by JoAnn Ross
“You have to wonder why a grown man was traveling with a child who isn’t his own,” Regan murmured.
“I was already there.” Nate’s serious expression revealed he shared her concern. He might not be a cop, and Blue Bayou might look like Louisiana’s version of Mayberry, but obviously he’d picked up some sense of the dark side of the world from his brothers’ work.
“If I were you, I’d have one of my deputies question him.”
“Great minds think alike. Fortunately, I’ve got an officer capable of doing a bang-up job.” He put his hand on her back in a possessive, masculine way that annoyed her. “Since the fog’s really startin’ to roll in and you don’t know the way to the hospital, I’ll drive you there.”
She shook off the light touch. “Me?”
“You’re the most qualified member of the force.”
“Force? What force? This isn’t my jurisdiction.”
“Sure it is. I deputized you.”
“Dammit, Callahan, this isn’t the Wild West. You can’t just put badges on people and make them part of your posse.”
“I can, and I did.” His expression sobered. “This needs to be done right. There’s no way I’m going to put Dwayne on it. As for Henri, he’s always tried real hard and done a good enough job, but Blue Bayou doesn’t present a lot of opportunities to use real police skills, so even if he ever possessed any, they’d be real rusty about now.”
“I didn’t come to Louisiana to apply for a job. I already have one back in L.A.”
“Where I’ll bet you take protectin’ kids real seriously.” His gaze moved to the young teenager being loaded into the back of the ambulance.
Regan counted to ten. Reminded herself that she’d sworn to protect and to serve. Her professional duty might stop once she went outside her precinct boundaries, but her moral responsibility was an entirely different thing.
“Dammit.” She folded her arms even as she felt herself caving. “That’s not fair.”
“Life’s not always fair, detective.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” She had proof of that every day, even before she hit the streets looking for the bad guys. All she had to do was get out of the shower and stand naked in front of a full-length mirror.
“How about I make you a deal?”
“What kind of deal?”
“You help me out with this one little thing, and I’ll do all I can to help you find out the facts about Linda Dale’s death.”
“A thirty-one-year-old case is about as cold as they get. What makes you think you can find anything out when your father couldn’t?”
“He’d probably have had better luck if your aunt hadn’t disappeared.”
Your aunt. Even after she had read the journal over and over again, those words still rang so false. The ambulance pulled away from the scene, lights flashing, siren wailing.
“Besides, I’ve lived here all my life, me,” he said, his Cajun syntax backing up his words. “I know everyone in the parish, which’ll come in handy, since folks around here aren’t real eager to answer questions from strangers.”
“Small-town paranoia,” she muttered.
“There you go, jumpin’ to conclusions again. We tend to think of it as mindin’ our own business. Now, I can understand why you won’t do it for me, or even because, being an independent woman, you don’t want any help digging up the truth ’bout your maman’s death. But I’m having a real hard time believing that cop who just risked her life for a kid won’t want to do whatever she can to find out why that kid isn’t sitting at home playing video games like he should be.”
It was emotional blackmail, pure and simple. It also worked. “You really are shameless.”
“You’re not the first person to tell me that, sugar. But that’s not the point here. That boy’s puttin’ on a good enough show, but beneath the surface, he reminds me of a whupped pup. I’d put hard money on the fact that he had a pretty good reason for running away.”
“Hell. All right.” She blew out a breath. “I’ll do it.”
“Merci bien.”
They drove together through the night, the headlights bouncing back against a dense wall of fog that surrounded the SUV, cutting them off from the outside world. Regan was grateful he was driving; she wasn’t sure she could have told road from water.
“I suppose, having grown up here, you know your way around.” She certainly hoped he did. She was in no mood for a moonlight swim.
“Mais yeah, though it’s always changing.” He leaned forward and punched on the radio, which was tuned to a station playing what seemed to be a sad song in French. “What was water yesterday could be land today. And vice versa.”
“Then how do you know for certain where you’re going?”
“Never gave it any thought.” He seemed to now. “Guess it’s just instinct. Like a homing pigeon returning to his loft. Once the bayou gets in your blood, I don’t think you could ever get it out. Even if you wanted to.”
“Which you don’t.”
“Non. Roots sink deep here. Sometimes I think ’bout taking off and exploring the world, but the truth is, mostly I’m pretty satisfied doing what I’m doin’, where I’m doin’ it.”
Regan wondered how it would feel to be so at ease with yourself. So comfortable with your world and your place in it. As long as she could remember, she’d always pushed herself harder and harder, trying to please a mother who’d always been incapable of being pleased.
The police shrink she’d gone to, a bearded guy who seemed to be doing his best to look like Freud’s twin—which made her wonder about his own identity problems—had suggested that it wasn’t the ambush or the resultant injuries and lengthy recovery that had left her feeling constantly edgy and unable to sleep.
She was, he’d diagnosed, suffering from the impossible need to prove her worth not only to her remote, perfectionist mother, but also to the larger-than-life father she’d never known. The man who’d died a hero’s death in a jungle halfway around the world.
“Which is, of course,” the Freud wannabe had added, “impossible.”
Perhaps. On one level, Regan understood that. She had, after all, minored in psychology in college. But on a deeper, more intrinsically personal level, she couldn’t stop trying.
“That was a remarkable thing you did,” she murmured. “Going in under those high-voltage wires.”
“I wasn’t alone. You were right there with me.”
“Like I said, it’s my job. Cops get paid to do stuff like that. I wouldn’t think risking your life came under the job description of mayor.”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I hadn’t tried to get him out of there. I lost my dad when I was twelve. The trucker’s kids are going to have theirs. That’s all that counts.”
“It was still a brave thing to do.”
The grin he flashed her was quick and devastating. And dangerous. His eyes, surrounded by soot and dirt, gleamed in the glow from the dashboard like the blue lights atop a police cruiser. “Don’ tell me you just found something about me you can approve of?”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“I wouldn’t think of it.” They’d driven in silence for about five more minutes when he said, “You’re probably used to all that.”
“Guys with big heads?”
“No. Well, maybe you run into them from time to time, bein’ how you live in L.A. But I was talking about wrecks, flashing lights, sirens. Injuries. Death.”
“Detectives don’t, as a rule, handle car wrecks unless there’s evidence of a homicide.” She’d thought about death, though. A lot. Her first week on the job, she’d spent hours on the phone after a shift trying to find a shelter and counseling for a woman who’d called 911 for a domestic abuse, then refused, despite two black eyes and a missing tooth, to press charges against her husband. A veteran cop had warned her against becoming too emotionally involved.
“Gotta hold back, Hart,” he’d grow
led around a Reuben sandwich dripping sauerkraut. “The taxpayers of L.A. aren’t paying you to hold people’s hands and play counselor. If you want to be a social worker, then turn in your sidearm and go for it, because you’re not going to be able to keep a cool head and maintain the judgment needed to do this job if you’re too damn sensitive.”
Easy for him to say. One of the reasons she’d gone into homicide was because she’d figured that if she switched to dealing with bodies, she’d be able to distance herself emotionally from her work. She’d been wrong. The dead often spoke a lot louder than the living. And they didn’t stop just because she’d gone to sleep.
“I don’t think anyone ever gets used to death.” She wouldn’t want to.
“Yeah.” He pulled up in front of a redbrick building. “I read that in Jack’s last book.”
“That happens to be a yellow line you’re parking by.”
“I know.” He cut the engine, pocketed the keys, took a placard reading “On Duty” from the center console, and tossed it onto the dash. She’d done it herself numerous times. Still…
“And the sign says it’s reserved for police vehicles.” At least he hadn’t parked in the red ambulance zone.
“Then we’re in luck, bein’ how we’re the police,” he said reasonably. “At least one half of us is. The other half’s fire, so I’d guess we have a right to park just ’bout anywhere we like.”
“So how many tickets did you get before you were elected and able to award yourself the privilege of political office?” she asked as she climbed out of the SUV.
“I still get ’em. Blue Bayou runs on too tight a budget to let parking infractions slide.” He opened the center console to reveal stacks of yellow slips of paper. “I save ’em up and pay ’em every month or so.”
“Wouldn’t it be simpler—and cheaper—to just park legally?”
“I suppose it would be. But just think of all the revenue the town’d be missing.”
He’d placed his hand on her back again, in that casual way that suggested he was a toucher. Yet another way he was different from his brother; Finn had kept a privacy zone the size of Jupiter around himself. Regan suspected his new bride must really be something to have gotten past that man’s emotional barricades.
“Besides, writing out tickets gives Dwayne something constructive to do during the slow times. He’s one of our two deputies. Graduated from LSU last summer with a degree in criminal justice, and I think we’re coming as a big disappointment. Sometimes I feel like I oughta pay some kids to go out and bash in mailboxes just so he’ll have a crime to investigate.”
If it were anyone else, Regan might have taken his words as a joke. Since she hadn’t yet been able to get a handle on Nate Callahan, she wasn’t at all certain he was kidding.
10
The door whooshed open automatically. The smell of disinfectant, blood, and stress sweat was like a fist in the stomach.
Regan hated hospitals. After her accident, when she’d been extricated from the crumbled mass of metal that had once been her police cruiser, she’d spent two weeks in ICU, another month on the surgical recovery floor, and weeks and weeks over the next two years undergoing reconstructive surgery and rehabilitation.
“You okay, chère?”
She hadn’t realized she’d stopped walking until he’d turned around. “Of course.” She had to remain calm. To think like a cop, instead of a victim. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Now see, that’s what I don’ know.” He laced their fingers together and skimmed his thumb against her palm. “Your hand’s like ice.”
“Because I’m freezing.” She tugged her hand free. “I thought Louisiana was supposed to be warm.”
“We have ourselves some cold spells in winter. It’s the moisture that makes it seem colder than it really is; it seeps down deep into your bones.” He brushed the back of his fingers up her cheek. “That’s good.”
“What?” She hated to keep backing away from him, but holding her ground would mean staying in too close proximity.
“Your color’s comin’ back. You were pale as Lafitte’s ghost a minute ago.”
“I was not,” she lied. She’d felt the blood going out of her face as she’d gone light-headed. “I’d really like it if you’d keep your hands to yourself, Callahan.”
“That’s not gonna be easy, but I’ll try my best.”
“You do that.” She resumed walking. “Who’s Lafitte?”
“One of our more colorful citizens. A pirate. I’ll tell you about him later, over supper.”
“I ate at the airport.” She hadn’t wanted to waste precious time; the fast food burger she’d eaten in the terminal sat like a rock in her stomach.
“It’s a good story. You’ll enjoy it.”
The little exchange had given her time to adjust to being back in an ER. Her legs were much steadier as she walked toward a counter where a woman sporting an enormous orange beehive was chewing on the end of a pencil.
“Hey, handsome,” the receptionist greeted Nate as they approached, “what’s an eleven-letter word for “having magnetism’?”
“Callahan,” he answered without missing a beat.
She counted on fingers tipped in metallic purple. “Not that I’m arguing your point, cher. But that’s only eight letters.”
“Charismatic,” Regan said.
The woman filled in the crossword puzzle squares. “That’s sure enough it. Bien merci.”
“I see the ambulance arrived,” Nate said.
“It did. Truck driver’s down the hall in X-ray. I figured somebody’d be wanting to talk with him, so I told the tech to take her time, so he wouldn’t be able to take off for a while. Not that I imagine he’d make it far, with his truck wrecked and his leg broken the way it is. The bone’s sticking clear through the skin. Must hurt like the devil.”
It did, Regan thought, but did not say. A hideous memory of hearing the snap of bone flashed through her mind. “How about the boy?”
“He’s in treatment room A. Lucky thing Tiny Dupree was mopping the floors when the ambulance showed up. He practically had to sit on the kid to keep him from leaving.”
“Tiny’s the Cajun Days crawfish-eating champion,” Nate told Regan. “Probably weighs three-eighty soaking wet. So, the kid’s okay?”
“He got himself some bruising across his ribs from the seat belt yanking tight, and a cut on his head, but that’s all that showed up when he first came in. That’s new, anyway.”
“He has old wounds?” Regan asked sharply.
“Mais oui. He’s got some old white scars that look real suspicious, if you ask me. Dr. Ancelet should be finishing up a more thorough examination any time now.”
Regan wasn’t surprised by any suspicious scars. Happy, well-cared-for children did not run away from home.
“We’d like to talk with Eve when she’s done checking him over,” Nate said.
“Sure ’nough.” Her interested gaze settled on the badge Regan was still wearing. “So, cher,” she said, addressing her words to Nate, “I see you’ve finally hired us a new sheriff.”
“I’m not the new sheriff.” Try as she might, it was difficult not to stare at the woman’s blinking red crawfish earrings.
“You’re wearing a badge.”
“That’s just temporary, so I could help out at the train wreck.”
“Terrible thing, that. If God hadn’t had them in his hands…” The beehive bobbled a bit as she shook her head. “One thing medicine’s taught me is that sometimes you’re blessed with a miracle.”
“Orèlia’s husband was Blue Bayou’s doctor just about forever,” Nate explained, then introduced them fully.
The woman looked at her more closely through the rose-tinted lenses of the cat-eyed rhinestone-framed glasses. “I seem to recall my husband treating a little girl named Regan. It was a long time ago.”
“Was he the only doctor in town?” She wondered if he’d signed Linda Dale’s death certificate.
&
nbsp; “Non. There was a new doctor, came here to work off his medical school bills through some sort of government program. He was a Yankee, from New York City, I think. Mebee Boston. Or Philadelphia. One of those northern cities. He just stayed a couple years.” She nodded to herself. “He worked here at the hospital and picked up some extra money working as the parish medical examiner.”
Which meant, Regan thought, that he would have been the one who wrote that death certificate.
“My Leon passed on two years ago,” the woman continued, “leaving me to rattle around in our big old house where he used to have his office. For a while it wasn’t too bad, what with Dani and her son Matt living with me.”
“Dani’s married to Jack,” Nate filled in.
“And about time they finally got together, too,” she said. “Well, like I was saying, Dani and Matt lived with me a while when they first came back to town, then when she moved out to live above the library for a time before marryin’ Jack, her papa moved in so I could sort of keep an eye on him, bein’ as how he has himself a heart condition. But he’s back to work three days a week, which left me with too much time on my hands. I was going crazy, me, until Nate saved my life by fixing me up with this volunteer job.”
“Orèlia exaggerates,” Nate said.
“And the boy’s too humble.”
Regan couldn’t help snorting at that.
“So, what do you do when you’re not rescuing children from train wrecks?”
“I’m a detective, in L.A.”
“Are you, now? Isn’t that interesting?” Her appraising gaze shifted from Regan to a woman wearing dark glasses, who’d just come out of the swinging doors from the treatment rooms. “If this fille really isn’t going to be the new sheriff, you need to send Dwayne down to the No Name and pick up Mike Chauvet,” Orèlia told Nate.
“Does it have something to do with Shannon bein’ here?”
“She says she ran into a door.” It was Orèlia’s turn to snort. “But this is the second time in the past ten days she’s shown up in the ER. The first time she had a cracked rib. Claimed she fell off her horse, and bein’ as how she was sticking to the story and the injury matched the excuse, Eve Ancelet couldn’t do much for her, ’cepting give her a referral card to the free counseling clinic.”