by Alison Kent
“What makes you say that?”
“The way the curtains swing back and forth in the windows.”
King laughed. At the end of the bar, Red looked up. T-Beaux’s glare turned to a grimace. Even Bear Landry, sitting across the room in his booth surveying all, shook his head.
No one liked it when King laughed. They’d come to know the sound, what it meant, and how the only one who would find the joke funny was him.
This was a good one. King knew all about folks here staying far away from all parts of a man’s trouble save for the gossip.
“I’m glad one of us is amused,” she finally said.
“What’s your name, chère?” he asked, reaching beneath the bar for a mug he hoped was clean and pouring her a cup of coffee.
“Michelina Ferrer.” She waited a few seconds, as if expecting recognition, before adding, “Micky. You?”
“Kingdom Trahan.” He offered her cream and sugar. She took both, and he told her to call him King.
“Kingdom?” she teased—a stranger, yet she had to get in a dig.
“Michelina?” he came back with, used to the response. “Who is it you’ve come to Bayou Allain to see, chère?”
“A girlfriend from college,” she said, and King tensed against barking out another laugh.
There was only one woman down here who could possibly have gone to school with someone who looked like this and was named Michelina Ferrer. “Oh, yeah?”
He didn’t say anything else, just waited for her to confirm his suspicions.
She did, nodding. “Lisa Weston. Do you know her? Though she’d be Lisa Landry to you.”
“Terrill’s wife,” he said, his voice stiff.
“I called the sheriff’s office. The girl there told me he was already off duty and if he wasn’t at home, he’d be here or at Bear’s place, whatever that means. She didn’t know anything about where Lisa might be.”
That would be because no one knows what happened to Lisa. Or at least those who do ain’t talking.
King thought it, but he didn’t say it, casting another glance toward Bear Landry’s booth and wondering if he should walk Micky Ferrer over, or if he could stretch out Bear’s discomfort a while, because he didn’t think there was anything he enjoyed more than watching the bastard sweat.
“Terrill was here. You just missed him. Bear’s what everyone around here calls Terrill, Sr.”
“So maybe Terrill,” she paused, then added, “the son,” as if he couldn’t figure it out for himself, “is on his way to Bear’s place?”
“I doubt that.” He took another drink of his beer, his eyes on hers, watching them take his measure as someone she wasn’t sure she liked, someone she wasn’t easily going to trust. Someone she still wasn’t ready to write off.
Not just yet.
“Why is that? Or do I have to jump through hoops for an answer?”
He didn’t have the patience to linger any longer, no matter how much he enjoyed the game and her eyes. He wanted to see this woman go up against Bear Landry in the worst way, because for the first time that he could remember, King wasn’t so sure Bear would win.
He shook his head, then gave a nod toward the room’s back corner. “No hoops required. There’s no reason for Terrill to head out to the old man’s place when the old man is sitting right there.”
Five
T errill Landry sat behind the wheel of his patrol car in Red’s parking lot. He was out of control. He knew it. The fact that he was about to drive home not caring about his blood alcohol level proved how far out in left field he was standing. But since he had nothing to go home to, no reason to be there, he really couldn’t make himself give a shit.
Lisa was the best thing that had ever happened in his life. He’d grown up in this nothing of a backwater, raised by a father who ran every show in town. He’d spent four years at Louisiana State University, served four more at the feet of good ol’ Uncle Sam.
Then he’d come back to Bayou Allain because this is where the Landrys lived. This is where they’d always lived. And right now, without Lisa, he couldn’t think of anyplace he wanted to live less, or any reason to live at all.
He met her not long out of the service. He’d spent a week after his discharge on a Florida beach, wanting to get his game on, knowing the future he’d be returning to in Bayou Allain—a future his father would determine no matter any plans he made for himself. Living in the bayou meant living under Bear Landry’s thumb. That’s how it had always been.
It had been that way for his mother, too. It had been the reason she left. The people in town had seen a woman deserting her husband and son and called it abandonment. From his distance of twenty-five years, Terrill was now able to see more of the truth, that of a woman married to a man who gave her no say in raising their child, a woman never allowed to be the mother she wanted to be.
He didn’t have to stay. He knew that, just as he knew it hadn’t taken much to beckon his mother away. Yet he still hadn’t been able to leave his father alone. Terrill hoped that made him a good son instead of a sucker, though feeling like the latter was where he spent most of his time.
He’d never felt the need for Bear’s respect. No matter what his father said, Terrill had that of the town. More important, he had the love of his wife. The look on her face when he walked through the door every night, the expression of surprise at seeing him there when she knew he was coming, the pleasure that broadcast how much her love for him had grown since he’d kissed her good-bye that morning…
He stared up at the blinking lights of Red’s sign, the blood-colored neon a watery blur, his breath a hitch in his chest. There was nothing he hated more than a cheap drunk, one who cried like a baby after a pitcher of beer. He didn’t even have that for an excuse. Bear had put a stop to his drinking before he’d made it all the way there.
It just hadn’t been soon enough to wash his head free of the picture of Lisa on that Florida beach sprawled across a blanket and reading a Civil War text. Spring break, and she was devouring details on the Battle of Shiloh along with the butter-bright sun.
What kind of woman wanted to read about war instead of flipping through a trashy beach read? He hadn’t planned to stop, but walking by he’d been close enough to see a photo of Old Glory on the page when he’d glanced down to check out her cleavage.
She’d looked up, sat up, asked him about the scar on his shoulder that was nothing, a burn suffered years ago as a kid when he and his dirt bike had tussled and the dirt bike’s tailpipe had won.
They’d talked until the sun had gone down, then talked for most of the night. He’d slept on the sofa in the living room of her beach house. He’d assumed it was a rental, learned the next morning when her parents walked in that it was family owned.
Her family was nothing like his. They cared. They consulted. They were close. No one ruled the roost, or set down laws they demanded go unchallenged. Was it any wonder he’d fallen so hard? Not only had he found the woman he wanted to be his partner, he’d found a second home that made his first almost bearable.
Knowing what she did about where he’d come from, she’d insisted repeatedly that the choice to live in Louisiana as his wife was an easy one to make. Digging into the genealogy of the Landry family had been her way of proving to him that there was a bigger Landry picture than the one painted by Bear.
Terrill scrubbed his hands over his face. Jesus Christ. How in the world was he going to tell her parents that he hadn’t taken care of her as he’d sworn to do the day they’d exchanged vows? He couldn’t think straight. He was no good for anything having to do with this case. How could he be when all he could see were Lisa’s soft blue eyes?
She’d still been half asleep when he’d left for work on Monday. She’d smiled, her voice husky and low as she’d told him she’d be spending the morning going through the boxes in Bear’s attic, but if he wanted to stop by for lunch, he could nibble on her in bed.
The attic. The boxes. Terrill’s head c
ame up. His men had gone through the room for clues, had canvassed the grounds with dogs, had turned over every piece of garbage hoping to find a trail. But no one had looked closely yet at the boxes’ contents, at what Lisa might have found.
Someone needed to put the photos and records and multitude of stored documents under a magnifying glass. And other than Bear, the only person who knew enough about the Landry family to sort out the public lies from the private truths was Terrill himself.
He turned the ignition and put the car into gear, pulled slowly out of the parking lot, feeling not only sober but also hopeful. Bear never left Red’s before midnight. Terrill had a good four hours to dig through the graveyard of his father’s life.
Six
M icky Ferrer wasn’t sure what she was doing or how she’d wound up in this dive. Oh, she knew she’d boarded her flight out of JFK Tuesday at five-thirty a.m., changed planes in Houston, arrived in New Orleans around one, and hired a driver to get her to the French Quarter.
She’d checked in early at the Monteleone and slept away the rest of the day. Then she’d slept away most of the night, but only after leaving Papi a voice mail saying she’d be out of town a few days, not to worry, and yes, yes, she was sorry.
All of that she knew. But none of that really answered the question niggling at her now that she was sober and facing what she’d done from a distance. Why had she thought that coming here was going to solve a thing?
First thing Wednesday, she’d rented a car in the city, found a small boutique with clothes she wouldn’t hate being caught dead in when her body was found after Papi killed her, and then explained to the in-dash GPS where it was she wanted to go.
The rest of the day had been a wild-goose chase, taking her from one swamp to another—or so it had seemed while she’d been trying to find the hole-in-the-wall that was Bayou Allain. Once she had, the goose had been no easier to catch.
She’d explained to the guy named Kingdom how she couldn’t get anyone in town to answer a single question. No one but the sheriff’s office would even give her the time of day. She’d always wondered if there wasn’t more lie than truth to the rumor of southern hospitality.
What in the hell was Lisa doing living here?
There wasn’t a damn thing about this place Micky found welcoming. Red’s itself was a dump. She’d been afraid she was going to fall through the porch boards or catch her heel in the gaps where they failed to meet. All she could hope for now was a quick Q&A with the man in the corner, the A part sending her on her way.
She took him in, finding his return scrutiny offensive, as if he were hoping to scare her away before she took a single step in his direction. And then she smiled to herself. It was time the man met the force that was Michelina Ferrer.
She dug into her hobo bag to settle her bill, the long strap across her body keeping the bag close. King waved her off. “It’s on me.”
She nodded her thanks, assuming that meant the bar owner would absorb the cost of the freshly brewed pot because King didn’t strike her as the generous type, but she could hardly add that to her list of worries. Between Papi, her reputation, the family business, and now her best friend, she was all out of list-making ink.
The band was on break, so there was no fiddle or accordion or slide of boots on the worn wooden floor to cover the click of her heels on the planks.
She might as well have cha-cha-chaed her way to the man’s booth and taken a bow. Every eye in the place was already boring holes into the back of her head—at least those that weren’t focused on her tits or her ass.
Instead of acknowledging the stares, she kept her head up and her chin high, her eyes straight ahead. The man she wanted to see never looked away. But his gaze consumed her in a way that was different.
He was curious, yes, but he was also judgmental, pinning her against a felt backdrop and examining each and every one of her bones, her hair follicles, her teeth, and her pores. That look exposed her in ways being naked never could, yet still she walked toward him.
He was a big man, over sixty, she was certain. That much she determined by looking at his skin. His hair was gray and thinning, though she’d seen worse, and what had once been hard muscle was now not, his bulk soft, loose on his frame.
She didn’t wait for an invitation but slid into the bench opposite his. “My name is Michelina Ferrer. Mr. Trahan at the bar tells me that you are Lisa Weston’s—Lisa Landry’s—father-in-law. She and I went to school together, and she told me if I ever made it down this way…”
Micky heard herself rambling and stopped. She supposed she should have considered where she was, whose company she was in, and whose help she wanted before jumping in with both feet. Jumping might not be the way things were done here in the swamps, but she was who she was.
And no matter how many people would be thrilled to death to see her change—Papi and Greta to name two—she didn’t see it happening. Making herself miserable in order to make others happy was no way to live.
She thought about starting over, offering the man across from her a more thorough introduction and detailed explanation of who she was and why she was here, approaching him as someone needing his help, not someone demanding answers. But he held up a very large hand before she said another word.
“Welcome to Bayou Allain, Miss Ferrer. Any friend of dear Lisa’s is someone we are very happy to have stop by. I am, as King told you, Terrill’s father.” He offered that same hand across the table. “Judge Terrill Landry. Known to my friends here as Bear.”
Micky shook his hand. “My pleasure, Judge Landry. Your Honor.”
“It’s Bear,” he said, covering their joined hands with his other, lingering a bit too long for her comfort while continuing to take her measure.
She took his as well. She could tell he was the sort of man who would respect her straightforward nature more than any show of meekness—especially when it would be just that, a show.
“Please, call me Micky,” she said as she coolly extricated herself from his hold and sat back in the booth. “I apologize for intruding on your evening, and for keeping you from your nightcap.”
“You’re not intruding, chère. Not at all.”
Chère. It sounded so faux when he said it, so Big Easy. She smiled as if finding it charming. “Thank you. It’s just that I’m having no luck in finding her. The cell number I have for her isn’t working. And she wasn’t at home when I stopped by.”
She left out the part about Lisa’s curtain-peeping neighbors being of no help. For all she knew, they were this man’s good friends and had already told him about the new girl in town nosing around.
He took a long moment to respond. She wasn’t sure if he was using the time to fabricate a story or deciding if he believed enough of hers to help her out. If he didn’t, she’d go home and face the music playing there.
She’d be fine without her father’s approval. Definitely fine without his choice of a husband. Life would go on even if she had partied herself out of a job, though she would need time to come to terms with defending her life, with reconstructing her future from the salvaged remnants of her past. Lisa could help her get started. Lisa had always been the practical one of the two, Micky the impetuous other.
“I would love to put you in touch with our Lisa,” Judge Landry was saying. “Unfortunately, neither Terrill nor I have seen her since Monday.”
Just like that. No warning. No preparation. No easing her into the truth. No change to his tone of voice as if he was worried or mourning or simply used to her running off.
She hoped her face registered at least some of the shock that had stolen her voice because she couldn’t think of anything to ask. “I don’t understand,” she finally came up with. “Are you telling me you don’t know where she is? Or just that she’s not home right now?”
The judge reached for his drink, eyeballed her over the rim of the glass as he sipped. “I remember you now. You’re the one who wasn’t able to make it to the wedding. You know,
that was a big disappointment to our girl.”
The ceremony had been a small private affair in New Orleans, one with very little notice—the couple couldn’t wait—and Micky hadn’t been able to reschedule a trip to Italy on behalf of Ferrer.
She’d paid for the couple’s honeymoon as a wedding gift, knowing that the long weekend in St. Barts—the only time Terrill had been able to take off from work—hardly made up for missing her best friend’s important day.
Lisa had told her not to worry, and Micky hadn’t, because she had never heard the other woman sound so happy, as if her entire world had been out of balance until Terrill had set it to rights. “It was a big disappointment to me, too. I would have been there if I could.”
“What was it I heard?” he asked, frowning. “You took a trip to Europe instead?”
What was he trying to do? What was he implying? “The trip was work and had been planned for months. There was nothing I could do.”
“The way the newspapers reported it, work wasn’t all that kept you busy while you were there.”
The old codger. He’d known who she was all along. She was not going to get into that indiscretion with this man. Her irritation mounting, she crossed her arms, crossed her legs. “You haven’t answered my question, Your Honor. Do you know where Lisa is, or don’t you?”
He looked her straight in the eye. His eyes were hard, dark, and suddenly cold. “Neither Terrill nor I have any idea.”
“Are you looking for her?” Micky asked, her stomach beginning to ache. “Is there anything I can do?”
“You can tell me if you’ve heard from her.”
“Would I be here if I had?”
“I don’t know. Would you?”
Unbelievable. “You mean would I come all the way down here and act surprised that she’s gone just to cover for her and throw you off her trail?”
She’d met this man less than fifteen minutes ago, yet he was suspecting her motives? Questioning her honesty? Reading into her arrival a lot of underhanded scheming that wasn’t there?
