The Delacourt Scandal

by Sherryl Woods

  And then she left, wondering if she would ever see Tyler again.

  Back in her car she reached for the key to start the engine, but her hand faltered. She suddenly realized she had no idea where to go, no real destination, no one—with the possible exception of Griffin Carpenter—who cared where she was.

  In the end it was the awareness that she owed Griffin an explanation that turned her toward Dallas. She drove for hours, the image of Tyler, devastated and angry, never far from mind.

  Once she reached Dallas, she checked into a hotel that she could afford on what truly were paltry savings. Her expense account days were over. She had no appetite. She barely slept.

  And for a solid week she did more soul-searching than she’d ever done in her life. She didn’t like the picture that emerged. Her determination to cling to the past had come very close to costing her the one man she thought might be able to make her truly happy. It had stripped her of her journalistic ethics.

  Whatever his father was, Tyler Delacourt was a kind, decent man. She couldn’t destroy one without destroying the other. Praying that her father would understand her decision, she concluded that the price was too high. Even if Tyler never spoke to her again, she couldn’t be responsible for putting his family’s private secrets on the front page of Griffin Carpenter’s vicious tabloid.

  Finally on Monday morning she picked up the phone and called her boss.

  “I need to see you.”

  “Where are you? What have you got for me?” he asked at once.

  “I’m in Dallas. I’ll be at your office in twenty minutes.”

  “You ready to go to press?”

  “We’ll discuss it when I see you,” she said, though there was nothing to discuss. Her decision was made and it was final. If an exposé of the Delacourts was to be written, someone else would have to do it.

  The moment she arrived at the Hard Truths’ offices, she was ushered in to see Carpenter. He regarded her eagerly.

  “Tell me everything.”

  She looked him straight in the eye and said, “There’s nothing to tell.”

  He stared at her incredulously. “You must be kidding. You’ve been working this story for weeks. Are you telling me there is not one shred of dirt to be had on Bryce Delacourt?”

  “None that I could find,” she said evenly.

  He slammed his fist on his desk so hard that a coffee cup bounced in its saucer. “Dammit, I don’t believe it.”

  “I guess I’m just not as good a reporter as I wanted to believe,” she said. “I’ll save you the trouble of firing me, Griffin. I quit. Here’s a check for my expenses so far.”

  She placed the check on his desk, then stood up and headed for the door.

  “Hold it right there, missy.”

  She paused, sucked in a deep breath, then turned to face him. “What?”

  “I don’t buy this, not for one single second. I know there has to be something. No one goes through life without making a few enemies, without cutting a few corners.”

  “I didn’t find anything,” she said again. “You can’t print what isn’t there.”

  “Oh, it’s there. Maybe you just didn’t have the stomach for finding it.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Because of that man, am I right? He got to you. What did he do? Pay you off? Sleep with you?”

  Ignoring the accusations with their ugly implications, she looked him straight in the eye. “Tell me something. Why do you hate Bryce Delacourt? Or is it even him? Do you simply hate anyone in the state who has wealth and power? That’s what it looks like, you know. There’s nothing honest or objective about this paper of yours. It’s simply a tool for getting even.”

  “You were glad enough to use it when it suited your purposes,” he accused.

  “Yes,” she said softly. “I suppose I was. But I learned something. Revenge isn’t nearly as sweet as people say it is. You might want to remember that. Whatever satisfaction you take from your muckraking, it will never be enough to make up for whatever it was that happened in your past.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “I do. What was it, Griffin? What made you hate so many people you don’t even know?”

  “Oh, I know the bastards,” he said heatedly. “I’ve made it my business to get to know all of them. I’ve made it my life’s work to prove that they’re no better than the rest of us mere mortals, despite what they’d have you think.”

  “Is that what happened? Did someone tell you once you weren’t good enough?”

  “They tried,” he conceded grudgingly. “Told me I’d never be good enough for their daughter.” A faraway expression crossed his face. “She was the best thing that ever happened to me, but all her folks could see was that I wasn’t in their social class, that I was a little rough around the edges. It didn’t matter that I would have given her the world or that she loved me. I just wasn’t their kind. They sent her off to Europe, where she had my baby. When she came back, she was engaged to someone else, someone more suitable.”

  So that was it, she thought, the defining moment that had changed his life and made him go after not just those people, whoever they were, but all others like them. At heart, she and Griffin were all too much alike, but she wanted to believe she had changed…or at least that she could.

  “They were snobs,” she pointed out.

  “They were ruthless, power-hungry fools,” he retorted. “Which I was all too happy to point out in my first edition.”

  “And Bryce Delacourt was just one more target for you. You had nothing personal against him, did you?”

  “No, but you did, and that suited me just fine.”

  “Has all this hate and anger, have all these exposés, given you what you need?”

  “Of course,” he said, but his expression seemed less certain than it had earlier.

  “Do you have the woman you lost?”

  “No.”

  “Or your child?”

  “No,” he said, his eyes filled with sorrow.

  “Then it must be a hollow victory,” she said. “I want more. I want to live well. I want to be happy. I want to put the past behind me, where it belongs. Maybe it’s time for you to do that, too.”

  Of course, she thought as she left him, he wouldn’t. Publishing Hard Truths defined him, gave him his own form of power, and he wouldn’t sacrifice that easily.

  If only she had understood all of this before she had turned Tyler’s world upside down, she thought. But then she would never even have met him. She couldn’t regret that.

  Now she just had to find him and see if it was too late to make peace.

  Tyler wasn’t anywhere to be found, at least not in any of the places that Maddie tried. She staked out his apartment, sitting for endless hours in his living room, listening for the sound of his key in the door. She waited, ignoring Rodney’s sympathetic looks and his insistence that Tyler hadn’t been home for days. Finally she had to concede that the doorman hadn’t just been putting her off.

  She called the Delacourt house, the Delacourt Oil offices, then went to Baton Rouge. No one anywhere admitted to having seen him. She even tried the beach house, but it was deserted.

  The possibility of Los Pin˜os, where his sister and oldest brother lived, finally came to her. He had mentioned it often, talked about how content they were there. Perhaps he had taken refuge with one of them.

  Rather than call and risk a rebuff, and because she had nothing else to claim her time, she drove across the state. She went to Dylan first.

  “He’s not here,” he said tersely. “And even if he were, why should I tell you?”

  “I know he must hate me,” she began.

  “You lied to him. You never told him you were a reporter. I know, because he was stunned when I told him. You deliberately set out to destroy our family and used him to do it. What else would you expect? That he’d forgive and forget?”

  “I just want to ex
plain, that’s all. I have to. He might never want to see me again, but he needs to know I didn’t do any of this to hurt him.”

  “So when’s the story going to be in the paper, Maddie? Should we brace ourselves?”

  “There won’t be a story, at least not by me. I told Griffin I hadn’t found anything, and then I quit.”

  “Well, bravo,” he said sarcastically. “But it’s too little too late. Leave Tyler alone. He doesn’t need someone like you in his life.”

  Trish’s response was much the same, though even less temperate.

  “Stay the hell away from my brother,” she shouted, following Maddie onto the sidewalk in front of her bookstore, oblivious to the stares she was drawing on the otherwise quiet street. “How can you even bear to look at yourself in the mirror after what you’ve done to him?”

  “I didn’t do it to him,” Maddie said, blinking back tears. “I know it must seem that way, but it was never about him.”

  “If you hurt one of us, you hurt all of us. Now Tyler has to figure out where he fits in our world.”

  Maddie stared at her in confusion. “What are you talking about? Have you all ostracized him or something because he brought me into the family?”

  “It’s not us. It’s him. How do you think it feels to wake up one day and discover that you’re not who you thought you were? Leave him the hell alone. If you don’t, I won’t be responsible for what I do.”

  Maddie had no idea at all what Trish was talking about. Why would Tyler be questioning who he was? Finding him suddenly seemed more important than ever. She had to regroup, though. She’d searched every single place she could think of. Obviously his family had no intention of helping. And, truthfully, she could hardly blame them.

  She walked into Dolan’s, a drugstore next to Trish’s bookstore. She sat at the counter and ordered a soft drink and a cheeseburger before she realized that everyone around her had fallen silent. Their gazes were avidly fixed on her. She winced as she realized they must have heard every word Trish had shouted. She was about to change her order to a takeout when an elderly man slid onto the stool beside her. He was a little frail, but his blue eyes snapped with intelligence and humor.

  “Don’t mind them,” he said loudly. “They’re just a bunch of old gossips, and nothing this lively has happened around here in ages.” He gave a little nod of satisfaction when the conversations around them picked up again, then smiled sympathetically at Maddie. “I’m Harlan Adams. And you must be the notorious Maddie Kent.”

  She regarded him with shock. “How on earth did you know that?”

  “In a town like this, word gets around. Trish and Dylan are like family to me. I’ve heard all about the nosy woman who stirred things up for their brother.”

  “I never meant to hurt him,” she said for what seemed like the hundredth time. She didn’t expect Harlan Adams to believe her, either, but he nodded.

  “So what did you mean to do?”

  Choking back a sob at the suggestion that he was willing to listen impartially to what had happened, she shook her head. “There’s no point in talking about it.”

  “There’s always a point in getting to the truth,” he said. “Tell me.”

  Suddenly she found herself spilling the whole ugly story, from what had happened years ago right on up to what had happened the previous week when she had quit her job with Griffin Carpenter.

  “Sounds to me as if you were driven by loyalty to your father.”

  “Exactly,” she said.

  “Are you certain it wasn’t misplaced?” he asked gently.

  “Of course I am.”

  “You know for a fact that Bryce Delacourt framed him?”

  She realized that she didn’t, not with unassailable certainty. She had a theory and some evidence to support it, but not enough to print, not even enough to condemn the man in her own mind. She had seized on a few facts and twisted them to suit her. Even though she had balked at printing them, what did that say about her skill as a journalist?

  “You can’t be faulted for wanting to believe in your father,” he said, clearly guessing that there were doubts she hadn’t admitted aloud or even to herself until now. “But until you talk to Bryce Delacourt and know exactly what happened, you will never be able to put this to rest. It will eat at you.”

  “I’ve already decided not to do the story.”

  “Because your conscience kicked in, not because you believe Bryce Delacourt might be innocent, am I right?”

  She finally nodded slowly.

  “Then do what you have to do to get your answers, Maddie. Not for a story, but for yourself. Only when you have them will you be able to put this behind you and face this young man of yours.”

  “It’s too late for Tyler and me. As for Bryce, he’s out of the country.”

  “It’s never too late for love, young lady, not while you can still draw breath. And if you want to talk to Bryce, I imagine I can wrangle a phone number from somebody. He could be in Timbuktu, but I imagine he’s not out of contact with his office. Probably has a cell phone in his hip pocket.”

  She regarded him incredulously. “You would do that?”

  “To help a friend, I would.”

  Maddie thought about it for no more than an instant. “Thank you, yes. I think I would very much like to talk to him and get to the bottom of this once and for all.”

  “Consider it done.” He stood up, started around the counter, then beckoned for Maddie to follow.

  “Sharon Lynn, we need to use the phone in the back room,” he announced to the woman behind the counter, though he didn’t wait for permission. He winked at Maddie. “Never could get used to cell phones myself, but who needs one when half the people in this town are related to me?” His gaze shifted to the woman. “Not a one of them will deny me a long-distance call or two, am I right, darlin’ girl?”

  “If I didn’t offer it to you, you’d just take it, Grandpa,” Sharon Lynn said, laughing. The look she cast at Maddie seemed a bit friendlier, too, as if her grandfather’s acceptance of Maddie was good enough for her.

  In the back room, in no time flat, Harlan Adams had Bryce Delacourt on the line. He was apparently on a cruise ship somewhere in the Mediterranean.

  “Oh, stop bellyaching about the interruption,” Harlan Adams said to him. “This is important and it won’t take long. I’ve got someone here who needs to ask you something. And don’t you dare hang up on her, either.”

  Though her palms were sweating and her stomach was churning, Maddie had to grin at his imperious tone. She took the phone he held out, swallowed hard, then said, “Hello, Mr. Delacourt. This is Maddie.”

  She heard a sharp gasp on the other end of the line. “Please don’t hang up,” she begged. “I promise you that I won’t take more than a minute of your time.”

  “Why should I believe anything you have to say?”

  “Because I have nothing left to lose. I just need the answer to one question from you and then I’ll stay out of your life.”

  “And out of my son’s?”

  “If that’s what he wants,” she said, “and I imagine it is.”

  “Okay then, ask your question.”

  “Did you frame my father for embezzlement to protect Pamela Davis?”

  “Embezzlement? Your father?” he asked blankly. “Who are you, anyway?”

  “I’m Frank Kent’s daughter,” she responded.

  “Dear God in heaven,” he murmured. “That’s what this is about? You came poking around in our lives because of Frank?”

  “Just answer me. Did you frame him?”

  “No,” he said, his tone suddenly gentle. “I did not. I’m sorry, Maddie, but that’s the truth. And when I get home I can show you every single piece of evidence to prove it, if that’s what it will take.

  “If only I’d known that’s what you were after,” he said with a sigh.

  She heard the compassion in his voice and the absolute sincerity. He was telling the truth. She felt it i
n her gut. That didn’t mean she didn’t want to see it in black-and-white. “It’s not that I don’t believe you,” she said finally. “But I would like to see whatever you have.”

  “Of course,” he said at once. “Maddie, I truly am sorry. I liked your father. I tried more than once to get him to stop gambling. I did all I could to protect him. You know I didn’t file charges. But I had no choice, I had to let him go. I couldn’t keep him on if I couldn’t trust him.”

  “Yes, I can see that,” she said with quiet resignation, shaken by the fact that for all these years she had believed a lie, that rather than being a victim, her father had gambled away thousands of dollars, then stolen to cover the debt.

  “I’ll be in touch as soon as I get back. I wish you had just come to me in the first place.”

  “So do I,” she murmured, then handed the phone to Harlan Adams and turned away, fighting tears. A moment later she felt his hand on her shoulder.

  “Not the answer you were hoping for, I gather.”

  She shook her head.

  “It’s never easy growing up and discovering that your parents have faults. It’s even harder when they’ve died while you were at an impressionable age and there’s an easy target to blame.” He tucked a finger under her chin. “I never knew your father, Maddie, but I do know Bryce. He’s an honorable man. A bit of a control freak when it comes to his kids, but as honest as the day is long.”

  “I think I knew that from the moment I met him,” she said. “I just didn’t want to believe it. It makes it so much worse. I did all this, hurt so many people for nothing.”

  “Then you’ll make amends,” he said confidently. “Starting with that young man of yours.”

  “I can’t make amends if I can’t find him.”

  “Mind if a nosy old man asks one more question?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Do you love him?”

  For all the good it did her, she thought disconsolately. “Yes,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper.

  Harlan Adams gave a little nod of satisfaction. “I didn’t think my instincts had failed me. Now here’s what you’re going to do.”