She couldn’t sleep. The problem of the extra money chased itself in her head. Anxiety over the doctor’s odd manner set her nerves on edge. The mystery of Clay’s patient, watchful quiescence, like that of the stalking wolf she’d named him before, plagued her. Unappeased desire, held at bay for years, clamored in her blood along with the new knowledge of how easily the man in the next room could satisfy it.
She was going crazy. Nothing was working out as it should. And the consequences, should things go completely wrong, would not be simply the embarrassment and inconvenience of a prison sentence for her, but death for her daughter.
The only consolation Janna could find, as she lay staring into the darkness, was the occasional protesting squeak of cheap bedsprings from Clay’s room. For all his appearance of control, he was as restless as she was.
The following day was a nightmare. The problems began at six in the morning with the arrival of the propane gas truck to replenish the camp’s supply. Janna heard it coming, but didn’t know what it was until she’d rolled out of bed and gone to look out the window. By the time she’d pulled on her clothes, the delivery driver was already out of his vehicle and stringing hose toward the aboveground tank located at the back corner of the house.
Janna grabbed her purse then headed outside. On her way, she pulled the door of Clay’s room shut. It would be much better if he slept through the visit, though she didn’t depend on it. Her mind raced as she tried to concoct a tale that would explain his captivity should he make it known. The only thing she could come up with, however, was too embarrassing for words.
Denise had requested the delivery, it seemed; she was afraid the tank was low. The gas man, Mike, was a cousin on her mother’s side of the family, a detail Janna heard with resignation. She remembered Denise complaining that getting away with anything in Tunica Parish, where Turn-Coupe was located, was impossible since some relative always caught her.
Cousin Mike was a talkative sort, with a tall, skinny frame, sandy hair and an engaging grin. Working with easy competence, he advised Janna about the best bass fishing on the lake while delving into her and Denise’s history together. He also told her about his baby girl who was the same age as the recent arrival of another of Denise’s cousin’s, Kane, mentioned the latest book out by Luke’s wife, romance writer April Halstead, and described the big to-do with the sheriff’s upcoming wedding. Janna let him talk because she figured he’d be less attentive to what was going on inside the camp that way. Not that there’d been much to worry about up to that moment, since the propane truck itself made a considerable racket.
So centered were her thoughts on this problem that she almost missed his change of subject. Then the tail end of what he’d said snatched her attention. Swinging back to face him, she asked, “What? What did you say?”
“Kid was found floating in the swamp. Awful, don’t you think?” Cousin Mike gave a doleful shake of his head. “I really feel for his people, having to live with what happened, wondering what he saw or knew before he died, or if he was dead before they sliced him up.”
“Please.” The word was stifled as Janna put her hand to her mouth.
“Sorry, but it gets to me that there are people who can actually kill a kid like that for his body parts. But I guess that’s the point, isn’t it? If he hadn’t been young and healthy, they wouldn’t have bothered with him.”
Sickness rose inside Janna. She’d done enough research, seen enough photos of organ transplant surgery, to have much too vivid an idea of the wounds inflicted by it. Beyond that image, however, was a specter too terrible to allow even a small place in her mind.
Her voice faint in her own ears, she asked, “Do things like this happen often around here?”
“Lord, no! First time that I know of.”
“And they haven’t found the person responsible?”
“They haven’t even identified the kid. I mean, he’d been in the water for a while. I expect whoever did it thought the turtles and alligators would take care of him.”
She drew a hissing breath, even as she shook her head.
“Sorry,” Cousin Mike said again. “But you can bet they’re pulling out all the stops looking for the creep who did it. Roan doesn’t cotton to things like this happening in his jurisdiction—that’s Sheriff Roan Benedict, you know? And the list of suspects can’t be that long.”
“You don’t think it was someone from around here?”
The gas man checked the tank’s gauge, then began to remove the hose. “My money is on the crime bosses down around Baton Rouge and New Orleans. I mean, it’s not that far, and they’ve used our swamp for their dumping ground before.”
“I’d think it would take someone with medical knowledge,” she observed, almost to herself.
“Could be, maybe a doc that had his license pulled, med. school dropout, surgical nurse who’s seen one too many botched operations, and so on.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t have to be, though.”
“Meaning?”
“Lots of folks in this part of the country know a thing or two about butchering. Hunters, trappers and farmers cut up meat all the time. You don’t do that without learning where all the important bits are located.”
“I see your point,” she said, her voice constricted in her throat.
He lifted his head, gazing around at the camp and the lake beyond. Then he asked, “You seen anything of old Alligator Arty since you’ve been here?”
“He came by.” It had become second nature to be cautious.
“Might want to watch out for him. He has a record, you know. Not that I’m saying he had anything to do with this deal.”
“A criminal record, you mean?”
“Spent almost twenty years in the pen at Angola for taking his hunting knife to a man who got too friendly with his wife. Cut his throat for him, pretty as you please, and left him back in the swamp for ’gator bait.”
“I can’t believe it,” she said with a slow shake of her head.
“Weird old coot, keeps to himself. Never hurt anybody else that I ever heard, but you never can tell.”
“What about his wife?”
“Divorced him, of course, moved clean out of the country. Told people she was afraid of what he’d do when he got out of prison.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t get the death penalty,” she said.
“Jury only gave him twenty because they thought he had cause for being riled, I guess. Which is probably the same reason the wife hightailed it. Anyway, I’d watch out for Arty. Well, and for any other strangers hanging around.”
“Yes. Yes, I will.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms as goose bumps rippled over her skin.
“Yeah, gives me the willies, too,” Denise’s cousin said with sympathy as he eyed her quick movement. “I mean, what kind of fiend could do that sort of thing?”
“Exactly.” Even as the agreement left her mouth, Janna wondered what this plain working man would think of her if he knew she could have some remote involvement with the incident.
At that moment, she heard a sound from the direction of the house. She glanced around in time to see Lainey standing at the bedroom window with Clay like a shadow only a few paces behind her. The angle of the house created glare on the glass that kept them from being plainly seen, still Janna moved to block Cousin Mike’s view as he straightened and turned back in the direction of his truck. “How much do I owe you for the gas?” she asked, raising her voice a little to cover any more attention-drawing noises.
“Don’t worry about it. Denise said put it on her account.”
“I pay my own way,” Janna insisted. “Just tell me how much.”
“Can’t do it.” The sandy haired man shook his head as he disconnected the hose and began to stow it away. “You and Denise will have to settle it between you. I only do what I’m told.” He gave her a droll smile. “So, you going to be here long?”
His curiosity, as idle as it might be, set off alarm bells inside Janna. “Not rea
lly,” she answered in dismissive tones. “But thanks for bringing the gas, anyway.”
“My pleasure, ma’am.” He hesitated as if he’d like to say more, but apparently thought better of it. Touching a finger to his cap in a farewell salute, he turned and climbed into his truck. Moments later, the heavy vehicle rumbled down the gravel road.
Janna didn’t move again for long minutes, but stood staring blindly at the drifting cloud of dust that had been left behind.
Dear God, but was it truly possible that the kidney Lainey was to receive had been cut from the body of the dead boy? As horrifying as the idea might be, it defied reason to think otherwise. Or did it?
A kidney was viable outside the body for less than 72 hours, and that was under controlled conditions with specialized machinery sending pulses of preserving fluid through it at regular intervals. Dr. Gower had said the kidney for Lainey would be ready within the week, not immediately. The time frame did not match. The death of the boy found in the swamp could not be on her conscience, then.
No, it couldn’t, but what about when the specified time arrived? Might someone else be destined to die to insure that Lainey lived?
Jana had never dreamed anything like this might take place. The implication had always been that the process of harvesting organs outside the system was unethical and the profit from it illegal, but that was all. It wasn’t supposed to be lethal.
A hard knot gathered in her chest, threatening to choke her. She felt trapped, caught in something inescapable. What was she going to do? What?
How long she might have stood there, she didn’t know. She was recalled to a sense of where she was and what she had to do by Lainey knocking on the window behind her. She turned and tried to smile at her daughter, though the effort felt cramped and unnatural and she could barely see for the rainbow prisms of the tears that pooled in her eyes. Focusing on Clay Benedict was so impossible that she didn’t even try. Bending her head as if watching her step, she wiped under her lashes with the edge of her hand and turned back toward the house.
Lainey had been trying to attract her attention because there was a call on her cell phone. Janna took the unit from her and spoke into it with caution since Clay was standing in the doorway down the hall.
It was Denise on the other end. She was just checking, she said, wondering if the gas had been delivered as promised, if the air conditioners were keeping the place cool enough, also how Janna was making out so far without malls and supermarkets. Satisfied on all these points, she finally said, “So. Anything exciting happening that I should know about?”
“Same old, same old,” Janna told her as casually as she could manage.
“Really.” Her friend’s voice carried a note that made the muscles in the back of Janna’s neck tighten.
“More or less.”
“Having Clay on the premises isn’t unusual?”
Janna closed her eyes. “Lainey told you, I suppose.”
“Bless her little heart,” Denise said with wry cheer. “At least she seems to be enjoying his company. But he must have been there a while.”
Janna did not like the suggestive tone of Denise’s voice. She could just picture her, the dark eyes, glossy, perfectly coiffed black hair and red, red lips that made the very image of New Orleans sophistication and suspicion. “It isn’t what you think,” she said with some asperity. “He only came by to check on the camp.”
“And he’s still hanging around?”
There was no way Janna could explain, since Denise thought her whole purpose in using the camp was the designs for her new fabric line. The two of them had been close at one time, before Matt died, but then Janna had returned to Mississippi and completed her education there. She had only told Denise about Lainey’s renal problem when she contacted her concerning the camp weeks ago. Even so, she hadn’t divulged its severity.
“We’ve…seen quite a bit of him,” she said in as casual a tone as she could manage.
Denise was quiet a long moment. “He knows about Lainey then?”
“No! Not yet.”
“How intriguing. So tell me, are you two involved?”
Janna glanced in the direction of her workroom. She could hear Lainey talking to Ringo, but Clay stood with his arms folded over his chest and one shoulder propped on the door facing. Holding his gaze, she answered, “Hardly.”
“Too bad,” Denise said with dissatisfaction. “I wish…”
“What?”
“Clay is so like Matt. The same looks, same lethal charm, same love of life…”
“I noticed,” Janna answered, profoundly glad Clay could not hear his cousin.
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
Janna couldn’t let her go on. “I know what you meant.”
“I doubt it. I realize Matt’s dad threatened you years ago, and understand why you’ve never wanted me to act as go-between for the family. Still, I’ve always wished you could get to know them, especially Clay.”
“No.” It was now clear to Janna why Denise had sent her handsome cousin to check on her in the first place.
“But it would be so perfect, I mean really.”
“It wouldn’t be perfect,” she corrected with iron in her voice, “it would be obscene. I have no use for a replica of Lainey’s father.”
At a soft sound behind her, she turned to look down the hall again. The doorway to the spare bedroom was now empty.
“What?” Denise asked in her ear. “What did you say?”
“Nothing. I have to go.”
“Think about it. Think about what’s best for Lainey,” Denise said in haste, as if afraid she might be cut off.
“I am.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I,” Janna said, and punched the button to end the call.
The day wore on. Janna cleared the breakfast dishes, played tea party with Lainey using the plastic film containers Clay had given her, which were fast becoming a sizable collection, and ran a load of clothes through the ancient combination washer and dryer that sat in a corner of the bathroom. Folding Clay’s T-shirts and shorts seemed an oddly intimate task, one triggering a myriad of less than comfortable reactions. They were sophomoric, she knew, but that didn’t make them go away.
That he’d overheard what she’d said to Denise concerned her. How he had taken it, exactly, she didn’t know; he’d remained in his room all morning and she hadn’t ventured inside it. It wasn’t just the unfortunate slip of her tongue that bothered her, of course, but her recent discoveries. It crossed her mind to wonder if Clay knew about the body found in the lake, and if that might not have colored his reactions. It would explain a great deal.
The only way he could have discovered that, of course, was if Arty had told him. She wasn’t sure why the old swamp man would let Clay in on something so important while leaving her in ignorance, but she supposed past friendship might account for it. That was, of course, unless he and Clay had put their heads together and determined that it was best not to mention the situation because she could be implicated in it. The conclusion was logical, in all fairness. The problem was that she didn’t feel like being fair.
There was another possibility; the two men could have something to hide themselves. Both of them spent their time in the swamp and knew it well. Who better to dispose of a body in its backwaters?
Janna stopped with her hands clutched on a pair of Clay’s briefs and closed her eyes. Why did she have to endure this soul-searching over a fairly common medical procedure necessary to save her daughter? It was as if something was trying to tell her that what she was doing was wrong, but how could she accept that when the only other option, waiting for a legal kidney, was as potentially lethal as it was uncertain?
“That might be more rewarding if those were occupied.”
Clay’s drawl, dry yet layered with implication, came from the bathroom doorway. Janna knew immediately what he meant, recognized that she had been mindlessly kneading the warm cotton of
his briefs that were folded with the crotch in the front. She drew back the briefs and tossed them at his chest. “For that crack,” she said with disdain, “you can fold your own underwear.”
“I could take care of all my laundry if I was free.”
“Fat chance.”
He gave her a sultry look from under his lashes. “You’re sure? You might find other advantages.”
It was a relief to find that he hadn’t been sulking, though why she should care was something she had no intention of examining. “Forget it,” she said succinctly as she picked up the laundry basket.
“You’re a hard woman, Janna Kerr.”
“Aren’t I just?” The smile she gave him was as brittle as her voice as she slid past him into the hall. She could feel his gaze on her as she walked away, but she didn’t look back.
Lunch was a simple meal of baked chicken breast strips, rolls and a fresh green salad. While Janna prepared it, Lainey wandered back to be with Clay again, and the mingled bass and treble of their voices made Janna feel left out, almost excluded from some secret society. She placed the salads on a tray, along with bottled dressing, crackers and tall glasses of iced tea, and then carried everything back to join them.
Lainey and Clay had been playing with Ringo, and the little raccoon lay curled in her lap. With a significant glance at the ball of fur, Janna said, “Time to eat, sweetheart. Run wash your hands.”
Her daughter gave her a querulous glance. “Oh, Mama.”
“Mind your mother, punkin,” Clay said quietly.
Lainey met his steady blue gaze for a second. Something she saw there apparently convinced her it was useless to argue, for she heaved a sigh, then set Ringo aside and got to her feet. She took a couple of steps toward the door, then turned back. “Clay needs to wash his hands, too, Mama, only he can’t very well. Besides, his fingers are all purple. Can’t you untie him for just a little while?”
For no reason that she could think of, Janna flushed. Lainey had adapted to Clay’s presence so easily, in the way children often accepted changes in their lives, that she’d assumed her daughter thought nothing of his captivity. She’d been wrong. “I really don’t think so,” she began.
Clay Page 10
