trash and nouveau riche trash in their taseteless, ostentatious houses. The flat, scrubby fields drifted endlessly past, dusted with pollution from chemical plant chimneys. This area had always been Charmian's idea of hell.
'Can't you drive any faster?' Charmian complained. 'At this rate, it'll take us two hours.'
The sunglasses only half turned. 'Tell you what. I don't tell you how to be a rich bitch, you don't tell me how to do my job.'
And she realized he was right. You drive the speed limit or under so that you never, ever, elicit the notice of the police. It was another slight demonstration of professionalism that reassured her. But, still, it wouldn't pay to let the help get uppity. It was time to take control of Mr. Lapin.
She didn't raise her voice, but she put an edge into her tone that would etch glass. 'Don't you ever talk to me that way again.' He swiveled his head to look at her and would have come up with some other insolent wisecrack, but she cut him off: 'You don't know who you're dealing with,' she hissed. 'You see an old lady with a limp. But this old lady has more money than you could imagine. This old lady has more resources, more friends in high places, more clout than trash like you ever dreamed about. And Pierre Lapin is cute, but I really much prefer Loup Garou, your nickname at the Bayou Cane bars you frequent. I know which trailer you live in. You think I'd get in a car with garbage like you if I didn't know I could bag you up and discard you anytime I choose?' That begat some resistance, so she opened her purse to show him the glint of stainless steel there. She put her hand on it and through her teeth continued, 'I am also an old lady with a Smith amp; Wesson CS9 automatic in my purse and I will kill you with it. Act right, and you end your day with more money than you usually make in a year. Talk to me like that again, or do anything other than exactly as I tell you, you are dead. Your place in the scheme of things is four classes lower than my yard boy. Know your place, Loup.'
He had sobered up when she mentioned his local nickname, Werewolf, and the other information she'd paid her Crescent City Confidential man to obtain. Now he didn't answer, just turned his attention back to the highway. It took a while for his grin to sneak back. It looked a little forced, she thought, but not entirely: There was some grudging admiration there.
'Okay, Gran'mere, you the boss for sure,' he said at last. 'Make my own gran'mere look sweet, you.'
She smiled, glad he had taken it in stride, thinking that maybe he was indeed worth his pay.
Putting him in his place gave her a moment's satisfaction, but actually, she did feel sick. And it wasn't caused by his cigarettes or even the chemical air down here. It was what she'd said. How it must have sounded to Lila.
Charmian had been on the verge of crying herself, that choking ache that grew and you tried to swallow and it wouldn't go down. But she had to set the example. Lila looked as if she'd go truly to pieces, turn into a puddle of tears and quaking flesh. Charmian had to prove you could stave off complete collapse if you just kept your back straight. So she did. She did not let herself appear overly emotional. Not ever during that whole awful time.
She didn't become aware of Lila's misperception until another week had gone by. Pdchard had been out of town on business for several days. Charmian had tried many times to reach Brad, had driven over to his apartment, but he never answered his phone or the doorbell. She hung in an agonizing indecisiveness. No, paralysis. Bradford had to be punished, that was clear. But Charmian couldn't decide what to do, how to begin. Call a doctor to look at Lila's injuries? Old Andre Fitzpatrick was loyal, they could count on him to be discreet. Call a psychiatrist to deal with the emotional aftermath? Call the police? She could probably prevail upon Commissioner Deelay to keep it out of the press.
But every choice had ramifications, and all the ramifications were bad. A family's reputation was a valuable thing, and not just from the standpoint of appearances. Recovering from this would require recovering some small share of family identity and coherence and pride. True, for something this unsavory to get out would hurt Richard's business relationships, and it would sully the Lambert name forever. But what mattered was that if there was any hope Lila could get past it, she couldn't have everyone she met knowing all about it, she couldn't see the knowledge in the eyes of her friends, her teachers at school, all their family friends. And Lila had to get past it.
She and Lila were having another talk. Lila had alternated between a slumping, spiritless despondency and a bristling rage that let no one near. Charmian was trying again, trying to reach out to her, trying to help her find a way of coping.
Lila had started out hard but had caved in again, crying, crying, crying. 'Why did he do that to me? How could Daddy do that to me? How could you forgive him!'
Charmian was confused. 'Do what? What did Daddy do?'
Lila's eyes were outraged when they turned to her. 'What he did! What he did! When he hurt me!'
'No, baby, Daddy didn't hurt you – '
'He did! He chased me all over, he threw me down! He ripped my – '
'No, Lila, wait – ' The revelation shook Charmian to her marrow. The enormity of the oversight. The enormity of how poorly they'd communicated. The enormity of the pain and sense of betrayal Lila's misperception must have caused her.
'He didn't even take off the mask! He kept making the pig noise! It was like he wanted me to feel like – '
'Lila!' Charmian shouted. 'Stop! Stop saying that!'
'And you act like you forgive him! You act like it doesn't matter!'
'Your father would never hurt you! You were so upset, you were so scared, it makes sense that you'd see things the wrong way, or think that – '
'So I imagined everything?'
'Your father never raped you!'
Lila was backing away, her mouth agape, seeing only utter betrayal in Charmian.
And the moment came, the moment to set it straight, to make it perfectly clear. And Charmian failed it. She couldn't say the words. She couldn't say Bradford's name. She couldn't make her mouth say, It wasn't your father, it was your uncle Brad. My baby brother.
As she hesitated, choking on it, Lila grabbed a book from her desk and pitched it at her. It hit Charmian on the cheek and shocked her, and she shouted, 'You get a grip on yourself, young lady!'
Lila fled past her and out of the room.
It wasn't until the next day that Charmian cornered her again and told it straight out: 'It was Bradford, not Daddy.' She explained the mask switch. But by then Lila was a sort of demented creature, hollow eyed, sleeping on the floor because she couldn't bear to touch the bed where the first of the rapes had happened. She had become torpid and depressed, unresponsive, with only flashes of rage. A veil had come over her eyes, hard to see through. She nodded her head, but skepticism and accusation were the only emotions Charmian could read in her face. There were many questions Lila could have asked, such as, Then why don't you tell someone about Brad? How can you protect him? But she didn't. And Charmian was grateful, because she had not yet figured out the answers.
'You understand now, right?' Charmian persisted.
'Yes, Momma, I understand,' Lila had said in a monotone. She was telling the truth. What she understood was betrayal.
Then Richard returned from his business trip, and they discussed it and agreed that before they went to the police or anything else that would come to public attention, he'd confront Bradford. After a time, he managed to make contact with Brad, and they supposedly went on their regular fishing trip, and Bradford didn't come back. And later, when Richard told her what he'd done, that he'd killed Bradford in the library and lied to the police about his drowning, Charmian understood why he'd done it. Of course she did. She even knew how it hurt him to have done it.
But she hated him for it, too. She couldn't bring herself to sleep with the man who had beaten her brother to death, couldn't bear to be touched by the hands that had swung that poker.
And so yet another crack formed in the family, another piece of it broke away. Another kind of distance intruded.
Charmian couldn't do anything about that, either. What – go to the police and tell them her husband had murdered her brother? They'd ask why, they'd find out why.
And the converse was also true: Now they really would have to keep the rape secret. There was no longer any choice about that. The police would put the rape and Brad's disappearance together, and Richard would go to jail for murder. The family would be destroyed. Ironically, Brad's death was what really sealed the secret of the rape – it cemented the family's complicity in the lie that it never happened.
