by Greg Herren
I didn’t answer. We turned onto Airline Highway, heading out past the airport to the seedier side of Airline, where the cheap motels were frequented by prostitutes and drug dealers. The Kingfish Motor Court was a relic from the 1950s, a U-shaped two-story building with a fenced swimming pool in the center of the parking lot. There weren’t many cars parked there, but I recognized one. “There’s the van.”
“According to the motel computer, they are in rooms 15 and 16,” Lindy said as Rhoda pulled into a spot next to the white van. The two doors were very close to each other, with cheap, dirty curtains hanging in the filthy picture windows. Lindy pulled out her heat-seeking goggles and trained them on room 15. “No one in there, but I’ve got three human shapes in room 16,” she said. “One is seated in a chair, might even be tied up, the other two are moving around.” She pulled out her gun. “Are we ready?”
Rhoda and Lindy moved so quickly they were almost to the door of Room 16 before I realized they’d gotten out of the SUV. Guns drawn, Rhoda kicked in the door and Lindy ran in, her gun at the ready as Rhoda came in behind her. I could hear shouts and thuds as I opened my own door and dashed to the room, looking around to see if the noise had attracted attention.
It hadn’t. One of the appeals of places like the Kingfish was no one paid attention to anything that didn’t concern them.
It was all over by the time I stepped inside. Two doughy-looking rednecks were lying unconscious on the floor, and Rhoda was using their belts to tie their wrists together behind their backs. Taylor was tied to a chair, his mouth gagged. I ran over to him and removed the gag.
“Scotty, thank God,” Taylor said. He sounded exhausted. Rhoda tossed me a Swiss Army knife and I cut the cords securing him to the chair.
“Come on, boo, we’re going home.” I helped him to his feet. “Are you okay?”
He nodded. “Just tired.”
As I helped him out to the van, he told me what happened. Going to school had been a mistake. He couldn’t pay attention in class and being around people—particularly when someone came up behind him unexpectedly—made him uncomfortable, so he’d left early. He’d been home just a few minutes when the buzzer went off. He’d been stunned to hear his father’s voice and went down to talk to him at the gate. He hadn’t taken his keys or phone with him because he thought they’d just talk, and if things were cool, he’d let his father inside. But when he opened the gate his father and another man grabbed him and dragged him to the van. “They said they were going to take me to conversion therapy.” He shuddered as Rhoda and Lindy came back out, closing the door behind them.
“Your mom’s back at home,” I said, but before he could answer, Rhoda and Lindy were back inside, strapping their seat belts.
“Bound and gagged,” Lindy said cheerfully as Rhoda backed out of the spot. “Housekeeping will find them in the morning.”
My phone vibrated. I pulled it out to see a text message from Paige:
Fidelis Vandiver is dead, same way as Eric and Chloe. Shall we pool resources?
I texted back, meet me at my apartment.
Chapter Twenty
Two of Cups
Harmony and cooperation
Driving back into the city from Kenner is never a pleasant experience, and this time was no exception.
Traffic bogged down around the Clearview Parkway exchange, Rhoda slowing the car to little more than a crawl and completely stopping at times. New Orleanians tend to back-seat drive when riding with a driver Not From Here, but I resisted the urge. She was, after all, a highly trained professional—so who better to deal with the shitty I-10 eastbound traffic disaster?
I sat in the back seat with Taylor. He seemed okay, all things considered. He was pale, dark smudges beneath his bloodshot, glassy eyes. He just stared out the window. Every few moments he would take a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but everything will be okay,” I whispered. “Trust me.”
He looked at me, his pain and anguish written so clearly on his face my heart hurt and I resisted bursting into tears of my own.
Stay strong, Scotty, you have to stay strong for him, I kept repeating in my head. Stay focused on him. Pray for a brave heart.
“I’m okay,” he mumbled, turning to look back out the window again.
Are you, though? I bit my tongue to not say it out loud.
I took his hand and squeezed it. He didn’t try to pull his away, and after a few seconds squeezed mine back.
That had to be good, right?
He seemed different. The light in his eyes had dimmed, and the usual high, positive energy he radiated was muted. He was going to need therapy. I made a mental note to start asking around for recommendations.
Is there anything worse than watching someone you love suffer and being unable to do anything to make it better?
I looked back out my car window. We were passing underneath the parkway bridge, with the Causeway Boulevard interchange gauntlet yet to run.
“This traffic is ridiculous for such a small city,” Rhoda said from the front seat, glancing back at us in the rearview mirror. “Everything okay back there? Awful quiet.”
Lindy looked over her seat. “Taylor, do you need anything? Should we stop for food or something to drink?”
“I just want to go home,” he said morosely. “I just want this to be all over.” The second sentence was a whisper, one I barely heard.
My heart broke again.
What kind of parent could do such a thing to their child?
I squeezed his hand again.
This time, he didn’t squeeze back.
The first time I was kidnapped—and yes, it has happened to me often enough that it’s a running joke for Colin and Frank—it took me a while to get past it. I had nightmares, off and on, for about a month or so. Sudden noises made me flinch. People coming up to me from behind or just out of eyeshot made my heart race. When the animal activists had kidnapped me and Taylor last year (it’s a long story), he’d bounced back from it pretty fast. He saw it as an adventure rather than the terrifying experience it actually had been.
But this? Being kidnapped by his father and almost dragged away to conversion therapy camp?
This was going to take him a good while to get over. I’m sure he never expected his dad to ever go that far to the dark side.
I thanked the Goddess again for blessing me with my parents.
Rhoda started picking up speed once we crossed the parish line back into Orleans. Taylor said, almost too quietly for me to hear, “I’m sorry.” He cleared his throat. “I owe you and Frank and Colin and your family so much…I hate to be so much trouble.” His voice broke, his eyes welling with tears. “I don’t ever want to be trouble.”
“Taylor.” I pulled him into a bear hug. “You’re never a bother, you’re no trouble at all. Ever.” I kissed the top of his head as his rigid body began to relax in my arms. “We’re family, Taylor. Never ever forget that. I know my family is a lot to deal with, but every last one of them would walk barefoot through fire for you. Once you’re a Bradley, you’re always a Bradley.”
He started crying then, his head down on my shoulder, sobbing. “I’m so…so suh-suh-sorry.”
“Shh, it’s okay.” I held him tighter, stroking his back, petting his head. “Go ahead and cry, get it all out, Taylor. None of this is your fault, baby, don’t blame yourself, okay? And we’re never going to stop loving you. Ever. Understood?”
I could have gladly killed his bastard father right then.
“Everything okay back there?” Lindy smiled back at us.
“Thank you for rescuing me.” Taylor pulled away from me, wiping his face with his sleeves.
“Our pleasure,” Rhoda replied. “We love kicking the asses of homophobic rednecks who probably belittle women. Their balls may eventually drop down again but not soon.”
Taylor laughed. It was the first time he’d laughed since Friday night at the party.
I almost started crying myself.
We went around the curve in the highway taking us past the Superdome, and I remembered. “Um, Taylor?”
“Yeah?”
Just rip the bandage right off. “Honey, I hate to tell you this, but your mother is waiting for us back at home. With Frank.”
“I don’t want to see or talk to her. Not now, maybe not ever.” His voice was cold, emotionless. I texted Frank: Taylor doesn’t want to see Teresa. She needs to leave. We’ll be there very soon, coming up on the French Quarter exit.
Frank’s response was immediate: okay. I’ll get rid of her.
“Frank’s going to get rid of her,” I said.
Taylor didn’t answer, just looked back out the window.
As we took the Esplanade exit and headed through Treme, I looked him over. There were scratches and bruises on his neck. A hideously angry long red scratch ran down the side of his face, almost exactly where Frank’s scar was.
Life never gives you anything you can’t handle, I thought, it’s how you handle it that matters.
We’d get him professional help. We’d get him the best goddamned therapist money could buy. We’d give him all the emotional support and love he could handle. Whatever he needed.
And we’d find out who really killed Eric Brewer.
And Chloe.
But what about Bestuzhev? Colin? Is the apartment safe?
Yeah, thanks, brain.
I tried using some yoga techniques to clear my mind but it didn’t work. I hadn’t felt this cloudy-minded since…
Well, since the levees broke.
I pushed that thought right back out of my mind. That was the last place I needed to go now. I tried shutting those memories behind a locked door in my head, but have you ever dealt with it flashed through my head. Maybe I had. Maybe I hadn’t. Maybe I’d been carrying trauma scars for over twelve years. Who knows? That was—well, it was so long ago, and I was happy. I have a great life. This was just another bump in the road of life, and we’d get past it.
We always did. What choice did we have?
Sure, when a storm came into the Gulf possibly heading our way, my stomach would clench, and I felt a surge of momentary panic—but it always passed, and I never lost my head.
I think everyone who lived through the levee failure after Katrina was the same way.
How could we not be?
And Taylor was strong, a good kid with a level head, a strong sense of responsibility, and a compassionate heart. He’d get through this. It would be tough, but he had Frank and me and Colin and the rest of our family to lean on. We’d get him through this. We might not have been his birth family, but we were family now. Everyone on my mother’s side accepted him without question. The Bradleys were a bit more grudging, but my dad’s side of the family has always been problematic.
They still didn’t know how to wrap their heads around me being gay and having two partners instead of one.
But at least they try, you know? They’ve gotten better over the years.
And at least they’d never tried to put me into conversion therapy—never even suggested it.
But if they had, Mom would have killed them all, burned the big house on State Street to the ground, and sown the ground with salt so nothing would ever grow there again.
My mom is really the best.
All the parking spots on Decatur Street were taken when Rhoda went around the corner, so she just put on her hazard lights and pulled over next to the curb on the other side of the street to let us out.
It was dark and gray and cold, and felt like the rain was going to start again at any moment.
I was unlocking the gate when Paige called my name. “You guys go on up,” I said, hugging Taylor. “Scooter wants to see you,” I whispered. “And I’ll just talk to Paige for a minute, okay?”
He nodded and slipped inside. Lindy closed the gate behind them as Paige gave me a hug. “How are you doing? You look like death.”
“Thanks. It’s been an interesting day.” The understatement of the year. I felt bone-tired and emotionally drained. “And it’s fucking freezing out here.”
“I’ve got a table at Envie.”
Café Envie sat on the uptown lakeside corner of Decatur and Barracks. It’s a nice little place that serves food and cocktails as well as coffee-based drinks. They did a brisk business, and usually there were no tables to be had. As the door swung shut behind us, I could see several tables were empty, and the hipsters who usually hung out there, typing away at laptops or playing checkers or chess, were nowhere to be seen.
“I’m just going to order something,” I said. I ordered my cappuccino and paid, gave my name, and saw Paige sitting in the back with Megan Dreher when I turned away from the counter.
The side doors, always open during pleasant weather, were shut. Even so, it was still cold inside. I joined them at their table, back by the condiment stand.
“Hi, Scotty,” Megan said, offering me her tiny hand. “I’m Megan Dreher. Thanks for joining us.”
“Nice to meet you,” I replied, slipping off my jacket and sitting down across from her. I glanced at Paige. “Why didn’t you tell me she’d be here?”
“I asked her not to,” Megan replied. She looked nervous. She was petite, tiny, her bones small and delicate. Her long, dark hair had reddish highlights in it and was pulled back from her triangular face with a couple of barrettes. Her eyes were hazel, almond-shaped, and framed by extraordinarily dark thick lashes. She was beautiful, although swimming in a green Tulane sweatshirt far too big for her. “She suggested I talk to you before I leave town.” She flinched at the sound of the door opening behind me.
She’s terrified. “Why are you leaving town?”
“It’s not safe here,” she replied simply, picking up her coffee cup. She wore a wedding band with an engagement ring. The diamond was surprisingly small.
The barista called my name before I could reply. I excused myself and retrieved my cappuccino.
When I sat back down, Megan went on, “You need to look at this.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a file folder, which she slid across the table to me.
I opened the folder and found printouts of newspaper articles, so old they’d yellowed and faded. The article on the top had a headline that read Newman Senior Killed in Tragic Car Accident. There was a picture of the girl, a pretty, long-haired blonde named Deborah Holt. It was clearly her senior picture, and the date of the article was from the spring. “Deborah Holt?” I asked. “Should that name mean something to me?”
“Just read it.”
I scanned the article, and my eyebrows went up when I saw that Deborah hadn’t been alone when she was hit by the car—the driver was a minor and the name wasn’t released, as such, but Deborah was with her friend Megan Tortorice when it happened. Megan Tortorice received minor injuries and was treated for them at Touro before being released. According to Megan, “the car saw us, the driver had to have seen us, but then she sped up and came right for us!”
“So vehicular homicide?” I asked. “I still don’t see the relevance.”
Megan took another sip of coffee. “My maiden name was Tortorice.”
Paige leaned back in her chair, sipping her coffee with a big smile on her face, one eyebrow raised. “Are you aware that Fidelis, Megan, Amanda Lautenschlaeger, and Billy Barron were all in the same graduating class at Newman?”
I already knew but decided to play along, see what the two of them could tell me. “Wait—what?”
She looked like she’d just swallowed a canary. “I’m sure Venus is going to turn up this information, if she hasn’t already, but don’t you find it interesting this connection hasn’t come up already? In any of the publicity for the show?” She sipped from her drink. “It’s almost like someone doesn’t want anyone to know.”
“I met Amanda earlier today,” I replied slowly, “and there’s something not right about her. But was she involved in casting the show? She was at the premiere Fr
iday night with Billy Barron.”
“Amanda was the one who set me up with the show,” Megan said. “And Fidelis. We were all friends back when we were kids.” She exhaled. “Amanda was obsessed with Billy. Obsessed.”
“How do you mean obsessed?”
“I was there when it happened, Scotty. She ran Deborah down like a dog in the street. It wasn’t an accident. It was deliberate.” She shook her head. “Billy had broken up with her and asked Deborah out. She kept saying crazy things…but I never thought she’d actually do anything, you know?”
I looked down at the clippings. “But how did she get away with it?”
Megan rolled her eyes. “Her mother is one of the richest women in America. Do the math.”
“A deal was worked out where Amanda went into a mental hospital for treatment,” Paige said, “and the charges were dropped, scrubbed from her records.” Paige’s eyes glittered. “Greased, no doubt, by Lautenschlaeger money. The judge got hefty contributions to his reelection campaigns until he retired…from Black Mountain Liquor. I’ve found at least one more incident where Amanda was out of control and attacked someone, and got sent off to a mental hospital yet again.” She tapped the original newspaper clipping.
“Margery bought us all off,” Megan said bitterly. “She paid for my college, and when I married Dave, she loaned him the money to get his business started. Whenever we need anything, all we have to do is ask Margery.”
“Wow.”
“Amanda didn’t graduate with everyone else that year,” Paige went on. “She was pulled out of school and finished the year at a private boarding school in New England.” She laughed. “You know, one of those ritzy schools where princesses who get in trouble get sent to instead of juvie. Money talks.”
“So, you’re saying she’s mentally ill, and has been since she was a teenager?”
“Yes.” Megan stood up, slipping on her coat. “I’m going away for a while.” She pointed at the newspaper clipping. “Now all the people who know about Amanda’s dirty little secret are getting killed.” She buttoned her jacket, her fingers shaking. “Well, not me. I’m getting out while the getting’s good.”