Betrayed

by Sharon Sala

  Being branded as the killer he was.

  Instead, the chief just nodded at him and looked away. The relief kept him upright and walking.

  He spotted his stockbroker, already seated and waiting for his arrival, then noticed the table was close to where the chief was seated. Fate was still messing with him.

  "Hello, Edwin. How's it going?" Big Boy said, as he took a seat.

  "All's well," Edwin Farris said. "Let's order first, and then we can talk."

  "Works for me," Big Boy said.

  He was reading the menu when he heard the chief talking to Junie, and when he heard Junie ask about Logan Talman's welfare, he was afraid to hear the answer.

  The words, “full recovery” made him sick to his stomach. His gut was still in knots long after Evan's departure, and it was all he could do to get through lunch and the brief business meeting afterward.

  Big Boy's stockbroker left first, claiming a pending appointment, leaving Big Boy momentarily alone to answer a text from Sugar. By the time he left Barney's, he didn't want to go home. The urge to run while he had the chance was huge. But habit drove him down the same streets, and before he knew it, he was walking into his house. His inability to make a decision had decided for him.

  Sugar was in the bathroom giving herself a facial, so he changed into old clothes and headed for the garden.

  Wisteria was hanging from a trellis in lush, purple clumps. Irises were in full bloom along the borders and bougainvillea abounded, but it was the roses he coveted most.

  He started walking along the path, dead-heading as he went, pausing with a smile as he watched a bumblebee chase away a hummingbird before moving all the way to the center of the roses, to the bench where he sat to admire the beauty and the antiquity of all that was his.

  Caitlin was making lunch for her boys, but her thoughts were still on Logan. It was horrifying to know there was a killer in town who was targeting her best friend, and she didn't know why it was happening.

  "Mama, we're hungry!" the boys cried in unison.

  "Go wash. Your lunch is almost ready," she said, and then grinned as they pushed and shoved their way out of the kitchen.

  She put their food on the table, along with glasses of iced, sweet tea. They came running back, pushing and shoving again, and then slid into their seats.

  "Someone needs to say the blessing," she said, which stopped them from reaching for their food.

  "You do it, Mama."

  "No, Wiley, you do it. Robert did it last time."

  Her oldest boy sighed and bowed his head.

  "Dear God, thank you for Mama's good cooking and Daddy's job, and please help Robert to quit wettin' the bed. Amen."

  Robert ducked his head.

  Caitlin hid a grin.

  The boys dug into their food as Caitlin got up and made herself a glass of tea, too. But she couldn't bring herself to eat. She was thinking about Chief Evans asking her to question Logan further about what had happened to Damon. She didn't know Wade Garrett had already furnished those answers, and she didn't want to pump her best friend about anything. What they shared, they'd shared willingly. She'd talk to Logan, but she wouldn't pry.

  Logan woke alone and thought she'd just dreamed Wade was here, which left her with an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach. Then she heard his voice and turned toward the sound. He was standing in the doorway talking to a policeman.

  Her eyes welled. He was really here.

  "Hey," she said.

  Wade looked over his shoulder.

  "Hey, yourself," he said, then parted company with the cop and closed the door. When he got to the bed, he felt of her forehead. It was cool enough. "How do you feel?"

  "Did you tell me I was shot?" she asked.

  He nodded.

  "Do you need anything? Something for the pain?"

  "It will make me sleepy. I want to talk. Did I dream it, or did you tell me the police chief has the files from Blue Sky?"

  "No dream. I gave them to him. You're done playing detective."

  When her eyes narrowed, he knew he'd ticked her off and was waiting for a dressing down when she reached for his hand.

  "I didn't trust him," she said.

  "I know, and it nearly got you killed. He said when you get better, that the two of you were going to set a trap and catch a bad guy."

  Her eyes widened. "He said that?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "How long do I have to stay here?" she asked.

  "I don't know, but considering the fact that you nearly died today, we aren't rushing it. Oh...and who's T-Boy?"

  Logan frowned. "He’s a guy a little older than me. Mostly just a thug. I saw him once since I've been back. He hasn't changed a bit."

  "Chief Evans told your friend, Caitlin, and me, that he saved your life."

  Logan's lips parted in shock. "You're kidding."

  "Nope. The Chief said he's the one who found you and was holding compresses on your wounds when the ambulance and the police arrived."

  "Wow," Logan said, and looked away. "I guess I owe him."

  "I would agree," Wade said.

  Her eyes closed again, and she was drifting back to sleep when she groaned. Breathing was suddenly a thing of pain, and every breath she took exacerbated the muscles in her back that had begun to spasm. She moaned beneath her breath.

  "What's wrong?" Wade asked.

  "Muscle spasms. Oh my God, they hurt. Where's the thingy to ring for the nurse?"

  "Clipped to your bed," he said, and pulled it down into her line of sight.

  She pressed the buzzer.

  Moments later a voice came over the intercom.

  "Hello, Mrs. Talman. How can I help you?"

  "I need something for pain."

  "I'll check your orders," she said, and disconnected.

  Logan closed her eyes as another wave of pain rolled through her.

  Wade had two options. Walk away before he revealed his true feelings, or just hold her anyway. He chose the latter, lowered a bedrail and raised the head of her bed, apologizing as he eased down onto the bed beside her.

  "I can't watch you hurt," he said, and slid his hands behind her back. He could already feel the muscles knotting beneath his palms as he eased her forward. "Rest your head on my shoulder and try to relax."

  Logan was in too much pain to pay attention to how close they were. What she felt were the tips of his fingers pressing on the knotted muscles—pressing hard for several seconds and releasing. Then doing it again, applying pressure over and over with his fingertips. The relief was staggering.

  "Ooh, my God," Logan moaned.

  Wade's heart skipped.

  "Am I hurting you?"

  "No, it's stopping the spasms. Thank you. . .thank you."

  "I’m happy it's helping," he said.

  The nurse walked in, and then smiled.

  "Looks like I'm a little late with the TLC."

  "It's not what you think," Wade said, as he eased her back down onto the pillow and lowered her bed.

  "The spasms are easing up," Logan said. "How did you learn to do that?"

  "I was in a wreck when I was a teenager. Had a lot of back spasms from the whiplash. A physical therapist taught me how to stop them myself after my therapy had ended."

  The nurse nodded.

  "Yes, yes. Intermittent pressure on the muscle in spasm does help."

  She injected the pain meds into the IV and then checked Logan's bandages.

  "Do you think you could eat something?" the nurse asked.

  Logan started to say no, then changed her mind.

  "Ice cream."

  "We can make that happen," the nurse said, and left.

  Wade sat back down to put space between them again. It had been too easy to hold her, and he didn't have that right.

  The nurse came back with a little cup of ice cream and raised the head of her bed, but Logan was having a hard time feeding herself left-handed.

  "May I?" Wade asked.


  "Knock yourself out," Logan said, and gratefully gave up and let him feed her like a baby.

  "Want more?" he asked, when that was gone.

  "Not now, and thank you."

  "Then rest. Sleep. I'm here and there's a cop at the door. You're safe."

  Her eyes closed. Within seconds she succumbed.

  Wade watched her until he was sure she was asleep before texting the bosses of the work crews back home.

  For the next hour, texts flew back and forth as the crews all wanted to know Logan's status and then sent messages to her. Wade answered those in between problem-solving at the different job sites. By the time the messages had tapered off, he was tired. He put his phone on the little table beside him and closed his eyes.

  He'd lived a lifetime between the phone call this morning and now. He felt tired and he felt old. For a few hours today, he’d feared he had outlived everyone he loved.

  Chapter Nine

  Big Boy was sitting on a corner of the bed, staring out the window into the dark, starry sky, wishing he’d made a different choice and had never called Damon Conway. If he hadn't been such a coward, he would have just found a way to kill his wife without involving anyone else. But it was too late for regrets.

  He'd thought about pulling a disappearing act all evening, but didn't have the guts to walk away from the money. Most of it was tied up in investments, and it took time to liquidate.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the woman in his bed. Without makeup and in the dark, she could have been any woman. He'd been so caught up in the lust of a pretty face and sexy body that he'd cold-heartedly done away with his woman of substance. He hadn't had one serious conversation with his second wife in the entire time he'd known her. The only thing she understood was using her body to get what she wanted. The only thing she was good at was sex.

  Disheartened by his choices, he got up and went to the window. His bedroom overlooked the rose gardens at the back of the house. Even in the dark, they were beautiful. He used to walk among them at night, their fragrance more concentrated in the evening when the air grew heavy and still.

  He hadn't walked at night in a very long time and followed the urge all the way to the closet for shoes. You didn't walk barefoot at night in Louisiana unless you were a gambler willing to risk your life on a snake.

  With a quick look at the bed to make sure Sugar was still sleeping, he slipped out of the room and then hurried down the stairs and turned off the alarm.

  His tennis shoes made little squeaky sounds on the marble flooring as he moved down the hall into the library, his steps hastening with anticipation as he exited through the French doors onto the back verandah.

  The scent of jasmine met him at the bottom steps and then followed him through the winding path until he came upon the roses. The aroma of glorious blooms was an aphrodisiac, lulling him into a false sense of all is well.

  The soft, nearly soundless flap of wings behind him was all the warning he was going to get from an owl on the hunt. The rustle in the bushes stopped him momentarily until he identified the sound with the possum that came waddling out.

  The tree frogs were singing loudly, announcing his presence with a most splendid show of their music, giving way only to a low buzz from the cicadas—the white noise of the night.

  It was the familiar he'd known as a kid, sleeping in the back bedroom of his mama and daddy's shack down on the bayou. With windows open to catch the faintest of breezes, but tightly screened to keep out what didn't belong inside, he'd fallen asleep to this midnight lullaby. Then he’d grown up, gotten rich, and was living a life as a man with two faces.

  The winding path through the roses was paved with reclaimed brick from an Antebellum property outside of New Orleans. It pleased his fancy to imagine the countless feet of people long dead who had walked on this brick in ages past—before he'd had them moved here to Bluejacket—back when he'd believed that owning what someone else had lost somehow counted as one-upping the Universe.

  The path ended at a stone bench within the center of the roses. The words “Angels Among Us” had been carved into the back, with angel wings forming the arms of the bench. He sat, then tilted his head up to the vast infinity of a dark, starry sky. So beautiful, and a far better view from the window of his room.

  There was no priest on the seat beside him, and even though he hadn't been inside a church since the day after he'd buried his wife, he still felt the need to seek absolution.

  "Forgive me Lord, for I have sinned. It's been something over ten years since my last confession."

  He spoke in whispers, because confessing aloud to anyone but God would put him in prison. And then the longer he spoke, the quieter the night sounds became.

  Cicadas quit singing. The tree frogs fell silent.

  And when he had finished, he realized the sweet scents of his garden had faded into the background, giving way to a more predominant scent—the putrid scent of death.

  He stood abruptly, looking first at the bench, then to the ground below it, imagining at any moment his first wife's skeletal fingers thrusting up through the earth, digging her way out of the place where he'd buried her.

  "You're dead. Stay where you are," he muttered, and then started toward the house.

  But the farther he walked, the more certain he became that he was being followed. Afraid to look, he lengthened his stride, and by the time he reached the house, he was running.

  At home, Chief Evans was just Josh to the woman who shared his life. He and his high school sweetheart, Lorene, had been married nearly fifteen years. She meant more to him now than she had even when love was young and new, and the research he'd been doing on Logan Talman's case was both horrifying and depressing. He couldn't imagine losing his Reenie, let alone be the one to end her life.

  Now that most of his officers were back on duty, he made a point to go home on time, and tonight after their supper, he got up from the table and began helping her clean.

  Lorene glanced at him more than once before she finally spoke up.

  "Sweetheart, I don't know what's gotten into you, but I like it."

  Josh looked up from loading dishes into the dishwasher, and saw past the wear and tear of her day, to the blue-eyed girl who'd stolen his heart.

  "Reenie, I don't tell you nearly enough how much I appreciate you, or how much I love you," he said.

  Her eyes widened with surprise.

  "Well, my goodness honey...thank you. I love you, too."

  He dried his hands and took her into his arms, resting his chin on the crown of her head.

  Lorene had known him for too many years not know that this was more than a husband's guilty conscience for his recent absence from home.

  She laid her cheek against his chest and wrapped her arms around his waist. The steady thump of his heartbeat was her touchstone to the rhythm of her life.

  "What's wrong, Josh, and don't say nothing. I know you better than that."

  "I can't talk about all of it right now, but soon. Suffice it to say, it’s the negative part of my job, okay?"

  She hugged him tighter.

  "As long as it's not me causing you pain, I can handle anything," Lorene said.

  "We're good. We'll always be good," Josh said, and took the dish towel out of her hands. "You. Go. Run yourself a big old bubble bath and soak yourself into a little prune."

  She giggled.

  "I won't turn down an invitation like that," she said, and left the kitchen with a skip in her step.

  Josh sighed, then turned back to the dirty dishes and kept rinsing and loading.

  "If only it was this easy to wash away sin."

  They woke Logan up when they served the evening meal, hoping she would feel like eating something.

  She picked through some of it and drank her iced tea while watching Wade eat the meal he'd ordered, plus what was left of hers. Soon afterward, her nurse came into the room to check vitals.

  "Do you need me to leave?" Wade asked.

&nb
sp; Before the nurse could answer, Logan interrupted.

  "No. I don't want you to leave," she said, and then blushed. "I just meant, you don't have to," and looked away.

  Wade's heart hurt for the lost expression on her face.

  "Don't worry...I've got your six, Boss."

  Logan looked up at him.

  "You've always had my six. I just don't think I ever recognized how much you do on my behalf, so, thank you, Wade."

  The seriousness caught him by surprise.

  "You're welcome, but I don't need thanks for doing something I wanted to do."

  "Okay then," the nurse said, and began going through the routine.

  She was kind and friendly, and properly horrified that something this awful had happened in Bluejacket. She kept saying things like, "This kind of stuff never happens here," but Logan knew better. She'd seen a body in the street in front of their house the same night Damon had been murdered.

  Finally, the nurse finished. "Is there anything else you need? I'll bring fresh ice water in a little while."

  "No, I'm fine. I don't need anything," Logan said, then heard Wade mutter something about “being fine and getting shot in the back are not synonymous,” but she didn't argue. She knew she'd scared him. For that matter, she'd scared herself, too.

  Wade didn't comment, even though he knew she'd heard him, and then gave her a look before checking texts on his phone.

  "Is everything okay back home?" Logan asked.

  "According to McGuire, who I left in charge, there were no big snags today other than Carter shot himself in the foot with a nail gun."

  "Oh my God," Logan muttered, and raised the head of her bed up enough so she could talk. "Is he okay?"

  "He's going to be okay, but he's off work for at least a week. That's going to make that crew one guy short."

  "Then tell McGuire to either call Xavier Santiago or Joey Chavez. They've filled in for us before."

  "Ah...yes, good call," Wade said. "I've got their numbers, I think."

  "I have their numbers in my phone, which is in my purse, wherever that is."

  "I have them, too," Wade said, and made the calls.

  Xavier was busy, but Joey Chavez was glad for the work. Wade told him where to show up tomorrow, and that McGuire was in charge, then he sent McGuire a text to that effect and hoped that was the last problem to solve for the day.