"I guess you proved your point," she whispered. "You're a bastard and a user. Bad for me."
She stepped out onto the balcony, appalled that the day could be so beautiful, that the birds could be singing. Below them, the bayou moved, a sluggish stream of chocolate. Huey lay sleeping on the bank.
"I know that you can't help the things that shaped you," she said, looking up at him through a watery haze that made him seem more dream than real. "None of us can. Savannah couldn't change the fact that our stepfather used her as his private whore. I can't change the fact that I knew and never did anything about it," she admitted, her voice choked with pain. "But you know something, Jack? I'll be damned if I'll believe we don't have the power within us to get past all that and be something better.
"You put that in your book, Jack." Chin up, tears streaming down her cheeks, she slipped the folded notepaper in his hip pocket. "And at least be decent enough to write me a happy ending."
Standing on pride alone, she turned and left him… left L'Amour… left her heart in pieces.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The summons to Beauvoir came before Laurel could leave the house for Prejean's. Vivian was on the brink of one of her spells, distraught over the news of Savannah 's death. Dr. Broussard and Reverend Stipple had been sent for, but what she really needed was the comfort of having her only remaining child nearby.
Laurel 's strongest urge was to say no. Vivian had disowned Savannah in life, had long ago ceased to love her. She couldn't keep from thinking that this was a ploy to gain attention, not a plea for sympathy or support. Vivian and Savannah had been rivals since the day of Savannah's birth. Why would that change after her death?
But the burden of guilt and family duty won out in the end. Laurel found herself in Caroline's burgundy BMW, turning up the tree-lined drive of her childhood home, cursing herself for being weak. She could almost envision Savannah looking down on her with disapproval. Still scrambling for Mama's love, Baby? Aren't you pathetic.
She cut the engine and lay her forehead against the steering wheel for a moment, shutting her eyes against the exhaustion that pulled at her. She couldn't have felt more battered if someone had taken a club to her. Every part of her felt bruised, every cell of her body ached-her skin, her hair, her teeth, her muscles, her heart. Most especially her heart.
Images of Jack kept rising before her mind's eye, and her besieged brain struggled to rationalize in the name of self-preservation. He had pushed her away because he was afraid of hurting her. He had pushed her away because he was afraid of being hurt. But nothing she came up with could refute the evidence she had held in her hands.
God, he'd been studying her, jotting down notes, formulating theories as if she were nothing more than a fictitious character. The pain of that was incredible.
And still she wanted him to love her. The shame of that was absolute. She wanted him to come to her and tell her it was all a mistake, that he loved her, that he would be there for her as she struggled with the grief of loss. What a fool she was. She'd known from the start he wasn't the kind of man to depend on.
She sucked in a jerky breath, fighting the tears. She would get through this. She would get over it. She would get over him. She would find some way to be strong for Savannah.
Olive answered the door, looking appropriately dolorous, her skin as gray as her uniform, her eyes bleak. The maid led the way up the grand staircase and down the hall, and Laurel followed automatically, her mind on other times spent here.
Like ghosts, she heard the voices of her childhood-Savannah's wild laugh, her own shy giggle, Daddy promising he would come find them and tickle them silly. The memories bombarded her-good and bad. She remembered walking down this same hall to her mother's room the day of Daddy's funeral, and watching while Vivian applied her makeup artfully around her puffy red eyes.
You must endeavor to be a little lady, Laurel. You're a Chandler, and that's what's expected.
Then Vivian had loaded up on Valium and sat through the funeral in a daze, while her daughters struggled to weep gracefully into their handkerchiefs.
Vivian's spell of depression after Jefferson's death had lasted two months. Then Ross Leighton had begun worming his way into their lives.
Vivian's rooms comprised a spacious suite that saw a decorator from Lafayette once a year. The latest incarnation was a festival of floral chintz in shades of teal and peach. Olive escorted Laurel through the sitting room with its clutter of English antiques, knocked on the door to the bedroom, and opened it an inch when the muffled invitation came from within. Eyes downcast like a whipped dog, the maid slunk away as Laurel went in.
Her mother stood by the French doors, wrapped in teal silk, one arm banded across her middle, the other hand rubbing absently at the base of her throat. Opals glowed warmly on her earlobes. A ring with a stone the size of a sparrow's egg drew the eye to the hand pressed against her chest. She turned as Laurel entered the room, her features drawn tight, eyes looking dramatically sunken beneath the camouflage of dark eye shadow.
"Oh, Laurel, thank God you've come," she said, her voice reedy and strained. "I had to see you for myself."
"I'm here, Mama."
Vivian shook her head in disbelief and paced listlessly. "Savannah. I just can't accept what the sheriff had to say. That she was murdered. Like those other women, she was murdered. Strangled." She whispered the word as if it were profane, her right hand still rubbing at her throat. "Right here in our own backyard, practically. I swear, I can't bear the thought of it. The instant he told us, I nearly fainted. My throat constricted so, I could barely breathe. Ross had to bring my medication to the parlor, and I could hardly swallow it. He brought me straight to bed, but I couldn't rest until I'd seen you."
"I was on my way to the funeral home," Laurel said, toying with an arrangement of tiger lilies that filled a Dresden pitcher. "Would you like to come?"
Vivian gasped and sank down on the edge of the bed, careful to keep her knees together and tilted properly, one hand expertly seeing that her robe was tucked just so. "Heavens, no! I just couldn't bear it. Not now. I'm simply not up to it. I-I'm just weak with shock from it all, and filled with such emotions-"
She broke off as her beautiful aquamarine eyes filled, plucked a lace-edged hankie out of her breast pocket, and blotted at the moisture.
Anger built inside Laurel as she watched from beneath her lashes. Her sister was dead, and their mother sat here doing a one-woman show for sympathy. Poor Vivian lost the daughter she never loved. Poor Vivian, so fragile, so sensitive, like something out of Tennessee Williams.
"I haven't had a spell in so long," she went on, twisting her handkerchief in her fingers. "But I can feel it coming on, stealing over me like a shadow of doom. You can't know how I dread it. It's a terrible thing."
"So is your daughter's murder," Laurel said tightly.
Her mother's eyes went wide. Her hands stilled in her lap. "Well, of course it is. It's horrible!"
Laurel turned and gave her a hard look of accusation. "But the most important thing is how it affects you. Right?"
"Laurel! How can you say such a thing to me?"
She shouldn't have. She knew she shouldn't have. Good girls didn't sass back. Ladies kept their opinions to themselves. But all the dictates from her upbringing couldn't hold back the rage she had stored inside her all these years. In her mind she could see Savannah lying dead, could hardly allow herself to imagine the way her sister had suffered. And here was Vivian, playing Blanche DuBois. Always the center of attention. Never mind who else might be in pain.
"It was just the same when Daddy was killed," she said, her voice trembling with the power of her emotions. "It wasn't a matter of all of us losing him. You had to turn it around so the focus was on you, so people flocked out here to check on you, so they all went around town saying 'Poor Vivian. She's in such a state.' "
"I was in such a state!" Vivian exclaimed, pushing to her feet. "I had lost my husband!"
"Well, it didn't take you long to find another one, did it?" Laurel snapped, the pains of childhood flowing through her like fresh, hot blood.