Forbidden Fruit

The author of over twenty-five books, Erica Spindler is best known for her spine-tingling thrillers. Her novels have been published all over the world, selling over eleven million copies, and critics have dubbed her stories “thrill-packed page turners, white-knuckle rides, and edge-of-your-seat whodunits.”

Erica is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author. In 2002, her novel Bone Cold won the prestigious Daphne du Maurier Award for excellence.

Also by Erica Spindler

BREAKNECK

LAST KNOWN VICTIM

COPYCAT

KILLER TAKES ALL

SEE JANE DIE

IN SILENCE

DEAD RUN

BONE COLD

ALL FALL DOWN

CAUSE FOR ALARM

SHOCKING PINK

www.mirabooks.co.uk

To Melissa Senate For all the years and all the books

Acknowledgements

My heartfelt thanks to the following people for their part in bringing Forbidden Fruit to life:

Linda Kay West

Lieutenant John Jackson

Sergeant Michael Pfeiffer

Metsy Hingle

Jan Hamilton Powell

Karen Stone

Cary Weissert

Dianne Moggy

Melissa Senate

Nathan Hoffman

Evan Marshall and MIRA Books

Prologue

Vacherie, Louisiana 1959

Hope Pierron sat in the window seat of her third floor bedroom and gazed out at the Mississippi River. She smiled to herself, anxiousness and excitement coiling in the pit of her gut. She controlled both with icy determination. She had waited all her life for this day; now that it had come, she would not reveal herself by appearing too eager.

She pressed a hand to the sun-warmed glass, wishing she could break it, leap out and fly to freedom. How many times during her fourteen years, years spent trapped within the red walls of this house, had she wished the same thing? To be a bird, to leap from the window and fly to freedom?

After today, she wouldn’t need to wish for wings. After today, she would be free of this house. Of the stigma of sin. Free of her mother and all who she had known.

Today she would be reborn.

Hope closed her eyes, thinking of her future, yet picturing her past and this hated house, instead. The Pierron House had been a fixture on River Road, a part of the culture of southern Louisiana since the summer of 1917. That had been just before the demise of Storyville, when her grandmother Camellia, the first Pierron madam, had moved her daughter and her girls here.

Surprisingly, neither hue nor cry had erupted then, nor when the gentlemen began calling. All these years later, this house, the activities within, were still accepted, just as the heat and mosquitos of August were accepted—with resigned dismay and sugar-sweet disdain.

Hope supposed one could expect no less; after all, this was Louisiana, a place where food, drink and other sensory intoxicants were as much a part of day-to-day living as mass and confession. Louisianians accepted their penance with as much joie de vivre as they did their pleasure; they understood that in a strange way, The Pierron House represented both.

The building itself, a Greek Revival structure with twenty-eight imposing Doric columns and sweeping wraparound galleries, was an architectural wonder. Ironically, when the afternoon sun struck it just so, the house glowed a virginal, almost holy white. When the sun set, however, the illusion of holiness ended. The house came alive with the music of men the likes of Jelly Roll Morton and Tony Jackson, the walls rang with the laughter of those who had come to taste the forbidden fruit and of those who sold it.

Every evening of her life she had been forced to hear that laughter, had been forced to witness the regularity with which her mother’s girls led their gentlemen up the serpentine staircase. Cloaked in a sinfully plush, bloodred carpet, those stairs led to the six large bedrooms on the second floor, bedrooms outfitted opulently with silks and brocades and large, soft beds.

Beds designed to make a man feel like a king or, on a particularly good night, a god.

For as long as she could remember, Hope had known what went on in those bedrooms. Just as she had known who and what she was—the whore’s daughter, a trick baby, tainted by sin.

From secret places and small, unnoticed peepholes, Hope had watched with a mixture of fascination and horror the things that men and women did with each other. And sometimes, while the couple writhed on the bed, she would rock back and forth, her thighs pressed tightly together, her breath coming in small, uneven gasps.

Those were the times The Darkness held her in its grip, clamoring for unholy release.

Afterward, guilty and ashamed, Hope would punish herself. The way she touched herself, the things she watched, were wrong. Sinful. She had learned of her sin at mass and in catechism, as she sat alone because none of the other children would come near her. Yet, outside the church walls and inside these, such behavior was lauded—especially by the men who laughed by night and averted their eyes by day.

At the creak of the stairs that led to her bedroom, Hope turned away from her window and faced the door. A moment later, her mother appeared in the doorway.

Lily Pierron was an incredible beauty, same as all the Pierron women had been. Her face and figure seemed not to have aged with the years; her hair was the same velvety blue-black it had been in Hope’s childhood. The other whores commented on it behind her mother’s back; Hope had heard them whispering. They speculated that Lily had made a pact with the devil. They speculated that all the Pierron women had.

All except Hope. Hope was not nearly as beautiful as her mother—her own hair was a deep brown instead of black, her eyes a watery rather than brilliant blue, her features sharp instead of soft.

She was not as beautiful because The Darkness was not as strong in her.

“Hello, Mama,” Hope murmured, fixing a sweet, sad smile on her mouth.

The older woman returned her melancholy smile and took a step into the room. “You look so grown-up standing there like that. For a moment, I hardly recognized you.”

Hope’s heart began to thud against the wall of her chest. “It’s just me, Mama.”

Her mother laughed softly and shook her head. “I know. But it seems only yesterday you were a baby.”

And only an eternity of yesterdays that she was a prisoner of this place. “To me, too, Mama.”

Lily crossed to the bed and the suitcase that lay open on top of it. Hope saw the effort it took her mother to keep from falling apart, and wondered if her mother noticed that her daughter’s eyes were dry, her hands and voice steady. She wondered what her mother would say if she knew the truth, if she knew that her only daughter planned to never see her again.

“Is this the last one?” her mother asked. “The car will be here any moment.”

“Yes. I’ve already taken the others down.”

Lily carefully tucked the final few items into the case, then closed the bag and fastened the clasps. “There.” She lifted her swimming gaze to Hope’s. “All ready to…go.” Her throat closed over the last, and the word came out choked.

Hope forced herself to cross to her mother. She caught Lily’s hands with her own and brought them to her cheek. “It’s going to be all right, Mama. Memphis isn’t that far.”

“I know. It’s just that—” Her mother drew in a ragged breath. “How am I going to manage without you? You’re the best thing…the only good thing in my life. I’m going to miss you desperately.”

Hope curved her arms around her mother, fighting a smile. She hid her face against her mother’s shoulder. “I’m going to miss you, too. So much. Maybe I shouldn’t go. Maybe I should stay and help—”

“No! Never!” Lily cupped Hope’s face. “You will not end up like me. I won’t allow it, do you hear? This is your chance to escape. It’s what I’ve always wanted for you. It’s why I named you Hope.” She tightened her fingers. “You were always my hope for the future. You mustn’t stay.”

This time Hope couldn’t contain her smile. “I’ll make you proud, Mama. You wait and see.”

“I know you will.” Lily dropped her hands. “Everything’s set. St. Mary’s Academy is expecting you. You’re from Meridian, Mississippi, the only child of wealthy parents.”

“Who travel abroad,” Hope filled in. She laced her fingers together, nervous suddenly. “What if someone discovers the truth? What if one of my classmates is from Meridian? What if—”

“No one will discover the truth. My friend has seen to everything. Not one other girl from Mississippi attends the academy. Even the headmistress believes you’re Hope Penelope Perkins. No one will question your story. Feel better now?”

Hope searched her mother’s expression, then nodded. She knew her mother’s “friend” to be none other than the Governor of Tennessee. He and her mother went way back; Lily knew many—if not all—of his darkest secrets. Secrets she would go to her grave with. Of course, such loyalty sometimes demanded return—in the form of favors.

The sound of a horn sliced through the humid afternoon. Hope’s heart flew to her throat, and she raced to the window. Three stories below, the airport shuttle idled in the driveway while Tom, the houseman, helped the driver load the bags.

Lily followed her to the window. “Dear Lord, it’s time already.” She laid her hands on Hope’s shoulders, her cheek against her hair. “I don’t know how I’m going to bear this.”

Hope sucked in a deep breath, joy a living thing inside her. Almost free. Just a few more minutes and she would never see her mother or this hated house again. She struggled to keep from laughing out loud.

Her mother sighed, dropped her hands and took a step away. “We’d better go.”

“Yes, Mama.” Hope collected the suitcase, then she and her mother started for the stairs. Her mother’s girls were waiting for them in the foyer. They each hugged and kissed Hope, they each wished her well and made her promise to write.

The youngest of the group—a girl not much older than Hope—handed her an apple, lush and red and ripe. “In case you get hungry,” she said softly, her eyes bright with tears.

Hope took the girl’s offering though the fruit burned like acid against her palm. She longed to fling it away and run, but forced herself to meet the whore’s eyes and smile. “Thank you, Georgie. It was sweet of you to think of me.”

Hope stepped outside, her mother beside her. The breeze off the River was hot and slow, but sweet still; it washed over her, cleansing her of the stench of the house and its history. Her history.

Her mother drew her into her arms and clung to her. “My darling, darling baby, I will miss you so much.”

Hope fought the urge to tear herself from her mother’s arms and race to the waiting vehicle. She allowed her mother to kiss her one last time, promising herself that she would never again have to endure her vile touch.

The touch of sin.

The driver cleared his throat. Hope said a silent thank-you and eased from her mother’s grasp. “I have to go, Mama.”

“I know.” Lily curved her arms around her middle, battling tears. “Call me when you arrive.”

“I will,” Hope lied. “I promise.”

She started for the car, counting the steps. With each she felt as if another piece of her past was falling away from her, like layers of smothering clothing, ones made of wet, rotting wool.

The driver opened the door. She moved to get in, then stopped and looked over her shoulder at The House, at her mother standing in its shadow, at the whores, clustered in the doorway. Her lips curved into a small, satisfied smile.

Today she was reborn as Hope Penelope Perkins. Today she left The Darkness behind.

Letting the apple slip from her fingers, she turned and stepped into the car.

Chapter 1

New Orleans, Louisiana 1967

The perfume of flowers hung in the air, almost overpowering in its sweetness. The scent mixed strangely with those of the maternity ward, creating another that was both appealing and repugnant. Even so, fresh arrangements arrived hourly, enthusiastic offerings sent to herald the birth of Philip St. Germaine III’s first child.

The excitement was understandable. After all, this child would be heir to the family’s wealth and social position, this child would be heir to the venerable St. Charles, the small luxury hotel built in 1908 by the first Philip St. Germaine.

For this child, nothing was too much.

Hope gazed down at the newborn, nestled in the bassinet beside her bed. Despair and disappointment, so bitter they burned her tongue, roiled inside her. She had prayed for a boy. She had done the rosary, she had done penance. She had been so certain her prayers would be answered that she had refused to consider names for a girl.

Her prayers had not been answered; she had been cursed instead.

She had given birth to a daughter, not a son. Just as her mother and grandmother had, just as every Pierron woman had for as many generations back as she could recall.

Hope drew a deep breath, bile rising like a poison inside her. She hadn’t escaped the Pierron legacy, after all. She had managed to believe, to convince herself for a while, that she had. In the eight years that had passed since she’d walked away from the house on River Road, she had brought each of her plans to fruition: she had left behind her mother and the stigma of being the whore’s daughter; she had married Philip St. Germaine III, a wealthy man, a man from an impeccable and prominent family; she was now one of New Orleans’s premier matrons.

But today she saw that although she had left her past behind, she hadn’t escaped it. The Pierron curse had followed her.

The baby girl was already a beauty, with light skin, vivid blue eyes and velvety dark hair. As with all the Pierron women, this one would possess the ability to bewitch and enslave men; she, too, would have the great, ugly darkness inside her. The ugliness that would chain her to a life of sin and an afterlife of eternal damnation.

Hope shuddered. For didn’t she, too, have The Darkness inside her? Didn’t it sometimes burst free, despite how hard she fought to keep it locked way?

Philip entered the room, his face wreathed in a beatific smile, his arms laden with a huge bouquet of pink roses. “My darling. She’s beautiful. Perfect.” The florist’s paper crackled as he laid the bouquet on the bed. He bent and pressed a kiss to Hope’s forehead, careful not to disturb his sleeping child. “I’m so proud of you.”

Hope turned her face away, afraid he would see her true feelings, afraid he would see the depth of her despair and revulsion.

He sat on the edge of the bed. “What is it? Hope, darling…” He turned her face to his. He searched her expression, his own concerned. “I know you wanted a son for me. But it doesn’t matter. Our little one is the most perfect child ever born.”

Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked against them. Still, one slipped past her guard and rolled down her cheek.

“Oh, love, don’t cry.” He drew her against his chest. “It really doesn’t matter. Don’t you see? Besides, we’ll have other children. Many more.”

The pain inside her grew almost unbearable. Hope knew what her husband did not: there would be no more children for them. She, like her ancestors, would be unable to carry another child to term. That was a part of the curse, the Pierron women were allowed only one child, always a daughter. To that daughter they would pass The House and the legacy of sin.

Hope curled her fingers into the soft, fine fabric of his jacket. She longed to share her thoughts with him, but knew he would be shocked, horrified, to learn the truth about his perfect wife. And now, his perfect daughter, too.

He could never know. She swallowed hard and pressed her face to his shoulder, breathing in the scent of the rain that lingered on his jacket, preferring it to the cloying atmosphere of the room. No one could ever know.

“I just wish,” she whispered, working to achieve just the right mixture of grief and wistfulness in her tone, “that my parents could have lived to see her. It’s so unfair. Sometimes it hurts so much, I…I almost can’t bear it.”

“I know, my darling.” For several moments, he cradled her against his chest, then eased her away, his lips lifting into a small smile. “I have something for you.” From his jacket pocket he drew out a jeweler’s box. Stamped on the lid of the midnight-blue leather case was the name of New Orleans’s finest jeweler.

With trembling fingers, Hope opened the box. Inside, nestled on the white velvet, lay a strand of perfectly matched pearls. “Oh, Philip.” She took out the necklace and brought it to her cheek. The pearls were cool and smooth against her skin. “They’re exquisite.”

His lips lifted, and he shifted his gaze to the baby, who had begun to stir. “They’ll be hers one day. I thought it appropriate.”

Hope’s pleasure in the gift vanished, and she replaced the necklace in its box. He adored his daughter already, Hope thought, following his gaze. He had been bewitched, snared by The Darkness. And the fool didn’t even know it.

“She’s caused a sensation in the nursery,” he continued, not tearing his gaze from the bassinet. “Nurses from all the floors have heard about her, about her beauty, and have come to see her. She’s caused a traffic jam at the viewing window.” He turned back to his wife, covering her hand with his, curving his fingers reassuringly around hers. “I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

The baby stirred and whimpered, then began to cry. Hope shrank back against the pillows, knowing what was expected of her but unable to bear the thought of holding the child to her breast.

The baby’s cries, at first small, pitiable mewls, became shrill, angry demands.

Philip frowned, obviously confused. “Hope, darling…she’s hungry. You have to feed her.”

Hope shook her head, cringing deeper into the pillows. To her horror, her breasts, engorged and aching, began leaking milk. The baby’s face grew red as the fury of her wails increased. Her features contorted into something ugly and terrifying. Something Hope recognized from her nightmares.

The Darkness. Dear God, it was strong in this child.

Philip tightened his fingers over Hope’s. “Darling…she needs you. You must feed her.”

When Hope didn’t move, Philip scooped up his daughter. He rocked her awkwardly, but her cries didn’t diminish. He held the child out to Hope. “You must.”

Hope looked wildly about the room, desperate for a way to escape. Everywhere she looked, she saw The Darkness, everything reminded her what a fool she had been.

She hadn’t escaped the Pierron legacy. She never would.

Trapped, she thought, a frantic hopelessness beating inside her. She was trapped. Just as she had been all those years ago.

“I can’t,” she said, hearing the hysteria in her own voice. “I won’t.”

“Darling—”

“Mrs. St. Germaine?” The nurse rushed in. “What’s wrong?”

“She won’t feed her,” Philip said, turning to the nurse. “She won’t take her from me. I don’t know what to do.”

“Mrs. St. Germaine,” the nurse said crisply, her voice brooking no disobedience. “Your daughter is hungry. You must feed her. She will stop crying the minute—”

“No!” Hope drew the blanket to her chin, her fingers curled so tightly into the fabric that they went numb, panic pumping through her until she shook with it. “I can’t.” She turned to her husband, tears slipping down her cheeks. “Please, Philip, don’t make me do this. I can’t do it. I won’t.”

He stared at her as if she had sprouted horns. “Hope? What’s wrong? Sweetheart, this is our child, our baby. She needs you.”

“You don’t understand…you don—” The last caught on a sob and she turned her face to the pillows. “Go…away. Please, just leave me alone.”

Chapter 2

Philip August St. Germaine III had an idyllic life, one of those existences so untroubled that others commented enviously on it. He had the right family, all the right and best things; he was healthy, athletic and handsome enough. He had sailed through school, in part because of native intelligence, but more because of the charm he had acquired through breeding.

In truth, Philip had never had to work for anything, not for grades or girls or a living. Everything had been handed to him not only on a sterling platter—the St. Charles being the crown jewel on that platter of glittering gems—but with an adoring smile. For Philip, the years flowed effortlessly one into the other.

Far from being bothered by his lack of effort in shaping his own life, he accepted it all graciously, as his due and his wonderful lot in life. He did feel for those poor souls who struggled and suffered, and he never forgot to give—and give plentifully—to the Church, both in thanks for his bounty and as a sort of insurance policy against guilt.

Frankly, until thirty-six hours ago, Philip August St. Germaine III had thought, with justifiable arrogance, that nothing ugly or unhappy could ever touch him.

Now, as he stood at the maternity ward’s nursery window and watched a stranger feed his baby, his beautiful, perfect daughter, that same arrogance mocked him. Now, he felt as if his idyllic life was crumbling around him.

The last day and a half had been like a nightmare from which he couldn’t awaken. The wife he adored, usually sweet-tempered and genteel, had become a person he didn’t recognize. A person who frightened him.

He brought a hand to his head, heavy and aching from stress and lack of sleep. It wasn’t only that she had cursed at him, spitting out words he would have sworn she didn’t, and couldn’t, know. It was more than the fact that she had told him she hated him when he had tried insisting they pick out a name for their child.

No. It was the way she had looked at him, an almost maniacal light burning in her eyes, that frightened him. Because when she’d looked at him that way, he had felt, deep down in his gut, that the life he had known was gone forever.

Philip jammed his hands deep into his trouser pockets and gazed at his daughter, sucking greedily on a bottle of formula. She was the image of her mother already. He couldn’t understand how Hope could look at her with such horror, how she could recoil from touching her. He pressed the heels of his hands to his burning eyes. When she looked at their precious daughter, what did she see that he didn’t?

If only he could understand, if only he could crawl inside his wife’s head, maybe he would be able to help her. And then, maybe, his world would stop rocking around him.

Her behavior had come out of nowhere. She had looked forward to the birth of their first child. Her pregnancy had been an easy one; she had suffered from neither morning sickness nor mood swings. They had talked about all the things this child would do and be. Other than her absolute conviction that she carried a boy, her attitude about motherhood had seemed completely normal.

Now this. A shudder of fear moved over him. What would he do if he had lost her? If the woman he had known and loved so desperately had ceased to exist forever? How would he go on? He loved her beyond reason; he had from the first.