Awash (The Forgotten Coast Florida Suspense Series Book 6) (16 page)

“There go ’melia and Mr. Benny,” Miss Evangeline said, following Maggie’s gaze.

“May I look at it?”

“You lookin’ at it already,” Miss Evangeline said.

Maggie reached down and picked it up. Boudreaux appeared to be about Kyle’s age, or maybe as old as twelve. He was wearing a white tee shirt and well-worn jeans and was barefooted. He was so tan that he was darker than the two light-skinned Creole women.

He was looking into the camera, and even from that distance, and in black and white, his eyes were arresting. But there was a look of sadness there that added to the weight Maggie already felt in her chest.

“Prettiest boy I ever saw,” Miss Evangeline said.

Maggie nodded. He was pretty, pretty in the way that Kyle was, with those long, dark lashes and gentle features.

“Fifty-seven years I been raise him now,” Miss Evangeline said. “Still he don’t mind me, no.

Maggie smiled and set the picture back down.

“Come here eat of this chocolates,” Miss Evangeline said, shaking the little gold box. “’Mr. Benny say he pay a million dollar to the Frenchmen for them chocolates, and I got to make it last. So I gon’ eat ever one of these tonight, me.”

She handed one delicate chocolate to Maggie. “You’re not going to get sick are you?” Maggie asked.

“Sick for why?” the woman asked, the TV reflecting off of her thick lenses.

Maggie shook her head and put the chocolate in her mouth. It was luscious and silky and dark.

“Now you go the bed,” Miss Evangeline said. At first Maggie thought she was supposed to sit, but Miss Evangeline was waving her off. “What day tomorrow is?”

“Thursday,” Maggie said.

“Tomorrow ice cream day,” the woman answered. “Mr. Benny take me out for the ice cream Thursdays.”

Maggie wracked her brain for some memory of this in her myriad instructions, but came up empty. “Okay, we’ll go get ice cream,” she said. “I have some errands to run first.”

“I go the errand,” Miss Evangeline said, putting the last chocolate in her mouth.

“Yes,” Maggie said. She was pretty sure it was assumed that she’d hang around the house all day with Miss Evangeline, but Boudreaux hadn’t said not to take her anywhere, and she sure as heck wasn’t leaving her alone.

“Is there anything you need before I go?” Maggie asked.

“I don’t need nothin’,” the old woman said. “I already had some water, and Mr. Benny fill up my douche bag,” she said, holding up the hot water bottle.

Maggie stood there, glad she was too depressed and worried to burst out laughing or make a smart remark. “Well, good,” she managed to say.

Miss Evangeline nodded, then set the empty box on her night stand.

“Good night, Miss Evangeline,” Maggie said.

“’Night, girl,” Miss Evangeline said, and turned the TV back up.

Maggie locked the front door before closing it, then headed back over to the big, empty house.

Zoe sat upright in her bed, propped up against her pillows. All of the lights in the house were off, except for a nightlight in the bathroom that cast a pale yellow glow into the hallway.

Zoe had been staring down the hallway for so long that her eyes felt scratchy and hot. She had been watching, expecting him to appear at the head of the hallway, so afraid of seeing him that sometimes she did, and her heart would pound for a moment or two. Every now and then, one of the cats would rattle their tags against their bowls in the kitchen, and a piece of Zoe would die.

Her muscles ached from hours of being ready to spring from her bed. She was slightly dizzy from breathing too shallowly for too long. She wanted her mother. She wanted her dad. She wanted to be someplace else, someplace where she didn’t have to watch the hallway.

She was trying to get up the nerve to go close her bedroom door when the motion sensor light went off outside the window beside her bed, and everything that kept her alive stopped functioning at once.

Maggie took a long shower rather than a bath and pulled on a tank top and some plaid boxers. She placed her service weapon on the night stand out of habit, and slid into the white iron bed. The smooth, old sheets were cool and comforting, but she didn’t feel comforted.

She checked her phone one more time, and contemplated calling Wyatt, but then set her alarm and waited for sleep to come. She was exhausted, yet wide awake.

After almost half an hour, she got back out of bed, grabbed her phone and her weapon, and went down to the kitchen for a glass of milk. When she’d finished it, she went on a wander, and found herself back at the door to Boudreaux’s den.

The door was open, and Maggie stepped into the room. She set her phone and .45 on the ottoman, walked to the French doors and looked outside at the wind. Moonlight reflected off of the leaves of Boudreaux’s many mango trees as they fluttered in the dark.

She turned back around and walked over to the couch where she’d sat last night. The denim blue sweater that Boudreaux had worn was tossed over the back. She reached out to feel its softness, then on impulse she picked it up and brought it up to her nose. It smelled just faintly of his elegant cologne.

After a moment’s hesitation, Maggie slipped it over her head. The sleeves hung down several inches below her hands, and the bottom of the sweater covered her shorts. If she had thought he’d mind, she’d have taken it off, but somehow she didn’t think he would. He was far too much the gentleman.

She curled up on the couch, and watched the trees with their dancing leaves until she finally fell asleep.

M
aggie awoke sore, tired, and momentarily lost.

Miss Evangeline was to have her breakfast on the table precisely at 8am, so Maggie got herself mentally resituated, dressed, made up the guest bed, and went down to the kitchen. If waking up alone in an unfamiliar place hadn’t made her tense and cranky, struggling to understand and operate Boudreaux’s coffee machine would have done the trick.

She finally managed to manufacture something at least physically drinkable, had a cup of coffee on the back porch, and then undertook to prepare Miss Evangeline’s breakfast according to her daughter’s instructions.

She finally got it on the table with four minutes to spare, poured herself another cup of coffee, and sat down with a copy of yesterday’s paper that had been sitting on the counter.

A few minutes later, the back door opened, and an aluminum walker came through it, after a few preliminary bangs to the jamb on either side. It was followed eventually by Miss Evangeline, wearing a red bandana on her head and a blue flowered house dress on her frame.

Maggie stood and stepped hesitantly toward the woman, unsure if she needed help or would be insulted by it. She stopped halfway to her and let her proceed unaided.

“Good morning, Miss Evangeline,” she said.

“Don’t know it is,” the old woman said. “Somebody put different tenny ball on my walkie-talkie, make it go too fast.”

Maggie looked down at the tennis balls stuck onto the front pieces of the old lady’s walker. They looked okay to her, and the only thing Miss Evangeline might outrun was a rock.

“Uh, well,” Maggie said. “I don’t know. I didn’t do anything to them.”

Miss Evangeline arrived at her chair at last, and Maggie couldn’t help but take the lady’s elbow as she sat. Miss Evangeline didn’t seem to mind, or notice. Once the lady had navigated an actual seated position, Maggie walked back to her side of the table and sat down.

Maggie wasn’t much of a social creature, and didn’t seem to have the knack for small talk, especially with a near-stranger, so she had to cast about in her mind for something to say.

“Did you sleep well, Miss Evangeline?” she finally asked.

“Don’t know,” the woman said, peering suspiciously at her plate. “I miss the whole thing, me.”

Maggie would have found that funny if she hadn’t been so nervous about her ability to prepare one slice of maple bacon, dark not black, one slice of walnut-colored sourdough toast, and one over medium egg with no lace, no lace at all. She had an easier time cooking breakfast for ten than she did one tiny breakfast cooked to such specifications.

Miss Evangeline looked at her plate and then stared across the table. “Where your food at?”

“I don’t eat breakfast,” Maggie said. “Unless it’s raw oysters.”

The old lady stared at her a moment, and Maggie wondered if she’d grossed her out. But then Miss Evangeline dropped her eyes to her plate. The old woman stared at each component in turn, then finally picked up her fork and knife and began performing some kind of surgery on the egg. Maggie let out a breath and picked up the paper she’d been reading.

After a moment, she heard the dry-leaf voice from across the table.

“Somethin’ wrong my egg,” it said.

Maggie sighed quietly. She’d made and thrown away two other eggs before putting that one on the plate.

She lowered the newspaper. Miss Evangeline was picking at the egg with her fork.

“What, exactly?” Maggie asked.

Miss Evangeline looked up, her thick glasses almost opaque in the sunlight from the window.

“Got snots in it,” she said. “The white all runny with snots.”

Maggie blinked at her a few times. She’d labored over that stupid egg, making sure the white was “done, but not rubbery” and the yolk still slightly soft. She chewed at the corner of her lip and tried not to be snarky. It wasn’t the old woman’s fault that she was out of sorts.

“Would you like me to make you another one?”

Miss Evangeline looked back down at her plate. “I scrape the snots,” she said.

“Okay,” Maggie said. She took a healthy swallow of her coffee, then returned to the paper.

After a moment, Miss Evangeline spoke up again. “Bacon burned,” she said.

Maggie lowered the paper. “No it isn’t,” she said.

The old lady stuck her face nearly on top of the bacon, then turned her Coke-bottle glasses back up at Maggie. “Too crisp. Gon’ get underneath my teeths,” she said.

Maggie sighed. “I followed Amelia’s specifications exactly,” she said. “Maybe I messed up the incantation.”

Miss Evangeline stared blankly across the table, and Maggie lifted her paper back up. The story on Wyatt continued on the third page, and she flipped over to it.

“You thinkin’ you big enough to sass me, then,” she heard from the other side of the paper. She lowered it to find Miss Evangeline still staring at her.

“No, not at all,” Maggie said. “I just know that I’ve never cooked a breakfast so carefully in my lif.”

“Careful, not careful, I don’t know,” Miss Evangeline said. “But you sass me again an’ I come there and snatch you out that chair.”

Maggie stared back at the old woman. For what felt like an eternity, neither of them blinked.

Finally, Maggie reached over and dragged the aluminum walker over to her side of the table, the tennis balls making a soft swish along the floor. Then she opened her paper back up.

“Come on, if you’re coming,” she said.