by Ali Vali
“Did you understand Jo today when she explained that Dr. Nicolas is going to be let go from Children’s Hospital?” She felt like she had cast her line and was looking for a bite. “It’s not the jail sentence you were hoping for, but you took away the one thing she loved.”
“You’re right.” Elijah stepped closer and put his hand on her shoulder. “Kara Nicolas got what she deserved, and her sentence was no less punishing than what my little girl got.” He squeezed her shoulder, but his face showed no expression. Then he just let her go and started walking down the road, staying close to the water.
Tully watched him leave and knew that no matter how much she pushed him, he wasn’t going to say anything else on this subject, and most probably wouldn’t for the rest of his life. Her gut was warning her, though, that there was plenty more to this story and that Jessica’s worries weren’t unfounded. “Her sentence was no less punishing,” she repeated softly. “What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”
A patrol car was driving slowly toward her, and the deputy rolled his window down and stopped. “Evening, Tully.”
“Any luck with Dr. Nicolas?”
“We drove up about twenty miles and came back on both sides of the bayou, but no one’s seen her. Even stopped and talked to most of the old-timers who like to sit outside and watch the world go by. They promised they’d be watching for her, but they hadn’t seen her either.”
“Thanks for stopping. I’ll take a drive myself before I head on back home.” Tully said the words, but she was willing to bet a month’s salary that she wouldn’t find anything either.
At midnight, after an extensive drive through some of the less populated areas of Montegut, she and Libby found Jessica waiting for them in the living room wearing a new T-shirt and jeans. When Tully just shook her head, Jessica didn’t ask anything.
“Get some sleep and we’ll start looking in the morning. I talked to Carl’s night commander, and he said they’ll keep up the patrols tonight. If she’s still in the area they’ll find her.”
“I’ll go back to the bed and breakfast.”
Alma stepped in from the kitchen and took Jessica by the hand. “Nonsense, there’s no reason for you to be alone, so go upstairs. The kids fixed up one of the beds for you. Tully, the kids are waiting for you across the street. Your father’s over there keeping an eye on them until you two got back.”
When they stepped on board the boat, Gaston was sitting in a lawn chair peering out at the water. He kissed them both and headed off to bed.
They carefully stepped around the air mattress they’d put out for Chase on the floor, with Bailey and Ralph sleeping in the bunks.
“Is something wrong?” Libby asked. She’d tried the same question a couple of times while they were riding around in the car, but Tully had just shaken her head and turned down another street. “And please don’t tell me it’s nothing.”
“I just have a bad feeling about this, and I have a clue as to why, but I don’t want to believe I might be right.”
“Right about what, baby?” Libby asked.
“We can’t have this conversation now.” Tully pointed to the kids sleeping around them. “Because when we do, it’s going to be as attorneys talking about our client, not as partners.”
“You don’t have to tell me at all if you don’t want to. I just thought you’d feel better if you talked about whatever’s bothering you.” Libby snuggled closer to her; the air conditioner was set low enough to hang meat.
“When we’re out looking again tomorrow, we’ll discuss it as much as you want.” They shared a long kiss before Libby drifted off to sleep.
Another deputy stopped by in the morning to tell them they still hadn’t had any luck in finding Kara. Tully wasn’t surprised—the real shock would’ve been if they’d found any evidence of Kara at all.
Jessica joined them and Tully gave her the job of trying to get in touch with Kara’s family in Texas while they went out to look again. The phones were still sporadic, but the assignment would keep Jessica busy while they continued their search.
“I don’t think we’ll find Kara Nicolas no matter how hard we try,” Tully told Libby as soon as the car door closed. They were going to drive to some of the more out-of-the-way locations that hadn’t been covered yet because Carl lacked the manpower.
“What makes you so sure?”
“My talk with Elijah yesterday. He didn’t come out and say it, but I think he had something to do with her disappearance.” She told Libby verbatim the words Elijah had used when he talked about punishment and his daughter.
“What are you going to do?”
“There isn’t anything I can do. He was smart enough to make sure I’m still his attorney. I can’t tell Carl about this because of privilege. My hands are tied until Elijah decides to say something or Carl puts together a case.”
“Did you try to talk to him about it?”
Tully took a road with marsh on both sides, and because of the storm, the water was lapping over the edge, which made her take it slow. She was sure, though, that if Elijah had done something to Kara, she was currently somewhere well offshore feeding the crabs and the fish. If that was the case, Kara would never be found, and for as much misery as she’d brought into Tully’s life, Kara wasn’t some rabid dog to be taken out back and disposed of. If that was what he’d done, Tully understood his motivation, but it wouldn’t be easy living with the fact that she hadn’t tried to do something about it. Kara’s parents deserved better.
“This is the part of this career path that’s going to take some getting used to.” Libby placed Tully’s hand in her lap and rubbed her fingers as she scanned the area. “You must get tired of carrying the weight of other people’s secrets.”
“I try to always do right by my clients, but I also steer them to do the right thing. Problem is, darlin’, you can drag them to the pool, but you can’t always make ’em swim.”
“Does it bother you?”
Tully nodded. “I don’t go out of my way to help people break the law and get away with it.”
“That’s not what I meant. I know you better than to believe that about you.”
Seeing a tree that the storm had more than likely put across the road, Tully turned the SUV around. “It bothers me that if Elijah is involved, he would gamble with his future like that, because Simone loses here too. But in his soul he blames Kara for the death of his child. If it was Bailey or Ralph that I’d lost, who knows what my grief would push me to.”
“I guess I spoke too soon when I said this is over. If something happened to her, this is just the beginning. And you know Jessica will find some way to blame you.”
“Jessica’s going to have to accept that karma came back to bite Kara in the ass, and I certainly didn’t have anything to do with her choices.”
Tully turned down another road with a few homes built up at least fifteen feet in the air, keeping them out of harm’s way when it flooded. Everyone they passed waved, but stayed on their porches watching them.
By the end of two days, Tully and Libby had covered the same territory four more times, with still no luck.
When they returned every afternoon they found the kids sitting with Jessica, who would start a fresh bout of crying when Tully shook her head. It was as if the ancient land with its cypress knees and moss hanging from the tree branches had opened up and swallowed any sign that Kara Nicolas had ever existed.
Chapter Thirty-three
As the days ticked off, Tully realized they faced a new problem. Another storm, Hurricane Rita, was churning its way through the Gulf, bearing down on what everyone first thought would be the Texas coastline. As if Katrina hadn’t been enough, every day the forecasters placed Rita closer to Louisiana, and everyone in Montegut was preparing, knowing the kind of storm surge that could result from being on the eastern side of a storm of that size.
With Rita right offshore and predicted to come on land late that night or early the morning, Tully parked
next to Elijah’s boat, figuring one more day of driving to the same places she’d covered would yield the same results. He was on board, folding his nets and storing them inside the cabin.
“This thing is going to churn things up around here, don’t you think?” Tully asked him, staying on land, out of his way.
He only nodded and kept up what he was doing.
“And it can permanently get rid of things that are lost.”
“What can I do for you, Tully?”
“At least tell me if I’m spinning my wheels here.”
He took his cap off and scratched the top of his head, making her think he was just going to clam up. “First, tell me why you’re looking so hard.”
“Not because I owe my ex anything and not because I have illusions of caring for Kara.”
“Then why?”
She turned her head and gazed down the road. From where she was standing she could make out the steeple of St. Bridget’s Catholic Church. Behind it was the cemetery that had been used from the time the land had been settled. Evangeline had been laid to rest in one of the new sections.
“Why?” Tully repeated. “Because no matter her sins, her parents deserve the last comfort you had. They should be able to bury her and know her life is finished. It doesn’t matter how they get that knowledge, but it’s only humane to give it to them and spare them the agony that will haunt them if we don’t.”
“Wish I could help you and them, but I can’t.”
“If you’re sure you can’t, then I’ll have to accept that. I’m not here to push you into giving me something you’re not capable of, but if you change your mind you know you can count on me to help you.”
It had been worth a try. Now she had a reasonable idea of the truth and the comfort that she had tried her best. “Good luck with the storm, and if you and Simone need anything, let me know.”
“You think less of me?” Elijah asked as he jumped from the boat to the shore to follow her toward her vehicle.
“I understand you, Elijah, and I respect you. What happened to you is my worst nightmare, so no, I don’t think less of you. The burden of truth, whatever that might be in this case, might get heavy over time, though.” She opened the door to her car, but didn’t move to get inside. “I’ve found that sometimes that kind of strain leaks over into other aspects of your life. With everything you and Simone have been through, you don’t deserve any more added to your plate.”
“Thanks, and I’ll remember that. You all evacuating for this thing?”
“My father keeps telling me how that house has been there for over a hundred years and he isn’t leaving, and the kids and Libby already went through the trauma of having to leave what they knew, so we’re staying for now.” She gazed up at the overcast sky and felt the moisture in the air. Rita was shaping up to be a rainmaker, from all the reports. “I’ll keep my eye on the Weather Channel just in case. How about you and Simone?”
“I’m packing the boat just in case. If things get bad I’m going to float her up the bayou as far as I can and try and ride it out.”
They shook hands, and Tully headed on back to the house to help with the hurricane preparations. She had sent Roxanne and her family, as well as Jo, back up north with the office files, but Chase and her mother, along with Jessica, had stayed.
The first big gusts came in at ten that night, and Tully sat with her family flipping between the local stations and the Weather Channel. At its current rate Rita would really get going past midnight, and since it was coming in right at the Louisiana/Texas border her decision to stay was starting to give Tully a headache. When the grandfather clock in the foyer chimed twelve thirty, she was about to tell everyone to pack their bags to get on the road for a couple of days when there was a knock on the front door.
Waving her father off, Tully opened the door to Elijah and closed it behind her just as quickly when she saw the way he was twisting his hat in his hand.
“I’m taking Simone and my boat out of here.” He pointed across the street, which wasn’t visible because of the driving rain. “I docked by your daddy’s so I could come and see you before I headed out.”
“Need some help?”
“No, I wanted to see if you tried looking down by Jim Bob Delacroix’s place over by the pass.” The place he mentioned was ten miles farther south than where they were standing, a huge chunk of private land owned by a New Orleans oilman whose hobbies were fishing and making money. “I thought about what you said, and whatever you find, I might need help carrying the weight of the truth when you get back and this is over.”
She shook his hand. “That’s something you can count on.”
Neither Libby nor the kids were happy with her decision to go out alone, but she didn’t want them to get hurt if the storm got any worse. Tully almost caved in when Libby grabbed the front of her T-shirt.
“You better come back to me. I’ll be lost if something happens to you. I went through the pain of losing my parents and finally saw the end of being alone when I found you, so you better not let me down, Tully.”
“I won’t,” was all Tully said before she kissed Libby to show her how much she meant it. “I love you, and I’m planning on a long life with you, so I’ll be right back.”
Her own words echoed in Tully’s head as she turned onto the main road and drove almost to the end where the pavement ended abruptly in the water, her vehicle swaying from the wind the whole time. The private drive stretched for three miles, ending at one of the nicest houses on the bayou. Jim Bob used the place a couple of times a year as a fishing camp to entertain some of his bigger clients, and other than a caretaker who came out once a week, the place sat empty and secluded.
She took her time walking around searching for clues at the end of her flashlight. If the front of the house was nice, the back was spectacular. After a lot of excavating, Jim Bob had created a series of ponds in his backyard that were fed by the pass that ran alongside the eastern part of his property.
After extensive dredging, what had started as a small feeder off Bayou Terrebonne years before had turned into a quick route to the Gulf. He allowed his neighbors to use it, but its main purpose was to get his large fishing cruiser out to blue water.
The boat was gone, probably brought in because of the storm, so Tully walked slowly along the back banks of the ponds watching where she put her feet because of the local reptilian population. Not finding anything from Elijah’s cryptic clue, she was about to turn back when she spotted a flash of blue out in the distance on a small island. She put her flashlight right on it and saw Kara huddled against the trunk of an ancient oak.
Tully ran back to the mud boat she’d seen earlier and pushed it into the water. The pole in it was long enough for her to guide the boat out to the land that was rapidly disappearing in the rising water. “Kara!” Tully lost a shoe in the thick mud when she landed. If the wind and rain hadn’t roused Kara, Tully figured she was dead.
“Kara!” she screamed again, finally getting some response when she got closer. The large bruise on the side of Kara’s head made Tully grimace, but she was relieved that Kara was still alive. “Come on, we have to get out of here. The levee must be topped for the water to be coming up this fast. We don’t have much time.”
Kara shook her head and wrapped her arms even tighter around her legs.
“You can’t stay here and ride out a hurricane holding on to a tree.” Tully lifted Kara’s head to make sure she understood what she was saying.
“I can’t swim, and I’m not getting on a boat in this weather.” With that statement Kara jerked out of Tully’s grasp and turned her head to the tree trunk, as if it would hide where she was.
“I can’t leave you here, so I apologize ahead of time,” Tully said. She hated to hit her in the same place as the bruise, but if Kara wouldn’t go willingly she would have to be carried out.
With a grunt Tully slugged Kara, hefted her up, and carried her back to the boat. Before she could push off, the
electricity went out at the house, cutting off the floodlights in the yard and plunging the area into total darkness. The rain was now flying horizontally because of the gusts of wind, and Tully prayed she was going in a straight line toward the shore. If she missed too far to the left they would go into the pass and possibly out to the Gulf once the current changed with the wind, if they were lucky enough to stay afloat that long.
She stuck the pole into the water and propelled them closer to the shore, but on the next stroke she wasn’t prepared for the sudden drop-off, and the wood slid through her fingers. The depth could only mean she’d aimed too far out and they were in the pass. With no way to steer she had no idea where they’d end up.
“Libby, forgive me if this doesn’t work out,” she shouted into the wind as she removed her other shoe. The rocking made it difficult to walk to the front of the boat where the tie-off rope was. When her fingers closed around it, Tully quickly found the end and fastened it around her waist.
Another miscalculation now and they would both be lost, but she could figure no other way out. She took a deep breath and jumped off the front of the boat into surprisingly warm water with a very strong current. The storm surge from Rita was driving it, but Tully started swimming in what she hoped was an easterly direction. With the weight of the boat she was dragging and the force of the water, her limbs quickly felt like lead, but she knew to give up now would lead to certain death, so she ignored the fatigue and pushed harder.
After what felt like hours, no matter how much Tully wanted to keep going, she could push her arms over only once more; then she surrendered to the current. She rolled over to her back, hoping to keep her head above water and thinking about Libby, Bailey, and Ralph. For the first time in her life she felt like a total failure for abandoning the people she loved most for something they might not understand. As her tired body started to sink, she lamented all the things that she’d left unsaid. She was sure that her words, along with the remainder of her days, would be swept away along with the debris swirling around her.