by Linda Warren
“Because it was years ago and they were married only a short while. Few people saw her and there are no photographs of her. Dad talked her into this painting. He kept it over his bed. I hated the woman and the way my dad worshiped the painting. When I was about ten, I stole the picture and hid it down here. Dad was distraught for a while but he soon got over it. I should have destroyed it, but as a kid I was scared. Later I forgot about it.” She paused for a moment. “Victoria knew there was a painting and she always hoped she could find it. She wanted to hang it in the gallery, but I could never allow that. This Indian will never hang beside my mother.”
A multitude of feelings raced through C.J., but she didn’t miss the contempt in Martha’s voice. “Why do you hate Victoria so much?”
Her face creased into a hard mask. “Hate is too mild a word for what I felt. I was the eldest. I should have been my father’s favorite, the one to take over from him. But he started grooming Will for that position because he was a man. I couldn’t let that happen. So I began putting arsenic in Will’s food. It gradually made him sick. One day I took him out riding and just pushed him from the saddle. His head hit a rock and he died.” Her voice was matter-of-fact, without remorse.
“You killed your brother,” C.J. breathed in horror.
“Yes, and my father turned to me, the way he should have in the first place. I began looking after the Cober business interests, but I made some…errors. My father became angry and he turned to Victoria. She took everything from me—my father, my inheritance, my child and the man I love.” Martha twisted around to open a drawer and pulled something out. Facing C.J. again, she pointed a gun at her. “Now I’m going to take the one thing she loved most on this earth.”
C.J. stepped backward. “You’re the person who hired someone to kill me?”
“Yes, and he botched it up. Now I’m going to finish the job.”
“Why? Victoria’s dead,” she said in a shaking voice.
“What good will it do to kill me?”
“As you grew, so did Victoria’s guilty conscience. She made a second will, giving you one-fourth of everything and explaining the circumstances of your birth. She made the mistake of telling me about it. I couldn’t let you take away from my Clare what is rightfully hers. I wasn’t going to let you share in my child’s inheritance. I had to have the lawyer killed to get the will, but I got it, and now no one will ever see it.”
“But if you have the will, why—”
“Oh, I would have killed you years ago, but Victoria always threatened that if anything happened to you, Clare wouldn’t inherit a dime. Now Victoria’s gone. This will be my last revenge.”
“You…you talk of killing as if it’s normal.”
“You do what you have to in life. The man I hired didn’t destroy the will as I’d ordered. Since he kept asking for more money, I assume he’s tried to sell it to other people, but I fixed him. No one double-crosses me.”
“You’re insane!”
“Don’t call me insane!” Martha yelled, the gun wavering in her hand.
“Okay,” C.J. soothed, knowing she had pushed a lethal button. “Just answer one question. Do you know who my father is?”
“Yes. Victoria had loved him since she was a teenager, but he was dirt-poor and my father wouldn’t tolerate it. He had to send her away for a while to break them up. The years passed and he married someone else. Then Victoria stole my John—but I got even. I always got even.”
“What do you mean?”
A sinister smile crossed her face. “The poison worked so well on Will that I started putting small amounts in her food. I tried so many times to kill her, but she had nine lives. Like a cat. Like you.”
C.J. was so shocked she couldn’t speak. She could only listen to a story that chilled her to the bone.
“John really loved me, not Victoria. She was only a pretty thing to hang on his arm for political reasons. She didn’t understand him like I do.”
“John Townsend is Clare’s father?” she guessed.
“Of course.”
“Does he know about Clare?”
“Sure,” was the surprising answer. “He was so happy, but any hint of scandal, any rumors, would have ruined his career. Though Victoria and John no longer shared a bed, she knew the scandal would have hurt the twins—her own children. She agreed to raise Clare as her own, but I could never stand for that. I started the poison again, and Victoria became so weak she couldn’t get out of bed, much less look after Clare. But something or someone always intervened and kept me from finishing her off. Eventually, though, I succeeded.”
Martha paused, taking a breath. “We had an argument the night she died. I threatened to kill you, and she got so angry she managed to get out of bed. I pushed her down the stairs and she died instantly. Now everything I’ve always planned is going to come true. No one’s going to stop me, not even that stupid nurse, that Stephanie. She thought she could take John from me, but I showed her. Now John, Clare and I are going to be a family, the way things should have been years ago.”
“You killed Stephanie Cox?”
“Yes, and it was a pleasure. She was filling John’s head with nonsense.”
This woman was evil. Insane. Jealousy, a quest for power and unrequited love had warped her mind. C.J. doubted if John Townsend felt anything for her. Yet she’d hurt so many people to be with him. Where would it all end?
She had to concentrate on her own problems, though. “You said you knew my father. Who is he?”
“Can’t believe you haven’t guessed. The answer’s right under your nose.”
“I know him?” C.J.’s heart raced as she waited.
“You’ve lived with him all your life.”
“What?” The words rocked her to the core.
“Pete Watson is your father.”
“Pete,” she echoed numbly.
“As I said, they’d been in love all their lives. When Pete was through with the rodeo circuit, Victoria hired him to run the ranch. Even though she couldn’t have him, she wanted him near. He and Maggie were always fighting. That February Maggie kicked him out and he stayed in the bunkhouse. John was in Washington at the time. I was so close to finishing Victoria off, but Pete noticed how weak she was. He sat by her bed at nights holding her hand. I couldn’t manage to put the poison in her food again, and she started to get better. They’d go for long walks and soon he wasn’t sleeping in the bunkhouse anymore. Of course they were discreet because Clare was still at home, but it was disgusting. For a month they were like teenagers—and then it was over. Maggie wanted him back and John was due to come home. I was hoping she’d run off with Pete, but Victoria always did the proper thing. Their parting was so touching. They both cried. I wanted to laugh.”
“Does Pete know about me?” She held her breath.
“No, she never told him. Clare had some…problems that spring and I took her to Switzerland to rest. When I got back in the early fall, I knew Victoria was pregnant. She hid it from everyone else, but I knew.”
“Why?” C.J. cried. “Why didn’t she tell him? Why did she let me go?”
“As I said, Victoria always did the proper thing. She loved Pete and wanted his child. Even though she could die giving birth, she wanted you. But telling Pete about the baby would have ruined his marriage and devastated her grown children.”
“She was powerful and rich,” C.J. replied sharply.
“She could have done anything she wanted.”
“It was different back then. It wasn’t so easy for a woman. She was forty-eight years old with adult children. The scandal of her having a bastard child would have hurt a lot of people. She was torn between you and Pete and her family. Personally I thought she would die having you. It was Christmas Eve. The family wasn’t expected home until Christmas Day. Victoria started having pains about eight o’clock and she had me dismiss all the servants. She yelled and screamed, and I sat and waited, waited for her to draw her last breath. Just like her mother, she
would die in childbirth.”
Wiping the sweat from her forehead, she continued, “But Victoria pulled through and you were born ten minutes past midnight on Christmas Day. I had to cut the cord and clean you up. I placed you in her arms and she nursed you. She held you, kissing you, telling you over and over how much she loved you. At five in the morning, she dressed you, wrapped you in a thick quilt and placed you in a basket. She had gone to Dallas to buy it. Plus the little gown. She’d also bought a boy’s outfit. She was prepared, but it was almost her downfall. The sheriff was hot on the trail of those items, until she put a stop to his investigation.”
“She stopped the investigation?”
“Sure did. She had it all planned, and she didn’t want the sheriff messing things up. I hoped he’d go against her wishes and expose her to the world for what she was, but he didn’t have the guts.”
“Did the sheriff know Victoria was my mother?”
“If he did, he kept it to himself. He knew better than to question her.”
“I wasn’t some toy to be given away,” C.J. said, outraged. “I was a living breathing human being. How could she do that to me?”
“That was your loving mother,” Martha said with a snort. “She didn’t have to answer to anyone. She made decisions and expected everyone to follow them. Even I followed her orders, but I had no choice. She told me to put you on Pete’s doorstep—the greatest gift she would ever give him, she said. I had no intention of doing it, but she must have read my mind, because she said if you didn’t reach Pete’s safely, she’d make sure Clare wouldn’t inherit a dime. The same threat she always used. Personally I wanted to smother you and throw you away like the garbage you mentioned earlier. But I did as she instructed. I would do anything for my Clare. I removed the quilt, hoping you’d freeze to death before they found you, but as I got back on my horse, I saw Harry’s headlights coming through the woods. He found you not five minutes after I left you there.”
“I can’t believe all this!” C.J. cried. “How could she hide a pregnancy?”
Martha shrugged indifferently. “She wore loose-fitting clothes and she stayed home, away from people. That Thanksgiving wasn’t easy, though. I told everyone she was ill and she stayed in bed, but Joyce came home sick. I don’t know what was wrong with her, but Victoria sent her off to Florida to recuperate before she could find out.”
“It’s all so unbelievable!”
“But it’s true. She watched over you for years. She was so angry when Social Services tried to take you away from Pete. She called the governor to make sure it wouldn’t happen again.”
Oh, God, that was why no one had ever adopted her. Why every couple was found unsuitable.
She realized Martha was still speaking. “When Pete and Maggie were short of cash, she secretly put money in their account. She owned the bank, so no one ever found out. And, of course, with Matt Sloan’s help she made sure you got an education, then she made sure you had a job at the bank. When you quit, she fired several people.”
“Unbelievable,” C.J. breathed again, but it wasn’t. Not anymore. Why hadn’t she put it together before? No one in Coberville had that much power except Victoria Townsend—her mother.
“Now I’m going to get rid of you like I should have the day you were born.” The gun raised a fraction, bringing C.J. back to her dire situation.
“If you shoot me, someone’s bound to hear,” she said, stalling, trying to think of a way to escape this crazy woman.
Martha’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve dreamed of shooting you, watching you die. Nothing would give me more pleasure. But I have something else in mind.”
C.J. frowned. “What?”
Martha walked over to a door and opened it. Behind was a large closet containing shelves with painting supplies. With her free hand she reached for a knife on the desk by the door. Martha bent down, keeping the gun on C.J., and jammed the knife into a crack in the hardwood floor. She applied pressure and to C.J.’s astonishment a door popped up.
Martha straightened. “Ingenious, don’t you think? The door is installed in such a way that it’s undetectable. My ancestors were brilliant. This was a hiding place to keep them safe from their enemies—Indians, Mexicans, Yankees or anyone else.”
C.J. knew she wasn’t just giving her a history lesson. “What’s that got to do with me?”
A devious smile appeared on Martha’s face. “This is your grave.”
Fear darted up C.J.’s spine, stark and vivid. “You’re crazy if you think I’m going down there!”
“Don’t call me crazy!” Martha raised the gun and struck her on the side of the head.
The blow brought C.J. to her knees. The room spun and she had a sick dizzy feeling. Her face was hot and she reached up and felt the blood oozing through her fingers.
“Get up,” Martha ordered.
C.J. stayed where she was, trying to breathe normally, trying to think.
“Look at it this way,” Martha said. “In the hole you have a fighting chance. Someone could find you.”
C.J. still didn’t move. She didn’t know what to do.
“Get up, or I’m going to shoot you and push you into the hole. It makes no difference to me. It’s your choice.”
C.J. got slowly to her feet. She couldn’t let this woman shoot her. Not now. Could she overpower her and get away? The room swam around her and she saw two Marthas. She squeezed her eyes tight, realizing she wasn’t in any condition to overpower anyone. She had to go down into the hole. It was her only hope. Matthew would find her, she kept saying to herself.
Dizzily she placed her foot on the ladder that led into the hole and started down into the dark void. When she reached the bottom, Martha began to pull up the ladder.
“No,” C.J. screamed, and tried to catch the bottom rung. But it was useless; the ladder was gone.
She heard Martha’s satisfied laugh. “Did I tell you the room is soundproof? So go ahead and scream your head off—no one’ll ever hear you. You’ll die a slow painful death and you’ll never be able to hurt my Clare. She’ll be the head of this family, just like I should have been years ago. Revenge is so sweet.” On the last words she slammed the trapdoor shut.
C.J. trembled as the darkness engulfed her. Don’t panic, don’t scream, she repeated as she moved around with her hands in front of her. The blackness was total. The room was small with a dirt floor, and there didn’t seem to be anything in it. She backed against a wall and sank to the ground. The place smelled damp and dusty.
The blood continued to drip down her neck. She needed something to stop the bleeding. Removing a boot and sock, she wadded the sock and held it against her face.
Was this how it was going to end? She would die in this tomb before she could savor the knowledge of her parents. Oh, Matthew, find me. Please find me.
AFTER HIDING THE LADDER, Martha hurriedly stacked paintings and canvases back in the closet, then closed the door. Seeing blood on the floor, she got some turpentine and paper towels and methodically cleaned it up. Then she studied the room, making sure there was no evidence left, and slipped on a painting smock, putting the gun in one pocket. From the desk she picked up Victoria’s will and placed it in the other pocket. She grabbed the bloody paper towels and headed upstairs to the kitchen. She put them in a plastic bag and threw them in the trash compactor. After that she went out the back door. She had to get rid of that stupid girl’s horse.
Martha found the horse and led him toward the stables. As she reached the double doors, she heard a car. She hurried inside. Looking out, she saw Rob, Francine and John pull up in front of the house. They’d gone into town to make funeral arrangements for that insipid Stephanie. She led the horse to a stall, deciding to deal with him later. Right now she had to talk to John.
She found him in the study, going through some papers.
John glanced up and frowned. “What is it, Martha?”
“I want to talk to you.”
“Not now.”
“
No. Now.”
“Can’t it wait? I’m not in the mood.”
“You’ll be in the mood for what I have to say.” She smiled and stepped closer. “Remember when I tried to tell you about Pete and Victoria?”
“Don’t start that again.”
“I have proof I wasn’t lying,” she said, dropping the will in front of him.
He frowned at her suspiciously, then picked it up and began to read. “My God,” he groaned. “The Doe girl is Victoria’s child.”
“You don’t have to worry. I’ve taken care of everything.”
His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“That’s the original of the will. No one will ever see it but us. C. J. Doe won’t get a dime from this family, and our Clare will have everything that’s rightfully hers.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“We can be together now. There’s nothing standing in our way. I got rid of Stephanie, just like I got rid of Victoria. Now we can be a family—you, Clare and me.”
John’s eyes widened in horror. “What! You killed Stephanie…and Victoria?”
“I did it for us.”
His features contorted with anger. “Are you insane?”
“Don’t say that,” she warned, clenching and unclenching her hands. “You love me. You always have.”
“I loved Victoria.”
“No,” she denied vehemently. “You only married her for political reasons. You wanted me. I had the child you wanted.”
“Your memory is very convenient. I wanted you to have an abortion, remember? It was Victoria who insisted you have the baby. She was so gracious, even after the way I’d hurt her.”
“No!” Martha screamed. “You love me!”
He shook his head, his expression grim.
“You came to me when she wouldn’t have you!” she went on.
“Once, Martha. I slept with you once, and I was drunk at the time. I wanted to hurt Victoria. That’s all it was, nothing more.”
Martha suddenly paled. “You’re lying. Why are you lying?”
“Listen to me. We have to get you some help. I’ll call Doc Haslow.” His hand touched the phone.