Lies Agreed Upon (43 page)

“Old trouble-making Phil couldn’t resist jumping the gun.”

Tess looked up at the two male faces hovering over her, one young and anxious and the other old and – what? There was an expression of concern pasted on Dreux’s wrinkled face, but there also was a hint of some other emotion in his glacier-blue eyes. It was only a quick slip of the mask, but she thought she saw a cruel pleasure. Had Dreux been in cahoots with Remy?

Tess swallowed and asked hoarsely, “What legal proof do they have, these Thivets? Why is it only coming to light now? And how long have you known about this potential heir, Mr. Dreux?”

“I have suspected that Noah Cabirac was Roman Cabrera’s illegitimate son since my youth, ever since Desmond pointed out how Noah’s gold cross and chain were identical to Josephine’s jewelry, which was supposedly lost by Roman Cabrera,” sighed Dreux. “To be thorough, I did approach the Thivets last year. At that time, they did not have legal proof to support a claim on the estate. Now, proof has surfaced.

“
Apparently, Roman Cabrera wrote up an amended will and had it duly witnessed. It made his son Guy Cabrera the primary heir to a range of properties that existed at the time, including this townhouse, the land we have been discussing, a restaurant, and other investments. But it also acknowledged his natural son Noah Cabirac and left him a large sum of cash and ownership of some business shares. The Thivets allege that Guy Cabrera purposely suppressed this will at the time of his father’s death. Now a copy has ended up with Remy Thivet. “

“And
he’s desperate for money,” Tess murmured. “How did this document suddenly reappear?”

“It’
s something of a mystery at this point,” hedged Dreux without meeting her gaze.

“So can’t we just give the Thivets what was left to them in the will?
” suggested Tess. “It doesn’t include my property with the garden does it?”

“No, Noah
had no claim on the land by the Mississippi. But there is still a problem. It seems that when he suppressed the will, your grandfather Guy took possession of all properties, including those set aside for Noah. What he did not sell, he passed on to your grandmother Emily, who eventually used up all Noah’s portion in supporting herself and your mother. It would be quite problematic to compensate the Thivets for the lost value over 50 years later.

“Now, Mr. Mizzi and I believe that this claim can be disputed,” Dreux hastened to continue as he saw the bitter set of Tess’s lips. “It is being made long after the original distribution of Roman’s estate and is based on a copy of a document whose authenticity is questionable. However, if you do not wish to become embroiled in a legal battle that could delay sale of the property, negotiation and compromise with the Thivets is an option.”

“What do they want?”
asked Tess with a resigned sigh.

“Half of the proceeds from the sale of the property,”
answered Dreux.

Tess stared at the dueling pistols over the fireplace. Trading shots to prove a principle never made sense. She turned to look squarely at the two men, who both tensed as if expecting her to weep or rage. She smiled reassuringly, and they looked even more
shocked by her calm.

“Tony, I want to meet with Remy Thivet and come to an agreement. We will then present
a sales offer for approval by Mr. Dreux’s client. I’m leaving on Thursday for L.A. I’ll come back on June 30. By then you should have the area of the garden mapped out. We can decide on the parameters of a sale that leaves me with the garden. Can you set up a meeting for me with Mr. Thivet?” Tess stood up without the slightest hint of a wobble and waved off Tony’s outstretched hand.

“No problem, Tess,” said Tony. “
But promise you won’t keel over again. You gave me a scare.”

“I’m fine,” Tess assured both men. “I guess that was a dramatic way to end our tour, Mr. Dreux. There’s something peculiar about your library, some vibe that creates disaster. So when we meet again, let’s do it in a sterile office conference room. Agreed?”

They shared a short burst of forced, self-conscious laughter, and then Dreux escorted his guests down the stairs. As Dreux opened the front door to see them out, Tess asked casually, “You mentioned speaking with the Thivets ‘last year’ during your research into ownership of the Cabrera property. Since my mother was still the owner last year, did you discuss the potential claim by the Cabirac heirs with her?”

Dreux paused with his hand on the door knob. He turned back to look at her, his face blank. “Perhaps we discussed whether the Cabirac heirs could come up with some document
ation. But it was not a worry at the time.” The old man blinked and gave her a grandfatherly smile.

Tess looked him in the eye and smiled back, “I was just curious. I hope our next meeting results in the sale you’ve been seeking. Please pass on my appr
eciation to Mrs. Blaise for the wonderful lunch.” Tess calmly walked away without a backward glance.

“Whew, that was a wild ride,” Tony commented as he joined her. “Look, contrary to what you may think, I’m committed to helping you out with this transaction. But if I’m going to be effective, I need to be kept in the loop. I
felt as if I was playing blind poker most of the time in there. Help me help you. Isn’t that a line from some movie? Tell me why the name Thivet caused you to go white as a sheet. And what’s this secret garden? Talk to me.”

“It’s a long story, but I owe you the summary,” agreed Tess. “Every
person in my family tree, starting from Antonio Cabrera at the root, was guarding his or her little pile of secrets. I thought it made them unusual, but now I understand how ordinary it makes them. Everyone is a little knot of lies and secrets.”

As they walked, she
began to provide Tony with enough truth to let him work on her behalf, all the while feeling the secret crackle of Josephine’s stolen letter in her pocket.

17
CLUES

Tess stared glumly at herself in the mirror of the bridal shop dressing room. Why did American women have to buy expensive outfits that could only be worn once for a few hours? Bridal gowns, prom formals and bridesmaid dresses: The idea that you could disguise these cr
eations for another use was wishful thinking. They shouted their singular purpose even if shortened, dyed, and denuded of furbelows.

Tess turned from side to side in the sea-foam chiffon bridesmaid dress. It was a strapless A-line designed to flatter a wide range of figures, and Tess acknowledged that i
t succeeded in flattering her. The bridesmaids would create an aqua wave up the aisle to end in the white lace foam of the bride, as Katie intended. But Tess could not generate any excitement for the wedding pageantry, and she admitted the reason was that her personal dramas were absorbing all her energies.

Katie’s head popped around the dressing room curtain. “What do you think?” she asked. “I think it looks great on you. We can adjust the bodice and hem a little, and it will be perfect!”

“It’s really lovely,” agreed Tess, but she sensed her strained smile had not achieved sincerity.

“What’s up? You’ve been distracted and down ever since you got back. Is it from learning more about your mom’s childhood tragedy?” Katie’s concern was clear in her anxious
expression.

“I told you another heir popped up to claim my inheritance. I think I’m sulking,”
answered Tess.

“I don’t believe you’re fretting over money,” Katie
snorted and entered the dressing room to sit on the little bench opposite the mirror. “It’s got to be about a guy. Which one is the guilty party? Is this about the guy with the weird name who turned out to be the heir in disguise? Or was it Jon or Tom —no Tony—or even Mac up to his old tricks? It’s an amazingly long list of male culprits. You’ve become a femme fatale.”

Tess laughed sourly. “Blame all of them, and none of them. That’s the trouble.”

“Well, they’re all idiots if they upset you,” declared Katie.

“I’d love to think it’s
their problem. But one of those guys said something that made me wonder if I’m the one with the problem. He hinted I was so reserved that he hesitated to go beyond pleasant conversation.”

“Reserved! You’re too accommodating for your own good,” exclaimed Katie.

“On the surface, I guess. But I realized out in New Orleans that I only let a few people get past that surface, and hardly ever anyone male. I thought I was open with Mac, for instance, but I was never honest with him about my feelings. I was afraid to lose him. I didn’t want to be like my mother, cold and controlling, so I tried to be the opposite, but it wasn’t the real me. Have I ever told you that I hear my mother’s advice and criticism in my head all the time? I met men more astute than Mac on my little road trip, Katie, and maybe they sensed right off I was only offering a ‘nice girl’ façade without any real depth,” Tess said earnestly.

“So you’re saying you’re not the malleable, loving girl you pretend to be?” asked Katie and shook her head in answer to her own question. She fixed a stern but sympathetic gaze on her friend. “Look, I’ve always known you were a lot tougher than you seemed. But you’re not your mom
—precisely because you worry about failing to make emotional connections. On the other hand, your mother passed on some good traits you should embrace. In fact, I like you in your mom’s Joan of Arc armor riding into battle a lot more than when you act like Sleeping Beauty waiting for rescue.”

Tess grinned at Katie. “You know how to give a pep talk, girlfriend. I suppose I did things I never thought I would, or could, or even should do out there, and I’m still OK.”

“Now you’re on the right track. You finally took a few risks. So maybe a guy, or a couple of guys, let you down, but you survived. You think you send out “touch me not” vibes? You still had a bunch of men volunteering their time and effort – maybe to wake up Sleeping Beauty or maybe to follow St. Tess into battle. The right one will stick around, assuming you want him. If only they could see you in that dress, floating down the aisle like Botticelli’s Venus on the waves,” gushed Katie.

“Oh, please
, now you’re going overboard,” scoffed Tess. “By the way, are you meeting me, Jen and Christina for dinner tonight?”

“Of course,” smiled Katie, “if certain prospective bridesmaids don’t waste too much of my time. Let me get someone to measure
you for the alterations.”

Katie bustled out of the dressing room, and Tess looked wryly back at her sea-foam draped image. Funny that Katie had picked that Sleeping Beauty metaphor, she mused. It did seem to her that she had been locked in a sort of enchanted passivity since childhood, struggling against her mother’s powerful spell. Had New Orleans awakened her
, empowered her?

But she had not admitted to Katie
all the sources of her unease. The property she had inherited seemed to harbor some poisonous vine that twined from Josephine’s suicide to her mother’s suicide. And it kept blooming with obligations—to Solange Beauvoir’s descendants, to Noah Cabirac’s descendants, to all the thwarted purposes buried under her secret garden. She felt a headache coming on as the motherly shop assistant pinched and pulled at the pale chiffon.

Other
unresolved issues were pricking her more sharply than the dressmaker’s pins. One was the content of Josephine’s purloined letter. Another problem was the location of her mother’s missing documents, the ones Gina Gomez had seen scattered in a rage and that Dreux kept asking about, underscoring their baffling absence. And there was still the potential battle with Remy ahead.

She had been forced to temporarily postpone any effort to address these
problems because she had been occupied with moving furniture from her apartment to a storage facility. With the help of Trevor’s truck and willing muscles, she and Katie had ferried side tables and lamps from truck to storage unit. Tess had been only minimally aware of Trevor’s and Katie’s happy chatter. Instead, her mind incessantly gnawed the bones of her conversation with Remy two days earlier.

He had called her in New Orleans on Wednesday, as promised. It was immediately clear that he was unaware that Dreux had revealed his secret. Tess listened stonily as he proposed a lunch meeting.

“You mentioned that you had something important to discuss. Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind now, at least the gist of it?” Tess suggested.

“I’d rather talk face to face
–” Remy began.

“OK, let me save you some time,” Tess interrupted and let her voice slide from cool to icy. “I think you want to explain to me why you hid the fact that you are Noah Cabirac’s grandson. I thin
k you want to tell me that you sincerely care about me as a friend and that we can work together to make the best of this situation.” A beat of silence followed. “Am I right?”

“Oh, damn. Dreux told you,” said Remy. The regret in his tone was clear, but Tess did
not know whether he rued his deception or being caught out. “I asked him to wait until we spoke—”

Tes
s cut him short. “A word of advice: Don’t trust Phil Dreux. Were you working with him from the first? Did he suggest that Café Bon Temps coupon idea? Or was that your own stroke of genius? I assume you planned to scope out how much I knew and make sure I learned the saga of poor mistreated Noah. Oh, you’d also get to win sympathy for Noah’s nice grandson struggling to handle an ailing parent and money problems. I bet you followed me around, too! Meeting you in that art gallery was no coincidence, was it?”

“Meeting you by using the café coupon was my idea, but Dreux did give me the contact info,” admitted Remy. “I only followed you one day. I couldn’t believe that you chose to stop at the one gallery displaying my work. I was genuinely curious a
bout your reaction to my photos. I couldn’t resist coming in to let you meet my non-waiter persona. Honestly, I just wanted to get to know you without the money issue between us. I thought if we could find common ground and mutual understanding, it would work out best. I didn’t want it to be a dogfight—”

“Of course not! So much easier to get me to compromise than risk a court battle,” retor
ted Tess, her tone heating as Remy seemed to feel no guilt over his deception.

“
Yes and why not?” answered Remy, his own voice hardening. “I planned to let you know about my relationship to Noah on Monday after you met with Louise. I was about to tell you, and then you complicated it with that kiss. And it was you who kissed me, remember. It didn’t seem the right moment to reveal myself as a fellow heir. Then Dreux stepped in to mess it all up before I had a chance to explain.”

“
You misread that kiss. You had won my trust and friendship – until you turned out to be a liar.  Don’t blame Dreux. You messed things up big time all by yourself,” sneered Tess. “All that careful cultivation of my sympathy is out the window. So be warned. If you overreach, we’ll end up in court. I really wonder how sure you are of this paperwork that you miraculously dug up.”

“I didn’t dig up anything,”
snapped Remy. “Didn’t Dreux tell you? He was the one who supplied me with the amended will. When he approached us last year about a potential inheritance, he asked if we had any proof that Noah Cabirac had been acknowledged as Roman Cabrera’s son. Of course, we didn’t. Then just a few weeks before you showed up, he came and handed me a copy of Roman’s altered will. He said he had ‘unearthed’ it during his research.”

“Where did he find it?” Tess
demanded.

Remy sighed. “I have no idea how he got hold of it. But I didn’t have a single piece of written proof until Dreux put it in my hands.”

“So you claim this vital paperwork ended up with Dreux when he hasn’t had contact with the Cabreras since the 1960s.” Tess mulled possible explanations, gnawing at her lip, but none seemed very probable.

“Ask Dreux about it, not me,” Remy cut in.

“Good idea,” Tess lashed back. “My lawyer Tony Mizzi will be contacting you to arrange for a meeting to negotiate your share from sale of the property. Then I can sit down with Dreux to sign off, and I can put him on the spot. Until then, I don’t think you’ll need to worry about the cost of wining and dining me, Remy. Good-bye.” Tess had ended the call with a quick, hard press of her thumb and begun to pack for her return to Los Angeles.

With her move
in Los Angeles close to completion and her bridesmaid obligation satisfied, it was time to tackle her other mysteries. As soon as Tess escaped the bridal shop, she called Jen.

“Hey, Jen, doesn’t your law firm have translators on tap to deal with witnesses and d
eponents in their native tongues? I recall a case involving Haitians or Tahitians—some island people who spoke French. I have this old letter I found in New Orleans that I need translated from French to English. Can you help? It’s one handwritten page,” Tess cajoled.

“You’ve got a mysterious letter? Your gothic romance won’t quit,” laughed Jen. “No pro
blem. I can get a translator, and she’ll do it free as a favor to me. So who wrote the letter?”

“I think it’s a letter Josephine wrote to her son Benjamin for delivery
after her death. I know from Sam Beauvoir that Josephine gave a letter like that to Solange to pass on to Benjamin,” explained Tess.

“How’d you get it? Was it another one of Phil Dreux’s mysteriously resurrected doc
uments?” sniffed Jen.

“Actually, it’s my very own ‘purloined letter’ story. I found it tucked away in the secret compartment of an old desk in Dreux’s townhouse. The desk was originally owned by Ben Cabrera so I figure he stashed the letter there. Dreux was out of the room when I discovered the hidden compartment, so I stuck the letter in my p
ocket and denied finding anything. I feel a little guilty about taking it, but I really think it belongs to me more than it does to him,” asserted Tess.

“Of course, it belongs to you,” agreed Jen. “Bring the letter to our dinner, and I’ll get it translated. I hope it’s something more exciting than ‘mama loves you’ drivel.”

Back at her near-empty apartment, Tess focused on her second mystery and resignedly opened the box containing the files that had survived her ruthless purge of her mother’s office. Thirty minutes later, as expected, she had reached bottom and found nothing resembling a file of letters or any documents related to the Louisiana property. As she tossed the files back in and prepared to close the box, it exhaled a sigh scented by old cardboard and desiccated paper.

It was a familiar odor and tickled a memory. Tess frowned at the cardboard cube and suddenly saw another container: the box of old photos she had pawed through right after lear
ning about her hidden family history. That box had been stowed in her mother’s office closet at one point and now she recalled that it had contained a folder marked “Letters.” She had ignored the folder contents because she had flipped it open briefly and seen a Christmas card; she had assumed it was full of her grandmother’s annual chatty “Christmas letters.”  The folder contents would fit with the “holiday card” mentioned by Gina.