Cole Dempsey’s Back in Town

by Suzanne McMinn

  He called the Blue Water Shores several times and so far he hadn’t gotten past the receptionist who claimed to have never heard of Randol Ormond. He’d left several messages for the director, but so far, no callback. Cole had put Bryant, his private investigator, on the trail of Ormond’s family. Somebody somewhere knew where Randol Ormond had gone.

  Meanwhile, he was hitting brick wall after brick wall as he continued down his list. He’d found an Edward Navin in the phone book and knocked on his door—and gotten it slammed in his face when he’d started asking questions about Tommy. He had a hot coil of frustration tightening his stomach by the evening he walked into the Fleur de Lis. Black-cherry potpourri assailed his nostrils as he entered the small downtown boutique. The shop was stuffed with everything from vintage clothing and custom jewelry pieces to dried flower arrangements and pottery. Erica Saville was an attractive woman with swingy chestnut hair and sharp topaz eyes.

  He waited while she finished ringing up a couple of customers. It was closing time and she flipped the sign on the door as they left.

  “I was wondering when you’d stop in here,” she said. She leveled her tiger-on-the-prowl gaze on him and walked back toward him with a swing in her short-skirted hips. “I hear you’re a big hotshot lawyer now. You sure grew up fine.”

  The way she was looking at him, he didn’t think she was appreciating his jurisprudence degree.

  “I’m looking into Aimee Louvel’s murder.”

  “I heard that, too.”

  “You were taking dance with Bryn and Aimee that summer,” he probed.

  “I was.” She stopped right in front of him and the heavy swirl of her perfume surrounded him.

  “What do you remember about the day Aimee died?”

  “I saw Bryn and Aimee at dance that day,” she said. “It was a pretty normal day.”

  Again with the normal day. Cole’s jaw tightened.

  “Was Aimee upset or worried about anything?” He was grasping at straws, hoping against hope that eventually he was going to ask the right question to the right person.

  Erica Saville studied him with her brazen eyes. “Take me out for a drink and I might think of something.”

  Chapter 12

  Somebody was pissed off.

  Cole came out of his bedroom the next morning and headed down the stairs in the direction of the cursing. Morning light rayed into the entry hall of Bellefleur. Sun motes pirouetted up the stairs to meet him along with some really bad words he didn’t think Bryn had learned at ballroom-dancing lessons.

  The front door was open, Bryn’s curvy little body, all tight and cute in cut-off shorts and another one of her damnably sexy tops, caught his attention as she angrily swept at something, her back to him.

  She’d been locked up in her office when he’d come back the night before. He hadn’t told her about his conversation with Erica Saville yet. And he wasn’t looking forward to it.

  “You got that broom registered as a lethal weapon?” he asked calmly.

  She whipped around. It was early, but already warm and sticky. Her face was flushed from exertion, making her blue-violet eyes brighter. The wild light in them reminded him of something else about water hyacinths—they were almost impossible to control. She flung the broom down.

  “Look.” She waved around, and stepped back.

  And he saw it.

  Some kind of red powder, everywhere, all over the portico and down the steps. And a big ugly chicken bone nailed to the front door with a piece of narrow wire.

  There was a hammer on the porch floor, as if it had been flung there. Probably by Bryn.

  “It’s nailed in good,” she bit out. “I could go get some wire clippers, but I really want the nail out. They damaged the door, too. That’s going to leave a hole.”

  “What the hell is this?” He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  “Voodoo. Hex. Spell. Curse. Gris-gris. Whatever you want to call it.”

  Grabbing the hammer up, she attacked the nail again, struggling to yank it out. “First the brick through the window—” She huffed as she worked at the nail. Hair wisped across her cheeks. “—then those lovely prank phone calls. Then Mrs. Guidry calls first thing this morning to tell me that she’s thought it over and I can forget any more St. Salome Garden Club events. And, oh yeah, I can forget the Library Ladies luncheon she’d mentioned scheduling at Bellefleur, too.”

  She yanked back again and this time the nail came with her and she rocked backward from the recoil of the release. “—and now this,” she finished, regaining her balance. The nail had dropped at her feet, along with the chicken bone. She swiped at the hair in her face, tangling it in the sweat beading on her forehead. “I’ve got people laying the gris-gris on me.”

  “Who’s Mrs. Guidry?”

  Bryn put the hammer down. Beyond her, he saw Emile Brouchard approaching the house from the direction of his cottage. “Somebody told her about Wade Dempsey’s son staying at Bellefleur. The Guidrys are old friends of the Cavanaughs. Mr. Guidry shared offices with Hugh Cavanaugh before he became the prosecutor.”

  Enough said.

  He’d expected the town to be against him. He hadn’t expected the town to turn against Bryn, and so quickly and thoroughly. She was more than collateral damage this time. She was taking the brunt of the town’s anger. The brick, the phone calls, the cancellations and now this. The town might still revere the Louvels but the resentment against Cole and his accusations was stronger. They were punishing Bryn for his presence at Bellefleur. He’d rocked the boat and let the chips fall. But he hadn’t meant them to fall so solidly on Bryn.

  Guilt speared Cole. He’d rolled into town like a selfish bastard and she was paying the price. “I wanted to shake things up. I didn’t want to hurt your business. I didn’t want to hurt you.” And what he had to tell her about his conversation with Erica Saville was going to hurt her even more. “I have to talk to you about Aimee.”

  She stood there looking like the last thing she wanted to do was talk to him about anything.

  Emile Brouchard reached the porch. His gaze took in the chicken bone attached to the wire still sitting on the porch floor and the red powder everywhere. He scraped a hand through his scrub-brush white hair and shook his head.

  “Oh, Miss Louvel. You got the gris-gris laid on you.”

  “I’m not afraid of the gris-gris,” Bryn said impatiently. “I noticed this morning that one of the live oaks lost a limb in that storm. It’s down across the path to the river. I’d appreciate it if you’d get that taken care of first thing.”

  “Will do.” Mr. Brouchard didn’t move to do anything about the live oak situation. “You got to heed the gris-gris,” he insisted.

  “There’s no such thing as gris-gris,” she snapped.

  Mr. Brouchard didn’t look convinced. Like plenty of people in St. Salome Parish, he believed the gris-gris required action. Bryn had been crossed, and she needed to be uncrossed.

  “You make your own luck,” Bryn went on, seeming to work to soften her tone toward the grounds-keeper, “and there’s no such thing as curses. This was a prank, a stupid prank.” Somehow her justification that the recent disturbing events at Bellefleur were just a prank rang hollow. “I appreciate your concern, Mr. Brouchard, but I’m fine. I have some fresh muffins in the kitchen. Why don’t you grab a couple before you go to work?”

  “I can help,” he said, not ready to give in. “Mathilde, she knows the ways to take off the curses.”

  Bryn blew out a frustrated breath. “No, thank you.”

  He seemed finally to accept he was being dismissed. He disappeared inside the house.

  She turned back to Cole. “Spit it out. What do you want to tell me about Aimee?”

  “This isn’t something I can just spit out, Bryn. Let’s go inside.”

  The look she gave him was more than tired. It was worn. He wanted to put his arms around her, tell her everything was going to be all right. But sparking in those worn eyes
was anger, and he knew she’d sooner chop his hand off at the wrist than let him touch her. He’d been making headway on gaining her trust until Randol Ormond had disappeared.

  She wasn’t giving him an inch now. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to risk being alone with him. Not after what had happened the last time.

  The sound of the phone ringing blistered through the air. Bryn pushed past him and headed for her office.

  He came into the office after her. Emile Brouchard stood in the entry with a muffin.

  “Mathilde? What is it?” She was silent for a minute. “Why don’t you come over this afternoon? We can talk then.”

  She hung up and glared at Cole. “What do you want?”

  He glanced around. Mr. Brouchard still stood in the entry hall, watching Cole as if he was standing guard over Bryn. Cole gave him a long look and shut the door when he didn’t move.

  Bryn leveled him with an impatient stare when he turned back.

  “I talked to Erica Saville last night,” he said. “I know what Aimee did the afternoon of the day she died. She drove into town and met Erica Saville at Boudreaux’s.” Boudreaux’s was a greasy hamburger place near the high school that served up anything fried.

  “And?” Bryn prompted. She swiped a strand of hair out of her face.

  “Aimee was upset. She was asking a lot of questions. Not the kind of questions Erica expected to hear from Aimee Louvel.”

  “Get to the point, Dempsey.”

  He knew what she was doing. She was putting every bit of distance she could between them. She wasn’t even going to use his first name now.

  “The kind of questions she was asking—” Damn, he didn’t want to say it. But he had no choice. He laid it out. “She was asking the kind of questions that made Erica Saville think she was pregnant.”

  “No way.” The reaction was immediate and swift and sure. If Bryn had looked tired before, there was nothing exhausted about her now. Her eyes alone could have burned Cole up on the spot. “Aimee didn’t even have a boyfriend.”

  “You didn’t spend as much time with her that summer as usual. Maybe you didn’t know her as well as you thought you did.” His words weren’t making her any less furious. “She was asking Erica how to know if you were pregnant, what were the signs, the symptoms. How long it took till you’d start showing.”

  “She wasn’t even friends with Erica Saville!” Bryn shot back. “Why would she go to her if she was pregnant?”

  “Erica had had an abortion a few months earlier. Aimee knew about it.”

  “Everybody knew Erica Saville had been pregnant! She wasn’t the kind of girl Aimee hung around with. Aimee didn’t even like her. Erica was always in trouble at school, and honestly, I always thought she was mean and so did Aimee. This is crazy. If Aimee had been pregnant, the first person she would have told about it would have been me. And the last person would have been Erica Saville.”

  Her eyes were shooting flames but her skin was pale as ice. “Wouldn’t the autopsy report show if she’d been pregnant?” Bryn demanded.

  “A blood screening for pregnancy isn’t part of a medical, legal autopsy. They’d be screening for chemical toxins. And the cause of death was clear—blunt trauma to the head. The physical examination cites nothing out of the ordinary other than that, but what if she was pregnant, Bryn? Don’t you want to know? Are you sure Aimee would have told you?”

  “I’m positive.” But her voice trembled.

  “What if it had something to do with her murder?”

  The question hung in the sticky air between them.

  “Drake was right all along.” Bryn’s voice was steady again, hard. “You’re not here for justice. You’re here for revenge. You’re here to smear my family’s name—my father’s, now Aimee’s. You think if you fling around enough dirt about my family that people will forget that your father was a crazy drunken murderer?”

  Her bitter words scorched a hole in his chest even though he knew they came out of her confusion and pain. He was the messenger and she was ready to shoot him.

  “You don’t have to believe me,” he said. “Talk to Erica Saville for yourself. If you didn’t know Aimee was pregnant, what else didn’t you know about what was going on in her life that summer, Bryn? My father didn’t kill Aimee, no matter how convenient that would be for you and everyone else in this town. And if you don’t give a rat’s ass about my father, I can understand that. But you have to care about Aimee. Go get the truth for yourself. Go see Erica Saville.”

  Her hot, angry eyes went cold. “I want you out of Bellefleur today. Two weeks or not, your time is up.”

  Her piece of crap car wouldn’t start.

  She finally gave up trying to get the dead engine to turn over and barely resisted kicking the damn car after she slammed out of it.

  Of course Cole was standing there, all hot and hard intensity in his unreadable eyes. He hadn’t said a word to her after she’d ordered him out of Bellefleur.

  “Take mine.” Cole dug the keys out of his hip pocket. “I’ll be packed when you get back.”

  She didn’t want to take anything of his. He was crazy. Certifiable. Aimee couldn’t have been pregnant. And even if she had been, what the hell could that have had to do with her murder? It didn’t mean anything either way. There was no genuine forensic report, no confession by Randol Ormond. She couldn’t believe anything Cole said anymore. He had his own agenda. Revenge.

  And yet the whispering doubts wouldn’t leave her alone. What if he had seen Randol Ormond? What if that forensic report was real, after all? What if someone had threatened Randol Ormond and that was why he’d disappeared? What if Wade Dempsey hadn’t killed Aimee? If Aimee had been pregnant, had that had anything to do with her death?

  What if the real murderer was still walking free?

  It all sounded so insane.

  She’d peeled out of Bellefleur like a bat out of hell, but the closer she got to Azalea Bend on the flat, empty highway, the more she let up on the gas. Her hands shook on the wheel of the smooth-as-butter Cobra as she half convinced herself to turn back. Go get the truth for yourself. The haunting doubts fought with her common sense and everything she’d believed for fifteen years.

  It wasn’t until she made it to the first stoplight into town that she realized she had no brakes.

  They wouldn’t let him see her. He wasn’t family. He wasn’t, honestly, anything to Bryn as far as the hospital staff was concerned. Cole was just a stranger, an outsider, who was ready to tear the building apart brick by brick if that’s what it took to find out what had happened to Bryn.

  The call had come into Bellefleur as he was packing his bags. The Cobra had slammed into a truck in the middle of an intersection. She was still alive and that was the sum total of the information he could get out of the hospital official who’d telephoned to notify Bryn’s family.

  Apparently Bryn was right about the fact that most people in Azalea Bend had no idea her mother had become mentally incapacitated.

  Melodie had shown up at the mansion right after the call, and they’d raced to the St. Salome Parish Hospital in her little VW bug, guilt and a blinding panic killing him all the way. It had been his fault if Bryn had been speeding into town, distraught. Sprinting inside the cold, tomb-like hospital, he’d slammed to a stop at the emergency desk. And gotten nowhere. Melodie wasn’t any more successful in prying details about Bryn’s condition from the reception staff. She’d been talking almost nonstop about her final exams, Bellefleur, the new guy she’d met at the Zydeco Festival, and half a dozen other topics. He figured this was her way of keeping her mind off Bryn, but he was ready to strangle her by the time a white-coated physician with a perfectly-sculpted head of thick brown hair emerged from double steel doors.

  Cole planted himself in front of the doctor. “Are you treating Bryn Louvel? Can I see her?”

  “Are you family?” The doctor scraped him with a cautious gaze from beneath his dark brows. He looked young, maybe fresh out
of medical school, and probably not from Azalea Bend. Maybe he was the only person in St. Salome Parish who didn’t know the Louvels, but Cole wasn’t chancing it.

  Melodie came up beside him. “I’m one of Bryn’s employees,” she told the doctor.

  “I’m a friend,” Cole said. Hell, he wasn’t even that, but it was only a little lie. He just had to know that she was going to be okay. “Look, I’m not family. But I care about Bryn. I just want to know if she’s all right.” Every horrible injury possible had raged through his mind since that call had come in.

  Maybe it was the infinitesimal break in his voice, but the young physician’s formal posture softened just a notch and he took pity on him. He looked at Melodie, then back at Cole.

  “She was real lucky she had an airbag. She’s got some bruised ribs and shoulders, and she’s in some pain. But she’s going to be fine.”

  A two-ton load fell off Cole’s shoulders. “Thank you.” His knees felt weak, he was so relieved. “Can I see her?”

  The doctor’s empathy was apparently all used up. He shook his head. “Not now. But we’ll be discharging her in about thirty minutes. She’ll need someone to drive her home.”

  Cole would have liked to barge through those steel doors right then and there and find Bryn. But he had no doubt that would result in him being tossed out on his ear. He’d have to be patient. And he needed a car.

  Melodie offered to drive Bryn home.

  “You’ve got a final exam in a couple of hours,” he reminded her. “Go ahead. I’ll make sure Bryn gets home.”

  He’d noticed a car rental business near the hospital when he’d been driving around Azalea Bend over the weekend. It was within walking distance, and he’d had all of Melodie he could take. He convinced her he didn’t need a ride.

  He was leaving the hospital when he noticed a police officer pushing through the bank of glass doors. He recognized Martin Bouvier, the officer who’d responded to Bryn’s call the night Cole had arrived at Bellefleur.

  He turned around and followed Bouvier back inside.