Richard opened his mouth, probably to add another sarcastic comment, but a hollow ring sounded before he got a chance. Liz reached for the handbag draped over her shoulder and came out with a cellular phone.
"Oh, hi, Stephen," she said, after snapping it open and identifying herself. "Well, yes, this is a bad time. I'm at my mother's wake."
Then she was quiet.
Who was this guy that he'd call her at a time like this? Zach wondered sourly.
"Uni-Tech? Okay, fill me in."
Another thoughtful silence followed, then Liz looked up and met his eyes. Zach realized he'd been staring, and when she turned around and drifted farther down the galerie, softening her voice to make it harder to hear, he felt rebuked.
What kind of woman talked business during her mother's wake?
The same kind who ran off in the night and let her boyfriend think she'd died. The same kind who never called or wrote to let him know it wasn't true. The same kind who had caused him to momentarily forget his brother's unsolved murder.
He was a fool to have let his youthful dream come alive again. A complete fool. And if he had any illusions about renewing their lost love, he'd be a bigger fool if he didn't kiss them good-bye.
"When we sell this other stock, I've no idea where to put the funds," Stephen said. "You got any more of those hunches?"
Normally his remark would have amused Liz. But she had no right even being on the phone with
him, so her reply was stiff. "I don't have hunches. Just educated guesses like everyone else."
"Sure you do. That's why you've got an eighty-percent success rate."
"I've got other things on my mind at the moment, okay?"
"Right," Stephen replied, without a hint of contrition, which didn't surprise her. Tunnel vision, that was Stephen.
"So how's it going in Philly?" he asked in a dutiful tone.
"Groversfield," Liz corrected.
"Right. You holding up?"
"As well as can be expected."
"When are you coming back?"
"I'm not sure. My father's not taking this well. I want to stay around a few more days until he's over the hump."
She saw Zach crook his neck to look in her direction and deliberately turned away from him. Did he realize what she was doing? What she had done all along? Suddenly she wanted to spill it all, tell Stephen she wasn't really from Groversfield, Pennsylvania, and that her father wasn't a banker, but a Cajun tour guide who believed in ghosts and phantoms and had just gone over the edge because her mother had died.
Just then her father dashed through the doors, heading straight for Zach.
"Batard!" he roared. "Batard!" He followed this with a tirade in French that told Liz how deeply upset he was.
"I've got to go, Stephen." She slammed the cell phone shut and hastily shoved it in her purse, then hurried to keep her father from making a bigger scene than he already had.
"What is it, Papa?"
He fixed her with crazed eyes. "Zacharie! He wanna take you maman out of her crypt!"
"What? Why?"
"Where did you hear that, partner?" Zach asked, looking as if he knew, but didn't want to believe it.
"Blaspheme! Ellie be a good woman, and here he want to keep her soul from heaven."
"Zach?" Liz said, moving to stand between the two men.
Her father didn't look too stable, while Zach simply looked flustered as he asked, "Who told you that?"
"Allain, that who! He telling everyone who listen!" Her father's fists were balled, and Liz worried that one of them would soon find its way to Zach's jaw.
"Well, it's a damned lie," Zach shot back, his eyes narrowing.
"He saying you wanna prove I kill Jed! Kill that boy, me, why would I wanna kill that boy?"
"Stop it, both of you!" Liz commanded, sotto voce.
She had no idea what this was about. Jed murdered? Her father suspect? And why was Richard just standing there, grinning as though this was the greatest show on earth?
"Papa." She touched her father's arm, startled when he jerked around. But the minute he saw it was her, his expression softened. The raised fists lowered.
"Ankouer kill Jed," he said with sudden sadness, "just like you maman, and I ain't risking her soul to prove it. Tell him, Izzy, tell Zacharie what be true." He whirled back toward Zach. "You ain't pulling her body outta her eternal resting place, no way, no how! Hear me, boy?"
"Whoa, partner," Zach said in a soothing tone, his anger apparently under control now. "Nothing's going to happen. Okay?"
"You'd better go, Zach," Liz said more sharply than she intended. When he made no move, she added, "Now."
"Sure, sure." He took a few steps toward the door, then stopped. "Trust me, Frank, I have nothing like what you're thinking in mind." Then he nodded at her, a bitter smile pasted on his face. "Have a good life, Liz Deveraux."
And though she knew it wasn't a heartfelt statement, Liz surprised herself by whispering, "You, too, Zach."
She watched him make his way inside and through the crowd, and kept her eyes on him, even though she heard Richard egging her father on. Very soon, Zach tracked down the doctor, and from her vantage point, she saw the conversation was heated, at least on Zach's side.
Which made her conclude that he'd told the truth. How much better if he hadn't. A life waited for her in Chicago, where no one knew about the warped world in which she'd grown up. She didn't belong in this town with its undercurrents of hostility and superstition. But when Zach had walked through those French doors, her joyous heart had betrayed how deeply she'd felt his absence over the years and made her regret the lie she'd built about her background. To let Zach back in would expose it, and she already felt exposed enough.
"Ellie fight him with all her strength."
Her father's statement forced Liz to tear her attention from Zach, and when she did, she experienced a flash of anger at the glint of amusement in Richard's eyes. In defense, she put a protective hand on her father's shoulder.
"Papa," she pleaded, "you don't know what you're saying. You're overwrought."
"Where you learn those big words, girl?"
He'd had too much to drink. Although his stance was steady and his voice clear, she could see the signs she remembered well from girlhood.
"You're tired. Let's go home so you can get some rest."
"Not now, no. I wanna talk to Richard."
He raised his hand like a traffic cop's, the same warning he'd used when she'd sass back as a kid. For an instant she felt uncomfortably like that kid. I'm an adult now, she reminded herself, and her father needed her to act like one. "Please come home."
"Non, it not my home."
"It is. I wanted you and Mama to have it."
She saw Richard taking it all in, not even bothering to hide his interest. She looked over at him. "Could you give us a private moment?"
"Sure, Liz. My other guests need me anyway." In the space left by his absence, a gaping silence loomed.
"You embarrass me, girl," her father finally said.
"I'm sorry." And she was. She'd displeased him. She was always displeasing him. The house had displeased him most of all, and she wondered why she was so obsessed he take it.
"That old Fortier house . . . it all the time make you angry with us cause we not live there." His dark eyes grew darker. "When you give it, it seem you are shamed by who we are, where we live. It cut you maman deep in the heart."
Liz almost gasped at that information. Her mother had never told her that. She'd only said her father didn't want to move out of the bayou.
"No, mon fille, it not my home. I will not live there."
He turned away, propped his elbows on the railing, and stared in the direction of the swamp.
Three years. Three years, during which she barely spoke to her parents because they refused to live in Zach's childhood home. Now her mother was dead and they'd never heal that rift. Her father was the only one she had left.
"I . . .
oh, Papa, I wish I'd done it differently."
He met her eyes, and in them she saw not liquor or dementia, but deep love and compassion.
"I know that, Izzy. But go on now, go to that big old house. I come in the morning to give you the stone and watch you drive away. Cause, leave you must. Soon as you got that opal, le fantome noir, he is gonna come for you. That why I say, run. Run fast, far away from Port Chatre."
The leaden weight already bearing down on Liz's heart got heavier. This was so crazy. There, she'd said it, if only to herself. Crazy.
She was tired, too. She'd made a red-eye flight from Chicago, then driven the remaining distance in a rental car. She'd stared at her mother's lifeless body in the casket for hours the night before, stood in front of her crypt, wandered through the house of a man who used to torment her, and listened to the cruel whispered remarks of his guests. But none of it compared to the pain her father's words ignited.
"All right," she said wearily. "But will you come by before you leave for the bayou?"
"Oui."
She gave him a weak smile, kissed his prickly cheek, then went to say good-bye to Richard. When her father got to the house, she'd try to persuade him to come to Chicago with her. She'd put him in a quiet little hospital for rest and treatment.
But how would she explain him? She couldn't. Not without admitting the truth, which showed how completely she'd built her tangled web.
Expose herself or abandon him? Those were her choices. Both sent her stomach into jitters.
Chapter Three
Zach cut off the motor on the flat-bottomed aluminum boat and let momentum carry him the final distance to the pier. A big, battered aluminum craft was tied to a cypress mooring. It cried out for a new coat of paint, and its lettering, which said DEVERAUX SWAMP Tours, was so badly chipped that the V and the W were missing. Two pirogues, the canoe of choice in the bayous, were lashed to the boat, one on each side.
The tall old cypress still stood, its twisting, moss-hung branches reaching to the sky and sheltering the steep roof of the cabin. And there, on a limb forking out over the water, a frayed and dirty rope swung in the morning breeze. The tire was gone now, probably taken by water rot. He wished his memories had gone with it. Ghosts of Izzy, laughing as she swung over the water to jump when the tire hit its apex, floated around him.
She always came up laughing, too. That's what Zach remembered most about her. She laughed all the time.
A crystal-clear image arose in his mind of the day he and Jed had come across the Deveraux cabin while paddling into the backwaters. Missus Ellie had come out on the dock, smiling, inviting them in for some cool lemonade. Behind her stood a young girl, all curly haired and grinning, and he'd been captivated by her sparkling spirit even then. She'd been barely seven, he soon learned, closer to Jed's age, who was eight. But even at ten, Zach recognized a link between himself and Izzy, one he'd come to believe could never die.
He made a scoffing sound. So much for that conviction. In a love that could never die, one partner didn't desert the other.
His boat hit the dock with a soft thud, breaking his anguished train of thought. Water was high this year, covering all but the last few steps to the dock. Spiderwebs glistened with dew beneath the final riser and, choosing to avoid them, he stood on a seat and jumped from the boat. He'd had that god-damn dream last night, and his skin still crawled. Spiders—who in the hell dreamed of spiders? He knew some dreamed of snakes—a Freudian thing, he'd heard tell—but thousands of creepy, eight-legged arachni-thingees? Maybe he should get his head examined.
He discarded that thought. Everyone had nightmares, although maybe not the same one, two to three times a week. And he could probably attribute last night's dream to the excessive amount of Smirnoff's he'd downed in the lounge at the Cormier Inn. To cope with his grief, he'd somehow found a way to tuck Liz's memory into a small mental box, opened only when he had too many under his belt, and then quickly closed when sobriety returned.
He had a hell of a time sleeping last night, thinking of her. His insides still quivered from the shock of finding her alive. At the time, he'd thought the day she'd run away was the worst day of his life, but that pain hadn't compared to the torture of hearing she'd been found dead.
Why? he again asked himself. Why hadn't Frank or Ellie had the decency to let him know it wasn't true, that even though Izzy had abandoned him, at least she was alive? Why? And even more painful to dwell upon was the question of why Izzy hadn't told him herself. She'd been the heart of his heart, his soul mate. As corny as it sounded it was true. He'd known it even then, and always thought that she had, too. So, why, why, why?
An osprey shrieked in the silence left by the killed boat engine as if to remind him he was driving himself nuts with these questions. If he kept it up, he would need a shrink. Then a roar as loud as a low-flying airplane jerked him fully from his reverie. The wildlife lapsed into silence. The day grew deathly still except for the slap of water against the rocking boats.
Rutting alligators. He hadn't boated through a bayou in ten, twelve years. Just his luck to come in May, right in the middle of mating season.
Close by, frogs soon croaked. Something stirred in the grasses, probably a nutria. He used to shoot those suckers, had once covered a wall in his room with their pelts. He'd promised Izzy he'd make her a coat from them for a wedding present, but he never—
He shook his head so hard he could almost hear his brain rattle. There was no Izzy. She'd vanished twenty years ago. Now an unfathomable woman named Liz claimed her place, which was almost as disorienting as learning she'd been alive all these years.
Zach remained on the end of the dock for a moment, taking in the changes to the house. Lots of gabby people at that wake, and several had mentioned Frank's new prosperity. Here were signs they spoke of. The enclosed second floor had been a screened-in room during the years he'd visited. An expensive job, especially when you lived twenty miles into the swamp. He'd spied power poles during his boat ride, and judging from the absent hum of the trusty generator, the Deverauxs must have hooked up. He wondered if Frank had paid the levy to have the wiring brought in.
Even more startling had been the news that they'd purchased his old family house, then had never moved in, although according to the scuttlebutt they kept it well maintained. And now Liz was staying there. He'd been sorely tempted to make a call on her last, night, but just thinking of her roaming his childhood home brought back poignant memories he'd prefer to avoid.
No lights were on. Zach headed for the door anyway. Maybe Frank wasn't up yet or maybe he'd stayed with Liz. He peered in the windows, but the shade trees filtered the morning light too much to see clearly. Should he go in? Despite the remote location, breaking and entering was still against the law, and he hadn't notified the Vermillion authorities he , was conducting an investigation inside their parish.
But why should he have? He wasn't conducting an investigation. He was here to apologize . . . and maybe, just maybe, check out the doctor's wild accusations. He'd been furious at the man for spreading his theory at the wake, but after listening to Zach vent, Allain had introduced him to people who were more than happy to discuss Frank's change in fortune.
Where had the money come from? Even more, could it somehow be connected with Jed's death?
Considering Zach's drug dealer theory, it wasn't a completely illogical jump. But to think Frank would also kill his wife and mother-in-law for the same reason, and some twenty years apart? That was illogical.
He put his hand on the doorknob. It turned in his hand, but he was unable to make himself open it. If Frank was inside, he'd be furious, and they hadn't parted on the best of terms. And what if Liz was here? He refused to admit even to himself that she was the primary reason he'd boated all this way, but it was that thought that made him release the knob.
Not sure what to do next, he quite automatically reached in his back pocket and pulled out a silver flask, unscrewed the cap and took a few small sip
s of the vodka inside. As the liquor warmed his stomach he found it easier to keep his mind off Liz.
Standing around made him jittery, and as he returned the flask to his pocket, he decided to check the premises. Looking for what, he didn't know, probably just a reason to hang out until someone showed up.
He walked along the galerie toward the back of the cabin, ducking under the outside staircase, then rounding the corner of the building.
It was like stepping back in time. Frank's gin mill still occupied the center of the yard, but the revenuers must have put him out of business because no steam came from its rusty pipes. The big iron kettle was there. A reasonably clean apron was tied to its handle, and the ashes beneath looked fresh. Then there was the water pump, and the tool shed with its bent metal roof.
Nostalgia sucker punched him so suddenly he took a sharp, deep breath. He'd not been one of their people, these Deverauxs, these odd French-speaking Cajuns. Although of the same Acadian heritage, he'd been a town boy, son of the mayor, living in the biggest house. But the Deverauxs had opened their home and hearts to him.
The painful wave immobilized him momentarily, and it was a while before he took heed of the persistent scratching coming from the far edge of the property. He looked in the direction of the noise, and saw the striped tail of a raccoon.
Several striped tails, actually, and as he fixed his attention, a head lifted, staring at him with black-ringed eyes. He hurried down the stairs. Most of the animals scattered instantly, but a few waited until he was almost on them, appearing to issue a challenge with their dark eyes.
Even they retreated when he got within a foot or two. All except one, which held a scrap of fabric in its clever paw. Acutely interested in what had drawn these coons out in broad daylight, Zach bent for a stone and lobbed it, hoping the animal would drop the fabric before turning tail.
Chills & Thrills Paranormal Boxed Set Page 3