“Try and stick your hand up my skirt one more time and see if I don’t. I’ve already told you no. I’m a no means no kind of girl.” Gracie kept one hand on the door handle as she spoke. She fully intended to bolt the moment the door unlocked. She’d take her chances with the imaginary muggers and rapists on the streets.
The truck in front of them pulled up to the window to pay. Austin didn’t follow it. Instead he sat in the driver’s seat staring daggers at her. The people in the truck in front of them received their food and pulled away from the drive-through window. Austin’s BMW was now the only car in the line.
“You want to go back to school?” Austin glared at her angrily. “You got it.”
He hit the accelerator with enough force to knock Gracie backwards into the passenger seat. He squealed his tires as he drove past the pick-up window without stopping to pay or picking up his food.
Gracie cursed under her breath as Austin’s car slid sideways on the pavement and barreled out onto the main road, heading the opposite direction from campus.
*
Eddie Von Hussant sat on the hood of his Lexus and stared with a sense of impending doom at the short, squat brick building that was home to the Coastal County Sheriff’s Department. The tarnished CCSD badge sat in his left hand like a lead weight.
“I reckon it’s official. We get two weeks to prove ourselves, huh?” Alex Alyssa leaned against the side of his battered S10 pickup truck and studied his own dull, second-hand sheriff’s deputy’s badge. He was rubbing at it with the hem of a Breedlove Automotive t-shirt in an attempt to knock some of the rust off.
“Two weeks,” Eddie confirmed as he glanced down at his cell phone to check the time and wondered why he even continued to pay the phone bill. No one had called Eddie in weeks.
“I bet you ain’t even nervous,” Alex said. He raked his fingers through his strawberry blonde hair and shrugged his slim shoulders. “You’re way better qualified for this job than I am. You’ve got a bunch of degrees, right?”
Eddie looked up at Alex in surprise. He hadn’t expected the Sheriff’s favorite job candidate to acknowledge his own hard earned credentials. “I have a bachelor’s degree in Criminology and a master’s in Criminal Law. I’ve passed all the state police certifications as well as basic firefighter and EMT courses.” Eddie ticked off his accomplishments without pride. If he were anywhere but Coastal County, the framed certificates might have been worth something. The Sheriff’s two week trial period had already made it clear that he might as well save his breath. His hard work meant nothing in Shiner’s Bayou.
“All I have is the basic law enforcement certificate from Coastal County Community College,” Alex stared at his badge with a regretful expression.
“I was halfway through law school when I had to move back here,” Eddie could hear the bitter resignation in his own voice. He would have given up everything to be back in class at this very moment. He’d have given up everything to be anywhere other than Coastal County.
“I’m sorry about your Dad,” Alex kicked at the gravel in the parking lot. His boots were scuffed beyond repair. A sharp contrast to Eddie’s own stiff, shiny footwear.
“Don’t be,” Eddie told him. “He was so drunk he probably never even saw the bridge that killed him.”
“Still. He was your Dad. My Dad died when I was 15. I still miss him.” Alex’s sympathy appeared to be genuine, but Eddie didn’t want his competition’s sympathy. “You moved back to take care of your Mom, didn’t you?” Alex asked.
“Didn’t have a choice,” Eddie admitted. “Mom has been bedridden since I was eight. We tried to put her in a nursing home but she screamed until her throat bled every time her sedatives wore off. The psychiatrist says she’s developed a phobia about leaving the house.”
The truth was that Eddie had tried everything he could think of in order to make things work from school. The problem was that keeping reliable, qualified, and trustworthy round-the-clock nursing staff was difficult enough without being four states away. Coming back to Shiner’s Bayou really was his last resort.
“That’s too bad,” Alex sounded like he meant it. He probably did. Eddie’s return to Shiner’s Bayou meant Alex didn’t stand a prayer of hanging on to the badge he was holding.
“It’s life.” Eddie frowned down at his tasseled loafers and fought the urge to tell Alex to go away. He knew he shouldn’t cause unnecessary hard feelings. Alex was the only member of the CCSD who treated him like a human being. He was going to have to work with Alex for the next two weeks. Until the trial period ended and the Sheriff was left with no choice except to hire him. Eddie was, without question, the best qualified candidate for the single open deputy position.
“I really need this job,” Alex said, almost as if he had forgotten Eddie was standing right beside him. “I’ve been bagging groceries down at the Save ‘N Shop since graduation.”
Eddie unconsciously clenched the badge more tightly in his hand. He didn’t need the money from the job. He didn’t need the job at all. A multimillion dollar trust fund had been created after the supposedly highly qualified surgeons had melted his mother’s brain and another million dollar life insurance policy had been paid out handsomely after Eddie’s drunken father had plowed his fancy Corvette into the Boggy Pond Bridge, killing himself and his latest mistress on impact. Financially speaking Eddie was set for life.
The problem was that Eddie wasn’t free to have much of a life.
“Bagging groceries?” He repeated, unable to hide his disbelief.
“Yeah. It was Wally’s – I mean Sheriff Hall’s idea for me to take the classes to become a deputy,” Alex shrugged unhappily. “Of course, he didn’t know that you would be moving back to town right at the same time as the position finally opened up.”
“I was surprised when I saw it advertised,” Eddie admitted. He’d already suspected Sheriff Hall had promised Alex the job well before the legally required advertisement had been published in the classifieds.
If Sheriff Hall had been able to get away with chucking Eddie’s application in the trash can and hiring Alex he would have. Coastal County was a good ol’ boy town and Alex Alyssa was a good ol’ boy. Eddie was not. When Eddie had turned in his application, he had also politely informed the Sheriff that he knew his rights as well as the details of the state law that said the most qualified candidate for a public service job was the one who should be hired for state and county level jobs.
The Sheriff had responded by hiring both Eddie and Alex on with the department for a two- week trial period. He’d told them that whichever one of them proved to be the better deputy during the trial period would be hired on full time.
Eddie had a strong suspicion that the Sheriff had meant it when he’d told him he’d be watching his every minute on the clock. Not that Eddie was too worried. He hadn’t gone to all those classes for nothing. Considering that his competition had spent the last two or three years bagging groceries, Eddie was confident that Alex’s time in uniform was going to make for a very short two weeks.
“Not that it’s any of my business, but why do you want this job?” Alex startled Eddie with the question. “I need something to keep me busy while I’m stuck in Coastal County, and I hate playing golf,” Eddie admitted as he stared at the bumper on his car. He supposed the truth was as good an answer as any. Applying for the job with the Coastal County Sheriff’s Department had been Eddie’s last ditch effort to keep from sinking fully into the bleak depression that had been overwhelming him since he’d left law school. Not that he thought working day-in and day-out with the same backwoods boys he’d fled Coastal County to get away from was going to be all that enjoyable of an experience, but he felt an overwhelming urge to be doing something with his life.
“Oh,” Alex frowned.
“Besides, too many innocent people around here get cheated when they deserve justice,” Eddie said. “No offense, but this is a small town, and if you’re not from around here, the law around here
doesn’t care about you.”
“What do you mean?” Alex asked, appearing genuinely puzzled.
Eddie closed his eyes as the familiar memory of a laughing 13-year-old-girl with dark hair and darker eyes sprung into his mind. He swallowed regretfully and pushed Josie’s cheerful face out of his mind so he could focus on Alex. “I’m talking about the kids who get beat up and bullied every day after school. The families who lose everything they care about because they make the wrong person mad. I’m talking about the rapes that don’t get prosecuted because the victim is from a bad family and the rapist is from a good one.”
“You think that kind of stuff happens a lot around here?”
Josie’s face flashed before Eddie’s eyes again. “Do you remember a girl named Josie Santiago?” he asked.
Alex, still leaning against his truck, blanched. “Didn’t she go missing?” he asked after a moment’s pause. “A long time ago?”
“Sheriff Hall decided she ran away,” Eddie couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. “She wouldn’t have done that to her Mama. Last time anyone saw her she was going into the woods behind David Breedlove’s house.”
“Oh,” Alex appeared distinctly troubled. “You’re not, you’re not here to go after David about Josie, are you?” he asked. “Those were just rumors when people said he’d hurt her. He didn’t really do it. I know him better than that. David wouldn’t hurt no one.” Alex fingered the hem on his t-shirt again. A t-shirt that was advertising David Breedlove’s mechanic shop.
“I’m here for justice,” Eddie told Alex. “I’ve spent every waking minute since high school studying the law. Now that I’m back here, I’m going to put what I’ve learned to good use.” He held his badge up in the air. “Getting justice for Josie is the first thing I aim to do.”
*
Cal stared impassively out the front window of the Bayou Diner, attentively not listening to Jo Beth’s incessant stream of chatter.
“Aunt Heather called Rachelle yesterday and just plain out asked if Tate had really told her or if she was assuming it because of everything that had happened with Julia. She said, supposedly, that she heard it from Melissa Rae. My first question was, of course, how Melissa would know anything about what was going on with Tate, since everyone knows Tate hasn’t talked to her since that whole family reunion ordeal…” Jo Beth’s plump, glossy pink lips opened and closed repeatedly, showing off flashes of straight, white teeth. Every so often, the stream of chatter would pause and she would turn her big liquid brown eyes on Cal, take a dainty little bite of her fried chicken salad, and wait for him to comment on whatever bit of gossip or trivial information he had been pretending to be paying attention to.
“Kellie pointed out that Rachelle could only have done it when Ben was out of town, because otherwise it would have caused too much trouble with the driveway. At first we were like, that doesn’t even make any sense, but the more I thought about it, well, it’s like I told Mom…”
Cal was entertaining himself by staring at Main Street through the plate glass windows of the Shiner’s Bayou Diner, watching vehicles drive past and seeing how many of them he recognized. He hadn’t missed one yet.
The plate glass was convenient because it superimposed his reflection over the view of the street, allowing him to watch traffic and Jo Beth at the same. Whenever she stopped talking and looked directly at him, he’d nod or grunt as a sign he was paying attention, and she would go back to talking.
Two trucks passed by the diner window. Cal identified the first one as Jerry Dean’s Dodge Dakota and the second as Alex Alyssa’s S10. A 1980s model Camaro came down the street next, looking low and sleek in the dim light provided by the streetlights. Cal held his breath for a half a second, hoping against all logic or reason that it was Gracie’s car. It wasn’t. The car was a couple years too new and silver instead of hunter green. Alan Brown’s mid-life crisis-mobile.
Cal forced his attention back to his girlfriend, nodding without the slightest idea what he was nodding about when she paused and sucked down a couple ounces of her sweet tea.
“I was telling Rebecca that Ben probably doesn’t have anything to worry about with Rachelle, because it would be completely impractical for her to have to deal with something like that. Not to mention that Melissa Rae doesn’t know a thing she’s talking about, but really, who can expect anything else from Melissa Rae? Well, I thought the whole situation was done with, but no. Yesterday Tate calls Mom and tells her that he doesn’t know why Rebecca is telling everyone that Ben and Rachelle are getting a new house. Can you believe that?” Jo paused, looked directly at him and got no response. “Cal?”
A full-size 4x4 Ford truck was pulling into the diner’s narrow parking lot. It was slate gray with a light bar on the roof and a heavy metal, state-issue brush guard with a winch bumper. The driver pulled straight up in front of the window where they were sitting and flashed the set of day-lighter aftermarket headlights that were mounted on the beefy brush guard.
“Cal?” Jo Beth was looking at him expectantly, completely oblivious to the Ford outside the window.
“Addison’s here,” he said, gesturing out the window as the truck impatiently flashed its lights again.
“Lovely. Just the person I didn’t want to see. He’s not eating with us.” Jo blinked in annoyance as Addy flashed his lights a third time. “Why is he doing that?”
“I don’t think he’s here to eat. He probably just wants to talk.”
“Hasn’t he ever heard of a cell phone?” Jo glared in Addy’s direction, looking just as happy as she would have if she had unexpectedly been sprayed by a skunk. “You did tell him that Friday night is our date night, right?”
“He knows.” Cal said flatly, standing up and pulling his wallet out of his back pocket. “I’m going to go see what he wants before he blinds us.”
“Cal, remember that we already have plans,” Jo’s voice had a warning tone to it.
“I haven’t forgotten,” he said as he flipped his debit card out and laid it on top of the ticket the waitress had left on the table. Heading for the door, he heard Jo’s voice echo out behind him.
“I take it this means we’re done with dinner?”
*
“You had better be taking me back to school,” Gracie was scared, but she tried not to let it show as Austin screeched the expensive car through turn after turn. The busy, well lit roads of town were rapidly being replaced by rural two lanes and dirt roads. The speedometer needle was bouncing back and forth between 85 and 90 miles per hour. The last speed limit sign Gracie had seen said they were in a 45 mph zone.
“We should have been back already.” She gestured at the clock on the dashboard. “It didn’t take us more than ten minutes to get to Take-A-Taco.”
“You’re a whiny little bitch. You know that? “Austin turned the car onto an even darker, less populated road. He showed no sign of the flirty charm he’d used to entice Gracie to go out with him in the first place.
“And this is the worst date I’ve ever been on in my entire life,” she snapped back at him. Gracie used her anger to hide the ever growing fear she felt. For the millionth time this month, she found herself wishing that she’d never left Shiner’s Bayou to come to State University. Back home, Austin wouldn’t have dared treat Gracie this way. No one treated any girl this way. Not if they wanted to live.
The last guy who had called Gracie a bitch had spent the next hour picking his teeth up out of the Gas ‘N Go parking lot courtesy of Addison’s right hook.
“I bet this is the only date you’ve ever been on,” Austin sneered at her. He was sweating despite the chill of the night that was blasting through his open window. “You’re dressed like a whore but then you act like you think you’re too fucking good for me.”
“A whore?” Gracie’s head was filled with white hot fury. “There’s a big difference between looking sexy and dressing like a whore. I guess you’re just too stupid to know the difference.” She took an angr
y breath. “Believe me; I’ve been on plenty of dates.”
“Going up to the interstate in Billy Bob’s truck to eat at the Waffle House doesn’t count as dating.” Austin pressed down even harder on the accelerator.
Gracie blinked and tried not to let it show how much that last barb stung. She’d been called a redneck and a hick more times than she could count since coming to State University. Brittany teased Gracie mercilessly about how thick her Southern accent was, how her favorite outfit consisted of worn soft blue jeans and flip-flops, and that she could drink Jack Daniels straight from the bottle but nearly threw up a chocolate martini.
“We aren’t going the right direction to get back to school.” Gracie forced herself to focus on the situation at hand as she blinked back unexpected tears.
“Will you shut up already?” Austin was staring straight ahead and clutching the steering wheel with both hands. “We’re going the back way.”
“There is no back way,” Gracie felt obligated to point out. “Main campus is in the dead center of town, and you’re driving us straight into the middle of nowhere. I grew up in the middle of nowhere. I know what it looks like.” She gestured out the window at the acres of trees they were passing. There were almost no houses to be seen on the rural country road they were flying down at record breaking speeds.
“You’re not getting scared are you?” Austin was clearly pleased with the slight tremble in her voice.
“No,” Gracie bluffed, trying to hide the goosebumps that were cropping up on her exposed flesh. She was tempted to go for her phone, but she didn’t have anyone to call for help who was within 200 miles of State University. For the first time in her life, Gracie Malone was on her own without anyone to run to when things went wrong. It wasn’t a particularly comforting feeling. Especially as she watched the last house on the side of the road gradually fade into nothing but rows and rows of trees.
Gracie desperately wished someone would come save her. Correction, she wished Cal would come save her. Right this moment she would be willing to deal with Cal’s absolute fury if it meant never seeing Austin again as long as she lived. She’d give anything to be curled up in the middle seat of Cal’s truck with his arm around her, just driving through the woods. Or up to the Cracker Barrel by the interstate for dinner. Or anywhere. Just as long as she was back with him and far, far away from Austin Putterling and the rest of the snobs at State University.
Feeding Gators: Book 1 in the Shiner's Bayou Series Page 2