“Tell them you haven’t seen me, that I blew you off.” Sam took another step toward Jesse. His white shirt clung to his damp back, showing off his well-sculpted muscles. “I know I’m asking a lot, but we go way back, and you know I’m not involved in this. You and I both know nothing in this investigation is being done by the book.” Jesse ground his teeth. Beads of sweat popped out above his brow. He reached in the open window and switched off the radio.
“Get going now. I haven’t seen ya. Just don’t forget a lot of the guys down here believe there’s something more. Remember, Sam, you’re the one who left.” His nostrils flared before he climbed in his sedan and fired it up.
Sam leaned in Jesse’s open window. “One more thing. Find out where all this heat’s coming from, and why now?”
“The heat’s coming, Sam, and so’s the time to clear the past. You’ve put it off too long. There’s one of your answers. You should have stayed and shown them you weren’t on the take. You made yourself look guilty when you took off and joined the Feds. To anyone who doesn’t know you, that’s how it seems. If you’re guilty, you run.”
Chapter Eleven
A storm brewed amid the lingering dust trailing Jesse’s sedan. Sam pulled onto the highway but went in the opposite direction, toward the storm and heavy gray clouds rumbling in the distant sky.
Sam needed another shower. He’d yet to acclimatize to being home. Each time he stepped outside, sweat glazed every inch of him. To make it worse, Jesse’s last words had opened the congealed wound that hadn’t quite healed. Sam had to admit Jesse was right. To anyone else, his leaving town would appear as if he’d run, but that hadn’t been why he left. Now every censure he’d brushed off whispered through his mind. Those icy stares at his back, each caustic hint anytime an investigation went sour. Had he slipped up?
What made it worse were the friends of friends and distant acquaintances within the NOPD, even the Feds, who believed they knew the truth. But, in fact, each had been led on by nothing more than mere gossip, circumstantial evidence, and the fact that Sam made an excellent scapegoat, all because he refused to stay and clear his name after Elise died.
“Sam, what was Jesse talking about?”
Trapped in his head, he stared through the dusty windshield, and, for a moment, Sam forgot where he was. Tired and disillusioned, he didn’t want to answer, so he ignored Marcie and kept driving, except after a few minutes, his conscience cut through his pity party. This wasn’t her fault. What a coward, unable to face her mirage of innocence that looked him square in the eye.
He dropped one hand from the steering wheel and rested it on the stick shift. “Three years ago, I joined the DEA task force and left New Orleans.”
“So what did Jesse mean when he said you made yourself look guilty?”
He didn’t want to discuss his past, not with anyone. On his last homicide investigation, he had logged cocaine and marijuana into evidence, but after a forged requisition, in his name, the drugs had vanished. The next painful day, during the inquiry, his world shattered. Elise had been killed. What followed were malicious accusations, one of them being that he was on the take. All that turmoil was packaged neatly into a past that continued to haunt him. He still wasn’t any more clear on what had actually played out. Grief had a way of clouding your judgment and hiding the bigger picture. Who had been motivated to set him up? He had to admit, Jesse was partly right; he had made himself look guilty when he packed a suitcase of essentials and jumped on a plane to Seattle. But the entire truth was that, for Sam, running away hadn’t just been a matter of vengeance—he had needed to escape the gut-wrenching pain.
“Someone forged my signature on a requisition, and drugs disappeared. I was investigated and cleared. It was a bad forgery,” he said.
Marcie furrowed her brows. “And they already suspected your wife of doing the same thing with the ATF? No, I can see that wouldn’t look good. I can also see why being with me is making it really bad for you.”
He couldn’t respond honestly. This situation wasn’t entirely her making. He had walked away from too many things. Why was it up to him to clear his name? He already knew the answer. That was how the world ticked—guilty until proven innocent.
Trees thickened on both sides of the busy highway as Sam drove deeper into bayou country.
“Sam, where are we going?”
His eyes remained glued to the road. “Some place where we can lie low for a bit, just until I can figure some things out. You’ll be safe.”
Sam drove cautiously, not fast enough to be pulled over and not slow enough to attract attention. Alert and silent, he continued to glance in the rearview mirror, his full lips pursed in a manner that gave nothing away.
* * * *
A road sign announced Grand Isle right before they crossed over the wide-open Caminada Bridge. Marcie shivered in the damp heat, hit by an unexplainable sense of déjà vu along with a strange yet familiar sense of coming home.
They drove through downtown Grand Isle, past a few restaurants and gas stations. When Sam turned down a narrow winding road guiding them to a middle section of the island, Marcie was swept up in the majestic beauty of the old, towering, windswept oak trees and oleanders that seemed to grow around each rustic Creole cottage.
Then, out of nowhere, they passed downed trees and vacant lots that looked more like a war zone; piles of busted wood and rotted foundations.
Sam slowed and turned right down a long dirt driveway surrounded by massive oaks leading up to an old clapboard cottage, completely secluded. He parked in front of old, weathered plank steps that led up to a screened-in front porch. Sam climbed out of the Camaro and shoved the door closed. Holding his head high, he walked around the front of the car. He pulled in his broad shoulders, deep in thought and contemplation. Sam opened her door and held out his hand. He was an enigma, and Marcie couldn’t understand the jerk in her belly and why her heart flipped by such a simple gesture.
A self-conscious wave passed over her. She felt sticky, dirty, and just plain gross. She longed for a bath filled with scented lavender oil, surrounded by white candles. The peaceful thought faded instantly when she stood in front of the tiny run-down cottage with boarded up windows. Sam pressed his hand into the small of her back, urging her up the rickety steps to the screen door.
“I haven’t been back in a while. As you can see, I’m one of the lucky ones. Not much damage to mine after Katrina swept through. Many places were condemned, abandoned, or torn down; no way to save them. We passed those along the coast and some inland, too.”
Marcie ducked under his arm and stepped cautiously across a creaky, unpainted porch. Sam wasn’t as careful. He squeezed around Marcie and tried to open the heavy oak door, but a secured lock held. For some reason, he seemed satisfied and bent over with a pick, inserting a silver prong in the lock. He had a strong focus. His tongue slipped out the side of his mouth. The lock clicked. Sam grinned.
“Forgot my key. If you recall, we left in a hurry. Voilà. In you go, madam.” He pushed open the door and gestured her in with the sweep of his hand.
The sparse cottage consisted of furnishings from the sixties, maybe earlier. Marcie walked into a tiny, square box-style kitchen with a small, banged-up second-hand dining table and two rickety wood chairs shoved against the wall behind the door.
Sam removed plywood from each window, allowing the late-day sun to infiltrate the quaint cottage. Against the back wall of the rustic kitchen, a set of steep stairs led up to a door. Marcie wandered up the narrow stairs. Something about the attic urged her to open the door, so she turned the small ivory doorknob, but nothing happened. A turn-of-the-century brass lock appeared implanted in the wood frame above the doorknob. She couldn’t tell if it was stuck or locked.
“You got a key to open this door?”
“What are you doing up there?” Sam stood at the bottom of the stairs.
“I’m curious, Sam. What’s up here?”
“I don’t know, probab
ly a bunch of junk.” He turned his back, clearly not interested, and pulled open the ancient rounded fridge door. A pungent stench quickly filled the room. Sam gagged.
Marcie trotted down the stairs, waving her hand in the air to disperse the offensive odor.
“Shit, that stupid ass,” Sam said.
Marcie’s stomach heaved, so she breathed through her mouth.
“I pay a guy who lives in Jefferson Parish to look after the place. Comes out here every now and then to fish, hang out, mainly to get away from his wife. He left his food.” Sam let out a restless sigh. “I need to go to the store. I’m hungry.” He shoved the fridge door closed. “Do you think you’ll be okay till I get back?”
“I’ll be just fine. Go on now.” Marcie smiled until she realized he expected her to clean the fridge. Her smile faded.
Sam started to say something and then stopped while he walked across the old hardwood floor straight toward her. “Come here. I need you to stay out of sight. Don’t go out, and keep the door closed. Bolt it after I leave, and don’t open it for anyone, not until you hear my voice. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
Strong hands touched her shoulders and slid down her bare arms before he turned away. “I’ll try to hurry.”
Marcie followed, still tingling from his touch. After she bolted the door, she leaned her back against the rough wood, listening to the Camaro’s rumble as Sam revved the engine and drove away. She wondered for a moment where his head was. He’d been so angry earlier. He blamed her for this mess. Yet here he was, touching her in such a possessive way. He cares for you.
She closed her eyes to block out the voice, letting out a sigh while she wandered back to the steep stairs. Something about that door urged her to find a way in. She felt the words in her head more than she heard them. Up here, open the door. She glanced behind her, downright spooked. She heard nothing now, but when she peeked at that attic door, she knew she needed to find a way in.
There were three tiny drawers in the bare-bones kitchen. Marcie yanked open each one, rummaging through old utensils and junk until she found a long metal prong. “A chicken skewer, that’ll work.” She bounded up the rough wooden steps. “Okay, so this is easy, right?” She turned the glass knob and pressed the metal prong in the lock and jiggled. Then, somehow, she fumbled her grip and stabbed herself with the pointy skewer in the soft pad at the base of her thumb. The shiny metal landed with a clang and clattered down three stairs. “Damn, damn. Shit, that hurts.” She cradled her throbbing hand while blood oozed out of a small round puncture, splattering the top step. Her energy zapped, she picked up the skewer and hunkered down the stairs, where she rinsed her burning wound under a huge single tap in the oversized porcelain sink.
“Now how am I supposed to open the door?”
* * * *
Sam knocked and waited with a plastic bag filled with dinner and groceries. Marcie’s soft padded footsteps approached. The bolt clanked when she slid it open. Sam sniffed at the fragrant tang of vinegar. The fridge door was propped open by a white plastic jug. She’d been busy.
“What did you do with all the crap in the fridge?”
She walked ahead of him and knelt down on her bare knees, picking up a rag on the bottom shelf, sticking her head in the rounded fridge. He couldn’t help appreciating the wiggle of her bottom and the way it made a simple pair of shorts drive him to the point that he wanted to give her derriere an intimate and friendly squeeze. “I threw all of it in a garbage bag I found in the cupboard and dumped it in the can around back.”
His blood heated as he set down the groceries on the small wooden table. “Dammit, Marcie, what’d I tell you? Didn’t I say to stay out of sight and not open the door to anyone?”
She froze, tossing the silky mane of endless hair tumbling over her shoulders, and then stood up, blinking. She clutched a pathetic checkered rag and tilted her chin in a determined way, keeping her words even and very matter of fact. “But I didn’t open the door to anyone, and I made sure no one saw me. I was careful. I looked around both ways before I went out. There was no one around.”
He wanted to throw his hands up and yell, but instead he stomped to the door, jerked it open, and flung the screen door wide until it smacked the outside wall with an echoing thud, rocking ancient, rusty hinges. Did he feel better? No.
Chapter Twelve
The wind whipped around his dark, tousled hair. The familiar man was filled with a powerful hate as he gripped the steering wheel of a rusty brown Mustang convertible. In a flash, the scene changed to a man and a woman standing at the edge of a steep mountain road with a bare fir tree and unbarricaded cliff beside them. The tall blond man had his arm around the despairing, curvy woman. Their heads were lowered, standing before a simple cross. Jerome flashed in front of her, arms crossed over his broad chest, his golden hair whipping in the wind. “Go to the attic, Marcie. You’ll find some answers there.”
Marcie bolted upright. Beads of sweat danced over her chilled skin. Her breath shook, and she struggled in the surrounding darkness to shake loose the dreamlike state—that memory. And Jerome—Jesus, what was he trying to show her?
A faint light illuminated a yellow rectangle into the room from the open door. Marcie crept out of bed wearing just her long beige shirt. She could hear Sam talking, so she followed his deep voice to where he stood by the dim window, his cell phone pressed to his ear, listening.
He disconnected without turning around and slipped the phone in the back pocket of his blue jeans. He didn’t acknowledge her or turn around. He leaned his arm upon the chipped window frame, staring out into the darkness. “What’re you doing up?”
Obviously, he’d heard her. She should have realized she couldn’t sneak up on him. His words were clipped. He must still have been mad.
Dinner had been tense, quiet, and lonely. The hamburgers had tasted like sawdust when she tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. He had so many quirks in his personality. Sam pulled into himself when he was irritated, as if he replayed whatever bothered him over and over in his mind.
His response to anything she asked had been either a grunt or a curt one-word answer. Her traitorous thoughts shifted. Maybe he couldn’t stand being in the same room with her—maybe he’d had enough and questioned his wisdom in helping a virtual stranger. This must be the end. Yes, he’d turn her in and walk away. At dinner, she’d been unable to bear that thought, so she excused herself, pushing her full plate away, saying she was tired and escaping to the only bedroom. She didn’t know how long she had lain in bed with a burning ache ripping a hole in her heart before finally drifting off. Now all she wanted to do was cry as she stood before Sam in a skimpy shirt with bare legs in this tiny, cluttered sitting room connected to the kitchen.
“Are you turning me in?” Marcie didn’t mean to say it aloud.
“Dammit, Marcie, is that what you thought?” he snapped, jamming his fingers through his wavy hair. “You don’t get it, do you?” He paced and then turned toward her, hesitating a second before closing the gap between them. He cradled her shoulders with his large, firm hands. “Look at me. You can’t be taking chances like you did. When I say stay in, don’t open the door to anyone, that means don’t take the stinking garbage out, nothing!”
She blinked. “Are you telling me you’ve been angry all night because I took the garbage out? And that phone call had nothing to do with turning me in?”
His eyebrows furrowed, and his strong, stubborn jaw tightened. “Fuck, Marcie, what kind of asshole do you take me for?” It was obvious from the weary lines on his face that he hadn’t slept.
With a shaky hand, she skimmed over the dark hair on his chin; two days without shaving. “You confuse me.”
Sam dimmed in front of her when tears glazed her eyes. He softened his tone. “I was talking to my partner, Diane, in Gardiner.”
Her scalp tingled, and her face warmed with excitement. Then the worry dashed away all her hope like a splash of ice-cold water
. This was help for him. Or was it something else?
“Can I ask you something, Sam?” He looked so tired. How much sleep had he gotten since watching over her?
“Sure.”
“Is Diane your girlfriend?”
His eyes widened in what could only be explained as shock. “Ah, no, she’s a very good friend and my partner on the task force. Why would you ask that?”
She knew why. It was the way he spoke of her. But it was also a deep distrust that rose out of some hurt part of her heart—jealousy—and she didn’t quite care for it. So she said nothing and merely shrugged. “What about Elise, some of the things Jesse said: Are they true?”
He turned away and stared vacantly out the window. She wondered if he’d answer. When he finally did, his baritone voice was gruff.
“We grew up together. Jesse was right. I loved her since we were kids. I suppose I did follow her around like a fool. She was as screwed up as all of us. There was this woman named Mama Reine. She provided a home for all us local vagrants. When I met Jesse, he took me to her after my daddy knocked me around. She patched me up, told me to come back anytime. She did that for every lost kid who showed up on her doorstep. That was where I met Elise, an unlikely sort. She stumbled in and crashed there often. I think she stole from Mama, too. Of course, Mama knew, but she said the Lord had provided everything she ever needed.
“Elise pulled herself together and entered the academy before Jesse and I. She was scooped up by the ATF not long after. I wanted her, with all her tough take-no-bullshit attitude. I tried to be her knight and save her. Stupid, huh? We survived Katrina. Lost our home, most of our belongings. She took it hard. I found us an apartment and salvaged what I could. But then she started keeping long hours, became secretive, more so than usual. I thought it was some big case she was working on. We never talked about our cases. So I didn’t push.
“When she killed Leon, she told me he had pulled a gun when she tried to arrest him. I didn’t know what to think. He was Mama Reine’s grandson. He’d been in trouble since he was a kid, mixed up in gangs, always something. Then, the next day, while Elise was at an outdoor café, Della followed her, walked right up to her, put a gun to her head, and pulled the trigger.” Sam wouldn’t look at her. He rested his forehead against his arm and placed himself against the chipped window frame.
Danger Deception Devotion The Firsts Page 78
