“Okay, that question I want to ask. The things you’ve seen revolved around fire.”
Annie took a breath and held it.
“You’ve got to face it sometime. I talked to Roche about what little I do know. I told him the physical symptoms you showed. He wonders if you did know something about my background before the episodes started, but you’ve blocked it out.”
“I can’t talk about it.”
Max slowed down so much, other cars passed them. “You can’t talk about it. When it happens, it’s terrible, right?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“You described it to me—pretty much. Annie, why would you meet me, then dream up something that had changed my life? Just like that? I don’t believe it could happen that way.”
She curled into an even tighter ball. “You’ll have to because it’s true.”
“Okay. Will you talk to Roche?”
“I don’t want to.”
He felt her misery. “But will you? He’s a nice guy, the nicest guy I ever met.”
“He’s your twin. You’re biased.”
“True. Will you see him?”
A wise woman knew when to throw a man a scrap. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good. I think that’s Breaux Bridge up ahead.”
“It is,” Annie said.
“Sometimes I forget you’re from around here,” Max said. “Do you think you ever heard about, you know, a case where the victims died the way you’ve seen in your mind?”
“No.” An explosive sensation swelled in her head. “No. Don’t talk about it again. Until last night it was days since it happened. I want it to go away. Please.”
“Okay. Okay, cher. Isn’t that what they say around here?”
She nodded. “Only you say it ‘shar.’ Look, I only want to say this once because I can’t deal with it. Some people do have a sort of second sight. I could be one of them. I don’t expect it to stick around, or I hope it doesn’t. Once before I had visions, or whatever you want to call them. They stopped. That was after a trauma. I could be super-sensitive and now I’m picking up on something else.”
“Okay.”
“You don’t believe me,” Annie said.
“I want to,” Max said. “I’m prepared to go with your theory until a better one comes along—cher.”
He made her smile at the darkest times. “There’s that word again,” she said.
“I like it.”
“So do I. Max, it’s stupid but I wish…well, I wish things could be different but then I think that you and I are an unlikely couple. You’d never have come to Toussaint if bad things hadn’t happened to you and then we wouldn’t have met at all. But I’m not really your type. You need a smart, educated woman.”
“Don’t say that again.”
His sharpness made her tingle. “It’s true.” But she felt embarrassed by his anger, then foolish because she had no proof he thought of her as other than a convenient distraction.
“You are a smart woman. And there isn’t a particular type of woman for me.”
“I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
He glanced at her once more. “Yes, I think you should. Rather that than have you dreaming up some other myth. Let go, will you? Let go and let things happen if they’re meant to.”
Another myth?
A policeman stood outside a cubicle in the hospital’s emergency department. The walls of the cubicle were half-glass and Annie saw Lil on a gurney inside with medical types moving around her. Spike and Deputy Lori stood by her, and her husband, Ozaire, hovered at her other side.
Max felt Annie tense up. “Cool it,” he told her. “She doesn’t look in bad shape to me.” Not that he could tell so much from here except that the woman had apparently found the ability to talk. He saw her mouth moving rapidly.
“Have you been in?” Cyrus asked from behind Max.
He turned to see the priest with Madge. Of course she’d want to come. Not that she’d find any little black and white dogs around here. He felt sorry for her.
“Spike’s in there,” Max said. “We’ll have to wait and see if we’re allowed in.”
Annie rubbed Madge’s shoulder, then, awkwardly, gave her a hug and held still when the other woman started to cry softly.
The door to the cubicle opened and Spike came out. He approached Max and said, “I think it would be a good idea if you talked to her. Remind her you’re a surgeon and give some sort of medical reason for being in there. Interested party or somethin’. I don’t know. I’d like to see her reaction to you.”
No kidding. Max smothered a smile. This truly was small-town law in action. Spike came right out and told a could-be suspect how he might manage to incriminate himself.
But it could be that complete honesty ought to give a man comfort.
“Okay?” Spike said, and when Max nodded, continued, “Let me get back in there, then give me a couple of minutes. Be patient, the rest of you. She’ll be wantin’ to tell her tale to each of you.”
“What’s she been saying?” Madge asked.
Spike puffed up his cheeks. “That’s another thing. I’m not sure what to make of what she is sayin’.” He sniffed. “Maybe one of you’ll figure out what I mean.”
“Millie?” Madge said, and bowed her head. “Sorry. I know I shouldn’t be fussin’ about a dog now but she’s all I’ve got.”
“Lil hasn’t said,” Spike told them with a mildly horrified expression. He hurried back into the cubicle.
“They’ll want to give Lil time to talk things through at her own pace,” Max said, with a curious glance from Madge to Cyrus. His face had the kind of stony expression Max hadn’t seen on the man before.
“Of course,” Madge said. “I feel so stupid and weak.”
“If there’s one thing you’re not, it’s weak,” Cyrus said, and he sounded ferocious. “You’ve got more guts than most people could ever hope to have. Stay here.”
He tapped on the glass door to the cubicle and let himself in. A nurse smiled at him and shut the door again.
“Power of the collar,” Max said but got no response from the two women.
Cyrus went to Lil who immediately clutched the hand he held out. He began to talk and Lil nodded, her face relaxing a little. Cyrus pointed to where Madge and Annie stood with Max and talked some more.
Lil’s expression changed, went blank, then crumpled. Max and Annie embraced Madge between them as Lil started to cry.
“She’s gone,” Madge said softly. “Millie’s gone. I was afraid to love her so much.”
Max met Annie’s eyes over Madge’s bowed head. “You can’t love too much,” he said. “My mother is a very wise woman, and she told me that.”
Annie swallowed and held on tight to Madge’s shaking body. Platitudes rushed forward but Annie swallowed them. Suggesting Millie might still be all right wouldn’t help.
“I’d better go in,” Max said. “Spike’s giving me the eye.”
“We’ll be okay,” Annie said, and felt him take a second too long studying her before he turned away.
“I’m glad Lil’s okay,” Madge said when they’d watched the patient interacting with her audience some more. “She doesn’t look scared of Max to me.”
Annie felt briefly irritated. “Why should she? Whatever happened to her, it’s obviously nothing like the thing with Michele Riley in Toussaint. And Max wasn’t involved with that.”
“No, of course not.”
“Oh, Madge,” Annie said. “I’m sorry I snapped. What is going on around here? One thing after another. I’m so confused.”
“That’s because you’re in love with Max Savage,” Madge said. Her body had stiffened and she stood straight.
Annie opened her mouth, but closed it again.
“You can’t argue, can you?” Madge said. “Be careful, Annie—you know what I mean. But don’t you give up on that man. I’m supposed to be a good judge of character and I don’t feel anythin’ bad about him.”
>
Annie could have kissed her. “Neither do I. But I’m not a fool. I was hurt before…you know how it is. We all have our brushes with thinking we’ve found Mr. Wonderful.”
“I know how it is. Here comes Cyrus.”
Once he was alone with them, Cyrus drew them to a row of chairs along one wall. “Sit,” he said. He remained standing. “She says she thinks she had some sort of “turn” and went off the road,” he said. “Ended up in a ditch and doesn’t remember getting out of her car. Thinks she got disoriented and wandered off.”
Annie waited.
“She says Millie was with her,” Cyrus said. When Madge looked up at him, he failed miserably at an attempted smile. “That was before she went off the road. She didn’t think about her afterward.”
“Where’s the car?” Madge said, shifting to the edge of her seat.
“They’re looking for it now. Lil’s pretty unclear.” He touched Madge’s hair and dropped his hand immediately. “There is something else, though. Lil says she was frightened off the road.”
“You said she had an attack.”
“Uh-huh. After she got frightened.”
Annie’s muscles had tensed until they ached. “Is that it? Just vague talk?”
“Not quite. She says someone ran across the street like they were going in front of her car. Instead he rushed at her window. That’s why she thinks she swerved.”
“I would, too,” Annie said. “How awful. Did she recognize the person.”
“No. You know how dark it must have been. And she says it was raining then. All she saw was a good-sized man. She’s sure it was a man. In a jacket or coat with a hood pulled forward.”
CHAPTER 22
Max:
Tonight should have taken Annie out of the picture. She should have realized you’re a dangerous man. I am getting very angry with interference in my affairs. I will not wait forever.
What do you think you’re doing with the country girl? You know you’re poison to any woman. She’s a complication I don’t need or want but if anything happens to her, we’ll know who to blame.
I like that! You didn’t think I had a sense of humor, did you?
Don’t worry, I won’t lose my focus. I know exactly what must be done. All there is left for me is to wait and watch, then act. Soon I will write again and tell you how the end will come.
CHAPTER 23
“You’re sure you’ve got something?” Spike said, dropping inside Guy Gautreaux’s gray sedan in the hospital parking lot.
“Sure,” Guy said. “You didn’t mention me in there? About it being me who called you?”
Spike yanked the creaky door shut. “Nope. When I go in again I don’t want a bunch of questions about you comin’ here. What’s up?”
Guy took his time working a notebook out of a back pocket in his jeans. “How’s Lil doin’? Still not talkin’?”
“She’s talking now. Once she saw me she wouldn’t shut up. I’m not sure she’s okay. She’s quieted down in the last half hour. There’s a pretty good bump on her head. They’re doin’ more blood work. And they’re fussing over bruises on her neck.”
Guy looked sideways at him. “Why?”
“Beats me.” Spike shrugged.
Guy pushed his rangy body deeper into his seat. Even in semidarkness the prominent bones in his face showed. “We could go round some more on this one but I’ll wait,” he said. “Who’s with her?”
“Cyrus and Max.”
“Max, huh?”
“He wasn’t invited to come. I figured if he was so eager to find out if Lil was talkin’ I’d see if she announced he was the thug who scared her when she was driving.”
“You didn’t mention that,” Guy said.
“I haven’t had a chance,” Spike said and told Guy a brief version of what Lil had said.
Guy drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “That’s interesting,” he said. “There wasn’t an opportunity to tell you about Max and Annie.”
“Other than how they look like they’ve got something going?” Spike said. “Do they?”
“Could be. She’s protective of him. Wazoo persuaded me to keep an eye out for Annie last night. She’d gone to an undeveloped lot near St. Martinville. She went on her own.”
Spike considered the thought of Annie going to some deserted place at night, alone. “Why was she there?”
“She’s going to have to explain that herself. I found her with Max.”
“At this lot?” Spike asked.
“Yeah. Things were tense, I’m tellin’ you. I didn’t hear much before they saw me but he was tryin’ to persuade her over something and he wasn’t gettin’ far. She’d made the marks on him—the ones we saw at the rectory. I think she’d fought him.”
“What about the marks on her?” Spike said. He looked toward the hospital. “They’re together. They were standing together at the rectory.”
“Annie reckoned she fell. She had a lot of thin excuses. She’s coming to see me late tomorrow—today now.”
“I think I need to step in right away,” Spike said.
“On what grounds? What reason do you have apart from what I say I saw? She’s with him of her own will. You saw her run after him at your place and asking to ride with him. Would she do that if she was afraid of him? When I started to intervene she told me to back off.”
“So let them be?”
“He’d be a fool to lay a finger on her when everyone knows they’re together. Max Savage is no fool,” Guy said.
“I’ll want directions to where you found them. Sounds like we gonna have to take a good look at it.”
“I can see that,” Guy said.
“I don’t like the two of them bein’ together, alone,” Spike said. “I want them followed. You said you’ve got something on Lil’s accident.”
“If it was an accident.”
Spike leaned a shoulder against the window and waited.
“Where did she say she was goin’?” Guy said.
“Home to Toussaint.” Spike took a stick of gum Guy offered and folded it between his teeth. “She’d been to Loreauville to visit a sister and take Madge’s dog to the vet. She was going home.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say.” Guy did some chewing of his own. “Only she wasn’t.”
“She what?” Spike sat up straight. “Where the hell do you think she was goin’. Lil isn’t the secret-life type.”
“People can surprise you. If she’d been headed to Toussaint from Loreauville, she’d be going northwest. If I’m right, and I know I am, Lil went off the road on Landry Way.”
“I’ll be…” Spike slipped his Stetson to the back of his head and rubbed at his beard stubble. “Landry Way. Landry Way? Gimme a minute.”
“It’s—”
“I know where it is now, dammit.” He laughed. “Just didn’t recognize the name. Drive it every day. I never think about what it’s called. It’s the cut between the road Rosebank’s on and the main drag into Toussaint. If you’re right, Lil did lie, or she didn’t bother to tell the real details.”
“Question is, why?” Guy said. “After Loreauville she must have driven away from Toussaint.”
“Not far, though,” Spike said. He tapped a wobbly hula girl cemented to the dash. She bobbed on her spring. “You think Lil drove around a half mile south, more or less, and turned onto Landry Way. Do you know how far she got on Landry before the accident?”
Guy pressed his head into the rest. “She was maybe a hundred yards from the road to Toussaint, only she was driving toward it, not away.”
“How do you know?” Spike said slowly.
“Skid marks—and a flare. You didn’t ask why I was on Landry.”
“Gimme,” Spike said, beckoning.
“I decided to go looking for some sign of where Lil went off the road. Couldn’t figure out why your guys didn’t find anything. I couldn’t either at first. But I’d passed Loreauville before I knew it, so right away I took the first side street.
That was Landry. Then I made a U-turn and started back. There were the skid marks. And residue from a flare.”
There had better be more than skid marks to place Lil at that site. Spike said, “And?”
“She drives a blue Hyundai. Two door. I think she saw the guy she told you about and speeded up instead of slowing down. She lost control. I found the vehicle buried pretty deep in the trees there. It must have been really movin’ to go that far. The plates checked out.”
“But you’re sayin’ she got out of the car, got back to Landry and lit a flare? And then wandered away and wasn’t found for hours?”
“No, I’m not saying that. Did she tell you she lit it?”
Spike gave a single shake of the head. “No.”
“That’s because she didn’t do it.”
“Who did?”
“The man in the hood. Looks like a setup to me. He threw down the flare and waited for her.”
Spike couldn’t fault the logic, nor could he buy it whole. “She’d have told me. I don’t suppose there was any sign of Madge’s dog?”
“No, I wish there had been. Lil wouldn’t tell you if she’s got something she wants to hide.”
Spike let out a long breath. “If the Hyundai isn’t where you say it is, I’ll know small-town life is getting to you.”
“That man who scared her,” Guy poked a finger into Spike’s arm. “He wanted to make sure she kept whatever secrets she’s got.”
“Maybe,” Spike said. “Maybe.”
CHAPTER 24
“I still don’t see why Spike said we should leave the hospital,” Annie said. She stood in the middle of Max’s sitting room, exactly where she’d been for the five minutes since they arrived. “Not the way he did. He dismissed us.”
“He’s got a lot on his mind,” Max said. He hadn’t liked being “dismissed” as Annie put it, not when the action had picked up. First he was sent out of Lil’s room, then he’d seen a new doctor go in and have a nurse put screens around the bed. Next came a lab technician followed by another doctor and Max wished he could find out what was going on. He hadn’t liked the changes he had noticed in Lil’s condition.
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