Till Death Do Us Tart Read online

  “Of course. You know me, Lance. I never give up anyone’s confidence.”

  “Unless it has to do with murder.” He smirked.

  “That’s different.”

  “I know, darling, and that’s why I’m entrusting you with this highly sensitive information. It just might involve a murder.” His dark eyes narrowed.

  I was used to Lance’s tendency to create drama in any situation, no matter how benign. My jaw tightened. How long was he going to stretch this out?

  He must have noticed my frustration, because he reached across the table and tapped my chin. “Chin up. You don’t want to clench those pearly whites and risk cracking a tooth.”

  “Lance, will you please stop with the pomp and circumstance and just get to the point?”

  “Moi? Pomp and circumstance? Please.” He threw his hand over his forehead. Then he smiled, but there was a sadness—or was it fear?—behind his eyes. “Okay, okay. Relax. I’m getting to the good part.” He did a quick glance around the dining room before continuing.

  I had to lean closer to hear him as he barely spoke above a whisper. “The truth is that I’ve been with my family for the last three weeks.”

  Lance had never mentioned family. Not that I didn’t believe he had a family, but I guess I had always assumed that he didn’t want to talk about his past.

  “Your family came to Medford?” I asked. “Why wouldn’t they visit you here in Ashland? See one of your shows?”

  He rolled his eyes. “No, darling. My family lives in Medford. They don’t ever come to Ashland. You might even say that my family is Medford.”

  “What?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Medford was a ten-minute drive from Ashland. In all the time that I had known Lance he had never said a word about his family living close by. “Your family lives in Medford? For how long?”

  “Forever.”

  “Wait.” I held up my hands. “Are you telling me that you grew up here? In southern Oregon? In Medford?”

  Lance pursed his lips and nodded. “Yes.”

  Chapter Three

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked.

  Lance shrugged. “It’s not something I wanted to admit. You have the honor of returning to your charming hometown. I’ve spent years trying to bury my past.”

  “I can’t believe you’re a Southern Oregon native. We might have known each other growing up.”

  “Ha! Don’t I wish.” Lance threw his head back and laughed. “Juliet, think about it. How many times did your path cross with the Medford kids when you were growing up?”

  “Probably not very often,” I admitted. “Although there was a group who used to come help out with shows and hang around the bakeshop. That could have been you.”

  “No. The theater wasn’t something my father wanted me involved in. The theater was for ‘wimps’ and ‘pansies,’ not for our family. He wouldn’t let me anywhere near a stage, even though it was evident from the time I was two that I was destined for the spotlight.” His voice was thick with emotion.

  I reached my hand out to console him. “I’m so sorry.” The theater was Lance’s life. I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to grow up in a family who didn’t support your dreams. My parents had always encouraged me to follow my heart wherever it led me. Even when that meant traveling to far corners of the globe and leaving Ashland behind.

  He took a sip of his coffee. Then he squared his shoulders and cleared his throat. “It will be easier if I start from the beginning.”

  “Okay.” I leaned back into the cushy booth.

  “As I mentioned, my family is synonymous with Medford. The day I graduated from high school I left for Juilliard and never imagined coming back within a three-hundred-mile radius. Let’s just say that my memories from my youth are not exactly fond. I couldn’t wait to get out of Southern Oregon. That was until OSF came calling. They offered me my dream job and my first shot at artistic director for a major company. I’d been an assistant artistic director in France for a tiny theater and then again in Amsterdam for a bigger theater.”

  I nodded. Lance had told me that he had gotten his start in Europe.

  “The irony is that when I applied to universities I used my mother’s maiden name—Rousseau. First and foremost, it’s a fabulous name, don’t you agree?” He winked, offering the briefest glimpse of his typical flippant personality.

  “It fits you.” I broke off a piece of muffin. The crunchy cornmeal paired with the tangy juicy blueberries was a superb balance of textures.

  “Exactly. And changing my name to Lance Rousseau ensured that no one would connect me to my Dreadford roots.”

  “Dreadford? Come on, Lance. You know as well as I do that Medford is a great city with a thriving new downtown.”

  “Emphasis on ‘new.’ When I was in school it was Dreadford, trust me. I mean, honestly, how can you call a bunch of boys chasing each other up and down the football field entertainment?” He shuddered.

  I didn’t try to argue with him, although I’ve always been a football fan. Ashland was an artistic oasis among a variety of more traditional Southern Oregon towns that had deep roots in agriculture. As more and more people moved into the region the culture had shifted, but for a long time Ashland had been one of the only cities around that attracted writers, musicians, actors, and playwrights. Lance’s flair for style and obsession with the arts might not have blended in well with his peers.

  Andy appeared at our booth with a carafe of coffee. “I was about to see if you needed a refill, but forget it.” He pulled the carafe to his chest and cradled it like a baby. “No refills if you’re going to dis Ashland football. You should know that Ashland has had more state titles than Medford. The last time Medford won state was in the 1940s. Ashland’s brought home four state titles since the nineties and we’ve come in second three times.” With that he moved on to the next table with his coveted brew.

  I knew that Andy took his football seriously.

  “Fine. I stand corrected, but you catch my drift.” Lance smoothed his berry-stained napkin. “In any event, I adopted Rousseau as my name of choice and never looked back.”

  “What’s your dad’s last name?” I took another bite of muffin.

  “Brown.” Lance folded his arms across his chest.

  “Brown?”

  “Brown.” He stared at me with an annoyed expression. “Think about it, Jules. Medford—Brown.”

  “Wait, as in the Brown Group?” My mouth dropped open.

  “Ding, ding, ding.” Lance tapped his index finger in the air.

  “Your family owns the Brown Group?”

  “My family is the Brown Group.”

  Suddenly, I understood why Lance hadn’t been worried about money. The Brown Group practically owned Medford. They were one of the oldest and biggest lumber companies in the state. It was impossible to go anywhere in the Rogue Valley without seeing a Brown Group billboard, TV commercial, or logging truck. They sponsored the Jackson State Fair and dozens of local baseball teams. “Don’t you own half the state of Oregon?”

  Lance drummed his fingers on the table. “We did at one point. Today, the land holdings are smaller, but we manage acres and acres of timberland and develop property throughout the state.”

  I took a minute to let what he was saying sink in. I couldn’t believe that Lance was a member of the Brown family. And that he had never told me.

  He cradled his coffee mug in his hands. “My family’s logging roots date back to the early 1900s when timber supplies began dwindling in the Midwest. Industrialists, like my great-grandfather, began looking west. Oregon and Washington were ripe with virgin land. My great-grandfather started with a single sawmill. By the time he died, and the company was handed over to my grandfather, he owned over a million acres of land.”

  “Wow.”

  Lance nodded. “Yeah, it’s a lot of land. Did you know that the U.S. is still the world’s largest exporter of wood?”

  I shook my hea
d.

  “It’s true. We do things differently these days when it comes to preservation of course. Even when I was a kid clear-cutting was still the norm. I remember fighting with my father about destroying so much green space.” He sighed. “Then again, I fought with my father about everything. He intended for me to continue the family legacy. My brother and I were destined for a life managing a logging empire. I had other ideas that involved silly costumes and men in tights.”

  I could tell by Lance’s tone that he held a longstanding hurt.

  “I used to put on shows when we were out in the forest. It made my father fume. I loved it.” His eyes had a faraway look. “So did the crews in the field. I would test new magic tricks and my physical comedy on them. One summer I roped a huge, burly bear of a logger into playing Friar Tuck and staged a production of Robin Hood in the forest, with yours truly as the Sheriff of Nottingham. You should have seen it, Juliet—sweaty, bearded men, who earned an honest living grinding away gnarly stumps in hundred-degree heat, sitting around watching a gangly kid do his thing. They applauded the production by firing up their chain saws. Of course, the minute my father caught wind of my antics I wasn’t allowed on-site again.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I simply held the space for him to continue.

  “My mother used to beg him to open up to me. She didn’t know that I would listen to their fights at night. How they ended up together I’ll never know.” He smoothed his napkin and didn’t make eye contact. “She reminds me of Helen, actually. Petite, French, with a penchant for the arts, a champion for the needy. She was a delicate flower who married a lumberjack.”

  “They say that opposites attract.”

  Lance’s eyes shot up. “You would know.”

  I flinched.

  “Sorry.” Lance picked up the napkin and crumpled it into a tight ball. “She championed everything that my father mocked.”

  “She sounds wonderful.”

  “She was.” Lance swallowed hard. “She died when I was twelve.”

  “Oh, Lance, I’m so sorry.” I reached for his hand again and squeezed it tight. “I know what it’s like to lose a parent young. Why have you never mentioned this before?”

  He crushed my hand. “I have found it more tolerable to bury those memories.”

  My heart broke for him.

  “She was a smart woman. She knew that my father and I would likely never see eye-to-eye so she set up a trust. When I turned eighteen I began getting payments. Without her foresight, I don’t know how I would have paid for college. My father cut me off and cut me out of the family when I told him I was going to Juilliard.”

  No wonder he had tried to disconnect from his memories. “That must have been terrible.”

  Lance moved his head from side to side. “It is what it is. My father had my brother to carry on the family legacy so he was happy.”

  “Tell me about your brother.”

  “My baby brother, Leo.” He picked up his coffee. “Hmm. What can I say?”

  Lance and Leo, matching names, I thought to myself. “Is he in Medford, too?”

  “He’s running the Brown Group.”

  “Are you two close?”

  Lance nearly spit coffee all over the table. “No, not even remotely.” He rubbed his temples. “Leo struggled in school. He preferred the football field where he could knock people around. He was never a good student. I, on the other hand, was an excellent student. That deepened the divide between us. You know, I’ve wondered as an adult whether Leo might have had a real learning disability. He could never read. His grammar is appalling.” Lance rolled his eyes. “But I do wonder if he has dyslexia.”

  “Have you ever asked him?”

  “Good Lord, no. Leo and I are the products of our upbringing for better and worse. It’s a shame that he didn’t get help for his academic challenges, but then again for all I know he would have turned out exactly the same even if things had been different. He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. To be honest, I’m surprised that he hasn’t run the Brown Family Group into the ground.”

  I rested my elbows on the table. “I’m so glad that you’ve trusted me with this, but if you’re not close with your dad or brother why were you in Medford with them?”

  He set down his coffee mug and rubbed his temples. “My father is failing. He’s in hospice and doesn’t have much time.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you, but it’s fine. He’s lived a full life.”

  “Did you have a chance to talk to him? To come to some kind of understanding?” I watched as Bethany delivered a tray of salted chocolate caramel tarts and pear bread puddings to the front counter. Nearly every table was now filled with happy customers chatting over steaming mugs of espresso. The smell of Sterling’s soup wafted toward us. I didn’t want to rush Lance, but soon I should go check in with my staff.

  Lance waved to a group of women holding playbills in their hands, but didn’t encourage them to come join us. He lowered his voice. “Actually, we did. That’s part of why I need your help.”

  “Anything.”

  He scoffed. “You might want to wait until you hear the rest of this before committing.”

  “Okay.”

  “My father has suffered several stokes that have left him incapacitated. He’s in and out of consciousness right now. The nurses are keeping his morphine level consistent so that he’s not in any kind of pain. I spent most of my time at the family compound sitting by his bed and relaying stories from my life. It was strangely cathartic. It gave me a chance to explain my choices and tell him about my adventures and accolades. At first, I wasn’t sure whether he heard me or understood. In some ways it didn’t matter. I didn’t think he even knew I was there or who I was.” He ran a finger along the rim of the coffee mug. “Then two nights ago it was just me and him. His night nurse had taken a break and the strangest thing happened. He sat up. I panicked. I was about to run find the nurse, but he reached for my arm, and called me by name. He was lucid. He apologized. He cried.”

  “Lance, what a gift.” I felt breathless.

  “Exactly. It was healing for both of us. He told me that he had followed my career. He kept every newspaper article and magazine. In fact, he made me go find an old dusty box he’s been keeping in his closet for all of these years.” Lance stopped and wiped a tear from his eye. “It was shocking, Jules.”

  I knew from Lance’s raw emotion and because he was calling me Jules that he had completely shed his exterior façade. I was talking to the real Lance.

  “You won’t believe it. I’ll show it to you. It’s a huge box of literally everything that’s ever been written about me.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  “And heartbreaking.” He brushed his cheek. “I wish I would have set my ego aside earlier. We could have had many years.”

  “But it’s better than losing him and never having a moment like that.”

  “Definitely.” He nodded. “We talked about my mom and her wishes. We talked about Leo. That’s when my father dropped a bomb. He thinks that my brother is trying to kill him.”

  Chapter Four

  “What?” I shouted.

  “Quiet,” he hissed. “You never know what listening ears might be around.”

  “What do you mean?” I looked around the bakeshop. A line of customers had gathered in front of the espresso bar where Andy was demonstrating a pour-over technique. Bethany stood nearby snapping pictures on her phone.

  “I mean I’m being followed.” Lance’s voice was barely audible.

  “You are?” I glanced around again.

  “Don’t be so obvious.” Lance intentionally faked a yawn, stretching his long arms over his head. “Play it cool. No sudden moves. Actually, you should laugh. Pretend like I said something funny.”

  I didn’t feel like laughing, but complied and tried to fake a chuckle.

  “That was atrocious, darling. To think I’ve been begging you to take the stage.”
He made a tsking sound under his breath.

  “Why do you think your brother is trying to kill your father? Especially if your father is already in hospice.”

  Lance’s eyes darkened. “Money.”

  “I don’t understand.” How many times had I said that in the course of our conversation? I was having a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that Lance had grown up in Medford, let alone was a member of the Brown family.

  “Wait, so you think that Leo is following you?”

  “Probably. More likely, he’s hired someone to follow me. I can guarantee that he’ll show up here soon. Now that I’m back in the picture he won’t let me out of sight.” He folded his napkin and looked nonchalant. “Don’t move, but when you have a chance in a minute or two, take a look at the table up by the espresso machine. There’s a guy in a black leather biker jacket with black leather pants and a ghastly goatee. I saw him this morning in Lithia Park. Then again on the bricks, and now here. That can’t be a coincidence. I’m sure Leo hired him to tail me.”

  “Why?” I kept my gaze on Lance.

  Lance frowned. “I don’t know. My father is convinced that someone has been tampering with his morphine drip. The only people with access to his room are the hired nursing staff, hospice workers, and Leo. It stands to reason that Leo is the most likely culprit.”

  “You said for money.” I shot a quick glance toward the coffee counter. Sure enough, a man dressed entirely in black with a thick dark goatee and matching hair was nursing a coffee and staring straight at us. When he caught my eye, he grabbed a newspaper and buried his face behind it.

  “That’s my best guess. It must have something to do with my father’s will or maybe Leo’s trust. Our parents established separate trusts for each of us. I don’t know the specifics of Leo’s trust, but if it’s anything like mine he probably receives a very generous monthly stipend along with his salary.”

  “Does your father’s death change the trust?”

  “No.” Lance shook his head. “Not unless Leo’s trust is set up differently. My mother’s goal was to have the money from the trust fund us for our lifetime. It was intentionally set up to pay out slowly versus giving us a huge lump sum. She was astute. We might have been young when she died, but she knew our personalities were already set.”