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Intently, she studied the picture. Tad's flaming red hair had faded to a dull auburn as the film chemicals had degraded, but her memory supplied the missing tones. Okay, the hair was the same. But that was no proof of anything, not in these days of flawless hair tinting. But that profile was undeniable. The pointed chin, the high forehead. They were identical. Hilda pulled the other picture from her pocket. Substitute her neat little nose for Tad's, and you'd be looking at the unmistakable profile of Lauren Sullivan.
Hilda stared at the photograph, a confusion of thoughts and images tumbling through her head. It looked as if Claudia had left her a legacy that could yet prove even more advantageous than the spa. Lauren Sullivan. What a coup.
The encounter with the psychic had unsettled Caroline. Phyllis Talmadge was right. Playing air cello in the woods was no substitute for the real thing. She decided to head back to the cottage.
She was going to have to face Hilda sometime; if her mother was there, at least she'd get it over and done with. Then she could open the windows and sit looking out over the lake playing one of the Bach cello suites. Number three, she thought. That would lift her out of this despair and rage and remind her that there was a place inside her where beauty could still live.
Caroline hurried through the woods, paying scant attention to her surroundings, already hearing those first haunting notes in her mind's ear. By the time she emerged on the path, she was almost trotting. She pushed open the door of the cottage, humming the theme of the first movement under her breath, and stopped short. To her astonishment, she found Raoul, not Hilda, sitting in the morris chair, looking as relaxed as if he were in his own sitting room.
"What are you doing here?" Caroline demanded.
He raised his perfectly shaped eyebrows. "Hoping for a word with you, my dear Caroline." She opened her mouth to speak, but he held up a hand to silence her. "I wanted to discuss the return of something that belongs to you."
She glared at him, suddenly putting two and two together. "It was you who left those photographs lying on the table for Detective Toscana to find, wasn't it? And then you came back for them later, didn't you?"
Raoul smiled. "Clever Caroline."
"But why?"
"I thought it might muddy the waters with the cops. You see, Claudia had a very profitable little sideline going. Some friends of hers needed a little political clout on their side, and your charming husband was in a position to meet their needs. Of course, he took a little persuading."
"Claudia was blackmailing Doug?" Caroline crossed to the sofa and sank into it. She knew her husband was a double-dealing, two-timing bastard when it came to love, but she didn't think his politics were as corrupt as his sex drive.
"Such a coarse word, blackmail. I prefer to think of it as oiling the wheels of commerce. And with your mother taking over my living, I figure I'm going to need all the commercial support I can find. I didn't want the cops stumbling over the real dirt that Claudia had on Doug, so I decided to serve them up a delicious little red herring."
Caroline frowned. "I don't understand. You mean she wasn't blackmailing him over his infidelities?"
Raoul laughed. "You're so naive. You really think in this day and age that your husband's constituents would vote him out of office because he can't keep his fly zipped? Oh, it might lose him a few votes here and there with the fundamentalists, but it would pull in a lot more from all the guys who would love to be doing exactly what he's doing. But thankfully, our local detectives are just as credulous as you are. They won't doubt for a moment that keeping those photographs away from you would be enough of a reason for darling Doug to do what Claudia asked."
"You're saying there's more?"
Raoul crossed his legs. He looked as pleased as a cat that had just incapacitated a mouse. "Here's the way I see it. While it won't harm Doug's career in the long run if the world finds out what a sleaze he really is, it would be better all around if things just continued as they are. I don't think there's any need for you to get a divorce, Caroline. Don't rock the boat. Keep things on an even keel. Make it easy for Doug to earn the money he's going to need to keep me satisfied."
Caroline shook her head in disbelief. "You're crazy. I wouldn't stay married to Doug to save my life."
"Oh, I think you would. And that's just what you're going to have to do. Because what I know about Doug won't just destroy him. It'll destroy you, too. You'll be a social outcast. There's not an orchestra in the land that would give you a job. No, let me rephrase that. There's not an orchestra in the whole world that would have you. You'll be a leper for the rest of your life."
He was enjoying himself, she could see that. And she hated him for it. But there was something concrete underpi
"Oh, but it does, Caroline. Because you were a willing partner in this… enterprise."
"You're not making any sense at all."
Raoul uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, elbows on knees. "I assume you know about your mother's little indiscretion?"
Caroline's head came up, her eyes widening in astonishment. Claudia must have confided in her husband, she thought wildly. But what did this have to do with her and Doug? "You're still not making sense," she said, less certain of herself now.
"The child your mother gave up for adoption all those years ago went to a Mr. and Mrs. Blessing," Raoul said, gri
Panic started to clench in Caroline's chest. She could feel her heart thudding, the cold sweat of fear breaking out on her neck. "No," she gasped, her pupils dilating as the adrenaline pumped into her system and her breath began to quicken.
"Oh, yes," Raoul said. "In keeping with that fine Southern tradition, you've been sleeping with your brother."
"You're lying. Where's your proof?"
Raoul got to his feet and crossed to her. Caroline shrank back against the soft cushions. He reached out and grabbed her left hand. "There's your proof. That angled little finger. You and Doug share the same genetic defect."
Caroline gazed at him in a long moment of stu
Raoul frowned. This wasn't how it was supposed to play. "You think incest is some kind of joke?"
Caroline struggled to take command of herself. With a final gulping hiccup, she managed to control her hysterical laughter. "My finger… It's not a genetic defect. I broke it badly when I was six years old. It happened at our cabin up in the mountains. By the time we got to a hospital, it was too late for them to straighten it out without surgery. So they just let it heal crooked." The stu
Raoul took a step back, his scowling face a mask of suspicion. "You're making this up. Claudia had paperwork."
Caroline shook her head. She'd sobered up now and anger was begi