Heart of Lies

by Jill Marie Landis

  “You leaving me here alone?” His voice shattered her concentration.

  “You’ve got your gun. I won’t be that long.”

  “What about alligators?” He looked around.

  “Keep your hands in the boat. I’ll be back shortly.” She’d try to hurry, but haste fueled accidents.

  “Maybe I should go with you.”

  “Maybe you should stay put and let me get on with it. You’re safer here, believe me.”

  “Just don’t dawdle.”

  She almost smiled. The unaccustomed lightness fluttering deep inside her was more than a little disturbing. She thought of Lawrence and reminded herself she had nothing to smile about.

  The ground was soggy from yesterday’s downpour. Her boots were mud-caked after the first two steps and her hem was quickly soaked, but she kept her footing.

  The first trap held the mutilated remains of an otter. The pelt was unsalvageable. She carefully opened the trap, pulled out what was left of the creature, and flung it as far off into the marsh as she could. It sailed out over the high grass and landed without sound.

  When Anita first suggested she learn to trap and skin to provide for herself, Maddie had found the blood and guts disgusting. Her life had always been far from glamorous, but she was a city girl at heart. She knew the streets and warrens of New Orleans like the back of her hand. On her first few trips into the swamp, she would have been impossibly lost if she’d been alone, but Anita was wise and patient, and that, coupled with the lure of the bayou, helped Maddie quickly learn to read the signs. Nature always pointed the way.

  Torn-up and half-eaten critters no longer disgusted her. A ruined carcass represented no more than a lost pelt. She moved on, checked six more traps. Five of the six held round-eyed muskrats. They were compact little animals with wide heads, round ears, and dark, brown-black pelts. Many had red-gold tints running through their dark coats. Their underbellies were silver.

  There was good money to be made selling the thick pelts — she not only used her earnings for food and supplies, but for rent on the cabin—yet there was never any left over. Nothing to save for a new start.

  She kept her promise to Abbott and soon made her way back to the pirogue with the heavy line of muskrats dragging from her hand. He was stretched out with his arms folded over his chest, his hat brim pulled down to shade his eyes. She tossed her catch into the bottom of the pirogue, where they hit the wood with loud, wet slaps.

  Abbott quickly sat up. Even without looking at him, she felt his gaze. As before, he was a master at masking his thoughts.

  They passed the journey back to the cabin in silence. She grabbed the shotgun and climbed up onto the dock, and Abbott handed her the string of muskrats. She turned away to let him climb out of the pirogue on his own and was about to head around the house to wash the muskrats with fresh water when the cabin door opened and Anita Russo stepped out.

  Maddie stared in shock but quickly covered her dismay.

  “Hey, Anita.” She was certain Abbott could hear her heart pounding. Maddie glanced back and saw him climb onto the dock. He made certain the pirogue was secure. She held her breath, expecting Penelope to bound out of the cabin behind Anita, but thankfully, the child failed to appear.

  Maddie knew it was too much to hope that Anita had taken the girl home.

  “You been here long?” Maddie spoke to Anita, fully aware that Abbott was making his way toward them.

  “No.” Anita eyed Abbott with suspicion. “Just got here.”

  “I caught five rats.” Maddie held up her catch with two hands. The muskrats dangled by tails as long as their stiff bodies.

  Anita’s brow creased. She opened her mouth and then closed it since Tom Abbott was now within hearing distance.

  Maddie stared into the shadowed interior of the cabin, but there was no movement, no sign of Penelope. Anita remained silent. Obviously she’d realized something was going on.

  “This is Mr. Abbott.” Maddie quickly added, “He’s a Pinkerton.”

  “Tom,” he said with a nod to Anita. He opened his coat so she could see his badge. “Tom Abbott.”

  “Howdy, Mr. Abbott.” Anita stared at the silver badge a moment and fell silent, but her expression spoke volumes. She looked to Maddie for a cue.

  “This is Anita,” she told Abbott. “The one who taught me to trap. She lives up the bayou a ways.”

  Abbott gave the brim of his hat a tug. “Pleased,” he said.

  “I need to talk to you,” Anita told Maddie.

  “I’ll go see to my horse,” Abbott suggested and started to walk toward the stable shed.

  Maddie set the muskrats on a skinning table near the back of the house, wiped her hands on her filthy skirt, and indicated that Anita should follow her. Once they were inside, Maddie glanced around the room. Still no sign of Penelope. She closed the back door.

  Anita started. “I came as soon as —”

  Maddie shushed her with a shake of her head. She led Anita through the cabin and out the front door, where they stood close together on the ramshackle porch over the water. Maddie glanced over her shoulder and then turned to Anita.

  “Where’s the girl?” she whispered. “Did you take her home?”

  “What’s going on?” Anita’s thick salt-and-pepper brows beetled. “A Pinkerton? Why’s he here? Does he know about the girl?”

  “Where is she?”

  Anita massaged the spot between her brows and then shrugged. “I don’t know. She ran off. I awoke after the storm and she was gone. I tried to get into Clearwater, but I couldn’t leave till early this morning. I asked around but no one’s seen her.”

  “You asked about her?” Maddie thought of the newspaper article.

  “I told them she was my niece and that she was a bit teched in the head.” Anita rolled her eyes. “Told folks she might spout nonsense and not to pay her any mind; just bring her back to me if they found her.”

  For a split second, Maddie didn’t believe her. Saying that the child had run off was too close to the tale she was going to tell the twins.

  “Did you collect the reward, Anita?” She didn’t want to believe the woman would double cross her, but two thousand dollars would turn anyone’s head.

  “What reward? She ran off, I’m telling you. Till then I kept her hid, just like you asked me to.”

  Maddie bit her lips and stared out over the bayou. There wasn’t a hint that the sky had opened up and a deluge had fallen just yesterday. A snowy white egret landed atop a cypress knee. Fluffy white clouds scudded across an azure sky.

  She ran off. She ran off.

  “She could have drowned. Or been eaten by a gator. How could a little child survive out there alone?” Maddie pictured the mauled otter. She couldn’t think past anything else.

  “She’s got spunk. Maybe with luck — “ Anita rubbed her hand across her mouth, thinking.

  “Her likeness is in the New Orleans paper,” Maddie said. “There’s a two-thousand-dollar reward for her return. Everybody and his brother will be looking for her soon as they see or hear about it.”

  “The boys back yet?”

  Maddie shook her head no. “That’s what he’s doing here.” She nodded toward the back of the house. “Came to tell me what happened.”

  “What? What happened?”

  “Terrance is in jail. Lawrence …” She hesitated. Took a deep breath. “Lawrence is dead.”

  “How is that possible?” Anita stared in disbelief. Her shoulders sagged. “Those two were more slippery than a basket full of eels. How did they ever get caught?”

  Maddie walked to the edge of the porch, watched the muddy water slide by.

  “They were wanted for questioning. Tried to run. Lawrence was shot.”

  “Did he confess before he died? Did Terrance?”

  “No.”

  “How did he find you?”

  “Lawrence sent him to tell me what happened.”

  “Well, then, that’s that. No need worr
ying about the girl anymore.”

  “That reward money could have been the key to all my tomorrows.” Maddie shook her head. “Now she’s gone.”

  She threaded and unthreaded her fingers, staring at the bayou, trying to imagine a new life, a new beginning. She had no notion what it would be like to live without fear of the law. Without nightmares. But she would sure have liked to give it a try.

  When Maddie turned around, she saw that Anita had sunk into an old, overstuffed purple chair that was losing its innards. She had her elbows propped on her knees, her hands dangling between them.

  “When did you say she ran off?” Maddie tried to run her fingers through her hair, but it was hopelessly tangled.

  “Sometime after the storm.” Anita reconsidered. “I got up to use the necessary and it seemed daylight was just about to break. She was there. Then I went back to bed, and when I woke up, she was gone. Can’t say as I wasn’t glad to see the last of her. Never heard a body who could talk a blue streak like that. She’s a handful.”

  “I was ready to go back to your place yesterday until Abbott showed and the storm hit.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  Maddie rubbed her upper arms and shook her head. “I don’t know. I just don’t know, Anita.”

  “How’d you hear about the newspaper?” Anita was watching her intently.

  “He brought one with him. I saw Penelope’s likeness on the front page. He read me the story.”

  “You get the feeling he knows for sure we had her?”

  “Terrance hasn’t confessed.”

  “You think it would be better to tell him? Maybe they’d let you go.”

  “I don’t know if I can trust him to help me if I do.”

  Maddie could see Anita was still shaken by the news of Lawrence’s death. Her bottom lip trembled. “I’ve been taking care of those boys, taking care of all of you, since you were little. Maybe I could have saved him.”

  Maddie felt her heart stumble but ignored it. She couldn’t let herself fall apart now. She had to think clearly and come up with a plan. The key to her own freedom just might be Penelope Perkins.

  Anita pushed herself to her feet. It was a minute before she started walking across the wooden deck toward the front door. Her steps were heavy and slow.

  “Don’t get old,” she warned when she paused to look back over her shoulder. She reached for the doorknob. “Everything aches.”

  Maddie nodded. She didn’t know about the physical aches that came with old age, but she figured if she’d been schooled, she could write a book on heartache. There was only one way to save herself from any more of it, and that was to do whatever it took to walk away from her life.

  CHAPTER 10

  When the cabin door opened and the old woman walked back out with Maddie, Tom was staking his horse in the shade in high grass near the shed. Both women were silent but the glance they exchanged spoke volumes. Something was definitely wrong. Maddie had looked jumpy as a frog on a hot griddle from the minute she’d laid eyes on her friend Anita.

  Tom studied the woman, certain she was the one the missionary suggested he find. She was a good head shorter than Maddie, with dark eyes and graying hair slipping beneath the edges of a paisley scarf wrapped turban style. Her complexion was creased with deep wrinkles, her cheekbones high. He figured there might be some Indian blood in her family tree. Though her walk was slow and steady, there was strength and determination in her short strides.

  Maddie bid the woman farewell. Anita nodded to Tom and began to walk past him.

  “You knew Dexter Grande?” he asked.

  His question stopped her dead in her tracks. She eyed his expensive horse. “I did.” She grew even more wary.

  “I was told that you might be able to help me solve a missing person’s case.”

  “Maddie told me you were looking for a kidnapped child. I ain’t seen her.”

  He looked for the truth in her eyes. “I wasn’t talking about the recent kidnapping. I was talking about child who would be a woman full-grown now. Thirty-two or so. Her parents were Irish. From Irish Channel. Her name was Megan Lane. You ever heard of her?”

  She shook her head no. “I don’t recall anybody by that name.”

  “She disappeared around 1853. Brown hair. Fair skin. Brownish eyes.” The description Laura Foster had given him fit thousands of women. It even fit Maddie Grande.

  “Nope, sorry, mister. Sometimes I don’t hardly remember what I et for breakfast.”

  He opened his jacket, pulled a calling card out of his vest pocket, and handed it to her. “If anything comes to mind, you can reach me here.”

  “What’s it to you?” she asked.

  “Her sister is searching for her. I’m authorized to offer a reward for information leading to her whereabouts.”

  She tucked the card into the folds of her skirt and walked past him without another word. Her diminutive figure was soon swallowed up by high, dense growth along both sides of the path.

  He looked up. Madeline was standing nearby.

  “I heard part of what you said. Who told you about Anita? I know it wasn’t Lawrence or Terrance.”

  “It was a missionary in New Orleans. A woman named Henson.” When she showed no recognition of the name, he asked, “What was your name before it was Grande?”

  Her chin went up a notch. She looked him straight in the eye and said, “My name was always Maddie Grande.”

  Maddie frowned. “I ‘spect you’ll be leaving now,” she said.

  “I guess I will.”

  She seemed more impatient than ever. He was hesitant to leave before flushing out Penelope, but there was no obvious sign that she was still around anywhere. He hated to leave suspecting she was nearby, but until he had someone identify the comb, he might be wrong.

  Maddie was headed toward the skinning table with a long, lethal-looking knife in her hand. He followed her at a decent distance and leaned a shoulder into the side of the house where he could watch from the vantage of the shade.

  “You’ll be on your own without your brothers.”

  “They weren’t around much.”

  “You ever get lonely?”

  “Folks are only as lonely as they let themselves be.”

  She sorted through the muskrats, picked the fattest one first. Filling a bucket with clear water from one of the rain barrels beneath the eaves, Maddie doused one muskrat at a time and then ran her hands down the stiff bodies. With a firm grip, she stroked and squeezed the water out of the thick pelts. Her expertise showed. Taking up a razor-sharp knife, she commenced removing the pelts one after another.

  “The meat makes for good eating. Too bad these are so far gone,” she said offhandedly.

  “They’re edible?” They looked too close to fat gutter rats for his liking.

  “When they’re fresh.”

  When she smiled over her shoulder, he found he had to force himself to look away.

  “That was muskrat stew you lapped up yesterday.”

  “You don’t say.” As he met her gaze again he tried not to think about the two heaping bowls he’d polished off.

  “A body will eat anything if it’s starving,” she added. “They’re pretty good if you bake them all day smothered in onions.”

  He reached for an empty bucket, turned it upside down, and sat to watch her work, glad skinning wasn’t a task he had to undertake. More than once he saw Maddie heave a heavy sigh and give a slight shake of her head. He finally stood and walked over to the skinning table. Ignoring the blood and guts on the table and her hands, he stepped up close behind her.

  “What’s wrong?” he said softly. “Maybe I can help you.”

  She jumped at the sound of his voice, apparently unaware he’d even moved. She gasped on a swift intake of breath. They both glanced down at once. There was a thick slice across her forefinger, not deep, but enough to draw blood. She dropped the knife.

  Without thinking, he reached for her hand, held it bet
ween them as he inspected the cut. When she stiffened, he looked up. He caught himself falling into her eyes, and after another heartbeat, he let go.

  A drop of blood slid down her finger. She wiped it off on her skirt. “I could have lost a finger.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  She turned slightly toward him, stared deep into his eyes. Hers were dark, troubled. There was more to her worry than just a shallow cut.

  “That girl,” she said. “The one in the paper —”

  He nodded. “What about her?”

  Maddie looked so grave, so hesitant, that Tom held his breath.

  Don’t let her say the child is dead.

  “I hope they find her, is all,” she whispered. “I surely hope they do.”

  Maddie was more than relieved when Tom Abbott finally rode off, leaving her alone. She worked quickly and efficiently as she hung the pelts to dry, freshened up, and then gathered her shotgun and wrapped up a few supplies. She boarded the pirogue and headed to Anita’s.

  “Did he follow you?” Anita glanced over Maddie’s shoulder as she ushered her inside the cabin. Maddie watched her pace over to the window overlooking the dock. The old woman planted her hands on her hips as she stared out at the duckweed floating on the water.

  “Not unless he swam after me. I’ve got to find that girl and get her home, Anita. Will you lend me your horse?”

  Anita stared out the window, ignoring her request. “If he finds you here —”

  “He won’t.”

  “So you think. Pinkerton’s known as The Eye That Never Sleeps.”

  Anita’s hair hung limp around her face. She raised the hem of her apron to wipe a bead of sweat from her temple. The air was oddly close and humid. Maddie could feel it thickening around her and wondered if there was another storm coming in close on the heels of the last. She hoped not. She needed clear weather to search for Penelope.

  She hated to think the child was wandering around alone in the swamp — although by now she might have been picked up by a rescuer … or someone worse.

  “Where are you going?” Anita wanted to know.

  “To Clearwater to ask after her again. If nobody’s seen her, I’ll head up the road. Then I guess I’ll have to head back toward New Orleans. I have no idea where Langetree Plantation might be, but I’ll have to find out somehow if she’s made it back. I’d hate for somebody else to collect the reward.”