Awash (The Forgotten Coast Florida Suspense Series Book 6) (10 page)

Paulette answered the door of the hotel room. She was wearing lavender shorts and a tee shirt with smiley faces all over it. Maggie couldn’t imagine the woman smiling, and thought someone else must have bought her the shirt.

Maggie stepped inside and let her eyes adjust to the dimness of the room. Zoe was sitting at the small round table, an open textbook and her laptop in front of her.

“Hey, Zoe,” Maggie said, as Paulette shut the door.

“Hi, Coach,” Zoe said quietly. There were smudges beneath her eyes, and her hair was haphazardly atop her head, held by a plastic clip.

“I just wanted to stop by for a minute and see how you’re doing.”

“I’m okay,” the girl answered, not very convincingly.

“Do you need anything?” Maggie asked her.

Zoe seemed to think for a second, then shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

Maggie looked over her shoulder at the aunt. “Ms. Boatwright?”

The woman shrugged. “Vacation out of this town? I don’t like makin’ her go back there tomorrow.”

Maggie nodded. “I’m sorry. This was all we could do. We just don’t have the funds to keep you here any longer.”

“I know that,” Paulette said. “Just talkin’. I feel bad for her. I’d move if I could, but I don’t have the money. I waited almost two years to get that place.”

Maggie nodded, then looked back at Zoe. “I’m sorry, Zoe.”

The girl lifted one thin shoulder. “I have to go back sometime.”

Maggie swallowed, wished she had something better to offer her.

“Is anything happening?” Zoe asked her. “I mean, are you going to be able to find out who he was?”

“We’re working on it really hard, Zoe,” Maggie said. “I promise.”

Zoe nodded. “I know.”

Maggie’s helplessness to give her a better answer, a safer life to return to, made her eager to leave. That made her feel like a coward. “I have to go, Zoe,” she said anyway. “But if you need me, you call me. Any time, any hour. Okay?”

“Okay,” Zoe said, and Maggie saw her swallow hard. She wanted to scoop her up, hold her, take her away.

“I’ll walk you out,” Paulette said. “I need a smoke.”

Maggie followed the woman out the door. Paulette walked to the railing, pulled her cigarettes out of her shorts pocket and lit one. Maggie waited beside her, watching the sky turn darker. The cars passing by on Hwy 98 had their headlights on.

“My brother got me off of crack when I was seventeen years old,” Paulette said after she’d blown out of mouthful of smoke. “Loved me off of it. Then, a little later on, I got into meth and hydros. I didn’t get off them till after Mack got killed. Did it by myself.”

The woman didn’t seem to be asking for praise or validation; she was simply stating facts.

“That’s quite an accomplishment,” Maggie said. “I’ve heard it’s a horrible process.”

Paulette shrugged. “So is everything else,” she said. She took another drag, blew the smoke out toward the parking lot. “I ain’t no hero. I need my beer and my cigarettes. Now and then a blunt. But that’s the best I can do.” When she looked over at Maggie, her expression was a challenge.

“Some people would say if you can get clean, you can do anything,” Maggie offered. “Maybe you’re underestimating yourself.”

“No, I just live in the real world,” Paulette said. She turned to face Maggie, leaned against the rail. “I’m no mother. I know that. There’s a reason I never wanted kids. But that don’t mean I don’t care about her.”

“I know,” Maggie said, but she felt the lie of it, knew that she did judge.

“I clean houses. I can’t afford a real place, I gotta have the public housing. I know she doesn’t want to go back there, but I got $72 in the bank.”

Maggie didn’t know what to say to that, or at least what she could say that wouldn’t be empty words.

“I just want you to know that I’m not taking her back there ’cause I don’t care,” Paulette said. “I can’t do anything else.”

“Going back there will be hard,” Maggie said finally. “But it’ll be hard everywhere. Yes, it would be better if she never had to walk in that place again, but no matter where she is, she’ll be afraid. He doesn’t have to be there; he’s everywhere.”

Paulette watched her as she blew smoke out of the side of her mouth, away from Maggie. “You sound like you know something about that,” she said.

“I do.”

“They catch him?”

“He’s dead,” Maggie said.

“By you?”

Maggie looked out beyond the parking lot to where she knew the bay was, across the road and beyond the trees.

“No,” Maggie answered. “Just dead.”

M
aggie sat in Boudreaux’s oyster shell driveway, engine off and windows down.

The driveway was flanked by two large palms, and their fronds whispered in the evening breeze. The bougainvillea, azalea, and hibiscus bushes that surrounded Boudreaux’s wraparound porch fluttered and swayed. Maggie watched them as she waited for herself not to be quite so glad to be seeing Boudreaux. After several minutes, nothing changed, so she sighed in frustration and jerked her door open.

Her hiking boots crunched through the oyster shells that made a path to the front porch of the two-story, white clapboard low-country style house. While the house was large, and considered one of the Historic District’s loveliest homes, it was far less ostentatious than one might expect of the area’s preeminent crime lord. As much wealth and power as Boudreaux possessed, the home was very much like the man himself: quietly, casually elegant, but unapologetic for its roots.

Boudreaux’s cook and housekeeper, a Creole woman of indeterminate age, towered over Maggie when she answered the door. Her face was impassive, and she didn’t wait for Maggie to explain herself.

“Mr. Bennett want you to come back to his den,” she said in a deep, sandy voice.

Maggie stepped inside as the woman stood back to give her room, then closed the door. Maggie was surprised to realize that, although she’d been to Boudreaux’s house several times, this was the first time she’d ever been inside.

The wide hallway was furnished with well-worn antiques that were more interesting than fancy, and the cypress plank walls were covered with photographs of shrimp boats, oyster skiffs, the Gulf, and also bayous that Maggie recognized as being in Boudreaux’s home state of Louisiana.

She followed Amelia past two sets of double doors that opened off either side of the hall. One room was obviously a formal living room, and Maggie spied one end of a long dining room table within the other.

Amelia’s slippers slapped against the hardwood floor as she took Maggie past a staircase, turned right into a narrower hallway, then stopped at another set of open doors.

“Maggie Redmond here,” Amelia said into the room.

As Maggie stopped to stand beside Amelia, Boudreaux walked out from behind a massive antique desk. “Maggie,” he said, welcome in his smooth voice. “Come in.”

Maggie stepped into the room as Boudreaux made his way to her. As usual, he was dressed in casual clothes that cost more than Maggie’s fancy ones would have, if she’d owned any. His khaki-colored trousers and blue cashmere pullover fit his trim frame beautifully, the sweater intensifying the startling blue of his eyes.

Two pairs of French doors on the back wall were open to the back porch, and the floor-length sheers billowed in the autumn breeze.

Boudreaux reached Maggie and held out a hand. “It’s good to see you,” he said, those eyes pinning her to thin air.

“It’s good to see you, too,” Maggie answered. She held his hand a moment, a hand that was manicured and elegant despite the callouses from a life begun in the bayous and on the oyster beds back home.

In the past few weeks, she’d forgotten how physical contact with Boudreaux always seemed to be accompanied by a slight electrical charge. She was reminded instantly, and both relieved and disappointed when he let go of her hand.

“Thank you for coming,” he said.

“You’re welcome.”

Maggie had forgotten Amelia was standing behind her, until the woman spoke again. “Y’all want something to drink?”

“I’ll get it, Amelia,” Boudreaux said. “Thank you.”

“Uh-huh,” the woman said, and was gone.

Boudreaux walked over to a small armoire situated between the two sets of French doors. He opened it to reveal a small bar. “I’m having a glass of Moscato,” he said over his shoulder. “Can I pour something for you?”

Maggie was about to say no, but remembered that he was about to ask something of her and that she was probably going to grant it. “That’ll be fine. Thank you.”

Boudreaux swept a hand toward a pair of cream-colored loveseats separated by a large, matching ottoman. “Please, have a seat.”

Maggie sat down on the loveseat facing the open French doors. As Boudreaux poured their wine, she looked around the room. As masculine as it was, it was also quite warm.

“I just realized that this is the first time I’ve ever been inside your home,” Maggie said, for something to say.

“It is, isn’t it?” Boudreaux asked. He picked up their wine glasses and brought them over. “But the back porch really is my favorite part of the house. I can’t stand being indoors.”

Maggie got that. If she couldn’t be on the water, she needed to at least be outside, and she spent more time on her deck than anywhere else.

She took the glass of wine that he offered, and was slightly surprised when he ignored either couch and sat down on the ottoman. His knees were just inches from hers, and she got a fleeting sniff of his understated cologne. When he looked up at her, those incredible blue eyes so close, she was reminded of the two of them, lying on a pile of debris in the hurricane, as close as they were now, both of them trying not to die. She swallowed the memory away.

“Amelia’s ex-husband passed away last night. Heart failure,” he said quietly.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Maggie replied, oddly surprised that Amelia had ever had a life outside of Boudreaux’s home.

Boudreaux nodded his thanks, then took a sip of his wine. “The funeral is Thursday morning. Amelia’s terrified of flying, and it wouldn’t hurt me to attend to a few things back home in Louisiana, so I’ve told her I’ll accompany her.”

“Okay,” Maggie said cautiously, then took a large swallow of her wine.

“Miss Evangeline does not fly, at all, and we don’t have time to drive, even if I could withstand a road trip with her. I need to be back in time for the Seafood Festival.”

Maggie waited for him to make his point, something she seldom needed to do.

“I realize this is terribly short notice, and an imposition as well, but I was hoping you would see to Miss Evangeline while we’re away,” he said. “It would only be until Thursday evening. We’re leaving tomorrow evening and flying back immediately after the funeral.”

Maggie was taken aback by the nature of his request. She had no idea what she’d been expecting, but this wasn’t it. It startled her into a moment of silence, until the humor of it hit her. It probably struck her as funnier than it deserved, coupled as it was with the relief that he wasn’t asking her anything legally ambiguous.

“You want me to babysit your nanny,” she said.

Boudreaux gave her half a nod and a slight shrug. “Essentially.”

Maggie couldn’t help smiling. “The local, uh, crime lord, is asking his friend the cop to babysit his nanny. You see the irony of this, right?”

Boudreaux allowed her a small smile. “More than you might imagine.”

They looked at each other a moment, and Maggie felt a familiar pull. She’d almost forgotten the sinking sensation she always experienced when in his close proximity. It wasn’t the sinking that comes with dread or regret; it was more like looking at a featherbed or a warm bath and having to choose whether to succumb. Not for the first time, Maggie declined to analyze that.

“So, what? You need me to keep her at my house?” she asked.

“No, she can’t get up your stairs,” Boudreaux said. “I’m afraid what I’m asking you to do is stay here overnight.”

The short laugh escaped before Maggie could prevent it.

“I could get you both a room at Water Street, if you prefer,” Boudreaux said quietly. “I’m just a little concerned about changing her environment, her routine.”

Maggie sighed, then tried for a smile that didn’t quite come to fruition.

“I’m sorry,” Boudreaux said, his brows knitting. “I know it’s a lot. But you’re the only person I would trust with her.”

Maggie didn’t want to be flattered, or admit to it, but she was. She knew Boudreaux loved Miss Evangeline above all else.

“It’s okay,” Maggie said. “I’ll stay here.”

Boudreaux seemed just a bit surprised that he didn’t need to do a little more persuading. “Thank you, Maggie.”

Maggie grew a little unsettled, under the gaze of those blue eyes. She tried to distract herself from it by sighing and looking away.

“Well, this should speed up my public decline,” she said with forced casualness. “Of the people who care one way or another, half think we’re lovers and the other half think I’ve become corrupt.”

“I’m sorry about your image,” Boudreaux said. “I do give that some thought from time to time.”

Maggie shook her head. “I’m tired of worrying about it,” she said. “I’ve known most of these people my whole life. They’ll either judge me on my character or they won’t.”