by Sala, Sharon
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Epilogue
A THOUSAND LIES
By
SHARON SALA
Copyright 2013 by Sharon Sala
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or if real, used fictitiously. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.
All Rights Reserved.
Book cover: Kim Killion of HotDAMN Designs
www.hotdamndesigns.com
With regard to digital publication, be advised that any alteration of font size or spacing by the reader will automatically change the author’s original format.
Dedication
Knowing whom the people in your life are either gives you the impetus to make them proud, or in some cases, to get as far away from them as you can get.
I have been blessed in my life to come from good, hard-working people who took pride in a job well done and never minded if their hands got dirty in the process.
But there are just as many people in the world who spend their lives trying to live down the circumstances of their birth and raising.
I’m dedicating this book to those who found the strength to walk away——to shed the mantle of public shame and scrutiny with both dignity and grace.
Whatever it took for you to take that leap of faith, you have forever blessed the generations of your people yet to come.
Chapter One
Wisteria Hill wasn’t on a hill at all, but in the Louisiana lowlands outside of New Orleans. Jason Poe had it built for his Irish bride, LilyAnn, in 1859, and in its time, it was as lovely as anything on the Mississippi. It had survived the Civil War, carpetbaggers, hurricanes, births and deaths enough to fill a book and, in later years, more financial crises than the New York Stock Exchange.
But after one hundred and fifty-plus years of wear and tear, the grand lady had become as down-at-the-heels ragged as an old hooker plying her trade from the shadows of an alley on Beale Street.
The current heir and resident of Wisteria Hill was Anson Poe. Like his ancestors before him, he was black-Irish, handsome verging on beautiful with hair the color of midnight, clear blue eyes, and a face reminiscent of a Ralph Lauren clothing advertisement. He had everything going for him but a conscience. It was as if all of the good traits had been used up in the preceding generations and bequeathed Anson nothing but the crumbs of self-respect. Behind the knockout looks was a man incapable of compassion and fair-to-bursting with greed. He filled his physical needs for drugs and sex on a whim while his narcissistic, Napoleonic need to rule kept his family in constant turmoil. The only things he could not control were the encroaching rot of Wisteria Hill and the heat of a Louisiana summer.
****
Sweat rolled out of LaDelle Poe’s hairline, then down the back of her neck and points south as she stirred the crawfish gumbo she’d been making since daybreak. Once the hour hand on the clock passed 10:00 a.m., the kitchen usually closed due to heat and Delle’s disposition.
Anson stood in the doorway watching the way his wife’s body moved beneath her loose blue shift and wondered what the odds were of getting a blow job before breakfast. When she caught his look and glared, he eyed the bruise he’d put on her cheekbone the night before and moved to the coffee pot instead. Caffeine was second best to the adrenaline rush of sex, and from the look on her face, he’d best not put his dick anywhere near her teeth.
“Is that breakfast or lunch?” he asked.
“It’s whatever you want it to be,” Delle muttered, still mad at her husband for what he’d done to her face last night.
Anson frowned. “A man doesn’t like to eat the same damn thing all day long.”
Delle swung a filet knife toward his tight, flat belly. “And a woman doesn’t like to stand over a hot stove and cook for a man who hurts her. You want to live better? Well so do I, Anson Poe, and for starters, you can air-condition this money trap. God knows you can afford it.”
Anson smiled.
Breath caught in the back of Delle’s throat. She’d seen that look before. Before the day was over, she’d pay for talking back.
“There’s bread for toast if you’re too hungry to wait,” she said, pointing at the bread on the kitchen counter.
He popped in a couple of pieces, then continued to watch her as he sipped his coffee. Even after four children, she had held her figure. Except for a faint grey streak at her left temple, her hair was still the same shade of auburn she’d been born with. He didn’t even mind the small laugh lines at the corners of her eyes, although he suspected they were there more from squinting against the sun than smiling. She didn’t have much of a sense of humor when it came to him.
“Where’s Linny?” he asked.
“Outside playing.”
He moved to the screen door to look out, but didn’t see her anywhere.
“I don’t see her.”
Delle shrugged. “That’s probably because she doesn’t want to be seen. She’s fine.”
Anson thought of his daughter with the curiosity of a stranger. She was their only girl and had come along seventeen years after Brendan, the youngest of their three sons. She was tall for her age, and it was already obvious what a beauty she’d be. The girl definitely had his looks, and he immediately wondered if there was a way to cash in on that. Other than money, the girl meant nothing to him and he focused on the old stable at the far end of the grounds, instead.
His great-grandmother had loved the Orient and at one time had an Asian garden on the grounds she had enclosed with a stand of bamboo. Over the years, the garden went to weeds and eventually died. Everything had long since disappeared except for that stand of bamboo. It took over the back of the property, spread into the trees, and like kudzu, became the pest that wouldn’t go away.
Anson went through the last of the family’s money within a year of getting married and immediately turned to farming. Unfortunately, the crops he began growing were illegal. Needing a cover crop to hide the fact he was growing and selling marijuana, he turned the old stable into a work shed and began cutting, rooting, and potting the rampant stands of bamboo, then sold them to landscapers and florist shops. When the bamboo business became successful, it gave him the cachet of a legal businessman, although his other, more profitable, business was a poorly concealed fact.
Anson shifted his stance, frowning as sweat ran down the middle of his back. Delle was right. It was hot in here, but if he had to work outside in the heat, then she could work in the heat, too.
He glanced at his watch, wondering where the hell Sam and Chance were. He had a big shipment of weed going out today and needed his sons on site.
****
The baby cottonmouth slithered out from beneath some kudzu vines and into the still, green waters without leaving a ripple. Belind
a Poe—Linny to the family—watched from her post on a nearby rock until it disappeared before she opted to come down. Water moccasins were lethal no matter their size, and Mama would have herself a fit if she knew where Linny was playing, but she loved the swamp. It was her private jungle. Down here, she was Queen Belinda and ruled over everything residing within.
Linny was as long and lean as a newborn foal with slender arms and legs, bare and brown. Her jeans shorts were nearly white from countless washing. Her tank top was yellow, a good contrast to her smooth, brown skin. Today the shirt was stuck fast to her body from the heat. The black hair she’d inherited from her daddy hung nearly to her waist and had been pulled up in a ponytail. She’d woven a crown from the kudzu vines and wore it as elegantly as if it were made of gold.
Standing tall for a nine-year-old, the jade green diadem on her head added inches to her height, and in the sunlight at the edge of the bayou, she almost pulled off the queenly look. The final touch was her scepter, a repurposed walking stick she’d found in the attic.
She was poking about in the underbrush looking for frogs when something rustled the grass behind her. Fearing it was the enemy, she leaped back up on her throne. Then she saw an old snapper crawl out of the woods and pointed the queenly scepter to announce the knight’s slow arrival.
“Behold, Sir Snapper has entered the royal chamber! What have you to say for yourself?”
The snapper wasn’t fazed in the least by her presence and continued toward the murky waters just as the little water moccasin had done. As the turtle pushed off from solid ground into the water with a loud splash, Linny raised her arm in a gesture of farewell.
“Godspeed, Sir Snapper... O faithful servant of few words.”
A bead of sweat ran down the middle of her back as she glanced at the sky. The sun was higher now. All manner of critters would soon be coming up to the water’s edge, which meant it was time for her to go home. She still had the shade of the live oaks to play under and would do anything she could, for as long as possible, to avoid being inside with Daddy.
He was mean to Mama, which Linny didn’t understand because Mama was as sweet as the day was long. If he could be mean to Mama, then he would be mean to anybody, and Linny wasn’t in the mood to get a whipping just because Daddy was in a pissy mood.
“Pissy,” she said, giggling as she jumped off the rock. “Pissy, pissy, pissy.”
Saying bad words when no one could hear was an adrenaline rush, the same as playing in the swamp. Belinda Poe was only nine, and to her daddy’s way of thinking, nothing but a useless girl. But she had the same fire in her blood as all of Anson Poe’s offspring had, and strode through the woods toward home without fear still in queen mode with the scepter in her hand and the crown on her head, unaware she was the current topic of conversation at home.
****
Delle eyed Anson’s on-guard stance, mistaking his interest as concern.
“I told you. Linny is fine. She’ll come home when she’s ready.”
Anson didn’t bother acknowledging her comment, mostly because he didn’t like her tone of voice.
Delle shrugged to herself and went back to check on her gumbo, but she was uneasy about the way Anson looked at Linny these days—like he was eyeing a hunting dog for bloodline. She was measuring up rice when she heard an approaching car.
“Who’s coming?” Anson’s eyes narrowed.
“Brendan.”
Unlike his older sons, Anson didn’t get along with his youngest and resented that Brendan was Delle and Linny’s favorite.
Then he saw a flash of yellow down at the end of the yard. It was his daughter, running out of the woods and across the clearing toward Brendan’s SUV. She had a bunch of leaves wrapped around her head and a cane in her hand, and he wondered what the hell she’d been doing. When he saw Bren get out of the SUV and wave at her, the space between his shoulder blades began to itch. He needed to hit something—or someone—to make it better.
“Your toast is getting cold,” Delle said.
He turned away from the doorway in sudden anger, grabbed the toast, and refilled his coffee cup. He walked past Delle and without missing a beat, flung the hot coffee on her bare feet, then watched the hot dark liquid run between her toes and down into the cracks of the old linoleum flooring with unhidden glee.
Delle screamed as she danced backward from the puddle beneath her feet, but it was too late. The damage had already been done.
Anson grabbed a towel from the counter and threw it at her.
“Sorry about that,” he drawled.
Delle knew he’d done it on purpose, but she was in too much pain to fight. Moments later, she heard footsteps running up on the back porch and knew things were going to get worse. Tears flowed down her cheeks. Her hands trembled as she looked up at the man who shared her bed.
“Why, Anson? What worm is in your brain that makes you so goddamned crazy?”
Anson arched an eyebrow and smiled.
****
Brendan Poe was a carbon copy of his father in looks, but that was where similarity ended. He hated the bastard in more ways than he could count, and he only came back to Wisteria Hill on a regular basis because of his mother and sister. He loved them with a passion and still wrestled with the guilt of moving out after he turned nineteen, knowing he was leaving them behind to his father’s mania.
When he turned off the main road and started down the driveway, the knot in his belly grew tighter. The first sight of the old Antebellum mansion was always one of unease. It would have been magnificent in its day, and although he’d been born in that house, he’d always been overwhelmed by the impending decay of both his family and the structure.
The mansion was in need of more than a coat or two of paint. One shutter from a front window was hanging by a hinge and another completely gone. The bottom step at the front of the verandah was also gone, which was why everyone used the kitchen door around back. Shingles were missing on the west eaves of the roof, and the grounds were as dejected as Brendan’s mood. The Spanish moss hanging from the trees made them look as ragged as the house. The only spots of color were the vast assortment of birds flying about and the purple wisteria that had been allowed to grow wild, overtaking anything that would hold the climbing vines.
Although it was a little past 9:00 a.m., the day was already sweltering. Brendan circled the house and pulled up to park in the shade beneath one of the trees. He heard someone call out his name as he got out and turned to see his little sister running out of the woods. The knot in his belly eased. Belinda was the light of his life. He couldn’t love her more if she’d been his own child. He waved and then waited in the shade for her to arrive.
“Brendan! Brendan! I didn’t know you were coming!” she shouted as she jumped into his arms.
He was laughing as he hugged her, a little stunned by how long her legs were getting as the toes of her shoes bumped against his knees.
“You are growing like a weed, little sister. And speaking of weeds, what is that on your head?”
Linny wiggled to be put down, which he did. Then she straightened her crown, stabbed her scepter into the dirt, and lifted her chin.
“I am Belinda, Queen of the Bayou! This is my crown.”
Brendan laughed and tweaked the leaves. “Looks more like the Kudzu Queen to me.”
She ignored him. “A queen is a queen, and you are Sir Brendan, my good and faithful knight!”
Another twinge of guilt shot through him. He wasn’t all that faithful or he wouldn’t have left them alone with Anson Poe. All of a sudden, they heard a high-pitched shriek come from inside the house.
“Mama,” Linny whispered. The crown fell from her head as she turned to run, but Brendan was already ahead of her.
He was the first to see his mother on the floor and Anson standing over her with an empty coffee cup dangling from his fingers. Rage blossomed as he dropped to his knees beside her. He saw the bruise on her cheek, the tears on her face, and the
skin on the tops of her feet already beginning to blister. His voice was calm, belying the hate in his gut.
“Mama, what happened?
When his little sister dropped down beside them and started to cry, he heard a soft chuckle. Anson was actually laughing.
He needed to get Linny out of the room.
“Sugar, I need you to go get that bottle of aloe vera gel out of the back bathroom for me.”
“Mama, your feet. Your poor feet.” Linny sobbed.
Brendan patted the top of her head. “Go on, honey.”
She jumped up and ran.
Brendan doubled his fists.
Delle grabbed his wrist.
“It was my fault, Bren. I bumped his arm and—”
“Really, Mama? And what exactly did you bump to get that bruise on your cheek?”
She blushed under her youngest son’s stare and then looked away.
Brendan stood up, turned the fire out from under the gumbo, and then hit his father so fast Anson never saw it coming.
Anson fell backward with a resounding thud, and when he opened his eyes, the water stain on the ceiling was going in and out of focus. His head still buzzed as he dragged himself from the floor, too stunned to make a remark.
“Sorry about that. I was aiming for that fly,” Brendan drawled and swung his mother up into his arms.
She didn’t weigh nearly enough, which made him wonder what else she was enduring as he sat her on the counter, and swung her feet into the sink.
“Oh God, dear God.” She kept moaning and gritted her teeth to keep from screaming.
When Brendan turned on the cold water, she shrieked. She rocked back and forth as Linny appeared in the doorway, a look of terror on her face.
“It’s okay, sugar,” Brendan said. “We’re just putting cold water on Mama’s burns.”