Page 31 of Jethro

Carter Langley sat in a wingback chair in the far corner, beneath a chandelier the size of a pickup truck, holding a bourbon he would not taste. His phone lay face up on the low table in front of him, the screen still lit with the picture that had arrived that afternoon.

Aurora stood beneath an arbor of gardenias, magnolias, and roses in a simple white dress, laughing, while Jethro Lyons held her with the look of a man who could not believe his luck. She had sent it from Belle Fleur, more than six hundred miles away, ten minutes after she hung up on them.

“What, Aurora? Are you calling to apologize and beg to come home?” she scoffed.

“Hello to you too, Mother. No. I’m not apologizing. In fact, I’m calling to give you some wonderful news. Wonderful for me anyway. I’ve just married.” There was an echo of gasps on the other end of the line. “Oh, I assume you’re with Dustin or Lawrence, or perhaps both. So sorry you sick bastards. I married a real man. A wonderful man.”

“You did this on purpose!” screeched her mother.

“Yes,” she laughed. “I actually did. I love him and he loves me for all my faults and all my trials.”

“You’ve really done it this time, Aurora,” said her father. “I’ll have to declared mentally incapable because of your unfortunate incidents.”

“Unfortunate? I’m saner than you and I have the medical reports to prove it. One more thing. My trust and inheritance have been claimed, moved to a new bank, and my designation of beneficiaries changed. Too bad you couldn’t keep that from me. You can stay in the house until you find something else.” There was dead silence on the other end of the phone. Everyone around Aurora was giving her a thumbs up and a smile. “I think that’s rather generous of me considering what you were trying to do to me. I should have you arrested for that alone, not to mention the fire in the cannery and the five deaths you’re responsible for.”

“Aurora! You’ve gone too far,” yelled her father. “You’re slandering your mother and I.”

She’d made some quick comments and retorts, only proving that she had changed more than they expected.

Carter and Missy had not been invited. Until their daughter's voice came through that phone, they had not even known there was a wedding or a boyfriend, for that matter.

Missy Langley sat across from her husband with her back perfectly straight, one hand resting on the strand of pearls at her throat. She had not touched her champagne in nearly ten minutes.

Thirty-four years of marriage had taught Carter that stillness was the most dangerous thing about his wife. When Missy screamed, the storm passed. When Missy went quiet, someone was going to bleed.

"They're here," she said, her eyes on the revolving doors.

Dustin Morgan came through the doors first, because Dustin always came first. He was thirty-eight, broad through the shoulders in a way that had started to go soft, the heir to Morgan Freight who had spent twenty years proving he could not have built a lemonade stand. He had three children by three different women, none of whom carried his name, and a string of storage businesses that existed mostly on paper.

Lawrence Beauvois followed, younger and leaner, in a charcoal suit and a soft New Orleans drawl. His family owned hotels from Mobile to Galveston to Nashville, including the one they were sitting in, and Lawrence owned nightclubs that somehow laundered more money than they earned. Somewhere in Baton Rouge there was a little girl with his eyes and a mother paid every month never to say his name out loud.

"Missy." Lawrence kissed the air beside her cheek. "You look lovely this evening. Grief suits you."

"Nobody has died, Lawrence."

"Not yet," Dustin said, dropping into the velvet chair beside Carter without being asked.

Two years earlier, when Carter's real estate fund collapsed, Dustin had quietly covered one point two million dollars to keep him out of federal court, and Lawrence had added eight hundred thousand more.

Both loans had been made on a handshake and a promise, and the promise had been Aurora. Whichever man married her would also win the multi-million-dollar trust and the rest of the inheritance, which passed into Aurora's control on the day she married. Of course, Aurora would have to die first but that was easy enough.

Until then, Carter and Missy had been the trustees, and for six years they had been helping themselves. As of this morning, they were trustees of nothing.

"Let's not pretend this is a social call," Lawrence said, lowering his voice as a bellman rolled a luggage cart past.

"Your daughter married a fireman. A fireman, Missy. Which means our arrangement is void, which means I would like my eight hundred thousand back. With interest."

"And I want mine," Dustin said. "By the first of the month."

"Here is where we are," Missy said. "Aurora has already taken possession of everything. She signed this morning in New Orleans, and now the bank owes her a full accounting of every withdrawal within ninety days."

"And that accounting is going to show what, exactly?" Lawrence asked.

"Four point six million," Missy said, as evenly as if she were reading a grocery list. "Give or take."

Dustin let out a low whistle.

"You robbed your own kid."