Now You See Him

by Stella Cameron

  “I want twenty-four hours, Joe.” She looked up into his face. “Can you help me get that? Can we just say I fell over in the woods and got scraped up? That’s what I did.”

  “With a lot of help from a murderer.” He needed to talk with Spike but Ellie’s desperation stopped him, at least for the moment.

  Her eyes glittered and he figured she could cry at any moment. He didn’t go to pieces when a woman cried, but neither did he look forward to feeling useless. “Can you tell me why you want to hide out?” Now she’d close up again.

  Ellie leaned across Daisy to rest against Joe’s shoulder. Timing could be everything. Where Ellie was concerned his had been lousy and it was getting worse.

  “You’re askin’ me to do the wrong thing,” he said. “Whatever happens, I’m going to call this in to Spike and it needs to be done now. That doesn’t mean I won’t get you out of the way for a few hours until you’re ready to talk. But if I have to put the rest of them off the track, I’ve got to be convincin’. They are going to be madder than wet hens when they find out.”

  She looked up at him again.

  Her mouth was a breath away from his. Whoa, the kind of fear they’d come through made it easier to give in to desire. Joe surely did desire Ellie, and not only to kiss.

  “What can I say to them?” Their faces almost touched.

  Ellie slipped her arm around his waist and her hand landed where his shirt had pulled free of his jeans. She spread her fingers on his naked back. Joe grew more uncomfortable and he liked it.

  “Just a day, Joe,” she said. “You could help me figure out what I’ll have to say to Spike—and to Gautreaux—and what isn’t necessary. If you want to. I’ve taken too much from you already.”

  His chest expanded, but he had trouble letting the air flow out again. “Anything you want.” Yep, he would just spread himself out in front of her like a cloak over a puddle. Might as well tell her to walk on him because he might like that, too.

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

  That was for sure, and he felt heady at the prospect of her telling him about it. He wanted to feel connected to her.

  “I can’t just say it all. Just like that. I’ve taken years to put it behind me, but I’ll tell you enough so you understand why I can’t afford to get too involved with the law.”

  He had not expected that. He leaned away from her. “You’re a convict on the run?”

  Her smile was faint. “That’s Charles Penn.”

  “Sorry.” Dumb comment to make. “I didn’t think.”

  “I can clean myself up and stay out of the way. I’ll talk to Spike tomorrow—late tomorrow.”

  “Cher,” he said, gently. “Right now I’ve got to report what’s happened.”

  “They’ll be all over me.”

  Joe stood and helped her up. He stuck his hands in his pockets and brooded over the rash next step he’d just decided to make. “I’m probably going to hate myself for this, but let’s go. Don’t waste time asking questions. Daisy mustn’t bark.”

  Ellie didn’t ask him to explain. Her fingers wouldn’t work properly so he helped her put the muzzle back on. He grabbed her hand and they ran under cover of the trees until he figured they had the best chance to reach her van without being seen.

  He stopped and pulled her well out of sight again. “Your keys? Where are they?”

  “In my purse. I left it on the seat inside. There’s a spare under the right rear bumper.”

  “That’s something. Run. Damn it, the lights in this parking lot feel like strobes.”

  Ellie found the little magnetic box and gave Joe her spare key. Daisy leaped into the back and Ellie barely made it into the passenger seat before Joe squealed away. Her door didn’t click all the way shut until he careened around the building, swaying hard to the left.

  The employees parked on the far side of the back lot and Joe slipped the van between two trucks. “I’m grasping at straws here,” he said. “Hide things in plain sight, isn’t that what they say?”

  “I guess so.” Ellie stared over her shoulder. “If someone heard that reckless driving, we’ll get company.”

  “You wouldn’t hear a train wreck inside there,” Joe said. “Let’s get Daisy and go.”

  “Go where?” Ellie said, stepping out of Daisy’s way when she jumped from the vehicle. “Joe?”

  “We’re leavin’ in my Jeep. Save your breath till we’re away.”

  Back to the front of Pappy’s they ran. Joe figured Ellie had already suffered enough. She needed to rest and have her wounds dealt with, but it would have to wait.

  “Still in the clear,” Joe said, peering around the front of the building. “Walk normally.”

  He hardly believed their luck when they drove away from Pappy’s and headed back toward the center of Toussaint.

  Ellie clung to the dashboard in front of her and watched him.

  “I’m making a call. Don’t say anything.”

  “Who are—”

  “Just listen.” The phone only rang once before Spike’s familiar drawl said, “Yeah?”

  “Spike, don’t let anyone else there know it’s me. We’ve got a big problem on our hands.”

  Silence.

  “Spike, it’s Joe.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Joe set it all out neatly and dragged in a breath after he’d said, “So I’m givin’ Ellie a chance to gather her wits. You understand?”

  “Nope. I’m movin’, you dumb shit, I’m already outside. Where are you? Get back here or I’ll get a warrant.”

  Joe smiled at Ellie, but her expression suggested she could hear the tone of Spike’s voice. “Thanks, Spike,” Joe said. “She’s had such a rough time, maybe rougher than we know.”

  He heard Spike turn on his car radio.

  “Just a few hours and we’ll contact you,” Joe said.

  “We, huh?” Spike said. “I’m gonna set a search in motion for Penn. I’ll try to stay off your back till mornin’, then I come lookin’ for you. If my boss finds out what I’ve done, I’ll be the new cook at Rosebank. If I don’t see the whites of your eyes by eight, I’ll put out an APB. That’s a promise. And if NOPD gets wind Ellie’s gone bye-bye before that, there won’t be a thing I can do about it.”

  “Thank you,” Joe said. “I owe you.”

  Ellie took the phone from him and said, “I owe you, too—” She cleared her throat. “He hung up.”

  “He’s got a lot to do,” he told her, feeling lame. “He’s a good guy. The best. About now all he’s thinkin’ about is catchin’ a killer.”

  “I can’t go home, Joe,” she said.

  “I know.”

  7

  Cyrus stood in the middle of Bonanza Alley and looked at the church. Even without a moon, the white stone walls shone. He considered going there to pray but turned away instead.

  From the bayou came the rattle and clack of critters, the rustle of movement in dry reeds. And the frogs set up their nightly ruckus. He wouldn’t change a thing about this place.

  He had one refuge where he was never interrupted, except by the occasional phone call. Whenever he entered his own room a mantle of quiet descended. Up under the eaves in what used to be the attic, he’d made his own simple space. Initially he had told himself he did it to free up another bedroom for emergency use. But he knew he had needed a place where only he went—he still did. Not even Lil Dupre ventured up there and he did his own cleaning.

  Reluctant to leave the outdoors before he had to, Cyrus walked toward the house at a leisurely pace. When Spike called him at Pappy’s with the story about Charles Penn and Ellie, he’d offered to help search for the man, so had Marc and Paul Nelson, and they could have found plenty of other volunteers. Spike said this was too big a deal and deputies were being called in from all over.

  When Cyrus walked across damp grass toward the kitchen door, frogs leaped and crickets let him know they were taking up noisy arms to fight him off.

  Th
e coffeepot was always on in Lil’s kitchen. Cyrus poured a mug and sat at the big table in the windows. By day a clear view of land that sloped to the bayou never failed to delight him. The flowers he grew himself, the shrubs and trees, pleased him. Even the Fuglies, a primitive, two-dimensional sculpture given as a gift to the parish seemed to belong at last—ugly though it was.

  By night, the only view at the windows was a reflection of the scene inside the kitchen.

  Cyrus sat at the table and cupped the hot mug in both hands. Sitting there like that, still and quiet in the empty old house, felt familiar, but he wished, as he too frequently did, that he weren’t alone. That was his battle and his burden.

  He drank from the mug, set it down and rubbed at his face. This had been another long day. At least he wasn’t worried about Ellie, or not too worried since she and Joe were together. He smiled into his hands. Joe Gable had been looking for a way to get closer to Ellie for a couple of years, and now, Cyrus guessed, Joe wasn’t letting any grass grow under his feet.

  He liked Joe—Ellie, too, even if she did puzzle him sometimes.

  Why couldn’t it be that when a man took the cloth certain human parts of him turned off for good? All the personal stuff, the feelings he wasn’t allowed to have. God knew his vocation needed everything he had to give. Most times it got all of him, but in some ways one ache got worse. Little by little, the longing that closed his throat with forbidden love, and the awakening that came, unbidden, to make him hate his weakness, had become regular companions.

  Before Madge had moved into rooms at Rosebank with the Devols, she’d lived farther away, in Rayne, but she had been on her own there and no one took notice of how many nights she worked late at the rectory.

  He brought his fists down on the table, then spread his fingers. Madge still spent most of her time there. He was selfish. He was using up a young woman’s life and he had no claim on it. But when she worked in her office, or joined him here for coffee, he felt complete peace. She’d become his best friend. But there were the other feelings.

  Paul Nelson looked at her in that certain way, like he wanted to know her a whole lot better. People liked Paul and so did Cyrus. He liked the other man’s wit and intelligence, and his quiet kindness. And he was successful. Ellie carried his travel books and she said you could find them in almost any store.

  If he, Cyrus, encouraged Madge to take notice of the man…He pinched the bridge of his nose. That’s what he should do, help Madge find a husband.

  He’d go up to his room and pray for the strength to overcome his weakness.

  Tapping at the kitchen door only startled him for a moment. Wally Hibbs often showed up late looking for a friendly ear. It would mean Cyrus must drive him home but he could handle it.

  He got up and opened the door.

  Joe Gable stood there with an arm around Ellie’s shoulders. Her dog, Daisy, leaned against her legs. “Lost sheep?” Joe said. “Will that do? We need a place to hide till mornin’.”

  Cyrus clicked into gear at once. “Get in here. Go straight through to the hall, out of the light. We’ll use the upstairs sitting room. Were you followed?”

  “Don’t think so,” Joe said, hustling Ellie into the passageway with its perpetual smell of lavender wax. “We’ve been here awhile. I was already driving when I called Spike at Pappy’s. We didn’t want to give you a heart attack by coming at you outside—in the dark.”

  “Thanks for that.” Cyrus led them from the ground floor, upstairs to the large, comfortable sitting room. He switched on lamps and closed brown velvet drapes over the windows. “Let me look at you, Ellie.”

  “I’m all right,” she said, avoiding his eyes.

  “My Jeep is in that old storage shed you don’t use for much right now,” Joe said. “The one with no roof.”

  Cyrus hoped he’d missed something and that the law would not come battering down the rectory doors anytime soon. Even if Spike wanted to, he couldn’t stand in the way of a superior’s order to find Ellie and take her in. “Does Spike know you’re here?”

  “No,” Ellie said. Beads of dried blood decorated welts on her neck and arms and her face was all scraped up. “Spike’s got to do things by the book this time. If he knew we were here, he’d pick us up.”

  Joe guided her to Cyrus’s green leather couch and sat her down. He gave Cyrus a meaningful glance. They both figured that whenever Spike absolutely had to talk to Ellie, he’d know to come to the rectory.

  “It’s not as bad as that,” Joe told Ellie. “The thing is, Spike said if he doesn’t see Ellie by eight in the morning he’ll put out an APB for her.”

  Cyrus wrinkled his brows. “That would be an All Points Bulletin? Don’t they use that for criminals?”

  Joe rolled his eyes at him. “It just means everyone—law types, that is—will be on the lookout for her. But she’ll go in by then. She just needs time to think some things through first.”

  “I see.” Cyrus didn’t really see, but he was used to giving people space if they said they needed it. “I guess if Spike said she didn’t have to show up till tomorrow, I don’t understand why she wouldn’t want to go home.”

  “I do want to go home.” Ellie sprang to her feet with a look in her eyes he hadn’t seen before. Anger, tiredness and frustration all bubbled together there. “I can’t. That New Orleans detective will show up demanding answers. The first place he’ll go is Hungry Eyes, so I can’t be there. He’s probably on his way there now. If Spike thought I was there, he’d be knocking on the door. All I need is some time to think and time isn’t something I’ve got a lot of. Come on, Joe.” She pulled his sleeve. “We’re compromising Cyrus by being here.”

  Cyrus smiled and took hold of Ellie by her shoulders. “You’re overwrought and puttin’ words into my mouth. Sit down again, please. Let me get you something warm to drink. Does coffee keep you up? I want you to just spit everything out and tell me how I can help you. You, too, Joe.”

  Ellie looked chagrined. Joe’s smile was even wider than Cyrus’s.

  “Coffee would be great,” Joe said. “Would you let us spend the night here, please?”

  “I could just sleep right here,” Ellie added, patting well-worn leather. “I like sleeping on couches. But Joe’s had a really bad night so he needs a bed.”

  Joe and Cyrus laughed together. “And you had a good night,” Joe said. “We can see that. When she tried to get away, Penn grabbed her ankles and tried to haul her off. That’s how she got cut up all over. Said he just wanted to talk to her. She needs a shower and cool sheets. And something to clean up all those cuts.”

  Thoughts of what could have happened, what was supposed to happen, turned Cyrus’s stomach.

  “No,” Ellie said. “I don’t put people out. I’ll pop in the bathroom and use a washcloth, then come back here.”

  Cyrus saw a battle shaping up.

  “I wish Madge was here to help with those cuts,” he said. “I don’t want you gettin’ an infection.”

  The front door slammed below and footsteps hammered the stairs.

  Ellie and Joe looked around as if they wanted to hide. “She’s telepathic,” Cyrus told them. “That’s Madge.” And there was that old leap of the heart again. “She’s the only one with the front door key. I expect she forgot something. She goes round back to see if this light’s on before she comes in. She’ll help us out.”

  He opened the sitting room door and Madge tumbled in with Paul Nelson behind her. Paul couldn’t see the comical face Madge made as if to say “It wasn’t my idea for him to come.”

  “Paul writes half the night. He heard me moving around and insisted on driving me over,” she said. “I wasn’t sneaky enough gettin’ out of Rosebank. If Spike ever finds out I figured Ellie would be here and didn’t tell him, he’ll croak. I hope Vivian doesn’t get wind of it, either, because if it’s a toss-up between her Spike and anyone else, you know who counts.”

  “I’d be happy if everyone got involved in what happened to
Ellie tonight.” Paul’s nostrils flared. “If it could happen once, it could happen again. This guy’s got to be tracked down fast.”

  Joe said, “We’re all on the same page here. But right now we’re trying to get Ellie to take a shower and clean the wounds she has. We won’t go into how she got them again now. Do you think you could do something with her, Madge? And maybe find a bed for her.”

  “Sure can. You stayin’, too, Joe?” She paused long enough to make sure he didn’t say he was leaving and added, “There’s plenty of room here. I’ll show you where to sleep. We’ve got anything you’ll need. Then I’ll get Ellie into bed.”

  Madge hustled Ellie and Joe out and Cyrus couldn’t help seeing the way the two of them looked at each other.

  “Thank you for bringing Madge over,” Cyrus said to Paul Nelson. “Can I offer you something?”

  “Please. Scotch if you’ve got it.”

  “I do,” Cyrus said. He took out the bottle and two glasses. Scotch sounded good to him, too. “I’m glad you stopped Madge from coming out alone at this time of night.”

  “I saw her trying to be invisible on her way out of Rosebank,” Paul said in his pleasant New England accent. “With everything that’s going on, I had to step in. Toussaint is going to be an uptight place until this guy Penn is caught.” He sat down and held his glass between his knees with the tips of his fingers.

  Cyrus grunted. Paul shook his head. He was one of those solidly muscled men. He had honest blue eyes and thick, curly blond hair.

  “How does Ellie seem?” Paul asked. “For what my opinion’s worth, I agree she can’t be left to her own devices, not until we know the killer’s behind bars again.”

  Cyrus nodded. “We’re going to have our work cut out for us convincing her of that, so I’m hoping this is all over real quick.”

  There didn’t seem much else to say. They drank in silence. Cyrus heard the sounds of Madge and her charges moving around and he glanced at Paul Nelson. The other man stared into his Scotch, his forehead rucked. Good-looking, Cyrus decided, and decent. He wondered what Madge thought of Paul.