Ghost Moon (27 page)

CHAPTER 41

Crowley, Louisiana—July 4, 1978

SAVANNAH DE HART WAS TOO EXCITED TO sleep. It was long after midnight on the morning of the Fourth of July, which was, after Christmas, her very favorite holiday. It was even better than her birthday, because she had to share her birthday with her twin, Samantha. They would be nine years old on their next one, August sixth. But Fourth of July—
this
Fourth of July—was special. Yesterday she had been crowned Little Miss Rice at the Old Crowley Rice Society Celebration, and today she got to ride on the very top of the Rice Society float in the town’s Fourth of July parade, wearing her crown and her sash and waving at the crowd as she passed.

Samantha had been first runner-up. With the other three runners-up, she would ride on one of the Rice Society float’s corners.

Savannah was glad Samantha had been first runner-up. She felt her sister’s triumphs and defeats almost as keenly as she did her own. She
wanted
Samantha to do well, always.

Only sometimes, maybe, not quite as well as she did herself.

When they had announced the winner, Mommy had been so proud of her. She had laughed and hugged Savannah first when she ran up on stage, and called Savannah her beautiful girl.

Since she and Samantha were identical twins, that didn’t really give her an advantage over her sister. They were both small for their age, with long black hair that they wore in ringlets down their backs for the pageants, bright blue eyes, and such pale skin that Mommy had to use a whole lot of blush on them to give their faces
definition
. But she could sing and dance a little better than Samantha, and that, plus her
sparkly personality,
as Mommy called it, was why she had won.

Samantha was quieter. Samantha didn’t have a
sparkly
personality
. Samantha didn’t really like competing in pageants. But Savannah loved it. She loved the attention, she loved the beautiful costumes she got to wear, she loved the trophies, and most of all she loved making Mommy smile.

Samantha had cried herself to sleep tonight. Savannah felt bad about that. She’d gone in to comfort her sister, crawling into bed with Samantha and staying there until Samantha had fallen asleep. She hated for Samantha to feel bad, and Samantha felt bad because she hadn’t won. Samantha hated letting Mommy down. They both did.

Their brother, Samuel, who was two years younger, didn’t ever have to worry about letting Mommy down. He was just a dumb boy, and no one ever paid much attention to him.

Sometimes Savannah thought Samuel was lucky.

She and Samantha had their own rooms, which were connected by a bathroom. Samuel was across the hall from Samantha, and Mommy and Daddy—when Daddy was home, which wasn’t often; he traveled a lot in his job with the oil company—were across the hall from her. Their house was nice. It was something called a split-level, in a subdivision with lots of other houses just like it. What made theirs special was that Mommy had planted lots of flowers all over the yard, and had decorated it really pretty inside. Her room had pink walls with yellow curtains and bedspread. Samantha’s had yellow walls with pink curtains and bedspread. Samuel’s was just dumb old blue, with baseball stuff everywhere. Samuel loved baseball.

He was one weird little kid.

Savannah turned onto her side and curled up into a ball, trying her best to go to sleep. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t look her best for the parade tomorrow. She lay still for a while, concentrating fiercely on going to sleep—but finally she couldn’t resist turning back over and taking one more peep at her crown and sash and pageant dress that were all laid out on the chair by the dresser, ready for her to put them on for the parade.

There was something in front of the chair, blocking her view. Even as Savannah squinted at it, trying to make out what it was through the darkness, it moved toward her.

‘‘Samantha?’’ she asked uncertainly, sitting up. But even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t Samantha. Knew it as certainly as she always knew everything about her twin.

She knew, too, that she was in danger, with a dead-on instinct as old as humankind. Terror raced down her spine, and she screamed, only to have the cry immediately choked off by something wet and smelly that was shoved into her face, choking her, at the same time that a hand grabbed the back of her head, keeping her from pulling her face free.

Mommy,
she cried, but only in her mind, as she plunged down into a darkness from which she knew, even as she succumbed to it, there would be no escape.

Picking victims was both an art and a science, he mused, suppressing the urge to whistle cheerfully as he let himself out the front door of the house, child, crown, sash, and dress slung together in the laundry sack he carried over his shoulder. Really, it was getting ridiculously easy. Breaking into houses was almost child’s play for someone with a little know-how and the proper tools. The funny thing about it was, they felt safe in their houses.

The mommies all slept like rocks while he broke in and stole their babies, because they thought their sweet little darlings were all tucked up in bed and so safe.

Just thinking about it amused him.

He took great care in making his selections now. He didn’t take just any little girl who happened to catch his eye. Oh, no, he had to give himself credit for more discrimination than that. They had to meet certain criteria—and he had to scout out where they lived, making sure that it was possible to acquire them with relative ease. About a month ago, he’d been on the verge of taking a cute little thing with hair so blond that it was almost white. But when he’d followed her home, he’d discovered two negatives that had, in the end, scuttled the plan. The first was the family pet, which was a very large, unfriendly German shepherd, who’d actually tried to leap the fence to get at him when he had only, in the act of casing the place, walked casually by. The second was the size of the house. Obviously the girl’s family was wealthy, and taking the child of a wealthy family would attract more attention than he cared to have focused on his activities. He’d learned about the pitfalls of too much publicity with Missy Hardin. He still felt bad that her father had been the one to take the fall for that.

But he hadn’t known what he was doing then. He’d refined his technique considerably since. He found them, watched them for a while, checked out their houses, then went in and got them. It was as simple as that.

He’d seen Little Miss Rice at the pageant yesterday, for example, and known instantly that she was perfect for him. Her house was no problem. A five-year-old with a screwdriver could have broken in. And the family pet was a cat. Soft, fluffy, and definitely not a threat.

Acquiring Little Miss Rice more than made up for losing the blonde. Actually, he was amassing quite a collection. There was Becca, who he had to admit was kind of nondescript, because he’d taken her before he’d really known what he was doing. But still, he valued her because she was the first. His muse, if you would. Then there was Maggie, with all that short, frothy yellow-blond hair—a definite improvement. Kathleen, with her masses of flaming red hair, was a real conversation piece—except, of course, he had no one to converse about her with. And this one, who looked like a little Snow White—she would be the centerpiece, with her crown and sash and dress.

Perhaps, he mused, as, cargo loaded, he drove away down Route 13, he should consider branching out. Go for something a little more ethnic next time . . .

CHAPTER 42

CALLIE ARCHER WAS LAID TO REST BESIDE her long-dead husband in the family cemetery above the lake. It had been her wish, but a special permit from the town had been required to see it carried out, as burials in private ground were no longer routinely allowed. When the time came for Big John to be buried, he would join her there, in the remaining half of the grave site now occupied by his wife, Marguerite. With the addition of those two, the cemetery would be out of room. The remaining Archers would be buried in the graveyard beside St. Luke’s.

It had rained during the night, but the weather was good for the burial. The heavy ground fog that had covered the landscape during the morning had, for the most part, been burned away by the noonday sun. It was warm, but not with the suffocating humidity of summer. The heat was pleasant rather than baking, and only a little sticky. The sky was a clear, almost cloudless blue. Birds sang and swooped; insects droned.

Set on approximately an acre of once-lush but now faintly scraggly-looking grass on a bluff overlooking Ghost Lake, the cemetery was surrounded by a four-foot-tall black wrought-iron fence, now slightly rusty. The funeral cortege approached along the access road from the rear, and stopped. Pallbearers carried the coffin over the bumpy ground from the hearse to the bier beside the grave, which had been dug the day before. The motorcade of mourners parked in the grass alongside the narrow gravel road, and, except for the crunch of their feet on the gravel, followed the coffin to the grave site in near silence.

Olivia had not been near the cemetery in years. As a child, she had been a fairly frequent visitor, moving from monument to monument, always seeking one particular name. She had never understood why her mother wasn’t there, beside her stepfather. Once, when she had asked, what they told her made no sense: Her mother had been
cremated
. Now, of course, she understood what that word meant, and she knew, too, with her fresh, terrible knowledge, why it had been done: As a suicide, Selena Archer would not have been permitted to await eternity in hallowed ground.

The pain of that truth was so intense that Olivia immediately strove to banish the thought from her mind.

‘‘Mom, you’re squeezing my hand too tight,’’ Sara whispered from beside her, tugging to free her fingers. Wearing a forest-green dress with lots of smocking on the bodice and a white Peter Pan collar, white stockings, and black mary janes, Sara looked adorable—and very grown up.

‘‘Oh, sorry.’’ Loosening her grip with a quick, apologetic smile for her daughter, Olivia felt some of her pain ease. Sweet Sara, with her wide brown eyes and earnest face, was the present and the future. Olivia’s mother belonged to the past, and for today, at least, should be left there.

The Archer family cemetery had been designed to honor the original owner of LaAngelle Plantation, Colonel Robert John Archer, and his wife and descendants. His mausoleum dominated the graveyard. Built of white marble, turned creamy yellow with age, it was fashioned like a miniature Greek temple, with an elaborately carved portico, a quartet of fluted columns, and twin life-size marble angels guarding the long-closed door. Votive candles set in holders carved into the angels’ hands burned brightly to welcome the cemetery’s soon-to-be newest resident. Other life-size stone angels—there were six, to mark the graves of each of the colonel’s children—stood sentinel around the mausoleum. Later residents of the cemetery had apparently not shared their ancestor’s appreciation for angels. The markers for subsequent Archers leaned toward five-foot-tall monoliths and simple stone crosses. The most touching, in Olivia’s opinion, was a small pink marble cross set atop a stone pedestal. Inscribed simply ABIGAIL, above the dates of birth and death, it was a tribute to a long-ago Archer six-year-old. As a youngster exploring the cemetery, Olivia had merely found the old cross interesting. Now, setting eyes on it again as a mother, she felt a thrill of grief for that lost little girl, and in consequence gripped Sara’s hand too tightly again as they walked across the grass.

‘‘Mom!’’ Casting her a disgusted glance, Sara disengaged her fingers.

The group assembled for the graveside service was considerably smaller than the crowd that had thronged to the funeral service proper in town. St. Luke’s had been full to overflowing. People who couldn’t get inside the church had stood outside, on the grounds and in the parking lot, in respectful silence.

But this final farewell before Callie’s body was committed to the earth was limited to her family and very close friends. They gathered around the polished walnut coffin, which was covered with a blanket of white lilies; more flowers were massed on the grass just beyond the open grave. Seth and Chloe, he in a black business suit and she in an incongruously cheerful blue dress with white and yellow daisies appliqued around the hem, stood hand in hand before the casket. Seth’s face was pale and haggard, his eyes red-rimmed, but he was outwardly composed. Chloe showed fewer overt signs of grief than he did. The impression one got, watching them, was that it was she who was consoling him, instead of the other way around. Mallory, in a form-fitting black knit dress, stood on Seth’s other side clutching a prayer book, her engagement ring glinting in the sun every time she moved her hand. Olivia tried not to think about that engagement ring, or, for that matter, about the engagement. But the stab of jealousy she felt whenever Mallory leaned against Seth, or took hold of his arm, or tiptoed to murmur something in his ear, pierced even the dark cloud of her grief.

Despite the wild night of passion they had shared,
Seth was going to marry Mallory
. Them was the facts, as the saying went, whether she wanted to face them or not.

When Father Randolph, who was officiating just as he had at the church, intoned the traditional ‘‘. . . ashes to ashes, dust to dust,’’ Ira burst into noisy sobs, and turned away, hiding his face in his hands. Answering tears flowed down Olivia’s cheeks. To think that Callie had finally found love again after so many years, only to lose it so soon to death, added another degree of sorrow to her feeling of aching loss. She stood with her head bowed, clutching Sara’s hand again in the midst of a weeping crowd of relatives and friends, listening with numb grief to Father Randolph until the service ended.

Then she looked up just in time to see, through the film of her tears, Mallory step into Seth’s arms, where she was warmly embraced as his head bent over hers.

Obviously Seth didn’t need any comfort Olivia might have to offer. She turned away, only to find herself enveloped in a bear hug by Keith, who stood with David on her right. Keith, the tenderhearted, was crying while David, a typical Archer stoic, was not. Olivia hugged Keith and cried, too. When at last neither of them could cry any more, they turned, and, together with David and Sara, followed the rest of the mourners back to the Big House for the traditional after-funeral feast.

By the following Monday, life at LaAngelle Plantation had more or less resumed its usual rhythms. If there was a sense of profound loss in the air, they all labored to ignore it. Meals still had to be eaten, children had to be cared for, wages had to be earned. In short, life had to go on.

David and Keith had flown to California immediately after the funeral. They were scheduled to return on Monday afternoon. Chloe was once again sleeping in her own room, with Seth next door and Martha, who was going to continue to stay on in the house until Seth’s wedding, across the hall. Olivia and Sara stayed where they were. Callie’s room remained as it was on the evening she had left it, although going through and packing away her possessions was a looming job that no one seemed quite ready to face.

As was her routine before Callie was hospitalized, Olivia got the girls ready on Monday morning and drove them to school, then went on to the Boatworks. Seth had left the house shortly before seven, so he had been at work for nearly two hours when Olivia arrived. The door to his office was closed, and she assumed that he was inside, although he could just as easily have been anywhere about the place. She knew he hadn’t been sleeping well: Twice since the funeral, she had heard him in the wee hours of the morning walking up and down the gallery. She had not gone outside to comfort him. Doing so once had already done far too much damage to their relationship—and her heart.

Since the funeral, they’d seen each other only in company. Although he had gone in to work Friday, Saturday, and part of Sunday, and driven to Baton Rouge to check on Big John in the hospital every day, Seth was making an obvious effort to be home in the evenings for Chloe. Twice they had all shared supper, and Olivia had found herself thankful for the presence of Martha and the little girls at the table. On other occasions when Seth was present, Olivia left him with his daughter while she and Sara did their own thing. For the four of them to do things together smacked too much of a family group, which wasn’t good for anyone under the circumstances. The really hurtful thing about it was, Seth no longer seemed comfortable in her presence. Once or twice, Olivia got the impression that he had something he wanted to say to her, but, if so, he never spoke out.

An apology coupled with a hearty
let’s put that unfortunate night behind us, dear, shall we?
was heading her way. She could feel it.

It was going to crush her like a brick dropped on a bug.

She and Sara and Chloe had stayed home on Friday, so Monday was Olivia’s first day back. It felt good to be at work, good to be busy, good to talk to people about the normal, everyday minutiae of life. After spending the first hour or so of the workday being very quiet and low-key out of deference to the family’s loss, Ilsa was, by midmorning, chattering away about her baby and her upcoming maternity leave, to which she was looking forward very much. Everyone Olivia talked to was pretty much the same way, from the people delivering supplies to the clients on the telephone: a few minutes of respectful decorum, and then business as usual.

Looking unbelievably slender in a navy-blue skirted suit, three-inch heels, and pearls, Mallory came breezing in about fifteen minutes before lunchtime, carrying an embossed white folder in one hand. Her presence was not unusual, or at least it hadn’t been in the weeks before Callie’s death. Mallory had always stopped in to see Seth nearly every day for one thing or another. But things had changed since then.

Or, at least, things had changed for
Olivia
since then.

She’d sooner see a rabid polecat than Mallory, she discovered.

‘‘Hello, Olivia! Hi, Ilsa!’’ Mallory greeted the two women in the outer office with a breezy smile. As she was wrestling with the balky computer at the time, Olivia reasoned that she had a perfectly acceptable excuse for not returning Mallory’s greeting with much enthusiasm. Undaunted, Mallory stopped by the workstation where Olivia was trying everything she could think of to get the stupid machine to display the data she had loaded into its memory bank only two weeks before, leaned a hand on the desk, and asked confidentially, ‘‘How’s he doing?’’

Knowing that
he
referred to Seth, Olivia smiled with as much affability as she could muster, which wasn’t too much. ‘‘As far as I know, he’s doing fine.’’

‘‘I’m glad to hear it. The invitations finally came in, and I wanted him to take one last look at them before I have them addressed and sent out. I know the timing’s a little insensitive, but the wedding’s in six weeks. We’re running late as it is. And Callie
did
say she didn’t want us to postpone it or anything because of her.’’ Mallory straightened with a smile, opened the folder, and scooted it across the desk so that Olivia could see. ‘‘What do you think?’’

Mallory Bridgehampton Hodges and
Michael Seth Archer
Request the Honor of Your Presence
At the Celebration of Their Marriage . . .

Olivia couldn’t stand to read any more. ‘‘They’re lovely,’’ she said, looking back at the computer. The invitations
were
lovely, with black engraving on thick white vellum paper—but they made Seth’s approaching nuptials seem hideously real.

He’s mine, she thought fiercely, but of course it wasn’t so. It was written right there in front of her nose in black and white: Seth belonged to Mallory.

And she’d better get used to it.

Getting sexually involved with her big cousin had been the biggest mistake of her life. She’d known it was stupid from the beginning. But she’d gone ahead and done it like the heedless fool she was, and now it was too late to take it back. She needed to accept that night for what it was, nothing more or less than a desperate reaching out for comfort on Seth’s part. She’d been present, and willing, and female, and that was all it had taken. The sensible thing to do now was to pretend, to herself and Seth and everybody else, that it had never happened; to go back to being loving cousins, and good friends.

But when had she ever done the sensible thing?

She was in love with Seth. The knowledge jumped out at her without warning, and as Olivia absorbed it she became physically ill. She felt light-headed, short of breath. She didn’t want to be in love with Seth. She refused to be in love with Seth.

Being in love with Seth when he was going to marry Mallory was the quickest route she could think of to a broken heart.

Oh no, oh no, oh no, Olivia thought in a panic, pushing her chair back from the desk. Its ancient casters moved with a protesting squeak, but Olivia barely heard it. Jumping to her feet, she managed a tight smile for Mallory, who was watching her with some bewilderment, and a glance for Ilsa.

‘‘I’m going to the rest room,’’ she announced, and fled.

When she came back, having bathed her face and held her wrists under cold running water until the lightheadedness subsided, Ilsa was alone in the outer office.

Thank God. Olivia wasn’t up to any more of Mallory at the moment. Or Seth, either, for that matter, although she had hardly seen him all day.

‘‘You okay?’’ Ilsa asked with concern. Olivia nodded, sitting back down in front of the computer screen. Ilsa seemed to take her at her word. Still, Olivia was glad of the distraction when Phillip and Carl walked into the office together moments later.