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

by Dawn Lee McKenna

  Boudreaux stirred a spoonful of sand-colored cane sugar into his coffee, then took a sip. Amelia looked over at him, then put one hand on her hip.

  “I seen you sittin’ up all hours on the back porch last night,” she said to him.

  He glanced over at her as he set his cup down, then picked up his paper. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said.

  “You can’t sleep a lot these days,” she said.

  He looked up to find her still staring at him. She was only two years older than he, and her mother had raised them both. There were many people who were afraid to be frank with him. She wasn’t any of those people.

  “Everything’s fine, Amelia,” he said.

  “Lie to me all you want, Mr. Benny,” Amelia said. “But you keep hangdoggin’ around like you doin’, she gon’ pick up on it.”

  “I’ll deal with Miss Evangeline,” Boudreaux said.

  “Go ’head then,” she said, jerking her head at the back door. “There she go.”

  Boudreaux sighed and stood up from the table. A moment later, the back door opened, and an aluminum walker outfitted with bright green tennis balls came clattering through, followed closely by Boudreaux’s one hundred year old former nanny. At less than five feet and fewer than ninety pounds, she almost disappeared within her flowered housedress. A bright bandana, yellow today, covered her small oval head and helped keep her thick glasses in place.

  “Mornin’, Mama,” Amelia said as she slid the egg onto a plate that held one slice of bacon and a piece of sourdough toast.

  “Mornin’, baby,” the old woman answered. Her voice sounded like nutmeg being grated.

  “Good morning, Miss Evangeline,” Boudreaux said, as she crept toward the table.

  “We see,” she said.

  Boudreaux pulled out her chair and waited. Once she was abreast of him, he kissed one of her hollowed cheeks, then stood by until she’d managed to arrange herself in her seat. He sat back down on his side of the table as Amelia set Miss Evangeline’s plate and hot tea in front of her.

  The old woman inspected the plate, which was precisely the same as every plate she’d inspected for the last twelve-thousand mornings, then poked her Coke bottle lenses in Boudreaux’s direction.

  “Them cat from next door was fornicatin’ under my window again last night,” she barked. “I need you give me back my buzzer.”

  Boudreaux sighed as he put his cup down. “I was on the porch quite late last night, and I didn’t hear anything.”

  “That’s cause you ain’t sleep under my window, no,” she said. “Where my buzzer at?”

  “I’ll give it back to you later,” he said, which was a lie. Her days of carrying a Taser were over. He’d gotten it for her protection, and taken it away for everyone else’s. He picked the paper back up and had twelve seconds of quiet in which to read it.

  “What the purple place on the paper?” Boudreaux heard her ask.

  “The Apalachicola River Inn,” he answered quietly. “They found a woman’s body in the creek. Or I should say a gator found it.”

  Miss Evangeline’s head popped up, the sunlight bouncing off of her lenses. “Gator? What she doin’ messin’ with the gator?”

  “It doesn’t sound like she was doing much of anything,” Boudreaux said as he turned the page.

  “Gator ain’t no puppy dog, no,” she said snapped. “Cain’t go in his place like you belong there.”

  Boudreaux sighed and let the paper drop to the table as he picked up his coffee. “She didn’t go for a dip,” he said. “Apparently, her body was dumped there.”

  She was quiet for a moment, and Boudreaux picked his paper back up. After a moment, he heard her sandpaper voice from beyond the editorial page.

  “That ain’t how you do it, no,” she said. “You take the body out the swamp, weigh it down good.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he answered quietly.

  “What they gon’ do the gator?”

  “Euthanize it, I expect,” he said.

  “Do what the gator?”

  “Kill it,” he said.

  It was a few moments before she spoke again. He’d almost thought he’d have the rest of his coffee in peace when she piped back up.

  “I need you go get me the gator,” she said. “We put him the next door yard. Them cat won’t be fornicatin’ under my window anymore, no.”

  He was about to make a smart remark when his phone buzzed on the table beside his coffee. He didn’t ordinarily take calls during breakfast, but he recognized Maggie’s number. He connected the call.

  “Hello, Maggie,” he said quietly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Miss Evangeline’s head jerk up.

  “Hello, Mr. Boudreaux,” Maggie said, her voice even.

  Boudreaux waited a moment. He heard her sigh.

  “I was wondering if we could talk sometime today,” she said finally. “Tonight, actually.”

  “Is this about your case?” he asked.

  “No.”

  He took a slow breath and let it out silently. “Come over anytime.”

  “I—” Maggie started.

  “Tell the girl tomorrow ice cream day,” Miss Evangeline barked before Maggie could finish. Boudreaux looked up at her. “She come take me the ice cream.”

  “She’ll take you nowhere,” he said quietly.

  “You ain’t the boss o’ her, no,” Miss Evangeline snapped back.

  Boudreaux ignored her, looked out the window across the room. The wind was brisk, and the palm outside was almost panicky.

  “I’m sorry, Maggie,” he said quietly. “You were saying?”

  “I’d rather talk someplace more private,” she said.

  Boudreaux thought about that a moment. “I could use some time out on the island,” he said. “You know where my house is, on Schooner?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you come there?”

  “Yes,” she answered after a moment.

  “What time shall I meet you?”

  “About seven,” she said.

  “I’ll see you then, Maggie,” he said gently.

  She hung up without answering, and he put the phone down on the table. Miss Evangeline was staring at him.

  “Girl know,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You tell her?”

  “No, she just knows,” he answered quietly, his eyes on the window and his thoughts somewhere else entirely.

  “What time we go the ice cream?”

  Boudreaux sighed and looked back at the old woman.. “How about two? That way when she arrests you for Tasering some other halfwit, the newspaper will have time to report that I was seen posting bail for my nanny.”

  He gave her a tight smile, and she sat up a bit straighter. He thought perhaps he could hear her spine creaking.

  “Go on, smile at me like you do, Mr. Benny,” she said. “You ain’t gon’ smile when I pull your lip up over your head, no.”

  Maggie spent the day enjoying some time with the kids. They spent most of it fishing off of Lafayette Pier, then picnicking in Lafayette Park beneath one of the old, stately trees.

  Maggie tried to distract herself with the banter of her kids, the fight in the fish they caught, the way the sunlight shattered into a million diamonds on the bay, but underneath it all was a gently pulsing dread of the evening ahead.

  Sky had plans for the evening with her friends and Kyle had a sleepover. After she dropped him off just after 5pm, she felt at loose ends. She considered stopping by Wyatt’s for some support and fortitude, but suspected she’d chicken out of going to Boudreaux’s if she did. She thought about grabbing a coffee, but she was nervous enough.

  In the end, she decided to head over to the island early. All of her life, whenever she’d needed to be soothed or strengthened, she’d gone to the beach. Staring out at the Gulf, listening to the waves, being reminded how small she and her problems really were, these things calmed her more than anything else she knew.

  Bou
dreaux’s house was at the quiet, eastern end of St. George Island, where there were far fewer homes and fewer of them were rented out to tourists. She’d never been to his beach house, but she’d seen him there once over the summer, on a warmer and far more frightening night.

  She parked in the partially developed lot next door, and glanced at his driveway as she made her way down to the beach. She didn’t see his car, and she was glad he hadn’t come early as well. She’d already spent enough time trying to figure out all of the things she wanted to say and all of the things she didn’t, but she wanted some time to try not to think at all.

  There was no one else on the beach, which wasn’t surprising. The crowds from the seafood festival at the beginning of the month were gone, and the tourists who were left were at the other end of the island.

  The tide was headed back in, and Maggie kicked off her flip-flops and walked through the soft, dry sand and onto the packed, damp sand closer to the water. The water was a deep green in the waning light, topped with grayish-white froth as it unfolded itself onto the shore.

  She sat down on the sand and watched the water, watched as the sky went from silver to orange to a deep, inscrutable blue. Now and then, she saw the lights of a shrimp boat as it headed out for the night, and she tried not to imagine that one of them might be David, granted a pass for a night of fishing back on earth, simply because he’d loved it so.

  After some time, when the beach had gone dark except for the moonlight, Maggie walked down to the shore and stood at the edge of the now black water. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply as she heard each wave break onto the beach, as she felt them course over her feet. She almost smiled as she felt the wet sand shift underneath her, pulled toward the Gulf by the receding water. It was one of her favorite sensations.

  “Hello, Maggie.”

  Maggie started just a bit, then looked over her shoulder.

  Boudreaux was standing about six feet behind her. He, too, had taken off his shoes. The bottoms of his khaki cargo pants were sandy. The wind made ripples in his black cashmere sweater and tossed his hair over his brow.

  “You’re early,” Maggie said.

  “So are you.”

  They stared at each other long enough for it to become uncomfortable. Maggie was grateful that the wind was blowing her hair into her face. She had never had a poker face, and she felt like her hair offered a curtain behind which to hide emotions she didn’t feel like sharing.

  Eventually, Boudreaux sighed quietly. “Maggie, I’m sorry. You should have been told a long time ago,” he said.

  “Why are you in my life now?” Maggie asked him. “If everybody was so okay with keeping this a secret, why did you start this now?”

  He looked at her for a moment before answering. “Once we started talking, I didn’t want to stop,” he said.

  “You should have told me the truth!” she snapped.

  “Yes.” His eyes pinned her to nothing. “If I had, what would you have done?”

  She thought about that a moment. “Probably exactly what I’m doing now,” she said angrily. “But at least I wouldn’t—” She broke off and looked away, unsure how she meant to finish that sentence. At least she wouldn’t have felt so betrayed? No, she would have no matter when she’d been told.

  “Wouldn’t what?” he asked quietly.

  She looked back at him, standing there so calmly. She wanted to seem that calm but she just didn’t have the energy to make the effort. “At least I wouldn’t feel like such an idiot,” she said.

  “Why should you feel like an idiot?” he asked her quietly. “For not knowing?”

  “For caring so much!” she yelled without meaning to.

  “Caring about what?”

  Maggie opened her mouth to answer, then shook her head and looked out at the water. “This was a mistake,” she said. “I’m not ready to have this conversation with you.”

  “Yes, you are,” she heard him say. “You just don’t want to be so transparent about it.”

  Maggie’s head shot back around. “Somebody’d better be transparent about it, because it isn’t any of you! I feel like such an ass! All the angst I went though, trying to tell right from wrong, all the crap I put up with for talking to you, because I felt some kind of connection to you.”

  “That connection is real,” he said.

  “That connection is crap!” she yelled. “All of those conversations, you putting your life on the line to save me, meant nothing. It was just you working off some kind of obligation! You and your Catholic guilt.”

  “Of course I felt some kind of obligation, Maggie!” Boudreaux snapped. “How could I not? My own nephew raped you! Do you have any idea what that did to my mind?”

  “How can you even make this about you?” Maggie yelled. “That had nothing to do with you, and I don’t want your damn penance!”

  Boudreaux reached out to touch her shoulder, and she jerked her body away from him.

  “Maggie—” he started.

  “No,” she shot out, and when he reached out again, she swept up her arm and blocked him as though he were about to strike her. He twisted his arm around hers and jerked her close.

  “Do you think for one minute that that pathetic little worm would have laid a hand on you if he’d known who you were?” he snarled. “He would have been afraid to breathe your air!”

  Maggie swept her arm in a circle and released it from his. “I don’t want your reparations, Mr. Boudreaux,” she said evenly.

  “I don’t care whether you want them or not,” he said, his eyes narrowed. “It would never have happened to you if I had claimed you from the beginning.”

  “I’m not your lost luggage!” Maggie said, hating that her voice was becoming shrill, that heat and moisture were building in her eyes.

  “No, you’re my daughter!” he shot back. “And I may not be your daddy, but I am your father!”

  Maggie had no idea she was going to strike him, but she watched her fist as it landed, halfheartedly, on his chest.

  “You were my friend!”

  She saw him flinch, not from the physical blow, but from her words.

  “I’m still your friend!” he yelled back.

  “Do you have any idea, any idea at all, how stupid I feel?” she asked him, tears stinging her eyes. “I thought I was so damn special, with my intimate friendship with the enigmatic Bennett Boudreaux. I fought for it, dammit! I fought for some relationship that only I was having!”

  Boudreaux reached out and gently, but firmly, grasped her shoulders. “Listen to me—”

  Maggie shook her head. “No. I don’t want to hear any more.”

  “Listen anyway,” he said more forcefully.

  Maggie started to twist away, and Boudreaux tightened his grasp. She jerked away, and felt herself lose her balance, felt the earth kip sideways. She stumbled backward a few steps, overcompensated as the incoming waves pushed against the backs of her legs, and then she fell backwards, into the cold, dark water.

  She thrashed for just a moment, panic engulfing her as tangibly as the water did, but then she found her feet and stood, gasping. It was only about three and a half feet deep, and not especially rough, but she had to work at keeping her footing.

  “Maybe now you can cool off enough to listen to what I have to say,” Boudreaux said, his hands on his hips.

  Maggie barely heard him over the pounding of her blood in her ears. She slowly lowered her arms, her palms parallel to the surface, as though she could calm everything that was in the water with her, as though she could stop it from coming.

  “Ever since that first day at Boss Oyster, every moment I have spent with you I spent because I wanted to know you,” Boudreaux said, pointing a finger at her. “Because I like being with you. I need to be with you,” he said.

  Maggie registered that he was speaking, but failed to understand what he was saying.

  She could feel them around her in the water, behind and beside her. She slowly turned in a circle,
trying to see blacker spots in the black water, trying desperately not to be surprised by the movement, by the bump, by the shadow she knew was coming.

  When she had turned full circle, she tried to make her legs propel her forward, toward the sand that was just a few feet away. Toward Boudreaux. But her feet wouldn’t move again. Stillness was as close to invisibility as she could get, and she clung to it despite her desperate need to be back on the sand. She looked at Boudreaux, her eyes wide, her mouth wider.

  He opened his mouth to continue speaking, then closed it as his own eyes narrowed. “Damn it!” he said, then half-ran into the water and scooped her up. “Damn it!” he said again.

  He carried her back onto the shore and set her down. She took a big gulp of air, stopped herself from sitting down on the firm, damp sand. She didn’t want to lean in when Boudreaux pulled her to his chest, but she couldn’t help it. She folded her arms across her own chest, assembled at least that barrier between them.

  “Are you afraid of the water?” he asked incredulously.

  “No!” Maggie barked, and pulled away from him. She glanced up at him, then looked away. “Yes.”

  “But you love the Gulf,” he said quietly.

  “I know that!” she snapped. “I just can’t get in it anymore.”

  “Since when?”

  She glanced back at him, her eyes slits. “Since I was fifteen,” she said.

  MAGGIE SAT ON THE TOP step of Boudreaux’s back deck, wrapped in a white bathrobe that was several sizes too big.

  Beyond the circle of light cast by the deck’s lights, Maggie could see the thin whitecaps as the waves threw themselves onto the sand. The waves were the only sound that disturbed the evening until Maggie heard Boudreaux’s footsteps as he came out through the sliding glass door.

  She swallowed and turned her head to look down the beach, although there was nothing to see, as he settled one step below her on the other side of the stairs. He was silent for a moment before he spoke.

  “Maggie,” he said.

  Reluctantly, she looked over at him. He was holding two glass mugs, and extended one to her. Wisps of steam rose from the cup and quickly dissolved into the chilly air.