Under the Cajun Moon (40 page)

“That’s not a woman screaming,
cher
. That’s jus’ a barred owl,” Travis replied. There was another scream, and it was so real that I wasn’t sure if I believed him or not. Suddenly, I had to wonder if not only had I been misled about the facts of Travis’ life, but perhaps I had been misled about the nature of his character as well.

Obviously, I lacked any sense of discernment or judgment when it came to others. Maybe all of his Bible quoting and his sexual chivalry had been an act. In fact, maybe he couldn’t be trusted at all, and here I thought he had been helping me when he had actually been pushing us toward his own ends. Could he have been behind the shooting, the deaths, my framing? It was awfully convenient that he had suddenly appeared on the scene at the courthouse in my most vulnerable moment. Standing
there on the grass not far from the water, I stared at him now, adrenaline coursing through my veins. I’d had enough shocks in the last few days to last me a lifetime.

It was time I ended this relationship here and now. Inside that house was the safety of an entire family. If Travis really wasn’t who I had been thinking he was all along, my smartest move at that moment would be to march inside, insinuate myself among the people he loved, and ask them to please get me out of there and drive me somewhere safe, like maybe the hospital where my father lay in a coma.

Before I could move, however, from off to one side I heard the familiar click-click of a shotgun cocking.

“What’s that sound?” I whispered, though in my heart I already knew.

“I’d say that’s the sound of trouble.”

Suddenly, before we could even react, figures emerged from the shadows. Each of them was dressed all in black, with black ski masks over their heads. Before I could even get a breath to scream, a hand clamped firmly over my mouth. Struggling violently, I realized I was being dragged backward toward the water. Watching in horror, I saw more dark figures surround Travis and knock him into submission.

Dragged aboard some sort of boat, a gag was tied around my mouth and then ropes bound my wrists and ankles. Twisting around, I could see I was on an airboat, the kind that could sail through the swamps at high speeds and go almost anywhere. I had no idea where I was going to be taken, but as we backed away from the dock with just myself and two others aboard, I looked toward the lawn to find out what had become of Travis.

I didn’t see him. I did, however, see the clump of dark figures moving into the shadows. Either they were carrying him away, or for some reason it had all been faked and he had gotten up and walked off on his own.

Fighting to break free, my efforts earned me a few quick kicks to my side. Curling defensively into a ball, I listened as the boat engine grew louder and then we were off.

Oh, how I longed for the canoe or even the rowboat that I had been
in earlier! Compared to those low-lying, slow-moving vessels, this airboat was positively flying. The speed at which we soared through the night was horrifying. The only comfort I could give myself was that if we crashed and I was killed, at least my abductors would be killed as well.

Fifteen minutes later, a change in pitch told me that we were slowing down. The front of the airboat lowered toward the surface of the water, and though I strained to see where we were, it just looked like swamp and more swamp to me. It wasn’t until we were at a dock and I was being lifted up and carried onto the shore that I thought I recognized my surroundings. I shouldn’t have been surprised.

They had brought me to Paradise.

Whatever these people had in mind for me, they never said a word. As I continued to struggle against my bindings and the gag that cut into my mouth, I was carried in absolute silence up a long, shaded pathway. At one point, they untied my ankles, put me down, and let me walk, though firm hands held my arms at each side. Soon we reached the house, the one where the Naquins used to live year-round but now only used as a cabin.

When we got close, they stopped and one of them spoke to me for the first time.

“There’s someone inside who wants to talk to you,” the man’s voice whispered. “I’m going to take off your gag and the rope. If you yell or try to get away, trust me, you won’t like what happens next.”

Something in his cold, hard voice reminded me of what had been done to Sam. I had no doubt these people were capable of torture. In fact, right now, for the sake of my own life, I was willing to play by their rules. I nodded and then stood very still as they undid the gag and the bindings on my wrists.

Once I was completely free, they gestured toward the door, and I stepped forward, hesitated for a moment, then twisted the knob and swung it open.

There, sitting in the light of a single lamp, was my mother.

”Mom!”

“Chloe! Finally!”

I stepped forward into the room, relieved when neither of my captors followed me inside. Instead, they seemed to have vanished into the night. I pulled the door closed behind me, locked it for good measure, and then turned back to face my mother. Even in the dim light, I could see that her eyes were red and swollen, as if she had been crying. I hesitated, not sure what I was seeing. Was she one of my captors or had she also been brought here against her will?

“What’s going on?” I asked, moving toward her. “Are you being held captive here?”

“Held captive? Me? Good heavens, no.”

I realized that though I had spoken on the phone with my mother, I hadn’t actually seen her in person in about two years. She was as beautiful as ever, though for the first time it also struck me that she seemed older. Her forehead was smooth and unlined, as always, though looking at her now I realized it was likely Botox that was keeping it that way. I did notice the fine lines around her mouth and dark circles under her eyes. Still, given what she had been through in the last two days, with my father shot and her only child accused of murder, it was no wonder she didn’t look her best.

She stood but did not approach me. Instead, we both just looked at
each other, thirty-two years of disconnect and dysfunction and deceit thick in the air between us. There was so much I wanted to know and so much I wanted to say, but for the moment words failed me.

“What have you done?” I asked after some moments. I looked around the room and wondered how she could allow masked men to kidnap her own flesh and blood. The only thing I knew for sure was that my mother wasn’t clever enough to have masterminded anything. If I had been some pawn in a complex scheme, then it had to be someone else’s scheme, not hers. She was in cahoots with others, I had no doubt. Lola Ledet, or should I say Fifi LaFlame, was not even smart enough to play checkers, much less chess.

“What have
I
done? What have
you
done?” she cried, stepping toward me. In her eyes I could see a lot of different emotions: anger, fear, confusion. Clutched in her hands was a white linen handkerchief, now wrinkled and stained with mascara.

“I don’t know what to say to you, Mother. You’re not who I always thought you were.”

“The same goes for you, Chloe. You’re my own child, and I can’t believe you’re a murderer.”

“A murderer? Me? Oh, that’s right. You think I killed Kevin Peralta.”

“You did worse than that!”

I hesitated, trying to understand her accusation.

“You don’t honestly believe I’m the one who hurt Sam, do you? That I tortured and killed him?”

“I don’t know, Chloe. I don’t know you at all anymore.”

“I didn’t kill Sam and I didn’t kill Kevin, and if you think I could have been capable of either one of those murders, then not only do you not know me now, you never knew me at all. Then again, I guess that’s only fair, considering that I never really knew you, either.”

“What do you mean?”

“Were you ever going to tell me about your secret past? Did you forget to bring up that one little fact about your former career, Mother? Or, excuse me,
Fifi
?” I threw her stage name out there like a dagger, expecting it to garner a big reaction. Instead, the only expression on her face was surprise
and confusion. “Your days as a dancer? Fifi LaFlame? Bourbon Street? Does any of that ring a bell?”

I was practically yelling, but at this point I didn’t care. My mother and I had been politely dancing around each other for years. It was time to let our hair down.

“What about it, Chloe? I don’t understand your question.”

“What about it? How could you have hidden something like that from me? How could you keep a secret of that magnitude for thirty-two years? I can understand not wanting me to know as a child, but what about when I was older? What about when I was off on my own? Did it never once cross your mind to tell me about your past? Or did you think you hid it so well that I would never ever find out?”

I studied her face, expecting to see shame. Instead, all that seemed to register there was yet more confusion.

“Chloe, I never hid any of that from you.”

“Are you kidding me? I had to learn it from Conrad! He thought I knew.”

“I don’t see what this has to do with anything anyway.”

Closing my eyes, I pinched the bridge of my nose and wondered how to get through to her.

“Mother, my whole life you have been this perfect person, this elegant, classy, rule-following Southern lady. Now I find out that that’s not even who you are, that you remade yourself from something else entirely.”

“Of course I did,” she said, shaking her head. “When I married your father, I was just a stupid kid from rural Mississippi with no money, no brains, and a killer body. Exotic dancing was the only way I knew to make a buck. Julian and I made a perfect pair, you know. He was much older, of course, but he was still just a scrappy kid from the Quarter. We used to dream of a better life, an elegant restaurant that bore our name. Once it looked like that dream was going to be a reality, we decided that both the building and I needed makeovers. While Julian stayed home in New Orleans and renovated and designed and created and built Ledet’s practically from the ground up, I went off to charm school, where they taught me to change my hair, my clothes, my makeup, my manners, my
speech patterns, and everything else so that I would be good enough, classy enough, to serve as the hostess. By the time I got back, both the building and I were ready for our debut. I don’t see what the big deal is. I never hid my past. I never kept it a secret. Over the years, sure, people forgot, and I wasn’t going to remind them. But if you think there was some big secret conspiracy to keep it from you, you’re wrong. I didn’t know that you didn’t know, honey. I guess it just never came up.”

In a way, I realized, this was almost worse than if she had kept it secret. I didn’t know about my mother’s dark past simply because no one had ever bothered to tell me, and I hadn’t been around her or their friends enough to hear it from anyone else. Unbelievable.

Crossing over to the couch, I sat and buried my head in my hands. At this point, I didn’t know whom to trust or not trust. I didn’t know where Travis was, if he could be trusted, or even if he was still alive. All I knew was that I had been captured and brought here against my will, only to come face-to-face with my very own mother.

“You’re a monster, do you know that?”

“Because I danced for money?”

“No, Mother. Next subject. Try to keep up.”

“Don’t talk down to me that way, missy. Why am I a monster? The way I see it, Chloe, you’re the one who needs to be behind bars.”

Rage pulsed through my veins, and I stood and got right up in her face, her beautiful, elegant face, the face of a woman who was my own mother and yet a complete stranger.

“How can you not even know your own child?” I demanded.

She just shook her head, fresh tears springing into her eyes.

“How could you shoot your own father?” she replied.

I took a step back, feeling as if I had been punched in the lungs.

“What?”

“You shot your father!”

“What are you talking about? I didn’t do that. I couldn’t have. I was in Chicago at the time, if you recall. If you don’t believe me, just look on the TV schedule. How could I have been appearing on live television up there at the same time I was supposedly down here?”