Page 133 of Mercy (The Sins Trilogy 3)
My heart clenches. Enough of the bullshit and lies and platitudes. He thought wrong if he assumed all he had to do to fix the years and years of antipathy was call and offer us the mansion for the ceremony. “Probably. But even if you had, I wouldn’t have held our wedding here.”
Under the table, Ivy squeezes my hand.
“You’re still angry,” Father says. His solemn, understanding face only intensifies the farcical aspect of this dinner.
It’s all I can do to not jump to my feet and rage and laugh, no matter how cathartic that might feel. “Not for the reasons you think. I’m not losing Ivy like I did last time. Not when I don’t believe Mother won’t harm her again.”
Shock ripples over Edgar and Harry. Father scowls, while Mother’s expression goes tight and hard.
“What are you accusing me of?” The question is sharp, bristling with anger.
She’s good. The stiff set of her shoulders and spine. The hard line of her delicate jaw. And yet somehow the frailty is still there, to remind onlookers that she’s but a woman, a helpless damsel who needs a knight or two to protect her. If I hadn’t heard the recording, I’d buy her act.
“‘Margot sends her regards,’” I quote, keeping my eye on both her and Father, my mouth dry with ugly anticipation.
“That doesn’t make any sense.” She turns to Father, her entire demeanor as brittle as a glass wind chime. “Lane, are you going to let him insult me when I’ve finally decided to give him a chance? After what he’s done?”
My mouth twists. It always comes down to this. And she’s right. What I did was unforgivable. That’s why if she’d just hurt me—only me—I wouldn’t be here. But she went too far when she attacked Ivy.
Father looks torn between frustration and anger. “Tony, what are you talking about?”
“Listen.” I take out my phone, tap the screen a few times and put it on the table. The file from the music box starts playing.
I watch my family closely. Father, Edgar and Harry look confused. Mother’s face is white and stony. She knows what’s coming.
And I know. She’s guilty as hell. Embarrassment and horror twine in my chest. Even though I’ve been mentally bracing myself, having it confirmed is much, much worse. Kick-in-the-groin awful.
Ivy starts trembling as the man screams on the recording, her unblinking gaze on Mother. I put an arm around her shoulders, wishing she didn’t have to be here. The whole thing is too sordid, too ugly.
Edgar recovers first. “What is this?”
“Something Sam sent Ivy after he died,” I say. “A recording from his precious Dictaphone, I imagine. It’s the night Ivy’s Lexus was pushed over the side of the highway and into the bayou.”
Harry looks sick. He puts a hand over his mouth.
Father’s jaw tightens, his eyes going dark. Finally, he turns to Mother. “What did that mean? ‘Margot sends her regards’?”
“How on earth should I know? It has nothing to do with me.” Mother gestures at my phone. “Who knows what the boy was thinking when he said that? Obviously he’s unhinged.”
I almost sneer, disgusted. How convenient to point at Caleb and call him crazy—crazy enough to throw out her name, out of all the people in Tempérane and the surrounding parishes.
Father nods. “She’s right, Tony. We don’t know the Margot in the recording is your mother.”
Bitter disappointment lodges in my belly. I should’ve expected him to side with her, even when faced with irrefutable proof. Nothing matters to him but Mother. “Then why did you invest with Sam, Mother?” I point out the flaw in her defense, wondering who she’ll blame next. “You hated him before. You said he was a cockroach. And yet you’ve given him so much money.”
Father flinches, his complexion paler.
Mother’s eyes glint. “I didn’t ‘give him money.’ I invested. He paid me back fairly.”
“But you never needed the profit from the investment.”
“Everyone wants to make money. Financial ambition isn’t something that’s exclusively yours,” Mother says, her voice cool.
Ah yes, make this about me.“They aren’t, but the difference is I worked for mine, while you married for yours. You never invested with anyone until Sam.”
“How dare you.”
Suddenly I’m tired of her lack of remorse, of Father’s refusal to see the truth, of the whole sordid situation. Maybe coming here with Ivy was a mistake. I should’ve just handed the recording over to law enforcement and let them deal with it. If they do nothing because of Caleb’s father being the sheriff, I can always leak it to the media. The resulting scandal can’t be worse than this ridiculous, immoral travesty. “If I take this to the police and they question Caleb Wentworth, is he going to say he mentioned your name for no reason at all? Will he say it’s some other Margot?”
