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But Jade was an enigma. Two people. An innocent child, robbed of her rightful destiny, and a scheming adult who, Nikki imagined, would stop at nothing to make her way in the world, her own way.
In that respect, Jade/Rose and Nikki were alike. But Jade’s actions bordered on the criminal, maybe not only bordered but stepped well over the line between right and wrong. Nikki only bent that line . . . and just a little.
Yeah, right? Who are you kidding? You’d step over just a bit to chase down a story—be honest.
She just wasn’t certain how far Delacroix would go, how much of a risk she would take, how deep she would dive into the world of lies and deception.
Maybe it was all she knew.
Nikki glanced outside to the magnolia tree and wondered how long before Jade capitulated to accepting the mantle of being the Beaumont heir, if it were offered. Would she stand by her guns and dismiss a portion of the fortune, or would she give in? Wealth was just oh, so seductive. It would take an incredibly strong person to deny its pull.
But then, who was Nikki to say?
Time would tell.
* * *
The reverend’s house wasn’t home.
And Margaret Duval Le Roy wasn’t Jade’s mother.
For that matter, Jade was no longer Rose Duval, no matter what any DNA test proved. Yet here she was, sitting on a couch beneath a huge picture of The Last Supper, a Bible laid open on the coffee table and a woman who studied every angle of Delacroix’s face as if she were memorizing it. She probably was. And her husband, grim-faced but silent, his gnarled hands folded in his lap, sat in one of the chairs near the picture window.
“I just don’t understand why you didn’t look me up. When you started figuring things out . . .” Margaret took one of Jade’s hands and laced her fingers through those of her daughter. “I spent years searching for you. I never let the police let your case go cold, so why?”
“Oh, come on. How could I? I was five,” Delacroix heard herself explaining. “I had no way to contact you, I didn’t know how, and my parents, they wouldn’t even let me discuss it. And then, you know, the years rolled by and the people who adopted me, they didn’t want me to think of anything before. It wasn’t until I was in college that I decided I had to know. And I figured if I got into law enforcement that I might be able to find out the truth, that there would be ways I could search through records and investigate, so I changed my major, got a part-time job in New Orleans, then transferred here. I knew I was from Savannah and I read enough to realize who I probably was.”
“Then you could have just looked me up!” Margaret said, as if it were that simple, as if all the years could be erased, as if she weren’t afraid that she might be found out by whoever had stolen her sisters away.
“I was hoping to find Holly and Poppy.” She thought of Holly’s locket, the one thing she could steal from the evidence department, a bit of the sister she 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.
