“This is important, Tanya. Are you absolutely certain you never bruised him? Around the throat?"
She stepped back, raised her finger and shoved it close to his face. "I may not have been a perfect mama to Brand, but I swear to God I never hit him! Goddamn you for asking me that!"
Because her voice had risen, Nick raised his hands to silence her. "What happened when the police arrived?"
"Alcee Martin . . . took him from me. Laid him on the ground and tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Even though Brand was blue, I was praying to God he would come around. That he would come to. But he didn't."
"Did any of the deputies look around? Search the area?"
She gave him an irritated look. "How would I know? I was out of my mind with grief! I don't know what the police did. All I knew was that I'd lost the only good thing I'd ever had. My little boy was dead, and he wasn't ever coming back."
# # #
Tanya was standing on the step outside the front door of the mobile home when Nick left her. She'd gotten herself a fresh beer, lit another cigarette, and asked him to stay for a drink, but he'd declined and was relieved as hell when he finally got in the truck.
For a moment, he sat behind the wheel and tried to decide what to do next. He'd been hoping Tanya would reveal some tidbit of information that would either prove or disprove Nat's conviction that Brandon had been murdered. As much as he hated to think of it, he'd been hoping she would substantiate the presence of bruises about his neck. Only she hadn't, and now he was faced with only one remaining alternative: Alcee Martin.
Nick had gone to school with Alcee but didn't know him well. He sure as hell didn't know him well enough to join him at the diner and announce over Mama Dee's fried okra that Nat Jennings's dead son had told them that Brandon had been murdered. No, he would have to think of another way to approach him. And soon, too. Because Nick had the sinking feeling that that there was a killer on the loose in Bellerose. A killer who would strike again if he wasn't stopped.
Chapter 18
Nat settled into a chair at the dining room table with a yellow legal pad and pen in front of her. A candle flickered in the center of the table, sending a warm bouquet of vanilla throughout the room. To her right, a manila folder lay open, the messages from Kyle spread out like the pages of some mysterious manuscript.
Mommy.
Bad man came in ar house n hurted me an daddy.
kill Branden to.
gona hurt more kidz
Make him stop.
hell hurt you to
monster in the woods
bad man take ricky. kill again. hurry
Monster has Ricky. wood house.
Heaven.
Bad man Took him.
Gatea mud.
Setting her hand against the latest note, she closed her eyes and conjured the image of Kyle's face. For several minutes, the only sounds came from the ticking of the grandfather clock in the living room and the incessant chorus of the woods behind the house.
"Kyle," she whispered. "Help me, sweetie."
She picked up one of the pens, set the ballpoint tip against the paper, and waited. She tried to relax and focused on opening her mind. One minute stretched into five. Frustrated because nothing was happening, she wrote her name on the pad. She wrote Kyle's name and then Where are you?
A blast from the doorbell nearly sent her out of her skin. Pressing her hand to her chest, she gathered the notes, put them inside the folder, and closed .it, A quick glance into the dining room told her the paint had covered the words she'd written on the wall the night before. At the door, she checked the peephole and was surprised to see Faye standing on the porch. a bottle of wine in one hand, a carryout pizza in the other.
Nat opened the door. Faye didn't wait to be invited inside, brushing by her and striding directly to the broken window, which she had evidently spotted from the front porch. "What in the bejeebers happened to your window?"
"A prank." Nat put her hands on her hips. "What are you doing here?"
"I was hoping to pig out on some pizza." Faye pulled the curtain aside and studied the window. "What kind of prank?"
Sighing, Nat told her about the doll. "If I talk about it, I'm just going to get pissed."
"You called the cops, right?"
She nodded.
"Good." Faye looked down at the pizza box. "Have you eaten?"
Nat breathed in the aromas of yeast dough and pepperoni, and her stomach rumbled' in response. The day had been such an emotional roller coaster, she'd forgotten about dinner.
"Don't tell me that pizza came from Pepperoni Kitchen."
Smiling, Faye headed toward the kitchen. I’ll get the plates."
"In the cupboard." Nat flipped on the overhead lights, trying hard to get used to the idea of having pizza with a woman whose friendship and loyalty she'd spent the last three years doubting.
"I brought merlot--"
Nat knew it the instant Faye spotted the bruise on her cheek. She'd done her best to cover it with makeup, but beneath the bright lights of the kitchen there was no hiding it.
"Oh, Natty." She looked pained. "Someone hit you."
"I ran into an old friend at The Blue Gator."
"What on earth were you doing at The Blue Gator?"
"Getting into trouble, evidently."
Crossing to her, Faye cupped her chin and tilted her cheekbone toward the light, her expression sympathetic. "Who did this?"
"Hunt Ratcliffe."
"That woman-hitting son of a bitch." Faye's lips thinned, her eyes flashing indignation. “You pressed charges, didn't you?"
"Not exactly . . ."
"You can't let him get away with hitting you."
"I hit him first."
"That doesn't matter. Hunt Ratcliffe outweighs you by eighty pounds. He's a bully and a mean-spirited jerk." Sudden understanding dawned on her friend's face. "He has no right to blame you for what happened to Ward and Kyle."
"I know. And I know I would have been within my rights to file charges against him, but I swear Faye, I didn't want to go through it He's a Ratcliffe and I'm--"
"You're a woman who's been through a horrific ordeal." Studying the bruise, she shook her head. "Look, my ex is a judge over in Tangipahoa Parish--"
"I thought your ex was a landscaper?"
"My other ex."
"Oh, you got married again?"
Faye flushed. "He had a really powerful energy. But it was a fast marriage, even faster divorce." She shrugged. "But he's strong on crime, especially domestic stuff and women's rights. If you want me to talk to him ... "
Absurdly thankful there was at least one person in Bellerose who believed in her, Nat had to blink back tears. "No, it's okay. I just want to forget about it."
Determined not to cry, she walked to the pizza box and opened the lid. "If we're going to put a dent in this, we should probably get started."
Faye poured wine while Nat loaded pizza slices onto plates. They settled into chairs at the dining room table and for several minutes the only sound carne from forks scraping against ironstone.
"You don't have to bring food every time you come over," Nat said as she reached for her second slice.
"I knew you'd let me in if I had food."
Nat felt a smile emerge. realized it felt good on her face. Faye grinned back. "So what were you doing at The Blue Gator, anyway?"
Nat scrambled for a lie, but none seemed plausible. When the silence became charged, Faye looked at her over her pizza, her brow quirking. “Now, I'm intrigued."
"I went to see Nick Bastille," Nat said.
She stopped chewing. "What?"
"I said--"
"I heard you the first time. I'm just wondering why on earth you went to see him. I mean, he's not exactly your type.” Her brows knitted. "Is he?"
Nat ignored the flutter in her stomach and answered her friend's question with one of her own. "Did you know he lost a son?"
“I sure do. It was awful. Poor l
ittle kid was only five years old. Slipped out of the house while his mother was passed out. He drowned in the swamp. The whole town was broken up. Bastille was in prison. Jenny Lee told me the warden wouldn't even give him a pass to attend the funeral."
Nat felt a pang of sympathy for Nick. How terrible it must have been, losing his only son while incarcerated and not even allowed to attend the funeral.
"Honey, is there something going on between you and Nick Bastille?"
Nat laughed, but it came out a little too forcefully, as if she were trying a tad too hard. "Of course not."
But, Faye wasn't easily fooled. "Natty, he's not the kind of guy you want to mess around with. I mean, the man did time for murder."
"He told me he didn't do it."
"What else is he going to say?" Faye pursed her lips."Look, he might be something to look at, but tread carefully. As far as we know, he could be dangerous."
Nat thought he was plenty dangerous, but not in the way Faye meant. “I can handle Nick Bastille."
"I'm not sure he's the kind of man who can be handled."
Not at all comfortable with the subject of Nick, especially when the memory of his touch was so fresh in her mind, Nat started to rise. But a sudden wave of vertigo sent her back down. In her peripheral vision the walls fluttered. The floor seemed ten feet down as she lost her sense of depth perception. In the last six months she'd become familiar with the sensation, and she knew what would happen next.
Fighting intense dizziness, she glanced at the legal pad next to her plate and watched it fade in and out of her vision, as if she were seeing it through wavering columns of heat. Vaguely, she was aware of the pen in her band, that she was clutching it the way a child would clutch a crayon. No, she thought. Not now ...
"Nat?" Faye's voice reached her as if through a thick fog. "Honey? What's wrong?"
Nat heard the other woman's chair scrape against the floor, the rustle of her skirt as she rose. In the back of her mind, she was aware of Faye moving closer, touching her shoulder gently. "Natty? Honey, you're scaring me."
But Nat couldn't answer. She couldn't speak or move or explain herself. It was as if she'd been paralyzed by some insidious drug. As if something--or someone--had taken control of her body. The sensation was utterly terrifying.
The initial wave of energy hit her with the force of an earthquake. The lights seemed to dim, and then she was plunged into darkness. She reached for Kyle, searched desperately for the comfort and goodness he brought her. But none of those things came, and abruptly, she sensed that something was terribly wrong. Adrenaline spiked, and then fear punched her like a giant, cold fist.
# # #
Nat came to on the floor. S she struggled to her hands and knees, still clutching the pen, her hair hanging limply in her face. Her arms were weak and quivering. Her heart was pounding. Cold sweat slicked the back of her neck. She was breathing so hard her chest hurt.
"Nat! Honey, what happened? Are you okay?"
Nat looked up to see Faye punching numbers into her cell phone. "Put down the phone."
"Natty, you just had some kind of seizure. Lie still while I call an ambulance."
"Don't," she managed, but her voice was weak.
Faye stopped dialing but didn't put the phone down. “What?"
"No ambulance. Please."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm okay.”
"Oh, yeah, I can see that as you bleed all over the floor!"
"I'm not bleeding." Nat started to get to her feet, then spotted the bright red droplets of blood on the tile and realized with some surprise that she was, indeed, bleeding. "Put the phone down. Faye. Now, damn it. I mean it."
Faye choked out a sound of pure exasperation as she dropped her phone onto the table and crossed to Nat. "You have two seconds to tell me what the hell just happened."
"Where am I bleeding from?"
"Your nose, I think." Faye slid her arms beneath her shoulders. "Let's get you into a chair."
Nat's legs felt like paper, but she made it into the chair. "It's never happened like that before."
"You mean this isn't the first time?" Faye asked incredulously.
"Unfortunately, no." She leaned back in the chair. "Tell me what happened."
"You went down like a felled tree is what happened." Faye tossed a concerned look at her over her shoulder as she crossed to the counter and yanked a paper towel off the roll. "You went stiff as a board. Then you started writing, digging into the paper and tabletop with that pen. The next thing I know you're on the floor." Her hand was shaking when she wet the towel beneath the faucet. "Natty, I've never seen anything like it in my life. You scared the hell out of me!"
"You're not the only one I scared."
"Here." She shoved the paper towel at her. ''Tilt your head back."
Putting the paper towel to her nose, Nat reached for the legal pad and her blood went cold in her veins.
Going to kill hem. In big danger. Help him.
Jason Larue. Find him mommy. The bad man coming.
I’m scared!
She'd used two sheets of paper. The words were written haphazardly, in huge, messy letters. She'd pressed so hard the paper had tom, and she'd ground the tip of the pen into the wood surface of the table.
"Oh my God."
Nat looked up to see Faye staring down at the legal pad, her face the color of paste. "What on earth? Why did you write that?" She raised stricken eyes to Nat's. "What is this?"
Not sure how to answer without revealing something she did not want to reveal, Nat rose on unsteady legs and threw the bloody paper towel in the trash, relieved to find her nose was no longer bleeding.
"Nat? What's going on?"
Feeling steadier, Nat returned to the table and sat down. "You probably ought to sit down for this."
Faye eased Into a chair. "Honey, if there's some kind of residual damage from the coma, you should get yourself checked out. Have you had seizures like this before?"
"I have them all the time."
"Okay." Faye blew out a pent up breath, then looked hard at her, "How many times has this happened?"
"I've lost count, Maybe a couple of dozen times in the last six months."
"Does your doctor know you're having seizures? Does he know why? Are you on medication?"
"I saw four neurologists before leaving River Oaks. Two of them finally agreed that these ... petit mals, for lack of a better term, could be a result of psychogenic epilepsy."
"Would you mind repeating that in English for us laymen?"
Remembering how disheartened she'd felt upon hearing the official diagnosis, Nat frowned. "It used to be called hysterical epilepsy."
Faye gave her a sympathetic look. “They think it's all in your head, huh?"
"Don't get me wrong, Faye. It's a very real disease. But I don't have epilepsy. And what you just witnessed was not a seizure."
Faye choked out a laugh and put her hand to her bosom. "You just scared the living shit out of me and you're trying to tell me there's nothing wrong with you?"
"Not physically.”
''What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
Nat took a fortifying breath. "Something happened to me when I was in the coma.”
"Something like what?"
"When I regained consciousness, I could ... do certain things I hadn't been able to do before. It's like there was a channel to my brain that had been opened. A sixth sense, so to speak."
"Sixth sense? Natty . . ."
"Have you ever heard of trance writing?"
"Automatic writing? Of course, I've heard of it."
"Faye, you know I've always been a skeptic about any kind of psychic phenomena."
"You laughed at me when I had my palm read that time in New Orleans."
Nat let out a shuddery breath. "Since the coma. I've been able to ... receive messages. I black out for a few seconds and when I come to, I've written something down."
Nat had only seen her friend truly su
rprised twice before. The first time was when she told her she'd given Ward Ratcliffe her virginity the night he'd been crowned homecoming king. The second was the night she'd called to tell her Ward and Kyle had been murdered. This was the third time.
Nat felt a moment of panic when Faye only continued to stare at her, her mouth open, her eyes round with shock. "Don't look at me like I'm crazy," she said. "Dammit, Faye, not you. If I can't convince you of what's happening here, I don't have a snowball's chance in hell of convincing anyone else."
"Just give me a minute to digest this, will you?"
But Nat could tell by the look on her face that Faye had a pretty good idea where this was going. Nat looked down at the childlike scrawl in front of her, picked up the paper with hands that were still shaking. Blinking back tears, she said, "It's him, Faye.”
For a moment, the only sound came from the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen. The pizza sat in the center of the table, cold. After a moment, Faye reached across the table and grasped Nat's hands in both of hers. "You are way too grounded to be saying what I think you just said."
"It's Kyle," Nat said. "I don't know how or why, but it's him. I can feel him. It's like he's inside my head. I can even smell him sometimes."
"Oh, Natty ... "
"You don't believe me."
"I didn't say that."
"You don't have to. I see it in your face."
"For God's sake, Nat, you've been through a horrific ordeal. You've suffered severe emotional and physical trauma. You lost your family. You were in a coma for two years."
Reaching for the folder containing all the messages she'd received, Nat slid it across the table to Faye. "Open it."
Faye opened the folder. What little color that had returned to her cheeks drained as she paged through each sheet of paper. She raised her eyes to Nat's. "Do you realize the implications of what you're claiming?"
"Of course, I do. That's what makes this so damn impossible."
Both women jumped when an owl screeched seemingly right outside the window. Faye choked out a nervous laugh and reached for her wine. Nat got up from the table and went to the window and closed it.
Depth Perception Page 18
