Volume One: In Moonlight and Memories, #1

by Julie Ann Walker

After a brief silence, Luc asks, “You need me to help you get rid of the body?”

  He’s completely, dead-eye serious.

  I laugh, then wince. It feels like my skull is packed with Semtex, seconds away from detonating. I hate to admit it, but… “Didn’t get in a single punch.”

  His jaw drops open.

  “Maggie showed up with her letters,” I explain. “You should’ve seen her, coming to my defense like a momma bear, roaring at Rick to get out.”

  “Though she be but little, she is fierce,” he quotes Shakespeare. Then he adds a more homespun adage. “When it comes to those she cares about, that woman would charge hell with nothing but a bucket of ice water.”

  “Amen, brother.” I salute him with my coffee cup. “It’s one of the things we love most about her.”

  He doesn’t say anything to that. Instead, he sits back and stares at the ceiling. “So, it wasn’t all bluster the other morning at the café. Sullivan really is gunning for us.”

  “Sounds like it.” I add another drop of whiskey to my cup.

  “Damn.” He lowers his chin and tugs at his ear, giving away his agitation.

  “What do you want to do about it?” I ask, ready and willing, despite Rick’s advice, to jump in headfirst. Because, you know, fuck Rick. And besides, I’d do anything and everything for Luc and Maggie. They’re the only two people I have left in the world.

  “Don’t rightly know,” Luc muses thoughtfully. “Needa think on it for a spell.” Then his lips twist. “’Course, the easiest thing to do would be to leave town, I reckon. It was our coming back here that stirred up this stink.”

  My scalp prickles at the mere notion. Leaving in no way fits in with The Plan.

  “Wrong,” I’m quick to tell him. “Our making it out of the army alive is what stirred up this stink. Even if we moved halfway around the world, don’t delude yourself into thinking Sullivan would back off.”

  He grimaces. “Yeah. You’re probably right.”

  “Besides, could you really run out on Maggie again?”

  A muscle ticks in his jaw as he stares at me through narrowed eyes. “Could you?”

  “No,” I immediately admit.

  “Me neither.” He’s quick to agree. “We’re in this thing for better or worse. Question is, how we aim to make sure it’s for the better. So, like I said, I need to think on it.”

  I glance out the front window. A couple of tourists looking worse for wear stagger down the uneven sidewalk across the street. It’s early, and they appear to be suffering the effects of a late night. Probably going in search of a good cup of coffee, footloose and fancy-free, except for their hangovers.

  How long has it been since I felt that way? Not hungover. Lately, that’s a weekly, sometimes daily occurrence. But not having a care in the world? When was that? Ten years ago? More?

  “None of this would be happening if I’d stayed,” I concede quietly. “I fucked up everything by running off that night.”

  “Stop it.” Luc points at me. “You did what you had to do. The only person to blame for what happened in that bayou is Dean Sullivan.”

  Chapter Thirty-two

  ______________________________________

  Luc

  Dear Luc,

  It’s nearly midnight and I’m sitting on Aunt Bea’s front porch swing. The air is sweet with the smell of tea rose begonias and there’s a full moon out. It’s big and yellow and reminds me of the one that shone down on us in the bayou last month.

  Lord, that feels like forever ago. So much has changed since then, changed in the worst possible ways so that most days it takes everything I have just to get out of bed. Then again, staying in bed isn’t really an option, is it? No doubt Sullivan is watching me, waiting to see how I’ll behave.

  So I pretend. I pretend to care about the long, hot summer days. I pretend to enjoy Auntie June’s cooking even though everything tastes like ash. And I pretend that the only thing weighing on my heart is the desertion of my best friend and my boyfriend.

  Maybe “desertion” isn’t the right word. At least not for you. I understand why you had to go, but I don’t agree with that email you sent. I don’t agree that we need to leave the past in the past and just get on with life, especially if that means we can no longer be friends.

  Oh, Luc, please know if I could take it all back, I would. If I could go back in time and undo everything, I would.

  Unfortunately, I don’t own a time machine. Which means all I can do is sit here and miss you. Sit here and wonder where you are.

  Is it possible you’re looking up at this same yellow moon?

  I hope you’re taking care of yourself. I know you’re taking care of Cash.

  Forever and always, Maggie May

  There are some things that happen in life that change you to your core.

  That night in the bayou obliterated the green and gullible teenager I was. Then, whatever speck of innocence left in me was stomped out by the army faster than a knife fight in a phone booth.

  I know I have to strike first when it comes to George Sullivan. I have to find a way to make him back off. But to do that, I need Maggie’s help.

  So here I am, standing beneath her balcony, peering up at the yellow glow inside her apartment. It looks cheery and welcoming. Too bad the thing I need to discuss with her is neither.

  Pulling my cell phone from my hip pocket, I dial her number.

  “Luc?” Her sweet, clear voice has goose bumps popping up on the back of my neck. “Are you done at Cash’s for the day? Did you get the cornices in the front bedroom finished?”

  I don’t answer her questions. Instead, I say, “I’m standing outside your front gate. You got a minute?”

  “Uh…” She hesitates.

  An unsettling notion occurs. “Are you…entertaining someone?”

  She laughs. “Entertaining? Lord, you sound like Aunt Bea. No, I’m not entertaining anyone. Well, there’s Jean-Pierre, but he doesn’t count.”

  “Hey now!” I hear an offended male voice in the background.

  “I’ll be right down.” She cuts the connection.

  Rubbing my hands together, I glance around the quiet street. The sun has long since set. But before it did, the sky overhead was covered by a thick blanket of battleship-gray clouds. Even though it’s too dark to see them now, I know they’re still there because the moon and the stars are nowhere to be found.

  “I had a dream about you last night.” Maggie appears on the other side of the wrought-iron gate. She’s wearing a loose hooded sweatshirt, black yoga pants, and a pair of red house slippers stitched with the iconic Harry Potter lightning bolt.

  “You and Sally Renee were sitting in my living room,” she says. “And Sally Renee said she was hungry. You said, ‘Here. Eat my finger.’ And she did. There was so much blood.” She shudders. “But Sally didn’t stop. She ate all five of your fingers, then started snacking her way up your arm. You just sat there with this stupid grin on your face while I screamed my head off.”

  “And good evening to you too, Maggie May,” I say.

  She opens the gate. I wince when it squeaks torturously on its hinges. (The humidity in New Orleans is brutal on anything metal.)

  “That’s all you have to say? You don’t want to speculate about what my dream means?”

  “It’s no big mystery.” I give her a quick hug. “That night at the bachelor auction, I said I thought Sally Renee was gonna do her best to eat me whole. Your subconscious took that statement and ran with it.”

  “Hmm.” She threads her arm through mine as we make our way into the courtyard. “And here I thought dreams were supposed to reveal deep, dark meanings.”

  “Sorry, Sigmund. Sometimes a banana is simply a banana.”

  “Did you just make a dick joke?”

  “Me?” I feign shock. “Never.”

  She eyes me askance and then sighs. “I suppose you’re right. Still, I was beginning to come around to Sally until I saw her gnawing on you li
ke a stick of beef jerky. Now I think I’m back to square one where she’s concerned.”

  Maggie’s insistence on butting into my love life would be annoying if I didn’t know she was doing it because she cares. It’s impossible to be sore at her for wanting to see me happy and settled.

  “I’m not here to talk about Sally,” I tell her.

  “No?” She drags me toward the steps leading to her apartment, but I stop in my tracks. Peering up at me in confusion, she says, “Then you stopped by to see how I look on a Waistband Monday, is that it?”

  That startles a laugh from me. “A what?”

  “A Waistband Monday. You know, that night of the week when you put on pants with an elastic waistband, order pizza, and binge Netflix with your upstairs neighbor?”

  “That’s a new one on me,” I admit with a smile. “But, Maggie May, you know I always think you’re beautiful. Waistband Mondays included.”

  I’m not lying. With her face scrubbed clean of makeup and her hair in a messy topknot, her allure (while unassuming) is impossible to miss.

  She slaps my arm. “Don’t you dare turn those dimples on me, Lucien Dubois. Save them for the fun-and-done ladies you waste your time with.”

  She’s in a playful mood. I can’t bring myself to burst her bubble right off the bat, so I play along. “You can’t blame me for the dimples. Got ’em from my dear ol’ daddy.” I give her an exaggerated wink.

  “No flirty winking either.” She feigns a frown as she once again tries to pull me toward the stairs.

  “Mind if we stay out here for a bit?” I ask.

  Her pretend frown becomes a real one as she studies me. “If it’s about last night, I already told Jean-Pierre what happened. You don’t need to worry about talking in front of him.”

  “It’s not about last night,” I say. Then I reconsider. “Although, I guess it is in a way. I heard it was pretty bad.”

  The white twinkle lights wrapped around the rails of the galleries cast a fairy glow over her face and highlight the wrinkle that appears between her eyebrows. “Cash said it was bad? And here I thought he jumped up and insisted on walking me home because he was trying not to take advantage of the situation.”

  Confusion has me shaking my head like a dog shaking off water. “Wait. What’re you talking about?”

  She gives me the side-eye. “No, what are you talking about?”

  “Rick,” I say.

  “Oh yeah. Him.” She shivers. “That was bad. I couldn’t believe it when I saw him haul off and punch Cash like that. Although, I’m glad I did see it. It opened my eyes. Finally.”

  She peeks up at me, her face full of chagrin. “Y’all must’ve thought I was a real idiot not catching on way back when. My only excuse is that Cash was always getting into scrapes, and I was such a sheltered girl that the idea of that kind of abuse was more unfathomable to me than a whole slew of dementors showing up at my door and… Goodness gracious! Luc, are you okay? You’ve gone completely white.”

  Holy hellfire. After all this time, she knows. A weight I didn’t realize I was carrying lifts away so fast it leaves me dizzy. I lift a hand to my head.

  “Cash didn’t mention he told you about…” I have to swallow. It feels like all the sand in the Registan Desert has been dumped down my throat. “That he finally came clean about his dad,” I manage to finish.

  “Oh, he didn’t want to. And I don’t think he would have if I hadn’t pieced things together on my own and come right out and confronted him.”

  “I wanted to tell you,” I swear to her. “There were so many times I wanted to say something, but he made me promise never to breathe a word.”

  She steers me toward the metal table and chairs set up beside the tinkling fountain and takes a seat. Her chin wobbles a bit when she says, “I don’t understand why he didn’t want me to know.”

  “Shame,” I say, dropping into the chair next to her.

  She lifts her hands and lets them fall. “See? That’s what I don’t get.”

  “You don’t get how he could be ashamed of sharing the blood of a bastard who could beat his own child? You don’t think an eighteen-year-old kid who’s trying his damnedest to be a man could feel embarrassed that he gets his ass handed to him on the regular by a middle-aged bastard?”

  She looks at me for a long time. Then she says, “But if he’d just told me, I could’ve helped him. Aunt Bea and Auntie June could’ve helped him.”

  I have nothing to say to that, and as the silence stretches between us, it’s broken only by the chatter of the water in the fountain and the clip-clop of a carriage mule passing by outside.

  The French Quarter is oddly quiet tonight. Maybe it’s because it’s Monday and everyone is recovering from the weekend. (Although, here in New Orleans, where drinks and dancing can occur anywhere at any hour of any day, Mondays are more similar to Saturdays than in other places.) So perhaps it’s something else.

  There’s a feeling in the air. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s there. Like something is stirring far in the distance. Something aggressive and slightly sinister.

  Or maybe this whole mess with George Sullivan has me imagining things.

  “What did you mean when you said you thought Cash jumped up and walked you home ’cause he didn’t wanna take advantage of the situation?” I ask.

  “Oh, well…” A small grin flirts with her lips. “I told him I still love him. And then, you know…” She makes a rolling motion with her hand. “I kissed him.”

  I sit back in my chair, shocked not only by her words but also by the feeling skittering through my chest like a prickly legged centipede. I should be happy. Two people I love more than life are finally making progress toward each other. Except…

  No. Not except. I should be happy. I will be happy.

  Her expression turns tentative. “I probably shouldn’t be talking about this stuff with you now that…now that…” She swallows, unable to finish.

  “Maggie May.” I take her hand. “I wanna hear anything and everything you have to tell me. So please, please don’t stop. Okay?”

  She searches my eyes. Her face betrays her skepticism even as she says, “Okay.”

  I open my mouth to assure her that I mean what I say, but before I can get a word out, the door to her apartment opens and Jean-Pierre appears on the gallery. He has Yard on a leash and is shrugging into a suede jacket.

  “Me, I’m takin’ dis dumb dog for a walk,” he calls. “He been eyein’ me and whinin’ for da last five minutes. Y’all come inside dis house before you freeze to death.”

  “You don’t have to do that.” Maggie hops up from the chair and makes her way to the bottom of the stairs. “I’ll put on some shoes and get my coat.”

  “Need to walk off dat pizza anyway, cher.” Jean-Pierre bends to kiss her cheek as he and Yard step off the last tread.

  She snorts. “So you’ll be walking until next Sunday?”

  The Cajun pats his flat stomach. “’Bout thirty minutes should do it.”

  “I hate you and your metabolism,” she jokingly gripes.

  Jean-Pierre flashes a smug smile before turning his attention my way. I stand from the chair and shake his hand when he offers it to me. “When you goin’ to come play with me again, yeah?”

  “First chance I get,” I promise him.

  Disregarding the run-in with Todd the Tool, that night playing with Jean-Pierre at Maggie’s bar was one of the best I’ve had since I came back. The only place where past troubles and current worries can’t touch me is onstage. There, I’m able to focus on the music and nothing else.

  “Dis Thursday?” Jean-Pierre asks. “Me and mine are havin’ a birthday party for my uncle. Come join us.”

  “Done and done,” I say, happy to have a distraction to look forward to. “Should I bring a gift?”

  “Bring yourself, your guitar, and your appetite. Oh!” He snaps his fingers. “And a stiff constitution. It’ll be a true fais do-do.” With an ornery laugh, he makes
his way toward the gate.

  After watching him go, Maggie and I take the stairs to her apartment. Once inside, I give Leonard a scratch beneath his whiskered chin, then I settle into the corner of one of her sofas. She doesn’t grab the spot next to me. Instead, she chooses the wingback chair across the way, perching awkwardly on the edge of the cushion.

  “Y’okay?” I ask with a frown.

  Instead of answering, she pulls her locket from inside her sweatshirt and worries the filigreed heart with her fingers at the same time her teeth worry her bottom lip.

  Here’s the thing you need to understand about me. Thanks to my daddy, I have the patience of Job. He (my daddy, not Job) taught me early on that I should take my cues on how to live life by watching the bayou. And the bayou knows there’s no hurry. It’ll get where it’s going. Don’t try to rush it.

  So I sit quietly and wait for her to work up to admitting to whatever’s got her knickers in a knot.

  Eventually, she does.

  “I’m glad you told me what you did on Halloween. But now I don’t know how to…” She stops and spreads her hands in a helpless gesture. “I don’t know how to be when I’m around you.”

  Pulling her out of the chair, I situate her next to me on the sofa and throw an arm around her shoulders when she looks ready to bolt. “Just be yourself, Maggie May. You’re still you and I’m still me. Only difference is there aren’t any more secrets between us.”

  When I feel her relax against me, I ignore the warmth that spreads through my blood. For a while, we silently watch the candles burn in the fireplace. Then Sheldon slinks from beneath the sofa in that watery, sinuous way of a feline. He sniffs my boots before rubbing his whiskered cheek across the worn laces.

  “It’s the darnedest thing,” Maggie says, scowling at her cat. “You’re the only person on the planet he seems to like, which is super unfair considering I’m the one who keeps him in Fancy Feast and fishes his giant turds out of the litter box.”

  I chuckle. “Can’t blame him for having impeccable taste. I mean, have you seen me lately?”

  She shakes her head in mock disgust. “What happened to that shy, humble teenager I used to know?”