The breeze off the bay rattled through the Palmettos on either side of the front steps, and brought with it hints of brine and water grasses and mud. Maggie closed and locked the front door behind her, and stared at the entryway.
She was at loose ends. She was in a foreign place, without anyone of her own nearby. It was too quiet, and too empty, and too unfamiliar.
Her boots echoed up and down the hall as she made her way to the stairs, then went up to the second floor. Yesterday, Boudreaux had shown her the guest room he’d had Amelia make up for her. She found it again, and set her bag on the white iron bed. She was grateful for the open windows, for both the fresh air and the reassurance that the world outside was still there.
She looked around at the room, at the original wood floors, the ship’s lathe walls left a chipped and faded turquoise, the handmade quilt on the bed. There were no books, there was no TV or phone.
She walked into the bathroom. Two bright white towels hung over the side of a cast iron tub, and a small bowl of soaps and lotions sat on the antique dresser that served as a vanity. It was all very charming and understated, but she felt too out of place to think about lying naked in the tub. Instead, she turned around and went back out into the hall.
She walked opposite of the way she’d come, toward the back stairs that led down to the kitchen. The double doors of the room next to hers were open, and she couldn’t help stopping in the doorway. Boudreaux’s room, she knew.
It was spotless and spare, as she would have expected from such an immaculate man. The king-sized bed was of antique mahogany, though understated in design, and covered with a gray-blue spread. The windows of this room were open, too, and cream-colored, floor length sheers moved gently against the wood floor.
There were no toiletries or dirty laundry to make the room look lived in. The antique dresser held only a large model of a shrimp boat. Through an open doorway beside the bed, Maggie saw a bathroom that was just as bare of superfluous decoration or detritus.
She was sorely tempted to open the nightstand drawers, to poke through the bathroom vanity, to gain the knowledge and intimacy that comes from going through another’s things. She resisted that temptation by walking away.
Once downstairs in the kitchen, Maggie opened the big commercial fridge as if she might eat, but she wasn’t hungry. The strange surroundings, Zoe’s pain, and Wyatt’s uncharacteristic unavailability, however deserved, made the idea of food unappealing.
She closed the door, then checked her phone again, in the way that people do when they hope they missed a call or accidentally turned off their ringer, but know they haven’t done either. Nothing. She slipped it into the back pocket of her jeans, then opened the back door and stepped out onto the back porch.
Here, she felt more like she was on familiar ground. She’d spent quite a bit of time on this porch with Boudreaux, and she could almost hear echoes of conversations past, smell the mangos that had gone away until next summer.
Across the back yard, at the end of a brick-paved walkway, was a small cottage, lights on in every window but one. The front door was open, and as Maggie walked down the back steps and along the path, she could hear the faint sounds of television through the white, wrought-iron screen door.
It was loud once Maggie stood at the door, though she could see that the TV in the small living room was off. She knocked on the side of the door, but waited some time without an answer.
“Miss Evangeline?” she called. Again, there was no reply. Finally, she opened the door and went inside.
The main room was pleasant, in a slightly stereotypical Florida way. Furniture upholstered in tropical florals. Seascapes on the walls. This home was lived in though, with baskets of cross-stitch next to a recliner, well-read magazines on the bamboo coffee table, and a white sweater neatly folded on an ottoman.
There was an efficiency kitchen on one side of the room, and a closed door on the left wall. On the right, a small hallway, from which came the sounds of the TV.
“Miss Evangeline?” Maggie called again.
When she didn’t get any answer, she went just to the hallway, and called a bit louder. “Miss Evangeline?”
“Who it is there?” the woman called from behind a closed door.
“It’s Maggie Redmond,” Maggie called back.
“Come in the door!” the woman yelled.
Maggie opened the door to find Miss Evangeline arranged beneath a heap of covers on a wicker twin bed, an old-fashioned pink rubber hot water bottle to one side of her, a box of candy to the other. The TV blared from the top of her dresser.
“I just came to see how you are,” Maggie tried not to yell.
Miss Evangeline picked a remote up from the bed, pointed it at the TV. “Lemme slow the TV,” she barked. “I can’t hear nothin’ you say, me.”
She turned the volume down, and the Golden Girls stopped screaming at everybody.
“It’s good to see you again, Miss Evangeline,” Maggie said as she moved a little closer to the bed.
“I’m suppose be goin’ home,” Miss Evangeline huffed, “but Mr. Benny say I got to take care of you while he go.”
Maggie tried not to smile, unsure if Miss Evangeline actually believed that, or even if Boudreaux had said it. She went to stand near the bed, glanced down at the night stand at a black and white photo in a silver frame.
In the picture, a woman in a bandana and a flowered housedress sat on a small wooden stool outdoors. It was undoubtedly Miss Evangeline, but she looked to be in her forties or so. On one side of her stood a young Creole girl, tall and straight, her arms folded across her chest. On the other stood a boy who was unmistakably Bennett Boudreaux.
“There go ’melia and Mr. Benny,” Miss Evangeline said, following Maggie’s gaze.
“May I look at it?”
“You lookin’ at it already,” Miss Evangeline said.
Maggie reached down and picked it up. Boudreaux appeared to be about Kyle’s age, or maybe as old as twelve. He was wearing a white tee shirt and well-worn jeans and was barefooted. He was so tan that he was darker than the two light-skinned Creole women.
He was looking into the camera, and even from that distance, and in black and white, his eyes were arresting. But there was a look of sadness there that added to the weight Maggie already felt in her chest.
“Prettiest boy I ever saw,” Miss Evangeline said.
Maggie nodded. He was pretty, pretty in the way that Kyle was, with those long, dark lashes and gentle features.
“Fifty-seven years I been raise him now,” Miss Evangeline said. “Still he don’t mind me, no.
Maggie smiled and set the picture back down.
“Come here eat of this chocolates,” Miss Evangeline said, shaking the little gold box. “’Mr. Benny say he pay a million dollar to the Frenchmen for them chocolates, and I got to make it last. So I gon’ eat ever one of these tonight, me.”
She handed one delicate chocolate to Maggie. “You’re not going to get sick are you?” Maggie asked.
“Sick for why?” the woman asked, the TV reflecting off of her thick lenses.
Maggie shook her head and put the chocolate in her mouth. It was luscious and silky and dark.
“Now you go the bed,” Miss Evangeline said. At first Maggie thought she was supposed to sit, but Miss Evangeline was waving her off. “What day tomorrow is?”
“Thursday,” Maggie said.
“Tomorrow ice cream day,” the woman answered. “Mr. Benny take me out for the ice cream Thursdays.”
Maggie wracked her brain for some memory of this in her myriad instructions, but came up empty. “Okay, we’ll go get ice cream,” she said. “I have some errands to run first.”
“I go the errand,” Miss Evangeline said, putting the last chocolate in her mouth.
“Yes,” Maggie said. She was pretty sure it was assumed that she’d hang around the house all day with Miss Evangeline, but Boudreaux hadn’t said not to take her anywhere, and she sure as heck
wasn’t leaving her alone.
“Is there anything you need before I go?” Maggie asked.
“I don’t need nothin’,” the old woman said. “I already had some water, and Mr. Benny fill up my douche bag,” she said, holding up the hot water bottle.
Maggie stood there, glad she was too depressed and worried to burst out laughing or make a smart remark. “Well, good,” she managed to say.
Miss Evangeline nodded, then set the empty box on her night stand.
“Good night, Miss Evangeline,” Maggie said.
“’Night, girl,” Miss Evangeline said, and turned the TV back up.
Maggie locked the front door before closing it, then headed back over to the big, empty house.
Zoe sat upright in her bed, propped up against her pillows. All of the lights in the house were off, except for a nightlight in the bathroom that cast a pale yellow glow into the hallway.
Zoe had been staring down the hallway for so long that her eyes felt scratchy and hot. She had been watching, expecting him to appear at the head of the hallway, so afraid of seeing him that sometimes she did, and her heart would pound for a moment or two. Every now and then, one of the cats would rattle their tags against their bowls in the kitchen, and a piece of Zoe would die.
Her muscles ached from hours of being ready to spring from her bed. She was slightly dizzy from breathing too shallowly for too long. She wanted her mother. She wanted her dad. She wanted to be someplace else, someplace where she didn’t have to watch the hallway.
She was trying to get up the nerve to go close her bedroom door when the motion sensor light went off outside the window beside her bed, and everything that kept her alive stopped functioning at once.
Maggie took a long shower rather than a bath and pulled on a tank top and some plaid boxers. She placed her service weapon on the night stand out of habit, and slid into the white iron bed. The smooth, old sheets were cool and comforting, but she didn’t feel comforted.
She checked her phone one more time, and contemplated calling Wyatt, but then set her alarm and waited for sleep to come. She was exhausted, yet wide awake.
After almost half an hour, she got back out of bed, grabbed her phone and her weapon, and went down to the kitchen for a glass of milk. When she’d finished it, she went on a wander, and found herself back at the door to Boudreaux’s den.
The door was open, and Maggie stepped into the room. She set her phone and .45 on the ottoman, walked to the French doors and looked outside at the wind. Moonlight reflected off of the leaves of Boudreaux’s many mango trees as they fluttered in the dark.
She turned back around and walked over to the couch where she’d sat last night. The denim blue sweater that Boudreaux had worn was tossed over the back. She reached out to feel its softness, then on impulse she picked it up and brought it up to her nose. It smelled just faintly of his elegant cologne.
After a moment’s hesitation, Maggie slipped it over her head. The sleeves hung down several inches below her hands, and the bottom of the sweater covered her shorts. If she had thought he’d mind, she’d have taken it off, but somehow she didn’t think he would. He was far too much the gentleman.
She curled up on the couch, and watched the trees with their dancing leaves until she finally fell asleep.
Maggie awoke sore, tired, and momentarily lost.
Miss Evangeline was to have her breakfast on the table precisely at 8am, so Maggie got herself mentally resituated, dressed, made up the guest bed, and went down to the kitchen. If waking up alone in an unfamiliar place hadn’t made her tense and cranky, struggling to understand and operate Boudreaux’s coffee machine would have done the trick.
She finally managed to manufacture something at least physically drinkable, had a cup of coffee on the back porch, and then undertook to prepare Miss Evangeline’s breakfast according to her daughter’s instructions.
She finally got it on the table with four minutes to spare, poured herself another cup of coffee, and sat down with a copy of yesterday’s paper that had been sitting on the counter.
A few minutes later, the back door opened, and an aluminum walker came through it, after a few preliminary bangs to the jamb on either side. It was followed eventually by Miss Evangeline, wearing a red bandana on her head and a blue flowered house dress on her frame.
Maggie stood and stepped hesitantly toward the woman, unsure if she needed help or would be insulted by it. She stopped halfway to her and let her proceed unaided.
“Good morning, Miss Evangeline,” she said.
“Don’t know it is,” the old woman said. “Somebody put different tenny ball on my walkie-talkie, make it go too fast.”
Maggie looked down at the tennis balls stuck onto the front pieces of the old lady’s walker. They looked okay to her, and the only thing Miss Evangeline might outrun was a rock.
“Uh, well,” Maggie said. “I don’t know. I didn’t do anything to them.”
Miss Evangeline arrived at her chair at last, and Maggie couldn’t help but take the lady’s elbow as she sat. Miss Evangeline didn’t seem to mind, or notice. Once the lady had navigated an actual seated position, Maggie walked back to her side of the table and sat down.
Maggie wasn’t much of a social creature, and didn’t seem to have the knack for small talk, especially with a near-stranger, so she had to cast about in her mind for something to say.
“Did you sleep well, Miss Evangeline?” she finally asked.
“Don’t know,” the woman said, peering suspiciously at her plate. “I miss the whole thing, me.”
Maggie would have found that funny if she hadn’t been so nervous about her ability to prepare one slice of maple bacon, dark not black, one slice of walnut-colored sourdough toast, and one over medium egg with no lace, no lace at all. She had an easier time cooking breakfast for ten than she did one tiny breakfast cooked to such specifications.
Miss Evangeline looked at her plate and then stared across the table. “Where your food at?”
“I don’t eat breakfast,” Maggie said. “Unless it’s raw oysters.”
The old lady stared at her a moment, and Maggie wondered if she’d grossed her out. But then Miss Evangeline dropped her eyes to her plate. The old woman stared at each component in turn, then finally picked up her fork and knife and began performing some kind of surgery on the egg. Maggie let out a breath and picked up the paper she’d been reading.
After a moment, she heard the dry-leaf voice from across the table.
“Somethin’ wrong my egg,” it said.
Maggie sighed quietly. She’d made and thrown away two other eggs before putting that one on the plate.
She lowered the newspaper. Miss Evangeline was picking at the egg with her fork.
“What, exactly?” Maggie asked.
Miss Evangeline looked up, her thick glasses almost opaque in the sunlight from the window.
“Got snots in it,” she said. “The white all runny with snots.”
Maggie blinked at her a few times. She’d labored over that stupid egg, making sure the white was “done, but not rubbery” and the yolk still slightly soft. She chewed at the corner of her lip and tried not to be snarky. It wasn’t the old woman’s fault that she was out of sorts.
“Would you like me to make you another one?”
Miss Evangeline looked back down at her plate. “I scrape the snots,” she said.
“Okay,” Maggie said. She took a healthy swallow of her coffee, then returned to the paper.
After a moment, Miss Evangeline spoke up again. “Bacon burned,” she said.
Maggie lowered the paper. “No it isn’t,” she said.
The old lady stuck her face nearly on top of the bacon, then turned her Coke-bottle glasses back up at Maggie. “Too crisp. Gon’ get underneath my teeths,” she said.
Maggie sighed. “I followed Amelia’s specifications exactly,” she said. “Maybe I messed up the incantation.”
Miss Evangeline stared blankly across the table
, and Maggie lifted her paper back up. The story on Wyatt continued on the third page, and she flipped over to it.
“You thinkin’ you big enough to sass me, then,” she heard from the other side of the paper. She lowered it to find Miss Evangeline still staring at her.
“No, not at all,” Maggie said. “I just know that I’ve never cooked a breakfast so carefully in my lif.”
“Careful, not careful, I don’t know,” Miss Evangeline said. “But you sass me again an’ I come there and snatch you out that chair.”
Maggie stared back at the old woman. For what felt like an eternity, neither of them blinked.
Finally, Maggie reached over and dragged the aluminum walker over to her side of the table, the tennis balls making a soft swish along the floor. Then she opened her paper back up.
“Come on, if you’re coming,” she said.
When Maggie and Miss Evangeline pulled into Zoe’s driveway a short time later, Paulette was sitting on the front steps, drinking coffee and smoking.
Maggie told Miss Evangeline she’d just be a minute, and walked over to Paulette.
“Hey, Paulette. I just thought I’d drop in and check on Zoe.”
“She’s sleepin’,” the woman answered. “She had a rough night.”
“Is everything okay?”
The other woman drilled the cigarette into a small pail filled with cat litter. “Motion sensor went off last night,” she said. “When I went out to look, it was just a possum goin’ across the back yard.”
Maggie let out a long breath and propped her hands on her hips as Paulette lit another cigarette.
“Girl was so scared, she couldn’t even yell,” Paulette said. “Woke me up bangin’ on my wall.”
Maggie felt a tremendous sense of guilt that she knew didn’t necessarily belong to her, but she claimed it anyway. “Which light?”
“Her bedroom window,” Paulette said.
Maggie started for the side yard. “I’ll be right back.”
Maggie walked around to the back yard. The kitchen, bathroom and Zoe’s bedroom windows were all on the back wall of the duplex, Zoe’s the last one she came to.
Awash (The Forgotten Coast Florida Suspense Series Book 6) Page 11