Carolina Moon

  Coward. Cade had called her a coward. And he had been right.

  She put on her robe again, and went back into the kitchen to look up the number, dialed, waited.

  "Good morning. Biddle, Lawrence, and Wheeler." "Victoria Bodeen calling. Is Ms. Lawrence available?"

  "One moment please, Ms. Bodeen."

  It took no more than that for Abigail to come on the line. "Tory, how nice to hear from you. How are you? Are you settling in?"

  "Yes, thanks. I'll be opening the store on Saturday." "So soon? You must’ve been working night and day. Well, I'm just going to have to take a trip up your way sometime soon."

  "I hope you do. Abigail, I have a favor to ask." "Name it. I owe you a big one for my mama's ring."

  "What? Oh. I'd forgotten."

  "I doubt I'd have come across it for years, if then. Hardly ever use those old files. What can I do for you, Tory?"

  "I .. . I'm hoping you might have some contact with the police. Someone who could get you information on an old case. I don't—I think you'll understand that I don't want to contact the police myself."

  "I know some people. I'll do what I can."

  "It was a sexual homicide." Unconsciously, Tory began to press and rub her right temple. "A young girl. Sixteen. Her name was Alice. The last name—" She pressed harder. "I'm not completely sure. Lowell or Powell, I think. She was hitch-hiking on, ah, 513, heading east on her way to Myrtle Beach. She was taken off the road, into the trees, raped and strangled. Manual strangulation."

  She let out a huge breath, relieved the pressure in her chest.

  "I haven't heard anything about this on the news."

  "No, it's not recent. I don't know exactly when, not exactly. I'm sorry. Ten years ago, maybe less, maybe more. In the summer. Sometime in the summer. It was very hot. Even at night it was very hot. I'm not giving you very much."

  "No, that's quite a bit. Let me see what I can find out."

  "Thank you. Thanks so much. I'll be home for only a little while longer. I'll give you the number here, and at the store. Anything you can tell me, anything at all, would help."

  She kept herself busy, and had nearly five uninterrupted hours and still Abigail didn't call back.

  People stopped by the window off and on during the day and admired the display she'd created out of old crate boxes, homespun cloth, and cannily selected samples of pottery, handblown glass, and iron work. She filled her shelves and cabinets, hung wind chimes and watercolors.

  She arranged point-of-purchase items on the checkout counter, then changed her mind and chose different ones. Willing the phone to ring, she organized boxes and shopping bags.

  When someone rapped on the door, she was almost relieved. Until she saw Faith on the other side of the glass. Couldn't the Lavelles leave her be for one damn day?

  "I need a gift," Faith said, the minute Tory wrenched open the door, and would have pushed past if Tory hadn't shifted and blocked.

  "I'm not open."

  "Oh hell, you weren't open yesterday, either, were you? I only need one thing, and ten minutes. I forgot my aunt Rosie's birthday, and she just called to say she's coming to visit. I can't hurt her feelings now, can I?" Faith tried a pleading smile. "She's half crazy anyway, and this might push her over the edge."

  "Buy her something on Saturday."

  "But she's going to be here tomorrow. And if she likes her present, she'll come on down on Saturday herself. Aunt Rosie's loaded. I'll buy something very expensive."

  "See that you do." Grudgingly, Tory gave way. "All right, help me out here." Faith swirled in, spun around.

  "What does she like?"

  "Oh, she likes everything. I could make her a paper hat and she'd be pleased as punch. Lord, you've got a lot more in here than I imagined." Faith reached up, sent a metal wind chime whirling and tinkling. "Nothing practical. I mean I don't want to get her a set of salad bowls or that kind of thing."

  "I have some nice trinket boxes."

  "Trinkets? That's Aunt Rosie's middle name."

  "Then she should have the big one." In the interest of getting it over and done, Tory walked over and chose a large beveled glass box. The panels were mullioned in diamond shapes and hand-painted with tiny violets and pink roses.

  "Does it play music or anything?"

  "No, it doesn't."

  "Just as well. She'd have it going all day and half the night and drive us all mad. She'll probably fill it with old buttons or rusted screws, but she'll love it."

  Faith flipped over the tag, whistled. "Well, I see I'm keeping my word."

  "The panels are hand-cut and painted. There are no two alike." Satisfied, Tory carried it to the counter. "I'll box it for you, and throw in the gift tag and ribbon."

  "Very generous." Faith took out her checkbook. "Seems to me you're ready for business. Why wait till Saturday?"

  "There are a few stray details yet. And Saturday's the day after tomorrow."

  "Time does fly." She glanced at the amount Tory had totaled and dashed off the check while the present was boxed.

  “Pick out a gift tag from the display there, and write what you want. I'll loop it on the cord."

  “Hmm.” Faith chose one with a little rose in the center, scrawled off a birthday greeting and added xxx’s and ooo’s after her name. "Perfect. I'll be top of her list for months now."

  She watched Tory secure the box with shiny white ribbon, slide on the card, then twist and loop the business into an elegant bow.

  "I hope she enjoys it." She passed the box over just as the phone rang. "If you'll excuse me."

  "Sure." Something in Tory's eyes had Faith stalling. "Just let me enter that figure in my checkbook. I'm always forgetting." The phone rang a second time. "You just go ahead and get that. I'll toddle on out in just a second."

  Trapped, Tory picked up the phone. "Good afternoon, Southern Comfort." “Tory. I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to you." "No, that's all right. I appreciate it. Were you able to get the information?" 'Yes, I think I have what you're looking for." "Would you hold on a moment? I'll get the door for you, Faith." With a little shrug, Faith picked up the box. But as she walked out she wondered who was on the phone, and why the call had made Tory's quick and clever hands tremble.

  "I'm sorry, I had someone in the shop."

  "Not a problem. The victim's name was Alice Barbara Powell, white female. Sixteen. Her body wasn't discovered until five days after the murder. She wasn't reported missing for three days, as her parents thought she was at the beach with friends. The remains . . . well, Tory, the animals had been at her by then. I'm told it wasn't pretty."

  "Did they catch him?" She already knew the answer, but she had to hear it. "No. The case is still open, but inactive. It's been ten years." "What was the date? The exact date of the murder." "I have that here. Just a minute. It was August twenty-third, 1990.”

  "God." A chill ran through her, into heart and bone.

  "Tory? What is it? What can I do?"

  "I can't explain, not right now. I have to ask you, Abigail, if you can use your contact again. If there's a way you can find out if there's any like crime, in the six years before, and the ten years after. If you can find out if there were any other victims of that kind of murder on that date. Or right near that date in August."

  "All right, Tory, I'll ask. But when I out, one way or the other, I'm going to need you to tell me why."

  "I need the answer first. I'm sorry, Abigail. I need the answer. I have to go. I'm sorry.”

  She hung up quickly, then simply sat down on the floor. Oh August 23, 1990, Hope had been dead exactly eight years. She would have been sixteen years old that summer.

  13

  The living brought flowers for the dead, elegant lilies or simple daisies. But flowers died quickly when laid on the earth. Tory had never understood the symbolism of leaving what would fade and wither on the grave of a loved one.

  She supposed they brought comfort to those left behind.

  S
he brought no flowers to Hope. Instead she brought one of the few keepsakes she'd allowed herself. Inside the small globe a winged horse flew, and when it was shaken, silver stars sparkled.

  It had been a gift, the last birthday gift from a lost friend.

  She carried it across the long, sloping field where generations of Lavelles, generations of the people of Progress, were laid to rest. There were markers, simple as a brick of stone, elaborate as the rearing horse and rider cast in bronze.

  Hope had called the horseman Uncle Clyde, and indeed he was the likeness of one of her ancestors, a cavalry officer who'd died in the War of Northern Aggression. Once, Hope had dared her to climb up behind Uncle Clyde and ride his great steed. Tory remembered hitching herself up, sliding over the sun-baked metal that reddened her skin, and wondering if God would strike her dead with a handy bolt of lightning for blasphemy.

  He hadn't, and for a moment, clinging to the cast bronze, the world spread out in greens and browns beneath her, the sun beating on her head like a dull hammer, she'd felt invincible. The towers of Beaux Reves had seemed closer, approachable. She'd shouted down to Hope that she and the horse would fly to them, land on the top turret.

  She'd nearly broken her neck on the way down, and had been lucky to land on her butt instead of her head. But the bruised tailbone had been nothing compared to that moment so high on the rearing horse.

  For her next birthday, her eighth, Hope had given her the globe. It was the only thing Tory had kept from that year of her life.

  Now, as they had then, live oaks and fragrant magnolia guarded the stones and bones, and offered shade in dapples of light and shadows. They also provided a screen between that testament to mortality and the regal house that had outlasted its many owners and occupants.

  It was a pleasant enough walk from the cemetery to the family home. She and Hope had walked it countless times, in blistering summer, in rainy winter. Hope had liked to look at the names carved in the stone, to say them out loud for luck, she'd said.

  Now Tory walked to the grave, and the marble angel that serenaded it with a harp. And said the name out loud.

  "Hope Angelica Lavelle. Hello, Hope."

  She knelt on the soft grass, sat back on her heels. The breeze was soft and warm, and carried the sweet perfume of the pink baby rose bushes that flanked the angel. "I'm sorry I didn't come before. I kept putting it off, but I've thought of you so often over the years. I've never had another friend like you, someone I could tell everything to. I was so lucky to have you."

  As she closed her eyes, opened herself to the memories, someone watched from the shelter of trees. Someone with fists clenched to white bone. Someone who knew what it was to crave the unspeakable. To live, year after year, with the desire for it hidden in a heart that thundered now with both that craving, and with the knowledge it could feed.

  Sixteen years, and she'd come back. He'd waited, and he'd watched, always knowing there was a chance some day she could circle around, despite everything, and come back here where it had all begun.

  What a pretty picture they'd made. Hope and Tory, Tory and Hope. The dark and the bright, the pampered and the damaged. Nothing he'd done before, nothing he'd done after that night in August, had brought him the same thrill. He'd tried to recapture it; when the pressure built so high and hot inside him, he'd reconstruct that night and its sheer, speechless glory.

  Nothing had matched it.

  Now it was Tory who was a threat. He could deal with her, quickly, easily. But then he would lose this fresh excitement of living on the edge. Maybe, maybe this was just what he'd been waiting for, all this time. For her to come back, for him to have her in place again.

  He would have to wait until August, if he could. A hot night in August when everything would be as it had been eighteen years before.

  He could have dealt with her any time over the years. Finished her. But he was a man who believed in symbols, in grand pictures. It had to be here. Where it began, he thought, and watching her, imagining her, stroked himself to climax, as he had other times when in secret he'd watched Tory. Hope and Tory. Tory and Hope.

  Where it all began, he thought again. Where it would end.

  A shudder ran through her, a chilly finger from nape to the base of her spine. Even as Tory glanced uneasily over her shoulder, she dismissed it as a product of the atmosphere and her own thoughts.

  After all, she was trespassing here, an intruder among the dead and beloved. The light was going, fat gray clouds rolling in from the east to smother the sun. There would be a farmer's rain that night.

  She wouldn't linger much longer.

  "I'm so sorry I didn't come that night. I should have, even after the beating. He'd never have considered that I would defy him and leave the house. No one would have checked on me. I could never explain to you back then what it was like when he took his belt to me. The way every lash stripped away my courage, stripped away my self, until there was nothing left but fear and humiliation. If I'd found the courage and gone out the window that night, I might have saved us both. I'll never know."

  Birds were singing, trills and chorus. It was a bright, insistent sound that should have been out of place, and was instead perfect. Birds, the hum of bees going lazy in the roses, and the strong, living scent of the roses themselves.

  Overhead the sky was brooding, turgid with the storm clouds pushed by the wind that stayed high, too high to cool the air where she knelt.

  When she breathed it was like breathing in water. It felt like drowning. She lifted the globe again, and sent the silver stars shimmering.

  “But I’m back. For whatever it’s worth, I’m back. And I’ll do whatever I can to make it up. I never told you what you meant to me, how just by being my friend you opened up something inside me, and how when I lost you, I let it close again. For too long. I’m going to try to unlock it, to be what I was when you were here.”

  She glanced back again toward the screen of trees and the towers of Beaux Reves that rose behind them. Could they see her from there, in the stone tower? Was someone standing, closed behind the glass and watching?

  It felt that way, as if eyes and mind and heart shut behind glass watched. Waited.

  Let them watch, she thought. Let them wait. She looked back at the angel, looked down at the stone. “They never found him. The man who did this to you. If I can, I will.”

  She turned the globe, then lay it under the angel so the horse could fly and the stars sparkle. And leaving it there, she walked away.

  The rain was coming down strong and cool when Cade swung away from town and took the road toward home. It was a good rain, a soaker that wouldn’t pound the young crops. If his luck was in, the rain would last most of the night, and leave the fields wet and satisfied.

  He wanted to get samples of the soil from several of his fields and compare the success of his various cover crops. He’d put in fava beans the year before, as they added the nitrogen his cotton was so greedy for.

  He’d test it the next day, after the rain, then compare and study the last four years of charts. The fava bean crop had done reasonably well, but it hadn’t produced a solid profit. If he was going to try them again, he had to be able to justify it.

  To himself, Cade thought. No one else paid attention to his charts. Even Piney, who could usually be depended on to at least pretend an interest, had glazed over when presented with the graphics.

  Didn’t matter, Cade decided. No one had to understand them but himself.

  And if he was honest, he’d admit that he wasn’t all that interested in them at the moment, either. He was using them to keep his mind off Tory, and what had happened the night before.

  So it was best to deal with her, with all of it. To clear the decks before he went home and washed off the day’s work.

  Cade’s brows drew together as the red Mustang convertible he'd been following took the turn into Tory's lane. He swung in behind it, and those brows arched up as J.R. climbed out.

  "Wel
l, what do you think?" Grinning ear to ear, J.R. patted the bright fender as Cade walked over.

  "Yours?"

  "Just picked her up this morning. Boots says I'm going through a midlife crisis. Woman watches too many talk shows, if you ask me. I say if it feels good and you can af­ford it, what's wrong with that?"

  "She's a beauty, all right." With the rain streaming down, both men walked to the hood so J.R. could pop it. They stood, hands on hips, admiring the engine.

  "Loaded, too." Cade nodded in admira­tion. "What'll she do?"

  "Between you, me, and the gatepost, I had her up to ninety-five and she stays smooth as glass. Handles the curves like a champ,