Lisa Jackson's Bentz & Montoya Bundle

by Lisa Jackson

  At that point poor Samson had given up his hoarse cries and, if not sleeping, had grown silent.

  The good weather and Samson’s silence had been fleeting, however. Now, a few miles outside of Mobile, the clouds had opened up again, drenching the Camry in a loud torrent. The wipers struggled with the wash of water, Eve’s stomach rumbled, and Samson whimpered pathetically.

  Nerves stretched raw, Eve noticed a road sign for a diner at the next exit and decided, since her progress had slowed with the storm, to grab a quick sandwich and wait out the deluge. She pulled into a pockmarked asphalt lot littered haphazardly with only a few vehicles. Using the umbrella she always kept in the car, she skirted rain puddles, her nostrils picking up the acrid scent of cigarette smoke. A couple of teenagers who obviously worked at the place had lit up and were puffing away under an overhang near the back door, and one lone guy was seated in a dark pickup, the tip of his cigarette glowing red in the dark, smoky interior.

  Eve didn’t pay much attention, just shouldered her way past a thick glass door into the horseshoe-shaped restaurant, where an air conditioner wheezed and fryers sizzled above the strains of a Johnny Cash classic. The smells of frying onions and sizzling meat assailed her as she slipped into one of the faux-leather booths that flanked the windows.

  A waitress carrying a large tray whipped past, muttering, “I’ll be with y’all in a sec,” before flying to another table. Eve fingered a plastic-encased menu, scanning the items before the same waitress, a breathless, rail-thin woman with her hair pulled into a banana clip, returned to take her drink order. A U-shaped counter, circa the sixties, swept around an area housing the cash register, milk-shake machine, revolving pie case, and soda fountain. “Now, darlin’, what can I getcha?” the woman asked, not bothering with pen or paper. “Coffee? Sweet tea? Soda? I gotta tell ya, our chef’s meatloaf, that’s the special today, is ta die for. And I’m not kiddin’!”

  “I’ll have sweet tea and a fried shrimp po’boy.”

  “You got it, darlin’.” The waitress left in a rush, only to deposit the tea seconds later. Eve shook out the last three ibuprofen from the bottle in her purse then washed down the pills with a long swallow of tea and prayed they’d take effect soon. She wondered fleetingly if Anna Maria had been right, if she wasn’t ready for this trip.

  Don’t go there. You’ll be fine. Just as soon as you get home.

  She closed her eyes. Home. It seemed like forever since she’d walked up the familiar steps of the old Victorian house in the Garden District. She envisioned its steep gables, paned, watery-glassed windows, delicate gingerbread décor, and the turret…Oh Lord, the turret she loved, the tower room Nana had dubbed “Eve’s little Eden.” From that high tower, looking over the other rooftops and trees, she felt as if she could see all of the world.

  Crash! A tray of glassware hit the floor, glass splintering. “Oh no!”

  Eve nearly leapt from the booth. Her heart pounded erratically as flashes of memory cut through her mind. Blinking rapidly, she was once again standing in that darkened cabin, the muzzle of a gun spewing fire, glass shattering loudly, and Cole’s harsh face glaring at her. She glanced down, saw that both her fists were curled. Her breathing was thin and ragged. Slowly she unclenched her fingers, counting to ten. It was only an accident. Eve could see a busboy already rounding the corner with a broom and dustpan as a girl no older than sixteen, flushed and embarrassed, apologized all over herself for losing control of the tray.

  Quit jumping at shadows, Eve silently scolded herself as she turned her attention out the window. The storm was really going at it. Rain slanted across the parking lot, blurring her view of the freeway ramp and traffic. Her cell phone rang, startling her, and she banged her knee against the table.

  “Damn.”

  Dr. Byrd’s right: you’re a head case.

  She answered the phone on the second ring, carrying it to the foyer, where she might have a chance at privacy. Caller ID displayed Anna Maria’s number, and her sister-in-law’s picture flashed onto the small screen. “Hey there,” Eve answered, her heart rate finally slowing a bit.

  “Where are you?” Anna demanded.

  “Not far from Mobile.”

  “So you haven’t heard?”

  “I guess not. Heard what?”

  “Cole was released today. Just like I told you. All charges dropped.”

  Eve’s stomach clenched. “We knew this was going to happen.”

  “But on the same day you decide to return to New Orleans? What’re the chances of that? It’s a bad sign, Eve, I swear. I know you don’t believe in it, but I’m tellin’ ya, there are forces at work that we just don’t understand. Unless you knew about this and that’s why you were so hell-bent to leave today.”

  Eve heard the hint of accusation in Anna Maria’s voice. “I had no idea,” she said, which was the God’s honest truth.

  “Then it’s a coincidence.”

  Better than a sign from God.

  “It’s all over the news,” Anna went on, “but I figured if you didn’t have the radio on, you wouldn’t have heard, and you know what they say, ‘Forewarned is forearmed.’”

  “Thanks for the forearming.”

  “That man is dangerous to you, Eve. We both know it. If not physically, then emotionally.”

  “I’m over him, Anna. I thought we were clear on that.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I mean it. When someone points a gun at you, you kinda lose all that warm, touchy-feely feeling you had for him.”

  “Good,” Anna said, though she didn’t sound all that convinced. “Keep those thoughts and watch your back. If you need to, you can always turn around and come back here.”

  “Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind.” But she was lying. She was going home, period. She hung up, refusing to let the thought of bumping into Cole again intimidate her. However, as she reentered the restaurant, she turned in the opposite direction from her booth, down a darkened hallway and past a cigarette machine to the bar, where a couple of men hanging out at the counter were sipping beers. Another twenty-something guy with tattoos covering his forearms was sharpening his skills by playing pool solo, and the televisions over the bar were turned to sports stations. No image of Cole Dennis leaving a police station in the company of his high-powered lawyer, saying “No comment” as he avoided a gauntlet of reporters with microphones and ducked into a waiting car, played on any of the screens.

  Get over it, she told herself as she returned to her table, where an oval plate held her steaming po’boy, a slice of corn bread, and a cup of coleslaw. Butter oozed and melted across the corn bread while the cabbage nearly drowned in the dressing. Eve’s appetite had all but disappeared with Anna Maria’s phone call, but she slid into her seat and bit into the sandwich. Nourishment, she reminded herself, barely tasting the spicy fried shrimp as she chewed.

  What would she say if she ran into Cole? What would he say? Would he avoid her? Or try to find her? She swallowed another tasteless bite of the sandwich and tried not to remember his penetrating blue eyes, thick, dark hair, and severe jaw. But that proved impossible, and as she stared out at the gloom, her mind’s eye saw him as he’d been when they first met.

  It had been on the wide porch of her father’s house. Cole had been sitting on a stool, leaning forward, tanned arms resting on his jean-covered knees, dark hair badly in need of a haircut, a day’s worth of beard shadow darkening that defined jaw.

  She’d mistaken him for a farmhand as she’d parked her old Volkswagen bug and hauled her suitcase out of the backseat. The dust the VW’s tires kicked up had slowly settled onto the sparse gravel on that sweltering summer day. She’d been sweating from the drive—the VW’s air-conditioning unit had long since given out—and her T-shirt was sticking to her back, her clothes damp and uncomfortable as she walked up the path. Cole stood, stretching to his six-foot-two-inch height, as her father’s old Jack Russell terrier mix scrambled to his feet and bounded down the worn steps to greet
her excitedly.

  “Let me help you with those,” Cole offered. His voice held the hint of a west Texas drawl. She almost expected a “ma’am” or “miss” to be added.

  “No need. Got it. I’m fine. Hi, Rufus,” she said, bending down to pet the wiggling, whining dog.

  Her father, pale, looking as if he’d aged twenty years in the few months since spring break, rose stiffly to his feet, his knees popping loudly. “Hi, baby,” he said as she walked up the flagstone path and steps, Rufus at her heels. Terrence hugged her fiercely even though she was still holding on to her duffel bag. He pressed a kiss to her temple, and she smelled it then, the faint scent of whiskey that had been with him more and more often in the past few years. She felt awkward and gangly and foolish as her father released her, and she found the stranger staring at her with eyes so intense, her heart did a foolish hiccup. “Eve, this is Cole Dennis. Cole, my daughter.”

  “Glad to meet ya,” Cole said, extending his hand.

  “Hi.” She hiked her bag to her shoulder and shot out her arm.

  His calloused fingers folded over hers, and he gave her palm a swift, quick shake before he let go.

  “Cole is my attorney,” her father added, sitting down again. She noticed the small glass on the table, ice cubes melting in the heat while overhead a wasp worked diligently on a small mud nest tucked under the eaves.

  “Your attorney?” she repeated, taken aback. “A lawyer?” She tried not to stare at the disreputable state of his clothes—the worn jeans, rumpled, sweat-stained shirt, and battered running shoes that looked ready for a dumpster. Nor did she turn her attention back to the gravel lot in front of the garage and the unfamiliar, dented, and dusty pickup that was parked beneath the leafy branches of a pecan tree.

  A slow smile spread across Cole’s jaw, as if he were reading her thoughts. “That’s right, ma’am,” he drawled, and there was that Southern deference she’d expected, along with a tiny glint of amusement in eyes that hovered somewhere between blue and gray.

  “What kind of lawyer?”

  “Defense,” her father said, settling into his chair heavily. “I’m being sued. Malpractice.” He made a wave with the fingers of his right hand as if to dismiss a bothersome fly as he picked up his drink with his other. “It’s…a headache. It’ll go away.” But the bits of melting ice cubes in his glass clinked, and she noticed that his right hand shook a bit. And the beads of sweat clustered in the thinning strands of his straight hair were unusual for him, even on a hot day.

  “So everything’s okay. Or gonna be?”

  “Of course.” Her father smiled tightly. Falsely.

  She glanced back at Cole. All signs of amusement had faded from his angular features and deep-set eyes, and in an instant he seemed to transform from a laid-back ranch hand to something else, something keener and sharp edged, something honed. She didn’t ask the question, but it hung there.

  “Your father’s innocent,” he assured her. “Don’t worry.”

  “Innocent of what?”

  “It’s just a little malpractice thing,” Terrence Renner muttered again, taking a sip from his glass.

  “I don’t understand.”

  The two men exchanged swift glances. Her father gave a quick nod to Cole and then, carrying his now-empty glass, walked to a glass-topped cart where a bottle of Crown Royal Whiskey sat near an ice bucket.

  “Civil suit. Wrongful death,” Cole explained.

  Enlightenment followed. “This is about Tracy Aliota again, isn’t it? I thought the police said you weren’t responsible, that you couldn’t have predicted her suicide, that releasing her from the hospital was normal procedure.” She stared at her father’s back, watching his shoulders slump beneath the fine silk of his shirt as he added a “splash” of amber liquor to his glass.

  Cole cut in. “This is different. It’s a lawsuit instigated by the family. It’s not about homicide or—”

  “I know the difference!” she rounded on him. Her face was hot, flushed. The anger and fear she’d been dealing with ever since first hearing that one of her father’s patients had swallowed so many pills that no amount of stomach pumping and resuscitation had been able to save her life, came back full force. Tracy Aliota had been under Dr. Terrence Renner’s care ever since her first attempt at suicide at thirteen.

  “But how…I mean, can they do this? Legally?”

  “If they find a lawyer willing to take the case…then they’re in business,” Cole said.

  Eve closed her eyes, hearing the mosquitoes buzzing over the sounds of a tractor chugging in a nearby field. The trill of a whippoorwill sounded. Everything seemed so perfect, so easy and somnolent. She wanted it to be that way, but it wasn’t. “Damn it,” she whispered.

  Finally she opened her eyes again, only to find Cole staring at her.

  “You okay?”

  Of course I’m not okay! “Just dandy,” she responded tightly.

  “It’ll be all right.” Her father was swirling his drink, ice cubes dancing in the late afternoon sunlight. His voice lacked enthusiasm. And conviction.

  “Is that true?” Eve asked Cole, who had rested a hip against the porch railing as Terrence lifted the bottle of Crown Royal, his glance a silent offering to his guest.

  Cole shook his head. “No, thanks.”

  “I asked if everything will be all right,” Eve reminded.

  “I’ll do my best.” Again that hint of Texas flavored Cole’s words.

  “And you’re good?”

  A ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Beneath the worn Levis, ratty T-shirt, and “Aw-shucks, ma’am” attitude, he was a cocky son of a bitch.

  “He’s the best money can buy,” her father said.

  She stared straight at Cole. “Is that right?”

  “I’d like to think so.” Was there just the suggestion of a twinkle in those deep-set eyes? Almost as if he were flirting with her…or even baiting her.

  Whistling to the dog, she picked up her duffel bag and opened the screen door. “I guess we’ll find out.”

  And she had. Inside a dark-paneled Louisiana courtroom where ceiling fans battled the heat and Judge Remmy Mathias, a huge African-American man with a slick, balding head and glasses perched on the end of his nose, fought a summer cold, the trial had played out. Cole Dennis, the scruffy would-be attorney, had morphed into a slick, sharp lawyer. Dressed in tailored suits, crisp shirts, expensive ties, and a serious countenance that often showed just a glimmer of humor, Cole was charming enough to woo even the most reticent jurors into believing that Dr. Terrence Renner had done everything in his power to preserve and keep Tracy Aliota’s sanity and well-being. Cole Dennis indeed proved himself to be worth every shiny penny of his fee.

  And over that summer, Eve had fallen hopelessly in love with Cole, a man as comfortable astride a stubborn quarter horse as he was while pleading a case in a courtroom. A private, guarded individual who, when called upon, could play to judge and jury as well as to the cameras.

  He’d been amused that Eve initially thought him unworthy in his disreputable jeans and running shoes, and it was weeks before he explained to Eve that her father had called him and told him to “drop everything” to meet with him at the old man’s house. Cole had been helping a friend move at the time and on the way home had stopped by the old farm to do Renner’s bidding.

  In the end, after days of testimony in that small hundred-year-old courtroom, her father had been acquitted of any wrongdoing.

  And Eve, watching from the back of the room, had grown to wonder if justice truly had been served.

  CHAPTER 3

  Sam Deeds nosed his BMW to the cracked curb of the street surrounding Cole’s new home—a hundred-and-fifty-year-old bungalow that was the kind of place described as a “handyman’s dream” in a real estate ad. The front porch sagged, the gutters were rusted, the roof had been patched with a faded rainbow of shingles, and several of the original wood-encased windows had been replaced sometime in the
past half century with aluminum frames. Cars were parked on both sides of the narrow, bumpy concrete of the street, crowding each other.

  “Home, sweet home,” Cole muttered under his breath as he climbed out of the passenger side of Deeds’s BMW 760.

  “Hey, I said you could crash with me for a while.”

  “You mean with you and Lynne and your two kids. And Lynne’s pregnant again, right? Thanks, but I think I’ll pass.”

  Deeds had the good grace not to look too relieved that his friend hadn’t taken him up on his offer. No doubt Lynne and Sam’s daughters might not have been so eager to have a near-miss felon sharing their roof.

  “Fine. But if you change your mind, the offer stands.”

  “I’ll be okay here.” He noticed a faded red Jeep parked before a sagging garage. “Is that mine?”

  “Not until you fill out the paperwork, but, yeah, essentially it’s yours. I bought it from a cousin. Runs great, drinks a bit of oil, and has a little over two hundred thousand on the engine.”

  “Just broken in.”

  “That’s what I thought. The tires are decent, and I figured you might want a set of wheels.”

  “Seein’ how you had to sell the Jag.”

  “Seein’ how.”

  Cole eyed the beaten Jeep and gave a quick nod of approval. “I like it.”

  “Fill out the papers. The title’s in the glove box, locked with a second set of keys, a copy of the bill of sale, and the registration.”

  Deeds popped the trunk of his 760, and Cole pulled out a slim black briefcase and fatter laptop bag. Deeds had managed to retrieve the two small cases from the police. No doubt the hard drive on the computer had been compromised and all of the information on Cole’s cell phone, Palm Pilot, and personal files was no longer private. After all, he’d been considered a criminal. Probably still was, in some circles. At least Deeds had gotten his stuff back; that was all that really mattered.