Volume Two: In Moonlight and Memories, #2

by Julie Ann Walker

  “You could’ve asked me for the combo,” Cash says. “I’d have happily given it to you.”

  Broussard’s left eyebrow quirks. “Don’t you think he’d have guessed the information came from you, then?”

  “I figure he assumes I started this whole thing anyway.”

  Broussard shakes his head. “I don’t know about that. He kept asking, and I quote, ‘Which one of those rich pricks put you up to this?’ I think he believed you when you said the canaries are singing. He thinks it’s one of them.”

  “You said you threatened to arrest him,” Maggie says. “I take it that means you didn’t?”

  Broussard shakes his head. “Today was about gathering the evidence we’ll need to bring him in.”

  “How long you reckon it’s gonna take you to work your way ’round to doing that?” I ask.

  For the first time ever, the DA smiles. “The forensic accountant I have working the case says he’s already found evidence of tax evasion, wire fraud, and money laundering.” He makes a face at Cash. “You’re old man isn’t exactly the Stephen Hawking of white-collar crime. He’s been incredibly sloppy. I’m surprised the IRS hasn’t come knocking on his door long before I have.”

  “It’s not stupidity,” Cash explains, “so much as a God complex. He’s always thought of himself as above the fray, untouchable.”

  “Well, he’ll feel the cool touch of a set of handcuffs soon enough. I’ll have my team work over the weekend, and then, if everything goes as planned, we’ll make the arrest on Monday. I can hold him without cause for twenty-four hours. After that, it’ll be Christmas Eve, then Christmas, and the courts won’t be open for him to enter his plea or to set his bail. If we’re lucky, with the holidays and the system backlogged like it is, he won’t be able to post bond until after the New Year. At which point, I’m hoping he’ll be so sick and tired of life behind bars that he’ll be only too happy to cut a deal and squeal on Sullivan.”

  “He’ll squeal.” Cash nods emphatically. “That bastard is loyal to one man and one man only. Himself.”

  Broussard allows a moment of silence before planting his hands on top of his desk. “Okay. Well, like I said, thanks for bringing this to my attention.” He stands. “Hopefully, the next time we see each other will be at their trials.”

  A pinch on my thigh has me wincing. When I glance down, I see Maggie’s nails digging into the denim of my jeans.

  “Will we be required to testify?” she asks. Her voice is steady, but fear and alarm swirl around her like a noxious cloud.

  I know what she’s thinking. She’s thinking that somehow that night in the swamp will come up, and she’ll either have to lie under oath, or finally come clean about what actually happened.

  Nonchalantly, I curl my hand around hers, giving her fingers a reassuring squeeze.

  Broussard’s brow wrinkles. “Why would you have to testify? I know this all got started because you three were trying to find a way to stop George Sullivan from harassing you over the disappearance of his son, but the fact of the matter is, I don’t give a rat’s ass about any of that. Unless you want to change your story and tell me you are one of the blackmail victims—” He cuts himself off when Maggie adamantly shakes her head. “Good. Great. So then I can’t see any reason why I’d need you on the witness stand.”

  “Okay.” She nods. “I was just…you know…wondering.”

  “Wonder no more.” He raps his knuckles on his desk. “If you don’t have any more questions, I need to get back to work.”

  He solicitously walks us to the door of his office. But that’s as far as he goes. He lets us find our own way out of the building.

  Instead of heading for her SUV, Maggie falls into step beside me and asks, “What do you think Sullivan will do once he hears Rick’s in jail? Do you think he’ll redouble his efforts to come after us?”

  I’m quick to reassure her. “I doubt it. If he’s smart, he’ll head for the nearest border. Barring that, I reckon he’ll get down to the business of covering his ass by trying to erase ties to Rick. Either way, he’ll be busy with his own shit, and that’s a win for us.”

  She lets loose with a blustery breath. “Lord, I hope you’re right.”

  She shoots Cash a quick look from beneath her lashes, and I know she’s working her way around to addressing what’s truly on her mind.

  “I’ll get the truck warmed up,” I say, turning toward Smurf.

  She stops me with a hand on my arm. “Wait. I wanted to ask y’all what your plans are for Christmas Eve.”

  “Packing for Shreveport probably,” I tell her. “Cash and I are driving up to see Mom first thing Christmas morning. Why?”

  She shrugs. “It’s tradition that I host a Christmas Eve party at Bon Temps Rouler. I close the bar to everyone but friends and family and a few regulars. Jean-Pierre judges the Ugly Christmas Sweater contest, we do a white elephant gift exchange, and we have a big potluck réveillon dinner. I’d love it if y’all came, but I understand if you want to take a pass since you’ll have an early morning the next day.”

  “I’ll be there,” I assure her.

  “You will?” She beams at me. Who needs the sun when you have Maggie’s smile?

  “Of course,” I tell her. “Wouldn’t miss it for all the world.”

  She turns to Cash and ventures hesitantly, “Will you come too?”

  “Depends.” He takes out his flask, slowly unscrewing the cap as he narrowly watches her.

  I’m overcome by the sudden urge to punch him in the neck. Doesn’t he recognize an olive branch when it’s extended his way?

  She bites her lip. “I’ve been meaning to come see you to talk about what happened at my apartment.”

  His Adam’s apple works over a deep swallow. He makes a show of smacking his lips and indulging in a loud ahhhh. “Don’t see that there’s much to talk about. Seems to me we’ve reached an impasse. You want what I’m not willing to give, and I’m tired of trying to be someone I’m not.”

  “I don’t want you to be anyone you’re not,” she’s quick to naysay him. “I swear it. And I promise I won’t try to tempt you or…or…” She shakes her head, at a loss for words. “Or do anything that makes you uncomfortable. But you can’t ask me to stop loving you.”

  She glances at the tattoo on her wrist, rubbing her thumb over the inky symbol. “I’ll love you to infinity and back again. I’ll be your friend to infinity and back again if that’s what you want from me. And I’ll continue to hope that things with your head will get better.”

  “Hope can be a dangerous thing,” he warns. “It likes to build castles in the sky.”

  She lifts her chin. “You can’t stop me from hoping, Cash.”

  Again, he stands there eyeing her. After what feels like forever, he finally nods. “I’ll see you on Christmas Eve. Thanks for the invitation.”

  With that, he skirts Smurf’s front bumper and climbs into the cab, leaving me and Maggie alone on the curb.

  “The way he’s been looking at me today makes me feel like I’m shrinking in front of his eyes,” she whispers.

  I reach for her hand. “If that’s true, then it’s his loss. Not yours.”

  “I don’t know. I feel small all of a sudden.”

  “You’re not,” I assure her. “To allow yourself to be vulnerable, truly vulnerable like you are with him, well…to my mind, that’s the biggest, bravest thing a person can do.”

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  ______________________________________

  Cash

  Dear Cash,

  This year the National Honor Society teamed up with a local charity to rebuild a home in the Lower Ninth Ward. For the last week, I’ve been spending every day after school at the site, swinging a hammer and stapling insulation into place.

  It’s hard being back in Eva’s old neighborhood, seeing what’s become of Granny Mabel’s house. It’s falling apart and the weeds around it are taller than I am.

  Also, they’ve torn
down the house where my parents died. The only thing that remains is an outline of the old foundation.

  I don’t know how to feel about that.

  On the one hand, I’m glad it’s gone so I don’t have to look at the X-code the search-and-rescue team spray-painted on the outside wall. I don’t have to see that glaring number three at the bottom of the X and know that two of the dead they found inside were my mom and dad. On the other hand, it’s like the memorial to their sacrifice is gone.

  Anyway, I’m glad you took me there before you left. I’m glad you stood beside me, holding my hand as I cried and tried to make peace with what happened. I don’t know if I’d ever be able to step foot in the Ninth Ward if you hadn’t done that.

  So thank you.

  Love, Maggie

  There are so many things we can’t control in life. When we have the opportunity to make a choice about something, we should.

  When Maggie said that thing about hoping, I made my choice. Clear-eyed and sober and knowing it was for the best. But even so, the idea is thrashing around inside my aching brain, making me hot and cold at the same time.

  No more playing it safe. It’s time to pull out all the stops on The Plan.

  “He grew up too far from the town of High Intellect to figure that one out,” Miss June says to Miss Bea, arching a thumb toward Earl, who is seated beside her atop his usual stool.

  “Hey.” Earl frowns. “I don’t use ten-dollar words, but that don’t mean I’m stupid.” His voice is boozy and difficult to hear above the holiday music issuing from the bar’s overhead speakers. Maggie’s Christmas Eve party has been in full swing for the past two hours, but I’ve only just arrived.

  Miss June chuckles and slaps her knee, spotting me when I wander up behind Earl and set a festively wrapped gift on the empty barstool beside him.

  “Cassius!” she cries. A string of Christmas lights blinks around her neck. She’s wearing a sweater stitched with the words Fruit Cake and a lopsided depiction of that much-maligned holiday treat. “I thought you were going to be a no-show!”

  “Me too.” I bend to kiss her cheek. Her skin is as soft as talcum powder and she smells like expensive champagne and cheap rose water. The overly bright twinkle in her eye lets me know the flute of bubbly sitting in front of her isn’t her first. “Finding a plumber willing to come out on Christmas Eve was damn near impossible. I thought I would have to keep a hold on that pipe from now until the New Year.”

  During a routine toilet installation this evening, all hell broke loose in the guest bathroom. Luc wanted to stay and help me mop up the mess after the plumber left, but I forced him out the door. Didn’t want him missing Maggie’s party. It’s important he continue to come through for her, since I can’t.

  “Well, we’re tickled you could make it.” Miss Bea pats my shoulder when I move past June to peck her cheek. She smells like something slightly exotic and desperately overpriced. “But you’ll be sorry to hear you missed the white elephant gift exchange.”

  Miss June giggles like a woman sixty years younger and unfolds the wadded-up bundle of flesh-toned fabric sitting on the bar beside her champagne flute. It’s a T-shirt with Nicolas Cage’s face stamped on the front. That’s it. Nothing more. No words or explanation. Simply Nicolas Cage’s grinning mug.

  “Wow.” I snort. “If that’s any indication of the quality of gifts, then I did miss out.” Turning to Miss Bea, I ask, “So what’d you end up with?”

  Beatrix Chatelain, unusually attired in a ratty sweater dripping with a hundred red, green, and white poof balls, makes a face.

  “Go on.” Miss June nudges her. “Show him what ya got.”

  Sighing, Miss Bea pulls a green phallus-shaped…uh…device from the depths of her purse.

  Despite my pounding head and the bitter choice I’ve decided to make, I’m overcome by a moment of clarion glee. “Please tell me that isn’t what I think it is.”

  “It isn’t what you think it is.” She hits a button on the side of the device, and it emits a distinctive-sounding warble.

  I blink. “What’s happening?”

  “It’s a yodeling pickle.” It’s hard to tell with all the Botox, but I’m pretty sure Miss Bea is stifling a grin. “It’ll go perfectly with the bacon-flavored toothpaste I got out of the white elephant gift exchange last year.”

  Laughing, I turn to Earl. “And you?”

  He reaches beneath the bar, pulls out a NERF gun, and peppers me with soft foam bullets that bounce off my chest as gently as the wings of a butterfly.

  “Careful, old man.” I don my best Green Beret tone. “I could snap you like a matchstick.”

  “You’d have to catch me first,” he challenges, his mustache twitching. “I’m faster than I look.”

  I clap a hand on his shoulder and retrieve the present. No one is manning the bar—Maggie’s opened it up for everyone to help themselves—so I set the gift atop it and attempt to straighten the lopsided bow. But I stop midstraighten when a prickly feeling skims over the back of my neck.

  Gaze detection is the ability to sense when someone or something is watching us. It’s a skill we inherited from our ancestors, whose survival depended on knowing if a hidden enemy was about to strike.

  Slowly, I glance around. Jean-Pierre is dancing with Eva up by the front window, spinning her in circles and dipping her low. In contrast, Chrissy and her husband are slow swaying beside them, lost in love and the holiday spirit. The tables are stuffed with more familiar faces, many of whom I met during the hurricane party. And Gus and his family are at the other end of the bar, playing an enthusiastic game of Monopoly, if his wife’s declaration is anything to go by. “Don’t you dare, Gus!” she squawks, hitting his arm. “If you do, you’ll have to S your own D for the next year!”

  “Ew!” their eldest son complains. “Y’all realize we’re not four, right? We totally understand your code talk.”

  Gus’s wife makes a face. “It’s just as well you learn the lesson now that when it comes to life, we women hold all the power because you men have a bad habit of listening to the little head in your pants instead of the big one that sits on the end of your neck.”

  Gus salutes her with a frothy, sweating pint of beer. “As it ever was and ever shall be, darlin’!”

  I smile and continue to let my gaze travel around the bar, doing my best to ignore the mixture of smells emanating from the food piled atop a table set in front of the stage. My stomach is threatening a revolt. Of course, the bellyache might have more to do with the jackhammer in my head than the aroma of fried foods turning soggy.

  Today is one of those days where the pain is almost unbearable. It’s so bad that before leaving the house I swallowed two of the high-dose opioids my doctor prescribed. The pills have yet to take effect, and the call of whiskey is strong. But I’m hesitant to mix the booze and the meds after what happened last time.

  “If you’re looking for Kelsey,” Violet says, slipping up beside me, a highball glass in hand, “then you’re out of luck. She and her sister went to visit their folks in Pascagoula for the holidays.”

  The prickly feeling at the back of my neck disappears. Proof positive I’ve come face-to-face with my watcher.

  Maggie’s sister is sporting a formfitting ice-blue top with silver snowflakes. It’s a sweater. But it’s definitely not ugly. Jean-Pierre won’t be crowning her head in the contest.

  “Merry Christmas to you too, Violet,” I say, but there’s no joy in my tone.

  “I told you what I’d do if you hurt Maggie again.” Her eyes narrow over the rim of her drink as she takes a delicate sip.

  “Who told you about Kelsey?” I can’t imagine Maggie saying anything.

  She laughs, and it’s a practiced sound, light and airy. Only a trained ear can hear it holds no hint of humor. “Word travels fast in this town.”

  “Especially between people who don’t have anything better to do than gossip.”

  Her smile fades. “Gossip usually only pisses
off the folks who’re trying to hide something.”

  Man, I could use a drink. “You don’t think people are entitled to their secrets?” I ask.

  “I don’t think people are entitled to anything but life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

  I snort. “That’s oddly constitutional of you.”

  “That’s from the Declaration of Independence, you idiot.”

  Unable to stand it a second longer, I round the bar. Finding the Gentleman Jack, I pour myself a single.

  I’ll have only the one. Enough to take the edge off until the pills kick in. And hopefully, the booze will distract me from saying or doing something to Violet that I’ll later regret.

  “As much as I’m enjoying our conversation,” I say after a comforting swallow, “I need to find Maggie and wish her a merry Christmas.”

  Before I can turn away, Violet stops me with, “Hold up. We haven’t finished talking about what happened at her hurricane party.”

  I grip my glass so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter in my hand. “Probably best if you mind your own business, don’t you think?”

  “Maggie is my business. She always has been. And you may have everyone else fooled with that smooth charm and that smile that never quits, but I knew from that first day you showed up at the academy that you were bad news.”

  I cock my head. “You mean in biology class?”

  Something flickers in her eyes. She takes another drink. “No. Not then. But after school? Yeah. I saw everything as clear as day.”

  Okay, now I’m confused. “What did you see?”

  “That you’re a taker, not a giver.”

  My throat closes up around the whiskey I try to swallow. She’s cut too close to the bone. I have taken more from Maggie—and from Luc, if I’m being honest—than I’ve given. It’s my greatest regret in life. But dammit! I’m trying to fix that!