Lancelot of the Pines (Louisiana Knights Book 1) (25 page)

No, she wouldn’t have. And what did that make her?

Maybe she was a gold-digger, after all.

The bleakness inside her grew, forcing tears into the back of her throat, making her eyes burn. She swallowed with a convulsive effort, unwilling to look weak and defenseless.

“So what happened? How come your sister wasn’t living with you when Caret disappeared?”

“She died.”

“Just like that?” The question came from Lance.

“The death certificate said pneumonia. It seemed to me it was more loss of hope or someone to care.”

“But you cared.”

“Enough touchy-feely,” the sheriff said before she could answer. “What I want to know is how come you didn’t go get her.”

“I would have if I could,” Mandy said with tears in her voice. “But the guardianship arrangement she was under had to be changed before Bruce and I could establish legal custody. She had to be certified fit to leave the institution she was in, fit to live among other people and not be a danger to them or to herself. It was a legal process that went on and on and—and finally took too long.”

“Meanwhile, you were enjoying the high life as Caret’s wife.”

A short laugh left her. “You might call it that. I wouldn’t.”

“You had a big house, fancy clothes, a fine car, right? Yeah, I’d call it that.”

“You didn’t have to live with Bruce.”

“You saying it was no bed of roses?”

She closed her eyes, shutting out his hard, accusing face. “Not always.”

“What? Not enough diamonds, vacations or thousand dollar shoes?”

“I was a possession, and Bruce made sure I knew it.”

“But now you’re not. He’s gone, killed by a person or persons unknown who seem to want you dead, too. Why do you think that is?”

“I don’t know.”

“You lived with the man for what—three years or more, and you don’t know what was going on with him?”

“He didn’t talk about business with me. If I asked questions, he said he preferred to leave all that at the office.”

“Convenient. For you, that is, the little trophy wife who saw nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing, so can’t guess what happened to him.”

“It’s the way he was, the way things were.”

“When was the last time you saw your husband?”

She’d heard that question so many times before she could answer it by rote. “We had dinner the night before he disappeared.”

“He didn’t act different, say anything different?”

“He didn’t like the carrots in honey and butter sauce.”

The sheriff grunted. “Very informative. And you didn’t see him before he left the house the next morning.”

“He wasn’t a morning person, didn’t eat breakfast or like to talk while he had his coffee. He always went in to work early so he could get things done before people started arriving or clients began to call. So no, I never saw him at that time of day.”

“As far as you know, he went to work as usual.”

“The housekeeper said he did when I began to be concerned and asked her about it. I believe she told the police the same thing.”

“And he didn’t come home, yet you never reported him missing.”

“He sometimes worked late, spent the night at his office and then stayed over next day. It was evening again before I realized he hadn’t done that. I began to call his law partners and coworkers on the following morning. But then the police came to tell me his car had been found, and he—he wasn’t in it.”

“I suppose you’ve no idea why anyone would want him dead.”

She shook her head.

“Or why they’ve turned their attention to you now? Or how it is they keep turning up wherever you are?”

She met the questions with an empty stare.

“She’s told you she doesn’t know,” Lance said. “Let it go.”

The sheriff gave him a hard look. “Well, I suggest she figure it out and fast, or she’s going to be in court again, and this time it will be for murder.”

“I don’t know, I swear it,” Mandy put in then. “Bruce was a secretive man, always working some kind of angle. I never knew the details of what he was doing, even where I was concerned. There were a few times after Clare died when I thought—” She came to a halt as she saw where what she had been about to say might lead.

“Thought what? Let’s hear it.”

She swallowed, moistened dry lips with the tip of her tongue then tried again. “I thought he had what he wanted, after our marriage I mean, and didn’t want it to change. I suspected he never used his influence to see Clare was released because he didn’t want to—to share the life we had, not even with my sister.”

Lance exclaimed under his breath, a sound that might have meant something or nothing at all.

“You thought that, did you?” the sheriff demanded. “And wouldn’t it be natural to hate him for that negligence after your sister passed?”

“I suppose.”

“Hate him enough to kill him?”

“No, I’d never—”

“Sounds like a motive for murder to me,” the sheriff said with grim satisfaction. Reaching out, he turned off the tape recorder.

Lance left her. He didn’t say a word to her, didn’t make his excuses to Sheriff Tate, but simply stood up and walked out of the conference room.

Mandy thought at first he might have gone to call a lawyer to represent her, after all, and would return in a few minutes. It didn’t happen. She was alone while being booked on the murder charge, alone when she was locked into a holding cell.

No other prisoners were present. She didn’t make the mistake of thinking this any special consideration; it seemed more an indicator of a slow night in Chamelot.

The cell would have pleased a minimalist. The floor was gray and so were the bars. Two of its white walls were stacked with bunks fitted with grayish white sheets without pillows, while the usual facilities were concealed behind a low screen in one corner. That was it.

Mandy sat down on one of the bunks. She closed her eyes and bowed her head, bracing her hands on either side of her knees.

Murder. She was charged with murder. They thought she had paid to have Bruce killed. Even Lance must believe it, though he’d thought she was innocent for a while. Why else would he have walked out and left her to whatever was coming to her?

She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the emptiness inside her, denying the pain of it. She wouldn’t cry, she wouldn’t. If he could think such a thing of her, he wasn’t worth crying over.

She had expected better of him. Against all odds and in defiance of what she had learned of the way things went in her world, she had trusted him to be there for her.

She had trusted Deputy Lance Benedict despite refusing to put faith in anyone or anything since she was a child. She’d thought he cared for her in some small way. She’d even dared think it might grow into something more. How wrong could she have been?

And what did that make her, except a needy child instead of a woman, one always yearning after the love and home lost to her years ago?

Her mother had loved her and Clare, in spite of everything. It hadn’t been her fault that she couldn’t cope with life the way it had turned out for her. Some people couldn’t, no matter how hard they tried.

Mandy rocked back and forth in slow motion as she remembered the night her mother was taken away by the police. She’d vowed her life would never turn out like that, had sworn she would manage better. She’d been so sure she could take care of herself and Clare, as she had when they were kids. She’d tried so hard, endured so much, and look what happened.

She’d dared think about a future filled with love and laughter and human warmth, human closeness. To have it snatched away like some silly daydream hurt twice as much as never having any hope at all.

She’d never quite believed Bruce when he said he loved her. She’d been grateful to him for what he’d tried to do for her, for coming to see her while she was at the correction center and his promise of aid for Clare. She had hoped that gratitude and the compassion she felt for how much he seemed to care about her would be enough.

It hadn’t been. It was never love he felt, but a form of obsession. He wanted her dependent on him. Systematically, he’d destroyed any chance they might have had for a future while trying to destroy her confidence. His insults for her lack of education, harping criticism as he attempted to mold her into the plastic female he wanted and, most of all, his lack of concern for her need for a family—all of it had shown how little she mattered to him as a person. In his world view, she’d existed for his satisfaction, no more, no less.

He’d never bothered about her arousal in bed, cared nothing for what she might feel when they made love. She’s known there was something more; how could she not, given the transports depicted in books and movies? She’d felt cheated and had resented it, resented him for that and a thousand other reasons before it was over.

But she hadn’t wanted him to die. She hadn’t despised him enough to wish him dead.

She could never have had him killed. Never.

She’d thought Lance was different. By slow degrees, she had come to see him as something more than a protective presence. He was caring and considerate, intelligent, capable, hard-working, good with his hands; she’d seen all these things in him.

Yes, good indeed with his hands. He’d introduced her to greater realms of passion in a few minutes than Bruce had in all the time they were together. He’d done it while expecting nothing in return, yet seemed to revel in the closeness, the myriad sensations that came from being mouth to mouth, skin to skin.

He had touched her without being driven to own her.

That he had wanted her, she knew; she’d felt the heat and hardness of him against her. Yet he controlled that desire with iron strength, denying himself, refusing to take advantage of his position or her need.

He had defied the authority he respected, ignoring a direct order from the sheriff to bring her in, because of a promise to protect her. He was, beyond anyone she had ever known, a man of his word.

More than that, he almost died trying to keep her safe.

He was a man of honor. He held deeply felt ideas of right and wrong, and kept to those convictions with steadfast strength.

How could she not love a man like that?

She did love him for all the qualities that made him a true knight of Louisiana, but also for his smiles, his tolerance, his abiding interest in what she thought and felt, and his caring. He had cared about her for a few short days, even if he had never really loved her.

Mandy keeled over onto her side on the bunk, resting her head on the crook of her elbow and drawing up her legs. Eyes burning, she stared at nothing.

It was those same unwavering principles that had made Lance walk away from her when she had been forced to admit she married Bruce for money. Yes, and when it was shown she had a motive for hating her husband and wanting him dead.

Lance thought she was both mercenary and a murderess, and he couldn’t stomach it. He had left her here alone, left her to her fate.

Maybe she would cry, just a little.

The sheaf of papers hit the sheriff’s desk with such force it spun in a complete circle. Sheriff Tate looked from his ancient desktop computer where he was keying in a report with two fingers.

“What’s this?”

Lance met his glare with one of his own. “What does it look like?”

His cousin picked up the paper-clipped pages, glanced over the typed lines and the check that was attached. His eyes widened a fraction then narrowed. “How the hell—”

“You’re not the only one with pull around here.”

The sheriff tossed the pages back onto his desk. “So I see. I can’t believe you had the nerve to get Judge Martin out of bed for the sake of this woman.”

“He was already up when I got there. It was Granny Chauvin who got him out of bed.”

“And I guess that meddling old lady bent his ear about what a sweet, innocent young thing Amanda Caret is, and how she wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“She vouched for her, told the judge everything she knew about what’s gone on these past few days.” Lance hadn’t been at all sure he’d succeed when he set out for the judge’s house. He owed Granny Chauvin for paving the way for him, as well as for advocating for Mandy.