machinery and left for the day. She became so involved in what she was doing that she lost track of time and wasn’t roused until Loner began to bark outside.
A little trill of gladness shimmied up through her midsection. Dillon was back, she thought. But the tread on the steps outside wasn’t heavy enough, and Loner wasn’t barking his glad bark of welcome. The door to the trailer swung open.
“Hello, Jade.”
“Donna Dee!” She was at once shocked to see her old friend and relieved that her visitor wasn’t someone menacing.
Loner was still on the threshold, barking furiously. “Down, boy,” Jade told him. She rounded the desk and crossed the room to close the door. Turning, she faced Donna Dee.
“You look good, Jade.” Her smile was tinged with bitterness and envy. “But then you always did.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t worry. I don’t expect you to return the compliment. You’d be lying.”
That left Jade with nothing to say. The years hadn’t been kind to Donna Dee, who had never been pretty in any case. Her appeal had always lain in her animated personality. But today she didn’t even have that. Her wry sense of humor had turned to rancor.
“Why did you come to see me, Donna Dee?”
“Can I sit down?”
Jade nodded toward a chair, then returned to her desk. Donna Dee sat down, primly tugging the hem of her skirt over her knees, revealing her nervousness. There wasn’t a modest bone in Donna Dee’s body. She didn’t care whether her knees were covered. Something else was causing her jitters. Perhaps guilt.
“I went to your house,” she said. “They said you were working late.”
“They?”
“The older woman and the boy… Graham?”
“Yes, Graham.”
Donna Dee glanced away. Jade noted that she was clutching the strap of her handbag with both hands, as though fearing a purse snatcher. “I, uh, I didn’t know you had a son until a few days ago.”
“He’s been in New York, finishing his school term. How did you hear about him?”
“You know how gossip travels around here.”
“Yes, I do. All too well.”
Donna Dee ducked her head and hooked a strand of hair behind her ear. “He’s a good-looking boy, Jade.”
“Thank you.”
“He looks like you.”
“And my father.”
“Yeah, I remember the pictures you had of him.” Her fingers worked along the stitching in the leather strap of her handbag. “How old is… is Graham?”
“Fourteen.”
The two women stared at each other across the room, across the years of bitterness. Donna Dee broke the strained silence. “You’re going to make me ask, aren’t you?”
“Ask what?”
“Was he conceived that night?”
“You mean the night I was raped?” Jade suddenly stood up. “That should give you and Hutch something titillating to discuss over dinner tonight.”
Donna Dee stood also. “Hutch and I won’t be having dinner together. We won’t even be talking to each other tonight. Hutch is in intensive care in a hospital in Savannah, Jade. He’s dying!”
Her words echoed off the walls. For a moment the two women glared at each other, then Donna Dee collapsed into her chair again and held her forehead in her hand. “He’s dying.”
Just as Fritz had been, Hutch was a figurehead behind a badge. He was the Patchetts’ hand puppet. Before Jade’s return, it had been nothing except a theory. Her first day in Palmetto, she had tested it. She deliberately broke the speed limit and was stopped by a patrolman.
When he tried to give her a ticket, she demurred. “Mr. Patchett won’t like it when he hears about this. I’m a friend of his. He told me that if I ever got a speeding ticket, not to worry about it. All he has to do is call the sheriff and he’ll fix it, he said. Why put everybody to so much trouble? It would be pointless, wouldn’t it?” Assuming a role she detested, she removed her sunglasses and dazzled the deputy with a smile.
“Well, I’m glad you told me, little lady.” He slipped the citation book back into his pocket. “Sheriff Jolly would have chewed my ass good if I had offended a friend of Mr. Patchett’s. Are we talking Neal or the old man?”
“Take your pick,” she said, starting her car.
“I don’t reco’nize you. What’d you say your name was?”
“I didn’t,” she said, and drove away, feeling smug for proving her guess right.
Now she felt numb. She wouldn’t have the pleasure of exposing Hutch as a corrupt coward who didn’t fear damnation as much as he feared Ivan and Neal Patchett’s ridicule.
“I didn’t know, Donna Dee,” she said. “I’m sorry to hear it.”
Donna Dee snorted scornfully. “Yeah, I’ll bet. If Hutch dies, that’ll be two down and one to go, won’t it?”
“Careful. That’s as good as conceding that what the three of them have in common is raping me.”
“They’re the three you accused.” She regarded Jade curiously. “Ivan is as good as dead too, you know. He’ll never fully recover from that accident. Neal was in bad shape for a while. At first everybody thought he’d been emasculated. Wouldn’t it have been a hoot if the superstud of Palmetto couldn’t get it up anymore? Turns out, that was a na
sty rumor. Plenty of women swear he’s as hard and horny as ever.”
“I’m really not interested.”
Donna Dee continued as though Jade hadn’t spoken. “Fritz and Lamar are dead. Ivan’s crippled. Hutch is dying. God has almost evened up the score for you, Jade. You must be living right.”
“I’m not responsible for any of their misfortunes. And no matter what you think, Donna Dee, I don’t wish Hutch were dead.”
“You’re not going to cry at his funeral, though, are you?”
“No. I cried all my tears at Gary’s funeral.”
Donna Dee took a swift breath and said defensively, “Hutch didn’t have anything to do with that. Neal told Gary, not Hutch.”
“Told Gary what?”
“That you were pregnant and went to Georgie for help.”
The bit of information, so offhandedly revealed, paralyzed Jade. Though she remained motionless, her mind spun crazily. Her blood rushed through her veins at an alarming rate.
“Neal told Gary that I went to get an abortion?” Her voice was nothing more than a dry rasp. The question that had haunted her for years had finally been answered. Donna Dee didn’t realize that she had put the missing puzzle piece in place, but she had.
Jade had craved to know what had prompted Gary to suicide. Now she knew. He had been told she was pregnant, thereby making her not only unfaithful to him but a liar.
It was inconsequential how Neal had found out she was pregnant—Patrice Watley had probably told him. He had wasted no time in telling Gary. Then, having had his faith in her completely destroyed, Gary had killed himself. There seemed no limit to Neal’s treachery.
Jade clasped her hands together at her waist. “You’d better go, Donna Dee.”
“You didn’t get an abortion that day, did you?”
“I’m asking you to go.”
“Your son is that same baby, isn’t he? Listen to me, Jade.” She inhaled deeply, as though bracing herself. “About a year ago, Hutch got to feeling bad all the time. For as long as he could, he disregarded the symptoms. You know how stubborn men can be about things like that. They never want to admit that they’re anything less than Superman.