The Last Breath (4 page)

“Seems we chased everybody away,” Dean said.

“Not that far away.” Ella Mae’s tone held a note of reckless warning, her eyes a flash of daring. Daring him, and maybe also herself.

A breeze kicked up on the front lawn, chilling Ella Mae’s skin and tickling her nose with the scent of honeysuckle. This was the tipping point, Ella Mae knew. Dean could get up now and walk away, go home to his new house and boring wife and sleeping daughters, or he could send them both into a frenzy.

He turned and leaned his elbows onto the railing, staring off into the black night. “I love it here already. And that view is sure something else.” He glanced at Ella Mae over his shoulder. “Too bad we can’t see it now because it’s pretty spectacular, don’t you think? Especially now the leaves are about to change.”

Ella Mae said nothing.

He straightened and whirled back around, and his dark gaze found hers immediately. “Principal Whitehead told me I’ve not lived until I’ve seen Great Smoky Mountains Park. Are the trees there as pretty as he says?”

Trees? He was really talking about trees? Disappointment spread across her skin like a bruise, and she reprimanded herself for it. “He’s right. They are pretty.”

“What’s that, about a forty-five-minute drive?”

She bit her lip, nodded again.

And then his mouth rode up into a wicked smile. “Do you think that’d be far enough?”

Ella Mae’s heart took off in a wild gallop.

Frenzy. Definitely frenzy.

4

IN MANY RESPECTS,
returning to Rogersville after all these years feels a lot like my life in the field. Families torn apart by tragedy. A disaster that’s at best chaotic and unpredictable and far, far out of my control. And at the end of the day, an almost desperate quest for distraction from the doom brewing all around me, even if only for a few hours.

I squeeze my rental between an ancient Chevy and a mud-encrusted truck, wriggle myself out and peer over its roof at my destination. Square and stout, the building’s restored bricks and a fresh coat of paint gleam under old-fashioned gas lamps and the fading evening light. My gaze travels to the thick white letters painted across the picture window to the right of the door. Roadkill Bar and Grill.

Distraction in the form of cold beer and flattened rodents.

The door swings open with a blast of country music and the scent of something delicious. Truffles, maybe. Truffles? A couple steps out onto the sidewalk, their jackets hanging open as if it were fifty degrees out instead of hovering somewhere just above twenty. At the edge of the sidewalk, the man stops to dig around in his pockets for his keys.

“But hasn’t he already been punished enough?” his date says, picking up their conversation with a toss of her drugstore dye-job hair. “I mean, he is dying of cancer.”

“Good,” the man says. “He murdered that woman, and now he deserves to die. An eye for an eye and all that.”

A high-pitched giggle. “This is America, not Afghanistan.”

I don’t want to hear this conversation. I don’t want to hear it, and yet I can’t seem to stop listening. It’s as if I’m rendered powerless by the spectacle unfolding in front of me, like staring into a black hole or accidentally discovering the hotel TV offers free porn. Curiosity takes over, and I have to stay until the very end. I duck my head and pretend to search through my bag, my ears practically flapping off my head.

I hear what can only be the sound of male spit hitting pavement. “Damn straight, this is America. And this here’s American justice at its finest. That old man is getting exactly what he has coming to him.”

“I don’t think you can credit the justice system for giving an old man cancer. Jesus Christ, maybe, but not the justice system.”

“Freeing a convicted murderer ain’t justice, that’s for damn sure.” Keys jingle, and their footsteps take off in my direction. “In my book, life in prison means dying in prison.”

Another giggle followed by a playful slap. “Tommy Aldean, since when did you write a book?”

“I’m the next Dan Brown, sweetheart. Guaran-damn-teed to be a bestseller.”

By now they’re coming up alongside me, and I bend and retie my tennis shoe even though the lace is still snug. None of my sneaky surveillance moves are necessary. They’re not paying me the least bit of attention.

He loops an arm around her neck and pulls her close. “And if you lift that pretty little shirt of yours, I’ll pull out my Sharpie and sign your chest.”

She swats his arm and acts offended, but ten thousand Kenyan shillings say Tommy Aldean’s Sharpie will be making an appearance later on tonight. They stop to make out on the sidewalk and I stumble off, their words ringing in my ears.

Small town. Big goddamn scandal.

Sixteen years is a long time to be away from anywhere, with the possible exception of Rogersville, Tennessee. The land that time forgot.

If only I could forget that time.

Murderer. Convicted felon. The taunts and accusations rattle through my brain and stir up old muck, suddenly as real to me as the sidewalk under my sneakers. Innocent until proven guilty sounds nice in theory, but it’s a fairy tale. For the citizens of Rogersville, my father was a murderer long before the police put him in handcuffs. As far as they were concerned, the verdict was merely a technicality.

And now, Tommy Aldean and his bleached blonde just confirmed what I already knew. The Andrews family gossip rating is still at an all-time high. Our drama is still a favorite topic, our tragedy still local folklore.

I tell myself this time around will be different, that I’m older now. Older and wiser and toughened up by a job that has required me to grow a giant pair of testicles—not literally, of course, though I’m known to employ tactics in the field that make my colleagues wonder aloud at the contents of my pants. Regardless, I’m determined to handle things better. More maturely. Or at least, with not quite as much vomiting and public weeping.

I square my shoulders, pull open Roadkill’s heavy oak door and step into my past.

* * *

The music doesn’t screech to a halt when I walk through the door. Mouths don’t hang open; eyeballs don’t bug out; forks don’t pause in midair. No one really notices me at all, an occurrence I find relieving and strangely anticlimactic at the same time.

I weave a path through the sleek wooden tables to a stool at the far end of the bar, picking out a few familiar faces along the way, trawling through my memory banks for matching names. I’ve kept in touch with no one here beyond my own siblings, and without old yearbooks (trashed) or high school reunions (avoided) to keep the synapses connected, the endeavor is hopeless. I shrug off my coat, hang it on a hook under the bar and turn my attention to the drink specials on a chalkboard menu above the bar instead.

A loud thunk punctuates the music and I shift on my stool, twisting my torso to face the man pushing through the swinging door from the kitchen. Dark hair, three-day beard, ruggedly handsome enough to prompt an appreciative murmur from a gaggle of women behind me, but diplomatic enough to pretend not to notice. He sees me, and surprise flashes across his expression. I blink and it’s gone.

“Sorry.” He sets a crate of steaming wineglasses onto the bar and swipes his hands over his black apron. “Hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

“Nope, just got here.”

He cocks his head and inspects me, and an icy shiver skates down my spine. It’s this breathless moment I hate the most, that moment of waiting for recognition to hit, waiting on the verdict for a crime I didn’t commit. His gaze travels over my curls and across my face, dipping even farther down to my vintage Rolling Stones T-shirt under an ancient wool cardigan. When his expression settles into one of resolute opinion, I reach for my coat.

“Beer,” he says, “but only when there’s nothing else better. An occasional cocktail, but not sweet. Vodka with soda and a lime or straight up. But first choice would be wine, preferably red and preferably imported.”

Relief hits me like a Valium at both his innocuous message and his speech, deep and clipped with a generic accent. No nasal twang, no elongated vowels to tell me where he’s from, except that he’s not from around here. I drop my coat back onto the hook, settle back onto my stool.

But as far as drinks go, the man has me pegged.

“Well?” An undertone of mock uncertainty slips into his voice, playing bass to his lighthearted teasing. “How’d I do?”

“Pretty decent. Extra credit if you can actually produce the imported red.”

The bartender grins like he just pulled the winning numbers for the Tennessee Mega Millions, and I feel myself relax the slightest bit. Flirting with handsome strangers in crowded bars? Now I’m back in familiar territory.

He slides a bottle of Bordeaux from the wine refrigerator behind him and sets to work uncorking it. “Did you know in Tennessee it’s legal to take roadkill home and eat it, whether you’re the one who creamed it or not?”

“I hope that doesn’t mean you’re planning to serve me skunk stew. Because I’ve tried it, and just between you and me, yuck. Ditto for opossum pie.”

He perches on an elbow and glances over both shoulders in an exaggerated fashion, sending the tips of his hair brushing along the collar of his V-neck T-shirt. “Don’t let the chef hear you. He’s a little sensitive about his food. He once tossed a customer out for complaining his raccoon ragù was too salty.”

“Which is, of course, ridiculous because everyone knows the only way to cook raccoon is by boiling it in salt water.”

The bartender leans back, and a brow creeps upward. “And here I thought you were a Roadkill virgin.”

“Virgin!” A familiar, throaty laugh tickles my ears, and I whirl around on my stool to face my grinning sister. “Not since Andrew Hopkins’s parents let him borrow their brand-new station wagon sophomore year.”

“Better than the bathroom at Burger King, where you lost yours.”

“That was a vicious rumor.” Lexi leans in, giggling, her breath hot on my neck. “And it was Kentucky Fried Chicken.”

A laugh pushes up my throat followed by a hot sob, and I launch myself at my sister. I wrap my arms around her and bury my face in her hair, inhaling her familiar floral scent, blinking back the tears heating the corners of my eyes. I don’t remember much of our mother—I was only five when she crashed her car into a tree—except for this feeling of love. Love so large I think my heart might explode. Love so fierce it hurts to breathe.

“Let go, Gi. You’re suffocating me.” Lexi wriggles her hands in between us and pushes me to arm’s length. The skin around her eyes crinkles in a smile. “And besides, I want to get a good look at you.” She surveys me up and down, her gaze settling on the denim hanging loose from my hips. “Good Lord, you’re a walking advertisement for anorexia.”

“And you are as gorgeous as ever.” Honey hair that falls perfectly straight down her back, bowed lips curved into a flirtatious smirk, sinuous limbs begging to be draped over the hood of a Corvette. My sister may be a little older now, her designer denim a little tighter, but Sexy Lexi Andrews is still every inch Miss Cherokee High three years in a row.

She turns and smacks a palm on the bar, demanding the bartender’s attention. “Jake, you handsome devil, have you met my sister Gia yet?”

If Jake is surprised this is a family reunion, he doesn’t show it. He flicks the towel over a shoulder and extends a long arm over the bar. “Jake Foster. Nice to meet you, Gia.”

His grip is firm, his hand warm and smooth in mine. “Nice to meet you, too.”

“Fire up your fry-daddy,” Lexi tells Jake. “We’ve got to get some meat on my sister’s bones, pronto.” She winks at me. “There’s not a soul within fifty miles who’s not put on at least ten pounds since Jake opened this place five years ago. Wait’ll you taste his food. You’ll know why he’s got girls all over town flinging their panties at his front door.”

Jake gives her an appreciative grin and pours two generous glasses of wine. When he tells us about the special—seared duck breast and oven-roasted kale and sweet potato hash smothered in jus—my mouth waters and I smack my lips. Jake notices, and he gives me a cocky grin.

“Don’t laugh,” I say. “My last real meal was a watery stew with questionable chunks of what the cook swore was goat. The stray dog population took a hit that day, though, so I don’t think he was being entirely honest.”

“I don’t know whether to be offended or relieved,” Jake says.

Lexi snorts. “Try disgusted.”

He throws back his head and laughs, a deep rumble that vibrates through my bones, and then disappears into the kitchen with a twirl of his towel and our orders.

As soon as he’s gone, I whirl on my stool to face Lexi, and the words tumble out of my mouth like stock cars at the Bristol Motor Speedway, racing to the finish line. “Did you know that vice principal Sullivan still lives next door—his house is a dump by the way—and is a raging alcoholic?”

“That’s not exactly a 411, you know. By now that man’s liver is so pickled, you could batter it, fry it and serve it on a platter.”

“And his family? What happened to them?”

Lexi sips her wine. “Gone. Hightailed it out of here after what must have been his fourth or fifth DUI.”

The professor’s words
—What do you think he’s hiding from?—
skitter through my mind, but I switch gears. Dean Sullivan’s fall from grace, though intriguing, is the least of my worries.

I move on. “This law professor from Atlanta came by the house earlier, and you wouldn’t believe what he said about Dad.”

Lexi scowls and plunks down her wineglass, her gaze fishing over my right shoulder. “Why is it that every time somebody gets saved at Light of Deliverance church, they turn into a dowdy old frump? Surely that outfit can’t be what Jesus intended for his fans.”

I don’t bother checking. My sister is the Carrie Bradshaw of Appalachia, and not many people can live up to her fashion standards. And besides, I know this tactic. By interrupting me with some ridiculous nonsense, Lexi is hoping to distract me from a subject she hasn’t spoken more than a few words about in almost sixteen years: our father.

“I think they’re called followers,” I say, not backing down, “and we were talking about Dad’s case.”

“Whatever. That woman is a
What Not to Wear
episode waiting to happen. Oh, Lord. Now she’s passing out flyers.” She snorts and rolls her eyes. “Probably for their next snake handling.”

“Could you focus, please? This professor is writing a book about wrongful convictions. He thinks Dad’s is one of them.”

And now, I think, I’ve got my sister’s attention. Her gaze whips to mine, her good-humored expression fades and her brows slide into the ghost of a medically frozen
V.
She reaches for the wineglass and drains it, knuckles tightening ever so slightly around the stem. And then she dabs her glossy lips with a napkin and the storm on her face vanishes as quickly as it came, like a twister sucked up into a dissolving cloud.

“You’d think people would’ve heard by now that snake bites everybody.” Her voice is a little too loud, and a lot too vehement. “Even holier-than-thou Bobby Humphrey. By the time they got him the antivenom, he was foaming at the mouth. Besides, I thought the whole point was prayer, not antivenom. Isn’t that kind of cheating?”

“Lexi! We have to talk about Dad.”

She leans across the bar, snatches the bottle of wine and fills her glass to within an inch of the rim. “The hell we do.”

A familiar frustration ties a string of knots across my shoulders. My sister has always been a great believer in the power of denial. How else can I explain her staying in the one place where she will always be the murderer’s daughter?