Voodoo on Bayou Lafonte

by Susan C. Muller

  She buried her face in his chest. Her shoulders shook and he could feel the dampness staining his shirt. He wanted more than anything to make her pain go away.

  “Come on, chère. You’re exhausted. Let me take you into bed and I’ll clean up the kitchen.”

  “How can I sleep when I don’t know where my baby girl is? Is she warm enough? Is she safe?”

  He led her though the house to her room and drew back the covers. As soon as she lay down, he eased off her shoes. “Just stay here for a while and rest. If you want to talk later, I’ll be close by.”

  He squeezed her hand and she held on, squeezing back. Her hand was icy cold, and he cradled it in both of his for warmth.

  “All I can do is stare at the ceiling and imagine the worst. For some reason, I can’t get warm. I keep shivering.”

  He stretched out beside her and slipped his arms around her. “Here, put your head on my shoulder. I’m not going to leave you.”

  “That’s what you said before, but you did.”

  He felt like he’d been kicked in the gut. Not that he didn’t deserve her anger. He hesitated, trying to find the words to make her understand. “Not because I didn’t love you. The only job I could find here was sacking groceries. Each day I couldn’t support you made me feel less of a man. I didn’t leave you, I left this place.”

  She lifted her face to his. “And I couldn’t leave here. After my parents died, this was the only place I felt safe, and the thought of leaving terrified me. I’d never been further than Lafayette. I was afraid once you saw me next to those city girls, you wouldn’t want me anymore. Weren’t we a pair of fools?”

  He kissed the tears from her eyes, the salt lingering on the tip of his tongue. “You’d put Paris models to shame. None of them have what you have.”

  She actually chuckled, and the sound warmed him. “Except six or seven more inches in height and four or five less in the hips.”

  He let his hands run down her body. How he had ached to do this. “They feel just right to me.” His hands drifted up a little higher. “These feel about right, too.”

  She leaned in to him and he kissed her lips, not too hard, but firm enough that she’d know he meant business. If she wanted him to stop, she needed to say so now.

  Her lips parted slightly and he slipped his tongue inside, only to find hers waiting.

  His hands seemed to move of their own accord, searching out familiar places, all the nooks and crannies he loved. His palms slid over skin soft as silk and more inviting.

  When he unsnapped her jeans, she lifted her hips so he could slide them off. Then she did the same to him.

  Soon they were skin-to-skin and he could feel the warmth returning to her body, and to his heart.

  She clung to him so tight his breath came in shallow gasps. If they couldn’t forget the pain, they could at least suspend it for this one moment in time.

  His lips rested on that soft spot just under her ear and his body moved in time to the beat of her heart. Had she just whispered, “I’ve missed you so much,” or had he?

  The partial moon, which had been framed by the window when they lay down, had disappeared from view when she nudged him awake.

  He reached for her. He wasn’t sure he could manage three times so close together, but she needed him, and he sure as hell needed her.

  The light in a distant room made her face glow. She leaned closer and nibbled on his ear. “You promised to clean the kitchen.”

  Chapter 10

  Remy turned off the faucet and gave the counter one last wipe-down. The under-sink trashcan threatened to overflow so he tiptoed out the back door to empty it.

  Gabby was still asleep, and he didn’t want to wake her. She was exhausted. Each day until they found Adrienne would be hell for her.

  Last night he’d promised to keep her in the loop, and he had to remember to do that. But for now, she needed to rest.

  The glow from the back porch light didn’t quite reach the garbage can on the side of the house, but he knew where to find it. Taking out the garbage had been his job.

  The old, dented metal screeched in protest as he pried the misshapen lid off. The bag from the house didn’t smell ripe, just stale, but the outside can was a different story. Something inside had marinated a little too long in the Louisiana sun.

  A dark-loving critter of some kind scurried under the house. Behind the garage, a creature answered with a sound that sent chills down his spine.

  Inside the can, garbage bags reached the rim. How was he going to get this bag in? If he set it on the ground, or even balanced it on top of the lid, some animal would tear into the bag before he had the back door locked.

  How did it get this full, anyway? Adrienne had been gone since Thursday morning. Tonight was the first time Gabby had cooked since he got here, and he doubted she’d cooked for herself Thursday night.

  This had to be a week’s worth of trash for two people.

  He stood with the bag in one hand and the lid in the other, looking from the can to the house and back again.

  Sure, he’d sworn to include Gabby in every move he made, but why disturb her for a long shot?

  Because he might be an idiot, but he wasn’t stupid.

  He dropped the lid, startling whatever lived under the house, and ran inside.

  “Gabby, Gabby,” he called as he flipped on the overhead light. Yes, she needed her rest, but she’d forgive him once she understood his intentions.

  She threw an arm over her eyes. “What? Did she call?”

  He ignored her question. “What day is your garbage pick-up?”

  “Don’t worry, they’ll get it Monday. Just set the extra bag inside the back door until then.”

  “Is it still Mondays and Thursdays?”

  “Yes, Mondays and Thursdays.” She rolled over and pulled the pillow on top of her head.

  He shook her arm. “Tell me exactly what happened Thursday morning.”

  “Now? Haven’t we been over this?” Her voice was muffled.

  “Come on.” He tugged at the pillow until she let go. “Start at the beginning. Who woke up first?”

  “I did.” She rolled onto her back, glaring up at him.

  Well, what did she expect? She bitched when he didn’t tell what he was doing. She was either in or out. She couldn’t have it both ways. “Then what?”

  “I put the coffee on, then took a shower. When I got out of the bathroom, I knocked on Adrienne’s door. She has an alarm, but she always hits ‘snooze’.” Gabby’s voice caught.

  “And on that day, that Thursday, what happened?”

  “She groaned, but didn’t answer, so I knocked again. I poured myself a cup of coffee and took it in here while I got dressed.”

  “Was Adrienne up?”

  “Yes, I heard the bathroom door close.”

  “But you didn’t see her?”

  Gabby’s eyes rolled to the left as she thought. “No, I didn’t see her then or even hear her. I don’t know what she did in there so long. She showers at night. When I came out of my room, the bathroom door was still closed so I hollered at her that the bus was leaving in five minutes.”

  “The bus? She takes the bus? I thought you drove her.”

  “I drove her because she missed the darn bus. She was just standing there in her room, staring, holding her backpack in one hand and her shoes in the other.”

  Gabby sat up in the bed. She crossed her legs and put her face in her hands. “I yelled at her, Remy. I said, ‘Get your butt in the car or you walk to school.’ I even made her put her shoes on in the car.”

  Gabby’s voice caught. “How could I be so mean? I knew how much she hated to walk to school. The humidity ruined her hair and makeup.” Hadn’t Gabby complained of the same thing when
they were in school? That’s why he came by every morning and picked her up. That, and he just liked to start out his day next to her.

  Remy wrapped his arms around her and waited as her breathing steadied. “Gabby, honey, there’s nothing we can do about the past. Besides, you did exactly what most parents would have done. For now, we have to focus on helping Adrienne. Can you do that, because I need to ask you some questions?”

  He felt a nod, soft as butterfly wings, against his chest. He stroked her hair and asked, “So, did you put out the garbage Wednesday night, or Thursday morning?”

  “Neither. I didn’t have time to put it out. I wouldn’t even let her go back for her phone. I was worried about being late to work. What difference would two minutes have made? I just wanted to teach her a lesson about being on time. If I hadn’t been so worried about making a good impression on my new boss, she’d have her phone with her now.” She hiccupped from behind her hands.

  “She did stop as she was getting out of the car.” Gabby’s voice cracked and the splinters drove into Remy’s heart like a knife. “She looked at me and said, ‘Bye, Mom, I love you.’ She didn’t say that much anymore. And I told her the same thing. At least there’s that, if I don’t get to see her again.”

  Remy’s gut clenched.

  What was the last thing he’d said to Adrienne? He couldn’t remember. Shouldn’t he be able to remember their last conversation? But she hadn’t answered when he called last week and he’d forgotten to call back. Had he left a message? Probably not.

  “Why are you asking me this, Remy? What does it have to do with finding her?”

  “We’ve talked to her friends, we’ve asked the authorities, we’ve searched her room. All to no avail. There’s only one thing left; the trash. If she wrote a note, or bought a ticket, it might be in the trash.”

  Gabby jumped out of bed and threw her clothes on while Remy lugged the old metal trashcan into the kitchen. She spread out a layer of newspaper for him to dump the garbage on, but the fumes stung his eyes before he had the knot untied. The first bag seemed to contain kitchen debris: empty cereal boxes, soup cans, coffee grounds. Still, he searched carefully. He didn’t know what might be important.

  The next bag looked more personal; lipstick-smeared tissues, a pink disposable razor, nail-polish-coated cotton balls, toilet paper rolls. When he came to plastic tampon tubes, Gabby flushed and reached past him for another pile of trash.

  One cardboard box was flattened and torn into tiny pieces. Gabby tried to fit the parts together while he kept searching.

  “Gabby,” he called, a catch in his voice.

  She didn’t look up from her puzzle. “Yes?”

  “Did Adrienne have any friends come over during the last week?”

  “I don’t know. She gets home about an hour or so before me, so she could have and I wouldn’t know, but she didn’t mention any. Why?”

  She finished fitting together the carton’s brand name and looked up with a shocked expression just as he, heart thundering in his ears, held up a white plastic test stick with a pink ‘plus’ sign.

  Adrienne Hough paced the tiny cabin. How could she have let this happen? A prisoner. And she had no one to blame but herself. She could only assume she had been in shock.

  Everything had happened so fast. One minute she was laughing, coming out from under the black cloud that had followed her for months. The next instant her whole life had changed.

  Trying to slip out of the Dupres’ house unnoticed, she’d heard that old man’s voice and felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. She’d sank to the floor on her butt, knocking over a lamp.

  Everyone in the house had rushed in to see what happened. Voices buzzed around her head, but nothing registered.

  She would have known, wouldn’t she? She’d have had to actually . . . And she hadn’t, had she?

  Jean-Paul and his mother had taken her by the arms and lifted her into a chair, while the old man watched her and said nothing.

  Sure, she’d gained some weight lately but she kind of liked that her boobs were bigger. There had been a couple of weeks when her stomach rebelled over every smell, but a virus had been going around school at the time. Sometimes she’d felt like a lump, she’d just been too depressed to care. The crying jags, had that been, what, hormones?

  All the strange things that had been going on with her body lately, she’d simply refused to think about. Pushed them to the back of her mind behind a door she already had locked and barricaded.

  “Do you need a drink of water? Adrienne.” A hand shook her arm and she’d seen Mrs. Dupre’s eyes, cold and hard. “Do you need a drink of water?”

  “Yes, please,” she’d managed to choke out.

  The moment Mrs. Dupre left, the old man moved in front of her. She had stared into those pale blue eyes and been unable to look away.

  “You didn’t know?” he’d asked.

  When she didn’t answer, he kept talking in a voice so smooth, so calming, she had no choice but to listen.

  She needed a plan, he insisted, before she told her mother. That would prove she was an adult, capable of making adult decisions.

  Had she answered, or just nodded?

  Then she was home, and arrangements had been made for Mrs. Dupre to pick her up in the morning and take her to see a doctor and check out agencies and what all else, she couldn’t remember, but she knew she was in good hands, being taken care of.

  It wasn’t until her mother knocked on her door and called her to get up that her head started to clear. What was she doing, trying to hide this from her mother? Her father, yes. He would have a cow. He’d be so disappointed in her. And after the way she’d tried to avoid him the last two years.

  Then her cell phone rang and she heard the old man’s voice, reminding her how important this was, and she had followed his instructions.

  The first day here, she had slept, and picked at the food they left her. The fog that surrounded the cabin had surrounded her mind as well.

  The second day she came awake, and cursed herself for a fool. Why had she listened to some old man she didn’t even know? What was the strange power he seemed to have over her?

  The terror didn’t set in until the third day. What if she didn’t have enough food? She couldn’t stop herself from constantly checking the cooler, even knowing that caused the ice to melt faster.

  She was afraid to eat, and only nibbled. That wasn’t her biggest fear. At night, the butane lantern hissed and gave off an unpleasant odor, like burning hair. Its glow lit the center of the cabin, but left the corners dark.

  What if some creature lurked, just out of sight? She was afraid to turn the light off, but more afraid that the butane would run out and leave her with no light at all.

  If she did turn it off, could she see in the dark to turn it back on if something crawled over her leg?

  The sky was definitely lighter now. She could turn the light off and still see. Maybe in thirty minutes, not yet. The lantern flickered and her heart jumped until the flame settled down again. Just a breeze.

  The camp stove in the corner ran on butane, but the bottle was much smaller. She had no way of knowing if it would fit without taking the old one off and she didn’t plan to do that until it ran out.

  She paced the cabin again. Four steps from her cot to the makeshift kitchen. Six steps from the back wall to the front door. Outside the door was a covered galerie, maybe six feet wide but she hadn’t gone out there or tried the rocking chair that called an invitation to come, sit, enjoy the day.

  The galerie was no more than four feet above the water and wrapped around three sides of the cabin. She’d seen those shows about alligator hunting. Sometimes the gator jumped into the boat. How high could they jump? She had no plans to find out.

  Oh, they were out ther
e, the gators. Their tails slapped the water at night and when they found their prey, the water exploded and then went eerily still.

  She had laughed at her father’s fear of the swamp. Now she understood. And that’s where she was, deep in the swamp, water on all four sides.

  Her hand flew to her throat and touched the gris-gris bag tied there. She might not be able to get away, but she didn’t have to wear that nasty thing.

  She yanked on the string until it came loose. Now what? Where could she put it? She rushed to the screen door but stopped, her hand on the latch. No, not out there.

  Her head swiveled, searching the cabin. In the back corner, the toilet was only a seat with a hole down to the swamp. She always kept the lid closed. Who knew what critters might sneak into the cabin that way?

  She lifted the lid and threw the bag into the swamp as hard as she could. It landed with a satisfying splash. She slammed the lid, even sitting on the rough wood as if the bag could magically climb back up.

  With that small act of defiance, her heart lifted. They couldn’t get away with this. Her daddy would come looking for her.

  She almost smiled when a boat motor sounded in the distance. She was saved. The smile faded before it reached her lips.

  How did she know who was coming, and what they would do to her when they got here?

  If she died out here in the swamp, would anyone find her body?

  Chapter 11

  Gabby played with her waffle, using her fork to coax the stream of syrup from one indentation to the next. Remy had his back to her, cooking bacon.

  The whole room smelled like Sunday morning, but instead of making her hungry, the fragrant aromas tied her stomach into knots. He had come in and taken over his old job of weekend chef as if fifteen years hadn’t passed. How had he even found the waffle maker, buried like it was in the back of a cabinet? The graveyard of unused appliances.