Chapter 27
Camille
The Alibi
I got back to St. Francisville hours before I was supposed to. I confessed almost everything to Silas, telling him what led up to me meeting Aubrey Price and how she convinced me to spy on Ben. And then I walked him through everything I had learned.
Silas listened quietly, then told me what happened that night ten years ago.
It was the most honest and raw conversation we’ve ever shared. Silas sounded so broken. A darkness has hung over him for years, and I’ve finally learned why. There is no excuse for what he did. He was a dumb kid who made a really horrible decision getting behind the wheel that night.
I had asked him how long it took before he found out that couple had died and he said, “Too late to own up to it. Once Dad got involved, I could have screamed it from the steps of the courthouse and no one would have listened to me.”
Anyone not directly related to Randall Everett would have called bullshit on that answer, saying it’s never too late, but I knew what he meant.
Our father had fixed it before Silas was even sober.
He had Ben on board as an alibi and basically threatened Margaret within an inch of her life if she ever spoke of it.
He had the chief of police willing to look the other way. All within hours of that accident.
He is a force that we have never been able to withstand.
In that long-overdue phone call, I realized I’ve never had the distance with my family that I believed. Ben has been connected to Dad and Silas in ways I never understood. By covering for Silas, he secured his place in one of the most powerful families in south Louisiana.
And he wasn’t the only one. Margaret secured her place that night too.
Silas told me to go back and wait in St. Francisville until it was time to meet Aubrey.
He was insistent that I let her finish the day out as me, not to alert her to what happened with Ben.
Aubrey is the unknown in this scenario, and neither of us wants her to know Ben busted me and discovered she’s here, pretending to be me.
I thought about going back to my room at the inn but I felt claustrophobic just thinking about it. I would climb those walls while I waited for the clock to count down to midnight.
So I’ve been following Aubrey at a distance from stop to stop. She’s just finished dinner and was supposed to go to a nice bar where she would have a cocktail until it was time to meet me back at the gas station but somehow she’s found herself at some run-down honky-tonk.
“Why are you stopping here?” I ask aloud, and park at the edge of the lot, near the road, and watch her hobble into the bar.
She definitely should have practiced walking in the heels.
I think I put too much emphasis on the wrong “be me” part.
I should have been more worried about her unsteadiness in those heels than about her ordering my drink of choice.
Aubrey disappears inside and I throw the Honda in park.
My stomach is in knots while I wait for this night to be over.
Silas was going to go to my house and talk to Ben but I haven’t heard from him yet and that’s got me really nervous.
I can’t imagine that conversation went well at all.
And I don’t want to think about what the days ahead will be like when I have to deal with Ben.
But that’s an issue for tomorrow. There’s a little more than an hour before I change cars with Aubrey and so I’m not thinking about anything other than that until then.
This bar has a steady flow of traffic. I’m watching everyone come and go when someone familiar catches my eye.
“What in the hell!”
My hand slides around the passenger seat until I feel the burner phone. I tap the last number I called, watching Silas’s reaction when he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulls it out while scanning the lot.
“Please tell me you’re not here right now,” he says.
“Me! You’re the one who shouldn’t be here!”
I can tell the minute he spots me. When I spoke to him earlier, I spared no detail, telling him everything from the old beater of a car I bought to Aubrey’s full schedule.
Silas ends the call as he walks toward me.
He slides into the passenger seat and we stare at each other.
It’s only been a few weeks since we’ve seen each other but so much has changed since then.
So many secrets between us. So many lies. But down deep, we know we’re the only ones who will truly know what it’s like to have Randall Everett as a parent.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
“I couldn’t go back to the inn. I’m a nervous wreck. Aubrey hasn’t spotted me.” I may be two years older than him but I am forever the little girl who will always try to follow orders, afraid to let anyone down. “What did Ben say?”
His jaw clenches. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to him. I knocked but he never answered.” Silas just shrugs. “He was either gone or he was avoiding me. But he can’t hide from me forever.”
The one thing I left out when I spoke to Silas earlier is Ben’s plan to go to Foster’s, mainly because I was scared about what Silas would do if he followed Ben there.
“Then why are you here?” I ask.
He nods toward the bar. “Got to the restaurant you said she’d be at right as she was leaving. Followed her here. Was giving her a minute to get settled before I went in.”
“But why?”
“I’m worried that whoever sent Ben that pic of her shopping earlier is still around. I thought I’d come by and make sure everything was okay. She shouldn’t be involved in this. Not after everything she’s gone through.” He ducks his head like he’s embarrassed.
“She wanted to do this. It was her idea actually. She’s a lot tougher than you think.”
He gives me a sad smile. “I’m sure she is.”
Twisting around in my seat so I can look at him more closely, I ask, “Did you know Margaret was going to see Ben today?”
“No. She shouldn’t have done that. I told her I was going to handle this.”
“She told Ben you have someone watching Aubrey? Why?”
“Hank was sent Paul’s case in late June, then went to see him soon after.
He told Ben about his conversation with Paul at Angola.
Paul said ‘the guy’ who had evidence from that night was trying to get it to the ‘right person.’ Dad put a tail on Foster, since we all knew he’s the only person it could have been.
He went to that bar where Aubrey works a couple of times, but Foster never talked to her.
We think he was trying to decide whether or not to pass it along to her.
Ben bought that old car so he could get close to her.
” He adds quietly, “If Dad knew you had her parading around this town as you, he would lose his shit.”
“I don’t want anything bad to happen to her.” I’m proud of the firmness in my voice.
Silas is still leaning back but his head turns toward me.
“I don’t either, Camille. And I’ve been working to save her ass while also saving my own.
I knew Ben was lurking around her house.
That’s why I’ve got someone watching her.
You have no idea what it’s been like having this hanging over my head all these years. That she’s an orphan because of me.”
“It’s my fault Aubrey’s been drug into this mess. I should never have gone to confront her that night.”
Silas shakes his head. “If anyone is to blame for pulling Aubrey in, it’s Kevin Foster.
He had one foot in the grave and felt the flames of hell licking up his leg and stirred all this shit up.
He could have turned what he had over to the Feds.
Or sent it to the local news stations. But he didn’t.
He went crying to Paul and dangled it over his head like a carrot on the end of a stick. ”
My stomach twists at his words. “Do you feel bad Paul is serving time at Angola?”
His face falls. “Do I feel bad Paul is serving a sentence for a crime he didn’t commit? Yes. Do I know for a fact that Paul has done a dozen things that would have landed him in the same prison for the same amount of time, also yes. So honestly, my feelings toward Paul are a bit more complicated.”
“What do you think Ben is going to do? I don’t want him to turn on you and say he was forced to give you that alibi or something.”
He lets out a soft laugh. “Ben’s no Boy Scout.
He may not like getting his hands dirty but all his success hasn’t just come from that big brain of his and pure fucking luck.
Very few of his clients are innocent. And who does he call when he needs evidence to disappear or witnesses to have a sudden bout of amnesia?
He calls Dad. Dad calls Foster…or used to. Ben gets what he wants in the end.”
“Ben made it sound like Dad makes him take those cases. Like he didn’t really want to do it.”
“And Ben is lying his ass off. Every case he took on his own, he asked for help.” Silas rests his head against the back of his seat.
“And don’t worry about him going to the cops if he gets what Foster has.
He’ll just try to find some other way to use it against me, but that won’t be as easy to do as he thinks. ”
“You wanted to get away from Corbeau and Dad as much as I did,” I say, changing the subject, since Ben may be getting that evidence right now.
He gives me a grim smile. “Well, I lost the right to choose after I took Paul Granger’s truck. My position was set after that.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to turn into Dad,” I whisper. “More than you already have.”
Silas lets out a ragged breath. “Lord knows, I’ve made mistakes I wish I could take back and done things I’m not proud of, but ever since I graduated and came back home, all I’ve done is try to rein him in where I can and mitigate the damage if I can’t.
I may not have gone to jail for what I did to Aubrey Price’s parents, but I’m behind a different set of bars, serving a different kind of time. ”
“You could have told me all this years ago. You could have trusted me.”
“I don’t trust anyone.”
I’m about to say something else but he holds a hand up. “Don’t go back to Baton Rouge. Promise me you’ll come to my house tomorrow after the thing at church Mom wants us at. We’ll get it figured out.”
I nod and then he’s out of the car. He walks across the parking lot and into the bar, while I think about my options. I could be a coward and avoid Ben, go hide out at Silas’s and let him fight my battles for me.
But if I don’t stand up for myself now, I never will. I’ll be the same ole Camille who does what she’s told and lets the men in her life control things.
Everything’s changed now.
I know enough that neither Ben nor Dad will be able to hold that prenup clause against me. I’m going back to Baton Rouge first thing in the morning and telling Ben I want a divorce.