by Alison Kent
She was furious, and she was frightened, and Chelle couldn’t help but wonder what Bear had said to her last night at Red’s, if it had been more than rude, if it had been somehow…threatening.
And then she wondered how the two of them had met, Michelina and Simon, if they knew one another away from Bayou Allain and had come here together, or if they’d met as strangers in the same place at the same time.
Chelle tuned back in to what Bear was saying.
“I know you haven’t kept in touch with your cousin, but King hasn’t exactly been welcoming of the folks who’ve rented the house over the years. Learning they’re living next to a convicted felon has sent a lot of them running.” Bear let that slap in the face sink in, moved his cane to his other hand and leaned on it heavily. “Those who have stayed, well, they haven’t stayed long after finding out what happened in that house with your mother. It’s the sort of thing that gets around and keeps renters away.”
He reached for his handkerchief then and wiped it over his brow, pausing for a moment as if delivering such a blow had worn him down—or else pausing for effect and giving Simon time to take it all in before conveying even more bad news. “Lorna and I discussed the situation and decided no one should hear such a report through the mail. Unfortunately, having no other way to reach you, we felt our chosen course of action the best.”
Wow. Chelle knew the judge could be a jerk, but that was just cold. And cruel. And a lot of it a big pack of lies. She’d lived here a while. She dealt with renters all the time. She’d never heard anything sordid about Simon’s mother. Not even from King.
And Bear didn’t get involved in Lorna’s rental business anyway. What was that all about? They’d discussed? They’d decided? Their chosen course of action? Whatever was going on, she could tell by the look on Simon’s face that she wasn’t the only one who didn’t think much of Bear’s speech.
“So…what now? You’re going to try to sell me a timeshare in the Everglades?” Simon asked, muttering some not-so-nice words under his breath. “No, wait. I’d rather bend over and take it on my own terms. And thanks, but I’ll show myself to the door.”
His hand was on the handle when Lorna reached him and placed her fingers over his. “If you wait, I’ll cut you that check right now. It won’t take but a minute. I should’ve had it ready, but I wasn’t sure if you were going to want the money back, or want me to use it for repairs even though the place has been empty so long.”
His expression was priceless, just the right mixture of fury and disbelief and loathing. “Oh, I want the money, chère. You’d damn well better believe it.”
Nodding, she looked down to where she held him, sighing as if the picture of her skin against his was a masterpiece. It made Chelle want to roll her eyes. “Putting a check that size in the mail just didn’t seem right. Not without you knowing to keep an eye out for it.”
Simon barked out a laugh. “Certified mail, Lorna. Return receipt requested. Ever hear of it?”
“I’m so sorry. I should have sent it. I should have been in touch about the problems with the place. Forgive me? Please?” Lorna’s plea was desperate, her skin gone ghostly and clammy looking.
Something was going on here that was way over Chelle’s head, something that had nothing to do with any amount of money Lorna might owe.
But Simon wasn’t swayed. He pushed open the door and held out a hand for Ms. Ferrer, ignoring Bear completely, looking at Lorna only long enough to say, “I won’t be needing your services any longer, but I will be by for my check in the morning. Have it ready.”
Chelle watched him go, remembered the switchboard was set to voice mail, and managed to remove the forward before her boss noticed. Not that Lorna would have.
Lorna was standing at the front door, her fingers wrapped around the metal crossbar, her gaze following her visitors’ departure through the window as if she were watching her dreams drive away.
Bear had already returned to Lorna’s office, and his voice was none too gentle when he called for her. Twice. The third time she finally let go of the door, wringing her hands at her waist as she crossed the lobby.
“Oh, Baby Bear. What are we going to do now?” was all Chelle heard before the office door closed. Chelle sat there for a minute, not moving, her heart racing as she tried to process what had just happened but failed.
Lorna was obviously disappointed, but Chelle couldn’t think of any reason for her to have dissolved into tears loud enough to rattle the office walls. She did, however, know one person who would love a rundown on this turn of events, and reached for the phone to dial Red’s so she could get a message to King.
Eighteen
“L et me get this straight,” Micky said, one hand flat at her hip on the truck seat, the other holding on to the armrest for dear life. “You’ve been paying that woman money to keep your house in livable condition, and she’s been doing nothing? Taking it and letting the place fall to the ground?”
“That’s about the size of it,” Simon bit off in answer.
“Why?” was the only question that came out when there were so many others swirling in her head…namely, what had Judge Landry been doing there, what was Simon’s connection to him, and why had he failed to mention it? “What was that cryptic stuff about the things that happened there with your mother? And about living near King? A convicted felon? What does he have to do with this?”
“He still lives there.”
What? “In that house?”
Simon shook his head. “He’s got a trailer about a mile away.”
A mile? “How big is your piece of property?”
“Four thousand acres, plus or minus,” he said, slowing the truck as they approached the first intersection past the real estate office.
Micky wasn’t sure what had just happened, but she knew it was big. Yes, she was viewing the incident with her recent history coloring her perceptions. But that was neither here nor there. As much as the others might think her an innocent bystander, she wasn’t. She might not know Lorna Savoy, but she knew enough about Judge Landry to know she didn’t care to ever learn more.
What she did want to know was, what in the world of soap operas had just happened? Simon’s agitation was clear in the way he had driven out of there: backing from the office’s parking lot into the street without checking for on-coming traffic, slamming on the brakes before shifting gears and tearing forward in a squeal of burned rubber.
He wasn’t the same driver who had gotten her safely from his house to the small medical clinic and then to the meeting without jarring her tender arm even once. Was it because of the judge’s remark about his mother? Hearing that bullshit story about getting in touch?
“When did you change your mind? About putting off the meeting?”
“Last night. After you’d gone to sleep. We never got your arm looked at yesterday, and that couldn’t wait,” he finally said, sitting at the stop sign long enough to make up for the other infractions. “The meeting could.”
She appreciated his concern. She would have appreciated it more if she believed that was all of the story even knowing he didn’t owe her a thing. If anything, she owed him. He’d saved her life, after all.
“There’s a small clothing store next to the pharmacy,” he said. “Or there was when I was last here. They won’t have anything fancy. Blue jeans, sneakers, work boots. Oxford button-downs, T-shirts. Will that work, or do we keep driving and find a boutique more to your liking?”
His question wasn’t that big of a deal. She knew who she was, the way she dressed, how people saw her and the expectations that came with that. But his attitude, his sarcasm, yeah, those she could’ve done without.
“I spent yesterday in your boxers and T-shirt. Today I’m wearing clothes I rinsed within an inch of their life and they still smell like dead fish.” Really. It was gross. “And you think I need something other than jeans, tennis shoes, and a clean top?”
He didn’t say anything right away, but she saw
the edge of his mouth quirk toward a smile, and she felt better realizing that his anger was short-lived and compartmentalized outside this truck.
Still, if he had something going on that was going to get in the way of keeping her safe, she needed to know. If he was going to guard her body, he needed his head in the game.
“Then let’s drop off your prescriptions and see what we can find in your size.”
At this point, size was less of an issue than the clothes being clean, and her need for the meds. The doctor had not been pleased that she’d let the gash go unattended for more than twenty-four hours. Neither had he liked her use of duct tape.
But the topical he’d used before stitching her up had worn off before they’d made it past his billing clerk, and hiding the pain was getting harder to do.
Simon pulled his truck facefirst to the curb and parked between Schott’s Pharmacy and Day’s Dress for Less. He killed the engine, turned toward her, his hand on the door handle when she made no move to get out.
“You change your mind?” he asked. “This was a good idea until you actually saw the place?”
She arched a brow. “No, I haven’t changed my mind about anything, though if you don’t kill the attitude, I’m going to change it about you.”
He looked forward again, blew out a long, slow breath. “I’ve got a lot going on.”
“You and me both.”
“You’re right. I’ll find someone else to use as a punching bag. Sorry.”
His punches had all been verbal, but she wasn’t in sparring condition and wasn’t sure she would be until she had answers to the questions turning her life upside down.
“Tell you what,” she said. “If we can get my medicine and find a few things for me to wear, I’ll buy lunch and let you punch all you want as long as you don’t have a problem with me punching back.”
The look in his eyes nearly sent her to the mat. “You’re playing awful loose with those credit cards.”
He had no idea what a shopaholic she could be. And no idea of the flutter in her belly that had nothing to do with it being empty. “As long as I get something to wear that doesn’t smell like it’s been hanging in a fish market, you can max me out the rest of the way on food.”
He laughed at that. A laugh that sounded so real, so true. “Not sure you’d be saying that if you’d really seen me eat.”
“That’s okay,” she teased back. “You haven’t seen me punch.”
Nineteen
S imon was glad for the truce even if they hadn’t needed one. At least Micky hadn’t. He, on the other hand, was ready for a time-out, especially since he’d just been handed a reminder of why he’d kept his distance from Bayou Allain.
The judge’s reasons for letting the house go to shit were lousy. Simon hadn’t heard anything that lame in a hell of a long time—maybe since the last time he’d been here…the day the judge opened his big mouth and announced to the courtroom he was sending King to prison and Simon to war.
Seeing Lorna again today had triggered the memory of the fire. A couple of years older than Simon and King, she’d been there the night of the blaze. There’d been a lot of sex and a lot of alcohol and most of what happened was a blur.
But something in her expression today—an edgy case of nerves hidden beneath too much blush and begging—brought it all back and had him thinking of this thing with Lisa and Micky. He couldn’t say why.
The two incidents were years apart and unrelated—or as unrelated as anything could be with Bear Landry’s fingers in both pies. That’s what was bothering Simon the most. The judge had shipped Simon and King away, leaving Le Hasard temporarily abandoned.
And now, except for King, it was abandoned again. No renters, no livestock, no agriculture, nothing. Four thousand acres virtually uninhabited. What did anyone have to gain by keeping it that way? And how was Bear Landry involved?
“What do you think?”
He looked up. Micky was on the other side of the chest-high rack of hanging clothes holding a blouse to her body, a blouse that made him think of a fifties housewife vacuuming in heels and pearls.
He pretended to consider her choice when he was in no shape to shop or keep from speaking his mind. “You buy that, I’ll spring for the heels and the pearls and the vacuum to go with it.”
She frowned, but she did hook the hanger on the rack. “That’s not funny. I remember my mother wearing heels and pearls.”
“While she ran a vacuum?”
“Well, no. I’m not sure she ever ran her own, but she dressed up for everything. Playdates, shopping, school events.”
“And she always wore a Ferrer fragrance, no doubt.”
Micky nodded, wistful, and Simon breathed deep and let the morning go. “Trapani. She was the epitome of the Ferrer woman. One who wore the fragrance like a signature, making it a part of who she was, of everything she did.”
He followed as she scooted hanger after hanger along the rack, watched her face as she studied the selection of out-of-date garments. “Do you wear the one on the billboard? The Adria one?”
“Of course.” She tossed her head, sending her ponytail flying. “It is who I am.”
He’d thought her beautiful. He hadn’t realized she was also so cute, or such a good sport, or so brave. “And you’ve made it a part of everything you do.”
“I have, yes.” Another hanger. A frown as she returned the selection.
He wasn’t even sure what that meant, making a scent part of everything she did. “Because you wanted to? Or because it was expected of you?”
She cut her eyes toward him and glared. “I thought we were saving the deep shit for later,” she said, tugging at a black polo shirt faded along the shoulders from too much time spent exposed to sunlight streaming in through the store’s windows.
He wondered if Micky felt similarly exposed, down here in the South, away from the protection of the Ferrer machine and the Ferrer people who kept her toeing the company line. Or if—crimes against her aside—she was enjoying the freedom of being a public figure unrecognized.
She tossed the polo over one arm. “I’m buying this one, the one with the nautical stripes, and the gray baseball jersey.”
They were all big and bulky men’s shirts. They would cover her well, hide her assets, keep him from trying to sneak a peek where he didn’t need to be looking, though nothing would stop him from thinking what he had when she’d come downstairs in his clothes.
He shrugged. “Your call.”
“Or my call as long as it doesn’t make you picture me doing housework?” she asked.
And because he was in the mood he was in, he answered, “You can do all the housework you want, but a short skirt, fishnets, and a feather duster would be my outfit of choice. If you were asking. Or wondering.”
“I wasn’t, and I wasn’t.” Surprisingly, her face colored. “And no, I’m not going to keep it in mind for future reference. I don’t do the costume thing if I get the urge to strut my stuff.”
“That’s right. You’re more the full-monty type.” And what a picture that brought to mind. “I’ll remember that next time I’m in town to hit the clubs. Maybe I’ll give Jane a call, check your schedule.”
“You don’t have to check in with Jane,” she said blithely, completely serious. “I’ll be happy to share my full itinerary. All you have to do is ask.”
Well, hell. That was unexpected. He wasn’t sure where they were going with this. He’d thought it harmless flirting, a back-and-forth way to relieve the tension both had been feeling since earlier today.
Except the banter seemed to be more, edging as it was into territory that had nothing to do with missing persons and auto accidents and long-ago fires, and everything to do with the conversations they shared on his patio when he was the only one talking, and her one-dimensional eyes were open to her soul and staring into his.
“I’ll remember that,” he said and left it at that, not certain he was ready for whatever truth had prompted the c
omment, especially if it turned out to be a lie. “Are you going to need more things?”
She glanced from the shirts she’d chosen to the stack of folded jeans she held to her chest. “Three changes of clothes and the ones I’m wearing. That should be enough, don’t you think?”
Depended on what she was planning. He’d been talking about unmentionables, but her question begged another.
Why hadn’t she left the investigation to the authorities and caught the first plane home? “How long are you thinking to stay?”
“I’m not sure. I haven’t done anything yet about Lisa. So however long that takes.”
“What were you going to do?”
“To start with, hire the best private investigator I can.”
Money would be no object in that regard. And a good P.I. could turn over the stones that needed turning and let Simon do his job. And it was his job. He couldn’t walk away from what was happening, either.
His first vacation in how many years? And it had turned into just another assignment—only not, because he had a personal connection, a personal investment, a personal reason to see justice served. He hadn’t been able to do anything about Stella…yet. Micky’s case would serve for the moment to slake his need for revenge.
Revenge. A word Hank Smithson didn’t allow his operatives to use, believing revenge got in the way of getting things done right, and was a dish best served cold. That chill time gave a man room to think, a chance to make sure he was being smart and acting instead of reacting. It could also give him room to hone his plan, to be certain he knew what he was up against and how to bring the enemy crashing down.
Simon looked up a moment later to see Micky still standing opposite him, the rack of clothes between them, her expectant expression losing patience. “A P.I. wouldn’t be a bad idea. You have one in mind?”
“I can call Jane as soon as you can get me to your phone. Or any phone. Even better, a store that sells phones, so I can replace my cell.”