Blood Ties in Chef Voleur (5 page)

He glanced at his watch. He needed to get to the police station and sign his statement, but right now he was alone in the house and was going to be alone all day. He might not have a better chance to search for the letter for a long time.

He went into the pantry and eyed the shelves filled with cans, canisters, boxes and bags of food. Everything from staples like flour and sugar and cornmeal to gourmet items like escargot, Major Grey’s chutney, fancy crackers and aged balsamic vinegar. He glanced through the shelves, thinking if she’d been clever enough to hide a thin envelope amongst all the food, it would take him a lot longer than an hour or so to find it.

So figuring it would be faster to eliminate obvious hiding places first, he started investigating the room. A loose floor board or baseboard or a cubby hole cut into the wall would make a great hiding place. At that instant, his toe hit something that rattled loosely. He bent down and looked underneath the bottom shelf. He had to move a case of bottled water from which three were missing, but when he did, he hit pay dirt. A piece of baseboard toppled over.

He bent down and looked at the hole. He could see the corner of a yellowed envelope. His pulse raced.
There it was
. Whether it might be of any help to him, he had no idea. But at least he’d know.

He slid the envelope out carefully and looked at it. On the front were the words
for Cara Lynn,
written in a beautiful, old-fashioned script. He turned the envelope over. The flap was held in place with two inches of brown, dried-out cellophane tape across the center. The right edge of the flap had been torn off. That was the piece he’d found. This was definitely the same envelope.

But then he saw that there was a newer piece of tape that ran across part of the older tape. Someone had opened the envelope and closed it back. The tape wasn’t brand new—so it hadn’t happened recently.

He tried to lift the edge of the new tape with a fingernail, but it pulled a crumbling piece of the envelope’s flap with it.

“Damn it,” he muttered, as he carefully pressed the tape down again. He couldn’t get into it without destroying it and the tape that held it so precariously. He looked at the front again. The decorative handwriting had been penned with a fountain pen. There was a tiny bit of ink spatter underneath the
C
in
Cara Lynn
. Also, the pen had left thick lines in some places and needle-thin lines in others.

That settled it. He couldn’t open the envelope without destroying it and he’d never be able to replace it. Sighing, he sank to his haunches again and started to replace the board. But his curiosity got the better of him. He reached into the hole again.

The first thing his fingers touched was a roll of bills. He pulled them out and tried to estimate how much money was there. Maybe a couple of thousand, he thought. He reached in a third time and pulled out her passport. He flipped through it, stopping at the front to check the expiration date. The passport was good for ten more months.

He stared at the date, thinking that their marriage would certainly expire before the passport would. How would she take it, he wondered, then immediately cleared his throat loudly and forced his brain to cut off that line of thought.

The third thing he found in the hole concealed by the baseboard was a velvet jewelry case—a necklace case, by the shape of it. He opened it and immediately realized he was looking at probably twenty, thirty, even forty thousand dollars’ worth of real, mined emeralds. The necklace was exquisite, with small diamonds on either side of each larger emerald, and a two-inch long teardrop emerald pendant hanging from the center of the piece. He closed the case and stuck it back.

He’d known when he started this venture that he and his family were paupers compared to the Delanceys, but looking at those ridiculously huge gemstones slammed his face into just how different they were. As he carefully replaced everything including the envelope, then put the baseboard back and rearranged the water bottles, he thought it was a good thing that he wasn’t serious about Cara Lynn.

Because as soon as their honeymoon was over, the feelings of her family would begin to weigh on her mind, and eventually, they’d convince her that she’d made a big mistake. That she’d married way beneath her.

As for him, he had sense enough to know he was so far out of her league he wasn’t even in her zip code. Yep, it was a good thing he was only in this for revenge and not for love.

He glanced at his watch. He was going to have to wait to go over his granddad’s letter. He had to get to the sheriff’s office. As he stood and started to lock the case, his cell phone rang. He looked at the display.

It was Greg Haymore, the private investigator he’d hired for an outrageous sum that he hoped would be totally worth it. Haymore was a good investigator, but his real value was in his connections.

Haymore was a former police officer who’d been fired for suborning perjury in a court case involving the shooting death of his partner. He’d lied about whether his partner had a throwaway gun, afraid that if the jury knew that the officer was carrying a secret weapon, they’d assume the officer was crooked and let the killer off. Haymore’s good intentions got the killer acquitted and himself fired.

“Hey, Jack, what’s going on?” Haymore said when Jack answered the phone.

“Nothing much. What’s up?”

“You enjoying married life?”

Jack winced. He’d had to tell Haymore some of his plan, and their contract included a severe non-disclosure agreement, but damn it, he didn’t have to listen to the man’s ribbing. “Did you have something for me?”

“Yeah.” The investigator’s voice took on a professional tone. “I’ve got a buddy on the Chef Voleur Police Force that’s—”

“Whoa. You can’t go messing with them. I told you, a bunch of the Delanceys are police officers or detectives—at least two of them, twins, are in Chef Voleur—and they’re not stupid, not by a long shot. If you screw this up, man, there is nowhere in the world that you’ll be able to get another job.”

“Listen, I know what I’m doing, and this guy is a sergeant. He’s a good guy and he never liked Con Delancey. He knows the two officers—as he calls them, the Delancey Bobbsey Twins—and there’s no love lost there, either. He was happy to take a look at this case’s evidence file for me.”

“The evidence file?” Jack was interested in spite of his concern over Haymore taking unnecessary chances.

“Yeah. He said there are unused samples of blood in there. Said if you could get an order for DNA, you might find out something that would help exonerate your grandfather.”

“Blood,” Jack repeated thoughtfully. He thought about the implications of having blood samples from twenty-eight years ago. That was before DNA sampling was widely understood or affordable for anyone but the government. Today was a completely different story. DNA could be used to identify someone to a one in many, many billions of accuracy.

“Okay. That could be promising. But Greg, I want you to sit on that for now. And please—I just hope your source is as trustworthy as you think he is.”

“Oh, he’s good. His name is—”

“No. I don’t want to know his name. Just make sure that nobody, and I mean
nobody
else knows about this. I’ll let you know if and when I want to use it. Okay?”

“This might be exactly what you’re looking for, Jack. A DNA match might deliver the real killer right into your hands.”

“I know. I’m just not sure how to go about it. You sit tight. I don’t want you doing anything else right now. Got that? I’ll let you know when I need you again. I’ll deposit your fees up to now into your account. And Greg? Thanks.”

“No problem,” Haymore said. “I’ll be watching for that deposit. Talk to you later.”

“Oh, hang on a second,” Jack said. “One more question. Did you hear about the robbery at the Delancey residence Saturday night?”

“Yeah. Not much on the news, but there’s talk everywhere about it. Somebody just walked in and stole that Guillame tiara?”

“He dropped the tiara—not on purpose I’m sure. But he did take a journal written by Lilibelle Guillame. Do you know anything about the thief? Or know anybody who does things like that? That bold I mean?”

“Walk in, grab a million-dollar piece of jewelry and then run out, right through a crowd of rich folks and cops? Nah.”

“If you hear anything, give me a call on my cell, okay?”

“Sure thing, Bush.”

After Jack hung up, he sat there, thinking about the idea of using DNA to prove who killed Con Delancey. DNA was proof-positive. One hundred percent. No more doubt. No more questions.

For the first time in his life, Jack actually wondered if he was doing the right thing. For the first time in his life, he considered the possibility that his grandfather had killed Con Delancey.

Chapter Five

Cara Lynn smiled at the elderly couple who were walking hand-in-hand around the gallery, admiring the paintings, sculptures and other art pieces.

She was waiting for Jack and about to scream. Her mother had just arrived and was talking to the gallery owner. Cara Lynn was doing what she was supposed to do, making herself available to the patrons and guests. But she thought if she had to stand there smiling and answering questions and listening to comments and critiques one more minute, she might have a psychotic break, right in the middle of one of the most prestigious galleries in the Warehouse District of New Orleans.

She’d had all day to consider what she was going to do about what she’d found under the kitchen table, but she was no closer to an answer than she’d been that morning when she’d discovered the small, spiral-bound notepad.

Since seeing it on the floor against one of the table legs and picking it up, she’d opened it at least a dozen times to flip through for one more look at the notes he’d made about his grandfather, about her grandfather, about her family—about
her
.

Reading Jack’s notes had been painful, the way a sore tooth was. The kind of pain that kept the tongue coming back to test it, as if by repeatedly touching it, the pain would—what? Give up and stop hurting?

But Jack’s notebook hadn’t given up. Nor had it stopped hurting her. No matter where she turned, no matter whose name she saw, whether it was hers or someone in her family or his, it hurt just as much. And yet she kept probing.

She’d stopped time and time again all day long to look through the little spiral-bound book, after that first time, when she’d flopped down on the floor and read it cover to cover without stopping except to dry her tears. After that, she’d looked for something—a paragraph, a sentence, even a word or two, that Jack had written that told her he cared about her. So far, she hadn’t turned up anything.

Jack’s sketchy notes were the antithesis of her grandmother Lilibelle’s poetic, flowing narrative. But both of them, in their way, were documenting history as it occurred.

Jack had documented the history of how he’d pursued her, arranged to bump into her, and finally met and seduced her into falling for him.

As she’d paged through the notebook for the first time, she’d come to a page where he’d written her name and age, the words
fiber artist,
and a list of her gallery showings and sales. He’d listed an interview she’d done a few weeks before and jotted a note about her working on a genealogy of the Delancey and Guillame families.

On the next page he’d written the showing at the Donnelly Gallery a second time, along with its date, plus four scribbled words.
Accidentally bump into her
.

She shivered, standing there in the art gallery just like she had the first time she’d read those words. On the following page were more scribbled notations.

7/14—Spent the nite—her apt. Nice! Sexy!

Likes pasta—a lot. Talks about family.

Shouldn’t be hard.

Biting her lip and feeling her cheeks turn hot with embarrassment at some of the things Jack had alluded to, she turned the pages until she got to the first thing that had caught her eye that morning. It was the name Con Delancey.

It was over halfway through the pad, behind Jack’s notes. Dog-eared pages that held tiny sketches and dimensions and calculations, all of which she assumed had to do with Jack’s architecture business. She remembered flipping through, a small smile on her face as she looked at what she thought were her husband’s work notes. A small thrill had hummed through her at the anticipation of seeing her name in there, maybe with a note about what time to meet her for the fiber-art show opening, or a note to himself to pick up flowers or something for her.

But when she’d seen her grandfather’s name, she’d stopped and read the entire page, and a knot of fear had lodged under her breastbone. That page and several others had been filled with notes that referred to Con’s death, Lilibelle’s obsession with journaling, and the address of the fishing cabin on Lake Pontchartrain.

She flipped through the entire notebook, each page a hopeful encounter that gave her one more chance to find out that she was wrong. That the notes and dates and comments would coalesce into something innocuous. But when she turned a page and saw the name Armand Broussard, and below it the charges against him, then below that,
INNOCENT!!!
in block letters, she knew there were no innocuous explanations.

Then, when she saw the very last page, there was no denying the truth. It was plain to see. And it hurt. The last page was where Jack had experimented with new names until he’d decided on Jack Bush.

Jacques Broussard.

Jack Broussard. Jack Bruce. Jack Bushman.

Jack Bush.
Jack Bush.

Cara Lynn still felt the chill that had flash-frozen her heart. She’d dropped the notebook and covered her mouth with her hands, doing her best to hold in a shocked scream. Her husband was Armand Broussard’s grandson.

Jacques Broussard. Her husband Jack was Jacques Broussard. His grandfather had killed hers. Jack had found her, studied her, seduced her into a whirlwind marriage so he could—
what?
What exactly did he want so badly that had required making her fall in love with him and marry him?

* * *

B
Y
THE
TIME
Jack got back from Biloxi that evening and made it to the gallery, it was late and the guests were thinning out. The only hors d’oeuvres left were little pigs in blankets and the only drinks were a mint-julep punch and a chardonnay which had grown warm. He bypassed the food and drink and headed toward Cara Lynn, who did not look happy. He wondered if the showing had gone really badly, or maybe she was getting a migraine. Deep inside, though, a queasy dread told him he knew what the real problem was.

He stepped up to her and touched the small of her back. She jumped slightly but didn’t acknowledge his presence in any other way.

“Sorry I was late,” he whispered. “I didn’t realize they were going to take the meeting through dinner. But the good news is, I think I’m going to get a huge contract to design their new casino.”

Cara Lynn smiled and nodded to the couple who wandered away while Jack was speaking. She didn’t acknowledge him.

“Cara, hon, are you all right? How did the show go?”

She nodded distractedly. “Fine,” she said tightly. “I sold three pieces. What more could I ask?”

Jack studied her. Her mouth was compressed, her shoulders were rigid. He could feel the tension running through the muscles of her back. She was seriously upset. He slid his hand around her waist and pulled her closer, but she neatly extracted herself from his grasp as her mother approached.

“What a wonderful show, Cara Lynn! You and Jack are coming by the house for coffee, aren’t you?”

“No, Mom,” Cara Lynn said tiredly. “I’m exhausted and I’m sure Jack is, too. He just managed to get here from Biloxi, I believe.” With that, she shot Jack a look that should have fried him on the spot.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get home.” He gave Cara Lynn’s mother a nod. “I apologize, Mrs. Delancey. We’ll see you another night. I’ll look forward to it.”

He led Cara Lynn out and asked her if she would be okay driving her car home. “If not, I’ll drive us and I can get someone to bring the car out tomorrow.”

“I’m fine,” Cara Lynn said archly. “Believe me, I am not drunk.”

“I didn’t say you were. You just told your mother you were too exhausted to spend half an hour with her.”

“So?”

Jack sent her a questioning look, but she just turned on her heel and walked to her car. He watched until she pulled out of the parking lot, then he got into his car and followed her to their apartment.

All the way home, he tried to convince himself that there were all kinds of reasons for her behavior. It wasn’t necessarily because she’d found his notepad and read it. She could have a headache and be truly exhausted. She could be coming down with something. She could have gotten angry at him for a dozen reasons that might not make any sense to him. But he wasn’t fooling himself. There was only one reason she’d look at him like that. Only one reason she’d be so pale and rigid.

When he got inside, she was standing at the kitchen table, her arms folded, as if she were holding on to herself as tightly as she could. Her face was pale and wan except for two spots of color that stood out in her cheeks. If her glare were a laser, he’d be cut in two.

“Okay, what’s wrong?” he asked as his hands became clammy and his pulse sped up until blood hammered in his ears.

He’d gotten to the meeting in Biloxi to discuss a contract for a new casino and realized he didn’t have his notepad where he kept his ideas and reminders. It wasn’t in his briefcase. It wasn’t in his car and it wasn’t in his pocket. He’d managed to get through the meeting without too many problems, but from the instant he realized the notebook was gone, a lump of apprehension had lodged in his throat.

Standing there in front of Cara Lynn, the apprehension turned to certainty. He knew exactly what was wrong with Cara Lynn and exactly what was about to happen.

The jig was up.

Struggling to put a tone of casual weariness in his voice, he said, “I hope it’s something simple, because it has been a long day and I’m exhausted.”

“I’m sure you are. It must be hard, maintaining a cover story 24/7. Of course it’s probably a lot simpler if you can spend a large percentage of that time having sex. That saves time having to pretend, I guess.”

“What?” Jack said, frowning. He heard her words, but he couldn’t quite make sense of them. But certain things began becoming clear, like
cover story
,
pretend
,
sex
. “Cara Lynn, I’m not sure what you’re—”

“Save it,” she snapped. “How long did you think you could last before you let something slip? Said something suspicious? Or—” She held up his notepad. “Or left something lying around?”

“Cara Lynn—hold on a minute.”

“No. I don’t need to hold on. I shouldn’t have even let you come back here, but I felt like I deserved at least a little bit of an explanation. I feel humiliated, violated and of course stupid....” She paused to take a deep breath and swipe at her eyes with her fingers.

Jack wished there was a way he could comfort her and convince her that he hadn’t used her. He wished they lived in a world where he could snap his fingers and everything that both of them knew about their grandfathers would disappear and it would be only the two of them. He wished he hadn’t humiliated, violated and betrayed her. But this was reality.

He’d made this bed of snakes, and now he was going to have to sleep in it. He spread his palms—knowing that by doing so he was acknowledging and agreeing to everything she’d said.

“You’re not even going to try and deny it?” she asked, but even if he’d wanted to or been able to answer, she was still too quick. She continued before he managed to recall how to breathe, much less speak.

“Tell me, Jacques, did you get what you wanted? And was it worth prostituting yourself?”

Cara Lynn forced those last words out past a growing lump in her throat. The lump felt as big as a levee and it blocked the tears that wanted to break free and fall. If it would just last a few more minutes, until she’d finished what she wanted to say, then she could throw Jacques Broussard out of her home and out of her life, and she’d be free to cry all she wanted to.

“That’s what you did, you know,” she added. “You prostituted yourself. But I guess that’s not as difficult for men as it is for women.”

She steeled herself and met his gaze. He looked shell-shocked, and his mouth was open as if he wanted to say something, but couldn’t quite get it out. She’d have liked to gloat over his misery, but she was too busy right now, trying to keep the tears at bay. “What?” she snapped. “What is it?”

He shook his head. “Cara Lynn, I never meant to hurt you. You have to understand. As much as you loved your grandparents, I loved mine, too. And my grandfather didn’t kill yours.”

“First of all I don’t
have
to do anything—” Cara Lynn stopped talking as soon as Jack’s last words penetrated. “Oh, no,” she said. “You will not just walk in here after what you’ve done and say
Armand Broussard didn’t kill Con Delancey
. Of course he did. He was arrested and convicted and put in prison.”

“That doesn’t mean he was guilty,” Jack said. “It just shows how much influence the Delancey family had. And please, you don’t need to tell me what happened to
my
grandfather. Yes, he was arrested and convicted of Con Delancey’s murder. He was sent to prison in 1987, and he stayed there until six months ago. Do you know what happened six months ago?” he asked.

She didn’t say anything, waiting for him to go on.

“Well?” he snapped. “Do you?”

She shook her head.

“Of course you don’t, because neither you nor your entire family have ever bothered to learn anything about Armand Broussard. He served as your grandfather’s personal assistant for over twenty years. He handled his correspondence, both personal and official, he acted as his valet, and he was his best friend.” Jack hardly paused to take a breath.

“My grandfather loved and respected Con Delancey and Con loved and respected him. He left him a quarter of a million dollars in his will, but of course the Delanceys couldn’t let the man they’d decided was guilty of his murder inherit any of his money.”

Cara Lynn stared at the man she’d fallen in love with and married within one month of meeting him. He was angry—really angry, for the first time ever. He looked different. His eyes were dark and glittering. His face was masked with rage. The tendons in his neck and wrists stood out in sharp outline against his skin.

“But my grandfather never cared about the money. All he ever wanted to do was clear his name. A name you probably barely recognized—if you even did at all. To you, he’s just a nonentity out there. He killed a relative of yours that you’ve never met for a reason you’ve probably never even been curious about in a time before you were born. You have no connection to your grandfather, my grandfather or the incident that changed my grandfather’s life and his family’s lives forever. You have no clue what our life was like because someone in your family decided to kill Con Delancey and frame my granddad for the murder.” He pounded his chest twice with his fist.