Daughter of Deceit Read Free Page A

so flat-out wrong?”
    She slammed on the brakes barely in time to avoid crashing into the garage door. That would have been disastrous. She had no funds to repair it, and Foley’s lawyer…
    She would not think about Foley or his lawyer.
    She would not think about her own lawyer, either. Poor Uncle Scotty knew practically nothing about divorce. His specialty was golf. When he wasn’t on the links, he handled accounts for a few condominium associations. She suspected he didn’t do that very well. Still, her mother’s only brother was all she could afford at the moment, and she had to have a lawyer in this mess.
    She took another gulp of whiskey as she fumbled for the door opener, had to press the button twice before the door began to rise. She pulled slowly into the four-car garage, turned off the engine, and laid her head on the wheel. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
    She lifted her head to study her face in the flask, a reflection as distorted as her life. “I was programmed from birth for marriage and good works,” she told it somberly. She ticked off the accomplishments of sixty-two years on her fingers. “Debut, Randolph-Macon, marriage to Ray, two kids, all those fund-raising shindigs, then Foley, my own private roller coaster to hell.” She flung back her head and took a swallow that choked her. “Dammit, Mama,” she roared, “between us, we have wasted my life. And what do I have to show for it? Nothing!”
    She blearily contemplated the white door in front of her hood and wondered whether she had enough energy to carry in the groceries.
    Two months before, Deva would have bought the groceries and brought them home, but Bara had come home one day to discover that Foley had dismissed her entire staff—some of whom had been with her for twenty years. Instead, he had hired a weekly cleaning crew and a lawn service.
    “Like a museum or something,” Bara had stormed.
    “We’re only keeping the place in shape to sell,” he had said coldly.
    “I’m never going to sell. And who’s going to do the cooking and laundry?”
    “For those, my dear, you are on your own.”
    Since then, Bara had subsisted on yogurt, cereal, fruit, and TV dinners. She had ruined several good garments before she’d discovered care instructions on those little tags sewn in seams. Recently she had noticed, to her dismay, how much Publix charged for milk and detergent.
    “I bought too many groceries,” she lamented, resting her forehead on the steering wheel. “Too many groceries, too much house.”
    It had been big for four people. For one, it was enormous.
    “Not one, two,” she reminded herself. “Foley’s in the basement. I’ve got a rat in my basement, Mama. That’s what happens when you marry one. You know what he said yesterday? He wants me to sell my car!” She clutched the wheel of her beloved Jag. Why didn’t somebody come to rescue her from so much pain?
    “I’m going under, Winnie!” she cried. “I can’t hold out much longer.”
    She took two long swallows from the flask. To forget. But she couldn’t.
    Even after months of therapy, she still woke some nights weeping because she had killed her daddy.

Chapter 3
    The air filled with the theme from The Lone Ranger .
    It took a couple of seconds for Bara to realize the music was not the soundtrack to her thoughts, but rather, her new cell phone’s ring tone. As she grabbed her black leather purse and pawed through it, she smiled. She and Chip had chosen the ring tone together. “It goes bump-a-bump,” he had announced with satisfaction. Her three-year-old grandson was the one person in the world who could still make her smile.
    The phone was buried deep in her purse, eluding her shaking fingers. “Blasted nuisance,” she muttered as she searched. “Never would have gotten the danged thing if Payne hadn’t insisted. I sure named her right. The girl can be a royal pain.”
    She pulled out the phone and flipped it open without looking to see