Apparent Wind (The Forgotten Coast Florida Suspense Series Book 7)

by Dawn Lee McKenna

  “It’s just that, I had this thing, this thing that wasn’t about being a mom or a cop or a girlfriend. It was something that was just me and him…this friendship, and I have to admit I was flattered that we had it. He doesn’t really like people.”

  “Evidently,” he said, and Maggie knew he was trying to lighten things up a little, for both of them. But nothing really wanted to be lightened up.

  “But then I find out that he’s not spending time with me because of me, he’s spending time with me because of who I am, because of what I am. And that my mother had some kind of relationship with him long before I met him.”

  “Okay,” Wyatt said.

  Maggie dumped the chunks of red pepper into the bowl, then wiped her hands on a dishcloth and turned around. “That sounds bad. I’m not sure I’m explaining it right.”

  Wyatt frowned down at her, then put both hands on her shoulders. “Look. I’m not going to pretend to understand everything you think or feel about this situation, and I’m not going to pretend to like everything that I do understand. But here are a couple of things that I think. I think that you’re going to have some kind of relationship with Boudreaux regardless, and you’re going to have to figure out what that relationship is. Nobody can do that for you.”

  Maggie nodded at his chest, and Wyatt tucked a finger under her chin and tilted her head back.

  “I also think that this thing can either bring you and your mom closer together or not, but that’s not circumstances; it’s a choice you’re going to make.”

  Maggie could feel some defensiveness wanting to assert itself. Wyatt saw it on her face.

  “You always said your mother was too perfect for you to relate to. Well now she’s not,” he said simply. “She made a mistake when she was just a kid.”

  “Wyatt—”

  “Hold up,” he said quietly. “She made that mistake with someone that you considered your friend. I think that’s what’s really sticking to you. It was Boudreaux. If it had been some other guy, would it be as big a deal as it is right now?”

  Maggie opened her mouth to argue his point, but shut it again without answering. She didn’t really know the answer for certain, but she knew there was a decent chance that Wyatt was right. Wyatt kissed her on the forehead and then walked over to the fridge.

  “Think about this, too,” he said, as he grabbed a beer from the fridge. “She was eighteen. The homecoming queen, daughter of the Chief of Police, engaged to the salt of the earth and all that. She could have had an abortion. Instead she just lied.” He twisted the cap off the beer and took a pull. “But not to your dad.”

  Maggie stared at the floor, at a point halfway between them.

  “Hey,” Wyatt said. She looked up as he took another drink. “I’ll support you, whatever you decide,” he said as he walked out of the kitchen to the living room. “As long as you decide to do what I tell you.”

  Maggie stood there for a moment, watching him go, and heard him go back out the screen door. Then she turned to the sink, grabbed the colander full of spaghetti, and took a few pieces out before dumping the pasta into a slowly simmering pot of homemade vodka sauce.

  She grabbed a small plastic bowl from the cupboard, dumped the handful of plain noodles into it, and walked out to the front deck.

  Her seventeen-year old daughter Sky was tossing her bean bags at the corn hole board in the front yard, while her eleven-year old son Kyle watched. Every time a bean bag dropped through a hole, Stoopid ran over like a border guard on night watch and pecked at the bag.

  “You guys, dinner’s ready,” Maggie called down.

  “Can I take my turn?” Kyle called up. “It’s the last round.”

  “Go ahead,” Maggie answered, then raised her voice. “Stoopid!”

  She tapped at the side of the bowl and Stoopid dashed across the yard and started running up the stairs, wings akimbo, with all the grace of a camel in high heels. She put the bowl down on the deck, and he one-eyed it a second while he warbled sweet nothings at it. Stoopid found spaghetti endlessly fascinating, and they’d probably be able to eat out on the deck in peace.

  Maggie turned and walked around to the side deck. Wyatt was sitting at the round table, beer in hand, staring out at the woods, and his profile broke her heart. The laugh lines at the corner of his eye, the dimples at parade rest in his cheek, the long brown lashes as they floated down and then up again. This was her man, and she was more grateful for that fact than for just about anything she could think of.

  She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and then put her hands on her hips, her fingers twisting nervously into her palms.

  “So, I’m ready,” she said after a moment.

  He looked over at her. “For what?”

  “For…you know, to get married,” she said.

  “Oh,” he said simply, then took a drink of his beer. “Good.”

  He looked back out at the yard, and it took Maggie a second to regroup.

  “Ok. So, okay? You’ll marry me, then?”

  He looked back at her. “What?”

  Maggie’s mouth hung open just a little. “Are you going to marry me or what?”

  “Well, no.”

  Maggie blinked a few times. “You said if I proposed, you would say yes.”

  “Oh, was that a proposal?” Wyatt asked, looking almost convincingly surprised.

  Maggie thought about heaving him over the rail, but she knew she lacked the leverage. “Yeah,” she snapped.

  “Really? Because it sounded more like you were asking me if I wanted cheddar or Muenster on my burger,” he said.

  “We’re having spaghetti,” she said.

  Wyatt turned around in his chair, stretched out his ridiculously long legs, and rested his beer in his lap.

  “How did David propose to you?” he asked, like he was interviewing her for a talk show.

  “I don’t—we started talking about getting married when we were fourteen, Wyatt,” she said snippily. “I don’t think he did propose.”

  “Of course not,” Wyatt said. “Well, I don’t need you to get all fancy about it, and I don’t think it’s necessary for it to be dramatic or even particularly romantic, but it ought to at least be noticeable.”

  Maggie popped her fists back onto her hips. So many replies came to mind that she couldn’t decide on one. “You’re an ass,” she said, which generally served as her default.

  “Yeah, well, dead horse and all that,” he said, and took another drink of his beer as she stalked back around the corner of the house. Then he grinned out at the yard.

  Later that night, Maggie sat at the table on the deck, the Corzo file from Mike, and her own case file open in front of her and a half-full glass of wine beside her. She took notes longhand, as was her habit, as she went through each page in Mike’s folder. The wind had died down a bit with the setting of the sun, and now, at close to one in the morning, all was quiet, save for the occasional rustle of leaves or the perambulations of a coon or possum.

  The receipts from Marisol’s bathroom weren’t of much interest. They were both from her secured card. One was for the trip she and Axel had made to the Marathon station Wednesday night. The other was from Café con Leche earlier that day.

  There really wasn’t anything else from the lab that Maggie didn’t already know. The cigarette butts outside bothered her, though. Either someone who liked the same brand had been smoking for some time near where Marisol was murdered, or she had had some reason to go outside to smoke, even though she’d been smoking in her room. The credit card and the missing iPhone were another problem Maggie didn’t like.

  Her own phone interrupted her thoughts as it vibrated on the table. It was Axel. Maggie picked it up and connected.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey,” Axel answered. He sounded like he was outdoors.

  “Where are you?” Maggie asked him.

  “Out off of the Cut.”

  “Are you working?” Maggie asked, taken aback.


  “No, just sitting,” he answered. His words were just a hair slow.

  “Are you drinking?” she asked him gently.

  “That, too.”

  “Axel.”

  “Come on, Maggie,” he said, and she could hear him smile. “You know good and well that I’m a better captain drunk than most people are sober.”

  That was primarily true, but it wasn’t the whole of the point.

  “Do you want some company?” Maggie asked. “I can grab Daddy’s runabout.”

  “No, this is company enough,” Axel said quietly.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” he answered, but he didn’t try hard to make it sound true. “I just needed some time on the water. Everything’s clearer out on the water. You know that.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I just wanted to check in and see what’s going on. With Mari.”

  “Well, actually, I tried to call you earlier,” Maggie said. “Her boyfriend’s here.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “I don’t think it’ll actually be anything, but I’d appreciate it if you just kind of laid low, you know?”

  “Why?” he asked, but it wasn’t really a question.

  “I don’t know what his deal is,” Maggie answered. “But on the off-chance that he thinks you killed Marisol, I don’t want some kind of incident.”

  “What’s his name?” he asked her.

  “Forget it, Axel.”

  “Does he think I killed her?”

  “I don’t know. He knows you were arrested,” she said.

  “Maybe he knows I didn’t kill her. Maybe he did.”

  Maggie sighed. “Look, that’s a possibility, but so far we don’t know that he wasn’t in Tampa when she was killed. He says he didn’t know she was here.”

  “She said she was here for him, Maggie,” Axel said.

  “I know.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “He’s an ass,” Maggie answered. “Sizable ego. Not all that bright.”

  “And you think he might come looking for me?”

  “Not really. I just want you to be aware,” Maggie answered. “And it would be helpful to me if you kept a low profile.”

  Axel was quiet for a moment. Maggie could just hear the water lapping against his hull. It made her think she could smell a hint of salt.

  “Axel, I don’t want you looking for him, either, okay?” He didn’t answer. “Axel.”

  “I heard you,” he said. “I spent some time researching strangulation today,” he said after a moment.

  “Axel,” Maggie said, sighing.

  “In the movies, they make it look so quick,” he said. “But it’s not, really, is it?”

  Maggie swallowed. “Not necessarily.”

  “A lot depends on the strength of the one doing the strangling,” he went on quietly. “And the victims don’t really pass out peacefully beforehand, do they?”

  “Sometimes they lose consciousness,” Maggie said.

  “Sometimes they don’t,” he said.

  Maggie didn’t answer, and he was quiet for a moment. Maggie heard him take a drink. Bourbon, most likely, from the aluminum travel mug she and David had given him for his birthday some years back.

  Maggie looked out across the tops of the trees that covered most of her land, in the direction of the bay. She squinted, as though she would be able to see his running lights miles away out there on the water.

  “I read that it’s common for victims to lose control of their bowels and bladders while they’re being strangled,” Axel said quietly. “Is that true?”

  Maggie took in a slow breath. “Sometimes.”

  “Did Mari mess herself, Maggie?” His voice was so soft she would have strained to hear him if she hadn’t already known what he would ask.

  “No,” she lied.

  They were quiet for a moment.

  Maggie felt her eyes warm and water, and she blinked a few times. “I can come out there, Axel,” she said gently.

  “No. I’m okay, Maggie,” he said. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”

  He disconnected without waiting for her to answer, and she put down the phone and stared out at the dark woods behind her house.

  She jumped just a little when the sliding glass door beside her slid open. Sky was standing there in a pair of knit shorts and a tee shirt, her hair up in a messy bun.

  “Dude, it’s like one in the morning,” Sky said quietly.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Maggie said. “What are you doing up?”

  “I had to use the bathroom.”

  Maggie looked just like her mother, and Sky looked just like Maggie, with the exception of a charming cleft chin. They had always assumed it came from David’s side of the family, but Maggie found herself staring at Sky lately, looking for resemblances to Boudreaux. She hadn’t really found any.

  “Is that stuff from Uncle Axel’s case?” Sky asked.

  “Yeah.” Maggie took a sip of her wine.

  “That’s such bull,” Sky said.

  “I know.”

  “Is he okay?”

  Maggie shrugged. “I just talked to him,” she said. “He’s out on the boat.”

  “He’s working?”

  “No, he just wanted to be out on the water,” Maggie answered. She understood that.

  “I hate this,” Sky said quietly.

  “Me, too.” Maggie put her pen down. “I didn’t get to ask you, how was the Gainesville visit?”

  “I think college would be a lot more appetizing if there weren’t so many college-age guys there,” Sky said. “Guys really shouldn’t even be allowed to speak in public until they’re like thirty.”

  Maggie smiled at her. “You could always go up north, to some girls’ college,” she said, though she knew Sky wanted to stay close, and that was perfectly fine with her.

  “Yeah, except I don’t really like girls that much, either,” Sky said. “I guess I get my social skills from you.”

  “FSU wasn’t so bad,” Maggie said. Maggie had gotten her BA there.

  “Yeah, I’m leaning that way. Bella still wants me to go to Auburn with her, but I’m not into it.”

  “It would look good on your law school apps,” Maggie said.

  “I know. It’s just so…inland,” Sky said.

  Maggie smiled at her daughter. “It is that.”

  “Of course, Wyatt thinks I should go there so I can get Iron Bowl tickets,” Sky said.

  “He’ll forgive you if you don’t,” Maggie said. “Just do what feels right to you, Sky. You know I’m behind you.”

  Sky nodded. “I know.” She looked down at the deck for a moment, tapping her thigh with her fingers, then looked back up at Maggie. “I feel better about leaving, you know, ’cause of you and Wyatt Earp.”

  Maggie smiled. “Were you worried about me?”

  “Well, I mean…you and your umbilical cord, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know,” Maggie answered. “It’s fine Sky. It’s not like I thought I could keep you at home forever.” Maggie felt a tightness in her chest. Actually, she had hoped she could. “Besides, you’ll be back.”

  It was Sky’s intention to work for the State’s Attorney’s office in Franklin County. That had been Maggie’s dream, too, at one time.

  “Yeah. Meanwhile, you still have the dweeb,” Sky said. “I’m pretty sure he’s going to college online in his room.”

  “We’ll see,” Maggie said, smiling.

  “I’m going to bed,” Sky said. “By the way, Stoopid’s roosting on the ceiling fan again.”

  Maggie sighed. “Turn it on. He’ll get down.”

  “Yeah, while he’s crapping like a Spirograph all over the living room. Night Mom.”

  “Goodnight, baby.”

  Maggie watched her go back inside, sliding the door shut behind her. Then she looked out in the general direction of the bay, several miles away.

  She thought about Axel sitting out there under the stars, lis
tening to the water lap at his hull, probably drinking bourbon, and she wished he didn’t have to go off by himself to feel like he wasn’t alone.

  SUNDAY DAWNED CLEAR and vaguely cool, at least by Florida standards. Maggie had gone to bed with the sincere intention of sleeping in until at least seven, but was jerked awake by something that sounded like a goat being eaten butt-first by a snake.

  She bolted upright and kicked at the covers until Stoopid choked mid-crow and flapped indignantly down to the floor. Maggie swung her legs over the side of the bed, picked up her phone and saw that it was after six, and decided to get up anyway.

  She tossed Stoopid out onto the deck with a bowl of vegetable scraps so that she could have her coffee in peace, then took her second cup with her when she went out to tend to the chickens. Stoopid followed, this being the only time of day that he remembered he had a flock. He might have taken a shine to sitting on upholstered furniture, but he still loved some chicken feed and, on occasion, some chicken love.

  Maggie let the birds out into their fenced yard, fed and watered them, gathered nine eggs, and then closed the fence with Stoopid still in there. He’d fly back over it eventually, but it gave her a certain satisfaction. She knew it would be short lived; the next time she saw him, he’d probably be playing on the XBox.

  Once she’d washed the eggs and put them in her grandmother’s big stoneware bowl, she fixed herself another cup of coffee and sat down at the rustic dining room table her father had built with his father.

  As she drank her coffee, she ran her hand along the table’s age-worn surface. She picked at the nick from the time Kyle had accidentally dropped David’s hammer. She looked for and found the tiny “S” that Sky had carved onto the edge when she was eleven. Smiled at the word “Dad” that had been poorly scratched into the varnish in front of David’s old place. Sky had only been six then, and hadn’t meant any harm. Like Maggie, she had been a Daddy’s girl.

  Maggie looked at it for a long while, then picked up her phone and dialed.

  Bennett Boudreaux put down the weekly newspaper and poured himself another cup of Café du Monde from the Lenox coffee pot. Over at the island in the middle of the large, bright kitchen, his Creole cook and housekeeper, Amelia, stood staring into a cast iron skillet, where one over-medium egg gently sizzled.