Scandal in Copper Lake. Marilyn Pappano

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СКАЧАТЬ what she wants and how to get it.”

      He raised one hand as if to touch the strand of hair that had fallen loose from its clasp and now brushed her shoulder, then, only inches away, lowered it again. “You know what you want, too, don’t you? And you know how to get it. Luckily, I know how to stop you.”

      With those words, he took the remaining steps two at a time, strode across the dirt and got behind the wheel of his expensive little car. She watched him back out in a tight turn, then accelerate down Easy Street before she closed the door and returned to the rocker.

      Robbie Calloway didn’t have a clue what she wanted. Like most skeptics, his distrust of her abilities also meant a distrust of her. She was a fraud in his eyes, not just as an advisor but as a person.

      Her business was her business. What she’d said to Lydia, why she’d come to Copper Lake, everything she did…in the end, she bore sole responsibility for her actions, and she carried no regrets.

      When she returned to Savannah, she would still have no regrets.

      Especially not one named Robbie.

      Chapter 2

      Much of Copper Lake’s downtown area showed its two-hundred-year-old roots: red bricks softened to a rosy hue, dimpled glass, wood glowing with a well-deserved patina. At the heart was the square, manicured grass bordered with flowers, war monuments and walkways leading to and from the bandstand that anchored the park.

      Everywhere Anamaria looked, she saw beauty, prosperity…and the Calloway name—law offices, a construction company, doctors’ and dentists’ offices, investment and accounting firms, retail shops. Robbie Calloway’s office was on River Road, the building only a few years old but built to blend in with its vintage neighbors.

      Nice space for a man who thought ten hours a week in the office just fine. She worked sixty hours a week or more and would never own a place like that or a car like his. But she knew all too well that money didn’t buy happiness and neither did things. People were the only thing that mattered, and all the money in the world couldn’t buy the good ones.

      Then she thought of the Civil War monument she’d just passed and amended that thought: not anymore. Such places as the Calloway Plantation and Twin Oaks, Lydia Kennedy’s home, had undoubtedly relied on slave labor to do all the jobs that kept the families clothed, fed and wealthy. Slaves such as Ophelia, Harriett, Gussie and Florence Duquesne, their children and their grandchildren.

      Turning onto Carolina Avenue, she drove east. A few miles past the town limits sign was Twin Oaks, but she was meeting Lydia in town today. The older woman had suggested they meet at River’s Edge, the centerpiece of downtown. The Greek Revival mansion had undergone an extensive restoration and had been transformed into a beautiful white gem in the midst of an emerald-green lawn, all of it surrounded by a black wrought-iron fence. It was open to the public for tours, parties and weddings, Lydia had told her, but not on Wednesdays. They would have the place to themselves.

      But with time to spare, Anamaria bypassed the street that would take her back to River’s Edge. She drove aimlessly, past parks and schools and stores—not the pricey ones downtown but the cheaper, shabbier ones on the outskirts. She located the church she and Glory had attended—a small structure that looked every one of its one hundred forty years in spite of its fresh coat of white paint. She tried to remember using swings on this playground, getting enrolled for kindergarten at that school, shopping for groceries at this market, dressing up in her Sunday best and skipping into the church.

      But nothing came. Her five years in Copper Lake had been diminished to a handful of memories.

      The last place she searched out was Gullah Park. It was a long, narrow section of land nestled alongside the river just north of downtown. There was a parking lot, a small playground, a handful of concrete picnic tables and a paved trail that followed the riverbank out of sight.

      She stopped at the entrance to the lot, her hands clammy, her fingers clenching the steering wheel. This was where her mother’s car had been found that morning, parked all the way at the end. She’d come there to walk, the police had told Mama Odette.

      Why? Mama Odette wanted to know. It was silly to get into a car and drive someplace just so you could walk. Not that Glory was above being silly from time to time—her silliness was one of the things Anamaria had loved best about her—but it struck her mother as strange even for her.

      Mama Odette wanted to know everything. As she faced the last days of her life, she’d developed a burning need to know about the last days of Glory’s life. The all-too-short time of the baby’s life.

      The blare of a horn behind her jerked Anamaria’s gaze to the rearview mirror, where a man waited impatiently for her to move. As she drove on, he turned into the parking lot. She would come back here, get out and walk that trail. Sometimes she had visions, sometimes there were just feelings and sometimes she drew a blank. She hoped she would learn something. She didn’t want to let Mama Odette down.

      Back at the square, she found a parking space on the north side of River’s Edge and entered the property through a side gate. Wide steps led to a broad gallery, its floor herringboned-brick, its ceiling painted sky blue. Sturdy wicker chairs, iron benches and wooden rockers were spaced along the porch, with pots of bright geraniums nestled at the base of each massive column.

      When she turned the corner at the front of the house, Lydia was standing near the door, gazing at her watch. She looked up at the sound of Anamaria’s footsteps and a welcoming smile crossed her face. “I couldn’t remember whether we’d settled on ten or ten-thirty or if I’d told you the front gate would be locked, but here you are, straight-up ten o’clock. Come on in.”

      Like Anamaria’s own house, the doorway opened into a hallway that ran front to back, with rooms opening off each side. Unlike her house, this hallway was fifteen feet wide and provided space for an elaborate staircase that would have done Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara proud. The walls were painted deep red and were a backdrop to forbidding portraits and landscapes in heavy, aged oils.

      “Our ancestors were a dour lot, weren’t they?” Lydia remarked as she led the way down the hall.

      “Some of them had a right to be.” But not these stern men and women whose narrow gazes followed them. They’d had wealth, influence and people to provide their every need. Ophelia, Harriet, Gussie and Florence had had nothing but their family, their gifts and their love of life—not even their freedom—but in her heart Anamaria knew they’d been the happier of the two groups.

      The door at the end of the hall led into a thoroughly modern kitchen with stainless-steel countertops, restaurant-grade appliances and, tucked away near a window, the cozy nook with padded benches that was their destination. A notebook lay open on the table, with snapshots of flowers scattered about. A cup of tea sat on one side; an empty cup waited on the other.

      “I stopped at Ellie’s Deli on the way and picked up some sweets,” Lydia said, moving the box from the nearest counter to the tabletop. Inside were a dozen miniatures—tiny croissants, sticky buns no bigger than a golf ball, petit fours and pecan tartlets.

      After they’d each chosen a pastry, Lydia sat back, her gaze settling on Anamaria’s face. “You don’t speak with those who have passed, do you?”

      “No. That’s my grandmother’s gift.”

      “And when she received that message from Mr. John—that’s what we all called Grandfather—you СКАЧАТЬ