Windswept (15 page)

A flash of lightning and a rumble of thunder drew her attention from the papers to the patio. It began to rain, and for a moment she watched the drops falling into the pool until its silvery surface danced from their impact. She hoped Davis had finished his game without getting wet. At least she and the papers were high and dry.

Another five envelopes later, documents filled the floor. She laid out the contents of the fifth envelope, stuck on a sticky note designating its year and tiptoed down the little path she’d left between lines of pages. She sat down in the middle and surveyed the scene. There was no order to the way the envelopes had been placed in the box; what she had spread out ranged from 1832 to 1854. The box was still half full and she had no more floor space, so it was time to record these before opening the remainder. She’d stack the envelopes in order when she returned them to the box If there were bills of sale for even half of the four hundred slaves registered to the plantation in 1860, she had a long way to go. She reached for the first envelope’s contents.

“Who are you?”
a woman’s startled and suspicious voice asked.

Barrett looked up to behold a vision. The woman in the doorway was beautiful, downright dazzling. She was tall, maybe five-nine or –ten, as nearly as Barrett could tell from her position on the floor. Slim and sleek, too. If she’d been out in the storm, she certainly didn’t show it. She was impeccable from the top of her long, wavy blond hair highlighted with platinum streaks to the tips of her long red fingernails to the bottom of her creamy leather stiletto-heel sandals. The rest of her wore what Barrett surmised was at least a thousand dollars worth of designer pants suit. The suit’s color was the light yellow Barrett couldn’t wear unless she wanted to look like she had jaundice.

The vision’s lipstick matched her fingernail color and emphasized the soft plumpness of her lips. The lips themselves went from the “U” shape in “you” to a straight line and her perfect brows drew together in a frown over light brown eyes as she glared down her small, straight nose at Barrett.

“Where’s Davis?” she asked, but didn’t give Barrett a chance to answer her questions. Instead, she turned her head slightly and spoke in the direction of the hall, “Gonzales? What’s going on here?” She put one hand on her hip and waved the other at Barrett.

“Mrs. Reed,” Gonzales said from behind her, “as I told you, Mr. Jamison is not here.”

“And who is this sweet, young thing?” The woman pointed at the documents. “And what is all this mess?” She took two steps into the office and stopped with the toe of a sandal on top of one of the pages that happened to be at the edge of the butcher paper.

Barrett shut her open mouth and rose, thankful she was able to do so fairly gracefully. She knew her slovenly clothing had made the wrong impression, but her dress was no call for rudeness. And she certainly wasn’t going to let this person, whoever she was, no matter how perfect, walk all over her documents.

“My name is Barrett Browning, and ‘this mess’ is part of the papers of the Windswept Plantation. Would you please step back? As you can see, some of the pages are in fragile condition.” She pointed at the offending shoe and used her teacher tone of voice. It seemed to work because the woman stepped back about six inches.

“
Maestra
, this is Mrs. Reed,” Gonzales said, sounding embarrassed, “Mrs. Reed, this is Professor Browning. She is making an inventory of the papers from the plantation of Mr. Jamison’s grandfather.”

“Oh, yes, I read the old . . . ‘gentleman’ had died.” She sniffed, took a tissue out of her purse, and dabbed her nose. “They certainly stink, don’t they?”

If anything stunk, it wasn’t the papers, Barrett thought as the woman’s movement caused a swirl of air and carried the scent of her perfume over the box to Barrett’s nose. The cloying smell reeked of sexuality. Mrs. Reed must fancy herself as a femme fatale.

Barrett ignored the question and said instead, “It was nice to meet you. If you’ll excuse me, I must get back to work.” She accompanied the statement with a direct look to imply the sooner Mrs. Reed was gone, the better.

Mrs. Reed returned the tissue to her purse. With an expression of speculation, she stared at Barrett, then said, “Give Davis a message from me, Gonzales.”

“Tell me yourself, Sandra.” Davis’s voice rang out from the hall, and he filled the doorway.

“Oh, Davis!” Sandra Reed exclaimed with a smile of seeming delight. As she turned toward him, she stepped back, her thin heel puncturing one of the papers under her feet.

“Don’t move!” Barrett cried and carefully knelt so she could reach the document.

“What?” Sandra asked, and her other foot shifted, narrowly missing another bill of sale.

Davis grabbed her by the shoulders and held her in place. “Don’t move,” he ordered. “Barrett, can you take the document off her heel?”

“Just a minute,” Barrett said, rapidly stacking the papers to the side. As soon as she had created a safe area around the skewered page, she put her gloved fingers around the stiletto above the paper. “Okay, lift up your right foot and I’ll slide the paper off.” She glanced up to Sandra’s smirking face and wished she could crack the heel right off.

Sandra did as requested, and Barrett maneuvered the paper down and away from the sandal. She rose and inspected the mutilation.

“Is it badly damaged?” Davis asked. He let go of Sandra and leaned to look over Barrett’s shoulder at the document. “What is it?”

“It’s a bill of sale for one of the slaves,” Barrett replied as she smoothed the hole closed. “She didn’t hit any vital information. We can still read the date, the slave’s name and the price.”

“Good.” Davis gave her a grim smile, then turned to Sandra. “If you want to talk to me, let’s go into the living room.” He pointed a hand toward the door.

Sandra looked Barrett up and down once more, smiled brilliantly at Davis, and, head high, sailed from the room. His face set in uncompromising lines, Davis followed her out.

Barrett breathed a sigh of relief.

“I apologize,
maestra
,” Gonzales said. “She walked in before I could stop her.”

“Who is she,
don Jesus
?”

“Mr. Jamison’s ex-wife.” He said the words with a look of profound distaste on his face. Then he left.

“Oh,” Barrett said to herself as she started to reorganize the papers. “The ‘nasty’ divorce Phil mentioned. Whoa. What a bitch.” She took a minute to wonder how Davis could ever have married that woman and could only shake her head in puzzlement. Thank goodness she didn’t have to put up with Mrs. Reed. “I’d show her what a ‘sweet, young thing’ I really am,” she grumbled, “and probably get kicked out on my rear.”

***

Davis ushered Sandra into the living room, but did not suggest she sit down. He wanted her out as soon as possible. He planted his feet and crossed his arms over his chest. “What’s this all about?”

Sandra sauntered around the room, trailed a fingertip over the back of a Barcelona chair, and ran her hand over the smooth leather of the couch. Davis wondered if she were casing the joint.

She finally turned to him with one of her patented, down-her-nose expressions and a sly smile. “You know, this room looks as good as it ever did. I really did a marvelous job decorating the front of this house--and our bedroom, of course. I hope you haven’t changed it either. But why didn’t you ever let me do the same for the office wing? It still looks simply horrible, so plebeian.”

He kept his face neutral, his eyes half-lidded. No way in hell was he going to make small talk or rehash old arguments. “Get to the point.”

“I just wanted you to know I’m back in Houston now--permanently.”

“What happened to Joe Reed? Did he finally throw you out?”

“Oh, Davis, don’t be crude. Let’s just say we came to an amicable parting of the ways--much more harmoniously than you and I managed, I might add.”

Davis grunted. It wouldn’t take much for any divorce to be more civil than theirs was, but he wasn’t about to give her an opening to discuss the acrimonious event again. Sandra looked like she was enjoying this conversation--a little too much for his comfort.

She wanted something. She
always
wanted something. Why else would she be paying him a call? She evidently hadn’t learned that he’d give her nothing, ever again. But she was still playing those games of hers, and equally as always, she’d never come right out and tell him what she was after. He waited, keeping his negotiating face in place.

“And who is the little girl in your office? Such a cute thing, and so dedicated to those musty old documents. I thought she was going to break my heel when she removed that old piece of paper.”

He debated not saying a word, but knew he’d get rid of her sooner if he answered a couple of her questions. “She’s a professor of history. She’s inventorying the Windswept papers for me.”

“And she’s staying here while she does?”

Sandra had certainly jumped to the conclusion quickly. “Yes. It’s a big job.”

She didn’t look too pleased with the information, but she smiled with a patently false brightness and removed a card from her purse. “Here,” she said, handing it to him. “My address and phone numbers. We must get together sometime, Davis . . . for old time’s sake.”

Davis took the card, glanced at it, stuck it in a pocket. The address was a fancy high-rise condo not far from the Galleria. Her name was printed on the card as Sandra Hillsborough Jamison Reed. He wished once again he could have legally taken his name from her as part of the divorce settlement.

“Let me show you out.” He turned, walked to the front door, and opened it. A cold draft of damp air swirled into the entry hall.

Gonzales materialized from the back hall and handed him a wet yellow umbrella. “Mrs. Reed’s.”

“Thank you,” Davis said and held it out, handle first, toward Sandra. He stared at her until she shrugged and, with a smirk, sashayed up to him to take the umbrella.

She paused directly in front of him, flipped her hair back in that would-be seductive gesture she had, and ran a long red fingernail down his chest. “Let’s see each other soon, Davis,” she suggested in the low, breathy voice she used as a come-on.

Davis almost laughed in her face. Did she think, after what she had done to him, he was remotely interested in her? He remembered her seduction routine only too well. Her heavy perfume filled his nostrils. It had once ensnared him in a trap of gut-wrenching lust, but now it made him want to puke--probably not the reaction she was going for. He kept his expression blank, his gaze level, and his mouth shut.

When his non-responsiveness registered, Sandra looked slightly shocked, certainly unhappy--like she almost couldn’t believe she wasn’t having her usual effect on a man. He opened the door a little wider and moved back. When she stepped outside, Davis shut the door and locked it. Through the peephole, he saw Sandra spin around and scowl at the door. Then she put her umbrella up and stalked off toward her car.

Gonzales spoke from behind him. “I’m sorry, Mr. Jamison. She walked in right past me.”

“It’s all right. Both of us together probably couldn’t have stopped her.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He grinned at Gonzales. “If she tries another stunt like this again when I’m not here, sic Eva on her. She’ll get rid of Sandra without either of us having to lift a finger.”

“Yes, sir,” the houseman replied with a return grin.

Davis walked back to the office and halted at the doorway. Barrett was down on her hands and knees again, stacking the bills of sale into orderly piles. She stopped and looked up.

“I apologize for the . . . intrusion. I hope she didn’t do any damage.” Of any kind, he added mentally.

Barrett picked up a stack and rose. “There’s no need to apologize. As I said, her shoe didn’t obliterate any important information.” She walked around the desk, sat, fiddled with the papers and said, “Mrs. Reed is your ex-wife,
don Jesus
said.” She flicked a glance up at him and back down to the papers.

Davis moved to the front of the desk, put his hands in his pockets and considered her reaction. Her voice was nonchalant, but her movements were jerky as she straightened the pages. She was curious, but too polite to ask the questions undoubtedly running through her mind. Although he hated to think about Sandra, much less talk about her, he owed Barrett some kind of explanation after the episode.

“Yeah, that was Sandra. We’ve been divorced over five years. She’s been living in Dallas with her second husband, Joe Reed. They split and she’s moved back here--why, I can’t imagine because her family is in Dallas. But, Barrett . . .”

She looked up and he caught her gaze with his own. “You don’t have to worry about her. She won’t be back.”

Barrett stared at him. His eyes had turned to hazel granite, and she had no doubt at all he meant every word he said. Then he was grinned at her, and what was becoming a familiar warmth returned to his eyes.

“Besides,” he said, “if she comes back at all, I told Gonzales to aim Eva at her. They never liked each other, and Eva practically threw her clothes out the front door when she left.”

Barrett had to laugh as the mental image of short, round Eva taking on tall, thin Sandra. “I had the notion Eva could be a whirlwind when she needed to.”

Davis glanced at the bills of sale. “Now, what did you find?”

The subject of Sandra obviously closed, Barrett laid out some of the documents on the desk so he could read without touching them. “We can compare these names to the census and other records for an accurate portrait of the slave population. These envelopes appear to be the slaves the plantation purchased. I haven’t yet found any documents showing those Edgar Jamison sold.”

Davis looked closely at the piece of paper Sandra had punctured and read the spidery writing aloud. “
‘January 25, 1845. Received from Edgar Jamison, the sum of five hundred twenty-five dollars for Salome, a 20-year-old female in prime condition.’
” A grim look on his face, Davis straightened up. “What a despicable business.”