Chapter 34
Birmingham
The Tramont
Annette dropped her keys and purse on the table as she passed through her entry hall but didn’t slow her pace until she’d reached the gallery.
Her favorite room. She surveyed the elegant pieces of sculpture and the edgy contemporary works of art.
This was her trophy room. The room that said she had reached that prestigious place she had fought tooth and nail to attain.
Under normal circumstances she felt safe here. Calm. But not today.
The emotions roiling inside her wouldn’t slow down, wouldn’t allow her to think logically.
Fury whipped, stinging, raging, joining the frenzy. There was absolutely no question now. Someone knew about Paula. Annette had to protect her. Even if it meant throwing away everything she had achieved. Even if it meant taking her sister and running.
She had money tucked away for emergencies. Not as much as she would like, but it would just have to be enough. On the drive back from the center she’d made up her mind. She would give Carson Tanner everything he needed to make them all pay. And then she and Paula would disappear.
It was the only way.
Annette was out of options. It was only a matter of time before Drake’s murder, as well as Zac Holderfield’s, was blamed on her. She understood this with complete certainty.
Carson deserved to know the truth. He would just have to deal with taking down the men he’d thought were his friends. He needed to know they would sacrifice him in a heartbeat. Coping with the knowledge was his problem, not hers.
And for some completely foolish reason, she wanted him to have closure. She wanted him to win.
She turned to face the man who lingered near the door. “Where do you want me to begin?”
His gaze held hers, and she didn’t miss the tiniest hint of vulnerability there.
She couldn’t say when she’d decided to think of him by his first name.
Not something she did on a routine basis.
Too familiar. Nor had she consciously made the decision to give him the answers he so wanted at any particular point before now.
But after seeing Paula, helpless and innocent, tortured, Annette understood that the decision was made. This had to be done.
The game was over.
“The beginning is usually the best place.” He strode to the sleek white sofa and settled there, his attention fixed fully on her. He looked tired. Tired and damaged. Just as she was damaged. Funny, he had no idea how much they had in common.
The beginning. Wow. That was a place she didn’t visit often. Too painful. Too scary. She almost laughed at herself. She was thirty years old; how could the past still frighten her? Maybe because she knew the only difference between being there and being here was money.
Lots and lots of money.
And a safe place for Paula.
That would be the hardest part to fix.
But Annette would get the job done. Somehow.
Her gaze locked on the man once more. His beard shadowed jaw distracted her. Shouldn’t have. But did. His hair was tousled from running his fingers through it too many times. Made hers twitch with the need to do the same. Not normal for her. And definitely not smart. Not smart at all.
“I was born in Knoxville.” She folded her arms over her chest. More something to do with her hands than anything else. “Katrina, Kat Baxter, my mother—”
“Was a prostitute,” Carson interrupted. “I already know that part.”
She shook her head. He had no idea. “You know what’s in your file. You don’t have the whole story.”
He waved a hand for her to continue.
A good stiff drink would be nice about now but she resisted.
She needed her head clear for this. In her profession, giving up a secret, even one, was career suicide.
If not personal suicide. There were people who would kill to uncover what she knew .
. . and many more who would do the same to ensure it stayed buried.
“My mother had a sister. Her name was Margaret. She died of cancer when I was five. My mother took in her only child, a girl three years older than me.”
“Paula,” he guessed. “The feds figured out that part after I tracked down Delta Faye Cornelius.”
Fear snaked around Annette’s heart. “They know about Paula?” God, she had to move quickly.
He held up a hand. “They know she exists. They don’t know where she is. Delta Faye couldn’t even remember her name.”
Annette relaxed a little. At least that was something. But someone damned sure knew.
Then a frown worried her brow. “You located Delta Faye?” Annette hadn’t thought of her in years.
Was surprised the woman was still alive.
Annette wasn’t particularly worried about whom she might have talked to besides Carson.
The one thing Delta Faye had always been especially good at was keeping secrets.
If she’d decided to talk to Carson, she had trusted him on some level.
That was the first rule of the street. You didn’t talk to anyone you didn’t trust, and you trusted almost no one.
“She sends her regards,” Carson offered.
Annette nodded. It felt weird hearing about someone from that time in her life.
Back to her story. “There was never any official documentation. Paula, being low-functioning autistic, wouldn’t have really benefited from school, so that was pointless.
Mainly, Kat was afraid they would take both of us away from her if she was . . . investigated.”
So long ago. Feelings Annette would rather not have felt again in this lifetime flooded her. She hated her past.
“For a few years things were okay. I took care of Paula while Kat worked at night. In the daytime I went to school and Paula stayed locked in our room.” That alone should have been a red flag regarding Kat’s mothering skills, but Annette had been a kid.
Seemed normal to her. “Then Reggie came into the picture.”
Carson’s eyebrows raised. “Reggie?”
“A new boyfriend.” Annette walked to the wall of windows that overlooked what the city called progress to the natural beauty beyond.
She loved this view; nature’s struggle against progress reminded her of her own struggle to survive.
“My father abandoned us when I was four. Kat had managed a boyfriend here and there but nothing that lasted more than a week or so. But”—Annette forced back the worst of the memories—“Reggie was different. He liked the idea of having Kat and two other sources of entertainment.”
“You were what by this time? Eight? Nine?” His tone oozed with disgust.
“Ten, but that didn’t matter.” The burn in her eyes infuriated her all the more.
She hardened her heart in defiance of her own emotions.
“It was what he did to Paula that killed me, inch by inch. When I turned twelve and worked up the nerve to fight him, he started to beat me. And Paula. He knew I’d do anything to keep him from hurting her.
” Annette hugged herself tightly. She had never told anyone this part.
“Our neighbor was a big gardener. She left her pruning shears outside one day and I took them. Hid them under my pillow.”
Judging by Carson’s expression, he knew where this was going.
“One night . . . I couldn’t take it anymore.
So I pulled out the pruning shears with the intention of killing him but he knocked them out of my hand.
” She closed her eyes, shuddered at the memories.
“Paula picked them up and . . .” Annette swallowed the bitter taste of misery.
“While he was fucking me, she buried them in his back.”
But it was her mother’s reaction that finished destroying any emotion Annette had still possessed. “Kat came into the room, saw what we’d done, and took us to the Walmart and left us there. We never saw her again.”
“That’s when you went into the foster care system.”
She nodded. Annette would never forget that day.
“At first they put Paula and me together, but the family couldn’t handle her autism and the idea that she could be violent.
The police had ruled Reggie’s death self-defense, but still, Paula wasn’t wanted.
So they moved us to another family.” She made a sound; it wasn’t pleasant.
“The man of the house took up right where Reggie had left off.”
“Damn.”
Annette kept her gaze focused out the window. She didn’t want to see the sympathy in his eyes. Hearing it overtake his voice was bad enough. She didn’t need any damned body’s sympathy.
“Eventually Paula became a burden once more and she was taken away. Only this time, I was forced to stay. They put my sister in a state mental hospital.” She turned to face Carson then. “Have you ever had the occasion to visit one of those lovely places?”
He nodded, his expression grave.
“I was thirteen. There was nothing I could do.” She stared out the window once more.
“But time passed and I grew up. Grew wiser and braver. Finally, the day I turned sixteen, I left for good. I’d run away several times, but I’d gotten caught and dragged back each time.
No one believed my rape accusations. A little mock investigation would be carried out and I’d end up back with the same family or someplace new that was just as bad or worse.
But they didn’t find me that last time. I’d learned all the right tricks.
I headed for Nashville and all the glamour Music City had to offer. ”
“You turned tricks on the street to survive.”
She flinched, didn’t mean to. He would have known that part. At eighteen she’d gotten busted. Twice. “Yes.”
Then she’d gotten lucky.
“When I was nineteen I hooked up with a more high-class operation.” She’d been one of the lucky ones. She had stayed clear of drugs and worked hard to keep herself in shape. “I was working a private party at a hotel and I caught the eye of Otis Fleming.”
“The perfect alliance,” Carson said, sarcasm squeezing out the sympathy. “You kept his sex life interesting and he taught you how to utilize your assets.”