His mother nodded. “On this, we’re in complete agreement.”
“Okay,” Carter said, “so when you locate the other two sisters, you’ll get them to coordinate a date?”
“Actually, the girls don’t have to occupy the property at the same time. As they are adults with lives already in place, they will start occupation at a time that’s convenient for them. Assuming, of course, that abandoning your life and moving to the swamp for two weeks is ever convenient.”
Carter felt some of the wind come out of his sails. “You mean I might have to do this three times?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Carter looked over at the expectant expression on his mother’s face. Even though every fiber of his body screamed at him to sprint away from this convoluted family mess, the reality was his mother rarely asked him for anything, and doing this would make her happy.
“Fine. Has the located sister set a date yet?”
“She’s the oldest and, as a matter of fact, was available to come immediately.”
“Not much of a life if she can drop everything in a matter of days,” Carter mumbled.
His mother swatted him with her napkin.
“She’s not wanted for anything, is she?” Carter asked.
“Carter!” His mother stared at him in dismay.
William chuckled. “Nothing of the sort. She’d just resigned her position as an attorney and wants to use the time to contemplate the direction she wishes to take her career.”
“An attorney. Great.”
“Oh, she’s quite good. Went to work for one of the best firms in Baton Rouge after graduating top of her class at Boston College.”
“A lawyer and a Yankee—the hits just keep on coming.”
His mother sighed. “Alaina was probably seven years old before she was shipped off to a distant cousin in New England. I expect she hasn’t forgotten everything about Southern living or she wouldn’t have moved back after getting her education. It’s not like she has other family here.”
“She’s about the same age as me, right?” Carter asked. “How come I don’t remember her?”
“Ophelia didn’t allow her to attend school with other kids. She claimed homeschooling was the best education, but I often wondered if that was Trenton’s idea and not hers. She was a social woman before Trenton came along. But after their marriage, you almost never saw her out in Calais.”
Carter frowned. The entire situation stank to high heaven. “What I don’t get is, how come none of them came back before now?”
William shrugged. “I can’t answer for the girls. I’m sure they all had their reasons, but I am certain none of them knew about the stipulations in their mother’s will. This inheritance is completely unexpected, so I would hazard a guess that they felt they had no reason to return.”
“So all I have to do is check in every day and make sure they’re still on the estate, right?”
“That’s it. I’ll leave the scheduling to you, but I’ve made Alaina aware that she needs to work around your job.”
“And she had no problem with that?”
“She’s an attorney. She has a lot of respect for law enforcement.”
“Then she’s not like the attorneys I’ve known—present company excluded, of course.”
“I appreciate your handling this for me.” William rose from the table, wisely deciding not to overstay his welcome. Carter’s mother followed him to the front door where he gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“Call me if you need anything,” William said.
“Of course,” his mother said. “And don’t worry, I’ll see that Carter doesn’t scare the woman away from her inheritance.”
His mother closed the door, then came back into the kitchen and sat down again, frowning.
“I don’t like it,” Carter said.
“I don’t either, but not for the same reasons.”
“What about it bothers you?”
She gazed out the back window and shook her head. “I can’t put my finger on it. I never liked Trenton Purcell. I always got a bad feeling in his presence. After he and Ophelia married, they pretty much disappeared from society, and I don’t think he left the house even once after Ophelia’s death. He didn’t even attend her funeral.”
“Sounds like a stellar guy.”
His mother nodded. “No one liked him, but until then, we had nothing concrete to point at and say, ‘He’s completely wrong.’”
“But?” Carter was certain she hadn’t finished her thoughts on Purcell, and he knew his mother well enough to know that her “feelings” about things were not something he should ignore. He didn’t know what made her so intuitive, but she’d been right so many times about seemingly straightforward things that weren’t straightforward at all that he’d started paying attention when she got the least bit uneasy.
“But something about all of this doesn’t add up for me.” She held up a hand to stop him before he could speak. “I don’t think William sees anything unusual except for the legal arrangement itself, which is apparently aboveboard, so don’t go thinking he’s keeping something from us.”
“It bothers me,” Carter agreed, “and I didn’t even know the man, except by rare sighting when we sneaked onto the property as kids. But if he married the woman for her money, then abandoned her kids when she died, I expect you wouldn’t get a good feeling about him.”
“Certainly not, but it’s more than that.” She reached over to place her hand on top of his. “Promise me you’ll be careful. Be more watchful than usual. That you won’t dismiss anything to do with that house or the girls as simple oddity or coincidence.”
He frowned. His mother’s concern for him and others was nothing new. She was a wonderful woman with a huge heart. The concern didn’t bother him at all.
But the fear in her voice did.
ALAINA TURNED HER SUV onto a narrow dirt road that seemed to lead directly into the swamp. The cypress trees were so thick overhead that they almost formed a canopy over the road, the moss clinging to the limbs blocking everything but the stray ray of sunshine from creeping through.
Her right front wheel sank into a huge dip and she pressed the gas to push the vehicle out of the hole. It’s a good thing I didn’t go for the convertible sports car. She wouldn’t have given a low-profile car a hundred yards on this road before it left the driver stranded.
She glanced down at the directions she’d received from the attorney, to double-check the accuracy, but she already knew she was on the right road. Details were her specialty and the attorney had given very descriptive instructions. She just needed to come to grips with the fact that it looked as if she was driving into the abyss.
She’d just turned seven years old when her mother passed and she’d gone to live with a distant cousin in Boston. The woman and her husband hadn’t been well-off, but they’d loved her and cared for her as they had their own son and daughter. But despite the fact that they’d all made her feel welcome and loved, she’d never felt as though Boston was home, not even when she was living in the college dorms.
All those years, it was as if Louisiana called to her, beckoning her to return home. She hadn’t taken that call to be literal, because she’d thought her