What Washes Up (18 page)

“But you would have killed him, and then where would I be?”

He stopped, and she stopped with him. When he looked at her, she thought his green eyes had lost some of their color. She wanted to put it back. “Daddy, I’m really—”

“Don’t apologize to me, Margaret Anne. I don’t think I could stand it,” he said quietly. Maggie swallowed and looked away toward the bay. “Talk to me about Bennett Boudreaux,” Gray said.

“What about him?” she asked.

“I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve ever heard you mention his name,” he said. “But Gregory Boudreaux kills himself and suddenly you’re sitting at Boss Oyster with the man, and dancing with him at the Cajun Festival. Talk to me about that.”

“Well, I mean, I was working his nephew’s case,” Maggie said. “But then, I don’t know. He fascinates me, I guess. And I wondered what he wanted.”

“What he wanted,” Gray repeated. “What does he want?”

“Atonement, maybe?”

Gray squinted at her a moment. “He knew about this?”

“Gregory told him the night before he killed himself.”

“He told you this?”

“Yes.”

Gray looked off toward the water, his eyes flicking back and forth as he worked things in his mind. “What else is going on? You’re telling us now for a reason.”

Maggie sighed. “Oh, Daddy. What a damn mess.” Gray watched her and waited. “Brandon Wilmette, the guy with the foot?” Gray nodded. “He was trying to blackmail Boudreaux about the rape. He thought Boudreaux would want to save himself the embarrassment.”

“And how did this man know about it?”

“He was there. I never saw him, but I knew he was there. He was watching.”

Her chest seemed to knot together as she watched her father’s face. New lines and cracks seemed to form before her eyes, and his face seemed to disassemble and reassemble within seconds, as though an audience for her rape was worse than the thing itself.

After a moment, he let out a slow breath and looked back out at the bay, then he looked at Maggie. “I’m assuming you’re telling me he killed him.”

“Yes.” She swallowed. “Wyatt executed a search warrant at Sea-Fair today.”

“You told Wyatt.”

“I had to. I had no business on these cases,” she said. “And I was tired of the secrets.” Gray nodded. “But if they arrest Boudreaux, it’ll come out. I needed you and the kids to already know.”

“There’s all kinds of nasty things about Boudreaux that are public knowledge or at least public rumor,” Gray said. “He didn’t kill that man because he was afraid of being embarrassed.”

“No.”

He looked at her for a moment, long enough for her to wonder if he was waiting for her to say something. “Did he tell you why he did it?”

“I think he thought it was the right thing to do,” Maggie said. “I know that sounds crazy.”

“No, it sounds about right. For him.” Maggie tilted her head at him. “I sold the man oysters for forty years, Maggie. We’re not strangers.”

Maggie nodded, and they both looked elsewhere for a moment.

“You know, Maggie, I didn’t remember that day, the thing with the bike,” Gray said finally. “But you did change around that time, and I did notice. For a long time, I thought it was David’s fault.”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought maybe you’d lost your virginity.” He huffed a small laugh, but there was no humor in it. “That’s awful young for a girl, and I thought it had made you different, made you keep more to yourself.”

“No wonder you were so hard on us back then,” she said. “Every time we turned around, there you were, and David was actually intimidated by you. That was weird for him; you guys were so close. David and I never—we didn’t do anything really, until we were married.”

Gray nodded. “Yeah. I figured that out after a while.” He looked at her, almost apologetically. “I figured it was just teenage girl stuff.”

Maggie nodded.

“Maggie, I’d really like it if you stayed away from Boudreaux,” Gray said.

“Yeah. You and Wyatt both.”

“I bet that’s true,” he said. “Nobody’s all bad, any more than anyone is all good, Maggie. But I think he’s bad for
you
.”

Maggie nodded and looked back at the house. “I need to take the kids home, talk to them,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t really talk to Mom about it anymore right now.”

“Don’t worry about your mama,” he said. “She’s strong stuff. Stronger than I am. She’s not like us, though; she lets it all out for a bit, and then she bucks up. You and I, we just buck up and wait for somebody to drag it out of us.”

“Yeah.” Maggie tried to smile. “That we do.”

K
yle opted to ride home with Maggie, while Sky followed in David’s truck.

Clouds were heading in from the east, and the breeze had picked up a bit in anticipation of a cooling rain. Maggie rolled the windows down, and breathed deeply.

Kyle was quiet until they were out of town, heading up Bluff Road. “I would never do that to a girl,” he said finally, staring out the windshield.

Maggie looked over at him, and he looked back at her, looking so much like David that she felt like she was looking at a memory. It occurred to her then that Kyle was now the same age David had been when they’d first met.

“I know,” she said. “He was sick, Kyle.”

“I don’t really care,” he said.

“Me, neither.”

He looked back out at the road.

“I’m glad he’s dead,” he said quietly.

“Me, too.”

When they got home, they calmed Stoopid, who had a great deal of information to share, and soothed Coco, who had missed her kids profoundly.

Uncharacteristically, Sky opted to hang out in the kitchen with Maggie while she cooked dinner. They worked in silence for some time, Maggie cutting vegetables for roasting while Sky, unasked, put the dishes away. Then she leaned up against the counter and watched her mother.

“Were you really scared?” she asked finally.

Maggie looked up from the cutting board. “Yeah,” she said casually. “Sure. But it was a long time ago.”

Sky was quiet again for a moment as she watched Maggie spread the vegetables on a baking sheet and toss them with some oil.

“Mom?” Sky ran her finger around in a drop of oil that had splattered onto the tile counter. “I’m really sorry about all the times I called you a paranoid freak.”

Maggie laughed. “It’s okay. I just worry about you. I would have anyway.”

“Sure, dude,” Sky said, trying to smile. “I’d have known how to handle a Mossberg by the age of twelve anyway.”

“Yeah, you probably would have, dude,” Maggie said. “There are guns here. You guys need to know how and when to handle them. Period.”

Sky smiled at her, and Maggie put some salt and pepper on the vegetables before putting them in the oven. When she straightened up, Sky was watching her.

“What?” she asked her.

Sky shrugged a little. “I’m proud of you.”

Maggie felt a warmth in her stomach. “For what?”

“Just, for being okay, I guess,” she said.

Maggie smiled at her. “I am.”

“I don’t feel right about leaving you alone tonight.”

Sky had a group date planned, and Kyle was invited to a birthday sleepover.

“Baby, I’ve been alone here plenty of times, remember?”

“Yeah, but it just doesn’t seem right. You know, tonight.”

Maggie shook her head. “It’s fine. Caroline and Brian are leaving for college soon. You should spend time with them.”

“I can come back early,” Sky said.

“Said Sky never,” said Maggie, laughing. “It’s fine, Sky. I promise.”

Maggie took the cutting board to the sink and started washing it. Her heart almost stopped when Sky’s arms slid around her and she felt Sky’s head on her back. Hugs had been few and far between the last few years.

“I love you, homes,” Sky said quietly.

Maggie blinked back tears and smiled. “I love you, too, dawg.”

Maggie turned onto Seventh Street and looked over at Kyle. “Did you remember your phone charger?” she asked him.

“Yeah, I got it,” he said.

“I’m off tomorrow, so call me when everybody’s getting ready to leave so I can come get you,” she said.

“I will. But it’s probably not gonna be til like four or five, Josh said.”

“That’s fine.” Maggie rubbed at her right eye. She hadn’t changed her contacts in days and her eyes felt like they had sand in them. She just wanted to go home and go to bed.

“Unless his little brothers go all bat—get nuts again, then we’re all gonna scatter,” he said.

Maggie looked at him, one eyebrow raised. “You need to hang out with your sister less.”

“You told us we needed to hang out more,” he said, deadpan.

Maggie was coming up with a reply when her cell rang. Kyle picked it up from the console. “It’s Wyatt,” he said.

“Oh, give it to me,” she said, as she stopped at a stop sign.

She thumbed the answer button. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey. What are you doing?” he asked.

“Dropping Kyle off for a sleepover.”

“Oh. Well, I wondered if maybe you wanted to come by here.”

“Are you at home?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you get my message?” she asked.

“Yeah. You can tell me whatever that is when you get here, but that’s not why I’m asking.”

“Oh. Okay, well, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” she echoed dumbly, then hung up.

Kyle was looking at her. “What?” she asked.

“It’s a stop sign, not a train,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“Shut up, Kyle,” she said, smiling. She started driving again. “You really need to stop hanging out with Sky.”

Kyle grinned at her. “So, you’re going over to Wyatt’s?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell him I’m almost done with his book.”

“Which book?”

“He’s getting me into James Lee Burke.”

Maggie looked over at him as she pulled into Josh’s driveway. “Really. You’re kind of young for his books.”

“I’m ten.”

“Yeah.”

Kyle grabbed his backpack out of the back seat. “Well, I can go back to Goosebumps if you want, but Dave Robicheaux is better for my vocabulary.”

He plopped the backpack on his lap and looked at her. “Dad liked suspense stuff, too,” he said, more subdued.

Maggie’s chest tickled just a bit. “Yeah. He did.”

“Okay, well.” Kyle gave her half a smile. “Hopefully, this’ll be better than last year.”

She smiled and ruffled his soft, black hair. “Have fun, buddy.”

“I will.” He leaned over and got a hug, then opened the door. “See ya later.”

Maggie watched him go to the door, waved at Josh’s mom Shelly, then backed out of the driveway.