Mom whirled around. I opened my mouth to warn her, to yell at her to run, but no sooner had the thought formed when the opportunity to escape shut down.
It was too late.
The next minute of my life slowed down to a crawl. Every sensation of every moment crashed into me. My mind raced to catch up and filter out what was important. The view from the backyard, Mom’s roses and tomatoes and cucumbers all ripening at once. The black tilled soil, the sunny blue sky, a group of starlings flying from one tree to another. Moss hanging from live oaks and a car parked around back that I didn’t recognize. It didn’t belong there, just as this man didn’t belong in our house.
I knew him, of course, but something in his flat, emotionless eyes chilled me. It was as though he were a stranger. There was no flicker of recognition or human warmth in them. My gaze traveled down to the revolver he carelessly dangled in his right hand.
An initial wall of fear, then dread, slammed into me. My mouth opened to scream, but no sound emerged. I lurched forward to reach Mom. I had to protect her, to save her.
“Who are you?” she asked, face furrowed in confusion. The eminent danger had not yet sunk into her brain. “What are you doing in my—”
“Such a pity,” he mumbled with a tsk. He raised the gun.
My world exploded, roared in my ears as sudden and loud as though a freight train had crashed through the walls of our home. Burnt metallic sulfur assaulted my nose. Mom crumpled to the floor, a red bloom spreading across the front of her white shirt.
“Mom!”
I knelt down beside her. Her eyes rolled back in her head. I looked up, and the man raised his gun again to shoot, aiming at me. I read the intent in the hard set of his face. His finger pulled the trigger. Pain exploded in my chest, and I fell to the floor. My ears pulsed with a loud ringing. A death knell.
Blood gushed from my chest. So much blood.
The point of his dirty, scuffed boot poked my ribs and rolled me over, my face pressed to the floor, and my body went limp.
I don’t know how much time passed. I came to slowly. Swimming up from a quicksand trying to suck me back under, pulling at me mercilessly, relentlessly. It was eerily quiet now. Hadn’t it just been deafening? What had happened?
Panic electrified me to action, and I scanned the room. Was he still here? The man with the gun? No, I was alone. So alone. The madman had left me for dead. I laid my head back down on the hard floor. It was so quiet I could feel the blood thundering in my ears.
Mom was dead. I was dying. I must be in shock, because the facts registered, but I had no emotional connection to what was taking place.
In a single afternoon, my family had been wiped out. The enormity of that fact was crushing.
Why? Why us?
It made no sense. I wanted to curl into myself, deny what had happened. Go back in time to Mom filming me holding that corsage, thinking of Jori and making her happy. Turned out, I wanted prom after all. I wanted so many things I’d never have now.
I turned my head to the side and caught a glimpse of bits of baby’s breath that had fallen from the corsage and landed under the sofa. I touched a petal. Velvet smoothness. Jori would never see it.
A car motor sounded from the driveway. The man was coming back. I could feel an inner knowing of that fact deep in my bones. Probably to make sure we were dead and to clean up the crime scene. He’d get away with this. No witnesses, nothing to implicate him. No explanation for why he’d flipped his lid and turned into a killer.
Was Jori safe from her uncle? I had to protect her, let her know she might be in danger. That there was a madman in her family.
The recording. Mom hadn’t filmed Buddy, but Buddy had spoken. And if his voice was on that tape, Jori would immediately know it was her uncle. Like everyone else, he’d have a distinctive color pattern associated with his voice. I could only hope Buddy hadn’t noticed the recorder.
Panicked, I scanned around the floor for the recorder and couldn’t find it. It had to be nearby. There was only one place I hadn’t yet checked. I rolled Mom’s bloody body to the side. Her arms and neck flopped like a rag doll, and horror paralyzed me. Pretend it’s a bad dream. A terrible, terrible dream. She had fallen on top of the camcorder. The red “on” light was still on, the battery light flickering.
Steps came up the walkway, ponderous and deliberate. I pictured him as he’d stood before us earlier, the way he deliberately raised the gun in his hand and shot us point-blank. I listened harder. There was another person with him. They didn’t speak. They didn’t have to—I knew why they were here. Best for him not to leave dead bodies and evidence around. They were coming to dispose of me and Mom. I refused to let them get away with it.
Hide the recorder. The floor was slick with blood, but I grasped the device. Picking it up from the floor felt like deadlifting a ton of barbells. I opened the bottom drawer of the bookcase and thrust it inside, hoping to hell that he’d never find it. Mom had dropped it before he entered our home. Surely if he’d seen it, he’d already have taken it with him.
The steps grew closer.
I slammed the drawer shut with my last reservoir of strength and waited. My lungs and chest burned like a devil’s bonfire, and I coughed up blood.
The latch lifted from the front door, and it began to creak open.
Chapter 39
TEGAN
I dabbed more concealer under my eyes and stared at my reflection in the small rippled silver pane that passed for a mirror. The women’s bathroom in the Erie County Sheriff’s Office was cramped, ugly, and dark. But even in the poor light, the added makeup piled under the dark circles only emphasized them.
So much for that wasted effort. Sighing, I smoothed down my hair and walked down to my office.
“Deputy Blackwell. You’re looking . . .” Mullins took in my haggard appearance. “Um, presentable.”
Not good, just presentable. Weak praise indeed. Not that it mattered. Despite the sleepless night as I lay in bed, replaying the shooting of Buddy Munford, I had zero regrets over killing the bastard. If I hadn’t, Jori would be dead. And who knows how many other lives Buddy Munford would have taken in the future. Jori had filled us in on everything her uncle had confessed to during her kidnapping. Any potential threat of exposure led him to commit more crimes, thus compounding the tragedy. The web of lies rippled outward with each additional murder Munford committed, expanding his chances of getting caught and creating a riptide that innocent bystanders were fatally pulled into.
“Nice job over the weekend, Deputy,” Sinclair added.
I waited for a punch line that never came. Confused, I faced Haywood, sure they had set him up to deliver a wisecrack.
“Not only did you help solve the Strickland case, you also helped take down a major drug ring headed by our mayor, no less,” he said. “Kudos, Deputy.”
“All the credit to Carter Holt on that one,” I protested. “I was just along for the ride.”
“Don’t forget solving the Ensley and Cormier cold cases too,” Mullins said, grinning. “You trying to make us look bad?”
I blinked at all three in confusion. Not only did they appear sincere, they’d each referred to me as deputy instead of the usual rookie.
“Doesn’t take much work to make you jokers look bad.” Oliver entered our office, tempering his words with a wide smile across his weathered face. If he suffered any compunction over shooting Cash Johnson, it didn’t show in his eyes. But then again, Johnson had survived the gunshot; Munford had not. Just as the criminals caught in the drug operation had cooperated in detailing everyone involved in exchange for a plea bargain arrangement, Johnson had confessed to his crimes and how he’d worked for Buddy Munford over the years. We also had Jori Trahern’s account of her kidnapping and Johnson’s role in it.
“We’ve got a small matter to take care of this morning before y’all get to work,” Oliver continued.
Mullins, Sinclair, and Haywood all rose from their chairs and stood at
attention.
“What’s going on?” I blurted.
Oliver held up a manila envelope. “Deputy Tegan Blackwell, it’s my pleasure to inform you that you’ve been promoted to sergeant, effective immediately.”
My ears rang with the startling announcement. I’d taken the promotional test last month but hadn’t expected to get promoted—not for months or years, anyway. I searched my coworkers’ faces for any trace of resentment but found none.
Oliver opened the envelope and removed a single sheet of paper. “Hot from personnel, here’s the official notice along with the pay increase amount you’ll see in your next paycheck.”
I accepted the paper and read the numbers, my breath hitching with excitement. Silently, I vowed to put every cent of the extra money into the twins’ college fund.
“And here’s your sergeant’s bars,” Oliver said, holding out the patch—three gold chevrons.
Applause broke out, and I swallowed hard as I accepted the patch. “Well deserved,” Oliver said gruffly.
I wanted to thank him for his trust in me, but that would have to come after I got myself together. My coworkers would never let me live it down if I did something so disgraceful as cry. Oliver nodded, as though sensing my temporary inability to form coherent words. “Later, Blackwell.”
“This calls for a celebration,” Mullins announced. “Dinner at Broussard’s tonight. My treat.”
“Anything I want?” Sinclair asked. “Because if that’s the case, I’ll order lobster and—”
“Not you, idiot. I’m only paying for rook . . . I mean, Dep . . . I mean, Sergeant Blackwell. You two clowns are on your own. What do you say, Sergeant?”
I cleared my throat to dislodge the giant lump threatening to strangle my windpipe. “That would be great. Just great. Could we invite Carter Holt?” I had to admit the agent still wasn’t my favorite person in the world, but he’d done an exemplary job of discovering a drug-smuggling operation that had been running for years under everyone’s nose—with the help of Dana Adair, of course. He deserved some well-earned applause, which I felt certain he didn’t experience much of in his undercover work.
I debated inviting Dana. She’d proven to be an honest, valuable informant whose only motivation was to stop the infiltration of drugs into the bayou. She’d been through her own personal hell of addiction and didn’t want anyone else to go through it. But as far as a victory celebration with cops, I wasn’t so sure that would be the right call. I resolved to treat her to dinner in private. It was the least I could do.
“Too bad Dempsey and Granger won’t be around to witness your promotion,” Haywood remarked with a snicker. “The bastards have been sent to a federal penitentiary and placed in protective custody until trial. Serving time in an Alabama prison is going to be quite rough.”
My lips twisted grimly. Those two were worse than I’d ever imagined. A search of their homes turned up the gun used in the attempt on Holt’s life and other evidence. Both of them, along with the men arrested from the boat, had fingered Hank Rembert as the kingpin of the operation. Our mayor had been arrested, and the trafficking charge against him was solid. I supposed it was wrong of me to find satisfaction in the Dempsey and Granger arrests, but after years of having to put up with their snide remarks, I allowed myself to enjoy their plight. “You know what they say about karma,” I said.
“It’ll be a bitch for the likes of them,” Mullins grumbled. “Dirty cops deserve everything they get in the end.”
There had been so much corruption, so much bloodshed. Jackson’s face flashed before me—youthful, handsome, and utterly debased at only age sixteen. He’d paid dearly for trying to blackmail his uncle. Justice, as well as karma, could also be a bitch.
Chapter 40
JORI
Mimi appeared to be having a good day. You’d never know from her outward calm that turmoil had rocked our family only two weeks earlier. She’d been shaken at the news of Buddy’s death, but not as much as I would have thought, especially because of her stalwart commitment to family over the years. Perhaps the fog of dementia buffered the grief. For half a second, I envied her that fog. When I lay in bed at night, I continuously heard the boom of the shotgun from the recording. Over and over. Boom, boom, boom. Red and black shards piercing a black canvas in my mind.
And then my mind would replay Uncle Buddy calmly preparing to kill me. The man I’d regarded as a father figure in my life. He’d reach for the gun, cool as a bite of watermelon, aim it at me, and I was helpless to fight back. Me. His niece.
Mimi stood in front of the stove, stirring a pot of pinto beans. “Needs a little more honey,” she announced after scooping up a mouthful and tasting.
I sat at the kitchen table and watched as she removed the cornbread from the oven, marveling at her oblivion. She baked it in an iron skillet so that the bread crisped at the bottom, just the way Zach and I liked it. Mom, too, when she was with us. How many dinners had Mimi prepared for us over the years? Thousands, I reckoned. Had I never really understood my own blood and flesh?
The TV provided a cozy background noise from the den, where Zach sat on the couch with his LEGOs, watching a home renovation program on HGTV. I didn’t need to be seated in the same room to know that his blue fleece blanket would be wrapped over his legs, his torso swaying side to side in a rhythm provided by an inner music only he could hear. Since my escape from Uncle Buddy, I’d spent more time with Zach, recapturing our former closeness. Growing up, I’d been the one to care for him while Mom and Mimi worked extra jobs on nights and weekends to make ends meet. We used to play in the old tree house during the day and watch rented movies at night.
In some ways, my colored hearing, unique and idiosyncratic, formed my own private world no one else could envision, much as Zach’s world was unexplainable and unknowable to anyone but himself. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if researchers one day discovered a neural connection between synesthesia and autism. Reality might be fluid and flexible, influenced greatly by individual perception instead of set in stone.
“Going to pop the bread in for another minute,” Mimi mumbled. The oven door banged shut. Leave it to my grandmother to bring me out of my head and back down to the present moment.
“You don’t seem too shaken about Uncle Buddy’s death,” I noted, probing—hoping to rattle her mask of calm.
She shrugged. “Not particularly. Although I do worry what might happen one day if we get in a financial bind.”
“We don’t need his money. You know I’ll always take care of us, don’t you?” The words were thick and heavy on my tongue.
“You’re out of a better-paying job now. Remember?”
“I managed fine without him before now,” I answered sharply. “Nothing’s changed on that score. I still have my own business. What I’m trying to understand is why you aren’t upset that your brother killed Jackson. Your own nephew. I thought family was everything to you.”
“If Buddy hadn’t killed Jackson, the kid would have ended up in prison or the morgue before he was thirty. He was a bad seed.”
“That’s cold.”
“That’s being realistic. Now, Tressie blackmailing Ardy all these years—that surprised me.”
Not for the first time, I couldn’t read Mimi’s emotions. She had a way of announcing facts in a neutral, brusque manner, as though she were merely an observer on the outskirts of events.
“I thought at first Tressie was the one sending me those threats and had kidnapped Zach.” I gazed out the window momentarily, collecting my thoughts. “But all along it was Uncle Buddy.”
“Cornbread’s done,” Mimi announced, pulling it again from the oven. “You about ready for dinner?”
It seemed she was through with this conversation about her siblings.
“We need to talk first.”
“Fine.” Mimi wiped her hands on her apron. “Zach—go on and wash up for dinner,” she called out.
The moment had arrived. Dread weighted me dow
n like a stone to the chair. Mimi sat across from me, arms folded on the table. Her eyes stared directly into mine. Calm and expectant.
I thought I’d already made my decision, but now, facing my grandmother, my heart raced, and my palms began to sweat. This was going to be as hard as I’d imagined.
“Uncle Buddy and Cash Johnson weren’t the only voices I heard on that tape recording,” I blurted.
She didn’t so much as blink.
“You were there,” I said softly. “The day the Cormiers were murdered.”
“No. You’re mistaken.” Her gaze remained unflinching. Only the tightening of her clasped fingers on the table betrayed nervousness.
“You were there,” I insisted. “You showed up after the murders with Uncle Buddy and Cash.”
“That’s ridiculous. Why would I be there?”
“Must have been a lot of blood to clean,” I said. “Uncle Buddy figured there’d be nobody better than you to take care of the mess. You were their housekeeper, after all.”
“Is that what you think you heard on that tape?” she scoffed. “I’m telling you: it wasn’t me.”
“I couldn’t make out the words,” I admitted. “But I do know your voice—tiger-orange cubes rattling against a black landscape.”
Silence filled the space between us—a dark abyss. The gurgle of running water drifted to us from the bathroom.
“Is that what you told your cop friend?” Mimi asked at last. She pressed her thin lips together as though to keep them from trembling.
“Why did you do it?” I whispered. “How could you do it?” The question had been eating at me, toxic as cancer, an acid drip on my heart that refused to stop.
“I had nothing to do with the killing. That was all Buddy. Not like I could change what he’d already done to them people.”
I leaned back in my chair, dumbfounded. Secretly, foolishly, I’d hoped I’d been wrong. All these years—she’d known. Had even mopped Deacon’s blood from the floor and covered up the murders for her brother.
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