Читать книгу Blood Ties in Chef Voleur - Mallory Kane - Страница 9

Chapter Three

Jack stayed on the balcony for another fifteen minutes or so, staring at the bridge lights. He squinted to see if that would help him to see them as Christmas lights, but it was a waste of time. Lights were lights, not fairy tale sparkles or holiday decorations.

However, they did draw the eye, kind of like a river full of stars. For a while he stared at them, letting his thoughts wander back over the party. He’d tried to catalog each person’s name as he met them, equating them to what his granddad had said about them, as best he could remember. And while he did that, he worked on remembering who he might have seen that didn’t seem to belong.

Cara Lynn’s father, Robert, was a wheelchair-bound man who had difficulty speaking. His grandfather had told him about the older of Con Delancey’s two sons, both of whom had been young men with new families when Granddad had known them twenty-eight years ago. He’d called Robert angry and bitter, incapable of holding his whiskey or his temper.

It hurt Jack to think that Cara Lynn had been brought up in such an angry, hostile home. But from her accounting, her experience had been very different than her older brothers’.

Harte and I didn’t have the same father as Lucas, Ethan and Travis, she’d told him. By the time we were old enough to remember, he’d had the stroke. The only anger I remember was toward himself—his body. Trouble talking and walking.

He thought about his own parents and how he had grown up. As an only child, the problems he’d had with his folks stemmed from their over-protectiveness of him. Their biggest fear for him was that he spent too much time at the federal penitentiary visiting his granddad. But they had never refused to let him go.

Michael, Con’s youngest son, seemed like a paragon of normalcy compared to Robert. Jack knew from Cara Lynn about Michael’s time spent in prison, as well as his issues with his oldest son Dawson, but he seemed a likeable man, and his children seemed extraordinary.

In fact, it was a little disgusting just how likeable, intelligent and successful all the Delancey grandchildren were.

Jack wondered how they would react when they found out that Armand Broussard, who’d spent over twenty-five years in prison for their grandfather’s murder, was innocent. Jack wasn’t sure who had actually killed Con Delancey, but he knew his granddad hadn’t done it.

He glanced absently in the direction of the foyer, where his briefcase sat on the floor next to the foyer table. Inside it were letters from his grandfather, and in one of those letters his granddad had written his account of the murder and named Con Delancey’s killer, or at least his opinion of who had killed him.

Jack couldn’t even imagine how the news of the killer’s actual identity would affect the Delancey grandchildren. Probably not a lot, he decided. After all, the oldest of them had been only ten when it happened.

Cara Lynn hadn’t even been born. He was pretty sure it wouldn’t affect her at all. At least Jack hoped it wouldn’t. Whoa. No, he didn’t. He gave his head a mental shake.

Of course he wanted it to affect Cara Lynn. Just as much as the rest of them. He hoped it would gnaw holes in their stomachs that their family had allowed the wrong man to be convicted of murder, just like it gnawed holes in his that his grandfather had been locked up for a quarter of a century for a crime he hadn’t committed.

He went inside, grabbed his briefcase from the foyer and set it on the kitchen table, brushing aside a small strip of paper sitting near Cara Lynn’s evening bag. He picked it up, thinking to throw it in the trash. It was old, yellowed and brittle, a tiny rounded edge of the flap of an envelope, an old-fashioned lick-’em, stick-’em one.

Where had it come from? He stared at it for a few seconds, rubbing one edge between his fingers. It turned to dust. Obviously old. Looking at his dusty fingers, he felt a strong sense that there was something important about it. It had been lying near Cara Lynn’s purse. Could that mean it had something to do with the lockbox or its contents?

He stopped and repeated the thought aloud. “The lockbox,” he whispered, considering the implications. If it really was an envelope, then that meant there was a letter, didn’t it? A letter from whom? Maybe from Cara Lynn’s grandmother to her youngest granddaughter, written some time between 1986, when Con Delancey had died, and thirteen years ago when Lilibelle had died. Any paper could have turned yellow and brittle after being stored in a hot place, say an attic, for that long.

But how had Cara Lynn gotten the envelope—or at least that part of it? He looked at her purse, wondering if she’d left the envelope in there. With a furtive glance toward the back of the apartment, he released the clasp on the small rectangular bag and peered inside. No envelope.

So, if she actually had a letter that was inside the box, had she looked at it here at the table? And if she hadn’t put it back in her purse, where had she put it?

She had refused to answer his questions about the journal, wanting to know why he was so curious. Of course, he’d been making love to her at the time, and judging by her response to his nips and caresses, she’d been caught up in the pleasure of the moment.

A brief aftershock of lust echoed through him at the memory of how she’d moved beneath him. He immediately shut down those thoughts and made himself think about where she’d have put that envelope. He opened her evening bag and looked inside, feeling a little guilty. He wondered how guilty he’d have felt if he really loved her.

Stepping out of the kitchen and down the hall, he went into the small second bedroom and closed the door. Cara Lynn had made the room into an office. There was a desk and chair, and a drafting table on which a watercolor sketch of a bright wall hanging lay askew. It depicted a nearly abstract cat drawn in black using only three strokes. The hanging would be exquisite as part of her collection at the gallery. He hoped she’d managed to finish putting together the fiber-art version.

He tore his gaze away from the sketch and looked at the bookcases. There, on the third shelf were the gold-etched white leather journals. He took the first one out and opened the cover. On the first page was the handwritten date of June 5, 1951. Lilibelle would have been twelve. There were red sticky flags on some of the pages with tiny scribbled notes in Cara Lynn’s neat handwriting. Notes for the genealogy book she was working on for the Delancey and Guillame families.

He quickly scanned the room, but didn’t see an envelope. However, it did look as though someone had been in there. The spines of her grandmother’s journals were uneven, and there were spaces where books had been removed. Jack picked up the sketch of the black cat and looked beneath it. There was a piece of paper with some notes on it in Cara Lynn’s hand. And beneath the paper a journal that should have been on the shelf behind him. He picked it up and put it back. Then he checked around the small room, but he didn’t see the envelope.

Back in the kitchen he put the piece of an envelope flap into a plastic baggie. Unlocking his briefcase, he dug under a small stack of architectural drawings and paper-clipped reports down to several rubber-banded stacks of envelopes.

Rifling through them, he found the ones postmarked the earliest. “Okay, Granddad,” he whispered. “I met most of the Delanceys tonight. Let’s see if my impression of them matches yours.”

As he began to read his grandfather’s letter for the twentieth time, or the fiftieth, he thought about what he’d told Cara Lynn, about needing to stay up to work on some plans, his implication being that they were architectural drawings.

He smothered a wry laugh. He was working on plans all right—plans to clear his grandfather’s name. He’d married Cara Lynn Delancey to gain access to the documents that could help him prove his granddad’s innocence. If he broke her heart, well, maybe that would satisfy his need for revenge.

* * *

HOURS LATER, JACK rubbed his eyes and yawned. A glance at the kitchen clock told him that his burning eyes and foggy head were telling him the truth. He had been up all night. It was after 5:00 a.m.

Cara Lynn would be getting up in about an hour. He should have gone to bed hours ago, but he’d wanted to read over his grandfather’s notes while his first impressions of the Delanceys were still fresh in his mind.

He had looked forward to hating every single one of them. But to his surprise, he didn’t. They seemed like ordinary people. Okay, maybe not ordinary. He sorted through the letters again until he came to the one where Granddad had listed Con Delancey’s grandchildren.

Mr. Delancey’s two sons, Michael and Robert, seem rather ordinary, although I can see that they have the genes to be great, like their father. But perhaps Con’s philandering and their mother’s resentment kept them from achieving everything they could have. In any case, their children—Con’s grandchildren—are but babies and it’s already obvious they are extraordinary.

Robert, Jr. is the oldest, at nine. Already, it seems to me, he is showing a remarkable resemblance to his grandfather, both in looks and personality. Maybe it’s because he’s the oldest, but I see in him the most potential of all of them. Mark my word, he’ll follow Con into politics, and likely, will be better at it.

Jack took a pencil and jotted a note in the margin, next to the comment. Died in plane crash at age twenty-three. So much for potential.

He read the next line. Lucas, his younger brother, is at age six, already intense, even angry, much like his father. If he continues like this, he’ll be a criminal before he’s twenty-one. Maybe he can turn himself around.

Jack remembered Lucas and his wife Angela, who was carrying their first child. Jack wrote in the margin. Still intense. Channeled into police work.

Jack continued down the list of Delancey children and his grandfather’s impressions of them. A fierce jealousy rose up inside him, as it had every other time he read it. He hated that his grandfather had spent even a few moments thinking about Con Delancey’s grandkids and what he saw them becoming as they grew.

But more than that, he hated that his grandfather had been right about them. While he had not been a prophet, he’d certainly been insightful enough to see that Con Delancey’s grandkids were extraordinary.

Armand Broussard had thought his own grandson was extraordinary, too. Jack blinked against the sudden stinging in his eyes. He missed his granddad. Had it already been half a year since he’d died? Jack had never seen him in anything except his orange prison jumpsuit, until he looked at him in the casket before the funeral service. That sight, his beloved Papi in a dark suit with that awful makeup and lipstick designed to make the corpse look natural, made Jack cry for the first time in his life.

“I’m sorry about that, Papi,” he whispered, repeating the same words he’d uttered over his grandfather’s body that day at the funeral home. “I couldn’t help that. But I swear I will clear your name.”

He put the letter back in its ragged envelope, slid the rubber band around the stack and inserted it under the architectural plans and drawings. Then he took out a small spiral bound notebook and paged through it for the notes he’d jotted as he’d read through the letters the first time. After glancing at his handwritten notes, he leaned back in the kitchen chair and stretched.

He didn’t have to refer to any notes to recall what his grandfather had said to him at their last meeting. Ah, Jacques. You are so smart and so wise for your years. But you’re drowning your talents in jealousy and hatred. It’s no way to live, mon petit. It will eat up all the goodness and love inside you and leave you empty and alone. You must forgive them, son. The murder of Con Delancey was only one act by one pathetic individual. The Broussard name is a proud one, but it is not worth the ruination of your life. You can be the better man.

“I’m sorry, Papi,” Jack muttered. “I can never be as good a man as you were.”

Standing, Jack locked his briefcase and slipped into the bedroom and lay down beside Cara Lynn, whose back was turned. For a few seconds, he lay and watched her sleep. She was so beautiful, with her eyes closed and her lips slightly parted.

As he’d thought earlier at the reception, she really was one of the most genuine people he’d ever met. Her eyes were always clear and blue, her expression was always open and trusting. He sometimes felt guilty for deceiving her. But it had been the perfect ruse. After all, she was a Delancey, and the Delanceys had ruined his grandfather’s life.

As the thoughts flitted drowsily through his mind, his gaze traced the flowing line of her shoulder and torso where the moonlight danced off her skin. He admired the curve of her hips and imagined the shadow centered between them and felt himself harden with desire. He closed his eyes deliberately and turned over, putting his back to hers.

As he did, the bedclothes rustled. After a second, she slid her arm under his and rested her hand on his flat belly. The muscles there contracted when her warm fingers splayed against his skin and the arousal he’d almost managed to quell rose up again.

Desperately, afraid she might decide to slide her hand lower and coax him into early morning sex, he wrapped her hand in his.

“What time is it?” she asked drowsily.

“Five thirty or so,” he said.

“Have you been up all night?”

He nodded. “Told you, I had some plans to go over, but I don’t have to go in early today, so I’ll have plenty of time to take a nap after you leave.”

“Well, in that case...” she murmured in a low voice. At the same time she leaned forward and kissed his bare shoulder.

He grimaced, but he turned onto his back and held up his arm so she could slide into his embrace and rest her head in the little hollow between his neck and shoulder. “I’m way too tired,” he said.

She chuckled and the sound of bells filled his ears. “That’s disappointing. Maybe next time you’ll think twice about staying up all night,” she whispered, then nipped at his ear lobe.

The gentle bite startled him and he jumped, which made her laugh harder. He flipped over on top of her hands, then held them in one of his while he tickled her sides.

“Jack, don’t!” she cried breathlessly, amid giggling laughter. “I thought you were too—tired.”

“Don’t what?” he said, slowing down the tickles and allowing them to become caresses. “Don’t do this?” he whispered as he slid his hand down her flat belly to caress her. “Or this?” he whispered, pushing into her with a gentle finger.

“Oh—” She wrapped her hand around his wrist, but not to stop him; she pressed his hand down and arched against it.

Jack felt her readiness and entered her, doing his best to stay disconnected, to keep the coupling casual, but that was never easy with Cara Lynn. She lifted her head to kiss him. As soon as her lips touched his, as soon as he felt her tongue along the seam of his mouth, he reciprocated, cursing himself for being so weak he couldn’t resist the person he’d targeted to pay for destroying his grandfather’s life.

* * *

PAUL GUILLAME LAY awake and watched the purple glow grow lighter in the sky. He felt as though he hadn’t slept a wink all night. After seeing Betty Delancey’s bestowal of the Guillame fortune on the sweet princess of the Delancey clan, Paul had felt an urge to break one of the expensive bottles of champagne and use its sharp, rough edges to rip all their throats out.

His frustration was that the people whose throats he most wanted to cut were already dead. His Aunt Lilibelle, for one.

She’d yanked him free of the harsh ruling of juvenile court when he was seventeen and raised him as her own, and he’d worshiped her as much as he’d hated her husband, Con. She’d always promised him that he would have her journals. Promised that even after she died, her best friend, Con’s sister, Claire, would keep them safe for him.

But years later, when Cara Lynn graduated from high school, she’d been presented with the journals by her mother, who told her that Grandmother Lilibelle had wanted her to have them. Paul protested, but when he saw the first journal, the inscription inside the cover read To Cara Lynn, in his beloved Aunt Lili’s flowing, decorative hand.

He’d never dreamed that Lili would betray him, not after taking him in to rear along with her own two sons. Not after all the times he’d comforted her when Con was photographed in the company of other women. Not after everything Paul had done for her and everything she’d done for him. They’d always protected each other, and they’d sworn that they always would.

And now, once again he felt the sting of Lili’s betrayal. Her last journal, the one that could destroy the Delancey family, had also gone to Cara Lynn along with the Guillame tiara, worth so much it was generally referred to as priceless.

As fascinated as he had always been with the tiara, he wasn’t concerned about it. There was an unreal quality about jewels that large. Plus, what good would having the tiara do if he couldn’t sell it?

Still, although he was terrified at what someone might find in Lili’s last journal, it was some comfort that none of the Delanceys had gotten their hands on it, either. He’d felt a thrill almost as satisfying as a climax when the lights had gone off and people had started shouting and panicking. The seemingly superhuman Delanceys had been as helpless as ordinary people in the face of the sudden, temporary blackout that lasted for only a few minutes until the emergency generator had kicked on.

But the idea that nobody in the room could see, or know what was happening or who was causing it, had given him a particular thrill. Then when the emergency lights came on and the table was empty—the journal and the tiara gone, he nearly went over the edge.

It had taken every ounce of self-control he had to keep from literally rubbing his palms together with glee. The thief had walked into the Delancey mansion and walked out—or run out—with the journal and the tiara right under the noses of the Delanceys.

But the most exciting thing of all, precisely because he’d been watching Cara Lynn like a hawk all evening, and had made sure his eyes were on her and no one else when the lights came on, was that she had covered something with her hand just before the lights went out. Something white and flat, like a sheet of paper or an envelope.

Once the lights were back on, whatever the bit of white had been, it had disappeared as if it had never been there. Three Delancey men were hovering over her, and her husband was standing on a chair, apparently trying to get a good look at the thief.

Paul had kept his eyes on Cara Lynn, but whatever she had found in the journal, she must have secreted it in her purse.

Now, as he picked up the tumbler of bourbon and water he’d left on the nightstand the night before, and drained it, he let his imagination play with what it could be. The most obvious answer was a letter from Lilibelle Guillame to Cara Lynn. But what would Aunt Lili have said to a child who was barely a teenager when she’d died? Congratulations. Hope you enjoy the nice presents? Paul didn’t know, but he was damned sure going to find out.

He swallowed the last of the watery bourbon and felt its warmth spread through his insides. The evening had ended better than he could have hoped, for the most part.