“Well,” she paused and Jack saw her lips tremble. “She had a stroke sometime yesterday, and during the night she died. Mama just told me.”
Claire Delancey dead? Jack’s brain whirled. How was that going to affect his plan? Had vital information about Con Delancey’s death died with his sister?
Cara Lynn lifted a shaky hand to her mouth. He looked at her. Her eyes were dry, but the glow was gone from their blue depths. “Are you okay?” he asked. “I know you loved her a lot.”
She smiled sadly. “I’m going to miss her horribly. She lived in France for my entire life, but I’ve spent summers over there since I was ten.”
“She was your grandfather’s sister?” he asked.
Cara Lynn nodded. “And my grandmother’s best friend.”
“Oh, yeah?” He remembered. That was why his grandfather was sure Claire had important information about Con’s death.
Cara Lynn sighed and Jack put his arm around her and kissed her temple. “I’m sorry,” he said. For more than one reason.
“There’s Mama. She’s waving at us. Come on. Maybe the press is here and we can get that part of the reception over with.”
Jack looked across the room at Betty Delancey, who stood with one hand on the back of her husband Robert’s wheelchair. Next to her was a thin, dour man in a business suit who held a gray metal lockbox. Jack figured he ought to have a chain and a handcuff, or, given how tightly he was holding the box, maybe he didn’t. He started to ask Cara Lynn who the guy was and what was in the box, but she pointed toward the tall front doors.
“Look over there. Do you recognize the man and woman coming this way? They’re the co-anchors of a local news show. They’re here to interview us, take pictures and do a write-up of our romantic elopement and, of course, the large reception my family is giving us tonight.”
“News show? Really?” Jack stopped cold in his tracks.
“What’s wrong?” Cara Lynn asked teasingly. “Are you camera shy?”
The words camera shy didn’t even begin to describe what Jack was feeling. News show meant cameras, and cameras meant exposure. Jack was nobody in comparison to the Delanceys, but he knew that because of who they were, he would be in the spotlight for a few hours or days until the next society story came along.
His mother was in Florida, and he’d worked and lived in Biloxi for the past nine years. With any luck, none of his friends there would pay much attention to a two minute segment of society news from the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain.
“Jack?”
“It’s okay. I just don’t like being thrust into the spotlight by surprise,” he said. “I’ll manage.” He could tell his friends that he’d finally changed his name legally. They knew that he’d always wanted to get rid of the Francophied Jacques.
It took several minutes for the co-anchors to set the stage for the interview. Meanwhile, Jack saw the dour man with the box lean in a couple of times and whisper something to Cara Lynn’s mother, triggering a shake of her head and a hand gesture that obviously meant something like just hang in there. It won’t be long now.
“What’s that box?” he finally asked Cara Lynn.
“I’m not sure, but it could be—”
A man in a baseball cap with the TV station’s letters on it waved at them. The way he was throwing out orders and waving his arms, Jack figured he was probably the director. “Could you two get over here please,” he said, motioning them toward him. He proceeded to get them positioned just right for the video and still shots, then introduced Jack and Cara Lynn to the co-anchors.
Despite the fact that they appeared to be slavering at the idea of sinking their teeth into the youngest Delancey grandchild, Cara Lynn was gracious and polite. Jack had learned that about her as soon as he’d met her. She was probably the most compassionate person he’d ever known. Her condolences were never disingenuous, her delight never false, her disappointment never exaggerated or tempered. With Cara Lynn, if she said it she meant it.
The entire filming was over within about five minutes. The only thing either of the co-anchors had asked Jack was what it felt like to be thrust into such a large and famous family. Jack had given an innocuous answer and smiled for the camera. Then he was dismissed and the spotlight was on Cara Lynn and her parents.
“Okay, people,” the man in the baseball cap shouted. “That should do it.” He turned to Cara Lynn’s mother. “We’ve already taken long shots of the house, so we’re out of here. I’ll send you proofs and you can determine how many of each you might like to have for your personal remembrances.”
All the photographers and engineers and crew headed for the doors. Cara Lynn’s mother looked around. “Are we just family and friends now?” she asked the tall, good-looking man standing on the other side of Cara Lynn.
“I think so,” the man said. He took advantage of his height and looked around the large open hall. Then he walked over to Jack. “I think you’ve probably met just about everybody else by now. I’m Lucas Delancey, Cara Lynn’s oldest brother. I’ve been outside keeping an eye on the TV crew.” He held out his hand.
Jack shook it. “I’m Jack Bush, but I’m betting you already know that.”
Lucas smiled. “Well, I am a detective,” he said. “Excuse me.” Lucas walked over to the middle of the room and called out. “Hey, everybody. My mother has a presentation to make to our lovely little Cara Lynn. Everybody want to gather around?”
“Now what?” Jack whispered to Cara Lynn.
“I don’t know. Nobody ever tells me anything. They spend all their time ‘protecting’ me.” She emphasized the word with air quotes. “All I know is my mother was determined to have a reception for us since we, and I quote, ‘deprived her of the North Shore wedding of the season.’”
“Really?”
Cara Lynn took his arm. “Of course. Don’t you know how much havoc you created in the Delancey family by sweeping me away to a hurried justice of the peace wedding and no honeymoon and worst of all, no media coverage?”
“Then I guess I apologize.”
“Don’t apologize to me. Why do you think I agreed to elope? Save the apologies for my mother.”
Jack watched as she, like everyone else in the room, turned toward Betty Delancey.
“Hello,” Betty said from the front of the room. “I want to thank all of you for coming.”
Jack tuned out most of what Betty said. Instead, he paid attention to the man with the lockbox, wondering when he was going to open the mysterious container, and of course, what was inside it. His grandfather had always talked about Lilibelle Guillame Delancey’s last journal, the one she’d written in compulsively for hours and hours during the days following Con Delancey’s death.
He heard Lilibelle’s name and turned his attention back to what Betty was saying as she began to explain why Cara Lynn had been left a special inheritance from her grandmother, Lilibelle Guillame.
“She was the youngest child and the only granddaughter,” Betty said, “since at the time we all thought her dear cousin Rosemary was dead.”
There were murmurs and whispers all around Jack. He couldn’t, by any means, remember all the people he’d met tonight. After all, he knew that in addition to the eleven grandchildren and their spouses, there were other relatives and some close friends present.
Then her mother called