Secrets Of The Outback

“A gorgon, my dear, was one of three snake-haired sisters in Greek mythology. Of course, you didn’t have a classical education.”

“All right, make that a bastard.”

Skinner snorted. “Don’t get on the wrong side of Keefe Connellan,” he warned her. “He loves Davina. They love each other. I could almost feel sorry for Travis. At one time, his father was threatening to disinherit him. Damn, I’m talking too much. Should I ring him?”

“Who, Connellan? I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction,” Jewel said disgustedly. “But expect a phone call…”

IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE to concentrate on anything for the rest of the afternoon. There seemed no rational explanation for what had happened in Blair Skinner’s office, but it all had to do with the striking resemblance between her and Lady Copeland and the fact that her father had once worked for the family. Jewel was outraged by the way Keefe Connellan had treated her. Outraged by everything about the man. Being with him was like being in an emotional and intellectual combat zone. He acted as though she was cruelly impersonating someone closely linked to Lady Copeland’s life. Someone Lady Copeland really needed or cared about. A daughter, a granddaughter who’d died? Jewel couldn’t figure it out.

More than anything, she wanted to call her mother to see if Thea could offer an explanation. A couple of times she’d even picked up the phone but knew there was little point in it. Her mother, even if she came to the phone, would be made highly anxious by any kind of questioning. Thea experienced bouts of severe anxiety, and talking to her would do no good at all. In fact, it might make a difficult situation worse. Her mother lived in a permanent state of depression, a kind of helplessness, even worthlessness, that Jewel often found overwhelming.

“Thank God you never took after your mother. I’d go crazy.”

That was what Aunt Judith always said. A single woman with a crackling persona, sometimes cyclonic, far from unattractive—she’d once had a fiancе who had simply “vanished,” a calamity at the time. It had been two weeks before the wedding and the theory was that he’d been taken by a crocodile on one of his nighttime fishing trips. Judith was thin, terribly thin, but always on the go, impatient, trying to do her best but totally unequipped by nature to deal with a sister who had “emotional problems.” In all fairness Aunt Judith had tried to cope with Thea’s physical and mental inertia, but her initial sympathy had passed quickly, mainly because she, like Jewel, was a person who was anything but stationary.

Her aunt Judith. Jewel owed her a great deal.

They’d gone to live with Judith after her father’s death. Her mother had little money, but she still retained a half-share in the family home, a marvelous spooky old colonial Queenslander some miles out of town. Jewel would never forget her first sight of it. She was an imaginative child, and it had seemed to her the house of a witch. Set in a great blossoming forest with gem-colored birds and enormous blue butterflies circling the riotous overgrown gardens, it was filled with towering palms and soaring ferns and great mango trees whose fruit littered the ground. And there was Aunt Judith confirming her childish suspicions, standing on the deep shadowy front veranda overhung by a scarlet bougainvillea that had woven itself through the length of the white wrought-iron banisters and threatened to bring down the huge pillars that supported the luminous green roof. She stood there, thin arms outstretched, a wild mane of curly dark hair cascading down her back, her clothes like clothes Jewel had never seen before. Long and loose and floating with big stars all over them, like a magician’s. She soon learned that outfit was called a caftan and Aunt Judith had painted the stars herself. After the harshness and the terra-cotta colors of her Outback home, it was like being invited into the Garden of Eden—where there were plenty of snakes. It was and remained a magical house, the place her mother and Aunt Judith had been born and where her mother now hid.

Aunt Judith had welcomed them, glad of their company. The day they arrived, the ceiling of the huge living room dripped colored streamers and bunches of balloons hanging from the lovely Chinese lanterns with painted wooden panels that shielded the lightbulbs. But Aunt Judith had quickly come to the realization that Thea wasn’t going to be any company, let alone help. To herself, her little daughter or indeed anyone else. And Judith came to realize, not without shock, that her pretty sister, who’d run off to get married when she was barely nineteen, no longer cared if she lived or died. There was only the child to be salvaged.

Me, Jewel thought.

So they’d all settled into their strange new life—Jewel confronting lots of hair-raising experiences in what was virtually a wilderness. Aunt Judith ran a small, successful business in the town. It was a sort of treasure shop selling the handiwork of the artists of the district—a dizzying array of wonderfully dressed dolls and stuffed toys to patchwork quilts, imaginative clothing, exotic cushions, watercolors, oils, pottery, handmade jewelry, clocks, so-called sacred objects, you name it. As a child Jewel had always enjoyed helping Aunt Judith in the shop. Her mother had tried, frowning with concentration over the least little thing, but she couldn’t manage it. Thea Bishop’s slump into depression had not been gradual. It had been dramatic, dating from the very day her father was killed. Before that, her mother had seemed a different person. Sweet, loving, fun to be with. Then the terrible descent into a kind of quiet madness when only glimpses of her former self showed through. Jewel had lived all her childhood with the knowledge that her mother wasn’t like other mothers, but a heartbreakingly sad person, a woman who could never be relied on to help Aunt Judith, to turn up at speech days or concerts or fetes or to fetch her from school in the afternoons. This she had accepted as testament to her mother’s grief. A thinking child who had adored her father, Jewel could remember her own terrible pain and sadness when she was told her daddy had gone to heaven. How much worse for her mother to lose her beloved husband, her life’s companion, at such a young age. The trauma held her mother in thrall. It refused to let go.

“For God’s sake, Thea, other people suffer terrible losses and go on!” Aunt Judith, voice imploring, would urge her sister to try to keep her physical and mental integrity intact. “The child needs you!”

Her mother would stare back at them, lost in some subterranean labyrinth. She had started crying the day she learned of her loss and she had never stopped, falling deeper and deeper into an inertia that was agonizing to watch. Jewel, who loved her mother and was fiercely protective of her, never put her own confused and frightened thoughts into words, even during her mother’s worst periods. Aunt Judith did that for her, coming home every night to a sister “off on another planet,” under the influence of all the pills that were prescribed by her doctors. At the age of ten, Jewel had taken charge of her mother, reversing their roles, while Aunt Judith strove to keep all three afloat. This arrangement had endured until Jewel won a full scholarship to a leading girls’ school, which she’d entered as a boarder with her aunt’s full approval and support.

“One of us has got to spring the trap,” was the way Aunt Judith had put it. Outwardly sharp and increasingly without sympathy for her sister’s “self-inflicted” condition, Aunt Judith nonetheless refused to cast Thea aside. The two of them would “survive, but it won’t be much fun!”

So many of the things Aunt Judith had said over the years stuck in Jewel’s mind. Her aunt had not been a witch, thank goodness; she was a courageous and unusual woman, with a sharp tongue. The last time Jewel had visited her mother and aunt, just over a month before, they seemed to have eased into an arrangement that worked. Aunt Judith ran the shop, ordered in all the provisions and she’d hired a handyman to halfway tame the spectacular abandoned jungle they lived in, while her mother tried to keep the house in order and have a meal ready for Judith when she arrived home from work. For some years now, Jewel had been able to help out financially, easing the burden on her aunt who, to her great credit, had never complained about all the “extras.” As well, Jewel bought her mother’s clothes and enjoyed finding unconventional outfits for her aunt. Her aunt Judith had become something of a local celebrity, just as her mother had become the local misfit, the outcast, even if word was she still looked fetching.

Jewel tried hard to organize her chaotic thoughts. The best she could do was speak to her aunt over the weekend. In the early days, Aunt Judith had spent countless hours listening to her sister’s mournful outpourings. Maybe Judith knew something that would shed some light on the bewildering situation that had confronted her. Briskly Jewel picked up the phone to book an early-morning flight to the “far north.” North of Capricorn. Another world. After that, she would ring her aunt at the shop. It was the usual routine designed by both of them to shield Thea.

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS AFTER SIX before she left the office, intending to take the bus the couple of blocks to her club, the Caxton. Named after an early female activist, it had been formed a few years back for young, professional women, mostly from legal circles. She enjoyed being part of it and meeting other young women whose interests matched her own. At the club she could relax and freshen up before going on to meet the Hungerford boys at the restaurant. They had assured her they could find it.

It was much too late to go home, home being a small townhouse in a trendy suburb near the river. She was paying it off, but not as quickly as she would’ve liked. There were too many other considerations, not the least of them keeping up the appearance her job required, especially since Blair Skinner had taken her under his wing. After such a strange and frustrating afternoon, the boys’ unhappy home and financial situation had somehow paled into insignificance beside her own affairs. She would have to get herself back on track. Going up north to visit her mother would address two issues at once. Her own family mystery and how Sheila Hungerford, now Sheila Everett, had come to betray her adored sons.

Lost in thought, Jewel didn’t immediately notice the big silver-gray limousine that was purring alongside her as she strolled along. Finally it caught her attention, and she swung her head. Shock was like a live wire sparking inside her. The face that looked out at her belonged to Keefe Connellan. She couldn’t believe it. Was he following her? He was seated in the rear of the chauffeur-driven vehicle, the window wound down. He called to her, his tone of voice quietly authoritative.

“Ms. Bishop.” The limousine slid into a loading zone a short distance ahead, and he emerged from the back seat, leaving the door open and looking toward her. “Could you spare a moment?”

Her pulse picked up and the blood tingled through her veins. She hated the way he was looking at her. “I don’t think so, Mr. Connellan. I have an evening appointment.” She spoke doubtfully, as if it were a regretful statement of fact. She was careful not to reveal her unease.

“Are you going home?” He, too, kept his tone polite—but managed to sound somehow derisive.

“As it happens, I’m off to my club.”

“The Caxton?”

It seemed he approved. Not that she cared. She dropped her pretense, realizing she was under careful scrutiny. “Now, how did you discover that?”

He smiled, a white flash that attracted her in spite of herself.

“Would you believe I have a marvelous networking system?” he said. “Please get in. You’re not five minutes away, if we drive you.”

Jewel took a decisive step to one side, head up, shoulders straight. “That’s quite all right. I like to walk.”

“Obviously, since you’re in the best of shape.” His glance licked over her. “But indulge me.”

“What, after today?” Those black eyes made her think of the Medicis and hidden daggers.

“I’m interested in talking to you further,” he said mildly, his expression giving nothing away.

“Really? There’s nothing to learn.”

“We both know there is.” He stared down into her face, then he put out a hand and gently grasped her arm.

Jewel’s knees turned to mush.

“You’re forcing me into your car?” She lifted her brows, feeling an unwelcome thrill she sought to banish.

“I never forget my manners.”

“You forgot them this afternoon.” Knowing she had little chance of getting away, short of screaming, Jewel slid into the back seat of the Rolls. A smartly uniformed chauffeur sat behind the wheel awaiting instructions. He didn’t turn his head.

“The Caxton, Jacob,” Keefe Connellan said. He got in beside Jewel, shutting the door.

“Yes, sir. I know it.”

Keefe Connellan focused his attention on Jewel, while the chauffeur activated a device to bring up a glass partition between front and back seats.

“This is a lot like getting kidnapped.”

He looked at her in mock amazement. “Please don’t feel threatened. There’s nothing wrong with privacy.”

“So you’re a private investigator now.” Jewel leaned back slightly, her nostrils beguiled by the scent of the plush leather.

“Lady Copeland is someone I care about,” he said curtly, revealing the anger beneath the smooth surface.

“She has a son,” Jewel said pointedly.

“Obviously.” He watched her in a way she couldn’t fathom. “She has a granddaughter, too.”

“Amelia. Yes, I know.” Jewel glanced out the window at the homebound crowds. “I’ve often seen her photograph in the social pages. She’s very beautiful. Do you care about her, too?” She tossed her head defiantly, pleased that she’d rattled him.