Page 101 of Everyone’s a Liar

Ah, yes. The Benoit answer to any trouble. First try throwing money at the problem and if that didn’t work, then bully them into compliance.

The question now was, what was the third option? Livia’s stomach twisted with a strange sense of dread.

“But he wouldn’t go?”

“No.” Helene’s eyes darkened with a long-held resentment. “We were determined to be together. Even after I lost the baby.”

Livia found it absurdly easy to imagine a young Helene frantically attempting to escape her father and find happiness with someone who treated her as more than an asset to be bartered off.

“True love,” she murmured.

“Yes. Just like Romeo and Juliet.”

Helene’s voice was distracted, as if she was lost in memories of happier times. Livia took a step closer.

“So where is Manny?” Livia demanded. “And why didn’t you go with him?”

Helene winced, as if her pleasant daydream had been shattered. “Where do you think he is?” she hissed. “With Giselle.”

It took a second for Livia understand what her aunt was implying. “He’s dead?”

“He took him from me.”

“Who took him?”

“My father. Who else?”

Livia stared at Helene. She wasn’t shocked that Manny was dead. Somehow she’d sensed that his ghost was haunting the Willows. Or at least haunting poor Helene. But her brain rebelled against the implication that her grandfather was somehow responsible for his death.

“Are you saying he … ​killed him?” she finally forced herself to ask, making sure she didn’t mistake what her aunt was suggesting.

Helene hunched a shoulder. “He said it was an accident. Manny came for me early one morning. I had my bags packed and I was about to escape this place. Then I heard it.”

“Heard what?”

“That terrible scream.”

A chill swirled through the room, sweeping past Livia with a brush of unseen fingers. Fear speared through her heart. The icy touch felt like a warning.

“What happened?” she demanded,

“I ran outside and Manny was lying in the middle of the driveway.” Helene’s eyes filled with tears. “My father had run him over.”

Livia’s memory of her grandfather was of an aging tyrant with a thickening paunch and perpetually bitter expression. It took no effort to imagine him using a vehicle to run down someone who’d pissed him off. Wait. Not just any vehicle. It had to be the one currently decomposing in the swamps.

“He ran him over with the limo,” she rasped.

Helene gave a jerky nod. “He said he was just trying to scare Manny away, but I didn’t believe him. Why would he put his body in the trunk of the limo and drive it to the swamp if he had nothing to hide?”

“No.” Livia slapped her hand over her mouth as a rush of nausea threatened to bring up the contents of her stomach. She’d been standing just inches from the limo. She’d actually touched the rusty metal frame. “Oh my God. My grandfather killed a man and hid his body in the swamp. He must have been out of his mind.”

“No, not crazy. Henri Benoit simply believed he was above the law.”

Livia stared at the woman in horror. “So did you, obviously. Why didn’t you call the cops when you’d seen what he’d done?”

Helene glared at her in frustration. “Because no one would have listened to me. The local officials were all on the payroll of the Benoits.”

“Then you should have contacted someone …” Another shocking revelation slammed into Livia. “Wait. That’s it. My mother found out about Manny, didn’t she?”