Clay

by Jennifer Blake

  “Arty mentioned the wedding,” she said, “but didn’t know about this fitting, I suppose. The sheriff said he intends to make sure you show up for the ceremony, and that I should remind you if I see you.”

  Good old Roan, Clay thought. He suspected something was going on or he’d never have given her a message. “I haven’t forgotten.”

  She glanced around the room, apparently searching for some missing dish since she leaned over a moment later to retrieve the glass that he’d set on the floor beside the bed. When she straightened again, she said, “I’m sorry that I made you miss your appointment.”

  “No problem. I expect Roan ordered the tux in his size since we’re a close match.”

  “Well, that’s all right then.” She put the glass she held on top of the other dishes then turned away.

  At the tart sound of her voice, it struck him that he’d brushed off her apology as though it didn’t matter, as if he considered it mere form, which he had. It seemed she’d meant it, after all. Something was riding her, he thought. Her face looked drawn, and the dark shadows of sleeplessness lay under her eyes.

  “If you’re really sorry,” he said to her retreating back, “you could always let me go.”

  She turned at the door to give him a dirty look. “I’m not that sorry.”

  “I thought not,” he told her, but she seemed not to hear. His smile was crooked as he watched the enticing curves of her backside whisk out of the room.

  They passed the remainder of the day in a fair degree of peace. Lainey acted like a buffer and convenient means of communication between them, since they spent more time talking to, and through, her than they did to each other. She was an intelligent child, Clay thought. She knew something was going on between him and her mama. Sometimes she looked at them with the same exasperation that she turned on Ringo when the dumb critter tried to eat her crayons, as if he should know better than to do things that weren’t good for him.

  In the middle of the afternoon, after Lainey had rested, Janna put the girl in the ancient aluminum boat that had been tied up to the dock for as long as Clay could remember. She paddled off in the general direction of Arty’s place. She didn’t tell him where she was going or when she’d be back, but Clay suspected that she was going to look for dye plants, particularly, the Aphrodite’s Cup.

  He had to admire her initiative, even if he was a victim of it. He also didn’t mind watching the way she wielded a boat paddle, the grace and strength in the lines of her body as she dipped and swayed with the motion. She was quite a woman, taking care of her daughter on her own, creating her fabrics out of no more than color and imagination, willing to brave snakes and alligators to get what she wanted. Willing to go to any lengths to protect and preserve the things she loved.

  Regardless, it bothered him that she was going out virtually alone this afternoon. The lake and its swamplands were vast and deep, a labyrinthine network of multibranching channels shaded by tall cypress trees, of interconnected sloughs and small creeks and stretches of marshlands where saw grass grew in water only inches deep. It was easy to get lost if you didn’t know it, and sometimes hard to be found again.

  Added to that was the dumping of the dead boy. It might be a fluke, or it might not. Until they found out one way or the other, poking around the back reaches of the lake wasn’t the smartest thing to do.

  He should have warned her or at least tried to prevent her from going, Clay thought. Not that he’d known what she meant to do up until it was too late. Anyway, he had no right to tell her anything, couldn’t without revealing what he knew. He comforted himself with the knowledge that there would be other fishermen and boaters on the lake. And of course, if she was mixed up in whatever was going on with the snatched organs, then she was in no danger anyway.

  The urge to go after her, no matter what, was so strong that Clay could taste it. Whether he wanted to stop her or to help her find what she needed, he really couldn’t say. Either one was too stupid too contemplate. She wouldn’t appreciate his interference. To her he was the enemy, someone who already stood in her way.

  The hours stretched. The camp seemed so empty with only Ringo for company. A dozen times, Clay thought of just leaving, letting Janna come back to find the place deserted. What kept him from it, he wasn’t sure. Dark suspicion, maybe, curiosity without a doubt; concern for Lainey, certainly. Added to these was the need to see this thing through to the end. And on top of everything else, like cherry on a sundae, was the prospect of just retribution. Whatever the reason, it constrained him much more than rope and padlock.

  It was funny, but he missed television in spite of the fact that he seldom watched anything except nature shows. He needed mindless entertainment of some kind, both to pass the time and also to provide a distraction. He had far too much time to think now that he was unable to watch Janna work or play with Lainey and Ringo. Some of his thoughts weren’t that comfortable.

  He kept coming back to the fact that Lainey was Matt’s daughter and wondering how much his and Matt’s family history had to do with the fact that Janna was a single mother. Their father had been a throwback in many ways, with the typical Benedict faults of stiff-necked pride and insularity carried to the extreme. A conservative to the bone, he thought in absolutes, was fast to take offense and slow to forget. Any man who wasn’t with him was against him, and those who held opposing political and religious views were not only dead wrong but also terminally stupid. How he’d ever gotten involved with their mother, an unrepentant hippie with liberal views and a fascination with every offbeat idea or belief system that came along, was a mystery. Maybe it was the attraction of opposites, but it had been inevitable that the relationship would go bad. That it had started off on the wrong foot with marriage vows exchanged in haste because of pregnancy had only put the seal of doom on it. All Clay could think was that there had been a strong sexual component in there somewhere, one that had served to produce four boys, Adam and Wade, Matt and himself, before it faded.

  Clay loved his mother dearly, but even he had to admit that she wasn’t the easiest of women. Her idea of the truth was colored by her needs of the moment. Her attention span was about two milliseconds long, and her sense of responsibility had never been particularly active, especially when it came to her sons. She’d allowed her ex-husband to claim custody while she went off to Greece or Tibet. Not that they had minded, since they’d much preferred running wild in the swamp with their cousins. In spite of her faults, however, their mother was sweet-natured, generous beyond accounting and spectacularly talented. In short, she was an artist. They’d all loved her without reserve and protected her against every criticism, and still did.

  It was interesting that Janna also had an artistic background. How much had that shaped Matt’s attraction to her? he wondered. And what influence had it exerted on the fact that Lainey had never been legally recognized as a Benedict? Had Matt been nervous about bringing another creative female home to Grand Point? Had he been afraid of what their father would say or how he would treat her?

  Ironically the problem would not have lasted. Their old man had died of prostate cancer almost four years ago. It was, not incidentally, about the same time that Clay had left veterinary medicine and taken up nature photography full-time rather then treating it as a hobby. It was also when he’d really become reacquainted with his mother.

  The longer he stayed around Janna and Lainey, the more certain he became that this family history had some bearing on why Janna had drugged him. Every passing hour made it clearer what she might have to gain.

  Who better to provide a kidney than another Benedict? Who better, indeed, than a man who was an exact genetic match to Lainey’s father? Janna would be fully aware that a donor kidney from a close relative match would have a ninety percent survival rate during the first year, with seventy percent over a five-year period. An unmatched kidney, on the other hand, was more likely to be rejected immediately or, even if retained, have less than a fifty percent ch
ance of surviving. It was possible that Lainey would be no more of a genetic match for him than for Janna, but Clay knew there was also a fair degree of probability that they would share half or more of the same his-tocompatibility antigens. The implications of that knowledge were something he spent a lot of time contemplating as the day wore on.

  Janna and Lainey returned as sunset was painting the sky. They were both hot, tired and sunburned, though Lainey less than her mother since she wore the wide-brimmed straw hat that he’d seen Janna use once while doing a watercolor en plein air. Janna sent Lainey to take a cool shower while she stood at the kitchen sink drinking glass after glass of cool tap water. The grim look of defeat that settled on her face as she stared out the kitchen window caused a knot of unwilling sympathy in the pit of Clay’s stomach.

  “No luck?” he asked as he lounged in the hallway opening.

  “It’s hard to find something that isn’t there,” she said over her shoulder.

  “It’s there. You just have to know where to look.”

  “I showed Arty an old illustration. He says he’s never seen it.”

  “But you asked him to help you anyway?”

  It was a long moment before she answered. “I didn’t, actually.”

  “Why not? I’d have thought a guide was just what you needed.” Not to mention, he thought, the protection of a man in her boat.

  Instead of replying, she turned to put her back to the cabinet, leaning against it, as she asked, “You’ve known Arty a long time, haven’t you?”

  “Quite a while. Why?”

  “He taught you about the swamp, I think he said.”

  “Right.” Clay waited for her to get to the point.

  “You know about his criminal record?”

  Clay shook his head. “All that was forty years ago or more.”

  “He killed someone, according to the gas man.”

  “He did, and he paid for it. Now he’s just an old man getting by the best way he can.”

  “Staying back in the swamp, avoiding other people. Except for you.”

  “And a few others such as Roan, Kane, Luke, my older brothers when they’re home. And you.” He added the last as a none-too-subtle reminder that she’d made a friend of Arty before she found out about his past.

  “You have any idea how he makes his living?”

  She was brushing her thumb up and down her water glass, a sure sign of how disturbed she was inside. Clay kept his voice as even and reassuring as possible as he answered, “Hunting, fishing, trapping, acting as a guide. He also has a small government check, I think.”

  “It isn’t much.”

  “Arty doesn’t need much.” Clay paused, then went on. “He’s just a lonely old codger. He’d never think of hurting you. Or Lainey.”

  “Can you guarantee that?”

  He couldn’t, so he remained grimly silent.

  She gave a short laugh. “Now you know why I didn’t ask for his help as a guide. Other than the fact that he said he didn’t know dye plants.”

  “So now you’re giving up?”

  She gave him a straight look, though still holding her glass in front of her like a shield. “I never give up.”

  She meant it. Clay liked that, in spite of everything.

  By nightfall, he’d had all that he could take of being confined while events went on around him. He waited until Lainey was put to bed with all her attendant procedures and tubes for dialysis and Janna had taken her shower. When he was sure his jailer was tucked in her bed asleep after her long afternoon of hot sun and fresh air out on the lake, he slid out of his waist restraint once more. Moving silently, carrying his shoes, he let himself out of the house.

  The old aluminum boat was handy at the camp’s dock since Janna had used it earlier in the day. It took only seconds and a few quiet pulls with its beat-up paddle to head the lightweight craft away from the camp and out into the lake. A short time later, Clay was climbing aboard his airboat where she sat screened by a couple of old weeping willows in a back cove near Arty’s shanty. Jenny cranked with a quiet rumble at the first turn of the key. Seconds later, he sent her flying ahead of a peacock’s tail of blown spume as he headed for Turn-Coupe.

  Roan was still up, for the light was burning in the upstairs bedroom at his house known as Dog Trot. Clay tied up the airboat, then walked up to the slope to the kitchen door. His knock was answered almost immediately. Roan stood with one hand on the doorknob and the other on his hipbone as he said, “It’s about time, cuz. What took you so long?”

  “Expecting me, were you?”

  “From the minute I realized you had to be somewhere around Denise’s old camp.”

  Roan stepped back to let him in as he spoke. Clay gave a resigned nod as he moved on into the kitchen. Old Beau, Roan’s pet bloodhound, rose to meet him. As Clay rubbed the dog’s big head and pulled his ears, he said, “The film canisters, right?”

  “You’re the only person I know who tosses the things like other people get rid of used paper towels. So what’s the idea? You hiding out from somebody?”

  “Promise not to laugh and I’ll tell you,” Clay said as he swung a chair out from the kitchen table and spun it around before straddling it.

  The sheriff of Tunica Parish watched him a second without answering. As if giving himself time to think, he asked, “Cold drink? Beer? Water?”

  Clay declined. Roan took out a beer and twisted off the cap before ambling over to the table and dropping into the chair facing Clay. Finally he said, “It wouldn’t have something to do with that blond Amazon I talked to out there, I suppose.”

  “Could be.”

  “But it’s not crooked?”

  Clay propped his chin on the high back of his chair as he considered that. Finally, he said, “Depends on how you look at it.”

  “How do you look at it?”

  Roan did have an abrupt way about him. It was intimidating to some, but Clay was used to it. “An error in judgment?”

  “Doesn’t sound like a laughing matter.”

  “I had a feeling you might say that,” Clay allowed in his driest tones. It was the most he was going to get from Roan, he knew. With deliberation, he told his cousin the whole story.

  Roan sat watching him for long seconds when he’d finished. Then a glint appeared in his eyes. He pressed his lips together until they turned white, but there was no way to stop the upward turn of his mouth. He covered the lower part of his face, but his eyes still danced. On a crack of laughter, he said, “Wait till Tory hears this!”

  “Your bride wouldn’t be crass enough to poke fun at my predicament,” Clay said in stern accusation.

  “You misjudge her. She’d do it in a nanosecond. And probably will when I tell her how you’ve been tied down for days at the mercy of a love-starved…”

  “It isn’t like that!”

  Roan’s humor faded. “No? Then tell me how it is that this woman has drugged you, kept you under lock and key and made you like it.”

  “I didn’t say I liked it.”

  “It took you long enough to get free.”

  “I’m not free.” Clay informed him. “Well, for all intents and purposes. I’m going back.”

  Roan’s brows snapped together above his nose. “You’re what?”

  “Tonight. As soon as I see Doc.”

  “What do you want with Doc? She didn’t hurt you, did she?”

  “No, she didn’t hurt me,” Clay answered in exasperation. “All I want is to check out some facts with him and have him look at some medical records that I found while poking around Janna’s desk.”

  “The little girl’s records,” Roan said in clarification, adding as Clay noted, “to see…what, exactly?”

  “If she could actually be Matt’s daughter, for one thing.”

  “And?”

  “And if she’s as sick as Janna claims.”

  “Can’t you tell?”

  Clay gave him a moody frown. “Doesn’t hurt to be sure.”

>   “Then what?”

  “It would help if I could get some information on this doctor she’s seeing.” It was an evasion, but he hoped Roan wouldn’t realize it.

  Roan reached behind him to a drawer in the kitchen cabinet where he pulled out a pen and notepad. “You have a name?”

  “Lainey called him Dr. Bauer or Gower, I’m not sure which. I’m guessing he may have practiced, or still practices, as a nephrologist, probably in New Orleans or Baton Rouge.”

  “That should do it,” Roan said as he thumped his pencil point at the end of the note he’d just written. “What else?”

  “I’d like to borrow your phone to call Doc Watkins, see if he’s still up, by any chance.”

  “You’re going over there tonight?”

  “Have to,” Clay told him, his smile whimsical. “I have to be back before bed check in the morning.”

  “Don’t rush off. I’d like to hear a bit more about this female warden of yours.”

  It was one thing for him to refer to his situation in prison terms, Clay discovered, but he wasn’t wild about anyone else doing it. “Later. I need to do a little work in the darkroom at Grand Point before I take off again.”

  “You’re thinking about photos at a time like this?”

  “These are special.”

  “You’re nuts,” Roan said without heat. “What about my wedding? You do intend to show up for that?”

  Clay held up his hand. “Word of honor.”

  “I’ll hold you to it,” his cousin said in grim promise. “But suppose this Amazon of yours checks your bed while you’re gone?”

  Clay drew a deep breath, then let it out with a slow shake of his head. “Can’t be helped. But I’d sure hate to miss it.”

  Roan threw down his pen and leaned back in his chair. “Right. Now let me see if I can cast my mind back. Just who was it, again, who was telling me not too long ago that I was a goner when it came to a certain woman?”

  “Don’t go jumping to conclusions. You don’t know why I’m going back.”

  “I suppose it’s for Matt, because you need to know, once and for all, if he left something of himself behind when he died.”