Molly O'Keefe - The Temptation of Savannah O'Neill

Why vandalizing their home was considered cool was one of the great mysteries of local teenage life.

She swung down from the lowest branch and landed on the broken cobblestone. Looking up she found Katie carefully scrambling down after her.

“Careful,” Savannah said. When Katie got within reach Savannah lifted her daughter down, holding her close for just a second, smelling the sunshine and rose smell of her skin.

The pajamas were toast.

“What does that mean?” Katie asked, pointing to the letters on the stone walls. Savannah shot Margot an arch look—slut was a stretch, but Margot was the closest thing they had.

“Like you have no secrets?” Margot asked, defensive.

“Officially, I’m not an O’Neill.”

“Honey, an O’Neill by any other name is still an O’Neill.”

The truth was, every O’Neill female was born with secrets, and through their own legendarily bad decision-making, each of them had her own sins. Not that the men had it any better—her brothers had their own crimes and mysteries.

Secrets upon secrets, that was the O’Neill legacy.

And, she had to believe, even if her mother had taken Richard Bonavie’s name, the curse would have lingered.

“What does it mean?” Katie asked again.

“It’s just a bad word,” Savannah said. “Kids think it’s funny to write bad words on our back wall.” O’Neill Sluts.

O’Neill Devils.

O’Neill Thieves.

“Was this here while I was gone?” Margot asked, having gotten back a week and half ago from her cruise.

“No!” Savannah denied, though she wasn’t totally sure. She loved her jungle, wild and unmaintained, but it obstructed her view of much of the yard. “It’s new.”

“It’d never been this bad before,” Margot said. “Come look at this.”

Katie and Savannah headed around the tree and through the kudzu to the greenhouse and back wall. Now that Savannah was closer she saw that Margot was actually very upset. Her fine elegant hands were shaking.

“Look,” Margot whispered, pointing to the greenhouse.

Every pane of glass had been shattered and all of Margot’s orchids were destroyed. The unearthed roots like veins, strewn across tabletops and the floor. Dirt like blood, everywhere.

“Oh, my lord, Margot.” She raised astonished eyes to her grandmother. Occasionally the woman went to New Orleans and played poker, or took a cruise with an “admirer” and gambled across the seven seas, and she used to keep her winnings back here buried in pots because she didn’t trust banks. She’d done it for years before Savannah found out and made her stop. “Are you hiding money back here again?”

“No.” Margot pulled a face. “I lost on this last one, I told you that.”

“Then why would anyone do this?”

“Because it was here. I don’t know.” She looked around the wreckage, her face drawn. “I understand you hate the idea. But I think it’s time.”

“No.” God, no. Anything but what Margot was suggesting. “Margot, we can do something.” Savannah leaned down and started cleaning up, picking up shattered pottery, knowing she was too late—the courtyard was out of control. The boldest of the high school students were drinking back here, and Katie was almost always getting cuts and bruises from the roses and broken cobblestones.

These plants, the trees, the bushes—nothing had been touched in years. Nearly twenty. She knew something should be done, but it was hers. The idea of someone else, some stranger back here, was unthinkable.

Because if they were in her courtyard then they’d be in her home. In her life. And no good ever came of that—pain was an excellent teacher.

“I’ll clean it up,” Savannah said, feeling a bubble of frantic energy rising in her throat. “I start vacation on Tuesday. I can work on it then.”

“I’ll help,” Katie chimed in, crouching next to her to help and Savannah winked at her, grateful.

“Honey,” Margot said, shaking her head. “We both know you’re taking the time off to work on that research for the Discovery Channel. There aren’t enough hours in the day.”

“I’ll work at night. Anything, Margot—”

“You’ve been saying that for years, and it’s not just cleaning up the plants anymore. We need the greenhouse rebuilt, the wall needs to be fixed and I think we need an alarm system.”

“In our garden?”

Margot flung out a hand to the shattered remains of her greenhouse, the orchids like dead animals. All the evidence she needed, really, to prove that things were getting dangerous.

“Now the greenhouse, next the house?”

Savannah couldn’t stand the thought. She looked down at Katie, the messy rumpled perfection of her. Strangers in her garden? Bent on helping? Or, worse, strangers in her house? Bent on mischief? Where her daughter slept?

When put that way, it was an easy call.

“Margot,” Savannah sighed. “I’m so sorry.”

“They’re all gone,” Margot said, stepping over glass and flower carnage. “They’ve ruined everything.”

“I’ll call Juliette—”

“I already did,” Margot said. “She’s the one who told me to get someone in here to set up a security system. The police force is too small to have someone watching this house all the time.”

Savannah looked around, chagrined and regretful that she’d let things get this bad. She should have done the basic maintenance that would have at least kept things safe. She had, after all, managed to keep the middle courtyard groomed and lovely. A pastoral paradise.

But the back courtyard was hers—it had been from the moment her mother had dropped Savannah and her brothers off with Margot and left without a word. And the truth was, she liked the wilderness of it, the overgrown vines and crumbling statues. The stone walls covered in hens and chicks, the roses pink and red like hidden gems, small beating hearts in a giant breathing body of green.

The air was different back here, too. Thick and fragrant with mystery and magnolias.

Oh, please, she thought, realizing she was on the verge of getting maudlin and depressing. It’s a garden. You are a grown woman who should have more important things to do than get attached to kudzu and rosebushes.

Or maybe she should have more in her life than kudzu and rosebushes. The thought flickered to life briefly before Savannah extinguished it.

“I know,” Margot said, watching Savannah carefully. “We’ve been alone in this house for so long it seems strange to bring someone else in.”

“We don’t need anyone else!” Katie cried and Savannah tucked an arm around her daughter, realizing that maybe there was such a thing as too much family unity—considering her eight-year-old was showing signs of xenophobia.

“Margot’s right.” Savannah sighed and Margot’s perfect eyebrows arched slightly in surprise. Savannah ignored the slick twist of distaste in her belly as the words got clogged in her throat. What if someone tried to break into the house? She looked at her daughter, fear crawling over her like ants. “It’s time to bring someone else in to take care of this garden.”

MATT WOODS STARED at the two-story plantation-style house then down at the surveillance photos in his hand.

He was hunting for Vanessa O’Neill, last seen in New Orleans.

But it was the picture of Vanessa’s daughter, Savannah, he couldn’t look away from. Glittering and golden, she smiled up at him from her photo.

How much did she know? he wondered. How guilty was she?

He scoffed at his own question. Everyone was guilty. No one’s hands were clean.

Was she guilty of theft and betrayal like her mother? Or just guilty of bad blood?

Matt rubbed gritty eyes. He’d driven through the night from St. Louis to Bonne Terre, Louisiana, and in the clear light of morning he realized his plan pretty much sucked.