Dead on the Delta

Twelve



Oh, shit.” Hitch groans and the curdled smell of sickness fills the car. My nose automatically closes itself off, but breathing through my mouth doesn’t help much.

“What’s wrong?” Is my breath really that bad? Sure, I had some wings and a beer, but I practice excellent oral hygiene. I’m a religious flosser. I love to floss. I live to floss.

“Something bit me while I was under the water. I thought it was just a nonvenomous water snake,” he says, squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his teeth. Even in the dim light I can see the sweat breaking out on his forehead. “Thinking now … it might have been a cottonmouth.”

My stomach turns to stone. It’s peak water moccasin season and peak bite time. We’re less than fifteen minutes from the hospital, but if the snake hit an artery or vein or near a primary lymph node, Hitch could be dead before we reach the iron gate.

“Where’s the bite? Let me see.” I shift over, sitting on the center console, my neck twisting as my head hits the roof of the car.

Hitch yanks up the right side of his pant leg, revealing two puncture wounds below his knee. They’re already red and swollen, and leaking a light pink fluid. It’s definitely a cottonmouth bite. Shit.

I reach for his leg, but he bats my hand away. “No, don’t touch it, I just need to stay calm and keep my leg below my heart until we get to the—”

“You need to take your shoe off,” I say. “If your extremities start to swell, you—”

“They can cut my shoe off, I don’t care.”

“What about necrosis?” I ask. “They might have to cut your foot off if—”

“There’s going to be some tissue death associated with a moccasin bite. The sooner you get me to a place with a good store of antivenin, the less extensive the necrosis.”

I sigh, giving up on his damned shoe. “Fine, whatever you say, doctor.”

“That’s right, dropout.” He’s trying to make a joke, but the sickly beads of sweat popping out on his lip ruin the punch line. Time for less talk, more driving.

“Just relax, the hospice is only a block from the police station. We’ll be there before you know it.” I slide into the driver’s seat with a full-body cringe as warm vomit soaks into my already wet clothes.

I could have tried to open the door and scoop some of it out, but there are still a few fairies outside and I can’t waste any more time. I start the car and pull out with a spray of gravel, ignoring the oozing sensation around my legs and the way my tongue cramps at the back of my throat, begging me to indulge my gag reflex. It’s just vomit. I’ve seen and handled worse on a daily basis. Usually with gloves on, but still … I can stomach this.

Despite the opinions of some, I am a professional.

The trip to the hospital is a blur. I vaguely remember slowing down at the gate—heart racing as we waited the seemingly interminable three seconds for it to swing open—and swerving to avoid a black SUV with its bass turned up loud enough to throb in my chest, but it’s almost as if the narrow drive leading to the hospice’s emergency room simply appears before me. Like magic.

I’ve never driven that fast, especially while chattering on a police radio and placing a few phone calls. Luckily, Cane and Stephanie were still at the station when I jumped on the radio. Now, they wait outside the emergency room doors, next to Jonathan, the burliest male nurse in D’Ville, and Connie, our one and only doctor.

It must be a slow night. I’ve never seen Connie curbside. She usually makes everyone wait at least an hour, even if they’re nursing a stab wound. But I suppose the FBI gets preferential treatment, and a venomous snakebite is nothing to mess around with.

Jonathan pushes a wheelchair chair around to Hitch’s side of the car and Connie follows, throwing open the door and helping Hitch out. “We’ve got the antivenin prepped, Dr. Rideau,” she says, a chubby brown hand patting Hitch’s shoulder as she eases him down into the chair. “We’ll have you up and fighting bad guys in no time.”

She peeks into the car long enough to wrinkle her nose and shoot a disgusted look in my direction before she and Jonathan are gone, wheeling Hitch around the front of the cruiser. I can’t tell if the nasty look was for me or for the vomit, but I decide to blame the puke. Connie’s never been my biggest fan—she resents the fact that I refuse to come in for treatment until I’m practically dying of pneumonia and have to be admitted—but I don’t think she has anything personal against me.

I reach for the handle of my door, but Cane gets there first. “How fast did you drive, girl? I can’t believe—Hot damn.” The hand he’d reached in to help me moves to cover his nose and mouth.

“The snake venom made him sick. I’m sorry. I’ll clean it up,” I say, easing my legs out of the car.

“You don’t have to clean it up. That’s what Dicker’s for.” Cane recovers with a tight smile. “Come on out of there. I’ll call him back in, have him pick up the cruiser, and get it detailed tonight.”

I stand. Chunks of whatever Hitch last ate fall from my pants to plop onto the concrete. Ew. Blechk. Gag. I peer down at myself, wondering if it would be appropriate to strip off my clothes and burn them where I stand. As I tip my head, the ground tilts and the world spins. I stumble and might have fallen if Cane hadn’t grabbed me and held tight.

“Baby, what happened to your arm?” Cane’s touch is gentle as he adjusts his grip, transferring the hand at my elbow to my waist.

“A few fairies bit me. It’s okay, I just need a shower and some Band-Aids.” I lean into him, grateful for his strength but feeling guilty for the taste of Hitch that lingers on my tongue. “Will you take me home?”

“You can’t go home,” Stephanie says from her spot near the entrance to the ER.

“She’s right. You need to see the doctor.” Cane guides me toward the automatic doors. I resist the urge to dig my heels in and fight him. I hate hospitals. They remind me of my many past failings and I’ve had enough of that for one night. “Or at least get one of the nurses to check you out.”

“And I need to know what happened out there.” The doors swish open and Stephanie follows us inside.

The harsh, fluorescent lights make me squint. They seem so much brighter than usual, glaring and awful, pointing out every black scuff on the cracked tile and piss stain on the faded paisley seats of the waiting room. The smell of melon disinfectant and hand sanitizer and a poopy diaper someone must have shoved in the trash a day or two ago swim inside my nasal passages, making me dizzy.

I stumble again, earning a concerned look from Cane. He slows, giving Stephanie the opportunity to angle in front of us, blocking our path to the reception desk.

“Did you find the suspect?” Stephanie asks.

“This can wait. She’s hurt,” Cane says, his professional voice deeper, more threatening than it normally would be. He’s losing patience with Stephanie. I can sympathize, but thankfully I have a “get her off my ass free” card in my front pocket.

“No, she got away,” I say, “but I found the belt I used to tie her up on the ground. She’s free. Probably running around in the swamp right now, eating fairy crap and attacking more innocent people.”

Stephanie’s upturned nose wrinkles—apparently she’s not convinced of my “innocence”—but I read the relief in her eyes. She’s glad I didn’t bring a dead body back from the swamp. “Did you collect the belt? We can try to find some prints, see if we can get a positive ID on the woman and alert all the local agencies.”

“Yeah, I—” One hand drifts to my waist, to where I tucked the belt into the front of my pants. It’s gone. Shit. Shit! “I … I don’t have it anymore.”

“So you have no evidence that the woman you tied up is free?”

“No, I do have evidence.” The room swims again. I blink and keep my lids lowered. It feels like the light is stabbing me in the eyeballs. “It must have fallen into the water while I was trying to get to Hitch.”

“Right.” Stephanie’s arms cross and her business face returns. I can feel Cane’s muscles bunch against my back. “Hitch, who was in the water without his suit on because… ?”

“He heard gunshots and jumped out of the car. He thought I’d been shot.”

“Had you been?”

“No, Hitch’s gun went off when somebody hit me from behind.” Cane turns to stare at me, but I hurry on before he can say whatever’s on his mind, probably something about guns and how I shouldn’t have been carrying Hitch’s. “It wasn’t the woman from this morning. It was a big guy, really big. I didn’t get a good look at him, but I elbowed him in the gut. He felt like he weighed three hundred pounds. Maybe more.”

“But you didn’t see him?”

No, I didn’t, because he’s invisible. An invisible man! Right here in Donaldsonville, can you imagine?

I wisely edit my reply to a simple: “No, I didn’t.”

“And he hit you on the head?”

“Yeah, you want to see?” I turn, parting my hair around a nasty lump and a bit of sticky I’m guessing is dried blood.

“Oh my God.” Stephanie’s words are soft, but I hear the shock in her tone. My head must look bad if it’s disturbing her more than the bite marks peppering my bare arms. Maybe the head wound is responsible for my dizziness, not the blood loss I was planning to blame once I got around to blaming something. “You should go see the doctor. We’ll talk more tomorrow, during your official interview. I’ll expect you at the station at noon.”

Crap. Official interview. Why didn’t I thread the damn belt through my belt loops? Why couldn’t this all go away?

“Right. If you’ll excuse us.” Cane pushes past her without waiting to be officially “excused.”

I glance over my shoulder, displeased by the displeasure on Stephanie’s face. I get the feeling she isn’t buying my “lost belt” story and is plenty pissed that her partner’s life was put in danger—whether or not that was really my fault. She isn’t going to make my life easy, and she isn’t going to let me off the hook for what I did this afternoon. I’m still in deep doodoo unless I can prove that Breeze head is okay.

If she’s okay. What if the invisible man did something to her? He’s clearly violent and confused. What was it he kept asking me? Where is it? Where I put it? He thought I’d taken something that belonged to him. His invisible treasure, perhaps? Or maybe something more sinister.

Could the man be connected to the deaths of Grace and the other murdered girls? I flash back to those big footprints in the mud outside Grace’s window. The giant I elbowed had to have equally gigantic feet, and he was plenty heavy to push a print deep into damp earth. He could have crept onto the Camellia Grove grounds unobserved and had Grace a few hundred feet from the property before she recovered from the shock of being lifted from her bed by someone she couldn’t see.

An invisible serial killer with a yen for children. It’s a terrifying thought. He might never be stopped. Even if someone realizes what’s happening, they’ll be too afraid to say anything. Afraid people will think they’re out of their mind. I’ve been labeled a slacker, borderline alcoholic, pill-popping loser by too many people. There’s no way I’ll be able to convince them there’s an invisible person wandering the swamps outside D’Ville. I barely believe it myself and I saw it. Or didn’t see it.

I sigh again, a mournful sound that makes Cane hug me closer.

“You’re going to be fine, Lee-lee. Don’t worry, we’ll get this sorted out.”

“Thanks.” But his words offer little comfort. Cane can’t help me with this. No one can. I’m going to have to go back into the bayou tomorrow and search for something on the man who hit me.

If I can find footprints, I’ll be able to prove there was someone else out there, someone who will divert the sole responsibility for the Breeze head’s fate from my fairy-bite-covered shoulders. Surely, even an invisible man has to leave footprints. He certainly left other physical marks. I touch the lump on my head again, flinching at the size of it.

“Don’t touch it.” Cane stops at the front desk. A pretty, big-eyed, coffee-with-cream-skinned woman I haven’t seen before holds out a clipboard and pencil.

“Just sign here to verify none of your information has changed, Miss Lee, and Benny will bring you right back.” The girl—Infinity, if her name tag is to be believed—passes me the clipboard before darting a swift, admiring look up at Cane. Somebody must have told her my name, but not that I’m intimately attached to the cop who has me by the waist.

I wonder who she thinks I am? A victim of a crime? A suspect?

No, Cane’s too gentle with me. She must think I’m a victim, and that Cane will be finished with me once he makes sure I’m in a nurse’s capable hands. Maybe that’s why she’s so eager with the clipboard; she’s ready to get the Lieutenant alone. A stab of jealousy I have no right to feel makes me glare at her as I sign the form. I just kissed my ex-boyfriend; I have no right to be possessive. But I am.

“Miss Annabelle?” Benny, a forty-something nurse with the most chapped hands I’ve ever seen, appears at the door leading into the exam stations. She comes into Swallows every now and then with her two teenage boys, mostly on nights when the boys are jonesing to watch a basketball game not being aired on network television. She’s very nice, very tolerant, and doesn’t judge people for having a beer or two to unwind at the end of the day.

Hope sparks within me. This emergency room visit might not be a total waste, after all. Benny can probably be convinced to slip me a few Restalin before she hands over my discharge papers. After the day I’ve had, I need to sleep tonight, and that won’t be happening without serious chemical assistance.

I move toward the door, but Cane stops me with a soft squeeze. “I’ll wait for you, and drive you home. Tuck you in,” he says, in true knight-in-shining-armor fashion.

On impulse, I stand on tiptoe and press a kiss to his cheek. “Thanks. I … I appreciate you.”

He smiles, that smile that makes his eyes crinkle at the edges. “I appreciate you too.” There’s something in his tone, something that speaks of his assurance that I more than appreciate him that makes guilt gurgle in my stomach. But then Benny calls for me again, and I go.

I follow her down the narrow white hall, trying not to think about what happened with Hitch. It was a mistake, a weird reaction to stress and a near-death situation. For better or worse, it won’t happen again.

Less than two hours later, I’m showered, bandaged, dressed in a loaner pair of Benny’s scrubs, and checking my reflection in the full-length mirror nailed to the door of my room. The pants are short—Benny’s closer to five four than five eight—but the pale peach color makes me look healthier than I have all day. My cheeks flush pink beneath my freckles, my burnt nose seems kind of cute, and my frizzy auburn curls are drying in relative ringlet fashion in the cool hospital air.

More importantly, I don’t stink the stink of a thousand stinks. That’s definitely a plus when going out to meet the man in your life.

The door handle twitches. I step away as Benny eases back into the room she commandeered for our use. It is indeed a quiet night in the ER, with only a handful of patients for an equal number of nurses.

“Here you go.” She hands me a paper to-go sack full of yummy drugs. Yay. “I put in a two-week sample pack of Restalin, but don’t take one tonight. You hear me? Wait until you’re symptom-free for at least twenty-four hours.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Mentally, I cross my fingers behind my back.

“I put some six-hundred-milligram ibuprofen in there for the pain. Take that, avoid alcohol or anything else that will make you sleepy, and you should be good to go.”

“Thanks, Ben. And thanks for the clothes and tennies.”

She makes a pooh-pooh face that tells me what she thinks of my thanks. “Girl, it’s nothing. I’ve got ten pair of shoes and double that of scrubs. No rush getting those back. I know you’re busy.”

“Thanks.”

“So you really didn’t see who hit you?”

“No, he snuck up behind me. It was already getting dark … ” I let my words trail off. I feel bad for lying, but I can hardly tell the truth.

“Too bad. That’s a nasty bump. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve got a hairline fracture in there somewhere.” Benny already consulted with Dr. Connie, who confirmed what I already knew: there’s nothing to be done for a crack in the skull other than to avoid getting hit again. I can be sent home without an X-ray or an MRI as long as I only have symptoms of a mild concussion—minor dizziness, blurred vision, etc.

I have none of the above. My dizzy spell’s passed, and I actually feel pretty good. The hot shower worked wonders for my worldview. I can barely feel my bites and bumps. Either that ibuprofen Benny gave me is magic or I’m made of tougher stuff than I thought.

“Seriously,” she says, “the man who did this to you should be locked up.”

“I’m going to work on that tomorrow,” I say, figuring there’s no harm in telling Benny my plan. “I’m thinking I’ll head back to where I was attacked and see if I can find any footprints.”

“Well, be careful. Make one of the tough guys out there suit up and go with you.”

“Will do.” I shift my weight toward the door, but Benny doesn’t move. Instead, she crosses her arms and stares at the ground, lingering a few moments too long. I get a bad feeling in my stomach even before she speaks.

“So … do you know if they found out anything about that Beauchamp girl’s murder? You were the one who found her, right?”

“No, I didn’t find her. The perimeter patrol saw something this morning and called me in to have a look since the body was beyond the gate.” I shrug, not really wanting to get into this, but feeling obligated: Benny has slipped me prescription drugs without a prescription. “I don’t know much about the investigation. Just that the FBI is going to help out with it while they’re here.”

I leave out the part about the suspected serial killer. If that particular piece of gossip gets out, there won’t be much doubt where it came from. I don’t want to be blamed for having loose lips in addition to all my other flaws.

“Hmm. Well, I hope they find whoever did it soon.”

“Yeah, me too.” I would leave it at that, but there’s something in the way she said “whoever” that makes me think she’s got a person in mind. “Did you know Grace?”

“Not really. But I treated her about a year ago.” Benny snags a bottle of lotion off the nearby sink and squeezes some onto her chapped hands. “She was brought in for an overdose.”

“Of what?” I ask, figuring Benny’s already violated nurse-patient confidentiality.

“Xanax. The family said she got hold of her mother’s prescription and it was a big old accident, but I don’t know … ” Her narrow shoulders rise and fall. “Usually, you don’t see children six or seven years old chewing a bunch of nasty-tasting pills. It’s not like they taste like candy.”

“Wow … so you think … ” I don’t even want to speak the words out loud. It’s a big accusation, especially against the Beauchamps. Without their plantation, there’s a good chance D’Ville would have gone the way of so many other small Louisiana towns and died a swift death after the mutations.

“I don’t know what I think,” Benny says. “But Cane should take a damn long look at everyone living in that house. That’s all I’m saying.”

Like Barbara Beauchamp, who was dressed up and running around Baton Rouge hours after her daughter’s body was discovered. The thought makes me sick. I know as well as anyone that mothers aren’t always what we’d have them be, but why would Barbara kill her adopted daughter? She seemed so dedicated to Grace, to all her kids.

“Not that I’m saying anything, you got me?” Benny’s newly moisturized hands rise at her sides in the universal sign of “I had nothing to do with this.”

“Got you.” She wants me to pass on the information without letting anyone know where I got it. I fist my bag o’goodies and reach for the door, making a mental note to tell Cane what I saw in Baton Rouge and relay Benny’s message on the drive back to my house. I’ll wait until we leave the hospital so he’ll be less tempted to come back and start nosing around himself.

“I mean, I know that girl wasn’t right,” Benny says as we emerge into the hall. “But she was just a little girl.”

I slow, waiting until Benny walks beside me. “You mean her heart condition?”

“Well, yes.” Benny shoots me a sideways glance. “And … other stuff.”

“Like what?”

She lowers her voice to a whisper. “For a while, the Beauchamps had some big-shot child psychologist from New Orleans up here every week. He worked with Grace in the behavioral therapy room. Rumor was she’d scream the entire time, and even bit him once.”

“Really?” That’s … hard to believe. “But she came to Marcy’s when she was a toddler for the drop-in program. Marcy never said anything about her being hard to handle.” But then Marcy is amazing with kids. Even the most messed-up kids get their act together under her care. I’m living proof of that.

Benny shrugs again. “Yeah, well, she seemed like a sweet girl to me, but … whether she was sweet or not … ”

“Right.” Whether she was sweet or not, she didn’t deserve to be murdered.

We walk the rest of the way to the discharge desk in silence. Benny leans over, hollering at Infinity’s back. “You need anything else from Miss Annabelle?”

“No, she’s good. We’ll file with her insurance.” Infinity waves over her shoulder.

Benny motions me back to the door leading into the waiting room.

“Hey,” I say, hoping to get one last piece of info. “Do you know how the FBI agent with the snakebite is doing? Is he going to be okay?”

“He was doing good last I checked. Stable and comfortable, but Connie’s going to keep him overnight for observation. Did you want to stop by his room?”

“No, that’s okay. I’ll check in with him tomorrow.” I smile, relieved that Hitch is going to be locked up for the night and there’ll be no risk of seeing him again until I have some much-needed sleep. “I’ll get the scrubs back soon.”

“No worries.” Benny opens the waiting room door, dismissing me with a smile before plucking a chart from the wall and calling the next name.

There are a few people occupying the ugly paisley chairs—a woman with a red-cheeked baby who stands at Benny’s call, a man with a black eye, and an older couple with an oxygen machine shooting judgment-filled looks at the man with the black eye—but it still isn’t crowded. I should be able to spot Cane right away.

But I can’t find him. Not in the chairs, not by the water fountain, not trolling the hall near the snack machines. I spin in a slow circle. He isn’t inside. Maybe he’s gone to supervise the cleanup of the squad car. I walk through the automatic doors, out into the muggy night. Even at nearly eleven, the air is hot and heavy. My ringlets begin to puff and frizz. Not that it matters. There isn’t going to be anyone to admire my pretty hair.

The squad car has disappeared from the front drive, and the parking lot across the street is police vehicle-free. Cane is gone.