The Third Grave (Savannah #4) - Lisa Jackson Page 0,146

barely remembered. Of course, she’d had to return it and she was in trouble for that, too. Her days as a cop were numbered, but that would be okay. Being a cop and playing by the rules was way too restrictive.

At least for her.

She stared at the canary locked in its cage and pecking at its own reflection and figured the bird probably understood.

“So why the disguise?” the reverend asked.

“I didn’t want to come forward until I had all the facts, until I knew what had happened. Until I was ready. And once the other girls were located, I couldn’t change my appearance, could I? These days with all of the technology, the computer enhancements, the cameras, I thought it best to stay hidden. As I said, until I was ready for the media circus that was sure to erupt.”

Which it had.

She hadn’t had a moment’s peace since the story had broken, but she’d promised an exclusive to Nikki Gillette, and Pierce Reed had helped her keep some sanity in her life.

Of course, it would never be the same.

“I’ve missed you, Rose,” Margaret said. And she reached up and touched the smallest trace of a scar near Delacroix’s temple, the one she now remembered she gave herself while trying to cut her own hair at four, the one she’d covered with makeup and the bow of those stupid clear lensed glasses she didn’t need. All part of her disguise.

“I know. But you lied. About me.” Jerking her head away, she stared the woman who had borne her straight in the eye. “From the beginning. You lied to Harvey. You lied to me. You lied to the world.”

Tears glistened in Margaret’s eyes. “But I never, not for one moment, stopped loving you.” She sniffed and lifted her trembling chin. “I’ve lost all of my children but you,” she said. “I’m hoping that we . . . we can have some kind of relationship. Start over. I know you have other parents, but they lied, too.” That much was true. In her investigation she’d talked to Reggie Scott, Owen Duval’s biological father, the man who, along with his girlfriend at the time, had sold Rose. Through a friend of a friend, they’d learned of a couple desperate to adopt a child, by any means possible. Owen had enlisted his father’s help and thereby had owed him, having to loan his old man money upon occasion, just to keep Reggie’s lips sealed about Rose’s whereabouts.

So yeah, Margaret was right, they, too, had kept the truth from her and from the world.

“I’ll, um, see what I can do,” Delacroix said, and stood. “Look, I gotta go.” She’d had enough of the emotional trauma for the day.

“Please, honey.” Margaret didn’t try to stop her. “Come again. We’ll . . . we’ll start.” She looked to her husband for approval, and the reverend said, “I think it’s time we all mended fences.”

Maybe so, Delacroix thought, but she wasn’t certain as she drove out of town to the Beaumont estate. Ignoring the NO TRESPASSING signs and the flap of yellow tape that still remained wrapped around the trunk of a solitary pine, she hiked back to the old house, through an overgrown rose garden and past live oaks with Spanish moss draped and dancing in the breeze. The house was cold and dark, a crumbling behemoth from another era.

Delacroix broke in, picking a lock and using a flashlight for illumination as she made her way down the narrow stairs and across the moldy basement to the crypt where her sisters had been buried. She opened the concealed tomb with its secret latch and shined her beam over what had been the final resting place of Holly and Poppy Duval, her half sisters.

The truth was she barely remembered them. They’d been older and interested in boys and friends and Rose had probably been a pain to them, a little chattering person they had to babysit or occupy. Be that as it may, Rose was the reason they’d died and that still hurt.

“Sorry,” she said, and placed a kiss on the old bricks over the gravesite. “I did the best I could.”

They couldn’t hear her, of course. They were no longer alive. Their bodies didn’t even remain here, but she thought there just could be a piece of their souls left behind.

“I love you,” she said to the dank, shadowy cavern, “and I’ll always remember you.” She felt a cold brush of an autumn breeze filtering through the cracked