She kept smoothing the rich chocolate with a spatula. The birthday boy would have to let himself in, because chocolate icing wouldn’t wait. It would set in big clumps if she didn’t work it the way her mother had taught her.
Ellie found it soothing to bake, especially when she was worried about something or missing her family. Those two generally went hand in hand—a worried mind and a homesick heart. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, Raphe would always offer to stop whatever he was doing and drive her to New Orleans to catch the train to Alabama for a visit. But the thought of being separated from him and from Remy was even worse than separation from her own kin. And their cabin was too small to invite her family here.
Right now, what Ellie felt was an unfamiliar mix of homesickness and fear—not just worry but outright fear. Mama Jean once told her that the worst thing about getting scared is forgetting how to get yourself un-scared. Everything that had happened to her community, from the fires and displacement of neighbors to the disappearance of someone she barely knew and yet felt an odd connection with—Ellie realized she had let it all get the best of her. It was time to take control of her fears and move on, if only long enough to bake a cake.
She turned it to make sure the icing was smooth all around and poured a little extra for the top. This was a big birthday, and she wanted it to be special for Heywood. The extra icing went into a bowl for Remy. She had turned to set it in the icebox when she heard the screen door open.
“Well, it’s about time,” she said. But when she turned back around, she saw not her dear friend but the very root of all that terrified her: Gig Luetrell standing just inside her cabin.
He grinned at her. “You look like you seen a ghost. Or maybe a white alligator.”
“What do you want?” Ellie tried not to let her voice shake. She was as frightened as she had ever been in her life.
“You, of course,” Luetrell said. “Need me a little help gettin’ outta this bayou, and I figure you’ll do fine.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Need me a escort. A little insurance card in case some lawman takes it in his head to stop me. You’re gon’ get me outta this rat-riddled swamp. Seen your man leave, by the way. No need in tellin’ me he’s out back or anything.”
“He’s not. But a friend of ours—”
“Fella in that tin can of a boat out there? Oh, he’s not gonna make it.”
Ellie had to steel herself just to breathe. Surely this wouldn’t be Heywood’s path to an early grave, at the hands of one so vile. Luetrell had to be lying. He just had to. She heard water dripping and noticed for the first time that Luetrell was barefoot, his pants rolled up above his ankles, and he was soaking wet.
“I do apologize about your floor,” he said. “Had to jump under the dock when I heard your comp’ny comin’.”
Before she could stop herself, her eyes drifted to the knife holster on his belt. It was empty.
“See now, that’s what gets people in trouble. Noticin’ things they shouldn’t. I’ll miss that knife. But I put it to good use. Thought it best to let it sink with the departed.” Luetrell shook his head. “You shoulda seen the look on that boy’s face. He never saw it comin’. I’ll never understand backstabbers. What’s the point o’ knifin’ somebody if you’re gonna miss the look on their face? That split second before the pain sets in when they get this little shocked expression—and then it hits ’em they’re fixin’ to die. I wouldn’t miss that for all the booze on Bourbon Street.” He pulled a silver pocket watch out of his shirt pocket and popped it open so Ellie could see the mother-of-pearl face. “Reckon what I could get for that?” He tossed the watch onto the table.
Ellie’s heart was pounding. Forcing herself to stare at Luetrell and not let her eyes wander, she mentally ticked off her possible defenses—all out of reach. The cast-iron skillet overhead. Raphe’s gumbo pot hanging on the fireplace. A shotgun in the bedroom. She’d never make it to any of them before he stopped her. She stood perfectly still, afraid to blink, afraid to breathe.
RAPHE LAID HIS FISHING ROD DOWN and watched Remy reel in his line. The bayou was unusually quiet. Raphe’s mind was anything but. He and Remy were barely out of sight of the cabin when he got the unshakable feeling that he had made a mistake. What if Heywood got distracted? What if he was late? What if Juliet had been left alone by circumstance, isolated and endangered?
A hawk screeched overhead. Something wasn’t right. He could feel it.
LUETRELL SAT DOWN at Ellie’s table and tipped back his chair, propping his dirty feet on another one. He looked around the cabin. “This place ain’t much to look at, is it? Your man must be Cajun trash.”
Ellie held her tongue and stared at him, thinking about how she could defend herself if he should make the slightest movement.
“Ain’t nothin’ trashy about you, though, is there?”
Ellie tried to take slow, steady breaths. She felt sick, which she couldn’t afford to be right now.
Luetrell pointed at the birthday cake. “Bring that here and cut me some. Second thought, I’ll cut it myself. Behave yourself or I’ll cut you too.”
Ellie stared at the cake.
“Well, what you waitin’ on? Get your tail over here with that cake.”
She picked up the cake and slowly walked to the table, standing as close to Luetrell as her nerve would allow.
He looked up at her and grinned. “If you’re real good, I’ll let you set on my lap while I eat it all up. Then I might just gobble you up.”
“Promise?” Ellie said. Then she slammed the cake into his face as hard as she could, so hard that he fell over backward. But as she tried to run away, he grabbed her ankle and tripped her.
Both of them scrambled to stand as Luetrell wiped cake and warm frosting from his eyes. Ellie lost her balance and fell toward the fireplace. Before he could see, she grabbed the gumbo pot and swung it at his head with all her strength before running out the door and down the dock, screaming, “Heywood! Heywood!”
Jumping into Raphe’s bass boat, she pulled on the starter again and again, all the while staring in terror at the front door of the cabin. Just as the motor finally cranked, she saw Luetrell stumbling down the steps. His head was bleeding and he was still wiping cake off his face. Ellie saw him trip and fall just before she pulled alongside the Whirligig, screaming Heywood’s name and praying he would answer. When he at last stood up, he was holding his bleeding head and staggering.
“Heywood!” Ellie screamed. “Jump!”
Heywood jumped off his boat and into hers, almost tipping them over. He took the throttle from her and had the boat almost in the main channel when Luetrell pulled himself up and stumbled his way into a boat Ellie didn’t recognize, tied to a tree on the bank. Luetrell was trying to pole his boat away from the bank. He had one foot on the front seat and one on the bow, leaning into the oar he was using to push against the bank, but the boat wasn’t moving. The motor must’ve been mired.
Heywood suddenly changed course and steered straight for him. A few feet away, he stopped, stood up, pulled a knife out of his hip pocket, and threw it.
Luetrell screamed and grabbed the back of his ankle, dropping like a sack of potatoes the minute the knife hit its target.
Heywood took the throttle and steered them back out into the bayou, where he turned to see whether he had stopped Luetrell. “Unbelievable.”
Ellie looked back and saw Luetrell, unable to free his boat or to stand, hurl himself into the water and start swimming toward them.
“Blood in the bayou,” Heywood said, just before they both spotted an alligator slicing through the water toward the thrashing noise. Heywood grabbed Ellie and pressed her face against his shoulder so she wouldn’t see. And then the bayou grew still.
FORTY-SEVEN
ELLIE AWOKE TO BLURRED VISION and unfamiliar surroundings. A dark figure was hovering over her, but she couldn’t make it out. She knew only that it made her feel safe.
&nbs
p; From far off in the distance, she heard Raphe’s voice calling to her. “Juliet? Can you hear me, Juliet?”
She kept staring at the shadowy figure and blinking her eyes until slowly it came into focus. “Raphe?”
“C’est moi,” he said with a smile, bending down to kiss her, hold her hand, and gently stroke her hair.
“Where—where am I?” She looked around, struggling to get her bearings.
“I’d think you might recognize this old room by now,” another voice said.
Ellie looked up to see Doc standing behind Raphe. She squinted at him. “Is this where we brought Remy?”
Doc smiled and nodded. “Yes. When he was sick with the virus.”
“But—but why—why am I here?” She looked at Raphe. “How did you get here?”
“We were almost home—Remy and me—when we spotted you and Heywood,” Raphe said. “You both looked bad. I tied the pirogue to the bass boat and brought you to Doc’s house. He bandaged Heywood and gave you something to help calm you down, but you had a reaction to it. We’ve had a hard time waking you up.”
Ellie blinked at him as she struggled to get her senses back. “Where’s Remy? Is he alright?”
“He’s fine,” Raphe assured her. “He’s outside fishing on the dock.”
“Good. That’s good.” Then she was anxious again. “And Heywood? Is he alright?”
Raphe smiled at her. “I don’t know. See what you think.” He nodded toward the corner of the room, and Heywood came and sat down on the other side of her bed. A clean white bandage was wrapped around his head.
“We got ourselves into a real pickle, Mrs. Broussard,” he said.
She reached out and took his hand. “Are you okay?”
“Never better.”
“That man—he wanted me to think he killed you, but something told me it wasn’t true. I just couldn’t believe that.”
Heywood rubbed the back of his head. “I can’t say he didn’t try—clocked me from behind before I could get off my boat. Unfortunately for Luetrell, I have quite the hard noggin.”
“So awful . . .”
Heywood winked at her. “As they say on the tombstones, he’s gone but not forgotten. The sheriff’s department recovered . . . well, what they could.”
Ellie kept working her way through the fog as her head cleared more and more. “Boone—Luetrell told me he killed Boone with his knife.”
“You sure about that, Ellie?” Doc asked. “You’ve been through a lot.”
“I’m sure,” she said. “That first time I saw him—Luetrell—when he came to the school, he caught me looking at that knife—a red handle with silver ram’s horns at the hilt. Then at the cabin, he realized I noticed it was missing. That’s when he told me. He pulled out Boone’s pocket watch and threw it on the table to prove it—to scare me.”
“If it’s at the cabin, it’s not going anywhere,” Raphe said, running his fingertips over Ellie’s brow. “Mighty glad you were there, Heywood. Mighty glad.”
“So am I,” Ellie said.
Doc brought a glass of water to Ellie’s bedside. “Raphe, see if she can drink a little bit. Fluids’ll help move the drug on out of her system.”
Raphe lifted her up and held her while he gave her as much water as she could drink.
“I should go,” Heywood said. “I have promised a certain Miss Toussaint Sunday supper on my luxurious yacht.”
“Today is Sunday?” Ellie asked.
“Late afternoon,” Raphe told her. “You slept through last night and most of today.”
A smile spread across Ellie’s face. “If it’s Sunday, that means you made it, Heywood. You’re thirty years old. Happy birthday.”
“How ’bout that,” he said. “Happy birthday to moi.”
DOWNSTAIRS, FLORENCE POURED Doc and Raphe a cup of coffee at her kitchen table and excused herself to take food to the Taylors. Juliet had gone back to sleep, and Doc predicted she wouldn’t be fully alert till tomorrow.
He gave his coffee a splash of cream and stirred it. “Mind if I talk to you about a few things, Raphe—even if it’s none of my business?”
“Much as you’ve helped us, I don’t see how we could say anything’s none of your business.”
Doc smiled and took a sip of his coffee. “Ellie is a strong young woman, Raphe, and an optimistic one by nature. But she has been through a serious trauma.”
Raphe nodded and slowly turned his coffee cup on the table. “Never shoulda happened. I never shoulda left her all alone with that—”
“Now, hold on.” Doc put up his hand. “This is not your fault. You had every reason to believe that your best friend in the world was on his way to your cabin and that Ellie would be safe. There’s no blame here. But there are some changes I believe you should consider.”
Raphe looked up at him. “Like what?”
“This might be hard to hear, Raphe, but I don’t think Ellie should go back to your cabin, at least not now, and—well—maybe not ever.”
“But it’s our home.”
“I know. And up until now, it’s been filled with good memories for Ellie—marrying you and making a home for Remy and finding the life she was searching for when she came here. That all changed yesterday, Raphe. Combat vets aren’t the only ones who suffer flashbacks. Anybody who goes through something as frightening and life-threating as Ellie did can have them. What used to be her safe haven might now remind her of the worst day of her life.”
“We don’t know that will happen, do we?” Raphe asked.
“No. But there’s something else. Your wife and mine—they didn’t grow up here like we did. Florence and Ellie both had homes with running water and electricity. They were used to traveling in cars, not boats. The difference between them is that Ellie loves the bayou as much as we do. Florence has never been comfortable there, so she asked me to meet her halfway out here on the river. Ellie’s never asked you to make that choice. But, Raphe, I think maybe you should. I know it’s none o’ my business, and I hope you’ll take this in the spirit of friendship in which I offer it. I believe you need to think about the future—about the children you and Ellie might have. I think you need a fresh start. And I know where you can get it.”
LATE IN THE NIGHT, Ellie awoke to find Raphe lying beside her in bed at Doc’s. He was wide awake, staring at the ceiling. It was raining outside.
She reached over and touched his hand. “I’d offer a penny for your thoughts, but I don’t think that would begin to cover everything swirling around up there.”
He turned on his side and propped up on his elbow, looking down at her and tracing the line of her cheekbone with his fingertip. “You have such pretty bones.”
“Merci . . . I guess?”
They laughed quietly together so they wouldn’t disturb Remy next door. Raphe lay back down on his pillow, and she rested her head on his shoulder.
“How do you feel, Juliet?”
“Like a train ran over me. No matter what I do, I can’t stay awake very long, and when I sleep I have the craziest dreams.”
“Just rest. Everything will be different tomorrow. Everything. I promise.”
ON TUESDAY MORNING, Ellie felt fully awake for the first time since coming to Doc’s. Raphe’s side of the bed was empty. Sunlight was streaming through her window. It must be seven o’clock at least. She heard her door open and turned to see Remy peeking in. She smiled and pulled the covers back. He grinned at her as he came inside and climbed in.
“You’re about the best thing I could possibly see right now,” Ellie said as he snuggled into her shoulder.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t ever wake up,” he said.
Ellie tightened her arms around him. “I’m sorry I scared you, sweetheart. We’ve had quite a few days, haven’t we?”
“Oui, M’Ellie.”
“Where’s Nonc?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a secret,” he said, smiling up at her.
“So you and Nonc have secrets from me now?”
Remy nodded.
“I guess that’s what I get for having two men in my house. You’ll always have your secrets.”
“This is a really good one,” Remy said. “And I’m supposed to take care of you till Nonc gets back.”
“You are? Well, that makes me feel a lot better.”
“Nonc says we’ll spend tonight at Doc’s and then we can go home tomorrow.”
Ellie held Remy a little closer—for his protection or hers, she wasn’t sure. “Home,” she said.
Remy squeezed her tightly. “Don’t go back to sleep again, M’Ellie, okay?”
“Okay, sweetie. I won’t go back to sleep.”
FORTY-EIGHT
THAT NIGHT THE MOON WAS HIGH and full as Raphe paddled through a watery tunnel of green and returned once again to the remote slough, dwelling place of the white alligator. Soon he would take Juliet and Remy home. He would devote himself to their protection and happiness. But on this night, with the two of them safe at Doc’s, there was something he needed to do.
He entered the slough, its waters bathed in silver light, the surface as smooth as a river stone. The pirogue glided through it as Raphe paddled only as much as necessary, with a reverence for the beauty of this place and a respect for the alligator’s sanctuary.
Aligned with the fallen tupelo gum, he laid down his paddle and waited. Around midnight, he heard the rare but familiar rustling in the swamp grass and the sound of something massive moving over damp ground. It appeared just like always, though the sight of it had grown ever more breathtaking over the years as the alligator grew in stature and might. Its hide, under this particular moon, was gleaming ever whiter.
Raphe expected it to climb onto the tupelo tree, but tonight the alligator did something it had never done before. It went straight into the water and dove under. About thirty seconds later, the alligator surfaced, its snowy form marred by mud on its snout. Raphe held his breath as it dove again and then a third time. He saw bubbles on the surface of the water as the alligator glided back to its tupelo tree, the bayou waters cleansing the mud from its ivory skin.
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