One Blood (7 page)

Halfway down the stairs she tripped on the shift of her robe and almost tumbled the rest of the way down. Descending with more care, Coral was reminded of how much she loathed all ten thousand square feet of this residence, which she’d come to think of as “the fortress.”

That home architecture critic had nailed it when he’d concluded, “The Lafitte Mansion is less of a home and more of an ill-devised plan of a young man with too much money and not enough taste.” He’d rebuked their abode as “unnecessarily ostentatious” for the eighteen massive square columns, marble fountain, and antebellum staircase on the exterior, as well as the interior’s six bedrooms, ten bathrooms, two libraries, den, movie theatre, bowling alley, and connected boathouse for Randy’s yacht. All this space for three people orbiting each other like planets drowning in the ink of the cosmos.

Gazing upon Lake Francis through the large bay windows in the great room, Coral reminisced about the one-story, middle-class home in Iowa, LA that she grew up in. She almost missed the cracks in the walls and water damage that gave her parent’s house so much character. This place was so immaculate it was practically sterile, with more than enough space to amplify the emptiness.

Coral endured years of merciless taunting at the hands of the rich girls at her high school because she was poor. But now that she had more money than she ever dreamed of, Coral understood what fueled the mean girls’ spite. The more a person possessed, the greater the fear of losing it all. Nothing was promised.

Besides, all the money in the world couldn’t prevent miscarriages or loved ones from being murdered. That’s why she admired Randy so. If it wasn’t for him and all he’d overcome, she might have given up after Kristopher’s death. She’d fantasized more than once about ending it all. But she couldn’t do that to him.

And she wouldn’t do that to Karen.

Coral watched the moonlight dance across the deck, waltzing with the lazy current. A vision came to her of a tornado sweeping across the water, whisking their mansion away, like in the
Wizard of Oz
. Wiping the slate clean once and for all. The thought was rather appealing.

She wandered down a long expansive hallway adorned with portraits Randy commissioned of the Lafitte lineage. In classic bad taste, he placed his prized portrait of his father, Joseph, above the mantle in the great room. A breeze rippled through two shrouded paintings hanging at the end of the hall. Randy wanted to remove the portraits—one of Kristopher on his tenth birthday, and the other a family portrait—but Coral wouldn’t allow it.

In the end, they compromised on the black silk shrouds.

Past the library was a hexagon shaped cul-de-sac with two closed doors opposite each other. Coral opened the door with a bright red STOP sign stuck to it and entered the freeze-frame world of an eighteen-year-old boy who would never reach manhood. The room was so full of Kristopher’s essence, it often felt haunted.

Impervious to the eeriness, Coral went directly to the bed, running her hands over the LSU Tigers comforter and pillow on the full-size waterbed. She looked around the room at Kristopher’s posters of Larry Bird, Pete Maravich, and John Stockton interspersed amongst others of Cindy Crawford, Pearl Jam, and Nirvana.

On the nightstand was a picture of the whole family taken at Kristopher’s senior awards ceremony. Coral almost didn’t recognize the pretty, middle-aged blond in the photograph. Her younger, smiling visage showed no trace of the crow’s feet, wrinkles and dark circles plaguing her from the mirror these days. Whoever said “time healed all wounds” had never outlived their child.

* * * * *

Kristopher’s death had devastated their family, plunging them into the suffocating darkness of grief and despair. Once Coral began her torturous crawl back toward the light, the overwhelming support from the public awed and humbled her into taking control of her grief. She harnessed her pain and poured it into
Catharsis in Crisis through Christ
, her bestselling book about dealing with child-loss-related trauma by fully surrendering to the will of their Lord and Savior.

As the book took up residence on the bestsellers list, Coral was thrust into the spotlight, the newly anointed expert on grief. But in reality, she was ill-equipped to deal with the people who came to her for answers on how to handle the excruciating deaths of their children. She couldn’t deal with the stories, each more tragic than the next. The pleading looks on their faces and the airy lifeless sound in their voices as they told their tales of woe were overwhelming. Coral became the opposite of the supposedly strong woman on the cover of that cursed book and retreated back into the darkness, taking Karen out of school in Baton Rouge and returning full-time to their home in Lake City.

The irony of it all was that even though she’d written the book, and believed what she’d been writing at the time, it had been years since she felt the presence of God watching over them. Why would God throw tragedy after tragedy her way—first Kristopher’s death, then Randy’s bout with brain cancer, and Karen’s near suicide.

* * * * *

Coral sighed. Karen was so much like her father, it was frightening at times. Impossible to read, unfazed by the bumps life threw her, and filled with so much charisma that no one could deny her anything she wanted. As a licensed child psychologist, Coral knew her daughter better than she knew herself, but Karen’s behavior of late left even her mother without answers. Coral did not like the fact that she couldn’t get ahold of her daughter. Lord knows what shenanigans Karen might be up to. She decided to try calling again.

When she returned to their bedroom, Randy was awake. Coral could hear him rummaging through the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.

“
Coral!”

She sat on the bed. “Yes.”

“
Where the hell are you hiding the rest of those damn sleeping pills?”

She yawned and stretched. “The same place I always keep them,” she replied, unfazed by Randy’s customary grouchiness. “In my overnight bag. It should be on top of the toilet right next—”

“
Got’em.”

She heard him turn on the sink and a few seconds later he clicked off the bathroom light.

“
Nightmares,” Randy said, as he climbed into bed.

“
You were talking in your sleep,” Coral said. “Who is Isaac?”

“
Who?”

“
You kept repeating that name, Isaac.”

Randy frowned. “I have no idea what—”

Randy’s cell phone rang, interrupting his train of thought. He looked around frantically for it.

Coral remembered her last call to Karen and picked it up off her nightstand.

“
Karen?” she answered.

“
Good evening, Missus Lafitte.”

Coral recognized the deep country twang but couldn’t place it. “You mean, good morning don’t you, Mr.—”

“
Snake. Snake Roberts. You remember me don’t you ma’am? I was the one that found yuh son after he ran away.”

“
Yes…yes, of course I remember you. Do you know what time it is?”

Why in the world is Snake Roberts calling?

“
Time to hand the phone over to yuh husband, don’t you think? We got man business to discuss; it’s best you don’t axe too many questions.” He gulped something and belched. “Aww…don’t you worry your perty little head now…I’m gonna find your daughter. Hopefully she’ll be better off than yuh boy ended up.”

Find Karen? But I thought…

There was no oxygen in the room. Coral lost her equilibrium and collapsed.

* * * * *

Chapter Eight

Saturday

Lake City, LA

Randy stared down at Coral, passed out on their bed. “Goddamnit, Snake, you had to call in the middle of the fucking night, didn’t you?”

“
Well if yuh don’t want to know where Madame Deveaux is holed up, I can always call back during nurmal bidness hours.”

Randy heard the biting sarcasm in Snake Roberts’ thick, country twang and knew the man was one beer from a blackout. He checked Coral’s breathing and took the phone into the other room.

“
You found her?” he whispered.

“
A’ course. But yuh won’t be able to talk to her anytime soon.”

“
Why the hell not?”

“
Because she’s been dead for ten years. Heart failure.”

“
Dead?”

“
As Elvis.”

“
Shit!”

“
If it means anything to yuh, I did locate her daughter, Jhonnette.”

“
Her daughter? She can’t help me,” Randy replied. Then he thought of his father. “Wait. Maybe she can. Where is she, Snake?”

“
She’s in Nawlins. Do yuh want me to arrange a meeting?”

“
You know me too well, Snake. Fetch.”

“
Okay, Boss. Oh, there’s one more thing.”

“
What is it?”

“
I got the name of the guy yer supposed to spring from Angola.”

“
Who is it?” Randy asked, fully expecting to hear Roberts say the name of some Irish mobster. When it finally registered what Snake was saying, he almost choked on the rage bubbling up from his gut.

“
What did you just say?”

“
I
said
it’s Lincoln Baker. My source on the inside is a hunnert percent positive.”

“
But he killed Kristopher…”

“
I know. Fucked up, ain’t it, Boss?”

“
I’ll string Baker up by his balls. He wants to fuck with me.”

“
How you gonna manage that, Boss? Baker’s on twenty-three-hour lockdown. Never leaves his cage.”

Randy threw the phone across the bathroom.

Punishment.

* * * * *

Chapter Nine

29 Years Earlier

1973

Lake City, LA

“
I’m coming!” Juanita Simmons said, hurrying toward the front door.

As she rushed through the opulent home she and Walter built after they won the election, she kept one hand between the heat of her thick dark hair and the nape of her neck. She hadn’t thought to tie it back while undertaking the momentous project of organizing her husband’s study, and now she was a sweaty mess, totally unprepared for company. Thankfully the cool hardwood floors beneath her petite bare feet provided brief relief from the heat.

Theirs was the largest residence in North Lake City. She and Walter had many spirited discussions over the location of their new home. He longed to infiltrate the exclusively white neighborhood of Oak Park.

“
We have to break down these racial barriers, baby. If the first black mayor in the state of Louisiana can’t live where he wants, then who can?”

It was a fair point. Juanita countered by reminding him racial tensions were higher than ever in the aftermath of the contentious election between he and the hometown favorite, Randy Lafitte. Had Walter forgotten that a mere five years had passed since MLK’s assassination? Change came slow in the South. Yes, his victory symbolized progress. But society still had a long way to go.

Truth be told, Juanita was not too keen on moving into a white neighborhood. While she was all for integrating the school system, when she walked around her neighborhood, she wanted to see her own people. It provided something Juanita had been searching for her whole life, the feeling of true security.

However, the tall dark-skinned man standing on her porch was an unfortunate reminder that Juanita had bigger things to worry about than the race of her neighbors.

Malcolm Wright, chief of Walter’s security team, grimaced at her through the peephole. This, in and of itself, did not alarm her. Malcolm, a childhood friend, only possessed two expressions—anger, for intimidation, and dismay, for all other situations. Malcolm actually had a pleasant enough face, although she could never get used to the pirate-esque eye patch covering his missing left eye.

Though they dated briefly in High School, Juanita no longer trusted his wiry six-foot-four frame. He always seemed to be holding his coiled muscle back from some random act of violence. He was a living embodiment of the unfortunate misperception that the darker a person’s skin, the darker their heart.

Juanita met Malcolm’s grim countenance with a scowl of her own. These days she associated Malcolm’s impromptu visits with agonizing pain. Opening the door, she silently prayed this wouldn’t be a repeat of six weeks prior, when Malcolm had shown up at the house with an envelope containing pictures of Walter in a compromising situation with his white secretary.

* * * * *

Even with the evidence splayed out on the coffee table before her, Juanita refused to believe what she was seeing. Her anxiety multiplied as Malcolm explained that Randy Lafitte was trying to blackmail Walter with the information, but Malcolm intercepted the package before it got to Walter.