Joanna Wayne - Stranger, Seducer, Protector

Had Jacinth’s mother left New Orleans because of her husband’s murder, or had Marie Villaré done something to cause Sophie to leave Louisiana and never return or even want to speak of the city or this house again?

The phone rang as Jacinth poured her coffee, jerking her back to the present. A drop of hot liquid spilled over her fingers.

“I’m Detective Ron Greene,” said the voice on the line as soon as she’d identified herself. “I hear you had a little excitement at your place last night.”

“Shock might be a better word.”

“Yeah. I’m reading the police report now. Some of the details are a little fuzzy. I’ll need to talk to you as soon as possible. Do you have any problem with me coming over this morning?”

“No. I’m available anytime.”

“Then I’m on my way. The Crime Scene Unit will get there at approximately the same time.”

“That will be fine.”

The sooner they got this over with the better. Grabbing her coffee cup, Jacinth headed back upstairs to get dressed.

She hesitated a few seconds in front of the closed door to her crime-scene bathroom. Maybe this old house was cursed after all and had stealthily lured Jacinth and Caitlyn into its web of evil.

And maybe Jacinth had been sniffing too much plaster.

She shook off the mood and hurried to get dressed for her own reality CSI.

NICK TOOK THE hard plastic chair in front of the pane of thick glass. As always, this place, with its institutional gray walls, armed and aloof guards and acrid smell of cleansers and sweat, created a hard knot in the depths of his gut.

He’d been ten years old when he’d come here the first time. It was also the first time since he was a first grader that he’d laid eyes on the father he’d been told was out of county on a special mission for his country.

His boyhood superhero instantly dissolved into a flesh-and-blood disillusionment, leaving a hole the size of a bowling ball in his heart.

Nick hadn’t said a word to the stranger staring back at him. Finally his mother dragged him back to their old Chevy and he’d thrown up all the way home, soaking the backseat with vomit. His mother had cried hysterically and just kept driving.

He hadn’t returned to the prison until he was sixteen years old, two months after his mother had remarried and moved to Pennsylvania, leaving him to live with his paternal grandparents while he finished high school.

The second visit to the prison had been at the urging of his grandfather. No pressure, Gramps had promised. Nick only had to go and make up his own mind if he wanted to engage. If not, they’d leave and nothing would be lost except the morning.

Nick hadn’t walked away and the sluggish, agonizing process of building a relationship with his father had begun that day.

Nick watched a woman walk across the floor of the visitor center flanked by two preschoolers. The girl’s short ponytail was tied with a bright pink ribbon that matched her shirt. A worn teddy bear with one arm missing was clutched in her right hand.

The boy was tugging at his mother’s skirt, as if trying to slow down her progress across the scuffed tile floor. An action figure dangled from his fingers.

Nick swallowed hard, aching for the kids. If they were here to visit their father, they had a tough road in front of them.

A slight tapping on the window got Nick’s attention. His father smiled broadly as if they were meeting for lunch or to go to a Saints game. Nick saw past the smile to the dark bags around his father’s sunken eyes, the pall of his complexion and the swollen jowls.

The chemo was doing a number on him.

Nick picked up the phone in front of him. “How you doing, Dad?”

“I’m hanging in there.”

“Are they taking care of you?”

“Yep. Dr. Singleton makes sure of that.”

Tom Singleton was his oncologist, the one making the decisions on Elton Bruno’s medical care. Nick had talked to him by phone a couple of times and checked out his reputation on the internet. He was a well-respected doctor.

That didn’t make it any easier for Nick to watch his father go through the treatments knowing they might be in vain and that his father could die in this prison. Knowing he might die waiting for a parole that wouldn’t come for a crime Nick was certain his father hadn’t committed.

“What’s going on with you?” Elton asked. “Any interesting new cases?”

“One. I can’t talk about it yet, but when it’s solved, I’ll feed you all the details.”

“Sounds good. Weather’s great today. You going fishing when you leave here?”

“Not today.”

“Got other plans?”

“Thinking of volunteering to fix a busted pipe for a friend.” Unless the plumber had beat him to it.

“A lady friend?”

“How’d you guess?”

“You never liked plumbing when you were working with your grandfather. I figured you had to have some pretty good motivation to make you volunteer your services.”

“Not the kind of motivation you’re thinking. She’s just a neighbor.”

“Then you should blow the plumbing off and go fishing. The day is too nice to waste hanging out with rusted metal.”

“Good point.”

Elton curled his hands around the back of his head and leaned back, balancing his chair on the two back legs as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “I’d like to go pole me a pirogue down a lazy bayou and pull in a couple of spiky, mustached old catfish. Fry them right there over an open fire. Down them with a six-pack of cold ones for a chaser while the gators float by and the blue jays squawk overhead.”

For most men, that wasn’t much to ask. Nick planned to do everything in his power to see that Elton had the chance to live that dream before he died.

“Any word from your attorney on the parole hearing?”

“I’m nowhere near the top of the list. But if I do get out of here, we’re going to take that fishing trip.”

“I’ll be ready,” Nick said.

“I want me some boiled crawfish, too. Some days I can almost smell them.” Elton smiled. “Course it always turns out it’s just the spices in the heartburn chow I’m smelling.”

Elton sat up straight again. “You know what else I’d like?”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

“To touch a woman, a real woman with curves and soft skin and hair that smells like flowers in springtime. You know the kind of woman I’m talking about?”

An image of Jacinth slipped into Nick’s consciousness. A Villaré—of all people to think of here in this place. “Yeah, I know the kind of woman you mean. They usually spell trouble.”

“Just a thought,” Elton said, this time chuckling into the phone. “Hell, even if I had a woman like that I probably couldn’t get it up with all this chemo they’re shooting into me.”

Probably not the best place to go with this conversation. “Did you give any more thought to what I asked you about last time I was here?” Nick asked.

Elton rubbed his jaw as all sign of his forced smile vanished.

“I’ve thought about it for the last twenty-two years. I’ve come up with a thousand different theories about who might have killed Micah, but none of them holds water. Truth is, with all the scenarios I’ve considered, I don’t even trust my memories any longer. But it’s all in the trial notes.”

Notes that Nick had been over a thousand times before and gotten nowhere with. But the trial had been manipulated by lawyers and layered with rules, objections and emotions. Truth could get tangled up in that.

“Just think about it again, Dad.”

“It won’t help. I don’t have anything new to tell you, son. I wish I did.”

But Nick was not about to give up, not while his father had a breath left in his cancer-wracked body.