Hall, Jessica (18 page)

Sable felt better after cleaning up and changing into the flannel
nightgown and robe Colette had provided, but her arm and shoulder were sore and
there was a place she couldn't reach on her back that felt raw. She came out to
ask Colette to check it for her, and heard Old Martin say to J. D., "We
don't have no phone, but you can walk down and use the one at my
granddaughter's place in the morning."

"My cousin runs a country store near the main
road,"
Sable added, then winced as she tried to tighten the belt on her robe and new
pain streaked down her arm.

J. D. got to his feet. "What's wrong?"

"I think I wrenched my shoulder. Feels like I scratched up my
back, too." She rolled her shoulder carefully, grimacing. "I'll have
Colette look at it."

"She's rinsing out your clothes." He got up and came to
her. "Let me take a look."

She led him back to the tiny bathroom, where she shrugged off the
robe and turned her back to him as she unbuttoned the nightgown. "It's
just below my right shoulder blade."

He worked the fabric down until her upper back was exposed and
muttered something too low for her to hear. "You've got a couple of nasty
grazes." He opened the old-fashioned tin medicine chest next to the sink
and searched through it, then removed a brown bottle and some cotton swabs.
"This is going to sting."

"I've been through worse." She hissed in a breath as
cold antiseptic touched the raw place, and fiery pain spread down her back.
"Ow. I lied."

He rubbed, and put his hand on her shoulder when she flinched.
"I know it hurts, but hold still. I need to clean them out." He took
care of each spot quickly but gently, then turned her around. "Can you
lift your arm?"

She raised her right arm, then groaned when the throbbing in her
shoulder increased. "Yes, but I don't want to." As she lowered it,
she grabbed the sagging front of the nightgown before it slipped over her
breasts. Her fingers collided with his, and heat flooded into her face.
"Sorry."

He stared down at the pale skin between them, his
dark
eyes intent. "I'm not." He trailed his fingers slowly over the
exposed top of one breast.

Her mouth went dry as her nipples pebbled under the soft flannel.
"Yes. Well." She pulled the edges of the gown together and edged
around him. "I'd better leave you to take your shower."

Before she reached the door, he caught her elbow. "Don't go
anywhere without me," he said. "I'm done chasing through the swamp
after you."

The roadhouse was one of a handful on the outskirts of the bayou,
catering to local fishermen, truckers, and anyone who was interested in a cold
beer, hot crawfish, and a serious game of darts or pool. The only women who
frequented the place did so in the company of their boyfriends or husbands, or
they came looking specifically for more temporary companionship. The jokes were
raunchy, the arguments loud, and every other voice spoke in French.

It may not have appealed to the visitors who drove past on their
way to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, but if someone wanted to know what was happening
on the bayou, it was information central.

Terri Vincent drew a lot of attention when she walked in, until
she was recognized and the patrons went back to drinking, eating, and
complaining about the tourists. Terri had grown up a few miles away, and while
few of the locals approved of her job, she was accepted as only a native could
be.

She paused and inspected the interior before she saw the man she
wanted sitting at the shadowy end of the bar. His dark eyes zeroed in on her
long before she sauntered over and slid onto the empty barstool beside him, but
he made no sign of welcome. "Hey,
handsome." She nudged
him with her elbow. "Buy me a drink?"

Caine Gantry didn't look up from his beer. "Why? You
broke?"

"I'm happy to see you, too. Okay, I'll buy you one."
Terri caught the bartender's eye, pointed to Caine's bottle, then held up two
fingers. "What are you doing down here?"

He turned a little and propped one foot on the bottom rung of her
stool. "There a new law says I can't have a drink after work?"

"Nope. Just not like you to drink around other folks. You're
more the homebody drinker." She took a pack of cigarettes from her jacket,
turned it over in her hands, then removed one before tossing the pack on the
bar. "I gotta quit smoking."

Caine took the cigarette from her, lit it, then took a drag before
handing it back. "So quit."

"It's not that easy."

"Then don't." He lifted his beer to his lips.
"Either way, quit bitching about it."

"Hey, Terri." The bartender, Deidre, brought two bottles
of beer and a clean ashtray. Light from the neon beer signs over the bar made
rainbow streaks in her tinted hair, and she picked up a tip left two stools
down the bar and tucked it into the front of her low-cut blouse. "This is
old home week tonight—haven't seen either of you here for ages."

"We've been busy, I guess." Terri glanced at the man
beside her before lifting the bottle and taking a sip. "Thanks, Dee."

"You got dirt on your face there, honey. Yell if you need
anything." Deidre went to get orders from a pair of bikers, leaving them
alone.

"Damn." Terri squinted at herself in the mirror
before
grabbing a cocktail napkin and rubbing at the smudge. She needed a shower. The
smell of smoke from the warehouse still clung to her clothes, too. "I hate
arson cases."

Caine met her gaze in the mirror. "What do you want,
Therese?"

She took a drag from her cigarette. "Some answers,
chèr.
Starting
with where you've been today."

"Out on the water."

"You didn't happen to stop by the warehouse district in the
city, did you?" When he shook his head, she took another drink of her
beer. "Someone was. Someone torched LeClare's warehouse, with LeClare and
a woman in it, but I expect you've heard about that."

He nodded.

"You know the woman—Sable Duchesne." She caught the
faint droop of his eyelids and the subtle way his hand tightened on the edge of
the bar. "Now, why do you think she'd be in an empty warehouse with the
future governor of Louisiana?"

He lifted his shoulders. "Maybe she liked his campaign
speeches." He reached for his beer, and the light revealed the battered
condition of his hand.

"Those are nasty." She ran a fingertip just below the
swollen, lacerated knuckles before he moved his hand out of reach. "How's
the other guy look?"

"Worse." He drained the bottle with two swallows and
pulled out his wallet to pay for the drinks. "I'm going home."

She sighed. "Look, cos, I've had a really long, ugly day. You
sound like you have, too. Don't make this more difficult than it already
is."

"I was out on the water from sunrise until dark. Ask
around." He nodded toward a cluster of men drinking and playing darts in
the corner. "That it?"

She sighed as he stood. "I ought to get out the cuffs and
haul your oversized ass downtown."

He loomed over her. "You can try."

"Maybe tomorrow, after I eat my Wheaties." She patted
his arm. "One more thing. You or any of your men see my partner or Sable
Duchesne around here?"

Billy watched Caine leave, then followed his truck as far as the
private road that led to his house.
I can't go to Caine, not yet. Not until
I have my money.

The cop and the girl were surely dead. That car had careened right
into the river. Even if Billy hadn't shot them, they must have drowned.

He drove to the first pay phone he could find. "They're dead.
No, I'm not going home—I'm going to celebrate. You just be on time tomorrow
night."

Darkness settled around the Martins' home with creaky evensong
provided by the swamp's expansive choir of frogs and crickets. Sable wished she
could sit outside on the porch and watch for fireflies the way she had when she
and Hilaire were little girls, trying to catch them in empty pickle jars. Being
so close to J. D. and having to keep up a pretense of normalcy for the Martins
was going from difficult to impossible, especially after the way he touched her
in the bathroom.

They couldn't stay here, either.
What happens tomorrow, when we
have to go back to the real world?
He'd acted like he wanted to protect her
now, but he was still a cop, and she was still the only witness to Marc's
murder. Would he really protect her, or had he said that only to gain her
trust?

After Colette refused to let her do anything but drink sweet hot
tea, Sable curled up in one of the ancient armchairs and listened to the
baseball game Old Martin was following on his ancient Philco radio. She tried
not to notice when J. D. came out of the bathroom, wearing the grandson's
well-worn jeans and shrugging into one of Old Martin's faded plaid shirts,
leaving it unbuttoned because it was three sizes too
small
for him. He glanced at her before disappearing into the kitchen, and didn't
come back out.

She tried to concentrate on the game, but the sound of J. D.'s
voice and pans rattling finally drew here from the armchair. He was probably
only keeping the old lady company while she prepared the evening meal, Sable
told herself, then stopped in the doorway to the tiny kitchen.

J. D. was standing in front of the Martins' old gas stove, and he
was shaking a small green can over a bubbling pot while stirring it at the same
time. "It looks thicker than my father's version," he said to Colette
as he sampled a spoonful. "Tastes better, too."

"Folks in the city use kidney beans instead of proper
Luziann' red beans." Colette was seated at the kitchen table and placing
rounds of biscuit dough on a tin baking sheet. "End up too mushy. Real red
beans like to simmer all day on the stove while you hang out the wash—that's
why we have 'em on Mondays. You use the bone from Sunday dinner, and you don't
have to tend it close."

J. D. placed a lid on the simmering pot and removed another,
smaller saucepan from the heat. "Might be the ham hock, too. I've never
seen one that size." As Sable joined him at the stove, he held up the
spoon. "Try this."

She came over and sampled it. Red beans and rice was a classic
Monday night dish that Cajuns ate almost religiously, and any other time she
would have loved it. Yet now she could hardly taste the spicy stew. "It's
wonderful. I didn't know you could cook."

His mouth hitched. "Mrs. Martin did the hard part; I'm just
keeping it from scorching." As Colette came over to pop the biscuits into
the oven, he guided Sable over to a chair. "We've got it covered.
Sit."

As she watched J. D. help the old lady prepare the simple dinner,
Sable tried to make sense of it. When they were dating in college, J. D. had
taken her to the finest restaurants, often his father's place, and had been
very nonchalant about ordering rich Creole dishes and expensive bottles of
wine. The one time she'd had dinner with his family, the meal had been prepared
by a cook, and served by the housekeeper and a maid. That was one of the
reasons she had never taken him home to meet her parents. She could never see
the rich, pampered boy she had known being comfortable peeling steamed crawfish
over newspapers spread on her mother's battered dining room table.

Now he was stirring pots and joking about backwoods recipes being
better than his father's gourmet dishes.
Maybe I didn't know him as well as
I thought I did.

The surreal quality of the evening didn't end over dinner. Without
batting an eyelash, J. D. set out the Martins' worn earthenware plates and
utensils that were pitted and scarred from continuous usage, then helped
Colette dish out the spicy andouille pork sausage along with the red beans and
rice. After joining in a short prayer of thanksgiving with the old couple, he
ate heartily and with visible pleasure.

His parents ate off fine china, Sable recalled, with enough
polished silverware at one meal to outfit three Cajun families for life.

"So how'd you end up going with the police, son?" Old
Martin asked. "Seems like an educated city fella like you'd be a lawyer or
a doctor or some such."

"When we were kids, my brother and I were caught in a kitchen
fire at my father's restaurant, but a beat cop and a firefighter kicked in the
door and got us out."

"What a terrible thing to happen to you boys." Colette
put
an extra helping of rice on J. D.'s plate. "Y'all weren't hurt, were
you?"

"No one was, thanks to those two men." J. D. passed the
plate of sausage to Old Martin. "I never forgot what they did for us, and
when the NOPD recruiter came by campus just before I graduated, I decided to
check out the academy program. My brother went to the fire department."

Sable picked at her food and listened as he talked about the
heroic police officer and fireman. It was obvious that he had admired the two
men deeply, but again it didn't make sense. Elizabet Gamble might have given a
hefty reward to the beat cop and the firefighter for saving her family, but she
wouldn't have wanted her sons to follow in their footsteps—both Cort and J. D.
had been enrolled in prelaw at Tulane.