by Rebecca York
Alessandra glanced at Wyatt. “It’s my sister, calling me back.”
“Go on and talk to her. I’ll use the scanner.”
“Thanks.” Stepping into the hall, she said, “I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
“We found Wyatt’s father’s file on the Granville Murder. We were going through the material when you called.”
“And?” Sabina asked tensely.
“So far, I don’t see anything new.”
“Well, what did we expect from Louis Boudreaux’s son?” her sister snapped. “He’s giving you the runaround!”
Alessandra lowered her voice and moved farther down the hall. “Sabina, he’s blind, remember? Are you saying you think he went into the office and removed stuff from the file? How could he do that when he can’t see any of the materials? And when he didn’t know what we’d find.”
Her sister drew in a breath. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m upset, that’s all. Tell me he’s treating you all right.”
“He’s always treated me just fine,” she murmured.
“You slept with him last night!” Sabina said.
Alessandra felt her cheeks heat and was glad her sister couldn’t see her face. “That’s none of your business.”
“It is, because I don’t want to see my sister hurt.”
“He won’t hurt me,” Alessandra answered, putting as much conviction into the statement as she could, even as she felt her chest tighten. She knew now that Wyatt wouldn’t cause her pain on purpose. But she didn’t want to talk about that, so she quickly changed the subject, asking Sabina to take over her job for a few days.
After her sister agreed, Alessandra asked anxiously, “What about my trailer?”
There was a moment’s hesitation before Sabina said. “Well, it’s totaled.”
Alessandra had expected nothing less. Still, hearing it made her throat clog with tears.
Perhaps she made a small, choking noise, because her sister said, “Milo says that the carnival’s insurance will pay for getting you a new one. And ‘totaled’ doesn’t mean that everything’s destroyed—just that the vehicle isn’t usable. A lot of your things are okay. I’ve already taken some of your clothes to be cleaned.”
“Thank you!” Alessandra replied, gratitude welling inside her.
They talked for a few more minutes. When she came back to the office, she saw Wyatt was using a scanner to read the pages. He’d set one aside, and as she walked toward him, she saw the troubled look on his face.
She’d been going to tell him about the trailer. Now she asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Maybe nothing,” he said, his voice strained. “I found some strange notations here that I’d like you to look at.”
Chapter Six
Wyatt heard Alessandra cross the room, heard her pick up the sheet of paper he’d been holding.
At the bottom was a short set of numbers and letters—52PM.
“Looks like it could be a time. Maybe five-o-two in the afternoon.”
“Which would mean what?” he asked sharply.
“I don’t know.”
“I think it’s some kind of code.” He answered his own question. “And I’m going to find out what the hell it is.”
His pulse pounding, he reached for the phone again. As his hand touched the receiver, the instrument rang.
Beside him Alessandra gasped.
“What?”
“Something bad,” she whispered.
“Oh, yeah? Something you and your sister arranged?”
“No!”
He pressed the button, listened as a woman began to speak.
“Is this Wyatt Boudreaux?”
“Yes.”
“This is Emma Worthington, the manager at the West Bayou Nursing Home.”
“Yes?” he said again, knowing from her voice that he wasn’t about to hear good news.
“We called a couple of minutes ago, but we could only get your answering machine.”
“That’s because someone was on the line. What’s wrong? Just tell me, for God’s sake!”
“I’m sorry. The aide went in to give Mr. Boudreaux his lunch and discovered that he had—passed away.”
Feeling as if he’d been punched in the stomach, Wyatt felt for the chair and sat down heavily. He sensed Alessandra beside him, her fingers curling around his upper arm.
He closed his eyes, gripped the phone tightly.
“He went peacefully,” Mrs. Worthington was saying.
Wyatt hoped to heaven it was true. “I’m coming over there,” he said, then hung up and turned to Alessandra. “Can you drive me?”
“Yes.”
He dug the key out of the desk drawer and handed it to her, then strode to the front hall and retrieved his cane.
Moments later he was beside her in the car as she backed into the street. He felt her hesitation, braced as she stepped on the brake too hard.
“Are you sure you can do this?”
“Yes! I just don’t get much chance to drive, so I’m out of practice.”
“Okay. Then turn right.”
She did, then slowed to a crawl.
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s a police car parked at the curb. Should I tell him where we’re going?”
“Yes.”
She pulled up and rolled down her window, her conversation with the officer very brief. “Now where?” she asked Wyatt.
He thought about it. He’d never actually driven to the nursing home, since he’d been blinded before his father’s stroke. But he knew the address, and he remembered the location from when he’d been able to see.
Still, it was frustrating trying to give Alessandra directions. Several wrong turns made the trip take longer than it should have been.
He waited impatiently while she found a space in the parking lot, then almost tripped over a low concrete barrier at the edge of the blacktop.
Alessandra caught his arm, and he took a deep breath, using the cane more judiciously as he made his way to the front door.
“Mr. Boudreaux,” Emma Worthington greeted him. “We’re all so sorry.”
“I’d like to see my father,” he said.
The woman hesitated, and he got ready to assert his rights when she said, “Yes. Okay.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” Alessandra asked.
“I need you to come with me,” he answered, feeling his heart begin to pound as he started down the hall. He knew which room, the eighth one on the right. The door was closed.
“Yes.”
He sucked in air and expelled it in a rush, wanting her to understand his overwhelming frustration, as well as his sadness. “I was going to ask you to come with me and meet him. I was going to question him. Ask him about the file. Ask him what he was hiding. Now it’s too late for that. But…I haven’t seen him since before the shooting that blinded me. If I can, I want to see his face—one last time. Will you help me do that?”
He felt her fingers clamp on his arm, heard the uncertainty in her voice. “I don’t know why it’s worked before. I don’t know if it will work now. Maybe…maybe there are too many emotions in the way. I don’t know….” Her voice trailed off.
“Or maybe it’s our emotions that trigger it.”
Before the incident in the fortune-teller’s tent, he would have labeled his request as delusional. But they had taken this astonishing leap four times now. He didn’t have the faintest idea why it had worked some of the times when they were touching and not others. He only knew that it was beyond any natural explanation. It was unexplainable—unless you conceded that he and Alessandra had forged some kind of supernatural bond.
“Just, please, can we try it?” he said, knowing that he was asking more of her than he had a right to ask. “Unless…unless it’s too much for you.”
“It’s not too much. If I can help you, I will.”
Still with his eyes closed, he felt for the knob, turned it and stepped into the room, aware every
moment that Alessandra was right beside him.
“He’s lying on his bed—like he’s asleep,” she whispered. “He does look peaceful.”
“Yes.”
She kept her fingers linked with Wyatt’s as she took a step forward. He came with her, his pulse pounding in his ears so loudly that the sound seemed to fill the room.
He was afraid to breathe. Afraid to open his eyes. Afraid not to. When the tension became unbearable, he blinked them open.
To his profound relief, the miracle happened again. Only this time the wonder of it spread through him like the melody of a song he’d forgotten he knew.
He saw his father’s face. The eyes closed, the features at rest.
“Can…can…you…?” Alessandra tried to ask, her voice cracking.
“Yes. God, yes.” His fingers clamped on hers. When he felt her wince, he eased up the pressure. “Thank you,” he managed.
The image blurred, and he knew that his eyes were filled with tears.
He closed his lids once more. “Thank you,” he said again. “I’ll never forget this.”
“I’m glad I could give you that gift,” she whispered.
Probably she expected him to leave now. Instead, he walked toward the bed.
“Wyatt, we should go.”
“He sent me to the carnival to get information. We didn’t talk about what I found out. We’ve still got unfinished business.”
“I understand,” she said, but he was pretty sure she couldn’t possibly understand.
“Maybe he left me something,” he said, hoping it was true. He knelt, felt under the edge of the mattress. Then moved to the other side of the bed and did the same.
“Look under the bed,” he said.
“All right,” she said, sounding doubtful. But he heard her knees hit the floor. Moments later she reported, “There’s nothing there.”
“Try the nightstand. The dresser drawers. The closet.”
“Okay.” She still sounded uncertain, but at least she was willing to humor him.
He moved to the head of the bed, feeling under the pillow, and his fingers encountered a piece of paper. Pulling it out, he held it up. “I found something. You’d better tell me what it is.”
Chapter Seven
Alessandra had thought they were on a wild-goose chase—until she saw the folded sheet of paper Wyatt held in his outstretched hand.
Quickly she crossed to him and took it. Unfolding it, she read, “Don’t investigate the Gypsy murder.”
He made a harsh sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “How convenient. Am I supposed to think he wrote that and stuck it under his pillow where I’d find it?” He sighed. “It’s handwritten?”
“Block printing.”
“So we can’t go home and compare it to any of his notes.”
“I guess not.”
“I think we’d better assume that the same person who set your trailer on fire was here.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “Are you saying you think your father was murdered? To keep him from talking? And his death is supposed to be a warning to you?”
“His health was so poor, it wouldn’t have taken much to push him over the edge. A pillow over his face would have done it. Maybe we’ll never know. But I’m going to make sure they do an autopsy. And I’m going to question everyone in this damn place.”
“Don’t you think the police should do that?”
He stopped and ran unsteady fingers through his hair. “Yeah, I forgot. I’m not the police anymore, am I?”
She stepped toward him, took him in her arms. For a moment he held himself stiffly, then he cleaved to her, holding on tightly. When he finally spoke, his voice was gritty.
“Thank you for being here.”
“For as long as you need me,” she said, vowing to keep that promise.
She lifted her head. “Is there someone you can call? A relative who could help with the funeral arrangements?”
“My aunt Ida. She’s in Los Angeles. And Aunt Stella. She’s in Florida. It will take a while for them to get here.”
“Then let me help you.”
“Would you?”
“Of course. Tell me what I can do, and I’ll do it.”
______
It had been a dignified funeral. A moving funeral. An impressive funeral. Louis Boudreaux had been well-known in Les Baux. And well-liked. He’d been one of the town’s leading citizens, and a considerable number of townspeople turned out at the San Michele Church to pay him tribute.
His son had sat through the service and the interment in the family crypt wondering if his father’s life had been a lie.
Since word had gotten out about his father’s death, Wyatt had been inundated with well-meaning friends and relatives. He’d been waiting until the visitors were out of the way to take care of some unfinished business.
And finally it was time. The only person in the house with him now was Alessandra. They’d been sleeping in separate rooms, because he didn’t want to damage her reputation any more than he already had. He knew from her phone conversations with her sister that her people couldn’t understand why she was sticking with him. He wondered that himself, especially after the comments he’d heard from his aunts about “that Gypsy woman he’d taken up with” and what she might do while she was in the house.
Alessandra must have heard them, too. And the remarks must have hurt, although she’d said nothing to him about them.
“Are you okay?” she murmured as they faced each other across the living room.
“Yeah,” he answered. “I want to thank you. I know you’ve been keeping this place neat—so I wouldn’t trip over anything people left in the middle of the floor.”
“Yes,” she answered, but she stayed where she was.
He wanted to stride across the room and fold her into his arms—because he needed to, had needed to all week. But he didn’t think he had the right to ask any more of her, so he stayed where he was.
“We haven’t had much chance to talk,” he said.
“I understand. You’ve been busy with other people.”
He cleared his throat. “I appreciate your staying with me.”
“Do you?”
“What does that mean?” he asked, more sharply than he intended.
“You haven’t touched me. I was beginning to think you were just letting me stay around because you were worried about my safety.”
A low curse welled in his throat. Quickly he closed the distance between them and reached for her. And then she was in his arms, holding him, holding him tight. He kept his eyes closed, feeling the tension in her muscles.
“Oh, Wyatt, I thought you wouldn’t let me be close to you again.”
“I wanted to reach for you,” he said, because he had vowed that he would only come to her with honesty. “But I didn’t want to fuel the gossip.” He laughed. “I guess that’s a moot point now.”
“I’ve been feeling like there was a gulf between us.” She made a small anguished sound. “I thought maybe you were listening to the things people were saying.”
“My God, you mean about you? The snide comments about Wyatt’s Gypsy housekeeper? About whether she was going to steal the family silver?”
She nodded against his shoulder.
“You don’t think I’d listen to crap like that, do you?”
“Well, it’s not all that different from the…stuff I get from my family about you.”
He laughed bitterly. “Yeah, probably they give you grief about ‘the blind man.’”
“Yes. I want to wring their necks. But I try to be respectful, because I understand why they can’t picture the two of us together. It’s not because you’re blind so much as that you’re the son of Louis Boudreaux. The cop who helped convict Carlo.”
“Yeah, wring their necks,” he echoed. “That about sums up what I wanted to do with my well-meaning relatives. I would have, but I thought that getting into a brawl at my father’s funeral would be dis
respectful.”
“Of course.”
He didn’t know what else he could say. All he could do was cup the back of her head and angle her face so that he could bring his mouth to hers. It was a long, deep kiss, a kiss that helped bridge the gap that had grown between them in the past few days.
Sitting down on the sofa, she pulled him to the cushions beside her. For long moments he sat there, just holding on to her hand.
Truthfully, he could have sat that way all night, just feeling close to her, maintaining the status quo. But they had important work to do.
Still, he wanted everything out in the open, so he said, “There are things we need to find out. Things about my father.”
“Yes. I was wondering when you were going to tell me about the autopsy report,” she finally said. “Did it come back from Baton Rouge?”
He blinked. That wasn’t where he’d been going, but he took the question as a reprieve. Sitting up straighter, he told her what he’d learned.
“They ruled that it was ‘death by natural causes.’ Specifically, a cerebral hemorrhage. Apparently his blood pressure surged, and another blood vessel in his brain burst.”
“You don’t think that’s how it happened?”
“I keep speculating about it. What if the same person who jumped me at the carnival had also paid Dad a visit the next day? There wouldn’t have been any need for a physical attack. Dad was already weakened by one stroke. Some strategic intimidation would have done the trick.”
“Do you have any evidence of that?” she asked, her tone telling him she didn’t like where his thoughts were leading.
“No. Nobody at the nursing home heard anything. Nobody saw anyone who wasn’t supposed to be there. But all that proves is that the staff wasn’t paying attention to one sick old man while they got the ambulatory residents to the dining hall.”
“You’re saying you think someone wanted to make sure he didn’t talk?” she asked.
“I think so, yeah.” He grimaced, speaking quickly now. “I’ve been waiting until people left. Now I need your help. Come into the office.” Untangling his hand from hers, he strode down the hall.
She followed.
“Are the blinds closed?” he asked.
“Yes.”
