“Just tell him the truth, Blake. This is getting ridiculous,” Lisa said. “Please, please, please, everyone. Put the guns down.”

Jackson ignored the request. “Who else is in there?” he asked.

“No one—I swear,” Lisa said.

“Tell you what,” Jackson said. “Blake, hand over the weapon. Then both of you step ahead of me, and we’ll walk on over to the Newton house and have a little chat. I like the idea of everyone telling the truth, Miss Drummond. I think that will be refreshing.”

Conroy started to slide his Smith & Wesson into his shoulder holster.

“No, no. Hand it over,” Jackson said.

“I have a permit,” Blake told him.

“And I don’t care. Hand it over.”

Blake tossed the gun to the ground at Jackson’s feet. Jackson reached down to retrieve it, never taking his eyes off him.

“Go. Angela?” he called, not looking up.

“Will is at the front,” she assured him.

“Go!” Jackson ordered.

The two of them went ahead of him to the house. Will already had the door open. He backed away so that the couple could enter in front of Jackson.

Angela was down the stairs by then, and she still had her pistol aimed and ready.

“Blake, I’m sure you know your firearms. Angela carries a Smith & Wesson SD9 pistol, and so you know that she has a sixteen-plus-one capacity. She may look like an angel, but that’s a gun that means business.”

“I’m not going to pull anything,” Blake said irritably. “I’m a Christian, and I’ve told you that.”

“So what the hell is going on?” Jackson demanded.

Blake glanced at Lisa, who again seemed to explode with a combination of nervousness and fear.

“For God’s sake, it’s nothing underhanded. It’s just…oh, Lord! We’re having an affair, you idiots. It’s nothing more than that. We’re just keeping it secret because…”

“You’re a born-again Christian? Isn’t that…just wrong? Premarital sex?” Jackson asked Blake.

Blake looked away. “You don’t understand. We love each other.”

“I see. The rules apply when they work?”

“She had been sleeping with the boss,” Blake said. “Before she learned the truth and goodness in life.”

“From you, of course?”

“It’s not adultery when she’s with me,” Blake said quietly.

Lisa looked at Jackson and didn’t seem quite as nervous. “Yes, and you knew I’d slept with David. I could see that you knew it when you were in the office. But it ended. It ended when Regina died, but, still…”

“We couldn’t tell him,” Blake said. “We couldn’t tell him because we didn’t know how he would feel.”

Angela hadn’t put the gun down yet.

“So—so you two meet each other in a house next to this one?” she demanded.

“Why not?” Lisa asked wearily. “It’s where I used to meet David. He said it was best to carry on in plain sight. He said that we could be in the house on business if we were ever seen—the house is up for sale. And he could keep an eye on Regina from here. Oh, God, it was wrong, I know it! But he needed someone. He needed someone desperately, because she didn’t care anymore. All she had cared about was that kid. David told me that she was shattered. He said that he couldn’t stay married to her, but that he couldn’t leave her when she was so badly hurting. He couldn’t stand the pain, but he couldn’t leave her alone. He could never really be with her again. But then, she died, and suddenly…”

“Suddenly?” Jackson asked.

Lisa shook her head. “I didn’t know him anymore. He said that he’d never come back in this house. He asked me to wait, and I didn’t tell him that I couldn’t.”

“Why not?” Jackson asked her.

“Because,” she said. She looked over at Blake. “Because I was scared,” she admitted.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Life really could be construed as the art of illusion by some people. Angela and the others sat around the table with Blake Conroy and Lisa Drummond, listening, and trying to make sense out of what they heard.

“All right, when did you start to see David Holloway as something other than your boss?” Jackson asked her.

“About two months after his son died. His holding company has actually owned the house next door for several years.”

“What?” Jackson demanded sharply. “There’s no information on the senator’s holding company in his file, and the police didn’t mention it. You’d think they would have, seeing as the house is next door to the house where Regina died!”

Lisa looked surprised, and then concerned. “Well, it’s a company owned by a company, and I think there are other investors. The senator always wanted that kind of business interest kept quiet. Oh, it’s not illegal at all! It’s just all wrapped up in a lot of DBAs—doing business as, you know.”

“It’s illegal if he conceals his financial matters,” Jackson said.

“It wasn’t relevant to Regina’s death!” Lisa protested. “If Senator Holloway had thought that the police needed to know, of course he would have mentioned it! It’s a moneymaker—they rent it to groups, and, recently, with all the film activity in New Orleans, they rent out to movie and television producers as well. He asked me to meet him there one afternoon, and it was actually very innocent, I was just going to pick up some papers. But he was so down! He said that he liked being here because he was near Regina, in case she should need him, but then, he started crying, and he told me that she didn’t need or want him, no matter how he tried. She wanted their son back, and that was all that she wanted in the world. I guess it was my fault. I was just trying to comfort him, and one thing led to another, and…we started seeing one another,” she said flatly.

“But then you stopped.”

She nodded. “When Regina died, like I said. He’d been at the office that day. When I saw him again, it was as if he’d never really known me. I think, in his own mind, he tried to pretend that it had never happened.”

Blake cleared his throat. “I have loved Lisa from the moment I first saw her. And I didn’t know about the affair.”

“No one in the office—or anywhere—knew at first. And to this day, Blake only knows because I told him about it,” Lisa said.

“So, I’m lost now. Why are you afraid?” Angela demanded.

“Why am I afraid?” Lisa asked. “Regina is dead!”

“Why does that affect you? I’d think that’d be a plus. Or is it that you think David killed her himself?” Angela asked.

“I know that this house is strange. David became strange when he bought the place and stranger still as he spent more time in it. Once upon a time, he was a good politician. He was moderate, thoughtful, careful—brilliant. I loved working for him. I believed in him.”

“But you don’t now?” Jackson asked her.

She swallowed a sip of tea from the glass that Jenna had provided to her. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s nothing I can put my finger on, but…I’m scared. David became obsessed with losing her. He’s handed a lot of his work and his business over to Martin DuPre, and I’m not at all certain that Martin is serving his best interests, but when I try to point something out to him, he just ignores me.”

“We both go to work. We do what we do,” Blake said. “And we don’t tell him about us because he’s ridiculously fragile right now. I know that when Regina died, he suddenly called Grable Haines into the office and told him to take the money he needed. Grable was shaken up because he said that the senator was so weird that he wouldn’t have taken the money if he hadn’t been desperate.”

“I need to get back to the office,” Lisa said nervously.

“And I need to get back, too,” Blake said. “The senator said that he was locking up from noon until 2:00 p.m. for a break, but it’s nearly two now.”

Lisa looked at Jackson earnestly. “We want to get married, Blake and me. I’m joining his church. When the time is right, we’re going to get married.”

“Honest. Neither of us feels that we can leave him in the lurch,” Blake said.

Jackson leaned toward Blake and asked, “Why were you at the meeting of the Aryans?” he demanded.

“That one was David Holloway, I swear. He wanted me to see what they were about, and who they were complaining about. I even talked to you when I was there!” he said to Jake and Jenna.

“Yes, but you might have noticed—talking doesn’t always answer every question, does it?” Jackson said.

“Look, I’ve told you what I know at every point when you talked to me,” Blake said.

Lisa looked at him. “You didn’t tell them about me, did you?” she asked.

“No,” he said, glancing at Jackson and looking a little uncomfortable. “I mean, you know—no. I never said that Holloway had been engaged in an affair with his secretary, or, she with me.”

“If you have to go back to work, go back to work,” Jackson said. “But let me make a suggestion. Lisa, you should just tell Holloway that you two are seeing one another and planning on getting married.”

“I guess we should,” Lisa said, looking at Blake.

“I don’t know… I don’t know if it’s the right time,” Blake said. “I know you’re still suspicious of me—you have to be. I am the man’s bodyguard. But I was at that meeting of the Aryans because the senator sent me. I swear it. I swear before God. He’s paranoid. He brought you down here because no matter what he says, he’s afraid of ghosts, and he’s afraid of everyone around him.”

Jackson listened to Blake gravely. “All right, then. Wait. But don’t you think it might be worse if he finds out later, or by accident?”