by Alison Kent
“This is the street where I came looking for Lisa,” Micky offered as they pulled to a stop in front of a small cottage with a wraparound porch and the biggest azalea bushes Simon had ever seen. “But this isn’t his house.”
“Say what?”
She pointed across the street. “He lives over there.”
Simon’s need to know had reached a boiling point. And the temperature rose even higher when he climbed from behind the wheel and realized his cousin’s truck was parked in front of Terrill’s car in the drive.
Where the hell were they going?
“You don’t know who lives here?”
“No clue,” Micky said, rounding the front of the vehicle.
“It’s Paschelle Sonnier’s place,” Terrill responded after slamming the cruiser’s door and coming over to where they stood.
Lorna’s secretary. That didn’t tell Simon much. “What’s King doing here?” he asked, his gut tightening until Terrill said, “He dates her. Paschelle.”
King was almost forty. Like Simon. The girl he’d seen in Lorna’s office wasn’t even thirty yet. But he had seen her, and he knew his cousin, and he had more than a strong feeling that there wasn’t a whole lot of dating going on.
“Is something wrong with King?” Simon asked.
King had left Le Hasard carrying more than a six-pack after their earlier encounter. Simon glanced over at his cousin’s truck, looking for evidence that he’d been in an accident, found none, felt…relieved.
“Nothing more wrong than usual,” Terrill said, taking the four porch steps in two strides. “He’s surly and miserable and mean. Oh, and not quite sober.”
Simon followed, hearing Micky behind him, his irritation mounting, his patience growing thin. If there was nothing wrong with his cousin, then what the hell—
“I really hate bringing you here like this,” Terrill began, “the neighbors being as prone as they are to minding everyone’s business but their own, but I didn’t want to move all the boxes to my house, since they were already here—”
“Boxes?” Micky asked before Simon managed to make sense of what Terrill had said. “I’m Michelina, by the way. Micky Ferrer. Lisa’s friend from college?”
Terrill stopped in front of the door, his hand halfway to the knob, and judging by his blank expression, apparently having trouble putting her into context. “I’m sorry. I don’t get it. You’re Micky and you’re here?”
“Didn’t your father tell you?” she asked as Simon moved close and took hold of her elbow. “I talked to him Wednesday night at Red’s.”
“Wednesday night? I was there Wednesday night,” he told her, looking even more confused.
“I wasn’t there long. King pointed out your father so I could ask him about Lisa.”
Terrill scrubbed one hand over his jaw. “I don’t get it. How did you know she was missing?”
“I didn’t. Not until your father told me.”
He looked from Micky to Simon and back. “Did you two come down here together?”
Simon shook his head. “If you’ve got snoops for neighbors, the story can wait until we’re behind closed doors.”
Terrill still seemed lost, but he rapped sharply on the door before pushing it open. Simon ushered Micky in front of him, bringing up the rear as the three of them entered a small living room hardly meant for five adults and a dozen boxes that smelled like dirt and old bread.
“I think all of you know each other, unless Micky and Paschelle haven’t met,” Terrill said, playing host.
Sitting on the floor, her back to the sofa, where King sat sprawled, Paschelle raised a hand in greeting.
“They were both at Lorna’s office this morning,” Simon said, turning to Terrill. “Now, are you going to fill us in on what we’re all doing here?”
“It’s a party, cuz.” King slapped a hand to his knee. “A mystery dinner theater. Isn’t that what they call it when the host gives his guests the clues they need to solve a crime? Except there’s no dinner with this one. Chelle only made enough for two.”
“We were actually on our way to New Orleans,” Simon told Terrill, ignoring King. “We were going to grab a bite, and then Micky’s catching a plane. If this is some kind of game, you go ahead without us.”
“Wait a minute,” Micky said, stepping closer to Terrill and giving Simon her back before he could stop her from asking, “Does the crime have to do with figuring out who ran me off the bridge over the Allain bayou?”
Paschelle gasped. Behind her, King moved his hand to her shoulder and sat forward. Terrill’s expression darkened. “Ran you off? What’re you talking about? The car that went off the bridge was leased to a Jane Mitchell from New York.”
“I know. I use that name when I travel on personal business.” She rattled off Jane’s address, cell phone and social security numbers. “I was the one in the car when it went into the water.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Terrill said, pacing, shaking his head. “As soon as we got the accident call Thursday morning, we started searching. We were all over that place. How did you get out without us seeing you?”
“Because I went in twelve hours before.”
“And because it wasn’t an accident,” Simon added. “She got out and made certain she wasn’t seen by you or the thugs who ran her off the road.”
“What are you saying? Why would anyone want to run you off the road?” Terrill asked, disbelief sharpening his features and his tone of voice.
Micky shrugged. “You tell me.”
Simon made sure he had the deputy’s full attention. “She obviously made someone at Red’s uncomfortable with her questions about Lisa’s whereabouts. The accident was less than an hour after she left the bar.”
“The only people she talked to at Red’s,” King offered, “were me…and Bear.”
“You think my father did this? Wait, wait.” Terrill collapsed onto the edge of a folding chair set in front of the boxes. It nearly buckled beneath him. “God, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it makes so much sense. Especially with everything else.”
“What everything else?” Simon asked, having realized this was real and not any kind of game.
“The mystery dinner theater, boo,” King said. “The one without the food.”
Simon scrubbed both hands down his face, wondering what the last few days would have been like if he’d stayed in New York, spent the time off holed up in his apartment, heading to Katz’s when his stomach couldn’t deal with his empty fridge any longer.
Then he realized that if he hadn’t driven up to his house on Le Hasard the moment he had, Micky might not be standing beside him. He wouldn’t have spent two hours with her lush and wet body all over his. Bear Landry and his goons might have gotten away with her murder if Simon hadn’t come to face the man who’d been a thorn in his side for too long. It was time he and King put the past behind them.
To do that he had to go back to the beginning, to start over and let none of what he knew get in the way of the things he needed an open mind to learn.
A mystery dinner theater, huh?
He took a deep breath and a seat on the edge of a blue corduroy recliner. “What’s the deal with the boxes? And is there anyplace in town that delivers food? I can’t think on an empty stomach.”
“No delivery, but I’ve got the makings of crabmeat omelets,” Paschelle offered, jumping to her feet. “Will that work?”
Simon nodded. “It’ll more than work. Thanks.”
“No problem.” She waved a hand as she climbed over boxes to get from the couch to the kitchen. “This stuff is all y’all anyway. I’m just a fly on the wall.”
Once Paschelle was gone and Micky had settled on the far end of the couch from King, Simon looked from his cousin to Terrill and asked, “What stuff is she talking about, and who makes up the y’all?”
“The y’all is the three of us who grew up here,” Terrill said, kneeling in front of the small square coffee table and the open box on t
op. “Maybe Micky, too, if Bear really did try to shut her up, son of a bitch. He’s always been one, but goddamn if he’s hurt Lisa…”
“Have you confronted him?” Simon watched the other man struggle to pull in a breath. “Are you dealing with suspicions, or real evidence?”
Terrill looked up. “I haven’t confronted him because what I wanted you to see I only ran across this afternoon.”
“In these boxes.”
“In this one here, if we’re wanting to be exact.” Terrill reached inside for a single sheet of paper. “Before Lisa went missing, she’d been working on the Landry genealogy. These boxes have been in Bear’s attic for years. Lorna’s handiwork, I’m sure. He’s never been organized, and she’s the only one who’s ever worked for him.”
“Even after going into business for herself?” Simon glanced at King, remembering their earlier conversation about the unlikely pair.
“She may have her own office and her own business,” King said, “but she still works for the judge. She’s always worked for the judge.”
“If I can interrupt,” Micky said, looking at each man in turn before going on. “You said Lisa had been working on the family genealogy.”
Terrill nodded.
“And she was going through these boxes?”
He nodded again.
“Are you thinking she uncovered something in his files that your father didn’t want known?”
“That’s what I’m thinking now. At first I thought she’d gone asking questions of someone she shouldn’t have. Or even been caught looking through public records someone thought should be private.”
“What changed your mind?” Simon asked.
Terrill rattled the paper, handed it to Simon as King sat forward and said, “Looks like Le Hasard might not have been in the family as long as we thought, cuz.”
What the hell?
Simon frowned at King, looked down at the parchment he held—a handwritten transfer of ownership passing the four thousand acres in question from a Ross Landry to Zachary Benoit, his and King’s great-great-grandfather, as payment for winnings due in a poker game. It was signed by three witnesses.
Priceless. Seriously priceless. Simon rubbed at his forehead, then started to laugh. Micky snatched the paper out of his hand to read it for herself.
“So one of your grandparents,” she said to Terrill, “bet the farm and lost it to one of their grandparents? Is that what this says?”
“That’s what it looks like to me.” Terrill returned the paper to the box.
“Except if that’s the original,” King mused aloud, “why’s it in a box of Bear’s things instead of on file with the parish’s property tax assessor’s office?”
“I imagine because Zachary Benoit never had a chance to file it. He was found with a bullet between his eyes the next day,” Simon offered in response, having noticed the document’s Christmas date. “I did a family tree in fifth grade. I remember my mother telling me that he’d been found the day after Christmas, and that no one ever learned who killed him.”
“But if the transfer was never filed,” Terrill said, changing his mind midsentence. “It had to have been. The deed’s in your name now, right? You’ve been paying taxes on the place?”
“It’s mine,” Simon said. “But this is the first I’ve ever heard about the property having belonged to a Landry, or been lost in a poker game.”
“Finding that out wouldn’t have been enough to get Lisa in trouble, would it?” Micky asked.
“Not unless there’s a reason Bear doesn’t want it known that the property used to be ours. I didn’t know,” Terrill said, looked at Simon then King. “You two didn’t know.”
“And so you’re thinking the reason it’s been kept secret might be in all this stuff?” Simon asked
“Far-fetched?” Terrill asked.
Simon didn’t think so. “Well, look at the big picture. Lisa was working on the Landry genealogy. The boxes she was digging through turned up information none of the remaining Landry or Benoit descendants knew—”
“With the possible exception of Bear,” Terrill reminded him.
Simon nodded. “With the possible exception of Bear. And now Lisa is missing.”
Micky picked up his next thoughts. “And when someone outside the small circle Bear controls shows up and asks about his daughter-in-law, she’s run off the road.”
“I guess that would make the question, what exactly did Lisa discover?” King asked, and Simon responded, “And how far would Bear go to keep the information from getting out?”
Thirty-two
M icky didn’t like to think of herself as a wuss, but she couldn’t take it anymore, this speculation over what might have happened to Lisa, what she knew, what she could be going through even now—wherever she was, if she was still alive.
All of those unknowns were getting to be too much, especially when she thought how things might have been different if she’d made the effort to stay in touch with her friend, if she hadn’t let her own life get so out of control that she forgot about Lisa and what they shared.
Then she wondered if her coming here was the very act that might have put the wheels in motion to save Lisa from her fate. It was all too much to process on an empty stomach, or with her body continually reminding her of the afternoon spent naked in Simon’s arms. Even the short walk to the kitchen to offer her help to Paschelle had Micky grimacing. And, unfortunately, she hadn’t put on a full happy face before the other woman turned.
“Are you okay? Is it your arm?”
“You wouldn’t happen to have any gauze and tape, would you?” she asked, gladly latching on to the topic. “We were on our way to the pharmacy when Terrill found us.”
“I think I might still have some.” Paschelle wiped her hands and crossed the kitchen, opened a door that led into a small bathroom. After banging a couple of cabinets, she returned with the supplies.
“I taped King back together not long ago. He was drunk, missed the steps, hit his head on the corner of the porch,” she said, gesturing to her own hairline. “Super Glue and butterfly bandages. Stitches might hurt, you know.”
Knowing, Micky smiled. She sat at the table topped in red Formica and began to unwrap the gauze she’d reused after drying it in front of the upstairs fan.
Paschelle joined her, wincing in sympathy. “That’s going to leave some kind of scar.”
“I know. I’m sure it won’t make my people happy, but the way I see it, they’re lucky I’m alive.” My people? Had she really just said that?
“You’re lucky you’re alive. Especially since you survived the fall and escaped from whoever it was who rammed you.”
Micky arched a brow. “Are people talking? Do they know it wasn’t an accident?”
Paschelle opened the box of gauze pads, not looking the least bit chagrined that she might have listened to gossip. “All I know is what I’ve heard from y’all and most of it just now. I don’t plan to mention it to anyone. The only people I talk to are Lorna and King. He obviously knows, and I’d rather Lorna not know that I do.”
“You work for her. Are she and Judge Landry as tight as the guys think?”
“He’s always at the office, yeah,” she said, nodding. “But I’ve worked for her only a couple of years. I’m not the best person to ask.”
“You’re not from here?”
“I guess I am now,” she said, retrieving a pair of scissors from a kitchen drawer. “I grew up in New Orleans.”
“Were you there during Katrina?” Micky wondered what the other woman might have lost.
Paschelle nodded. “Partied like it was nineteen ninety-nine, then left the city when it should have been too late to get out, and ran out of gas in front of Day’s Dress for Less.”
“And you just stayed?”
“I just stayed. Didn’t have anywhere else I needed to be.” She added, “And then I met King,” her face coloring slightly with the admission.
Micky had noticed Simon’
s lack of comment when Terrill had mentioned King and Paschelle dating. She’d met him at Red’s before meeting Simon. She understood his appeal—base though it was. She also understood Paschelle blushing. If King was anything like his cousin…
“You know, when you came into Lorna’s office,” Paschelle said, snipping off several lengths of tape, “I couldn’t place you until the judge said your name. Do you know how beautiful you are? I mean, all made up in your ads, you’re stunning. But you don’t even need the clothes and the color and the jewels and the hair. Look at you. Jeans, sneakers, a baseball jersey, and a ponytail. You’re hot dogs and apple pie and still drop-dead gorgeous.”
Micky was used to compliments. She was always appreciative, but Paschelle’s words left her speechless and humbled and embarrassed when she thought she was past feeling any of those things.
And then she wondered if it was the billboard more than anything giving Simon hell. If he wasn’t able to see her as herself. If he felt more of a responsibility to keep her out of harm’s way—and out of his life—because of who the rest of the world thought she was.
“Thank you,” she finally said. “I’m enjoying being incognito. If not for the circumstances, I’d be enjoying it even more. I don’t get a break from the public eye very often.”
“God, why would you want to? Live here, like this, instead of traveling the world, meeting the people you do?”
The most interesting person she’d met in years she’d found here in bayou country—even though he lived half a city away. She couldn’t believe this was all they were going to have, this madness, this mystery. This attempt on her life, a fate that might be worse for Lisa.
“Do you know Lisa? Have you two met?”
“Sure. She lives right across the street.”
Of course. Small towns. Friendly neighbors. Even the nosy ones were probably just looking out for their friends…and might not be welcoming of a stranger who showed up looking for one of their own when that one had gone missing.
But Paschelle was Lisa’s neighbor, too. Micky’s pulse picked up as inspiration struck. “Do you know the other people on the street?”
