“The bathroom, Maggie May.”
“No.” She shakes her head vehemently. “I’m not leaving you. We’re in this together.”
There’s no time to argue. “Stay behind me, then,” I tell her.
Opening the door, I aim my weapon at the brim of Sullivan’s cowboy hat. He’s halfway down the walkway and gaining ground fast. Starlight glints off the chrome plating of the six-shooter in his hand.
I’d be a liar if I said I’ve never been scared. There were plenty of times in the army when the shit had hit the fan and my life was most definitely on the line. But I was always with a team of men as tough as I am. Now my only backup is a pipsqueak of a woman. And even though she’s got plenty of gumption, she has zero firepower.
So, yeah, it’s safe to say that, right here, right now, I’m more scared than I’ve ever been.
I’m also more determined.
Having the love of my life here means there’s no give in me. I’ll do whatever it takes.
“Stop right there, Sullivan!” I shout, and he skids to a halt, his beady eyes landing on the menacing black hole at the end of my Colt. If you’ve ever stared into the business end of a weapon, you know it absorbs all light.
“You’re on private property,” I growl. “And it’s obvious you aren’t here on police business. So I reckon you better lay that there hand cannon on the ground before I put you in the ground.”
To be continued…
~ turn the page for a sneak peek of In Moonlight and Memories: Volume 3 following the Acknowledgments ~
Acknowledgments
Huge thanks to my clever, funny, ever-supportive gal-pal, Amanda Carlson. I couldn’t have done any of this without your reassurance, your wisdom, and your patient guidance. You’ve been there for me during the hardest moments of my life. Put simply, you’re the best.
Thanks to Joyce Lamb for taking the lumps of coal that were the first drafts of these books and helping me turn them into things that (hopefully) now sparkle like diamonds. Your nit-picky editorial eye and your refusal to blow smoke up my ass makes for a dynamic duo. Here’s hoping we write many more books together.
Wider thanks to all the folks who do the hard work of getting a book into readers’ hands, Marlene Engel, proofer extraordinaire, Amy Atwell, formatter for the stars, and Sofie Hartley at Hart and Bailey Design Co. for the beautiful covers.
And last, but certainly not least, to my amazing family who never fails to support and encourage me. You’re a wild and crazy bunch, but I wouldn’t have you any other way.
The story continues in this sneak peek of
“Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.” ~ Rumi
Chapter Sixty-four
______________________________________
Luc
Snuffing out someone’s candle doesn’t make your own light shine any brighter. In fact, it steals a bit of your glow.
I learned this the hard way in the Green Berets when circumstances forced me to end a life. I’d hoped, once I was out of the service, I’d never have to make another of those terrible decisions. I’d hoped I’d never have to lose another ounce of my luster.
But George Sullivan has a look in his eye.
One I recognize well.
I saw it in the mountains of the Hindu Kush on the faces of enemy combatants. I saw it on the eyes of the men in my unit when we were pinned down behind enemy lines and taking fire. And I saw it in Cash’s expression the day he came to drop off his Dear Jane letter for Maggie. It’s fatalistic. A killing look.
Someone’s leaving here in a body bag.
Unless I can find a way to defuse the situation.
“Look, man.” I never break eye contact with Sullivan, willing him to read the sincerity in my gaze. “I know you’re hurting over the loss of your son. I know about waking up in the morning with a smile on your face ’cause for a split second you forget that the one you love is gone, and then feeling like you’ve been hit by a Mack truck when you remember. I know. I lost my dad. Maggie May lost both her folks. We understand, and we—”
“Spare me your Kumbaya, we’re-all-in-this-together bullshit.” Sullivan’s tobacco-stained teeth gleam yellow beneath his mustache when his upper lip pulls back into a snarl. “Your parents died. My boy was murdered. The difference between those things is bigger than the journey from here to hell.”
“Dean wasn’t murdered.” I beg him to hear the truth in my words. “Leastways not how you’re thinking.”
“Yes, he was!”
“No! He wasn’t!” I realize I’m matching Sullivan’s volume when Maggie tangles the material at the back of my shirt into her fist.
Right. Never has a shouting match lessened the tension of any situation.
Taking a deep breath of damp swamp air, I hope it’ll tamp down the molten desperation bubbling inside me. One of us has to keep our cool. And it’s certainly not going to be Sullivan.
The man looks unhinged. (Although, I don’t reckon he was ever hinged to begin with.) The side of his face not shadowed by the brim of his cowboy hat looks splotchy in the starlight. And a big vein pulses in his neck.
It’s at this moment he makes his second mistake of the night. (His first was coming here looking for revenge.) He lifts his Magnum .44 and aims it straight at my chest.
The muscles in my jaw turn to stone at the same time I harden my heart. If I allow him to pull his trigger, the caliber of his big-bore weapon is enough to send a bullet clean through me and into Maggie May.
I wish she’d gone to hide in the bathroom like I told her. Then again, it takes a woman with snap in her garters to stand with me and face down a stark raving gunman. So I’m full to bursting with pride for her too.
I’ve had my finger pressed against my trigger guard. (One of the first things the army taught me was never to touch the trigger until I’m damn good and ready to fire.) But now, with infinite care, so as not to draw Sullivan’s eye, I slip my pointer finger around the cool metal mechanism. When squeezed, it promises to discharge hot lead death.
Isn’t that crazy? To think that a piece of metal barely an inch long can be the catalyst that snuffs out a life in a fraction of a second?
The night breeze plays with the wind chimes on the front porch, sounding a discordantly sweet note. The dry, decrepit odor of the pecan husks that have fallen from the tree next to the house tunnel up my nose. And the poisonous atmosphere that’s gathered around us is harsh on my tongue, like Creole bitters.
In life-and-death situations, all my senses come into sharper focus.
“Tell me once and for all what you did to my boy!” Sullivan shakes his six-shooter in emphasis, and my index finger tightens around my trigger. But I don’t squeeze. I haven’t reached the point of no return. There’s still one thing left to try.
“If I tell you,” I say, “will you finally leave us well enough alone?”
Behind me, Maggie sucks in a startled breath. “Luc, no.”
I don’t dare take my eyes off of Sullivan when I say to her, “I know we swore to take this to our grave. But this secret has been festering for years. The only way I know to stop the spread of the rot is to lance it open and expose it to the air. We’ll deal with whatever he tries to make of it afterward. After all, the truth is on our side. And we have more power to fight him now than we did when we were kids.”
“Tell me!” Sullivan barks again, taking a step toward us.
I feel my trigger give the tiniest bit as the muscles in my hand instinctively react.
“Not another step,” I warn, my voice taking on the authoritative ring I used when aiming to get my unit to fall into line. (Everyone but Cash was always quick to comply.)
Sullivan’s Adam’s apple travels up the length of his throat and seems to lodge there like a fish bone. But he doesn’t say anything more. And he stops his advance.
It ignites a small spark of hope that maybe, just maybe, there’s a way we can all come out of this thing alive.
“After she was gone, he came to,” I say. “He stumbled ’round for a bit before falling back to his knees too close to the water’s edge. You know as well as I do how dangerous it can be there.”
Even before I say the words, Sullivan is shaking his head. Not wanting to believe what he knows comes next. Not wanting to hear it.
“A gator got him,” I say, not couching my words. Letting the horrible truth speak for itself.
Maggie gasps and pokes her head out from behind me. I can feel the force of her gaze, although I don’t dare return it.
“Wait.” Her voice is tremulous. “Are you…” She swallows noisily. “Are you saying Dean was alive?”
My brow pinches in confusion. “’Course he was alive,” I say. “You knocked him for a loop, but—”
“Oh sweet baby Jesus!” The sharp hitch in her voice shoots a jolt straight through me, stopping my heart. When it starts beating again, a rush of blood goes to my head.
“What is it, Maggie May?” I demand, completely flummoxed.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Her whisper sounds harsh, and the second-to-the-last word is cracked in two like it was slammed against a hard edge. “All these years I thought I killed him!”
“Wait. What?” I must look a sight with my eyes bulging from my head. “When I met you back at the truck, I said he was gator food.”
“I thought that meant you’d thrown his body into the swamp! I didn’t know that meant he was literally attacked by an alligator!”
The record player of my mind scratches to a stop. I can’t think. Can’t breathe. All I can do is stand there, staring down the barrel of Sullivan’s .44 as more than ten years of misunderstandings flash in front of my eyes.
There’s a loud buzz in my ears. I’m pretty sure it’s originating in my brain.
Forcing a swallow, I find my voice. “Dean was whole, if not exactly hale, when you ran off that night.”
The sound she makes is awful. Pitiful. A wounded sound. Like a tendon tearing free from bone.
All this time, she’s been living under the impression she’s a killer? It’s untenable. Unthinkable. How could I not have known?
Oh, right. Because I ran off to join the army soon after and cut off all communication with her.
If I didn’t have to worry about Sullivan and his chrome-plated bang stick (which he hasn’t lowered, even after my explanation) I’d be tempted to kick my own ass.
“If he was alive, if it was an alligator that killed him, why have we been lying about seeing him that night?” Her voice is steadier now, but it’s still thick with unshed tears.
“You think he would’ve believed us?” I hitch my chin toward Sullivan.
“I don’t believe you now,” he snarls, proving my point.
“We all knew about that girl from St. Bernard Parish who accused Dean of raping her,” I say to Maggie, ignoring Sullivan. “And we all knew what happened after ol’ Georgie boy got finished with her. Her reputation was ruined, and her name was mud.”
Something passes over Sullivan’s face. Maybe it’s simply remembrance. But it looks a lot more like satisfaction. He seems pleased to have saved Dean by destroying an innocent girl.
“If we’d come forward to say Dean attacked you, do you really think he”—I hitch my chin toward Sullivan—“woulda let that stand? He’d have come after you just like he went after that other girl. Only it woulda been worse ’cause of what happened to Dean afterward.”
“Enough! This is bullshit! I don’t believe any of it!” Sullivan snarls again.
Except, he does believe it. There’s acceptance in his eyes.
Unfortunately, there’s also determination. The truth hasn’t made the slightest difference. He’s still resolved to put an end to us.
I try one more time to change his mind. To save him.
“I want you to know neither of us ever wished Dean harm,” I say calmly, “even after the way he treated us. And that night, I did everything I could to help him.”
The memory of Dean Sullivan’s last moments has, time and again, appeared in my path like a piece of broken glass. When it does, it stabs into the bottom of my foot, leaving me sick with pain and regret.
The same two questions always plague me.
If I’d shouted instead of standing in mute horror when I saw the alligator lunge, would it have given Dean enough time to escape its gaping jaws? Is there something more I could’ve done once the beast grabbed him?
When the reptile shot out of the water like a rocket-fueled missile, I thought I was hallucinating. It was the biggest damn gator I’d ever seen. At least fifteen feet and weighing what had to be three-quarters of a ton. A wily old swamp monster if ever there was one.
Maybe it’d been lured to the water’s edge by the commotion. Maybe it’d been the smell of Dean’s blood that drew it in. Or maybe it’d simply been bad luck. The wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong Louisiana yard dog waiting to pounce.
Regardless of how it happened or why, when it clamped down on Dean’s thigh, the force of its bite nearly severed Dean’s leg. Blood spurted. Flesh tore. In my nightmares, I can still hear the awful sound of Dean’s choked whimper, and I’ve often wondered why he didn’t scream his head off.
Maybe he was in too much shock? Maybe the pain had paralyzed his vocal chords? That’s all I can figure.
I ran for him, grabbing his outstretched hands and pulling with everything I had. But the soles of my rented patent leather shoes were slick. Getting traction was impossible. Falling backward, my hands slipping out of Dean’s desperate grip, I hit the spongy ground with enough force to bruise my tailbone. (I couldn’t sit right for weeks afterward.)
Scrambling to my hands and knees, I looked up to find terror, and the awful inevitability of the situation, written all over Dean’s face. In that moment, he wasn’t the dickhead jock who called me names, or the soulless rapist of teenage girls. He was a boy who knew this was the end of the line.
The giant wasted no time dragging him into the water. Dean fought the entire way, his hands ripping up roots and soil and vegetation. I ran after him, aiming to get a hand on him again. But I wasn’t fast enough. And Dean, for all his hulking football bulk, wasn’t strong enough.
Soon, boy and beast were in the swamp, getting farther and farther away from me with each passing second. I didn’t stop even when the water was up to my waist and I was in danger of being grabbed by another gator or bitten by a water moccasin. I didn’t stop until I was chin-deep and didn’t dare go a fraction farther.
Look away! my mind screamed. And oh, how I wanted to. But I couldn’t let Dean face his gruesome fate alone.
I never broke eye contact with him. Not once. So I saw the instant the reptile’s big body tensed. And knowing what would come next had stomach acid burning the back of my throat.
When the gator barrel-rolled, the night came alive with the awful sound of massive amounts of water being displaced. Great plumes of tea-colored liquid arced into the air, catching the light of the moon and sparkling like strings of diamonds.
Over and over again. Roll, roll, roll. So fast it was a blur. And with each passing second, the circle of blood floating atop the water grew like an oil slick. Until, eventually, the monster stopped.
Where there had been motion and chaos, stillness reigned. And Dean? Well, he was as quiet as the grave.
For good reason. He’d gone to his.
Scrambling backward out of the water, I crab-walked up on the bank, shivering despite the warmth of the night. Sitting there in the mud, all I could hear was the raggedness of
my own breaths and the rapid chug-chug-chug of the runaway freight train that was my heart.
As quickly as it’d arrived on the scene, the alligator sank beneath the surface of the swamp, dragging Dean’s lifeless body with it. I knew it would tuck Dean beneath a submerged log, letting the water go to work on Dean’s flesh, making it tender enough to tear off in great, meaty chunks.
Closing my eyes, I tried not to envision it. But the images assailed me nonetheless. By the time I opened them again, I had to put a hand over my mouth to keep from screaming.
I have no idea how long I stayed there, watching the eddies atop the water expand and swirl. Time seemed to have no meaning. (I know now I was in shock.) But eventually I managed to drag myself to my feet and set about using a big, dead branch to obscure our footprints.
All I was able to think was, No one will believe me about what happened here. George Sullivan will go after Maggie May like he did that girl from St. Bernard Parish. I gotta save her.
Fat lot of good that did me, though. Here we are, ten years later. Still faced with George Sullivan’s wrath.
“Even if what you say is true,” he says now, “that doesn’t change the fact that Dean wouldn’t have been in that swamp if it weren’t for you two. Maybe you didn’t kill him outright, but you’re still the reason he’s dead. And I aim to get justice for my boy, right here and now.”
Here it is. The moment I hoped to avoid. The moment I hoped the truth could prevent.
I give it one last-ditch effort. “There’s a fine line between justice and vengeance, George.” I purposefully use his first name, making what I’m saying more personal. “If you do this, you’ll cross it.”
“Fuck you, you filthy swamp rat!” His aim steadies, and my vision tunnels to a single spot. It’s the place where his trigger finger meets his hand.
“Don’t—” That’s all I manage before I see the muscles in his firing hand twitch.
Volume Two: In Moonlight and Memories, #2 Page 26
