Butterfly Bayou

by Lexi Blake

  Carrie. Maryanne was dead. Carrie was alive. Carrie was lying about how she’d gotten hurt and Lila had no idea what to do about it. She knew she’d been a bitch to the sheriff and he was right about his hands being tied, but she hadn’t been able to help herself. It was happening again and she felt as helpless as she had in the dream. Things were moving to a terrible place and the world kept spinning like there wasn’t anything anyone could do to stop it. Like she would be forced to watch the scenario play out again and again.

  Damn it. She wasn’t getting back to sleep.

  She threw off the covers and rolled out of bed. Along with her guilt and rage at a system that failed women over and over again, she’d brought chamomile tea and her trusty tea kettle. The wine hadn’t worked. She was willing to give tea a try.

  The floorboards creaked under her feet as she made her way from the bedroom toward the small galley kitchen.

  Tomorrow would be better. Tomorrow she had at least one patient, and if no one else came in she would spend her morning poring over all the records the clinic had on Noelle LaVigne. Paraplegics had unique issues and she wanted to be ready to deal with them. The young woman said she wanted to talk about lady stuff? They would spend the afternoon on it. She’d thought she would be incredibly busy, rushing from one patient to another. Well, maybe this would be better. Maybe she would lavish her patients with attention, getting to know each one and being able to be thoughtful about the approach she would use to each problem.

  It was exactly what she and Maryanne had always said was wrong with the hospital they’d worked at. Everything moved at breakneck speed and the doctors had to go from one patient to another, often without ever learning their names or histories.

  Their practice would be different, they’d promised themselves. Their practice would be about patients.

  She shook off the memories. If she didn’t have any patients, she couldn’t practice at all, so she would follow Lisa’s plan.

  She would make an appointment with Marcelle Martine, who was apparently also known as Miss Marcelle or Madame Marcelle, depending on whether she was doing nails or working a love spell. Lila would definitely be calling the woman Miss.

  Because she didn’t need a love spell, though she might be able to use a get-that-man-out-of-her-head spell.

  She filled the kettle. All afternoon she’d thought about him. His big manly arms. Those ridiculously blue eyes. That accent. That Cajun accent that rumbled out of his mouth and seemed to come from somewhere deep in his soul.

  Why should she want Armie out of her head? It was nice to think about him. The other things in her head were pretty terrible. Armie was merely annoying. And attractive. That wasn’t the word. Attractive was a word to describe blandly handsome men. Armie was sexy. Armie was disconcerting and distracting.

  He wasn’t for her.

  Except Remy thought he was. Remy and Lisa had argued about her never-going-to-happen fake boyfriend. Lisa believed the well-educated super-rich Rene Darois was the only way to go, but Remy had said it was obvious that Armie was the only man in town who could handle another Daley sister.

  She was the only Daley sister left. Laurel was a Bradford now. Lisa was a Guidry. It was funny that she’d once been desperate to not be a Daley because that name meant white trash and prison records. She’d prayed her father would realize she was alive and come get her, give her a name she could be proud of. None of them had the same fathers but they had the same name.

  Daley was a good name. She’d made it that way. Or she had until that day. Did Daley now mean coward?

  Tears blurred her vision and she tried to shove the thoughts from her head. It was easier during the day. She could busy herself and pretend it wasn’t always right there. At night when she was alone, it all crashed in on her.

  She needed a hobby. Maybe she could take up electrician training since her damn stove didn’t seem to work. She turned the dial to get the burner heating up but got nothing. No heat at all coming from those old-school coils. She held her hand over it. Cold as ice even though the little red light had come on signaling the stove was on.

  There was no microwave. Nope. That was apparently far too technologically advanced for this household. If she wanted to boil water, she would have to build a fire.

  That was when she heard it. It was a faint sound coming from her left, from the back door, with its pretty window that let the light in and its yellow curtains that framed it. At first she thought it was nothing more than the wind. But there wasn’t any wind.

  It struck her suddenly that the same window that let in the early morning light was about an arm’s length from the lock on the door. If someone wanted to, they could break the glass and get the door open.

  She went still. She hadn’t heard anything. Not really. She’d had a bad dream and hadn’t gotten completely out of that fight-or-flight response fear compelled. It was nothing more than a trick of her mind.

  Then the lights went out.

  Definitely. She was definitely learning how to fix her electricity. Her heart started to pound, adrenaline, left over from the dream she’d been having, reignited in her system.

  It was okay. There was nothing out there. She was alone and despite the ramshackle nature of the house, the doors were secure.

  Scratch. Scratch.

  She shrank back and stared at the door. It rattled slightly.

  Definitely not the wind.

  Fear shot through her and she scrambled for the phone. There was a landline in the kitchen. She hadn’t used a damn landline in years, but Lisa had insisted because cell phone service could be spotty.

  Scratch. Scratch.

  Who scratched at a door? There weren’t any trees close enough to explain that noise. Or the breathing sounds.

  Something was at her door. She didn’t have a gun. Didn’t own a gun.

  She should own a gun.

  The door rattled again and she bit back a scream. Maybe if she hadn’t had the dream again she could have reacted with some kind of calm, but panic was threatening to take over. She could hear that man yelling, see her friend’s eyes as the light left them, knowing she was next.

  Her cell phone was in the bedroom, but it was likely dead since she hadn’t put it on the charger. The landline would have to do. She forced herself to pick up the phone. She would call her sister. Lisa would send Remy out.

  She didn’t know her sister’s number. There wasn’t a button for Lisa on this damn last-freaking-century piece of technology. Who used landlines?

  She dialed the only number she knew.

  “911, what is your emergency?”

  She clutched the phone and prayed someone would come soon.

  chapter five

  Armie slammed the door to the SUV closed and was shocked at how hard his heart was pounding. Every bit of his training told him that this was likely nothing at all. She was new in town and unused to how things sounded in the bayou at night. It could be creepy and weird to outsiders. She was in a new home and she’d been through something terrible. If she didn’t have PTSD complete with nightmares, he would eat his hat.

  Not that he had his hat. Or his uniform. He was in pajama pants, a T-shirt, and his sneakers. He’d slipped on a jacket emblazoned with the words Papillon Parish Sheriff that covered his shoulder holster and the gun he had there, but otherwise he was in civvies.

  None of that mattered because from the moment he’d gotten the call that Lila Daley had a possible intruder trying to get into her house, his only thought had been to get to her as fast as he could.

  He forced himself to slow down and take stock of his surroundings. If someone was trying to get to her, he couldn’t leave her alone to face it because the dumbass sheriff had let himself get shot.

  He went still and listened. Nothing. Her house was on a half an acre and he could see the porch light on at Angie Jones’s place down th
e street, but the rest of her house was dark. Angie had motion-activated lights he’d helped her install. When they came on they stayed on for fifteen minutes at a time. They could have gone off by now.

  He approached Lila’s house and vowed he would do the same for her. She might not like it coming from him but he would find a way to get more lights on her place. Like Angie, Lila was a single woman living alone, and there wasn’t a lot of traffic out this way. She wasn’t far from town, but it got dark out here fast. The highway was less than a mile away. It wouldn’t take much to find her.

  Was she running from more than her past?

  He was being paranoid.

  He took a deep breath. It was time to let his training take over. The front yard was clear. He was ready to move around to the back, when he saw her in the front window. It looked like she had a flashlight in her hand and she was glancing out into the yard.

  When she caught sight of him, she threw open her front door. She rushed out, and he was so damn happy he made a habit of having dispatch inform him of 911 calls. Not that there were ever many. In a couple of weeks, the new deputies would be trained and he wouldn’t have had the chance to tell night dispatch to hold off, that he would handle it. Then Lila would have been running toward a man she didn’t know and he would be carrying a gun.

  As it was, he was disappointed when she stopped herself before she got to him. Her arms had been up briefly as though she was running to him and ready to throw her arms around him.

  “Someone’s trying to open the back door,” she said, and he could see plainly she’d been crying. “Or something. I don’t know. It won’t stop. I wanted to call my sister. I’m stupid because I don’t know her number. She’s a button on my phone. There’s no damn button on a landline that says ‘Lisa.’”

  He put a hand on her shoulder and wished he had the right to hug her. “It’s okay. I’m here and I’m going to take care of this, but I need you to go in the house and lock the door.”

  “You’re not coming with me?”

  “I’m going around the back of the house. I need to figure out if we’re dealing with a person or a critter. If that critter happens to be a gator who isn’t as lazy as Otis, I’ll be at the front door as fast as my damn legs can run and we’ll call animal control.” He’d grown up here but he didn’t wrestle alligators.

  “Okay.” She sounded breathless, but it was obvious she was under control again.

  “Why are the lights off, sweetheart?” He probably shouldn’t call her that, but he liked her and she was afraid.

  She sniffled. “I don’t know. They went off after I tried to get the stove to come on and that’s when I heard it.”

  He pulled his flashlight. “All right. Get back inside.”

  She hesitated.

  “I’m going to be okay. You get inside and I’ll figure this out. When I’m done out here, we’ll get your lights back on, too. If anything goes wrong, you call 911 again and lock yourself in the bathroom. You don’t come out until you’re sure it’s my deputy. Her name is Roxanne.”

  Lila nodded and fled back into the house.

  Armie drew his revolver and waited until she was fully inside. He crept around the side of the house. He really would run if it was a damn gator. They were nasty and smelled bad and had a million types of bacteria in those teeth of theirs.

  He heard the sound that had terrified Lila. It was a scratching sound and then a low hurmph.

  Damn it. He knew that sound. He stepped out and pointed his flashlight, shining it on the back of the house, where a big mutt of a dog was trying to get inside.

  Armie’s gut tightened and he wished like hell he could find Bill’s kids and charge them with something. “Hey, Peanut. Where have you been, boy?”

  He got to one knee as the dog’s head came up and his tail started to wag wildly at the sound of a familiar voice.

  “It’s a dog.” The back door had come open. “I was that scared of a dog?”

  She hadn’t been scared of a dog at all. She’d been scared of everything that had happened before. Terror like what she’d gone through didn’t go away easy. He should know.

  Peanut laid a weary head against Armie’s leg.

  “Yeah.” The sight of that dog made him infinitely sad. It reminded him that everyone got lost from time to time. “This is Peanut. He was Bill’s dog.”

  She came down the steps, her feet in slippers. She had a robe around her and a flashlight in her hand. Her hair was up in a ponytail, but it was slightly messy. In the starlight she looked sweetly disheveled. “He wasn’t here when I got here. I wasn’t told a dog lived here. Where’s he been?”

  “He was supposed to go with Bill’s oldest son.” He put a hand on Peanut’s neck and sure enough his collar was gone. “They promised me they would either take him home with them or find a place for him. He had a collar. He wouldn’t have been able to get it off himself even though he’s lost a ton of weight.”

  She gasped and dropped to her knees beside him. “Are you telling me they dumped this dog?”

  “That is the most likely scenario,” he concluded. “It happens a lot. They probably took him out a couple of miles, maybe more, and dropped him off. Some folks don’t want to be bothered with a shelter. They would rather discard the animal than explain why they’re dropping him off. Be careful with him. He’s been out in the wild for a while by the looks of him.”

  People weren’t the only creatures who could get PTSD.

  “Hey, boy.” Lila didn’t listen to a word he’d said. She held her hand out, palm down. “How are you? You made it all the way home.”

  “He’s probably covered in fleas and ticks.” She would likely be horrified at the condition of the dog.

  “Nothing a bath can’t fix. Well, I’ll have to pull the ticks off. I’ve got some tweezers.” She ran a hand over Peanut’s head when he didn’t growl her way. “And a set of latex gloves. You stink, boy. We’ll have to see if there’s some doggy shampoo in that old house.”

  The dog obviously hadn’t lost his sense of direction or his instinct as to who he could manipulate with big doggy eyes. His tail wagged and he moved toward the new girl, dumping Armie in a heartbeat.

  “You said you could fix my lights? I know I shouldn’t ask, but it’s late and I don’t want to wake up my sister to get Remy out here to do it. If you could show me, I’ll know how to fix it myself next time.”

  He got to his feet. “Of course. I’ll put Peanut out in my car and check the fuse box.”

  Even in the low light from his flashlight he could see the way she frowned. “He can come inside. According to you this is his home. And he needs food and water. I wondered why there were tins of dog food left in the pantry. I was going to find a shelter and donate them. I’m glad I was lazy about that now.” She sighed and scratched behind the dog’s ears. “They never planned on taking you with them, did they?” She glanced back up at him. “How long has he been gone?”

  “Since the day of Bill’s funeral. Almost three months now. I should get him to a vet.”

  She shook her head. “I think I can handle it. I’ve taken care of dogs before. Back in the trailer park where I grew up I was the one who took care of all the animals my siblings found. And some whose owners couldn’t afford it. Puppies were my first patients. Come on in. I need to see how bad he is.”

  He followed her up the steps to the little porch Bill had built with his own hands thirty years before. They creaked and groaned under his weight.

  He would likely need to look at more than the electricity if Lila was going to stay in this house.

  He should talk to Remy about it. Remy was her brother-in-law. Her first thought had been to call her sister. If her phone had been charged, it would be Remy who would be out here right now. Watching her take in a mangy dog. Watching her hips sway as she stepped into her dilapidated house.

 
“I’ll go look at the fuse box. Did it happen in the middle of the night? You tried to turn on the lights and they wouldn’t work?” He moved to the utility room, where the ancient washer and dryer sat. There was a fuse box trapped behind a stack of something. “What the hell is in here?”

  “Numerous items. If you’re wondering what’s in that closet, it’s comic book boxes, I think. I peeked in there and that’s what it looks like. The guy who owned this place before me collected everything. I mean everything.”

  He could see the outline of her frame in the shadows thrown off by her flashlight. She held it down and away, keeping it from hitting his eyes. It made it easy for him to work. “I haven’t been in here in a couple of years. Not since before Glenna passed. I knew he had a record collection and he liked stamps, but I didn’t know about the comics.”

  “Oh, he collected all kinds of stuff.” Her voice had regained its composure. She was calm again and he was a bastard because he missed the moment when it sounded like she needed him. “I will say, for a hoarder he was a neat and orderly one. Everything is stacked and organized. I would actually say he probably had a mild case of OCD. He has stamps and coins. I guess they’re not worth anything or his kids would have taken them. Though they didn’t take the sweetest thing, did they? They didn’t take the puppy. Bastards.”

  The end of her speech was said in that singsong tone women reserved for babies and small creatures. And some not-so-small ones since Peanut had been misnamed. The mutt was part lab, part golden retriever. Armie found the right switch and sure enough it had popped. He flipped it and the lights immediately came back on.

  Lila sighed, a sound of pure relief. “Thank you. I didn’t know where the box was. That was foolish of me.”

  “It’s a new place and you didn’t exactly give yourself a ton of time to settle in before you went to work.” He stepped around the stack of boxes and moved back into the kitchen. He’d wondered about why she’d simply moved in one day and gone to work the next. Most people would have unpacked.