by Tami Hoag
Had he lied to throw the timeline off, or had he just been mistaken?
She rubbed a hand across the increasing tension in her forehead. “I thought this case couldn’t get much worse . . .”
“Is there a chance this girl just ran away?” Nick asked.
“Yes. Absolutely. She had threatened to run away more than once. She had a big fight with her mom a couple of days ago. Do you think I’m overreacting?”
“No,” he said, reaching out to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. “A twelve-year-old girl has been missing for more than a day. That’s cause for alarm no matter the reason. Did it look like she might have taken anything with her? A handbag, clothes?”
“A backpack,” Annie said. “She usually carried a backpack to school. It’s not at the house.”
“So she brought the Gauthier boy to her home after school and hasn’t been seen or heard from since?” Nick said.
“And later that evening the boy was murdered,” Annie pointed out. “I realize the two things may not be related at all, but that comes pretty close to the C word for me. The odds of the two things being coincidental seem pretty long.
“Our assumption has been that the boy’s murder was a crime of opportunity in the commission of an attempted burglary or that Genevieve was either the actual target or the cause of her son’s death,” she said. “But what if it’s related to the disappearance of the babysitter?”
Nick said nothing for a moment as he considered the possibilities. Finally he said, “Genevieve says the girl wasn’t there when she picked up her son. Were there other people at the house? What do any of them have to say?”
“The household is chaotic, to say the least,” Annie confessed. “People come and go. Jojean wasn’t there at the time. Who knows where Dean was? I don’t know who else might have been there.”
“You’d better find out.”
“Are you suggesting Genevieve might have done something to Nora? Why?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “Why’d she kill her own baby when she was fourteen? If she’s capable of murdering one child, is she not capable of murdering another?”
“So she’s gone from potentially losing her temper and killing her son to being a serial killer?”
“I didn’t say that. I’m saying you have to be open to all possibilities, ’Toinette. You can’t dismiss a theory just because you don’t want it to be true. You know as well as I do, sufficiently motivated, people are capable of damn near anything.”
He was right, of course. They didn’t get to pick and choose killers and motives. Their only goal was the truth, no matter how ugly it might be.
“Who’s the lead for the PD?” he asked.
“Harlan Hanks. He thinks I’m an alarmist because I wanted an Amber Alert issued.”
“Did he do it?”
“Eventually. He knows the family and was of the ‘Oh, she’ll get scared and come home’ school of thought. I swear to God,” she muttered. “We’re investigating the brutal murder of a child and people still want to believe nothing bad happens in a small town—even the cops.
“Chief Earl finally lit a fire under his ass—prompted by Dutrow, who is probably planning their joint press conference for tomorrow as we speak,” she said sarcastically. “I guess that’s the upside to having a raging narcissist for sheriff. Any time two or more cameras can gather in his name he’s right there, Johnny on the Spot.”
“You talked to Dutrow?”
“Yeah. That was the weirder part of the evening, if you can believe that. I went to the address of one of Nora Florette’s friends, and Dutrow answers the door. Turns out the kid is the son of his fiancée, and One Big Happy they are not.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He wasn’t pleased with me showing up. There was already something going on between the three of them—something to do with the son and where he was supposed to be after school. I had seen the kid at the park, and when I made mention of it, it was like I lit a stick of dynamite. I could see Dutrow getting angrier and angrier. The boy was terrified of him. The fiancée, too,” she said, her own anxiety level rising again with the memory.
“I’ve been to a thousand domestic calls, Nick. You have, too. You know that feeling—like if one person says the wrong thing, the whole place is going to go up in flames. I didn’t want to leave,” she confessed. “I had that sick feeling that the minute I was gone . . .”
“You think he’s abusive?”
“Emotionally, psychologically, verbally—absolutely. Physically? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t bet against it.”
“Does that surprise you?” Nick asked. “He’s rigid, controlling, manipulative, can’t abide anyone who doesn’t toe his line. The guy probably starches his underwear.”
“I guess it’s one thing to think of a boss that way,” Annie said. “I never thought about him as anything else. I don’t know him. I don’t want to know him after tonight. And he certainly wishes he didn’t know me.
“He couldn’t get me out of there fast enough. When I tried to talk to him about the boy getting bullied at school, he told me I would do well to put my worry to my own family situation.”
“He threatened you?” Nick came to attention at that, leaning toward her, his dark gaze on her like a pair of lasers.
“He told me your job is hanging by a thread and that I should think of my child.”
“Fils de pute!”
He snapped the sheet back and got out of the bed to pace beside it, his rage instant. He had to move or explode. He swore a streak of hot, virulent French, cursing Kelvin Dutrow and most of his ancestors. To threaten his family was the worst possible offense.
“Please don’t do anything rash, Nick,” Annie said calmly. “He’s spoiling for an excuse to fire you.”
He cut her a look that would have made grown men scurry backward. “This putain threatens my wife and child, and I’m not supposed to do anything? Putain de merde!”
Annie moved to the edge of the bed and reached out to catch him by a rock-hard forearm. “Please don’t make me regret telling you.”
He shook his head, though she suspected the conversation he was responding to was one inside his own mind. Kill Kelvin Dutrow? Don’t kill Kelvin Dutrow . . . He stayed in place but shifted his weight back and forth, left and right, too angry to be still.
“The last thing you want is him taking you off this case,” Annie said. “You lock that temper in a box. Think of that poor little boy lying dead in the morgue. He needs you. I need you,” she added. “Justin needs you. I don’t want him visiting his papa in jail.”
He took a deep breath and visibly worked to calm himself, though his frown remained dark.
“You wouldn’t bail me out?” he said at last.
“I don’t know,” Annie teased gently, stroking her hand slowly up and down his arm. “You know I’ve been saving up for a new washer and dryer . . .”
He didn’t always let her talk him out of his temper. He probably didn’t want to now, but they’d been up and working this case for over twenty-four hours . . .
“That’s harsh,” he said, wincing a little. “Left to rot by my own wife in favor of a household appliance. You’re a hard woman, ’Toinette.”
Annie got up on her knees and hugged him. “I would gnaw my own arm off for you,” she whispered. “I just don’t want to have to.”
“It’s not okay, what he said to you,” he insisted.
“No part of tonight was okay,” she returned. “The most powerful man in the parish is potentially an abusive monster, and the only person who can do anything about him is the governor, who probably can’t find Partout Parish on a map.”
“No,” Nick said. “If that’s what Kelvin Dutrow is, he’ll do himself in, one way or another. We just have to be patient.”
Annie rolled her eyes. “Oh, well, your strong sui
t, Mr. Hanging by a Thread.”
“He won’t fire me. I’m too useful as a scapegoat.”
“Don’t be so sure. Especially now. Now he doesn’t want me around, either. I saw something he didn’t want me to see, and he knows if he fires you, he gets a twofer.”
“You told him you’d quit?”
“Of course!” she declared, scooting back to her spot in the bed. “I’m supposed to keep working for the giant asshole who disrespected my husband and threatened me? I don’t think so!”
Nick slipped back into bed and reached for her, drawing her back to their default position: her head on his shoulder, her body melted into his, his arms around her, their legs entwined.
“Do you have any idea how much I love you?” he whispered into her hair.
She pressed a hand to his chest and felt his heart beat, steady and true. “Will you still love me when we’re homeless and living in my car?”
“Even then,” he promised. “Dutrow’s fiancée, what’s she like?”
“Proper,” Annie said on a yawn. “Head of the Junior League type. Exactly what you would expect, I suppose. I imagine she thought he was quite a catch, and vice versa.”
“She went to see Genevieve Gauthier in the hospital today.”
“What? Sharon Spicer? Why?”
“She brought flowers. Ostensibly from the hospital auxiliary.”
“That’s a little weird. She just happened to be there to bring flowers to a crime victim in a guarded room? Who let her in?”
“Young Prejean.”
“Oh, that boy . . . ,” she said on a sigh. “Bless his heart. The short sperm won the swim meet there. Go figure. Did Genevieve say anything about it?”
“No. I didn’t ask. It didn’t seem important at the time. Do you know where she’s from—this Spicer woman?”
“Uh . . . Houma,” Annie said, remembering Dean Florette’s nasty nickname for Cameron: Houma Homo. “Do you think they know each other? I wouldn’t say they probably ran in the same circles.”
“Genevieve worked at the Houma City Hall for a while. Their paths might have crossed. Me, I don’t like coincidence,” he said. “Genevieve worked in Houma. She’s got a record. Dutrow is from Houma. Kemp is from Houma. This fiancée is from Houma. There’s too damn many people from Houma in this to suit me, that’s for true.”
And they had all come to Bayou Breaux dragging their life’s baggage with them, Annie thought as the day’s fatigue pressed down on her.
“And they’re all around this poor dead child,” Nick murmured. “A little child who didn’t live long enough to do anything wrong.”
There was nothing more innocent or uncomplicated than a child. The idea that a child might have died because of the complicated entanglements of the adults in his life was always an especially hard pill to swallow. For the people working to solve the murder of KJ Gauthier, there was no opportunity to protect the child. They could only seek justice after the terrible fact.
That truth was a tough ongoing internal struggle for Nick, who took everything to heart. There was a tender part of him buried deep inside that would always be a seventeen-year-old boy who hadn’t been able to protect his beloved sister, who had watched his family disintegrate because of her murder. There was a part of him that would always be a young detective trapped in a corrupt department that hadn’t been able to get justice for a fourteen-year-old runaway. Those experiences were woven into the fabric of who he was.
Most cops developed mechanisms to protect themselves, at least somewhat, from the emotional ravages of the job. Nick had never been able to do that. He didn’t really try. His empathy for victims made him very good at what he did, but it took a hard toll.
“Pauvre ’tite bête,” he murmured.
Poor little thing . . .
Annie leaned up and kissed his cheek, dark with the beard stubble he hadn’t taken the time to shave. “Please try to get some rest.”
“I will,” he said, but he didn’t meet her eyes.
He looked away as he reached out to turn off the lamp. Annie knew sleep would be slow in coming—for them both—and it would be plagued with images of a dead boy lying in his own blood.
THIRTY-THREE
He couldn’t sleep. The pain burned and throbbed. The shame and self-pity and depression came in relentless waves, one on top of the other, over and over and over, making him feel worse and worse and worse. He had cried until it felt like his eyeballs would pop out of his head. Even once his eyes were burning and dry, he cried silently into his pillow. His throat was raw, and his head felt huge and heavy.
As if the beating hadn’t been bad enough, his mother had come to him afterward—after Kelvin had left—and insisted on taking care of his wounds. He was supposed to be nearly a man, and he’d had to lie on his stomach and suffer the embarrassment of having his mother wash his butt and put antibiotic ointment on his cuts while she cried for her “little boy.”
He didn’t want to be a little boy.
He wasn’t anything he wanted to be. He wasn’t anything anyone wanted him to be. He was nothing but a loser.
He wanted to be strong. He wanted to be an athlete. He wanted girls to like him and for him to like girls. He wanted not to always be afraid. He wanted not to be a freak. He wanted not to be a screwup and a disappointment.
He wanted not to be.
Kelvin was going to look through his iPad and see his drawings and the things he wrote about, and he would never want Cameron for a son. He would never want him anyway. Some other man’s child. It was just stupid to hope otherwise. And why would he hope, anyway? Kelvin Dutrow couldn’t stand the sight of him. Kelvin Dutrow had beaten him like he was the lowest, most worthless animal on the earth, and he enjoyed doing it. That was the man his mother wanted to marry.
And she still wanted to marry him. She had rambled on and on about how she might be able to make amends and get Kelvin to take her back. If only she did this differently or that differently.
Slowly, painfully, Cameron eased himself off his bed. It hurt to move. Even just the slightest brush of his pajama bottoms felt like fire against his raw skin. He wouldn’t be able to sit down for days. He wouldn’t be able to go to school—at least he hoped his mother wouldn’t make him. He could only too well imagine his shame and embarrassment if the kids at school figured out what had happened to him. He would rather die.
Everyone was going to wish he had anyway.
Barefoot, he shuffled out into the dark hall, not even able to walk like a normal person. The house had been silent for a long while. His mother must have finally fallen asleep by now.
He stood at the door that went to the patio and stared out at the shimmer of the landscape lights reflected across the surface of the swimming pool. The storm had passed, but rain was still falling, a gentle shower he imagined might feel good against his skin.
He slipped out the door and stepped onto the wet concrete, wanting it to be cool, but it wasn’t. The air was still warm and heavy, like steam in the shower. It felt like inhaling velvet. He wondered if this was what it would feel like to breathe in water.
As the rain slowly soaked his hair and pajamas, he stood at the edge of the pool and stared down at the rippling glow of the pool lights across the pale blue bottom. It looked inviting, soothing. All he had to do was just step off the edge and the water would welcome him, surround him. All he had to do was just take a deep breath and feel no more pain.
* * *
* * *
SHE COULDN’T SLEEP. The pain in her arm burned and throbbed. The shame and self-pity and depression came in relentless waves, one on top of the other, over and over and over, making her feel worse and worse and worse. She had cried until she couldn’t cry anymore. Her tears had soaked one pillow and then another. Her throat was raw, and her head was throbbing.
How had everything gone so wrong when
she worked so hard to make everything right? She followed every rule. She did everything she could think of to make a nice home, to be a good cook, to be of service to her community. These were the things that were important to her: to be a good wife, to be a good mother, to be respected by people she respected.
From the time she was a little girl, she had watched her mother do the same—make a nice home, raise a nice family. Somehow Sharon had managed to fail—not once, but twice.
Her first husband, William, had been a businessman, successful until he’d had a couple of setbacks. Sharon had supported him in every way she could. Even when they had struggled financially, she had kept up appearances and maintained a successful demeanor to their friends and to their church group. Even as he had grown bitter and started drinking in private, she kept up the charade.
He should have appreciated her efforts, but instead, he had begun to resent her. He mocked her at home, and occasionally in front of others when he was feeling particularly mean. And he had turned his moods on Cameron, picking on him, belittling him.
She had grown to hate him, but she hadn’t left. Women in her family didn’t leave their marriages. What would the neighbors think? Even as that thought went through her head, she berated herself for it. She had subjected herself and her son to the abuses of a cruel man for what? So people who didn’t matter would believe the lie of her façade.
It had been a relief when William died. She never would have admitted it, of course. She had dressed in black and cried at the funeral, but the tears were more of relief than grief. And the grief had been more for the years wasted than the years they would never have. She had been more than happy to start her life over.
She had thought things would be different with Kelvin—a man of the law, a man with ambition and character. She had set her mind to catching him, showing him she would be the perfect wife, someone he would want to present proudly in his public life. She had succeeded. And when the opportunity had come for him to take the job of chief deputy for Partout Parish—an obvious stepping-stone to becoming sheriff—she had been so proud.