A Cold Day in Hell

by Stella Cameron

  “It’s all my fault,” Sonny said. “I shouldn’t have been…I went where I shouldn’t have and talked to the wrong people. They kind of dared me. I got Aaron and me into trouble. It’s bad.” His big, dark eyes stretched wide and she could feel his fear. “Angel, do you think someone—”

  “Let’s go,” Angel said.

  “Tell me where Aaron is,” Eileen begged.

  “Oh, God,” Sonny moaned, hanging his head. “He’s in the swamp. North of town. I know how to get back. Chuzah made sure. I hope he made sure. He sent me in his, er, car.”

  “Stop it,” Angel said. “Calm down, both of you. Chuzah is?”

  Sonny looked as if he could cry. “Um, a doctor.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Eileen said.

  “In the swamp?” Angel said. “This doctor just happened by, huh?”

  “He lives there.”

  “Aaron hurt himself?” Eileen said.

  “No, someone else…” Sonny swallowed. “He got hurt.”

  “But there’s a doctor there? A general practitioner?”

  Angel pushed them both through the door and locked it behind him. “Eileen, we’ll have to take your van. My truck’s at home.”

  “I’ve got to drive Chuzah’s vehicle back,” Sonny said. “I’m afraid he’d do something awful to me if I didn’t get his car back. I know the way. Follow me.”

  Angel grabbed Sonny’s arm and spun him around. “What do you mean, something awful?”

  “Oh,” Sonny said. “He’s a root doctor.”

  Eileen felt faint. She held Angel’s sleeve. “We need a real doctor. I’ll get on to Mitch Halpern. And let’s call Matt—”

  “No,” Sonny said. “Chuzah knows about other medical stuff. If we show up with some new guy he doesn’t expect, he won’t let us find him.”

  “You said you knew the way,” Angel said.

  Sonny scrubbed at his oiled scalp. “Do what I’m tellin’ you. Please. I know how to get to where there’ll be someone waiting to guide us in.”

  To the right, at the curb, was a dark green vintage Morgan sports car. Again, all Eileen could do was stare.

  “This root doctor threatened you,” Angel said.

  “Well…he was nice about it.”

  “I’m calling Matt now,” Eileen said. “Some voodoo practitioner has kidnapped my son.”

  “Anything could happen if you call the law,” Sonny said, with his familiar hard stare. The streetwise kid from Brooklyn was back. “I know Aaron’s okay with Chuzah. He helped us.”

  “That isn’t his Morgan, is it?” Angel said.

  “Uh-huh. He’s really weird.”

  “And you left Aaron alone with him?” Eileen said.

  Sonny broke away and hurried toward the driver’s door on the Morgan. “He saved Aaron’s life,” he said and climbed in, then slammed and locked the door.

  3

  “I’m worried about complaints,” Emma Duhon said. “The merchants like the pedestrian traffic that comes to the fair, but they don’t like competing with the stall owners for business.”

  She looked around the circle of women gathered at Ona’s Out Back—Ona referred to it as a tea shop—to discuss the finer details of the Pointe Judah Christmas fair. The event was only days away and lasted over a weekend. They sat in a motley collection of armchairs pulled up to a big low table intended for magazines. The magazines were stacked on the floor to make way for coffee, wine and empty dishes formerly piled high with fried shrimp.

  Emma doodled on a looseleaf notebook. “It’s really late to be haggling over this. Why not suggest the shopkeepers have tables at the fair, too?” She’d been in a good mood when she agreed to help with the fair, but wished she’d thought it over for much longer before saying she would. How she got to be in charge, she couldn’t remember.

  “They’d have to pay rent for their tables, just like all the others,” Lobelia Forestier said. She had been president of the Pointe Judah Chamber of Commerce for five years. “They should want to do their share for a good cause.”

  The truth was that nobody else would take over Lobelia’s unpaid job which, apart from guaranteeing prime gossip rights, had no function other than to sit in on other people’s meetings.

  Delia Board, Sabine Webb and Gracie Loder made up the rest of the committee. Delia was Pointe Judah’s most celebrated inhabitant and ran a world-famous cosmetics firm. Sabine, Delia’s housekeeper, also moonlighted at the Boardroom, and Gracie worked at Buzzard’s Wet Bar during the day and the Boardroom at night.

  “How do we insult these shopkeepers without insulting them?” Delia said, running her fingers through her hair and drawing a laugh. She crossed her elegant gray boots at the ankle. “No fair, no extra traffic. End of problem. The fair benefits everyone.”

  Emma clamped her hands behind her neck and grinned at Delia. “Sometimes I think a really small town is more difficult to run than a major company. You would know, Delia.”

  “You’re right, but we have to suffer for all the village charm we get around here.”

  Lobelia grunted and Emma shared a private smile with Delia and Sabine.

  “You got a lot done tonight,” Gracie said. “Sorry I was late but I’d better get on to Sarah’s place. There’s not much more to do except for deciding about the shopkeepers. And we’ve got to make sure everyone turns up to finish the decorations. We want this to knock everyone’s eyes out. More flash, that’s what we need, so folks will come from all over to see it.”

  “And buy,” Lobelia said.

  “That, too,” Gracie said. She shook out her damp jacket and swung it around her shoulders. “’Night, all.”

  Lobelia shook her head. She coated her entire face with loose powder, including her eyebrows, and flecks clung to strands of dyed brown hair. “Barhopping the way you do isn’t good for your reputation, Gracie,” she said. “You go on. We’ll finish up without you.”

  “Barhoppin’?” Sabine said and laughed. The red and green beads in her many braids clicked together. “Gracie works at Buzzard’s, then she works at the Boardroom. She’s busy makin’ her way is all. You never had to rush around trying to keep your head above water. Gracie’s either going to work or coming from work, so give her a break.” Her deep bronze skin shone, especially where a dusting of gold sparkles curved over her high cheekbones.

  Lobelia gathered herself up and pursed her lips.

  “I’m already parked at Sarah’s. I’ll take a shortcut through Ona’s kitchen and walk over.” On her feet, Gracie made for the kitchen that separated Out Back from Out Front, Ona’s licensed diner that faced the street. Rounded in the nicest way, with short black hair and large, smiling brown eyes, Gracie pretended to stagger into the kitchen.

  Everyone but Lobelia laughed. “That girl’s trouble,” she said. “She knows Ona doesn’t like people in her kitchen.”

  Emma was tired. In her seventh month of pregnancy, she ran out of steam much more easily than she was used to. “Can I leave you three to talk about the best way to make everyone happy?” she said. “If we’re going to charge the business owners, it shouldn’t be as much as the stall people just in for the fair.”

  “I’ll give you a call tomorrow,” Delia Board said. Her red hair expertly cut to sweep up, and her makeup flawless, Delia managed perfect posture even in a sagging armchair. “You’re doing too much, Emma.”

  That wasn’t true, but Emma enjoyed the concern. She had parked in the lot behind the building and set off, glad she’d remembered to bring an umbrella.

  Finn would be waiting for her and fussing that she was late. Whenever she went out these days she was automatically late. She smiled, concentrating on her white leather sneakers as she walked the gradual incline toward her car. Out Front was busy tonight and an overflow of vehicles from the diner filled many of the slots on this side of the lot, too.

  The baby did a slow somersault and Emma stood still, a hand on her belly. This was the longed-for child she and Finn had come to doubt they woul
d ever have.

  She walked on, warm with happiness.

  “Mrs. Duhon?”

  At the sound of a man’s voice, she paused again and looked around. She couldn’t see anyone. No moving shadows. Maybe she’d imagined the voice.

  The lights inside Out Back seemed a long way away. The wind plucked at Emma’s curly hair, tossed it across her face and back again. She fought with the umbrella. Branches shook on a row of trees between the parked cars.

  The wind died.

  Emma’s skin crawled but she carried on.

  “Wait, Mrs. Duhon! I want to talk to you.”

  “Who are you? What do you want?” Emma made sure she was in the middle of the open space between the rows of cars. She calculated how far she’d have to run back to the restaurant.

  “You don’t think about Denise anymore, do you, Mrs. Duhon?”

  Emma’s heart seemed to fill her throat.

  “You’re too important to waste your time on the past.”

  Denise. Poor, dear Denise. Dead two years now, murdered at the hands of a sick pervert. Emma and Finn had literally run into one another after a whole lot of years. They had stood talking and catching up on their lives, when Denise’s body had tumbled from a nearby garbage container. The killer had been caught, but the horror never quite went away.

  “Of course I think about Denise. She was my friend. I loved her.”

  “Did you? Doesn’t stop you from carrying on like she never lived. Do you think that’s fair? I don’t think it is. Do you remember how Denise died?”

  Emma considered running. She was fit, she always had been. Of course she couldn’t move the way she did when she wasn’t pregnant, but what choice did she have?

  “I always said pregnant women were sexy.”

  Emma didn’t know the voice. A shadow separated itself between two trees.

  She was a little closer to Out Back than he was and he wasn’t likely to draw attention to himself by causing her to fight him…she would fight him if she had to.

  Since she was a bit nearer to the building, she had a chance of catching him off guard by running. She sidestepped back the way she’d come.

  “Aw, you don’t want to do that. All I want is to talk. You start trying something fancy and you could do damage to that baby of yours. You wouldn’t want that.”

  Emma opened her mouth but only a rasping sound came out. She needed to scream and yell and draw attention to herself.

  “You want your baby, don’t you?” he said, his voice difficult to hear now. “They say you didn’t think you could have one. What a shame if you killed it now.”

  She backed away from the place where the shadow hovered, skidded on one heel and dropped her purse. She left it where it fell and turned to run. Clumsy, she was so clumsy.

  “No, no, no,” he shouted. “You stop that right now or you’ll hurt yourself. You’re overreacting.”

  She kept running, the weight of the baby pulling her forward.

  “You want to murder your kid? Is that what you want? You want to kill that baby you don’t deserve?”

  His voice kept up with her.

  Emma’s knees shook. She felt tears on her face.

  He had followed, and he intended to catch her. The notebook flew from her hand and she saw a sheet of yellow paper dip and sail. She managed to hold on to the umbrella. It had a point at one end. She might need that.

  “Why are you runnin’? What d’you have to be afraid of? Your conscience? Stop, right now.”

  No, no, no.

  She heard the singing sound of something lashing through the air. A cord or rope coiled around one of her shoes. Emma couldn’t run anymore.

  The toe of her other sneaker jammed against a crack. Her umbrella slid through her fingers and tangled with her legs. Stumbling toward a parked pickup, she grabbed for the truck’s tailgate.

  Emma missed; she hit her shoulder and hip on cold metal. Sound hammered, louder and louder, in her ears. She was going down.

  Her hands slammed into the gritty ground, then her belly. Tearing pressure under her diaphragm winded her so hard she couldn’t breathe. Then her knees gave out.

  She skidded under the back of the pickup.

  “You stay where you are, and keep still,” the man said. He kicked the sole of her shoe and acid rushed to her throat. “You move before I say and you and that kid are finished—if the kid isn’t done in already.”

  4

  “Don’t let his taillights get too far ahead of you.”

  “I’m doing the driving,” Eileen said, without raising her voice. “You’re safe with me. I won’t lose Sonny.”

  At least he hadn’t made the mistake of suggesting he take the wheel. He could only imagine what the response to that would have been. “I trust you, Eileen. You’re a good driver.” His face felt tight. Everything about this evening was wrong—or had gone wrong.

  “Thanks,” she said and he could hear the sarcasm in her tone.

  There were things Eileen didn’t know, like the true story behind Sonny being in Pointe Judah. Angel didn’t want her to find out. She had already carefully minced around whether or not Sonny was a good role model for Aaron. She hadn’t been so subtle that Angel missed the message, but at least she didn’t know how close she was to the truth.

  Sonny was a kid with potential—and a lot of past baggage weighing him down. Angel’s job was to keep the boy alive until certain people forgot about him—if they ever did.

  She stared sideways at Angel. “I think Sonny was telling us Aaron got shot but he didn’t like saying it right out.” Her voice shook.

  “That could be. He didn’t sound completely sure.”

  “Aaron will be okay, won’t he?”

  She wanted him to say yes, because that’s what she needed to hear. “Of course he will,” he said. He’d better be, and there had better not be anything that suggested whatever had happened was anything other than an accident.

  “Could have been a hunter who made a mistake,” Eileen said.

  Angel wasn’t aware of hunters firing indiscriminately in the swamps. “Could have,” he said. “This rain makes it hard to see. Sonny’s getting farther away.”

  “I don’t mind anything but the fog,” she said, leaning forward. “Look how thick it’s getting.” She rolled her window down an inch and succeeded only in letting cool, heavy vapor into the van. “Your headlights bounce back at you.”

  She reached for the gearshift and her fingers closed on the thigh he’d hitched up instead. Eileen whipped her hand away. Angel felt singed. He got a backlash, a hot backlash all the way to the base of his spine. They had touched so little—mostly accidentally.

  Tonight he’d planned to be alone with her, for as long as he could keep her with him. And he’d planned to point out the benefits of getting closer, much closer. Eileen had been the perfect, immaculate mother for long enough. Too long, from Angel’s point of view. When a woman’s accidental hold on his thigh gave him pre-orgasmic spasms, the waiting game had gone too far.

  “I should have kept a closer eye on what Aaron’s been up to,” Eileen said.

  Shit. “You’re not on your own with this. Not that I think there’s anything to worry about.” Unless someone had put out a hit on Sonny.

  Angel gritted his teeth.

  “This isn’t a road, it’s an overgrown, abandoned track,” Eileen said, and right on cue the van bumped up and over the buckled blacktop.

  “You’re right, it’s not much of a road.” He turned in his seat to peer through the fog toward the trees. “The bayou can’t be so far away.” He had never explored out here.

  “Farther than you think,” Eileen said. “It’s close back toward town but around here there’s a lot of swampland before you get to the water.”

  “What’s in there?”

  “In the swamp?” She glanced at him. “It’s not pretty unless you get-off on mud and standing water and sodden ground in every direction. And critters—the kind you’d rather not meet.
”

  Angel said. “And voodoo stuff, too, huh?”

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Are you afraid of that bull?” Angel asked. “Don’t waste fear on superstitious crap. Unless you fancy one of those little velvet spell bags filled with—grave dust, is it? That’s supposed to keep you safe, isn’t it?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Make you wildly passionate then?” Angel said, deliberately trying to catch her off guard. “Mixed with snake droppings and skunk hair? A pinch of dried fire ants to make you hot, and puree of hundred-proof alcohol to make you helpless? Sounds good to me.”

  He saw how she bit her lower lip and figured she hardly heard him babbling to fill up any silence. Just as well.

  She surprised him when she said, “There are things in these parts that you don’t mess with. Ignorance can get you into big trouble.”

  Angel bit back a retort. Eileen was the last person he would have expected to believe in the old arts.

  The little red taillights on the Morgan glowed, then faded to pink as the fog thinned and thickened.

  “Watch out! Will you look at that?” He grabbed the dashboard. “The kid slammed on the brakes with no warning.”

  Eileen pumped the brakes on the van and came to a stop with inches to spare behind the Morgan

  “I’m terrified for Aaron,” Eileen said. She found his hand and wound her fingers in his. “Call Matt Boudreaux now. We ought to have the police here. And our own doctor. We could get hold of Mitch Halpern. You know he’d come right out.”

  “You heard what Sonny said. This Chuzah doesn’t want any official company.” He rubbed her hand between his. It wasn’t her way to reach for comfort.

  “If it turns out we have to go to Matt about this, he’ll be steamed.”

  Angel made sure he didn’t show how much he liked that idea. “Go with me on this. Matt would do the same if he was in our position.” Maybe he would; maybe he wouldn’t. Eileen didn’t need Matt Boudreaux around—for any reason.

  Reluctantly, he let go of her hand and pushed out of the van. Sonny didn’t appear but Eileen walked toward the Morgan.

  Angel said, “Sonny?”

  Sonny didn’t answer. Angel reached Eileen and they saw that Sonny wasn’t in the sports car. He stood a few yards ahead at the very edge of the road. His back was rigid and he repeatedly looked around the area.