Forever and Always

by Jude Deveraux

  Instead, she was talking to me about the difficulty of transporting the food and keeping it hot.

  “So buy some of those food warmer carriers,” I said.

  “Like the pizza delivery guy uses. I’ll pay for them.”

  “Maybe,” she said, not looking up from her bowl of beans. “But it might be nice to cook the food there, at Henry’s house.”

  I was trying to figure out what she wanted from me. To buy Henry a good set of pots and pans? Or did she want to close her restaurant and go cook for Henry? While I was thinking, the back door opened and a short, plump woman came out. She had an angry face, an angry aura, an angry voice.

  “Onthelia,” she said, ignoring me. “Today’s biscuits were inedible, burned on the bottom and raw on the top. I cooked better biscuits when I was eight years old. And those—”

  I concentrated so hard, my eyes started watering. Go away! I told her, and she did. She stopped her tirade mid-sentence and went back into the kitchen.

  Onthelia looked at me as though she were drilling something into my head. “My mother-in-law. My husband ran off two years ago and left me with three kids and his mother. We would have been out on the street except for her. Her temper can curdle butter, but she is a great cook.” Her brown eyes burned into mine. “Great cook,” she repeated, to make sure I got her meaning.

  I thought about all my questions Henry had refused to answer. I felt a deep kinship with the man, but at the same time I wanted to scream because he hadn’t confided in me. “How about five hundred a week plus groceries? Think your mother-in-law could put in a little vegetable garden at Henry’s house?”

  Onthelia nodded toward four large paper bags near my chair. I’d been concentrating so hard that I hadn’t noticed them. They were all full of green beans. Hundreds of green beans. Maybe thousands.

  “That’s today’s pick from my mother-in-law’s garden.”

  Onthelia and I looked at each other and smiled in understanding.

  “She’s hired,” I said.

  “You ever need anything,” she said, “you let me know,” and we both laughed. She was getting rid of her bossy mother-in-law and I was getting someone to take care of Henry. Heaven knew the Montgomery family could afford five hundred a week for the short time that Henry had to live.

  After we worked out the financial details, I called Adam’s accountant and told him to send a check every month to Onthelia. I guessed she was going to tell her mother-in-law the salary was four hundred and fifty a week and keep fifty for her children. If she’d had to put up with that termagant for even a month, she deserved the money.

  Onthelia and I shook hands on the deal and I left. When I was in the car I looked at myself in the sun visor mirror. I don’t know what I’d been hoping: That one act of kindness would have taken the hatred out of me?

  No, my aura hadn’t changed. I’d had an adventurous afternoon, I’d received a message from a tree, been attacked by a bunch of lonely ghosts, and had met a man who was a kindred soul.

  However, I didn’t feel I was a millimeter closer to finding Linc’s son.

  Sighing, I drove back to 13 Elms to see if Linc had found out anything. As I drove, I thought of Onthelia’s wonderful meal. Didn’t I remember that Adam had said something about the Montgomerys and Taggerts opening a business in the South? Maybe this evening I’d give Michael Taggert a call and see if he knew of anyone anywhere who needed a cook.

  Linc

  Chapter Sixteen

  OKAY, SO IT WAS MY EGO. INGRID AND I HAD SPENT A night together, then I’d heard nothing from her. Except for Alanna—who often treated me like dirt so I was sure it was true love, ha ha—most women with whom I’d spent the night called me later. But Ingrid hadn’t so much as spoken to me during, much less afterward.

  When I went to the workout room, all six female guests followed me. It was a joke as a gym. The biggest dumbbells were fifteen pounds and only seventy-five pounds on the leg extension machine. I ended up doing donkey calf raises with Mrs. Hemmings sitting on my hips. After that all the women wanted attention so I ended up doing just what I swore I wouldn’t do: be a personal trainer to the lot of them.

  Somewhere in there I realized that Darci had set me up. She’d used her voodoo-witchcraft, whatever it was that she had, to get me out of her hair for the entire afternoon. I escaped from five-pound “beauty bells” (they were pink!) to look out the window. Sure enough, the rental car was gone. Our rental car, the one we were supposed to go places in together.

  Try as I might, I couldn’t seem to break the spell Darci had put on me, so I stayed in the gym with the women until four P.M. I guess that’s when Darci thought she’d return because, all of a sudden, the women said they had to leave, and seconds later all the giggling stopped and I was alone in the room. I looked at the clock. Exactly four P.M. What had she done? Said I was to be released from prison at four?

  I pulled on my sweat suit over my skimpy workout clothes—yes, I’m guilty of “showing off”—and decided to search for Ingrid. It took three minutes before I was told that she’d left the grounds, luggage and all. One of the solemn-faced housekeepers told me. The woman acted as though each word she spoke would be deducted from her pay. She’d met me on my way up the stairs to the attic, and I could see that she meant to stay there until I went back to the slave quarters where I belonged.

  With a warm smile—which had no effect on the woman—I went back down the stairs to step behind a potted palm out of her sight. I waited an entire three minutes, then headed back toward the stairs. When I got to the foot of the stairs I saw the housekeeper’s cart. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but there on the top was a set of keys. I could see the housekeeper inside a guest room, her back to me. I picked up the keys and glanced at them. It was a big ring with five little rings on it, one of the small rings labeled “attic.” Crouching down so she wouldn’t see me if she turned around, I removed the small ring of keys, then sprinted up the stairs.

  That’s one on Darci, I thought. Maybe when she returned from doing whatever she’d been doing for half the day, she wouldn’t be the only one with news.

  As quietly as I could, one by one, I opened all five doors on the attic floor. For the most part, the rooms were empty. One stored towels, sheets and bars of soap. I was glad to see I was no longer attracted to the lavender sachets.

  I went to Ingrid’s room last. I don’t know what I was hoping for, that maybe she and her long, lean body were waiting for me in the bed? Slowly, I opened the door, but the bed had been made, and all traces of an occupant removed.

  I knew I should leave the room. I needed to take a shower and I had to get ready for yet another dreary dinner, but instead, I walked to the window and looked out. The truth was, I was ready to quit this whole thing. Darci and I weren’t making any progress in finding my son and, as interesting as meeting a bunch of ghosts was, my son was my main interest. Maybe hiring a PI would be better, I thought.

  All in all, I was getting so frustrated I didn’t want to continue. I thought about what I’d say to Darci tonight. It was great to have worked with her and I’d always love her for having helped me find my grandfather, but I needed to go back to L.A. and see if I could scare up some work. Maybe I could do some guest shots or—

  I stopped my train of thought because I saw a reflection in the glass. I was seeing something shiny catch the faded sunlight. Turning, I looked at the bed and saw nothing. I looked back at the glass and there it was again. Looking in the reflection, I counted rows of stripes on the bedspread, then I turned around, went to the bed and counted.

  Being able to see the object in the reflection in the glass but not able to see it when I looked at it would have been something that, usually, I would have considered weird. But what was strange, eerie, and even frightening had changed for me in the last days. Truthfully, I didn’t want to question how this object was being shown for fear I’d find out.

  I moved the bedspread aside and there, caught between the fring
e and a bedpost, was a little John Deere tractor. I’d had one just like it when I was a kid, given to me by a teacher as a reward for reading the most books. My parents had said it was a stupid award, with no educational value at all. It was the only toy I had that didn’t try to teach me something. As a result, that little tractor had been my absolute favorite toy.

  I didn’t want to delve into the who of that toy, as in who had snooped into my past to find out about my favorite toy. I just wanted to take it at face value. Someone—or some thing—was trying to give me a message.

  I went to the window, the one I’d climbed through to get to Ingrid, and examined it. The window had been freshly painted, but I could still see the patched holes in the top and bottom. There were half-inch round holes spaced every four inches, and I knew they were holes from bars that had once been on it. This room had, until recently, had bars on the window.

  I spent the next half hour examining the room but I found nothing else. Finally, I sat down on the window seat and looked at the tractor. Someone was trying to tell me something—and I knew what it was. Someone was reminding me that the child was real. He wasn’t just “my son,” just a couple of words. He was a real little boy. He had thoughts of his own and ambitions of his own, and he liked and disliked things in a way that was unique to him.

  I ran my fingers over the little tractor and for a moment wished I were like Darci and could feel things. Had my son left the tractor wedged in the side of the bed in the hope that it would be found? By me? By his father? Did he know about me? Had his mother told him about me? Did he watch my TV show?

  For a moment I smiled. I was a throwback to my grandfather, a grandstander if there ever was one. I imagined I was also like the slave Martin, who was so hot for a beautiful white woman that he loved her even though he knew what the consequence would be if he were caught.

  If I was like my grandfather, maybe my son was like his grandfather, which would mean the child never got his nose out of a book. If I presented a child like that to my parents, would I at last please them? Wouldn’t that be an irony? I thought.

  Holding the tractor, I left the room, locked the door, and headed back downstairs. I put the ring of keys on the corner of the runner down the hall, as though it’d fallen and been caught.

  I had about thirty minutes to shower, shave, and get ready for dinner. As I was rounding the corner, I saw two women heading toward me. It was Mrs. Hemmings, who was now in love with me after the donkey raises, and Sylvia Murchinson. She was older but extremely well-preserved. She was nice enough to me but she had a catty streak that made me want to run from her. I’d seen her do an impression of Narcissa that made me want to defend the woman. However, at the time, I’d been under Darci’s spell of emasculation and I’d said, “Now, girls, pull your claws in.” Sylvia, as she insisted everyone call her, had turned on me with a look that nearly singed my hair. If this weren’t the twenty-first century I’m sure she would have made a racist remark. If it had been the nineteenth century, I thought she might have ordered me hanged—or at least sold.

  I looked around for an escape route so the women wouldn’t see me. At the end of the hall, near the big window seat, was a narrow door. Thankfully, it was unlocked and I stepped inside, practically right into a bucketful of dirty water with an even dirtier mop. With any luck, I thought, they’d go to their rooms, then I’d be free to leave the closet.

  “Let’s wait here for them,” I heard Sylvia say. There was an open transom over the door and they must have sat down on the window seat.

  I said a few curse words. I was trapped, with no escape route except past them. There was no dignified way I could explain why I’d been hiding inside a cleaning closet.

  “That’s her room, isn’t it?” I heard Mrs. Hemmings say, and I knew she was talking about Darci. I no longer wanted to get out. I wanted to hear every word the women were about to say.

  “Who are they?” Mrs. Hemmings asked. “Jason is the most beautiful creature on earth but he’s the world’s worst masseur. And according to Ingrid he’s far, far from being gay.”

  “Didn’t you know?” Sylvia said. “They’re ghost hunters.”

  “They’re what?”

  “That’s what Delphi thinks they are. She thinks they’re writing a book about the ghosts in the area, but they don’t want anyone to know about it, so they snoop around and think no one knows what they’re up to. They used to get a lot of people like them here at 13 Elms.”

  “Are you saying they’re reporters? They’re the last people we need here now.”

  “Don’t worry. They’re not interested in us. They spend all their time in the slave cemetery and in the Quarters. And Delphi’s sure they’re the ones who stole the papers from the basement.”

  “She should call the police, or—Oh. Right. No police.”

  “Delphi said they were just a bunch of rotting old papers worth nothing so it didn’t really matter. Anyway, as soon as they collect for this week, they’re planning to sell this place.”

  “But I thought—”

  “That their ancestors were everything? You can’t heat this house, or cool it, and a room upstairs has a ghost in it.”

  “There’s no such thing as—”

  “If you don’t believe me, go have a look. I’m sure Narcissa will give you the key. For what you’re paying, surely she won’t charge you to see the room of the infamous Amelia.”

  “She’s the ghost who’s supposed to live upstairs?”

  “You don’t know about this? Oh, but that’s right, this is your first time here. When Delphi and Narcissa started, they tried to compete with other spas around the country but couldn’t, so they decided to capitalize on their family ghost. They printed a brochure that told all about the woman who still inhabits an upstairs bedroom, and they said Delphia had a spirit guide, some half-naked Native American man. That’s when they began to prohibit men and sex. Delphia wanted the women to lust after her phony spirit guide. Unfortunately, the brochure attracted a lot of freaks, and they still get them from time to time. That’s why those two are here. They couldn’t really turn them away for fear—Well, you know.”

  “Yes, I know. So tell me about the ghost.”

  “Back before the Civil War, an ancestor of Delphi and Narcissa did something to make her husband so angry he locked her in her bedroom. He didn’t allow her out until they carried her to her grave, which was some forty years later. Delphi said that the reason this house survived the war is because Yankee soldiers heard her crying and thought she was already a ghost.”

  “Poor thing,” Mrs. Hemmings said. “And her spirit is said to haunt the room?”

  “Actually, there are two ghosts in the room, the woman and a slave girl named Penny, who was incarcerated with the wife. The slave was paid by the master to report on everything his wife did—as if she could do anything while locked up. The two women hated each other, but lived together in one room for over forty years, although Narcissa said the slave girl could come and go to get food and empty the slop jar, that sort of thing.

  “Narcissa says the woman and the slave girl are still in that room. I’ve not seen any ghosts, but I’ve seen the room and it’s eerie. It’s exactly the way it was in the 1800s when the man locked his wife inside. I mean exactly. Things in that room might be over a hundred years old but they look brand new. Narcissa said no one ever cleans in there but it’s always spotless. ‘Penny was an immaculate housekeeper,’” Sylvia said, sounding exactly like Narcissa.

  “That poor, poor woman. Whatever is her spirit waiting for—if she does exist, that is? Why doesn’t she…you know, go away?”

  “Narcissa said Amelia’s waiting for her dead child to come back to her.”

  “What?!”

  “It seems that when her husband put her inside the room she was pregnant and when the baby was born, it died. It’s everyone’s guess that the child wasn’t the husband’s. Considering the day and age, I guess it’s good the kid didn’t live.”

 
; “Truly awful.”

  “And what you’re here for is less ‘awful’?” Sylvia said.

  “What I’m here for is justice. When that…that woman took my husband, she took everything I had in the world.”

  “Except the money.”

  “That was mine to begin with, and Daddy had made sure it was protected. This is about justice, not money.”

  “And you think your ex-husband will come back to you once his new wife is out of the way?”

  “Of course he will. What’s that look for?”

  “I was just thinking that I’ve never been as young as you.”

  “Actually, I think I may be older than you are.”

  “I didn’t mean literally.” Sylvia laughed. “Let’s go downstairs and see what’s for dinner. If tonight is as bad as last night, let’s go to a restaurant.”

  “Wait! What about you? What do you want from…from what he’ll do?”

  “Money. Just plain, old-fashioned money. If my rich old husband dies before the divorce is final, I get mega millions. If he’s alive when it’s final, I don’t get a penny.”

  “That’s not fair. You need a good lawyer. I can—”

  “I signed a prenup. Had to to get him to marry me, but he was so old and unhealthy I thought he’d die in a year. He smokes three packs a day, drinks a bottle of whiskey, and has spent his life in a rage, but I’ve had to live with him for ten miserable years. What I can’t understand is why he didn’t die of a heart attack when he caught me in bed with the pool boy.”

  Mrs. Hemmings laughed. “You’re awful. Come on, let’s go.”

  I stayed in the closet for several minutes after the women left. It smelled bad in there and I was concerned that the other women would start coming upstairs, but I couldn’t seem to move.

  There was one sentence of what the women had said that screamed in my head: “What do you want from what he’ll do?” Maybe I’d been around Darci for so long that I was beginning to feel things more than use my brain, but my heart knew that that sentence was about my son. I was clutching the little tractor in my hand so tightly my fingers were numb.