Seventeen
Beloit Blooms was unusually busy for a weekday, although Marcus was not going to complain. He’d been on the phone almost nonstop for an hour taking orders. The one he was taking now was for a delivery of two dozen roses to be delivered to a woman who worked in the courthouse.
“It’s our twenty-fourth wedding anniversary,” the caller said. “A rose for every year.”
“Congratulations,” Marcus said, and meant it.
Making people happy was part of why he was in this business. Even when it involved floral arrangements for funerals, he still felt the need to make them visually perfect. It was his way of showing his sympathy for the family’s loss.
“And you can deliver this before three this afternoon?” the man asked.
“Absolutely,” Marcus said. “In fact, I’ll get this out with the first morning delivery. She should have it by noon. What do you want me to put on the card?”
“To the next twenty-four. Love, George.”
“Okay, George, and how do you want to pay?”
The man gave Marcus a credit card number, and then the transaction was finished. He printed out the order and took it back to the workroom to his three floral designers.
“Shawna, get this one out with the morning delivery,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” she said, and laid it on top of her work orders to do next.
The welcome bell rang over his door as it opened. He looked up as he returned to the front of the shop and then smiled at the silver-haired lady who walked in.
“Welcome to Beloit’s.”
She smiled, then began to explain what she needed for a dinner party tomorrow night and when she wanted it delivered.
It wasn’t until there was a lull in calls that he focused in on the discussion going on in the workroom about Sahara Travis. He walked back to join in.
“Hey, Marcus. You know her, right?” Shawna asked.
“I sure do. We went to school together. She is a doll, and I am just sick about what happened to her parents and what continues to happen to her.”
“So, she’s really nice?”
“She is, as they say, the real deal. Not one bit stuck up on herself and doesn’t forget her friends.”
Shawna sighed. “That is so cool that you grew up with someone famous.”
Marcus laughed. “But she wasn’t famous then. We were just kids in the same class, you know?”
They laughed but continued to be properly impressed about his close connection with such fame.
He got busy again, and it wasn’t until he took off for lunch that he thought about calling her. He should have called after the news broke about finding her father’s body, but he’d had no idea what to say. He still didn’t, but good Southern manners won out. He was still in the parking lot when he turned up the air-conditioner before making the call.
Billie answered. “Hello.”
“Hello, Miss Billie. This is Marcus Beloit. I am already terribly late in calling Sahara about her father, but my conscience wouldn’t let me slide. Is she available to take a call?”
“She is,” Billie said. “Just a moment, please.”
Sahara looked up from the paper she was reading and frowned. “Who is it, Mama?” she whispered.
Billie covered the phone. “It’s Marcus.”
Sahara sighed. Ever since Lucy’s early-morning exit she’d been feeling a little down. She didn’t feel like talking, but that would have been rude. She took the phone and then upped the tone of her voice.
“Marcus, how are you?”
“I’m the one who should be asking you,” he said. “I should have called sooner, but you know me. I’ll tell you the truth whether you want to hear it or not. I just didn’t know what the hell to say. First your mother and now your father. It’s heartbreaking, and I am so sorry that this is happening.”
“Thank you. I still can’t wrap my head around someone wanting all of us dead, and for what?”
“I know, dear. It is a ridiculous and devastating scenario. Listen, part of the reason I called was to ask if there’s anything I can do for you. I know you’re housebound, so is there anything that would take a burden from you? It would be my honor.”
“Thank you, Marcus, but I don’t know what that would be.”
“I understand, but if something comes up, please call. I am at your service, and hopefully next time we talk, the subject will be much happier.”
“For sure,” Sahara said. “Thanks again, and goodbye.”
“Goodbye,” he echoed, disconnected, then took himself to lunch.
Sahara hung up the phone and then sank into a chair at the table.
“I don’t feel very good, Mama. After all the trouble you’ve gone to making those shrimp po’boy sandwiches, I’m going to pass on lunch.”
Brendan was worried. Her eyes were glazed, almost as if she had a fever. He put a hand on her forehead. The skin was cool, almost clammy to the touch.
“Do you hurt anywhere, baby?”
She drew a deep, shaky breath and then pounded her chest with her fist. “Here. I hurt here. I don’t know how to feel. I’ve sent Lucy away so she wouldn’t be caught in the crossfire, and now I have to face the possibility that I might not live through this. I don’t know whether I need to pray to a God I don’t trust, or prepare for the role of dying.”
Before Brendan could respond, Billie slapped her hand on the table, rattling the dishes.
“Hush, child! I won’t hear such talk! You aren’t going to die. You’re scared, and so am I. You’re exhausted, and so am I.”
She got up and went to the pantry, dug around a few moments, then came out with several items in her arms.
“What are you doing, Mama?” Sahara asked.
“I’m making a potion for you. Mr. McQueen, finish your meal. Sahara, this is not a movie, so stop acting like you’re on your deathbed. Do you hear me?”
Sahara took a deep breath. “I hear you, Mama.”
“No more talk about dying?”
Tears rolled down Sahara’s face. “No more talk about dying.”
Brendan watched the mother schooling the child and couldn’t help but wonder how many times Sahara had needed a mother’s love and guidance, but never got it because there were two women playing that role. She must have been so confused. Too many secrets. Too many lies. No wonder she was such a good actress. She’d been acting a part all her life.
But he couldn’t stand to see Sahara like this and do nothing. He shoved his plate aside, tugged at her hand until she got up and scooted into his lap. Satisfied, Brendan wrapped his arms around her.
The microwave dinged.
Billie removed the cup that she’d filled with milk, sugar and chocolate, dropped a handful of miniature marshmallows on top of the hot liquid and carried it to the table.
“If you remember, this potion cures sad days, bad grades on tests and tummy aches.”
Sahara watched her mother set a steaming mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows in front of her and sighed.
“I remember. Thank you, Mama. I will drink it. I promise.”
Billie smiled, pleased with the familiarity between them. At least one good thing had come from all this. They belonged together.
“I’m going to get the mail. I’ll be back shortly.”
Brendan pulled the cup closer as Billie left the kitchen.
“Do you want some now?”
“After it cools a little,” Sahara said. “Mama’s potion. I hadn’t thought of this in years. No matter the weather, this was the cure-all for things she couldn’t fix.”
“She loves you very much,” Brendan said.
“I know. I love her, too, and am sick at all the years we lost. I thought she left me behind. I shouldn’t have believed Katarina and Leopold. I don’t know why I did. All I saw was an empty room, and then shock set in. But the irony of all this chaos is that if the killer had not set out on this path, I might never have known she was still here.”
Brendan picked up the cup and began blowing on it to cool the surface, then dipped a spoonful into his mouth to test.
“Here you go, honey. It won’t burn you now.”
She took it and the spoon in her hands, stirring until the last of the marshmallows had melted into a floating froth. She lifted it to her mouth, thinking there wasn’t a taste better in this world than warm, sweet chocolate.
“Taste good?” Brendan asked.
“You be the judge,” she said, and kissed him.
He could taste the chocolate on her lips.
“Spectacular,” he said.
“You need to eat your sandwich,” she said, and slid out of his lap as Billie returned, laying the mail on the sideboard, then handed Sahara a large padded envelope with The Magnolia letterhead on it.
“Oh, I think it’s my phone and purse,” Sahara said, as she tore into the envelope. Her phone and her Yves Saint Laurent Classic handbag slipped out onto the table, along with a new cord to charge the phone. “I sure hope this still works.”
She attached the phone charger and then plugged it into an outlet before going back to her hot chocolate. She drank the potion until the cup was empty while Billie and Brendan ate shrimp po’boys slathered with spicy rémoulade sauce and crunchy coleslaw.
“Feel any better?” Billie asked.
“Yes, Mama. I do.”
“Good. No more talk about being defeated,” Billie said.
“I promise,” Sahara said.
Brendan heard the lilt in her voice and saw the smile on her face, but he still wasn’t convinced she was okay.
Billie left later to run some errands, and as soon as she was out of the house, Sahara took her things and the charging cord upstairs with her, plugged the phone back in there, set her purse aside and then wound up falling asleep. It left Brendan free to pass on the latest information he’d found regarding the possibility of other heirs to both police stations.
He sent another email with an attachment regarding everything he’d found about Sutton Davidson and his mother, Barbara Lovett, who later married a man named Davidson. It included info about Leopold lending Sutton a large sum of money some years back to start a business, which Sutton had already paid back with interest. There was nothing to point to him being a killer except that he and Sahara Travis were very likely half brother and half sister, and if anything happened to her, he would be blood heir to everything.
As soon as he hit Send, he shut down the computer, locked the bedroom door, then took off his boots and crawled into bed behind her.
Her hair was silk against his cheek as she spooned against him, her breasts soft against the back of his arm. The steady rise and fall of her breathing became the touchstone to his own heartbeat as he drifted off to sleep.
Sometime later, Sahara roused.
The wall of McQueen’s body behind her was her bulwark to safety. She lay without moving, wanting to remember what it felt like to be loved like this.
Brendan had only been dozing and felt the change in her breathing when she woke. He wanted to love her the rest of the way awake, but there was something she needed to know.
He kissed the back of her neck.
“Sweetheart...?”
“I’m awake.”
“I need to tell you something,” he said.
She stilled. “What’s wrong?”
“Short of a DNA test to positively prove it, I think I found another heir. You have a half brother. The payoff money from Leopold to a woman named Barbara Lovett coincides just right with a baby boy born five months later. And she was living in the house where Leopold died when the baby was born. She lived there until he was six.”
Sahara rolled over to face him.
“Oh my God! Barbara, that’s Sutton’s mother! Are you saying Sutton—our gardener Sutton—is my brother?”
He sat up, but when he went to reach for her, she pulled away. “No, don’t. Just say it.”
“Yes.”
Her face lost all expression. “Do you think... Is he behind all of this?”
“I honestly can’t say. His entire background check was clean. He’s a model citizen and is making a good living.”
“I don’t understand. If Leopold paid them off to get rid of them, then why did he hire Barbara six years later and let Sutton come into the house with her? We went to school together in the morning, came home together after school and played until she got off work at six o’clock.”
“I don’t know, but consider this. If Katarina didn’t know who the other women were, then she would have had no problem with Barbara and her child being in the house after school, because she’s just another servant. And maybe Leopold was vain enough to not want to lose contact with a son.”
“That sounds plausible,” Sahara said.
“Maybe she hit hard times, and Leopold offered her a job with the caveat that Katarina could know nothing about their prior relationship,” Brendan said. “However, she married a man named Davidson right after she quit working here, and he adopted the child. That’s why Sutton goes by Davidson instead of his mother’s maiden name.”
She got out of bed, took a few steps and then stopped in the middle of the floor.
He went after her.
“This is the break we’ve been waiting for. We have a potential suspect.”
Her voice was shaking when she replied, “Does he know we’re related?”
“Obviously, there’s no way for me to know that. If I had to guess, though, I’d say yes. I would imagine he was told after he grew up, if not before.”
She threw up her hands in disbelief and then started pacing.
“Why didn’t he tell me? We played together. We were friends! I would have liked knowing I had a brother.”
“Maybe he didn’t know it back then. I can’t say anything for certain except that he is now probably the police’s number one suspect. The LAPD will compare his photo to the security footage they got of the man who sabotaged the elevator in The Magnolia. Even if he was in disguise, between physical build and facial recognition, they could nail him. But even if he’s not a match, it still doesn’t clear him. This killer we’re after hired Harley Fish, so it’s easy to assume he has hired out some of the other attempts, as well.”
She shuddered. “The other day when they were here cleaning up after the storm, Sutton stood in the doorway and smiled at me.”
Brendan slid a hand beneath her hair and pulled her to him.
“This information gives us an edge. He has no idea that Leopold kept that journal or that we’ve been looking for heirs.”
“This hurts my heart,” Sahara whispered. “I feel betrayed all over again by this place and the people who were in it. I hate it. If I live through this, I’m never coming back here again.”
McQueen’s voice deepened with emotion as he pulled her closer.
“Baby, don’t doubt me. I need you to believe I will not let anyone hurt you.”
She leaned back, looking at the man he was—a bodyguard, a man who put his life on the line for the job...for her. The fact that they’d fallen in love had caught both of them by surprise.
“I believe you and I believe in you, so how are we going to set this trap? As long as you’re here, it gives any would-be attacker cause for hesitation.”
He looked at her in disbelief. “Well, I’m damn sure not going anywhere.”
“But what if people think you did?”
He looked at her intently. “What are you getting at?”
“People have accidents all the time, right? They get sick. They get hurt. So I have to believe that, whoever the killer is, he’s watching this house all the time, waiting for an opportunity just like that.”
“Oh, he’s definitely watching now,” Brendan said. “You dared him. You called him a coward in front of the whole world. He needs to show you what a badass is he.”
“I’m just pissed off enough now not to care,” she muttered.
He grinned. “Okay, tough stuff, I hear you. But I love you too much to let you run with that attitude. However, your idea isn’t half-bad. What if we set something up with the police? We could have someone else come into this house posing as your attacker. Sutton would know it wasn’t him, and would be suspicious, but he’d also know that I would do whatever I had to do to protect you from anyone. So we convince the world that I killed your attacker, but that I was hurt in the process. We can arrange for an ambulance to take me away...and a medical examiner will haul out a body bag with the fake attacker in it. To the world, the danger to your life is over, which means I’d be okay with leaving your side to get medical attention. If Sutton thinks I’m not on-site, he’d assume this place was completely unguarded and that you’re alone. He’d definitely try to make his move.”
“Yes! Exactly like that,” she said.
“Only... I’ll have to figure out a way to get back in the house unseen almost immediately.”
Sahara snapped her fingers as an idea came to her. “Oh! I know a way!” she cried, and grabbed his hand. “Come with me. I need to find Billie. Last time I saw this, I was just a kid, but there’s more than one kind of secret in this house.”
* * *
Billie had a pie cooling on the sideboard and was in the laundry folding towels when she heard Sahara calling for her.
“I’m in here!” she shouted, and reached for another bath towel.
Sahara came hurrying into the room. “Mama! Remember the time you showed me that secret passageway to the basement?”
Brendan frowned. “There’s an actual basement in this house? But there aren’t any windows to allude to that. This is New Orleans. It’s below sea level. The place where they bury people aboveground so they don’t float up later.”
Billie laid the folded towel on the stack. “Basements are ground level in New Orleans because of the water level. It’s why the front steps are so high and the veranda so wide. It hides it from the front of the house, and in this case it was always kept secret.”
“We need to see that secret exit, to see what shape it’s in,” Sahara said.
Billie looked nervous. “What are you planning to do?”
Brendan quickly outlined the plan, including the detail about needing a viable entry back into the house without being seen.
“Dear Lord,” Billie said. “I can tell there’s no way of talking you two out of this, so follow me.”
They followed her into the butler’s pantry, where she opened an upper cabinet and pushed a panel at the back of the wall. A four-foot-wide section of floor-to-ceiling cabinets swung out, revealing a narrow stairway leading down to the ground floor.
“There is a six-by-nine-foot room at the bottom of the stairs that’s always been called the basement, when in fact it is only a room, and with a single door that leads outside into an arbor of wisteria vines. You will see how it’s laid out as you go. Follow the tunnel of vines until they end at an ivy-covered wall facing the alley. There is a door hidden somewhere within that ivy. Both sides of the wall are covered in vines, so the door is not visible, and I have no idea how long it’s been since anyone used it.”
“How did you come to know about this?” Brendan asked.
Billie glanced at her daughter, then back at him. “Because that’s how I came into the house when I was young. That little room at the bottom of the stairs used to have a small bed in it. It’s where Sahara was conceived.”
“Oh, Mama,” Sahara said, and just held her.
“Okay, then,” Brendan said, patting her back. Then he flipped a switch just inside the opening. A single light at the bottom of the stairs lit the way.
“I’m going down,” he said.
When Sahara started to follow, he hesitated.
“You told me not to leave your sight,” she said.
He sighed. “Not the first time something I’ve said has come back to haunt me,” he said, then saw concern on Billie’s face. “She’ll be okay with me. We won’t be long, but I need to see if this will serve the purpose I need, or if we need to figure out something else.”
“Okay, but I’m standing right here until you get back,” she said.
Brendan stepped down onto the first step. “Sahara, stay a step behind me and hold on to my shoulders as we descend.”
“Okay,” she said, and down they went with Brendan swiping cobwebs away as they went.
They reached the small room at the bottom of the stairs.
“Would you look at this,” Sahara said.
There were shelves on one wall, a small antique-style desk beneath it with a handmade, three-legged stool on which to sit, but no bed. The surfaces had more mold than dust, as did the brick walls.
“There’s a padlock on this door,” Sahara said.
“Let’s look for a key first before I go out to the shed to look for a tool to cut it off.”
Sahara turned to the shelves, eyeing the scattered items as Brendan headed for the small desk. She opened boxes, shook old bottles for a rattling sound, but found nothing. She was all the way to the end when she saw an old key hanging on a nail between the shelf and the wall.
“Here it is!”
“Good job!” Brendan said, and gave her a quick kiss. “Now, here’s hoping this thing will still turn enough to unlock.”
“Billie keeps WD-40 in the utility room,” she said.
“Ask her to bring it to you at the top of the stairs.”
Sahara started back up the stairs, calling out as she climbed up.
“Mama, we need some WD-40.”
Billie disappeared as Sahara paused on the top step to wait. Moments later she was back with the blue-and-yellow can of lightweight oil.
“Here you go,” Billie said.
“Thank you, Mama,” Sahara said, and hurried back down.
Brendan sprayed the inside of the lock and then the key as well, removing as much dirt and grime as he could see, then set the can on the shelf.
“Here goes nothing,” he said, and slipped the key into the old padlock and tried to turn it.
At first, it would go only partway, and then it would stick, so he sprayed it again and tried once more. This time, it turned all the way.
“Bingo,” he said, removed the lock and laid it on the shelf with the spray.
The door was as stuck as the padlock had been, but it was no match for Brendan McQueen’s strength. He put his shoulder to it and hit it like a linebacker taking out the quarterback. The hinges squeaked as the door popped open, revealing the inside of a tunnel formed entirely of thick verdant vines and dangling clumps of purple wisteria.
Sahara was entranced. “If I had known this was what was at the end of those stairs, this would have been my secret place. Just look how far this arbor goes.”
“Hey, honey, grab that can of WD-40 and the key. We might need it to open another lock.”
She dropped the key in her pants pocket and took the can as they started through the arbor.
Years of dead leaves and blooms crunched beneath their feet as they started down the concrete path beneath. Sunlight coming through the vines shimmered like tiny rays of gold.
Sahara was so entranced that she was whispering. “The Secret Garden was my favorite book when I was a girl. I feel like I’ve just stepped into one of my own.”
Brendan looked back, saw the wonder on her face and reached for his phone.
“Drop the can,” he said.
She did.
“Beautiful, so beautiful. I don’t ever want to forget this,” he said softly, and began taking pictures of her amid the tangled vines and purple blooms. The scent of the wisteria and the tiny rays of sunlight on her face and clothes were images he would never forget. He didn’t see the love on her face until he was seeing her through the lens of the camera, and when he did, it brought tears to his eyes.
He put the phone back in his pocket and then kissed her. The words came out of his mouth without warning, but he could no more have stopped them than he could have stopped his own heartbeat.
“I love you, Sahara...so much.”
The smile that spread across her mouth matched the joy on her face.
“Oh, Brendan! I love you, too! You are the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Brendan brushed his lips across her forehead and made himself stop before this got out of hand.
“This is crazy. I’m trying to find a way to keep you safe, and all I want to do is make love to you. Come on. Let’s find the end of this tunnel.”
She picked up the spray can and then took his hand, following a step behind him until they came to the end, facing a wall covered in vines.
“Now to find a door,” he said, and began pulling at vines.