A Valentine Wish (Gates-Cameron 1)

“You said Charles threatened you and your mother,” Dean reminded him. “Did you confront him that night?”

“He saw me,” Watson said grimly. “When he come back with all those people to provide him an alibi, he spotted me sitting in the bushes and I guess he figured I’d been there all along. He slipped into my bedroom that night—I was laying awake, trying to get up the courage to tell someone what I seen. He had a knife in his hand. Told me he’d cut me into pieces if I said a word, and then he’d go after my mama.”

“That son of a bitch,” Mark muttered. “You were just a boy.”

“He made his point. I kept my mouth shut, even when his daddy fired my mama. He told her they couldn’t afford us anymore, what with the scandal and all.”

“When did you start the blackmail?” Mark asked, unable to keep the disapproval out of his voice.

Watson gave a bark of laughter that held little humor. “I was twenty-five. My mama was dead, worked herself to death thanks to those coldhearted Peavys. I was barely getting by. Charles Peavy was founding his fortune on reasonably honest investments with capital he’d made from his bootlegging days. I’d had to live with the horror of that night all those years. I didn’t see nothing fair about it. So I went to him and told him he owed me. Owed me big. Told him I wanted a guaranteed lifetime job with his family, at a decent rate of pay. Told him if he’d take care of me for life, the way my mama was promised, I’d keep my mouth shut.”

“How could you do that?” Dean asked, unable to hold his own opinions back any longer. “Because you kept quiet, Charles Peavy got away with murder. Several murders.”

“If I’d talked then, there’d have been two more dead. Me and my ma,” Watson snarled. “No one would’ve thought twice about us. We was just the servants, after all.”

“But later-”

Watson sighed and shrugged one bony shoulder. “By then, I just didn’t care no more. I was old enough and had seen enough of the rough side of life that he couldn’t scare me. I told him I wouldn’t go as easy as the twins did. Told him I had a letter with a friend that was to be sent to all the newspapers if anything happened to me. Told him that same friend would make damned sure I was avenged. Charles didn’t dare cross me. He set me to doing odd jobs for his wife, and I stayed on with them and their kids for the next fifty years.”

“You mean the entire Peavy family was in on this secret? Even the younger ones?” Mark asked incredulously.

“‘Course not.” Watson gave Mark a look of dislike. “Charles told’em I was to stay on because of their family honor, or some such nonsense. He wrote in his will that I was to be supported for the rest of my natural life. Wasn’t a damned thing they could do about it, though none of’em liked it much. Only one who ever knew the truth, far as I know, was Charles’s girl. Margaret. The snootiest, omeriest woman I ever had the dishonor of knowing. Took after her father, that one did.”

Mark dropped his pen. He retrieved it hastily. “Margaret knew?”

“Told her myself,” Watson said with some satisfaction. “She got to bad-mouthing me one day, telling me she was getting rid of me whatever it took and that there weren’t nothing I could do about it, since her daddy was dead. I told her the truth about her precious daddy. Told her I’d ruin her in town. Since she liked playing the grand lady around Destiny, she didn’t dare call my bluff. She hated me, but she made sure the money kept coming.”

“And now you are telling the truth,” Dean said.

Watson laughed shortly. “Sure as hell am. And I want you to print every word of it,” he ordered Mark. “Serve the snotty bitch right to have everyone know where her sacred money came from.”

“I’m not sure I can print this,” Mark demurred. “This is all just hearsay. Your word against the Peavys.”

“How stupid you think I am, boy?” Watson glared at Dean. “Get that big Bible off my nightstand. Glued inside the back cover, you’ll find a letter in Charles Peavy’s own hand. You can have his signature verified. It tells everything he done.”

“How on earth did you get him to do that?” Dean asked, stunned.

Watson’s smile wasn’t pleasant. “I was holding a knife at the time. Told him that if he didn’t do what I said, I’d cut him into little pieces. And then I’d go after his baby son, his little Gaylon. He believed me. I’d learned from the best, you see.”

Shaken, Dean clutched the ragged Bible in his left hand. The whole story made him sick. Ian and Anna had been the only true innocents involved, he realized sadly.

Watson motioned toward Dean’s sling with a frail, shaky hand. “You tangle with the Peavys already?”

Dean nodded curtly. “I think so.”

“They won’t be bothering you after this. Wouldn’t dare.”

Dean hoped the old man was right. He hated every minute of this, but he knew the Cameron name had to be cleared.

Even if it happened seventy-five years too late.

Watson looked suddenly tired. Sick. Very, very old. “I ain’t saying I’m proud of anything I’ve done. But maybe this will make up for some of it. If you see them ghosts again, you tell’em—you tell’em—”

His voice faded.

Dean sighed. “I’ll tell them you finally told the truth.”

Watson closed his eyes. “That’ll do. Or maybe I’ll be telling ’em myself before very long.”