Free After Dark by Beverly Barton

Gotta keep up your
strength. As soon as you get well, I'm going to take you down to the Gulf,
and we'll gather seashells on the beach the way we did the last time we
were there."
        Ignoring him, Mary Martha continued
humming, continued rocking, apparently oblivious to all that was around
her. Buddy reached out and caressed the doll's cheek. Mary Martha gathered
the doll close to her chest and held it there as if she thought Buddy was going
to snatch it away.
        "Don't take my baby! Don't you
take my baby!" Mary Martha's pathetic cry pierced her mother's heart.
This tragedy was her fault. Everything was her fault. But it was too late
to do anything that could help Mary Martha. And too late for recompense
on her part. Nothing could change the past. The most she could do now was
protect her child.
        "No, no, sweetheart,"
Buddy said. "It's all right. I'm not going to take your baby away from
you."
        He rose to his feet and turned
his back, but not before Edith saw the sheen of tears in his eyes. If anyone
on earth loved Mary Martha, Buddy did. He had been in love with her since
they were children, and his devotion to her was touching. There was
nothing Buddy wouldn't do for Mary Martha. She envied her daughter on
that count.
        Edith clasped the top round on the
rocker with white-knuckled ferocity. Taking a deep, calming breath,
she nodded toward the settee by the fireplace and said, "Why don't
you sit down, Buddy? We'll stay a few more minutes. Our just being here
with her will somehow reassure her, don't you think?"
        Buddy nodded, then sat on the settee.
His gaze rested sorrowfully on Mary Martha. "Do you think it's all
right to talk in front of her? I mean, you don't think she'd get upset, that
she'd actually understand what we're saying?"
        ''Just what did you want to talk to
me about? " Edith asked.
        "Well, we haven't had much
chance to discuss the current situation, not with Kent's funeral and
then Mary Martha going to pieces the way she did."
        "And what is the current situation?"
Edith walked over to the vanity, picked up a silver brush and returned to
stand behind her daughter's chair.
        "For one thing Lane is the main
suspect in Kent's murder. How do you want us to handle that? Do you want to
see her arrested or not?"
        "Oh, yes, that situation."
Edith ran the brush through Mary Martha's fiery gold hair and wished that
she had taken the time to do this when her daughter was a child. "Lane
deceived Kent. She made his life miserable and all for what? For a baby
she knew had been fathered by Johnny Mack Cahill. Even if she didn't strike
the blows that actually killed Kent, her part in the deception helped
to kill him long before he died."
        "You know what the local gossip
is, don't you?"
        "Tell me."
        "I hear folks are saying they
think Will killed Kent, and Lane is just taking the rap for him."
        Edith had loved her grandson-the
boy she had thought was her grandson. Even now, knowing Will wasn't her own
flesh and blood, she still cared for him. But she couldn't-wouldn't-allow
Johnny Mack's son to inherit anything from John Graham's estate.
        "Hmm… Interesting. But we
know that poor boy is as innocent of any wrongdoing as… as my Mary Martha,"
Edith said. "He's a good boy, even if he is the spawn of the devil."
        "Yes, of course." Buddy
stared directly at Edith and nodded agreement. "And speaking of the
devil-I plan to call on our visitor and find out just who he is and what he
wants." Buddy rubbed his hands nervously up and down the front of his
thighs. "If by some chance he really is Johnny Mack, then we don't
want him hanging around and muddying the water, do we?"
        "By all means, pay this man
calling himself Johnny Mack Cahill a visit. Tonight. If he is who he says
he is, give him fair warning that he's not wanted here now any more than
he was fifteen years ago."
        "I don't see how it