Clay (11 page)

The longer he stayed around Janna and Lainey, the more certain he became that this family history had some bearing on why Janna had drugged him. Every passing hour made it clearer what she might have to gain.

Who better to provide a kidney than another Benedict? Who better, indeed, than a man who was an exact genetic match to Lainey’s father? Janna would be fully aware that a donor kidney from a close relative match would have a ninety percent survival rate during the first year, with seventy percent over a five-year period. An unmatched kidney, on the other hand, was more likely to be rejected immediately or, even if retained, have less than a fifty percent chance of surviving. It was possible that Lainey would be no more of a genetic match for him than for Janna, but Clay knew there was also a fair degree of probability that they would share half or more of the same his-tocompatibility antigens. The implications of that knowledge were something he spent a lot of time contemplating as the day wore on.

Janna and Lainey returned as sunset was painting
the sky. They were both hot, tired and sunburned, though Lainey less than her mother since she wore the wide-brimmed straw hat that he’d seen Janna use once while doing a watercolor en plein air. Janna sent Lainey to take a cool shower while she stood at the kitchen sink drinking glass after glass of cool tap water. The grim look of defeat that settled on her face as she stared out the kitchen window caused a knot of unwilling sympathy in the pit of Clay’s stomach.

“No luck?” he asked as he lounged in the hallway opening.

“It’s hard to find something that isn’t there,” she said over her shoulder.

“It’s there. You just have to know where to look.”

“I showed Arty an old illustration. He says he’s never seen it.”

“But you asked him to help you anyway?”

It was a long moment before she answered. “I didn’t, actually.”

“Why not? I’d have thought a guide was just what you needed.” Not to mention, he thought, the protection of a man in her boat.

Instead of replying, she turned to put her back to the cabinet, leaning against it, as she asked, “You’ve known Arty a long time, haven’t you?”

“Quite a while. Why?”

“He taught you about the swamp, I think he said.”

“Right.” Clay waited for her to get to the point.

“You know about his criminal record?”

Clay shook his head. “All that was forty years ago or more.”

“He killed someone, according to the gas man.”

“He did, and he paid for it. Now he’s just an old man getting by the best way he can.”

“Staying back in the swamp, avoiding other people. Except for you.”

“And a few others such as Roan, Kane, Luke, my older brothers when they’re home. And you.” He added the last as a none-too-subtle reminder that she’d made a friend of Arty before she found out about his past.

“You have any idea how he makes his living?”

She was brushing her thumb up and down her water glass, a sure sign of how disturbed she was inside. Clay kept his voice as even and reassuring as possible as he answered, “Hunting, fishing, trapping, acting as a guide. He also has a small government check, I think.”

“It isn’t much.”

“Arty doesn’t need much.” Clay paused, then went on. “He’s just a lonely old codger. He’d never think of hurting you. Or Lainey.”

“Can you guarantee that?”

He couldn’t, so he remained grimly silent.

She gave a short laugh. “Now you know why I didn’t ask for his help as a guide. Other than the fact that he said he didn’t know dye plants.”

“So now you’re giving up?”

She gave him a straight look, though still holding her glass in front of her like a shield. “I never give up.”

She meant it. Clay liked that, in spite of everything.

By nightfall, he’d had all that he could take of being confined while events went on around him. He waited until Lainey was put to bed with all her attendant procedures and tubes for dialysis and Janna had taken her shower. When he was sure his jailer was tucked in her bed asleep after her long afternoon of hot sun and fresh air out on the lake, he slid out of his waist restraint once more. Moving silently, carrying his shoes, he let himself out of the house.

The old aluminum boat was handy at the camp’s dock since Janna had used it earlier in the day. It took only seconds and a few quiet pulls with its beat-up paddle to head the lightweight craft away from the camp and out into the lake. A short time later, Clay was climbing aboard his airboat where she sat screened by a couple of old weeping willows in a back cove near Arty’s shanty. Jenny cranked with a quiet rumble at the first turn of the key. Seconds later, he sent her flying ahead of a peacock’s tail of blown spume as he headed for Turn-Coupe.

Roan was still up, for the light was burning in the upstairs bedroom at his house known as Dog Trot. Clay tied up the airboat, then walked up to the slope to the kitchen door. His knock was answered almost immediately. Roan stood with one hand on the doorknob and the other on his hipbone as he said, “It’s about time, cuz. What took you so long?”

“Expecting me, were you?”

“From the minute I realized you had to be somewhere around Denise’s old camp.”

Roan stepped back to let him in as he spoke. Clay
gave a resigned nod as he moved on into the kitchen. Old Beau, Roan’s pet bloodhound, rose to meet him. As Clay rubbed the dog’s big head and pulled his ears, he said, “The film canisters, right?”

“You’re the only person I know who tosses the things like other people get rid of used paper towels. So what’s the idea? You hiding out from somebody?”

“Promise not to laugh and I’ll tell you,” Clay said as he swung a chair out from the kitchen table and spun it around before straddling it.

The sheriff of Tunica Parish watched him a second without answering. As if giving himself time to think, he asked, “Cold drink? Beer? Water?”

Clay declined. Roan took out a beer and twisted off the cap before ambling over to the table and dropping into the chair facing Clay. Finally he said, “It wouldn’t have something to do with that blond Amazon I talked to out there, I suppose.”

“Could be.”

“But it’s not crooked?”

Clay propped his chin on the high back of his chair as he considered that. Finally, he said, “Depends on how you look at it.”

“How do you look at it?”

Roan did have an abrupt way about him. It was intimidating to some, but Clay was used to it. “An error in judgment?”

“Doesn’t sound like a laughing matter.”

“I had a feeling you might say that,” Clay allowed in his driest tones. It was the most he was going to
get from Roan, he knew. With deliberation, he told his cousin the whole story.

Roan sat watching him for long seconds when he’d finished. Then a glint appeared in his eyes. He pressed his lips together until they turned white, but there was no way to stop the upward turn of his mouth. He covered the lower part of his face, but his eyes still danced. On a crack of laughter, he said, “Wait till Tory hears this!”

“Your bride wouldn’t be crass enough to poke fun at my predicament,” Clay said in stern accusation.

“You misjudge her. She’d do it in a nanosecond. And probably will when I tell her how you’ve been tied down for days at the mercy of a love-starved…”

“It isn’t like that!”

Roan’s humor faded. “No? Then tell me how it is that this woman has drugged you, kept you under lock and key and made you like it.”

“I didn’t say I liked it.”

“It took you long enough to get free.”

“I’m not free.” Clay informed him. “Well, for all intents and purposes. I’m going back.”

Roan’s brows snapped together above his nose. “You’re what?”

“Tonight. As soon as I see Doc.”

“What do you want with Doc? She didn’t hurt you, did she?”

“No, she didn’t hurt me,” Clay answered in exasperation. “All I want is to check out some facts with him and have him look at some medical records that I found while poking around Janna’s desk.”

“The little girl’s records,” Roan said in clarification, adding as Clay noted, “to see…what, exactly?”

“If she could actually be Matt’s daughter, for one thing.”

“And?”

“And if she’s as sick as Janna claims.”

“Can’t you tell?”

Clay gave him a moody frown. “Doesn’t hurt to be sure.”

“Then what?”

“It would help if I could get some information on this doctor she’s seeing.” It was an evasion, but he hoped Roan wouldn’t realize it.

Roan reached behind him to a drawer in the kitchen cabinet where he pulled out a pen and notepad. “You have a name?”

“Lainey called him Dr. Bauer or Gower, I’m not sure which. I’m guessing he may have practiced, or still practices, as a nephrologist, probably in New Orleans or Baton Rouge.”

“That should do it,” Roan said as he thumped his pencil point at the end of the note he’d just written. “What else?”

“I’d like to borrow your phone to call Doc Watkins, see if he’s still up, by any chance.”

“You’re going over there tonight?”

“Have to,” Clay told him, his smile whimsical. “I have to be back before bed check in the morning.”

“Don’t rush off. I’d like to hear a bit more about this female warden of yours.”

It was one thing for him to refer to his situation in
prison terms, Clay discovered, but he wasn’t wild about anyone else doing it. “Later. I need to do a little work in the darkroom at Grand Point before I take off again.”

“You’re thinking about photos at a time like this?”

“These are special.”

“You’re nuts,” Roan said without heat. “What about my wedding? You do intend to show up for that?”

Clay held up his hand. “Word of honor.”

“I’ll hold you to it,” his cousin said in grim promise. “But suppose this Amazon of yours checks your bed while you’re gone?”

Clay drew a deep breath, then let it out with a slow shake of his head. “Can’t be helped. But I’d sure hate to miss it.”

Roan threw down his pen and leaned back in his chair. “Right. Now let me see if I can cast my mind back. Just who was it, again, who was telling me not too long ago that I was a goner when it came to a certain woman?”

“Don’t go jumping to conclusions. You don’t know why I’m going back.”

“I suppose it’s for Matt, because you need to know, once and for all, if he left something of himself behind when he died.”

“Maybe.”

“Or because you’re a sucker for kids.”

Clay gave him a look of disgust.

“Turnabout is fair play or something along that
line? You want to get this Janna Kerr into your bed instead of the other way around?”

“Could be. Or I could also have a feeling that she needs help, needs it in the worst kind of way.”

“Which is it?” Roan asked, his voice sharp with impatience. “Make up your mind.”

“I think I have.” Clay let the words stand without embellishment.

“So what do you need? Besides psychiatric help, of course.”

“Answers,” Clay said, his voice sober. “More than anything else, I need answers.”

J
anna took the old boat out again early the next morning, while Lainey was still asleep. She didn’t intend to go far, not with her daughter alone in the house except for Clay. There was just this one small creek-fed cove that had intrigued her the afternoon before. Lainey had been too tired for her to check it out then, but she could do it now in less than an hour.

Quite a few boats were on the lake; more than usual, she thought. They buzzed up and down the nearby main channel, and the waves they made kept her light craft constantly rocking. It was a few minutes before she remembered the weekend fishing tournament Dr. Gower had mentioned. Today was Saturday, she thought, though she’d almost lost track in the confusion of the past few days. She avoided the activity, paddling quietly along close to various small islands and spits of land, keeping her eyes open.

Rounding a bend, she came upon a fancy bass rig with a bright red fiberglass hull, elevated captain’s chairs, gauges of all kinds and a motor large enough to run the
QE II
. The two fishermen who occupied the boat gave Janna a pleasant greeting. She would
have passed them by without another word, but the one in front hailed her across the water.

“Say,” he called, “you wouldn’t be from around here, would you?”

“Sorry,” she answered, resting her paddle a moment so bright droplets from it caught the sun and she drifted with decreasing momentum.

“We were just wondering what was going on.”

She gazed at them across the waves. Their faces were red and shiny from the heat, and their floppy, narrow-brimmed hats were something a Southern good old boy wouldn’t be caught dead wearing on his head. Accents from above the Mason-Dixon line were just the final proof that they were from out of state. It was unlikely, then, that they posed any threat. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“We couldn’t put our boat in at the landing where the tournament brochure said. Had a small army of cops around it.” The man in the rear put down his rod and bent to rummage around in a built-in ice chest until he pulled out a beer. “Ambulance was there, too, rescue squad, fire truck, you name it. We thought maybe there’d been a drowning.”

“I don’t know anything about it,” she said, though she could feel her stomach muscles tighten as if in anticipation of a blow.

The first man said, “I’m sure I saw the medics put a young guy on the gurney. I have to say he looked like a goner, but I suppose they have to carry him in anyway, so the coroner can do his job.”

“A teenager?” Janna’s voice cracked a little with strain as she spoke.

“Maybe sixteen or seventeen, about that size, anyway. We were too far away to be sure.”

It could really be a drowning accident, Janna told herself. This boy didn’t have to be a victim of organ theft like the first.

“Funny thing is,” the fisherman in the rear seat went on, “I’ve never seen it take that many cops to check out a boating accident.” He popped the top on his beer. “You’d think they were looking for something.”

“I heard mention of an airboat and the guy who owns it,” the first man added. “Took me a minute to get the picture because they were calling the thing a Jenny or some such name.”

Janna had to get back to the camp, and fast. “Yes, well, I guess we’ll read about it in the paper,” she said as she dug her paddle into the water again. “Good luck with your fishing.”

They answered, she thought, but she didn’t hear. She was too busy swinging back around in the direction she’d come.

Arty was at the camp when she got back, for his ancient wooden boat was tied up at the dock. She let herself into the house with quiet care, since she didn’t want to wake Lainey just yet. She would want to be taken off dialysis the instant she opened her eyes, and Janna had other things on her mind.

Lainey was asleep and Arty was nowhere in sight.
Then as Janna passed Clay’s room, she heard voices. The door was firmly closed and Arty was speaking in a rasping near-whisper, as if he didn’t want to be overheard.

Janna hesitated a second, then she moved closer to the door and bent her head to listen. The first voice she caught was Clay’s in a soft query that she didn’t understand. It was followed by Arty’s answer.

“Yeah. Floating in the channel again, poor kid. Fresh killed this time.”

Clay swore. “The same way?”

“Same bits gone, if that’s what you mean,” Arty agreed. “But this boy was shot first. A pistol, they say, light caliber, probably a Saturday Night Special.”

Janna barely heard Clay’s reply for the thunder of her heartbeat in her ears. She pressed a hand to her throat and closed her eyes. Another body, another teenager robbed of his organs, if not killed for them. It was unbelievable.

“Somethin’ else you should know.”

The grim warning in Arty’s voice grabbed Janna’s attention again, overriding her horror. She held her breath to listen. Everything was quiet inside the room for long seconds, then Clay demanded, “Well? Out with it.”

“You ain’t gonna like it.”

“So what else is new?”

“The lake’s been crawling with law since dawn, as you’d imagine. Officer even stopped by my place
asking questions. Thought for a minute or two that I was in trouble, you know. Then he wanted to know if I’d seen you, had any idea why you hadn’t been to home lately.”

“Must not have been one of Roan’s men.”

“State Police, this guy. I guess Roan had to call them in, being these kids were likely killed somewhere else and dumped here.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Not a dad-blasted thing,” Arty said, his voice shaded with contempt. “I don’t see nothing, don’t hear nothing, don’t know nothing.”

“He give you a hard time about it?”

The old man gave a humorless laugh. “Tried, being as how I’m fair game.”

Janna heard the bitterness in the old man’s voice, and the disgust. He was obviously upset, but it was impossible to tell whether it was from the latest death or this visit from the law.

“You think they’ve put me on the short list of suspects.” Clay’s tone was thoughtful.

“Looks that way. This deputy mentioned you being a vet and all, said something about that medical training you took years back and how well you know the swamp.”

“Right,” Clay drawled. “I suppose it never occurred to this guy that the last place I’d dispose of a body would be the main channel? That dumping one there is like trying to hide it in the middle of an interstate highway?”

“Could be they think you did it to make it look like an outside job,” Arty suggested.

Clay made a sound of agreement.

“Sometimes folks are so busy trying to be smart that they forget to be logical,” Arty commented in disgust. “On the other hand, the best plans can get a kink in ’em.” The two men were quiet, probably in recognition of Arty’s bad luck all those years ago, when he tried unsuccessfully to dispose of his wife’s lover. After a second, the old man went on. “That officer allowed one more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Somebody saw you out in Jenny last night.”

Janna drew a quick, soundless breath as she waited for Clay’s reply. It wasn’t possible. Was it?”

“Did they now?” Clay asked, his voice grim.

“Said they’d recognize you anywhere, that they’d seen you heading down the lake in the middle of the night a hundred times. Jenny’s right noisy, when all’s said and done. I heard you myself. Woke me up when you got back near dawn this morning, too.”

Silence took over inside the closed room. Janna felt sick. Clay was free to come and go. If he’d ever truly been a prisoner, he was no longer. He had been, was now, loose in her house, this man who had so much to hold against her.

Finally Clay asked, “You saying you think I’m involved in this thing?”

“Hell, boy. What’s it matter what I think?”

“Roan will never believe it.”

“You Benedicts stick together, I’ll give ye that.”

That answer could mean anything. Was it possible that he was guilty? It seemed unlikely. But then why on earth was he still here, shut up in such cramped discomfort, if not as an alibi? The only answer that made any sense was that he knew. He knew all about her and Lainey.

“Mama?”

Janna jerked around at the sound. Lainey was awake. It was terrible timing, but there was nothing Janna could do. She moved quickly and soundlessly down the hall to the kitchen where she called out that she was coming as if she hadn’t long returned to the house. Then she went to care for her daughter.

It was a good thing that she’d performed the sterile disconnection of the dialysis tubing a thousand times, for her mind wasn’t on the job. Too much was happening too fast, and she was caught in the middle with dwindling options.

Clay wasn’t a prisoner; somehow she could not get that fact through her mind. She’d like to march into his room and throw his playacting in his face, but she didn’t quite dare. He would leave, and she didn’t want that. She needed him around a little longer.

Time was running out. She had only one more day to get the extra money Dr. Gower demanded. The Aphrodite’s Cup had been a will-o’-the-wisp, the search for it a waste of time. She must scrap the tentative plan to use it as an arguing point for an increase
in her already huge loan balance. The trouble was, she had nothing to take its place.

“Hurry, Mama, I want to see Arty.”

“You heard him talking, did you?” Janna asked as she valiantly switched mental gears. “He’s with Clay right now, but maybe he’ll stay for breakfast.”

Lainey, holding very still while her stomach incision was cleaned, gave her a confident smile. “Clay won’t care if I go to his room with them.”

“Maybe not, but I doubt it’s a good idea. They could be talking about things they don’t want little girls to hear.”

“It all right, really. Clay likes me.”

“I’m sure he does, sweetheart.” Janna searched her daughter’s face, noting automatically that she had more puffiness than she should have this morning and her eyes were lackluster as well, an indication that her numbers needed checking. She might also need additional dialysis tonight.

“He told me so,” Lainey insisted. “He said I was one of his most favorite people in the whole wide world. Can’t I go in with him and Arty? Please?”

“We’ll see,” Janna said, falling back on the ancient answer of mothers who could think of nothing better. The major question now, she knew, was if Lainey were enough of a favorite that Clay would want to help her. The only thing she could do, now that he was free, was ask.

The ideal solution would be the kidney. Could she risk asking? Suppose she went to him and said, “I’m
terrified that I’ve involved Lainey, your brother’s child, in a dangerous situation, one that may mean her death. But I can get her out of it if you’ll just cooperate. I don’t have the money to pay for an illegal transplant now, but she could have a completely legal procedure if you’ll only give her a kidney.”

No, she absolutely couldn’t do that. What if he refused? To sacrifice so much for a virtual stranger would be unusual. What if he denied that Lainey was Matt’s child? It wouldn’t be at all surprising, after the things she’d done to him. And if he did accept Lainey’s parentage, it raised the specter of what he might expect in return. Then there was his dislike of needles. He could well bolt at the first mention of surgery, taking all chance of aid with him.

What Janna was laying on the line was nothing so trivial as pride or fear of rejection. It was, as it had been for so long now, her daughter’s very existence. For such a huge gamble, she could only trust a sure thing. What she needed then was the money for the illegal procedure.

“Hurry, Mama.”

“Yes, yes, I’m hurrying,” Janna said as she found clothes and helped Lainey dress, then sat down on the bed beside her and began to brush her hair.

It was possible that she need not gamble at all. There had been the hint, slight but still present, that Dr. Gower might consider an appeal made in the proper manner. A naked appeal, literally. If she could force herself to that, then everything might be all
right. All she’d have to do was find a way to live with herself afterward. But how difficult could that be when she might already be trading some young man’s life for her daughter’s chance to live?

What kind of person was she that she could even think of doing that? She could tell herself that it wasn’t proven that Dr. Gower was receiving the illegal kidneys. She could pretend that she hadn’t heard this latest news about another body, didn’t make the connection. She could look the other way, even lie to herself and say she had no idea what was going on.

Yes, but could she lie to Lainey when she was old enough, curious enough, to ask who had given her a kidney? How could she explain that unwilling sacrifice? Would she even be around to lie then, or would she be in prison for her part in this terrible scheme?

“Mama, you’re hurting me!”

She was hugging Lainey much too tightly, smoothing her hair over and over as if that might wipe the stain from her own heart. “Sorry, darling,” she said, releasing her with a final brush of a fine blond strand away from her face. “So sorry.”

Somehow, she had to persuade either Dr. Gower or Clay to help fund Lainey’s surgery. She had to get close enough to one of them so that he would agree; she had no choice. It was wrong, it was crass and manipulative and all the things she despised, but it was also necessary. The only thing left to decide was which man she could trust that far.

The doctor or Clay? Which one could she bear to face with primal seduction on her mind?

It was a fine question. But to it, as in all the rest along this crooked road she’d chosen to travel, there was really just one answer.