The Betrayed (16 page)

“Good.” Carter would need the doctor not only to calm Cherise, but also to give him an idea on time of death and weapon. Doc Broussard wasn’t well versed in forensics, but he’d seen enough knife wounds that he might be able to give them an idea what weapon was used.

“Is there anything else I can do?” Margaret asked.

“Yeah, call my mom. Give her a rundown of the situation and tell her to prepare a room for Cherise. She’ll need a place to rest and someone to keep watch over her for a bit.”

“I’ll do it as soon as I hang up with you.”

Several seconds of silence followed, and for a moment, he thought they’d been disconnected.

Then Margaret’s voice came through again, and this time, he could hear the fear in her voice.

“Carter, what’s going on in this town?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

Chapter Sixteen

Danae handed Zach a refill of coffee as he sat on a stool in front of her cabin door, changing out the locks. As usual, she’d awakened early, but for the first time in her life, she hadn’t awakened alone. Wrapped in Zach’s arms, even the lumpy old pullout couch felt like the bed in a five-star hotel.

She’d snuggled against him and felt him stir, lower parts first, then working upward. They’d made love again, this time slow and easy, with him taking the time to enjoy every curve of her body. She’d languished in the attention and the way her body responded to his touch.

Before the sun even peeked over the cypress trees, they’d eaten breakfast, and Zach had changed the locks on the caretaker’s cabin before they’d headed back to her cabin to do the same.

In the bright daylight, the cabin looked so innocent, so free of trouble, but the previous night was so clear in her mind, the attack might as well have happened five minutes ago. Still clutching her coffee mug, she crossed her arms as the cool morning air wafted inside the cabin and ran across her bare skin.

“When should we call Carter?”

Zach placed a screw in the door frame and tightened the lock onto the door. “He said he would head back early this morning. It’s almost seven a.m. We can try him now, if you want.”

She nodded and stepped into the kitchen to retrieve her cell phone. “If we don’t catch him before he leaves New Orleans, we may not be able to for a while. I don’t think there’s much signal to speak of on the highways in between.”

“Probably not.”

She pushed in Carter’s number and was relieved when he answered on the first ring, although he sounded beat. A flash of guilt passed over her that she’d woken him up when he probably could have used the sleep.

“I’m sorry to wake you,” she said.

“You didn’t. I haven’t been to bed yet.”

A million things flashed through her mind, none of them good. “Is Alaina all right?” she asked, getting her most important worry out of the way.

“She’s fine. Nothing to do with her, but I need to talk to you.”

“Good. I need to talk to you, too.”

“I’m about to finish up here. I can be there in about thirty minutes. Are you at the house or your cabin?”

She was momentarily shocked to hear he was back in Calais, which opened up an entirely new avenue of possibilities for his lack of sleep. “I’m at my cabin. So is Zach. We’ll wait for you here.”

“I’ll see you in thirty.”

She slipped the phone into her pocket and looked over at Zach, who’d stopped working.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said and relayed Carter’s whereabouts and lack of sleep to Zach.

His face darkened. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“I know. I could hear it in his voice. He sounded exhausted, but also frustrated, angry and sad, all rolled into one. What could have happened?”

“Your sister’s all right, though?”

She nodded. “If he needs to talk to me, then it’s something to do with me, right?”

“Or just the estate in general.”

“William handles the estate and I can’t think of a legal matter that would keep him up all night.”

Zach rose from the stool and wrapped his arms around her. “There’s no use worrying about it now. We’ll know everything in thirty minutes.”

“You’re right. I’m going to take a shower before he gets here. Maybe the steam will help clear my mind.”

He kissed her before releasing her.

“I’m almost done with the locks. I’ll do another check of the windows while you’re showering.”

“Thanks,” she said and headed for the shower.

She was pulling her hair back into a ponytail when she heard Zach call out that Carter was there. She took a deep breath and headed into the living room, where Carter stood next to Zach.

He looked as if he’d been through hell. His face was drawn and dark circles pooled below his eyes. His posture was stiff and she could see his jaw flexing.

“Do you want something to drink?” she asked. “I put on coffee.”

He looked so grateful, she felt sorry for him.

“That would be great,” he said.

“Take a seat,” she said and waved her hand at the kitchen table. “You look like you’re about to keel over.”

He slid into one of the chairs and Zach took a seat across from him as she poured three cups of coffee and carried them to the table.

“I feel like I’m about to keel over. I’m going straight to bed for a couple hours when I leave here, but I had to talk to you first.” He took a big sip of the coffee. “You said you had something to tell me?”

Danae slid into the chair next to him. “Yes,” she said and filled him in on what had happened the night before, only leaving out the part about her and Zach getting naked.

Carter stiffened as she described the attack and then slammed one hand on the table and cursed. “He could have killed you!”

“Zach and I talked about that,” Danae said. “But if he wanted to kill me, he could have when I was in the shower.”

Carter shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. You came out of the bathroom before he’d finished whatever he was doing. You changed the game, and he had to change accordingly. If you hadn’t taken the scissors with you...”

Danae clutched her coffee mug with both hands, just realizing they were shaking.

Carter placed his hand on her arm. “You were smart and it might have saved your life. I don’t suppose you can tell me exactly where you stabbed him, can you?”

“I think so.” She motioned to Zach. “Can you stand behind me and put your arm around my neck?”

They stood and Zach did as she’d described.

“I had the scissors in my right hand,” she said. “I brought my arm up and stabbed like this.” She mimicked the movement.

Carter nodded. “Probably the middle of the forearm.”

“Are you going to try to find someone with that injury in Calais?” Zach asked as they took their seats again.

“I might not have to.” He blew out a breath and ran one hand through his hair. “Look, I was going to come talk to you even before you called. Something happened last night and I don’t want you hearing it around town.”

Danae felt her stomach clutch.

“Jack Granger was murdered.”

A waved of nausea rolled over her and she put her hands on the table to steady herself as the blood rushed from her head.

“How...? You’re sure it was...?”

Carter nodded. “He was stabbed, which is why I asked about the location of the wound on your attacker.”

“If you find one on his arm,” Zach said, “then you’ll know he was the one stalking Danae, right?”

“Not necessarily,” Carter said and frowned. “I don’t want to distress you any more than I already have. I know Jack was a friend, of sorts, anyway. Let’s just say that he didn’t go down without a fight.”

Danae gasped, the image of the disgruntled cook fighting to his death rolling through her mind like a horror movie. “Oh, my God. Who found him?”

“His girlfriend, Cherise. She’s a bit of a wreck. Doc Broussard gave her something to knock her out and my mom’s taking care of her for now.”

Danae nodded, trying to force her overwhelmed mind to focus. “That’s good. Your mother will know what to do. She always does.”

You’re rattling.

She clenched her hands and released then clenched again, trying to work out some of her frustration, fear and anger without losing control.

“There’s more,” Carter said. “We searched his house—standard procedure—and we found a key to the front door of the LeBeau mansion.”

“He did errands for Purcell, right?” Danae asked. “So I guess it’s not completely shocking that he had a key, although I think William asked him about it a while back and he said he didn’t have one.”

“That’s right,” Carter confirmed. “In addition to the key, we found the phone number for the guy who attacked Alaina on a pad of paper in his desk drawer.”

She gasped. “You think he helped that man get to Alaina?”

Carter sighed, his expression sad. “I don’t want to, but I think Jack was at a place where he would have done anything for money. It wouldn’t have taken much for someone to find out his situation and capitalize on it.”

“How could he?” Danae asked. “How could he help someone with murder?”

Carter shook his head. “I’d like to think he was told it was just a prank or that Alaina had something her attacker needed to steal. I don’t think Jack was so far gone that he’d willingly agree to murder. At least, I don’t want to think that.”

“But if he attacked me last night...”

“You said yourself that if he wanted to kill you, he could have,” Carter pointed out. “The bigger question is, who killed Jack?”

Zach nodded. “Someone who thought he was getting sloppy.”

Carter looked Danae straight in the eyes. “I need you to be very careful. Whoever was pulling Jack’s strings doesn’t have a problem with eliminating anything that stands in his way.”

* * *

“I
WISH
YOU
WOULDN
’
T
do this,” Zach said as he held open Danae’s car door so that she could slip inside.

“I promised I’d work Sonia’s shift. Johnny will have to pull double duty after what happened to Jack and he’s going to need all the help he can get. Carter will keep it quiet as long as he can, but it’s going to make the rounds. By lunchtime, everyone in Calais will start cycling through there to find out what happened.”

“Okay. I’ll finish nailing the windows shut, and then I’ll be right behind you. I’m not letting you out of my sight, even if it means sitting in the café half the day.”

He leaned in to kiss her gently on the lips. “Be careful. Keep your cell phone right next to you and call me if anything seems even remotely out of place.”

“I will.”

He closed the door and stood there watching until her car disappeared into the swamp, then he hustled back inside the cabin and straight to the box of paperwork on the table. He didn’t have much time to go through it before he needed to leave for the café, but he had to take advantage of every opportunity, no matter how slight.

The first hundred pages were receipts, and he flipped through them quickly, then tossed them aside. Somewhere in this mess had to be check registers or logs—some detailed list of expenditures.

He’d already seen the ledger with the payments to the families that had taken the sisters. Danae had placed those on the top of the other paperwork and he’d been able to quickly review it while she was showering. But the dates were all wrong. Those payments were made more than a month after Zach’s father deposited the lump of cash into his checking account.

Purcell’s notebooks.

He reached back into the box and pulled out the notebooks he’d retrieved from Purcell’s bedroom.

Pay dirt!

The notebooks contained page after page of descriptions and costs. He flipped through the first notebook, checking the dates, but they were too recent, as were the entries in the second. The third notebook he pulled out of the stack was wavy, as if it had gotten damp then dried, and the edges of the paper had yellowed.

He flipped it open and his pulse ticked up a notch. This one was from the right time period—just before Ophelia’s death. Running his finger down the right column, he scanned each amount paid, then turned the page and did it again and again.

On the fifth page, he froze, his finger hovering over a twenty-thousand-dollar entry.

He knew he wasn’t breathing when he finally forced himself to look to the left and read the notation. All it contained was a set of initials. D.S.

David Sargent.

The date was five days before his dad made the deposit.

A wave of anger and disgust ran through him and he closed the notebook, then slammed his fist on the table. It was everything he’d been afraid of.

You knew the risk when you came here.

That much was true. He’d known the risks of finding out something about his father that changed the way he viewed the man he’d always held in such high esteem. But even that paled in comparison to the bigger problem.

Telling Danae that he’d lied to her and, even worse, exactly why.

He hadn’t expected to fall for her. Initially, he’d pursued her as a form of distraction, but the more he’d been around her, the more he genuinely wanted her. She was beautiful and intelligent, but beneath that strong exterior was a fragile woman who’d never been able to rely on another person. She’d lowered her guard and trusted him. He’d repaid her by lying. More than anything, he wished he could take that part back.

He dropped the notebooks back into the box and hefted the entire thing up to take with him to the café. As soon as Danae got a break, he’d pull out the notebook and explain everything to her, but he didn’t hold out much hope for a future that included her. It wasn’t just the lying.

It was what his father might have done.

Chapter Seventeen

Danae poured coffee for a group of fishermen and tried to smile at their dated jokes. News of the murder hadn’t gotten around just yet, and she was trying to appear normal. Most likely, one of the people she’d served coffee or pie had killed Jack. She couldn’t help but think that if she observed everyone closely, maybe she’d be able to pick out the killer.

Sighing, she walked back behind the counter to start a new pot of coffee. Who was she kidding? If someone in Calais was a killer, that ability had been in them long before now, and she’d never noticed.

In the movies, it was always the person you least suspected, but in this case, she doubted that would apply. Amos wasn’t capable of overpowering Jack even if his foot wasn’t broken and even if Jack was passed out drunk. Carter, his mother and William were all on the list of least suspicious, but if it turned out to be one of them, she was packing her bags and moving to a remote cabin in Alaska where she never had to see people again. If her discernment was that poor, she needed to remain alone the rest of her life.

Johnny, the café owner, looked over at her as she refilled the coffeepot. His face was drawn and several shades lighter than normal. Carter had talked to him early that morning, so he was aware of the situation and didn’t appear to be taking it very well.

“I still can’t believe it,” he said, his voice low. “It really happened, right?”

She nodded.

He blew out a breath. “Part of me keeps hoping Carter will come in here with that silly grin—you know the one—and tell me he was pulling my leg. But the other part of me knows Carter would never joke about something like this. It’s just so hard to take in.”

“I know. I’m having trouble processing it myself.”

He looked across the half-empty café. “It’s quiet now, but by lunchtime, it will get around. More people will show up, wanting the news. Heaven help me, I don’t know that I can give it to them.”

Danae placed her hand on Johnny’s arm. “No one would fault you if you closed today, especially once they all find out what happened. Maybe you should do it before it gets busy.”

“Thirty years I’ve owned this place and the only time I closed was for Hurricane Katrina,” he mused. “Maybe you’re right. I’ll think on it while I scrub these pots. Got to keep moving so I can keep my mind off it.”

He moved over to the double sink and started washing pots. Danae went back into the sitting area to clear dishes from the vacated tables. An elderly couple sat at a table near the door, and they were the only other occupants at the moment.

As she stacked the dishes in a plastic container, her mind raced. So many things had happened since last night, and she couldn’t get them all sorted out. Her attacker, her night with Zach and Jack’s murder all pushed and shoved, vying for her attention. If the murder didn’t weigh so heavily on her, she might take time to marvel at the fact that her night with Zach didn’t bother her like it would have a week ago.

That in itself should be enough to send her into a panic, but instead, the thought of the two of them, wrapped around each other on that lumpy bed, made her feel warm and safe. She’d never met someone who made her feel as if everything could be all right simply because they were there. Usually, her experience with people had been exactly the opposite, but with Zach, she’d gone places with her heart that she never expected to go.

As she was finishing up the second table, the bells on the front door jangled and Zach stepped inside. She smiled, already feeling better because he was there.

“Not busy, I see,” he said.

“No. The breakfast rush happened early, and the news hasn’t gotten around, yet. But it’s only a matter of time. I’m trying to convince Johnny to close for the day. He’s not taking Jack’s death very well.”

“That’s probably not a bad idea.” He pointed to a table in the corner. “Is it all right if I rent that booth for a while?”

“Make yourself comfortable. Do you want something to eat?”

“No, but a coffee would be great.” He glanced around. “And if you can take a break, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“Okay.” She headed back behind the counter and poured two coffees.

“I’m taking a break, Johnny.”

He nodded. “Nothing going on anyway.”

She carried the coffees over to the booth and slipped in across from him. “Are those the journals from Purcell’s bedroom?” she asked, pointing to the notebooks he’d placed on the table.

“Yeah, I put the box in the backseat of your car and locked it. The back window on my truck’s broken, and I didn’t want to risk anyone stealing it.”

“Good.” If someone wanted the paperwork, then that meant they thought it contained something important. Maybe the answers they were looking for.

The bells over the café door jangled again and Danae looked up to see Carter enter. He didn’t look happy. She jumped up from her seat.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He glanced at Zach then back at her.

She sat back down and Carter pulled a chair over to sit at the end of the booth.

“Yesterday,” Carter began, “when I talked to that FBI agent who investigated Purcell-Lambert, we met at a coffee shop on Maxwell Street. A new bank building is going up across the street.”

Carter’s jaw flexed and he stared at Zach, whose eyes widened.

“You want to tell me,” Carter said, “why you’re here, posing as a handyman, when you own one of the biggest commercial construction companies in New Orleans?”

Danae sucked in a breath, feeling like a metal wrecking ball had just slammed into her chest. Surely Carter was mistaken.

But one look at the guilty expression Zach wore and she knew it was true.

“How could you?” she managed to ask, even more angry that her voice shook as she spoke.

Zach sighed. “I was about to tell you, I swear. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Danae glared at him, wondering why her instincts had let her down this way. She’d let him into her heart, and all this time, it had been a lie.

“You’re going to tell me why you lied and pretended to care about me? This ought to be good.”

“I do care about you. That’s what made my lie even worse. I didn’t want to hurt you, but I was afraid telling you the truth would hurt you even more.”

“I don’t see how.”

“You owe her the truth,” Carter said. “It’s too late to worry about hurting her. That’s already done. She deserves to know why.”

Zach nodded. “My dad died a year ago. He was ill for a long time, and toward the end, he wasn’t always lucid. But right before he passed, he awakened and told me he regretted something—told me like he was confessing before he died. The only thing I understood in his mumblings was your mother’s name, Ophelia LeBeau.”

“How did he know my mother?”

Zach shook his head. “I’d never heard the name before, but if you could have seen him—he was insane with worry. My father was a kind and gentle man. He raised me alone after my mom died. I’ve never even seen him raise his voice, but...”

“What did you father do for a living?”

“He was a funeral-home director.”

“So maybe he handled Ophelia’s funeral arrangements,” Carter suggested.

“That’s what I thought at first,” Zach said, “but it bothered me so much, I did some digging. Around the time Ophelia passed, my dad made a large deposit into his personal checking account—twenty thousand dollars.”

Danae gasped. “Just like the people paid to take us.”

Zach nodded. “It gave me a start when you said there were four entries in that journal, but I looked at it this morning when you were in the shower and the dates for those payments are dated after the one my father deposited.”

Zach opened one of the journals he’d brought into the café and pointed to a twenty-thousand-dollar entry. “That payment is dated five days before my father deposited the money. Look at the initials—D.S. My father’s name was David.”

“I still don’t understand the problem,” Danae said. “Purcell had to pay for the funeral.”

Zach shook his head. “My father didn’t own the funeral home. He was just the director. He would never deposit funeral money into his personal account, and if it was that aboveboard, it wouldn’t have weighed so heavily on him at his death.”

Carter’s expression was grave. “I’ve wondered for a while if it’s possible that Purcell killed Ophelia and made it look like an accident. But maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe he killed her and simply paid off the people who would talk. Maybe that’s why he was buying expensive art with estate money then turning around and selling it but with nothing to show for it personally.”

“He was paying them to keep silent,” Danae said, her stomach churning at Carter’s suggestion that made so much sense.

She slid out of the booth. “I can’t deal with this right now. You two can hash out the horrible details. I just need some time away from this—it’s all too sordid.”

She gave Zach a painful parting glance before crossing the café and entering the storeroom. Then the tears she’d been holding in burst through, and she sank down on the storeroom floor and cried so hard she thought she’d collapse from the effort.

All those years spent protecting herself, and the one time she lowered her guard, it had brought her nothing but pain. She’d come to Calais looking for herself, but all she’d found were horrible actions and unbearable grief.

She pulled her legs up and circled her arms around them, wishing she’d never come home.

* * *

Z
ACH
WATCHED
as Danae walked away and he started to follow her, but Carter grabbed his arm and stopped him.

“Let her go,” Carter said. “She’s not ready to talk to you, or me, for that matter.”

“I wasn’t using her.”

“I know,” Carter said. “I could see it in your face. You care about her, but you hurt her. Probably more than anyone else except Purcell.”

Zach stared at the table, feeling sick to his stomach. “Because she trusted me and that’s something she never does.” He looked up at Carter. “When my feelings for her started to change, I wanted to tell her, but then I was afraid she’d hate me—not for lying, but for what my father might have done. If he was involved...”

“I get it,” Carter said. “That doesn’t mean I condone the way you went about things, but I understand why you felt you had to.”

“Do you think she’ll ever forgive me?”

Carter shook his head. “It’s hard to say as I don’t really know her that well. If I had to guess, I’d say that eventually she will, but that doesn’t mean she’ll want to have anything to do with you.”

Carter’s words cut through Zach like a razor blade, but he knew the other man was only telling him the truth. And it wasn’t anything Zach hadn’t already thought, although he wasn’t quite ready to face the potential finality.

“Sorry to interrupt.” Johnny’s voice sounded behind them. “Carter, I put together a container of soup and a casserole for your mom. I wanted to do something to help Cherise, but the only thing I’m good at is feeding people. I know your mother doesn’t need any help cooking, but it’s one less thing she’ll have to see to—for a couple of meals, at least.”

Zach looked up at the café owner and could tell the man wasn’t taking Jack’s murder well. He was pale and his voice and hands shook as he spoke.

“That’s very considerate of you,” Carter said, “and I’m sure my mom will appreciate it. Do you need me to deliver the stuff?”

“No, Danae’s going to do it. I’m closing for the rest of the day, and she burned her arm getting the casserole out of the oven. Doc Broussard is at your mom’s house right now, checking on Cherise, so Danae is going to deliver the food and have him take a look at the burn.”

“Is it bad?” Zach asked, his stomach clutching at the thought of Danae in any more pain.

“No,” Johnny assured him, “but I want Doc to take a look and give her something to put on it—injured on the job and all that.” He tried to smile, but wasn’t successful, then gave them a nod before shuffling back to the kitchen.

A shadow passed across the café’s plate-glass window and Zach looked over in time to see Danae walk by on the sidewalk, carrying the food containers to her car. He clenched his hands, mentally forcing himself from jumping up from the table and running after her. She’d gone to the trouble of walking out the back door and around the building. Zach could only assume she’d done so to avoid looking at him.

He couldn’t really blame her.

“Let’s get out of here so Johnny can close,” Carter said.

Zach rose from the booth and glanced around the café, just realizing it was completely empty aside from the two of them. He shook his head. He’d been so absorbed in the conversation and his own thoughts that he’d never even seen the older couple leave.

“I think we should talk to William,” Carter said as they exited the café. “We can bring him up-to-date on your situation. He will know what arrangements were made for Ophelia’s funeral and can probably gain access to Ophelia’s autopsy reports.”

Carter pulled out his cell phone and spoke briefly to the attorney.

“He’s at his office,” Carter said, “and can talk to us now.”

“Great,” Zach said, but he was already ashamed to tell the attorney how he’d lied. “Does he know about Jack?”

“Yeah. Given the circumstances, I thought it best that he be in the loop.”

Zach nodded. “Do you think... Danae’s all right going to your mother’s house alone, right?”

“She’ll be fine. Besides, Doc Broussard is there, too.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” But it didn’t stop him from worrying, which was foolish. Three other adults were plenty of protection for Danae. More protection than him. The way things had turned out, he’d hurt her far more than the attacker.

Carter’s cell phone rang and he pulled it from his pocket and answered it. The conversation was brief, but Zach could tell he was frustrated.

“That was the state police. They want me to meet them at the crime scene and answer some questions. I tried to keep them out of this, but with the potential connection to Alaina’s attack, I couldn’t. I’ve got to run but you go ahead and meet with William. Tell him everything.”