A Thousand Lies
Authors: Sharon Sala
Table of Contents
A THOUSAND LIES
By
SHARON SALA
Copyright 2013 by Sharon Sala
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or if real, used fictitiously. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.
All Rights Reserved.
Book cover: Kim Killion of HotDAMN Designs
With regard to digital publication, be advised that any alteration of font size or spacing by the reader will automatically change the author’s original format.
Dedication
Knowing whom the people in your life are either gives you the impetus to make them proud, or in some cases, to get as far away from them as you can get.
I have been blessed in my life to come from good, hard-working people who took pride in a job well done and never minded if their hands got dirty in the process.
But there are just as many people in the world who spend their lives trying to live down the circumstances of their birth and raising.
I’m dedicating this book to those who found the strength to walk away——to shed the mantle of public shame and scrutiny with both dignity and grace.
Whatever it took for you to take that leap of faith, you have forever blessed the generations of your people yet to come.
Chapter One
Wisteria Hill wasn’t on a hill at all, but in the Louisiana lowlands outside of New Orleans. Jason Poe had it built for his Irish bride, LilyAnn, in 1859, and in its time, it was as lovely as anything on the Mississippi. It had survived the Civil War, carpetbaggers, hurricanes, births and deaths enough to fill a book and, in later years, more financial crises than the New York Stock Exchange.
But after one hundred and fifty-plus years of wear and tear, the grand lady had become as down-at-the-heels ragged as an old hooker plying her trade from the shadows of an alley on Beale Street.
The current heir and resident of Wisteria Hill was Anson Poe. Like his ancestors before him, he was black-Irish, handsome verging on beautiful with hair the color of midnight, clear blue eyes, and a face reminiscent of a Ralph Lauren clothing advertisement. He had everything going for him but a conscience. It was as if all of the good traits had been used up in the preceding generations and bequeathed Anson nothing but the crumbs of self-respect. Behind the knockout looks was a man incapable of compassion and fair-to-bursting with greed. He filled his physical needs for drugs and sex on a whim while his narcissistic, Napoleonic need to rule kept his family in constant turmoil. The only things he could not control were the encroaching rot of Wisteria Hill and the heat of a Louisiana summer.
****
Sweat rolled out of LaDelle Poe’s hairline, then down the back of her neck and points south as she stirred the crawfish gumbo she’d been making since daybreak. Once the hour hand on the clock passed 10:00 a.m., the kitchen usually closed due to heat and Delle’s disposition.
Anson stood in the doorway watching the way his wife’s body moved beneath her loose blue shift and wondered what the odds were of getting a blow job before breakfast. When she caught his look and glared, he eyed the bruise he’d put on her cheekbone the night before and moved to the coffee pot instead. Caffeine was second best to the adrenaline rush of sex, and from the look on her face, he’d best not put his dick anywhere near her teeth.
“Is that breakfast or lunch?” he asked.
“It’s whatever you want it to be,” Delle muttered, still mad at her husband for what he’d done to her face last night.
Anson frowned. “A man doesn’t like to eat the same damn thing all day long.”
Delle swung a filet knife toward his tight, flat belly. “And a woman doesn’t like to stand over a hot stove and cook for a man who hurts her. You want to live better? Well so do I, Anson Poe, and for starters, you can air-condition this money trap. God knows you can afford it.”
Anson smiled.
Breath caught in the back of Delle’s throat. She’d seen that look before. Before the day was over, she’d pay for talking back.
“There’s bread for toast if you’re too hungry to wait,” she said, pointing at the bread on the kitchen counter.
He popped in a couple of pieces, then continued to watch her as he sipped his coffee. Even after four children, she had held her figure. Except for a faint grey streak at her left temple, her hair was still the same shade of auburn she’d been born with. He didn’t even mind the small laugh lines at the corners of her eyes, although he suspected they were there more from squinting against the sun than smiling. She didn’t have much of a sense of humor when it came to him.
“Where’s Linny?” he asked.
“Outside playing.”
He moved to the screen door to look out, but didn’t see her anywhere.
“I don’t see her.”
Delle shrugged. “That’s probably because she doesn’t want to be seen. She’s fine.”
Anson thought of his daughter with the curiosity of a stranger. She was their only girl and had come along seventeen years after Brendan, the youngest of their three sons. She was tall for her age, and it was already obvious what a beauty she’d be. The girl definitely had his looks, and he immediately wondered if there was a way to cash in on that. Other than money, the girl meant nothing to him and he focused on the old stable at the far end of the grounds, instead.
His great-grandmother had loved the Orient and at one time had an Asian garden on the grounds she had enclosed with a stand of bamboo. Over the years, the garden went to weeds and eventually died. Everything had long since disappeared except for that stand of bamboo. It took over the back of the property, spread into the trees, and like kudzu, became the pest that wouldn’t go away.
Anson went through the last of the family’s money within a year of getting married and immediately turned to farming. Unfortunately, the crops he began growing were illegal. Needing a cover crop to hide the fact he was growing and selling marijuana, he turned the old stable into a work shed and began cutting, rooting, and potting the rampant stands of bamboo, then sold them to landscapers and florist shops. When the bamboo business became successful, it gave him the cachet of a legal businessman, although his other, more profitable, business was a poorly concealed fact.
Anson shifted his stance, frowning as sweat ran down the middle of his back. Delle was right. It was hot in here, but if he had to work outside in the heat, then she could work in the heat, too.
He glanced at his watch, wondering where the hell Sam and Chance were. He had a big shipment of weed going out today and needed his sons on site.
****
The baby cottonmouth slithered out from beneath some kudzu vines and into the still, green waters without leaving a ripple. Belinda Poe—Linny to the family—watched from her post on a nearby rock until it disappeared before she opted to come down. Water moccasins were lethal no matter their size, and Mama would have herself a fit if she knew where Linny was playing, but she loved the swamp. It was her private jungle. Down here, she was Queen Belinda and ruled over everything residing within.
Linny was as long and lean as a newborn foal with slender arms and legs, bare and brown. Her jeans shorts were nearly white from countless washing. Her tank top was yellow, a good contrast to her smooth, brown skin. Today the shirt was stuck fast to her body from the heat. The black hair she’d inherited from her daddy hung nearly to her waist and had been pulled up in a ponytail. She’d woven a crown from the kudzu vines and wore it as elegantly as if it were made of gold.
Standing tall for a nine-year-old, the jade green diadem on her head added inches to her height, and in the sunlight at the edge of the bayou, she almost pulled off the queenly look. The final touch was her scepter, a repurposed walking stick she’d found in the attic.
She was poking about in the underbrush looking for frogs when something rustled the grass behind her. Fearing it was the enemy, she leaped back up on her throne. Then she saw an old snapper crawl out of the woods and pointed the queenly scepter to announce the knight’s slow arrival.
“Behold, Sir Snapper has entered the royal chamber! What have you to say for yourself?”
The snapper wasn’t fazed in the least by her presence and continued toward the murky waters just as the little water moccasin had done. As the turtle pushed off from solid ground into the water with a loud splash, Linny raised her arm in a gesture of farewell.
“Godspeed, Sir Snapper... O faithful servant of few words.”
A bead of sweat ran down the middle of her back as she glanced at the sky. The sun was higher now. All manner of critters would soon be coming up to the water’s edge, which meant it was time for her to go home. She still had the shade of the live oaks to play under and would do anything she could, for as long as possible, to avoid being inside with Daddy.
He was mean to Mama, which Linny didn’t understand because Mama was as sweet as the day was long. If he could be mean to Mama, then he would be mean to anybody, and Linny wasn’t in the mood to get a whipping just because Daddy was in a pissy mood.
“Pissy,” she said, giggling as she jumped off the rock. “Pissy, pissy, pissy.”
Saying bad words when no one could hear was an adrenaline rush, the same as playing in the swamp. Belinda Poe was only nine, and to her daddy’s way of thinking, nothing but a useless girl. But she had the same fire in her blood as all of Anson Poe’s offspring had, and strode through the woods toward home without fear still in queen mode with the scepter in her hand and the crown on her head, unaware she was the current topic of conversation at home.
****
Delle eyed Anson’s on-guard stance, mistaking his interest as concern.
“I told you. Linny is fine. She’ll come home when she’s ready.”
Anson didn’t bother acknowledging her comment, mostly because he didn’t like her tone of voice.
Delle shrugged to herself and went back to check on her gumbo, but she was uneasy about the way Anson looked at Linny these days—like he was eyeing a hunting dog for bloodline. She was measuring up rice when she heard an approaching car.
“Who’s coming?” Anson’s eyes narrowed.
“Brendan.”
Unlike his older sons, Anson didn’t get along with his youngest and resented that Brendan was Delle and Linny’s favorite.
Then he saw a flash of yellow down at the end of the yard. It was his daughter, running out of the woods and across the clearing toward Brendan’s SUV. She had a bunch of leaves wrapped around her head and a cane in her hand, and he wondered what the hell she’d been doing. When he saw Bren get out of the SUV and wave at her, the space between his shoulder blades began to itch. He needed to hit something—or someone—to make it better.
“Your toast is getting cold,” Delle said.
He turned away from the doorway in sudden anger, grabbed the toast, and refilled his coffee cup. He walked past Delle and without missing a beat, flung the hot coffee on her bare feet, then watched the hot dark liquid run between her toes and down into the cracks of the old linoleum flooring with unhidden glee.
Delle screamed as she danced backward from the puddle beneath her feet, but it was too late. The damage had already been done.
Anson grabbed a towel from the counter and threw it at her.
“Sorry about that,” he drawled.
Delle knew he’d done it on purpose, but she was in too much pain to fight. Moments later, she heard footsteps running up on the back porch and knew things were going to get worse. Tears flowed down her cheeks. Her hands trembled as she looked up at the man who shared her bed.
“Why, Anson? What worm is in your brain that makes you so goddamned crazy?”