Buried Secrets

1

No one else was in the dark, narrow alley. Shielding her face with a stylish brown scarf and a pair of Chanel sunglasses, Paulette Carmichael quickly stepped from her black Mercedes Benz and entered an inconspicuous back door of the Carmichael Building, one of the many tall buildings towering over Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta. If everything went according to plan, no one would ever know she had been here. Because it was almost six o’clock, most of the employees had already gone home for the day. Her husband, Hugh Carmichael, the high and mighty owner of Carmichael Airways, which was headquartered in the building, had flown to Las Vegas on business for the day. His entourage of thugs had accompanied him. Whatever kind of business they were conducting, Paulette was certain it wasn’t legal. Hardly anything that went on around here was.

Anxiety rushing through her body, she walked briskly up the seemingly endless flights of stairs that led to her husband’s penthouse suite. For a woman rapidly approaching the age of sixty-five, she was in relatively good shape, compliments of the personal trainer she employed. Once inside the suite, Paulette marveled at her surroundings. The opulence of the place never ceased to amaze her. It consisted of two large kitchens, six lavishly decorated bedrooms, several plush offices, and an over-sized media room complete with three of the world’s most technologically advanced big-screen televisions. She shuddered when she imagined what must go on in the bedrooms. Throughout their marriage, Hugh had been a womanizer. The action that took place here probably made the Grotto at the Playboy Mansion seem dull.

She began rummaging through her husband’s personal office. Realizing that poring through these files might take a while, she sat down in his comfortable swivel chair. She was careful not to make too much noise. She couldn’t risk getting caught. Her life depended on it. No one had ever betrayed Hugh Carmichael like she was about to and had lived to get away with it. Paulette was looking out for herself, though. There was no way in hell she was going to rot in prison. The authorities were on to the scam that had been taking place here for almost forty years now, and they knew that since she used to be Hugh’s personal assistant, she had once played a significant role in carrying it out. They had come to her secretly and offered her immunity from prosecution under the condition that she would testify against him. She had been surprised they had been caught. Who would ever have suspected that Carmichael Airways was a cover for one of the largest drug smuggling empires in the world? Everything had always gone so smoothly. An airline that transported freight was the perfect cover. It was so easy smuggling drugs in and out of the country. Almost too easy. All of the insiders here at Carmichael had been laughing about it for decades. It was a shame the game was up. What other game would allow someone to amass a personal net worth of over three billion dollars?

Paulette continued to search frantically for the file. She was standing up now, suddenly overcome by an overwhelming sense of urgency. Because of the drug forfeiture laws, the fortune her husband had made was soon to be lost, and with the fortune would go the Carmichael’s prestigious family name. The resulting scandal would be something like Atlanta had never seen before. How humiliating. At least she wouldn’t be in prison, though. That gave her some comfort.

Bingo! she exclaimed aloud, smiling to herself. She had found exactly what she needed, the file that was certain to send her husband away for the rest of his years. With the incriminating file hidden under her cloak, she quickly retraced her footsteps to the first floor and out of the building.

l

Twenty-nine-year-old Anne Houston laughed aloud at her unbelievably good luck as she maneuvered her brand new, dark green Land Rover through the late afternoon Atlanta traffic. She still found it hard to believe she was dating one of the richest men in the United States. Having just picked up her one year-old son, Zack, from his daycare in Midtown, she was now heading to this wonderful man’s estate in Buckhead, one of the wealthiest areas of Atlanta. Hopefully his wife wouldn’t be home. The bitchy Paulette Carmichael was definitely one woman she had no desire to meet.

Running her hands through her dark brown hair, Anne glanced at herself through the rearview mirror. She was very thankful that she had been blessed with extremely good looks. Her dark, smooth skin and stunning green eyes caused most men to go completely wild for her.

Anne shot a quick glance over her shoulder at her son. He was all smiles in the backseat. Zack was the best thing that had ever happened to her, despite the fact that he was the result of the most painful night of her life—the night she had been raped. It was hard for her to fathom how such a sweet and innocent child could be the product of such a brutal crime.

The rape happened a little over two years ago, back when she was still living in Birmingham, Alabama, where she had worked as a realtor at a successful real estate agency in Mountain Brook. It was just after dark, and she had been walking to her car in the parking lot of the agency where she worked. The lot was completely empty because everyone else at the office had left an hour earlier. Just before she reached her car, a white male wearing a ski mask had come running towards her from where he’d been hiding in the bushes less than fifteen feet away. Completely stunned, she tried to scream for help, but all attempts ceased once he’d pointed the gun at her face and told her to shut the hell up. What happened next was something she rarely allowed herself to think about. The assailant had dragged her into the same bushes where he had hid and raped her. No matter how hard she tried, she knew that she was never going to be able to forget how utterly helpless and dirty she had felt just lying there while he violated her. She never even tried to fight him off, because the gun had scared her too much. After he had had his way with her, he ran off into the night and vanished faster than he had appeared. It wasn’t until a few minutes later that she gained the courage to crawl out of the bushes and back into the parking lot to retrieve her purse, which she had dropped when her assailant had rushed her. She grabbed her cell phone out of the purse and called the police, but it was already too late. Her rapist had successfully gotten away, and to this day still hadn’t been apprehended. The Mountain Brook police had done everything in their power to crack the case, but the problem was they just didn’t have many clues to go on. All she could tell them was that her attacker was a white male. She couldn’t even determine his age because his face had been hidden by the ski mask.

Not long after the rape, Anne had discovered she was pregnant. At the time, she had been living with her sister, Kathleen, and Kathleen’s husband Roger, a prominent banker in Birmingham. Her sister and brother-in-law were very supportive of her pregnancy at first and had arranged for her to go through extensive counseling sessions, but they soon began to make it clear that they thought Anne should put her baby up for adoption after giving birth. Their opinion was that keeping the baby would be too traumatizing for her. What they didn’t understand was that not keeping the baby would be even more psychologically traumatizing. As far as Anne was concerned, this baby was hers and deserved to be raised by her. It wasn’t the baby’s fault that she had been raped. Why deprive an innocent human being of being raised by his or her natural mother? Kathleen and Roger had never accepted her decision to keep Zack, which had resulted in endless arguments, and an eventual move from Birmingham to Atlanta to get away from them and raise her son in peace. The move seemed like the best thing at the time, and so far she hadn’t regretted it. A change of setting was exactly what she had needed after everything that had happened. Anne hadn’t seen her sister or brother-in-law since the day she moved. Maybe one day they would reconcile, but until then she was content living a separate life from them for the most part, even though she did occasionally speak on the phone with Kathleen.

A little over a month after arriving in Atlanta, Anne had met sixty-nine-year-old Hugh Carmichael, the owner of Carmichael Airways. The two met at a huge high society party at some computer software tycoon’s Buckhead mansion. The only reason she had been present at such an event was because she had been the date of a young Buckhead playboy five years her junior who had been pestering her for a couple of weeks to go out with him. She had finally given in and accompanied him on a night of partying at the homes of Atlanta’s most rich and famous. Once she and Hugh hit it off at the party, the playboy had been history. After the party was over, Hugh had taken her downtown to his penthouse suite atop the luxurious Carmichael Building, where she had spent the entire weekend with him. She had never before slept with a man on the first date, but this one was different. For her, it was almost love at first sight. Because Hugh thought it was just a fling, he lied to her and told her he was a widower and lived alone. The thought that he might have a wife and family never even crossed Anne’s mind.

Once Hugh realized that what they had together was more than just a fling, he had confessed to her that he was married and had three grown children. Anne had been furious with him about it at first. There was no way she would have ever become involved with him if she had known he had a wife. The problem was that she was already smitten with Hugh by the time she found out about Paulette, and she couldn’t just turn off her love for him, despite the fact that deep down inside, she knew their relationship was wrong. He had quickly convinced her that he had no love whatsoever for his wife, and hadn’t for years. He said that the only reason he hadn’t ever divorced her was because of their financial situation. He didn’t want her to walk away with a huge amount of his hard-earned fortune in a divorce settlement.

Anne had now reached the Buckhead community and was slowly making her way north on Peachtree Road. The traffic was ridiculous, but thankfully she wasn’t in a hurry. Everyone else around her seemed to be, though. Many stylishly-dressed men and women, all of whom seemed to be driving expensive and flashy vehicles, were lane-hopping all around her. In a way, Buckhead often reminded her of Mountain Brook. Excessive amounts of wealth were displayed everywhere you looked.

Are you okay, Zack? she smiled, half-turning to her son. We’re almost there. Only a few more minutes.

Her cell phone rang.

Hello, she answered. It was Hugh.

Are you on your way? he asked.

Sure am, she said in a flirtatious voice. And I have the little one with me. Hugh loved Zack, and for the past few months had been spoiling him like a grandson.

Sounds good. I was calling to tell you that Paulette’s not home. The coast is clear. She probably thinks I’m still in Vegas.

Good, Anne said. I was going to call you to make sure before I got there.

Okay, see you in a few minutes. They both clicked off.

Turning on her blinker, Anne took a left turn off of Peachtree onto West Paces Ferry Road and sped towards Rockford, the Carmichael family estate. She passed many castle-like houses that graced both sides of the heavily wooded road until she reached the stucco mansion perched royally atop a hill to her right. Anne sped through the front gates, avoiding the curious stares of the sentries who were peering out at her from the guard house, and snaked her Land Rover up the winding driveway. Parking directly in front of the main entrance, she reached for her cell phone and called Hugh to let him know she was here. A few moments later, Andora, the elderly maid who had been working for the family for decades, came to the door with a wary look on her face. Because she was considered to be Paulette’s personal maid, she didn’t feel comfortable associating with Hugh’s other woman. Anne tried to be friendly anyway, ignoring the awkwardness of the situation.

How have you been, Andora? she smiled, walking in the front entrance hall with Zack in her arms.

I’m fine, the woman muttered, staring down at the floor, doing everything in her power to avoid making eye contact. Mr. Carmichael is waiting for you and your son in his study. It was obvious that she didn’t want to chat, and considering the circumstances, Anne wasn’t offended. Still holding Zack, she nodded and made her way to the study.

2

Dr. Andrew Carmichael decided to drive home and eat at his house, instead of at OK Café, his usual hangout. He normally enjoyed his lunch hour. It was his one chance to catch his breath during each hectic day of seeing patient after patient. Running a successful neurology practice wasn’t easy. Today he was depressed, though. He was worried about his inheritance and what would happen if his father ever divorced his mother, or even worse, killed her.

Andrew was well aware of the fact that his father, the wealthy and flamboyant Hugh Carmichael, had cut him out of his will. His mother had told him everything. If she was correct, then his father’s estate was to be split three ways. His mother, his brother Phillip, and his sister Christina would each get a third, which wasn’t surprising. Why would his dad leave him anything? They hadn’t uttered a friendly word to each other in almost two decades now.

That manipulative bastard, Andrew muttered, referring to his father. He was shaking with fury about the whole situation. The knowledge that his mother planned on making it up to him by leaving her third of Hugh’s money exclusively to him when she died did little to alleviate his anger. What his mother didn’t understand was that if his father found out that she was planning to testify against him and murdered her to prevent her from doing so, he would never wind up with any of his family’s fortune. His brother Phillip sure as hell wasn’t going to give him any money, and his sister Christina’s husband Antonio was too big of a tight wad to part with any of their share.

Andrew’s main worry was that after his mother testified against his father, he still wouldn’t be convicted. Then his dad would likely divorce his mom for betraying him and marry that Anne Houston woman he had been carrying on with this past year. A few weeks ago, Andrew had seen Anne for the first time. She and his father had been walking through the front door of the Laurel Hotel Restaurant just as he had been leaving with some of his doctor friends. The adulterous couple had been arm-in-arm, both of them all smiles, looking forward to a nice, romantic dinner. His father had made eye contact with him, but of course hadn’t bothered to speak.

Andrew often wondered just how much money his father had already spent on Houston and her son. Her Land Rover and luxury townhouse in Midtown were probably just two of many extravagant presents. It wasn’t that Andrew was greedy and money-hungry. All he wanted was an equal share of his family’s wealth. Glancing at his watch, he cursed under his breath. It was time for him to get back to the clinic. The bologna sandwich he had made for himself had been terrible.

Christina Romano, the only daughter of Hugh and Paulette Carmichael, jumped into her red Jeep Grande Cherokee, tuned her radio to her favorite station, and sped off towards her house. Having spent the day organizing files at her husband, Antonio’s, law office, she was beat.

Christina had met Antonio when she was twenty-one and spending a summer studying in Florence, Italy. A law student at Penn State, Antonio was back home in his native country to make some money working as a waiter at a small sidewalk café she had frequented. One day while there, she had ordered a cappuccino from him. The look in his eyes when he asked her if she wanted whipped cream swept her off her feet. Apparently he had been attracted to her, too, because he had asked her out after flirting with her for a few minutes. They had married less than a month later, and then he had come back to the states, where he had finished law school and started a law firm with her older brother, Phillip. These days, the practice was booming, and life was good. Because Antonio’s income was so large and because she received an annual early inheritance check from her father, Christina chose not to work full-time at the law office. She spent most of her days volunteering at Buckhead Academy, the elite private school she had graduated from.

Christina was almost home now, racing down West Paces Ferry Road. She could already see the gates to Rockford, her parents’ house, which was directly across the street from her and Antonio’s place. She loved living so close to her parents, especially her mother. Christina absolutely adored her mother. They had a special bond. Everyone said they looked just alike. In fact, she was the exact replica of her mother, though a younger version, of course. Tall and attractive, they both believed in wearing a lot of makeup.

Keeps our men interested, her mother often joked.

Christina suddenly became sad. Her man was away in Italy and had been for several months. Antonio was caring for his ailing mother who was now on her deathbed. Being away from him this long was beginning to get to her.

Christina’s sadness was quickly replaced with worry when she turned into her driveway. Through her rearview mirror, she could see Anne Houston’s Land Rover parked in front of Rockford. As far as she was concerned, her father had become way too close to that woman. Something was going to have to be done about it, and soon.

3

Anne loved the townhouse in midtown Atlanta that Hugh had bought for her. Sitting on her sofa eating a small baked potato, she was enjoying a quiet evening at home. She was trying to keep the television at a low volume so that Zack wouldn’t wake up. Anne walked into the kitchen and made herself a steaming cup of coffee. Stepping outside onto the terrace, she admired the lights of all the big buildings around her. She had never been happier. Hugh was her first true love. He made all the other guys she had dated look like losers. He was all that she had ever dreamed of. It made her feel warm inside that he was turning out to be the perfect father figure in Zack’s life. Aside from him being married, the only thing that bothered her about the relationship was the drastic age difference.

Her thoughts drifted to her visit with him tonight. They had had a wonderful time. She, Hugh, and Zack had frolicked around Rockford all evening, and she had especially enjoyed dancing in the moonlight by the Olympic-sized swimming pool behind the mansion.

In a dreamy state, Anne curled up in the chaise lounge and fell fast asleep. A few minutes later, Zack’s closet door creaked open. A figure stepped out and hovered over his bed for a few moments. Leaving Zack behind, the figure then climbed out of the second story window and jumped to the ground, quickly disappearing into the shadows of the night.

Hush little baby, don’t say a word, Momma’s gonna buy you a mockingbird…. She can hear the joyful mother singing to her newborn infant. She watches as the mother gently places her precious baby boy down in the crib and kisses his pink face. She continues to watch as the mother makes her way down the hospital hallway. The baby appears to be in a hospital nursery. There are other babies lying in cribs all around him. She watches in horror as another woman, the evil woman, steals the baby from his crib and replaces him with her own baby, the one with the still heart. The evil woman carries the infant up the stairs to her hospital room and patiently waits for the inevitable. A few minutes later, the grief-stricken wails coming from the hospital nursery can be heard echoing through the many corridors of the building. Leaving the stolen baby alone in her room, the evil woman walked into the hall where there was a window overlooking the nursery. She silently watches as the tears of the stolen baby’s mother fall onto the ghostly pale chest of the motionless baby.

Paulette Carmichael woke up in a cold sweat. It was the same nightmare again! She had had it repeatedly almost every night for weeks now. What could it possibly mean? It didn’t make any sense, not any sense at all.

Not knowing what else to do, she grabbed a bottle of sleeping pills from the bottom drawer of her nightstand. After gulping one down with a glass of water, she rested her head back on her pillows. The rest of the night she slept fitfully. The dream kept haunting her. She didn’t understand it. She could always make out the layout of the hospital in the dream, but the faces of the two mothers and their babies still remained mere shadows of mist.

Phillip Carmichael woke up at five a.m. and went for an early morning jog around Buckhead. He decided at the last minute to stop by his law office to pick up some files so that he could review the arguments that he was planning to present to the judge in a few hours. It was going to be another busy morning in court. He was defending Judy Kustova, an elderly woman accused of murdering her husband with a butcher knife a few years back. Judy had hired him to represent her two years after the murder, and since that time he had memorized practically every aspect of the case. The woman was very weak from chemotherapy treatments at the time the crime was committed, and obviously innocent. There was no way she would have been capable of committing such a crime.

Now at his office, Phillip inserted his key, but was surprised to find the door already unlocked. He walked in to find his sister Christina sipping coffee at the small glass table next to the window. Not being able to sleep, she had just decided to get up and come in to the office early to get a head start on the day. Christina grinned at him, greatly amused by his attire.

I wasn’t aware that we had changed the office dress code, or I would have worn gym shorts and a t-shirt today too, she said in jest. Phillip laughed and hit her playfully. He quickly explained what he was doing and then made a bee-line towards the small room that served as his private office. Even though their practice was very successful, neither he nor Antonio was willing to splurge and rent a larger office space. They were both perfectly content with the way things were.

Phillip noticed the family portraits hanging on each side of the narrow hallway that ran through the cramped offices of Carmichael and Romano, Attorneys at Law. The portraits were the work of his sister. Christina had just started painting, and he was already completely fascinated by her work. It had been his idea to hang these portraits in the office.

He fumbled through his filing cabinet until he found the bulging folder marked Judy Kustova. With the file under his arms, he was almost out the back door when Christina stopped him.

I need to talk to you about Dad, she said, walking into his office.

Can’t it wait until later? he answered, trying not to be rude. I have to get home and review this case. I’m expected in court at ten.

Later is fine. Why don’t we meet for lunch at noon. We can go to the restaurant inside the Laurel Hotel. Will you be out of court by then?

Phillip nodded and agreed to come.

That works for me. After saying goodbye, he quickly jogged away in the direction of his condominium.

Paulette was sitting on the cushioned loveseat in front of her mirror, brushing the curls out of her silver hair. After two great facelifts, the wrinkles on her face were finally beginning to show again.

I can’t hide my age forever, she sighed.

Laying down her hair brush, she surveyed her bedroom. It was very long and narrow. One wall was a wall of windows, and another had glass-enclosed cabinets that ran the entire length of the room. Hundreds of beautiful porcelain dolls smiled out at her from the cabinets. The dark green drapes covering the wall of windows helped to secure her privacy. The enticing aroma of perfume and burning candles encompassed the luxurious room and dozens of flickering candles surrounded the bathtub in the adjoining bathroom. She had just bathed, and she loved to bathe by candlelight. A large portrait of her three children hung on the white wall above her canopy bed. A small alcove on the far end of the bedroom was set up as