This shocked Waters. “I’m sorry, Sybil. I didn’t know you were having to cover for him to that extent.”
She shrugged. “I figured it went with the job.”
“It doesn’t. Though I’m sure Cole appreciates it.”
She closed up then, with a hard tightening of the skin around her lips and eyes.
“I didn’t mean to suggest—”
“I know,” she cut in. “But that’s what this is about, isn’t it? You want to know if I’m sleeping with him.”
Waters started to deny it, then gave up. “Sybil, if you’re having a relationship with Cole, it’s unprofessional and dangerous for the company. But you’re both adults, and that kind of danger is the least of our problems right now.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
She nodded, and something seemed to come loose inside her. “I’m really scared, John. I think he owes some Vegas loan sharks. I’m from South Louisiana, and I know what they do to you when you don’t pay your debts.”
“I can tell you really care about him. I care about him too. May I just ask you what I need to?”
“Go ahead.”
“Are you having sex with him?”
She averted her eyes for a moment. “Not now,” she said finally. “But I was. Until about a month ago.”
Until just before I saw Eve at the soccer field, Waters thought. “What ended it?”
“I’m not really sure. I think it may be the trouble he’s in. I don’t think he’s sleeping with anyone else.”
Penn’s theory came back to him like a knife in the belly. “Let’s change the subject for a second. Has my wife called up here for Cole lately? Or in the past few months? Or has he called her?”
Sybil looked as if something had suddenly occurred to her. “Do you think he’s having an affair with Mrs. Waters?”
“No, no. This has to do with money.”
“Oh.” She sniffed, then looked at the ceiling as she thought back. “No, I don’t think so. Wait—your wife did call for him once or twice in the past month. I just didn’t think anything of it at the time.”
“How many times did they talk, do you think?”
“Three, maybe? Four at the most.”
“Do you know what they talked about? Did you ever listen in?”
“No!”
“Did they have any other contact that you know of?”
“No.”
Waters made a mental note to request Lily’s cell phone records. “Sybil, what do you think about Cole?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Your bottom-line opinion, as a woman. Is he a good guy? A bad guy? What?”
She sighed and looked at the floor. Clearly she had spent a good deal of time pondering this question. “I’m really mad at him right now. Sometimes I think I hate him. But deep down, I think he’s a good man. I wouldn’t have slept with him if I didn’t think that. Will he ever leave his wife for me? I doubt it. But he has a good heart.”
Until this week, Waters would have agreed with her assessment. “Do you think he’d ever betray me, Sybil?”
“How? Like, do I think he’d sleep with your wife?”
“No. I mean over money. To save himself.”
“Never. He might sleep with your wife. Sex is an exception to every rule. But hurt you to save himself? No way. You have no idea how much your good opinion means to him. You’re sort of like a father to Cole, even though you’re the same age. He says you always do the right thing, and he never does. And he’s pretty close to right.”
“I don’t always do the right thing.”
“Well, nobody does, do they? But I’ve known a lot of men, and I’ve never known one like you. Your wife is really lucky. I hope she knows that.”
Waters could see how Cole could fall for this woman. The sincerity in her eyes made you want to please her, to make her feel all the happiness she could.
“Cole hasn’t come back in, has he?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t think he will today.”
“Okay. Look, I appreciate your being so forthcoming. Why don’t you go home? There’s nothing going on. Take a long nap, and then get yourself a good dinner tonight. Go to the Castle, and bring me the receipt.”
Sybil gave him an ironic smile. “Wendy’s tonight. I’m too bummed out for anything else.”
He laughed with her, then motioned for her to go. “Don’t worry, Sybil. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to Cole.”
She paused by the door and nodded gravely. “I just hope it’s not too late.”
“I do too,” he said softly, after she’d gone out.
At 1:50 P.M., Waters stood on top of Jewish Hill, looking out over the Mississippi River. After Sybil left, he’d called St. Stephens to verify that Annelise was in class. Then he’d shut down the office and driven straight to the cemetery. He needed time to think before he faced Lily again, and this was the place that drew him. He hadn’t much time. Ana would be dismissed from school at 2:30, and he wanted to be there to pick her up. He didn’t want her alone with Lily until he knew exactly what was going on.
As he watched a large sailing vessel make its way beneath the twin bridges over the river, a funeral cortege pulled up to the first gate of the cemetery and turned into its new section. The new section looked like any cemetery in any town in America. The gravestones were low and the ground flat, and there were few trees to break up the view. Waters was glad he’d managed to purchase a family plot in one of the older sections, shaded by oak trees and bordered by walls and wrought iron. It probably didn’t matter to the dead where they came to rest, but for those left behind, atmosphere made a difference. He’d spent enough time at his father’s grave to know that.
About five hundred yards from Jewish Hill, a green burial tent faded by the sun awaited the funeral procession. He hadn’t noticed it when he drove up. The tent kept the sun or rain from the open grave, the coffin, and the immediate family and close relations. The cars in the procession parked bumper-to-bumper in a long line, thirty or forty of them blocking the narrow lane. The headlights were extinguished, and then dark-suited mourners emerged from the vehicles and gathered in a somber circle around the tent. Waters had been to a hundred burials exactly like this one: the same tent, the same hearse, virtually the same crowd. That was how it was in small towns.
As he watched, a late arrival turned in through the wrong gate and began looking for a lane that would lead to the burial service. A sign on the car’s door read, SUMNER SELECT PROPERTIES. It took a moment for the significance of this to register, but as the latecomer turned and drove toward the green tent, Waters’s face felt cold.
Eve Sumner was lying under that burial tent. Cold and still with an ugly Y-incision stitched into her torso from the autopsy. She was about to be buried right before his eyes.
His first instinct was to flee. Tom Jackson might be in the crowd of mourners, watching to see who showed up at the murder victim’s funeral. Waters looked back at his Land Cruiser. Satisfied that it was parked out of sight of the burial tent, he walked over to a wrought-iron fence bordering old Jewish graves from Alsace and Bohemia and sat down against it. Anyone at the burial would need binoculars to make out his face at this distance, and sitting in front of the fence, he was unlikely to be noticed at all.
Eve’s mother and teenage son would be under that tent, grief-stricken and confused, roses and Kleenex clenched in their hands. Morbidly, Waters wondered how many men in that crowd had coupled with Eve while she was alive. It would probably please her to know they had come to her final farewell. Then again, he reflected, he might have no idea what Eve would have wanted. Because he might never have known the real Eve.
No matter how imaginatively Penn Cage twisted events to fit his logical explanations, Waters remained unconvinced. And not because of denial. No man wanted to think his wife and best friend might be trying to drive him mad. But he had not accepted Eve’s story of soul transmigration simpl
y to avoid an unpleasant truth. He’d believed the things Eve told him because they felt true. Her intimate knowledge, the way she kissed him, her pushing of every limit in search of ecstasy, her desire to possess him totally—all these were the essence of Mallory Candler. Penn might believe Waters was enmeshed in a complex conspiracy designed to deprive him of his sanity, his freedom, and finally his money. But Penn could not know what Waters did.
He could not know that Cole, while weak where his vices were concerned, had always been a rock about the big things. Friendship. Loyalty. Fatherhood. At his core, Cole—like Waters—had struggled to live up to the John Wayne/Henry Fonda images that their fathers had revered and tried hard to inculcate in their sons. Yes, Cole might sell a pumping unit for quick cash when he was in a bind. But what he had said at the country club still resonated. I’d go down with my legs broken and a bullet in my head before I’d do something to hurt you or your family. It might be naive, but Waters believed in the ultimate goodness of his best friend. If that was stupidity, he was willing to pay the price for it.
And Penn knew nothing of Lily beyond her public face. He could not know that before she had her miscarriages, Lily had been an attentive wife and lover, but not a gifted or accomplished one. Even if she were trying to convince Waters that she was Mallory reincarnated, Lily could never separate love and lust enough to handle him in the brutally physical manner that she had last night. It simply was not in her.
Across the cemetery, the dark knot of mourners began to break up and return to their cars. Gravediggers would soon lower Eve Sumner’s body into the ground. But whatever she really was—whatever made her Eve—had vacated her body three nights ago in the Eola Hotel, if not long before. Who was the woman he had made love to for two weeks? If he was right about Cole and Lily, the answer to that question was something no one would ever believe. Not Penn Cage. Not Tom Jackson. Not anyone who hadn’t lived through what Waters himself had. Not without proof.
“I have to know,” he said aloud. “Once and for all.”
The mourners’ cars pulled out of the cemetery like a slow train with a big black Cadillac hearse for a caboose. As he watched them go, Waters knew there was only one place he could go to get the answer he needed. Home.
Walking back toward his Land Cruiser, he glanced at his watch. It was 2:24 P.M. His heart stuttered. The sight of Eve’s burial had made him lose track of time. Annelise would be dismissed from school in six minutes. Lily could be waiting in line right now to pick her up.
“Jesus,” he whispered, and he broke into a run.
chapter 15
Waters ran a red light and accelerated to sixty-five as fear poured like corrosive acid through his veins. He’d missed Annelise at school. One cell phone call to the elementary school office had determined that Rose had picked her up, and Rose’s cell phone wasn’t switched on. Which meant Annelise might already be home with Lily. The implications of this were almost more than he could stand. At the cemetery he’d decided he trusted his wife and his best friend. That meant there was no conspiracy to drive him crazy or frame him for murder. Which meant everything “Eve Sumner” had told him was true. He had never even met the real Eve, except perhaps in the panicked seconds before he lost consciousness in the hotel. Yet while he “slept,” his hands had strangled the life out of her, guided by the twisted soul of Mallory Candler. And now Mallory was alone with Annelise, hidden in Lily’s unsuspecting mind.
Waters turned onto State Street, stomped on the gas pedal, and rawhided the Land Cruiser through two lines of double-parked cars. His fear was not for Annelise alone. Right now, the real danger was to Lily. Penn’s comment about Lily’s resurgent sex drive echoed in his mind: Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Some men might think having Lily Waters and Mallory Candler in the same body was a gift from the gods, especially if you got Lily for the day shift and Mallory at night. It was the madonna-whore fantasy brought to life. Only Waters knew that this state of affairs would not last. Now that Mallory was this close to him, she would not be satisfied to coexist peacefully with Lily. Mallory Candler did not share. She would use all her power to control Lily, to dominate her, and finally to exterminate all trace of her from the body Mallory sought to inhabit.
Then the danger would shift to Annelise. For no matter what fantasies Mallory might have of domestic bliss, she would ultimately view Ana as a threat. A living reminder of Lily. And sooner or later, she would act to remove that threat. Just as she had removed Eve Sumner.
“Mallory killed Eve,” Waters said aloud.
He hit the brakes and swerved into his driveway, then tore up toward the house. Rose’s Saturn was still parked out front, and this brought him palpable relief. With Rose still here, he wouldn’t have to wait until Annelise went to bed to see Lily alone. He skidded to a stop by the front porch, shut off the engine, and ran inside.
“Daddy!” Annelise cried from the end of the hall. She was crossing between rooms with Pebbles in her arms.
“Hey, punkin!” he called, running to her and sweeping her up in his arms. “Where’s Rose?”
“Who’s running in my house?” bellowed Rose, coming into the hall. “I should have known. I’m glad you’re here, Mr. John. I need to go early today.”
“Where’s Lily?”
“She sleeping. She been tired most all day.”
Thank God. “Rose, is there any way you can stay an extra hour?”
The maid looked doubtful. “My sister needs me to stop off at the drugstore for her potassium.”
“Is it critical? I really need you, Rose.”
The black woman studied Waters’s face, then said, “I guess I could get my no-count nephew to get them pills. If his car’s running.”
“Thank you, Rose. Can you take Annelise outside and play for a few minutes? I’ll come join you before long.”
Rose nodded, her face creased with suspicion. “Come on, girl,” she said to Annelise. “Put that mangy old cat down and bring my cell phone out to the swing set.”
“Pebbles isn’t mangy,” Ana retorted, knowing Rose’s gibes were all in fun.
“Hmm,” Rose growled.
Ana darted into the kitchen for the cell phone, then ran for the back door. Rose followed slowly, her big hips swinging with patient determination.
As soon as she cleared the door, Waters walked back to the master bedroom and opened the door. Lily lay on her side beneath the covers, breathing deeply.
He walked over and started to touch her shoulder, then drew back his hand. What could he say? How could he know if Mallory or Lily was in control at any given moment? He couldn’t simply ask Lily if she was Mallory. If Lily awakened as herself, his words would confuse and even frighten her. And if she awakened as Mallory, she might simply lie. He closed the bedroom door, but before he could think of a sensible way to learn the truth, Lily rolled over and opened her eyes.
“John?” she said in a sleepy voice. “What are you doing home? What time is it?”
“I’m back from work, babe. It’s suppertime.”
She rubbed her eyes. “God…I must have slept all afternoon.”
He sat beside her on the bed. “Do you feel sick?”
“No, just…out of it. It’s weird, like jet lag or something. Where’s Ana?”
“Outside with Rose. I asked Rose to stay late.”
“Why? I’ll get up.”
“Not yet.” He leaned over her. “Do you remember what you did today?”
Lily nodded. “Yes, I…” She blinked several times, then looked blankly around the room. “I guess I don’t remember.”
Waters looked into his wife’s bewildered eyes. All his instincts told him Lily was herself now. But even if she were, what could he say to her? I think you’re possessed by the soul of my old lover? No, what he needed to do was bring Mallory to the surface. But how to make her reveal herself? Actions speak louder than words, said a voice in his head.
Lily threw aside the bedcovers and started to get up. Waters took hold
of her shoulders and gently pushed her back down. “You don’t have to rush,” he said. “Annelise is fine with Rose.”
“I’m okay,” Lily assured him. “Really. I can get up.”
Waters laid the flat of his hand between her breasts and rubbed softly. “What if I don’t want you to get up?”
Her eyes widened in surprise.
“I’ve been thinking about last night,” he said. “All day.”
After staring at him for a moment, Lily reached out and touched his thigh. “That feels good,” she said.
His fingers went to the buttons of her silk nightshirt and opened the top three. As he leaned down to her breasts, he felt her hands entwine in the hair behind his head. He kissed gently at first, but as the pink flesh swelled in his mouth, he withdrew his tongue and bit the nipple.
“Hey,” Lily protested. “Easy, okay?”
Waters murmured his assent, but he knew he would have to go further to awaken Mallory. For a while he caressed Lily’s breasts in the way she had always liked. Then he kissed his way up to her left ear. “I want you now,” he whispered. “Are you ready?”
Lily shifted her thighs, then made a sound low in her throat. “I think so.”
He unbuckled his belt and slipped off his pants. Lily took hold of his shirt and pulled him across her, then kissed his mouth. As she parted her legs, he touched her cheek and said, “I want to be behind you.”
Lily looked uncertain. “I want to see your face.”
“I know.” He shut his heart and focused on what he had to do. “But you know what I like.”
Confusion clouded Lily’s eyes, but after a few moments of reflection, she kissed him, then rolled over and got onto all fours. “Go slow,” she said. “I’m not that ready.”
Waters knelt behind her, rubbing and kissing her lower back. Lily remained still. Mallory would have arched her back, catlike, against his hand. He wasn’t sure exactly what to do next, but he knew in his soul that he was right. Given the right stimulus, Mallory would betray herself. She would be unable to resist. He slapped Lily on the rump, hard enough to sting.