Something in me shattered. Dropping to my knees, I scooped her into my arms and she clung to me like a life preserver. “Aw, Bevy, please don’t cry,” I whispered. “Shhh. It’ll be okay. I promise, it will.”
But it was a lie. Nothing would ever be okay. Not until I did something. Just what that ‘something’ was, I hadn’t a clue. Squeezing my eyes shut, I took a slow lungful of air—like Doc had taught me—but my blood was already at a rolling boil, and the fire beneath it wouldn’t be quenched. Not today.
Jerome Dillon’s contract. The boycott. Cholly’s club troubles. The hate mail and crank calls. Bev’s window and now this. Everything pointed in one direction.
Sears and Mead Bradford had stirred all this shit up. What was next on their evil agenda? Torches and pitchforks?
I was a big boy, okay? And I’d made every effort to keep the bastards from getting to me. Hell, I’d survived Gainstown, after all. But this was different. This time they’d aimed true.
This time, they’d gone and fucked with my mama.
SHANNON
____________________________
Mead stared into his Scotch glass. “So what does Darien think?”
I took a leisurely sip of strong coffee. No doubt he was referring to the current edition of The Dirty Dish. He’d been on a tear about it all afternoon. With the party over, Granny Mae, Digger, Mead’s wife Francine, Uncle, Auntie, and I had retired to the dining hall for drinks, sweets, and peace.
That is, until Mead pulled up a chair.
“Well?” he prompted, his cultured southern voice issuing a challenge. “The man can’t be pleased with your behavior.”
Aunt Hesta sent her son a quelling look from across the massive table. “Must we discuss these unpleasantries now?”
Mead slipped a crumpled magazine page from his jacket in answer, and tossed it next to the remains of Granny Mae’s peach cobbler dish. It was a copy of the latest tabloid article by the same vulgar gossip columnist. From everyone’s stunned reaction you’d think he’d thrown a serpent atop a holy altar.
“Here we have a glorious exposé featuring Shannon’s nail-biting brush with death,” he continued. “Followed by her touching reunion with the Butcher Boy at the plaza. Next came the hospital melee with the Grays, and then the battle royale on Jefferson Boulevard at the peak of rush hour. And last, but not least, a rendezvous in the parking lot at Home Depot. How does Erica Davies know all this? The bitch has tentacles everywhere.”
“Stop being a bore, Mead.” Uncle’s droll voice drifted from the other side of the table where he sat sequestered behind a newspaper, his manicured fingers the only visible part of him. It was the most he’d said all afternoon—to anyone, including Auntie. “Talk will die down soon enough.”
“Not if she doesn’t stay away from him,” Mead complained. “Any shit between her and Dawson floats back to me. That invariably unearths Lilith’s stench. Are folks talking about my credentials for governor? No. They’re gabbing about The Dirty Dish and Shannon’s sordid misadventures with the resident psychopath. I’ve got a fickle constituency and a drop in campaign contributions. All this, since that nutjob came back to town.”
Francine patted his hand. Her long, expressionless face gave evidence of recent Botox injections. “You worry too much.”
“Forget about my campaign.” Mead turned to me. Up to this point, I had put him on ignore. “Think of yourself, Shannon. Next they’ll be saying you’re taking Lilith’s sloppy seconds.”
Silence echoed as servants scurried to refill water glasses. Mead could wrap his constituents around his finger, but here, in the presence of relatives and under the influence of too many fingers of Scotch, he wore a different face.
Tall, blonde, and filthy rich, the mayor of New Dyer had the looks of a Calvin Klein model but the self-serving personality of a jackal.
I slammed my napkin on the table. “You’re a monster.”
“And here I thought you liked monsters,” he taunted. “Why else would you keep sniffing around one?”
I stared him down with as much contempt as I could bridle, then cut my gaze from one end of the table to the other, examining each person respectively. “I don’t suppose anyone knows about a letter to the parole board?”
Auntie tossed me a pained look.
“Someone sent a forged letter to the state board protesting Trace’s parole,” I said. “It destroyed his family.”
“Poor, poor, Butcher Boy.” Mead signaled for another Scotch by giving his glass a rude jiggle. A servant was by his side immediately with a refill. “My dear cousin, any one of us could have written our own letter. And we would’ve been justified.”
“Let’s get real here,” I said. “The intent was to hurt Trace. That’s why they did it. A letter from me has more impact. She was my mother after all.”
Mead slurped his drink. “Obviously. Except for the hair and eye color, you could be her double. And if you keep sniffing around Dawson, you’ll end up just like her. Dead and gutted.”
Francine’s botoxed face drooped. “I can’t believe you just went there.”
“Lord ‘a mercy,” Granny Mae muttered as Digger quietly snored beside her.
“Say what you want,” Mead drawled, “but y’all know I’m right.”
I hurled a fiery glower at him. “You soulless gnome. I have had it up to here with your constant—”
Auntie tapped her wine glass with her cobbler fork. “That’ll be enough, children. I’ll not have any more disunity in this house.” She split her attention between her son and me. “This bickering is getting us nowhere. You—” She stabbed a bony finger at Mead. “—leave her alone this instant. I don’t want to hear anything else about this sordid business. Do you understand?”
“But, Mom—”
“Shut it,” Hesta told him.
“And on that note, I’ll make my exit.” Uncle lowered the shroud of newsprint as one of the servers set his evening glass of Alka Seltzer before him. He wrinkled his nose at the fizzing liquid. Saluting the table, he lifted a silver brow and murmured, “Here’s to unity.” Then he drained his glass and without fanfare quit the room by way of the back stairs.
With a long-suffering sigh, Auntie made her excuses and followed after him.
I’d had enough. Ignoring Mead, I said a polite goodbye to Francine, kissed Granny Mae and a snoozing Digger, then threw the double doors open and stalked out. I’d almost reached the end of the hallway when shouts exploded from the foyer. It was two men. The echo reverberated in the house.
My stomach dropped like a brick once I recognized the deeper of the two voices.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Shall We Dance?
TRACE
____________________________
“Leave now before I call the police.”
Anchoring a hand on the jamb, I leaned over the blonde tool at the door, using our height differences to my advantage. “Suit yourself, Jeeves, but I’m not going anywhere ’til—”
“What in the world?” Shannon squeezed between us and gave the blonde lackey a reassuring nod. “It’s okay, Gerard. I’ll handle this.” She tugged me to the other side of the porch. “What are you doing here?”
I shrugged her hand off. That its warmth lingered annoyed me. As did the fact that she looked damn good. Her hair was done up in one of those fancy French braid ponytail things. She wore suede knee boots and a silky blue dress that hugged every curve.
I tore my eyes away, focusing instead on the nervous little man scampering toward us. In the thirty seconds Shannon had been out here, the troll had somehow managed to fetch a shawl.