Veil of Night: A Novel

Chapter Nine

JACLYN HEAVED A SIGH OF RELIEF WHEN SHE ENTERED the cool, quiet sanctuary of her town house. Now that she didn’t have to put on a brave face for Madelyn, even more stress melted away and she actually felt kind of mellow—not completely calm, because there was still an inner core of anger that Carrie had slapped her and she’d had to take it instead of coldcocking the bitch, but calm enough that she could accept that what was done was done and she’d handled things the best way possible, even if the best way wasn’t the most satisfying way.

The stress had worn her out, though; she felt exhausted down to her bones, and the idea of a night at home doing nothing other than a few chores was just short of paradise. She stripped off the capri pants and sleeveless blouse she’d worn that day, gathered her dirty laundry, and dumped everything in the washer. Then she remade the bed with fresh sheets, and took the dirty ones to the laundry to wash later. After that she had nothing to do other than taking a shower and putting on her pajamas.

While she was in the shower she heard the phone ringing, but she didn’t jump out and race to answer it; after the day she’d had, whoever it was could wait. She even took the time to wash her hair. After she’d blown her hair dry, dusted herself with fragrant powder, and put on her pajamas, she checked the phone for a message, but there wasn’t one so she looked at Caller ID.

It was her father. She frowned. Jacky usually left a message when he called, even if it was nothing more than a “Hi, honey, haven’t talked to you lately.” Knowing her father, the fact that he hadn’t left a message meant he wanted to talk to her about something, which probably meant he had a favor to ask.

There was no telling what he wanted. With Jacky, anything was possible. She dialed his number and he answered before the first ring completed. “Hi, baby,” he said cheerfully. “How’s my girl?”

“Tired. It was a rough day at work. I was in the shower when you called. What’s up?”

“Why does anything have to be up? Can’t I call just to talk to you?”

The slightly guilty-sounding indignation in his voice made her grin. Her father was good-natured, the life of any party, he truly loved her, charming as all hell, and completely irresponsible. She didn’t doubt that he loved her, but neither did she doubt that, if he had to choose between saving her from drowning or saving himself, he’d weep huge tears at her funeral.

“You could,” she said, “but you didn’t. So what’s up?”

“Well … there is a little favor I need.”

The little favor was usually money, because Jacky perpetually ran short. To him, buying an expensive bottle of champagne to celebrate anything was more important than paying his utility bills. Most of the time she refused, but sometimes she’d come through for him, if the amount wasn’t too much and if the reason he wanted it made her smile. Once he’d wanted a hundred bucks to buy some little plastic ducks for a charity duck race, and she’d liked the idea so much she’d gone in with him to buy two hundred dollars’ worth of little plastic duckies, and they’d attended the race together. None of their ducks had won, but they’d had a great time.

“How much, and for what?” she asked.

“It’s not money,” he quickly replied. “I’m doing okay. But I’ve met someone, and—”

“Good Lord, am I about to get stepmother number eleven?”

There was a short pause, then he said, “Eleven?” in a shocked tone. “Have I been married that many times? There was your mother, of course, then Brigitta, then Kristen, then …” His voice trailed off.

“Ariel,” Jaclyn prompted. She wasn’t surprised that he’d forgotten. Ariel had lasted two weeks—almost.

“Oh, yeah. I must have blocked her out. She was hell to live with. After her was … that was Tallie, wasn’t it? That’s just five. I don’t remember anyone else.”

“I was just teasing,” she said. “Your total is five.” He’d stayed married to Tallie longer than anyone had expected; in longevity, she’d placed second to Madelyn. The fact that “Tallie” was a nickname—short for “tallywhacker,” which kind of gave an indication of her talents—explained the length of that particular marriage. Jaclyn knew the tale about the nickname was true, because Tallie herself had told her the meaning behind her name.

“I should know that,” he mused. “I guess I was afraid I’d blanked out on a few.”

“You might have picked up some Las Vegas barnacles I don’t know about, but if you don’t remember them either that would make you a bigamist. So far as I know, there have been five.”

“I’m in the clear, then, because you know all of them.”

He wasn’t the least embarrassed by his marital misadventures. Jacky felt no need to excuse his behavior; to him, if he was having fun, then that was reason enough to do whatever he wanted.

“If you aren’t about to get married, and you don’t need money, then what’s the favor?”

Another short pause. “I have met someone. I’m taking her out to dinner tomorrow night, and I want to really impress her, so I thought maybe you’d let me borrow your Jag—”

“You thought wrong,” Jaclyn said wryly, not even letting him finish the sentence. “No way.”

“I promise I’d be careful—”

“No. Your idea of careful is actually closing the door when you get out of the car. You’d either leave the keys in the ignition and it would be stolen, or you’d wreck it, or you’d have sex in it. No.”

“I wouldn’t leave the keys in it,” he protested. At least he was honest enough not to deny the other two were possibilities.

“The answer is still no. If you want to go on a date in a Jag, you’ll have to rent one.”

“In that case, I’ll need a loan after all.”

“No.”

“Jaclyn, baby—”

He was stubborn. He kept her on the phone for another twenty minutes, trying different angles of approach to the argument, but she held firm. No, she didn’t care that his hot new date might turn out to be “the one,” if only he could sufficiently impress her. No, she didn’t think he might die heartbroken from losing a great love. No, she wouldn’t do it even if he offered to have her Jag completely cleaned and detailed before he brought it back. She didn’t doubt the offer, just that he would follow through on his promise. By the time she finally got off the phone with him, she was so exasperated she was almost yelling as she shot down every new proposal he threw at her.

Now she was well and truly exhausted. If the phone rang again tonight, she’d be damned if she answered it or returned any calls—unless Madelyn called her, of course.

Or maybe Eric.

No, he wouldn’t call. She knew he wouldn’t. Next week … maybe. She had to hold to her wait-and-see decision.

The only thing that would soothe her frazzled nerves was a couple of hours of HGTV. She settled down to a string of several episodes of House Hunters, trying to guess which house each person would buy and getting the right answer most of the time, though sometimes the choice absolutely floored her.

She was immersed in the third episode when her cell phone rang. The sound automatically made her tense, because she used her cell almost exclusively for work. Warily she picked it up and looked at the window. Bishop Delaney? Why on earth would he be calling? She clicked on the call.

“Hi, Bishop. Is something wrong?”

“There’s been a murder at the reception hall,” he said baldly. “I don’t know who, but I thought, well, we did leave you there with Carnivore Edwards.”

After a blank second during which she digested the news, she got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Oh my God. Do you think Melissa—” She couldn’t complete the thought. It would be so horrible if Melissa had been attacked and murdered, though she was the most likely victim, considering the location. “Are you certain there was a murder?”

“That’s what a friend of mine heard. He was driving home and tried to take that route, but the street was blocked off and he had to take a detour. He stopped and asked at the nearest service station, of course, and they told him they’d heard some woman had been killed.”

“When? What time?” There might have been a function held at the reception hall that night, though if there had been one scheduled Melissa hadn’t mentioned it. You could never predict what might happen when a group of people got together. She hoped there had been an event held at the hall tonight, because that would drastically cut the odds that Melissa had been the one harmed.

“Haven’t been able to find out. Details at eleven.”

Jaclyn hadn’t intended to stay up that long, but now she had to, to find out who had been murdered. She and Bishop spent a few minutes speculating on what might have happened, but that was unproductive because neither of them had any way of knowing. After they hung up she switched to each of the local network stations in turn, but none of them had anything showing other than regular programming, not even a news crawl at the bottom of the screen. Murder wasn’t huge news in Atlanta unless someone important was involved, or the crime was particularly gruesome.

Her doorbell rang at nine forty-five. She was so on edge that she shot to her feet, her heartbeat hammering. Who on earth—?

She glanced down at herself, and grabbed a sweater from the entry closet to cover her obviously braless state, and pulled it on as she peeked through the peephole.

Eric?

He was undoubtedly one of the men standing on her stoop. In a flash the worst possible reason for his presence hit her like a blow a thousand times harder than Carrie Edwards’s slap. Oh. My. God. Madelyn. Something had happened to her mother. The murder—

She fumbled with the lock, and jerked the door open. Her lips felt numb as she stared up at him. “Mom?” she asked in a thin, tight voice. “Is my mom okay?”

Eric and the other man glanced at each other. “As far as we know,” he said, and she almost collapsed with relief, sagging against the door frame.

“This is Sergeant Garvey,” he said, introducing the other man. “May we come in? We’d like to ask you some questions about Carrie Edwards.”

She’d been so white when she’d jerked the door open that he’d thought she was about to faint. She still seemed shaky as she stepped back. “Carrie? I mean, yes, come in. So my mom—and it wasn’t Melissa. Was it? Did Carrie kill Melissa?” She clenched her hands together almost as if she were praying, standing there in the small entry, her blue eyes huge in her pale, strained face.

She looked as freshly clean and unadorned and unabashedly sexy as she had the night before, Eric thought, though a sweater covered the tank top tonight. As he and Garvey stepped in he saw the open closet door in the entry, a coat hanger still swaying slightly, and knew she’d grabbed the sweater just before opening the door. Part of him regretted that, because he wanted to see her breasts again. Another part of him was glad she’d put on the sweater, because he sure as hell didn’t want Garvey seeing them. Distantly he recognized that feeling possessive about her wasn’t good, but that was something he’d deal with later.

Garvey’s sharp gaze was taking in everything, from every detail of the stylish town house to Jaclyn herself. The sergeant had put in years on the detective level, in some rough places, before settling in Hopewell and moving up the ranks. As for Eric, given his previous involvement with Jaclyn, there wasn’t any way he’d be allowed to question her by himself, which was fine with him. Whether she was guilty or innocent, Garvey was there as another set of eyes, another honed instinct, and as a witness that the job had been done right.

“Carrie Edwards was murdered this afternoon,” he said. “How were you aware of this?”

“I wasn’t,” she said. “Not that it was Carrie, I mean. I got a phone call—” She waved a hand toward the living room, which was evidently meant to indicate a phone was in there somewhere, then took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. Let’s sit down, please. Would you like some coffee? I can put on a pot of coffee.”

“No, thanks,” Eric said hastily, before Garvey could accept. He didn’t want to deal with that swill again, not even a polite sip or two. They all sat down, and Jaclyn picked up the remote to turn off the television. He slipped his notebook out of his inside jacket pocket and made some notes.

“Who called you?” he asked, keeping his tone as conversational as possible.

“Bishop Delaney. He’s the floral designer who’s doing Carrie’s wedding. Was doing it, anyway. He’d heard—A friend of his had called, told him a woman had been killed at the reception hall, so he called me.”

“Why did he call you?”

“Because this afternoon he and the other vendors left me there alone with Carrie and he thought—oh.” The last word escaped her on a little gasp and she froze, her face going even whiter as she stared at him. She swallowed, her lips moving several times even though nothing else came out.

He watched her reach the inescapable conclusion, watched the expression in her eyes change from blank shock to a quick flash of anger, before going blank again. This time, though, the blankness was more of a deliberate shield.

“You know what happened this afternoon,” she said flatly. “You think I killed her.”