Blood on the Bayou (14 page)

“Yeah, I got your message,” he says, ignoring another moan and arm flop from Gerald, who I’m no longer sure is getting up tonight after all.

He certainly had his share of whiskey. He might end up sleeping it off in the dirt and wake up tomorrow with no memory of his last hour of consciousness. But even if that’s the case, I can’t pretend this didn’t happen. Gerald’s a menace. He doesn’t need a night in jail; he needs to disappear. He’s a problem best solved by the Invisibles. Hopefully a few threats from a man he can’t see will send him on his way.

If not . . .

Well, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it, when
I’m sober and this night is a memory and murder doesn’t seem like a reasonable solution.

“I was on my way to your house when I heard you scream,” Hitch says. “We can’t afford to wait. I got nowhere today. I’m no closer than I was before I came to Donaldsonville. I need to know what you found so I can plan our next move.”

“I didn’t find much, and I just want—”

“Please, Annabelle.” Hitch grabs my hand, so fast I can’t avoid contact. “Please help me. I don’t have time for games or—”

“I’m not playing games.”

“Or nerves or . . . strangeness between us, whatever this is.” He brings his other hand into the mix, making my fingers into sandwich filling. I try to pull away, but he holds tight, a squeeze with a tremble that brings home again how serious this situation is. Especially for him. “I’m sorry I kissed you. I’m sorry I don’t know what to say or what I feel and . . . about everything and . . . Honestly, I’m a fucking mess right now. But I don’t have time to be a mess. This is so important and—”

“The man at the docks wasn’t friendly, but I did learn a few things.” I have to give Hitch something or he’ll never leave me alone. But I have to be careful what I share. No matter how much I want to help him, I can’t betray Marcy, not without a lot more proof. “They’re definitely stealing from their shipments and selling the stuff on the black market. They have a regular customer for the glass needles and some of the other medical supplies. I got the
guy I spoke with to show me a video of one of the meetings with her, but it was too blurry to get a positive ID.”

“I can get a buddy of mine to hack into their files,” Hitch says, making my stomach drop. “We can search the tapes and enhance the quality. Maybe that will be—”

“I wouldn’t do that. The guy’s a computer geek,” I say, scrambling. “He’ll know he’s been hacked and I’ll never get him to trust me. Give me some time. He’s talking to his partner tonight. They’re thinking about offering me a delivery job. If that happens, I’ll be able to meet the woman connected to the medical supplies in person.”

Hitch nods. “And I’ll come with you.”

Shit
. This is why I needed time to plan! I can’t have Hitch tagging along. I need to speak to Marcy in private.

I shake my head. “The deliveries happen out in the bayou, Hitch. I don’t—”

“I brought my suit. I’ll suit up and hide in the back of the truck. I’ll keep out of sight until you find out everything you can from this woman. Then I’ll come out and help convince her to take us to the cave.”

“If she knows the way.”

“She’ll know the way,” he says, a determined smile on his lips. “You did great.”

“I don’t have the job yet,” I remind him. “Lance is going to call me tomorrow and let me know. That’s why I thought this talk could wait. I’m not going to know anything else until tomorrow so . . .” I take a
step back, sensing this is my chance to escape before I say anything else to trap myself.

“I’m glad we talked. It’s good to know we’re getting somewhere.” He takes a mirror step toward me. “Really. Thank you so—”

“Don’t worry about it.” I lift a hand and turn to go. “See you tomorrow.”

“Let me walk you,” he says, falling into step beside me.

I cross my arms and clutch my purse strap, disliking the feeling of him next to me. I need some space, some time, and I certainly don’t want to work my way through a “good night” at my screen door. There’s something about Hitch right now. He doesn’t want to be alone. I can tell. But I can’t be with him. Not as friends, and certainly not as anything else. “I’d kind of rather . . . go alone.”

“No. It’s not safe.”

“It’s fine.” I gesture toward the sidewalk that’s already in sight. “I can see my house from here.”

“No. I could taste the whiskey on your breath, I don’t—”

“I’m not drunk.” I’m not. Not anymore. And the reminder that Hitch
tasted
me is enough to make me even more uncomfortable. I stop dead, making him stumble. “Let me go, Hitch.”

“I will. I just want—”

“Please, Hitch,” I whisper. “Let me go.”

“I . . . I . . .” He swallows. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want you to be alone tonight,” he says, in
that honeyed drawl that makes my bones melt. “Let me sleep on your couch. I’ll make sure you’re safe.”

“If you sleep on my couch, neither of us will be safe.” Even the thought of Hitch shirtless in my living room is too dangerous to touch. “And if you hurt Stephanie you’ll regret it. Forever.” I don’t know how I have the guts to say it, but I do, and the look in Hitch’s eyes leaves no doubt that I’m right. “Good-bye.”

His hands fist and his eye twitches, but when I take another step back and then another, he doesn’t say a word. He lets me go. Finally, I turn and walk away, wondering if this is it, if this is really the end of a certain breed of possibility between me and the first man I ever loved. I wonder if I truly want it to be.

Then I can’t stand any more wondering and break into a run, sprinting for my front door with everything in me.

F
ernando is
pissed
. The note on my front door confirms it:

You are half an hour late. You are not answering your phone. You are also a selfish bitch, and I hate you. I am taking my steaks and going home, where I will eat them both and get fat and it will be all your fault!

Sincerely, Fernando, former best friend.

Crap. Dinner with Fern. I completely forgot. I pull out my phone. Three missed calls. One from him, two from Hitch. I turned off my ringer while I was in the junkyard and didn’t realize anyone had called. I could tell Fern that, and explain that I was busy being attacked around seven o’clock tonight, but I don’t want to talk about that anymore. Or think about it.

I’ll call Fern tomorrow and apologize profusely. Hopefully it will be enough. If it isn’t . . . well . . . who gives a shit? He can mope and pout and give me the
silent treatment for a few weeks. At least then I’ll get a break from the constant criticism.

I snatch the note off the door and crumple it into a ball, planning to throw it into the trash can by the door. But when I open the door, the trash can is across the room by the two potted plants I’ve managed not to kill. The two potted plants that are now
unpotted
all over the floor.

Gimpy is
also
pissed. Or he
was
pissed at some point in the day.

Even in the dim light streaming from the kitchen, I can see that my antique chintz sofa cushions have been ripped to shreds. Clouds of tacky brown stuffing litter the room. Trash and potting soil make a mess in the corner and the curtain I nailed up to offer some protection from Bernadette is sporting a few claw marks, but the sofa definitely took the worst of the abuse.

“You little bastard!” I stomp through my mercifully intact bedroom and throw my keys, purse, phone, and the smashed tea bags from my back pocket on the kitchen table before squatting down by Gimpy’s bed. “What did you do?”

“
Rrrreow
.” The Gimp greets me with a lazy purr-growl and a smile. I swear, the wee terrorist
smiles
at me, pleased as shit that he’s gotten the desired reaction.

“Bad!” I point to the front room. “No treats for you tonight.”

He yawns, stretches, and pops his claws, as if to emphasize how little he cares for my stupid treats.
He’s already had his fill of couch stuffing,
thank you very much,
and is completely stuffed. Ha, ha, ha.

“You’re lucky I hated that couch.” I plop down on the floor cross-legged beside him, and pull his bed close enough to reach the sweet spot behind his ears without working too hard. “I still shouldn’t pet you.” I start to scratch and Gimpy’s purr-growl becomes a rumble of pleasure. “You don’t deserve my sweet love.”

My sweet love. The smell of Hitch lingers on my shirt, but there’s only one face that keeps floating through my mind. Cane. I keep seeing the way he was smiling at Theresa, and remembering all the times he smiled the same way at me. I’m still not jealous or angry, I just . . .

“I want to see him,” I mutter as I pull Gimpy onto my lap. He stiffens for a moment—not being the snuggly sort—but eventually gives in to the double-ear and jowl scratch. “I miss him.”

I saw him yesterday, but it seems like so much longer. I may have talked to him, held his hand, and kissed his lips, but we didn’t connect the way we used to. Our time-out is becoming a chill-out. The spark between us is cooling. Not only the sexual spark, but the way we used to talk and laugh and be ourselves without any threats lurking in the dark future.

We used to have a sunny future. Or at least partly cloudy, small chance of rain.

But then Hitch showed up and changed everything and now things are . . . complicated. Even if we live through this investigation and Hitch heads back to New Orleans and I get the situation with the
Invisibles and the fairies under control, I’m not sure that things will be less complicated. Not after tonight. Despite the fiancée and the baby, Hitch might come back. For me.
To
me.

“And I might want him to,” I whisper. “But it would only go bad again, wouldn’t it? If it were meant to be, it would have been the first time around. Right?”

Gimpy gives me a slitty-eyed look that expresses what he thinks of “meant to be.”

Right. Nothing is meant to be. Meant to be is crap, the philosophy of fools and smug, happy people trying to justify why they’re getting an easy ride while everyone else fights and hurts and bleeds and struggles to get up after being slapped down again and again. There is no benevolent hand of fate guiding my life.

Shit happens. The only thing I have power over is how I deal with the shit.

I can change the way I do business. I can be better. Or at least different. And maybe different will be better.

“Or I could pack a bag, steal Bernadette’s car, and drive out of here and never look back. That would make the fairies happy.” Gimpy growls and digs his claws into my jean-clad leg. “Don’t worry. You can come, too. At least as far as St. Louis.”

Gimpy growls again and narrows his eyes at the front of the house. I turn to look, a shivery dread working down my spine. No one comes by my house this late anymore. Not even Tucker. He’s a morning person. And a back-door kind of guy.

Which means the heavy footfalls climbing my porch steps belong to someone else. Maybe Hitch, determined to protect me. Maybe one of the Kings, determined to show me I need protection. Maybe the Big Man come to tell me he’s seen me chatting it up with the fairies or the dock workers or the Kings or the FBI agent and has decided it’s best I die after all.

“Two out of three,” I whisper. I sit Gimpy back on his bed and crawl toward my bedroom, grateful, once again, that I live in a shotgun shack not much bigger than a shoe box. I’m out of the kitchen and sliding my safe from under my bed in less than a minute. I haven’t had my gun out to play since the mess in August, but a two-thirds chance of danger is good enough for me. I spin the combo and pull out the small silver handgun as the knock comes at the door.

It’s soft. Too soft. More of a test than a summons.

Whoever’s out there is hoping I’m not home. Or asleep. And I get the strong feeling that—should I refuse to answer the door—the knocker is going to come on in. They won’t even have to break in in order to enter. Thanks to Gimpy’s acts of senseless destruction, I forgot to lock the door behind me.

As the knock comes again and, seconds later, the doorknob begins to turn, I curse beneath my breath and vow to make Gimpy an outside cat. Assuming I still live here tomorrow. Assuming I don’t have to kill the person creeping into my house and go on the run from the law because I can’t handle a trial. Even a
justified homicide trial. The thought of sitting under the cold, judgmental stare of a court official makes me want to stab myself to death with a fork.

I crouch behind the end of the bed, aim at the tall shadow easing inside the darkened living room, and try to breathe past the fear clutching at my chest. “I’ll shoot you,” I say, stopping the shadow in its tracks. “It’s legal to shoot to kill for breaking and entering.”

“But it’s not legal for you to keep a handgun without a current license,” a deep voice rumbles. “And I know that one is expired.”

“Cane.” I’m relieved. And surprised. And so happy that I find myself laughing hysterically as I put the gun back in the safe and stand on shaky legs. “You scared me.”