Dead on the Delta

Nine



Are you okay?” My heart is still slamming so hard against my ribs that I suspect Cane can feel it against his hand. “Did any of them bite through, did they—”

“I’m fine. We’re good. You did good.” He hugs me, a gesture of comfort and affection, not desperation. “Now, let’s start walking back toward the fence, nice and slow, right foot first. You ready?”

“Ready. Sounds good.” I move my right foot with his and then my left, the rhythmic amble taking me back in time to the nights I danced on my father’s shoes.

We’d gone to the Daddy-Daughter Valentine’s Ball in New Orleans every year when Caroline and I were little. It had felt so special to spend an entire night as even one-half of my father’s sole focus. He was usually too busy with work and other men to waste time with his family. It made me angry when I was a teenager—inspiring bad behavior I hoped would get me the attention my good grades and soccer trophies hadn’t—but in the end, his apathy made losing him so much easier than losing my mom.

And now I’d almost lost Cane.

“Are you sure you’re good?” I ask again. “No stinging anywhere, no—”

“I’m fine. And you’re doing great. Just a little farther.” The low, easy rumble of Cane’s “calm down” voice makes me realize how hysterical I sound. I try to talk myself back to my happy place as we close the last few feet to where Hitch and Stephanie wait at the fence. We dance through the narrow opening with a final one-two step and Stephanie pulls the gate closed behind us, slamming the handle down, locking the horror out for the time being.

I jump off Cane’s ironclad feet and spin, reaching for his headpiece, but Hitch is already there beside me, hands at Cane’s neck, lifting the iron away.

“I’m Dr. Rideau. Is it okay if I check you out?” he asks Cane.

“No problem,” Cane breathes, meeting my eyes with a comforting smile.

Hitch sets the hood on the ground and probes gentle fingers along Cane’s sweat-slick skin, checking for the telltale swelling of the lymph nodes that begins within seconds of venom infection. “And … you feel good, no enlargement.”

Ugh. This is weird. Call me crazy, but it seems wrong for two men who’ve both had their you-know-whats in me to have their hands on each other. There should be some law against it, in fact. A serious one.

“Open up and say ‘ah,’” Hitch says. Cane obeys, the pink tongue that teased between my legs earlier today slipping from between his lips.

I squirm and shuffle back a few inches while Hitch stands on tiptoe to see inside Cane’s mouth. Hitch is tall, five eleven in bare feet, but Cane’s pushing six foot four with the addition of the iron under the soles of his shoes. Seeing Hitch look so small after years of having him loom so large in my mind is … strange.

This entire afternoon has been strange. In a someone-slipped-acid-into-my-juice-then-knocked-me-over-the-head-repeatedly-with-a-sledgehammer-until-I’m-nearly-unconscious kind of way.

“Tongue looks good. No swelling inside the mouth.” Hitch sighs, a sound of relief that makes me like him more than I have all evening. “Now let’s get you out of this suit and do a quick check for any surface abrasions.”

“I’m good. I just need to get this hole patched and get back out there,” Cane says. “The suspect wasn’t where I expected her to be. I—”

“I screwed up,” I say, spilling my guts before Cane can cover for me. “I was collecting samples in the wrong place this morning when I was attacked and found the Breeze house. I … wasn’t thinking straight. The body and everything … it kind of screwed me up.”

Hitch doesn’t say a word, just nods and drops his gaze to the ground. Guess he suspects foul play or slacker play or drunk play or some sort of play, but who gives a crap what he suspects? There’s no way to prove anything, and I know the rum and Coke isn’t to blame. I was shaken by what I had to do to Grace. I’ve seen the bodies of dead children before, but I’ve never had to stick cotton swabs up what was left of their nose.

I shudder, blinking the memory away. “I’m sorry. I really am, and—”

“Wait a second.” Stephanie steps forward, disbelief crinkling her perfectly arched brows. “So that woman’s still out there somewhere?”

“Not ‘somewhere.’ I know exactly where she is,” I bluff, not certain I know exactly where anything is anymore.

“It’s getting dark.” Stephanie’s calm exterior begins to crack, making me wonder what kind of work she’s done for fairy investigations before now. I’m guessing desk jockey stuff. Fieldwork seems to be getting to her.

“I’ll borrow a flashlight. I’m sure Lieutenant Cooper has one in his car.” I catch Cane’s eye. “But I’m going alone. Patching that hole will take time if you do it right. It’ll be better if I get out there and get back before it gets dark.”

Cane shakes his head. “That woman is violent. The report said she tried to drown you.”

“She didn’t try to drown me.” I wave an impatient hand through the air.

“So you were lying to Dom?”

“No, I wasn’t lying to Dom, I just—”

“Then don’t lie to me. I know that Breeze head got rough with you.” Cane’s arms cross with a clang. “After a year and a half together I can tell when you’re telling stories, Lee-lee.”

My mouth opens and closes and my cheeks burn. The confirmation that Cane and I are more than good friends settles like dust around the assembled company, making me, for one, feel vaguely dirty. Why did he have to talk about us being together? Why? When it would be so much better for the both of us if the feds assumed we aren’t doing it?

Cane’s full lips press together and I see the awareness that he’s made a mistake flit behind his eyes. Maybe he’s more shaken by his near-death experience than I’d thought. “I can’t let you go out there alone. You’re FCC, but you’re still a civilian. If I believe your safety is at risk, I’m obligated to suit up and offer you an armed escort.”

“You could just give me your gun,” I say, frustration and panic warring within me. I love Cane for being the good, law-abiding man that he is, but can’t he just give it a rest? I can’t worry about him any more today. My heart can’t take it.

“I can’t give you my gun,” he says. “Law prohibits me from—”

“Who cares!? You almost died! Don’t you get that?” I bang my fists on his iron-covered arms, figuring it’s pointless to act like we don’t touch each other at this juncture. “I’m not going out there with you.”

“Then I’ll have to go by myself.”

“I won’t tell you where she is.”

“I’ll comb the area until I find her.”

“Will you stop this? Please?” I beg. “That was so close. I can’t believe you—”

“Let Hitch go.” Stephanie pipes up from a few inches away, making Cane and me jump. “His suit is back at the police station with our luggage. It’s lighter and more durable and you’ll be able to get to the woman faster. And he’s pretty good with a gun.”

Pretty good with a gun? This woman must be the sharpshooter of the century if she dubs Hitch only “pretty good” in comparison. I’ve seen him shoot a line of beer cans off a fence from two hundred feet mere minutes after he finished emptying several of them himself.

He grew up hunting to help feed his mother, brother, three younger sisters, and eventually a couple of nieces and nephews whose daddies couldn’t be bothered. His entire family depended on Hitch. He was the bright, shining star, the one who was finally going to pull them out of poverty.

But salvation hadn’t come quickly enough. His entire family—save his a*shole brother who was trapped at a local bar and couldn’t get home—died in the first weeks of the mutations. Hitch’s mom refused to camp out at the Superdome. She was too afraid of the looting and violence that threatened to destroy New Orleans. She was born on the bayou and knew a thing or two about fairies and folk tales, and had thought she and the younger girls and grandbabies would be safe as long as they lined the windows and doors with iron and stayed inside. She’d thought wrong.

I wonder if Hitch told Stephanie about the day he finally fetched his family’s bodies, over a week after their deaths? I wonder if he’d cried into her lap the way he’d cried into mine?

Our eyes meet in the hazy orange dusk, and for a split second I see the old Hitch lurking beneath the surface of this new, professional man. There’s a hint of that wild, sad boy inside him still, enough to make me guess he hasn’t told Stephanie, just like I’ve never told Cane about my sister. There are things people like us only do once.

“That would give Lieutenant Cooper and me the chance to chat about the Beauchamp case,” Stephanie continues, turning to Cane. “I’d love to hear about your initial questioning of the family.”

So the FBI isn’t here to take the case away from the DPD. In the old days, they surely would have, but every law enforcement agency in the Delta is overburdened and understaffed. Now the feds and the state often work with the local departments.

Which means Cane and Hitch will be working together for the next few months, maybe longer. Which means it’s probably a good idea for Hitch and me to grab a few minutes alone and get our story straight. Do we tell all or keep our past buried beneath a big mound of fairy poop? I’m not a fan of meeting problems head-on, but, like it or not, Hitch and I have to decide how we’re going to deal with being thrown back into each other’s lives.

“Sure, sounds good,” I say, at the same time that Hitch announces a trip into the bayou is “fine with him.”

For once, it seems we’re on the same page.

Ten minutes later, Cane pulls his cruiser into his spot at the station. I pull in alongside, stealing Dicker’s spot. He won’t be in until tomorrow morning, and I have to get Theresa’s car back to her before then.

Luckily, I’m going to have help with that and a few other things that need accomplishing while I tromp out into the marsh looking for the woman who nearly killed me. I made a call on the way in, and Marcy is on her way.

No, scratch that, Marcy’s already here.

I spot her as I step from the car. She’s wearing her comfy jeans and a green, Blessed Hands T-shirt with the day care’s logo on the front. Despite the lingering heat, she leans against the faded beige brick at the corner of the station. Her eyes are closed and her head tilted back as she soaks in the last of the dying light. The way the sun hits her face makes her look younger, softer than usual.

Twenty-eight years as a social worker—five of those spent as den mother to a bunch of angry, teenage orphan girls with enough angst between them to sink a dozen battleships—and another five years in the toddler trenches at the helm of her day care have deepened the lines near Marcy’s brow and the frown parenthesis around her mouth. She’d look perpetually angry if it wasn’t for her eyes, those bright hazel lights that shine from her midnight skin.

Marcy’s eyes are the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. They are love, pure and simple, the tough, fierce kind that never lets you go and never lets you down. Without Marcy, I wouldn’t have lived to see my eighteenth birthday, let alone applied to college or scored a half-dozen scholarships to pay my way.

She is my rock, my surrogate mother, my best friend and—

“What do you want, Mess?” she asks, sensing my approach but not bothering to open her eyes. She has some kind of sixth sense where I’m concerned. She can feel me coming from a mile away, she says, a storm ready to blow through her ordered existence.

“Thank you so much for meeting me, Marcy, you don’t—”

“Don’t you thank me. I was two feet from my house when you called, and I don’t want to be here.” Her eyes open, but stay squinted, taking my measure and finding me lacking. Her “harrumph” comes from that place deep inside her that hates dirt stains with a passion verging on obsession. Marcy’s clothes are always clean, soft, pressed, and stain-free, even at the end of a workday.

“But how do you really feel? Don’t hold back.”

“I didn’t plan on it.” A grin teases her lips as she crosses her arms over her generous chest. Despite the grin, she looks tired.

But it is Friday. The end of a long week of chasing kids and wiping noses and butts and all the other things that leak in the under-four set. Marcy is pushing sixty. She’s getting too old to handle eight kids at once all on her own. I’ve tried to convince her to hire another full-time girl at Blessed Hands, but she won’t. She says the babies keep her young and out of jail.

She swears she’ll kill her husband, Traynell, if she’s home with him all day. He retired three years ago and does cabinetwork in their backyard, but evidently wants sex constantly whenever Marcy’s home. You’d think men would get over that after their fifth or sixth decade. Apparently not.

Speaking of men … Cane’s already on his way into the station with Stephanie and Hitch, and will be back with his suit in a few minutes. I have to hurry. Cane’s letting us take his patrol car with its superior fairy protection, Hitch’s suit is the best of the best, and there’s a good chance he won’t need to get out of the car, anyway, but I’ll still feel better if I have all non-immune people back within the fence before it gets too late.

The later the hour, the darker and cooler the air, the more vicious the Fey.

“So, the cat is in the back of my trailer over in front of—”

“Annabelle, honey, I sure as heck don’t need another cat.” Marcy shakes her head and gives her patented “just how stupid are you?” look, the one that really makes you look to yourself and wonder. “Do you think I need another cat?”

“I’m not trying to give you another cat,” I say. “I’m going to keep this one.”

“You’re going to keep a cat? Alive?”

I ignore the insinuation that I kill things, not finding it amusing tonight. “I just need someone to pick him up from Swallows and keep him safe for a few hours, give him a can of food and some water.”

“That’s it?” Her face stretches outward in all directions, as if she’s shocked by how little has been asked of her.

The look makes me feel bad. I try not to bug Marcy that often, but there are times when I have to ask favors. I don’t have anyone else and I’m not ready to ask Cane to check my mail or take out my trash when I’m forced out of town for my quarterly training at Keesler.

“What about supper? Did you eat?” she asks. “Or do you need me to put a plate in your fridge?” And I certainly don’t ask her to bring me food, though I do enjoy eating it. Marcy’s chicken and grits with extra butter will be my last meal if I’m ever facing the chair.

The thought makes my semi-normal pulse speed anew. I need to take care of business and get that woman in police custody asap.

“No, I ate.” I hold out Theresa’s keys. “I just need you to drive Theresa’s car over to Swallows, grab that cat, and drop the keys behind the counter at the bar. That’s it.”

She snatches the keys from my hand. “Done. But you come get that cat as soon as you’re finished tonight. I’ll be up late, you know I don’t sleep anymore.”

“I will.”

“And be careful,” she says, looking over my shoulder toward the entrance of the station. When she speaks again, her voice is strangely soft, nearly a whisper. “I know you don’t have to worry about the bites, but I think there might be a killer out there.”

“I know … I was there when they found Grace’s body.”

“I know.” Marcy takes my hand, squeezing softly. I can feel her strength and empathy flowing into me even though her expression doesn’t change. Marcy doesn’t worry about “making faces for people,” but she feels as deeply as anyone I know. “But she might not be the only one. Some woman called today asking about Kennedy.”

“Kelly’s daughter?”

She nods. “They think they might have found her body over in Lafayette. They won’t know until they finish the autopsy, but this Agent Thomas woman who called still wants to ask me some questions tomorrow.”

“What?” My mind rejects the information, even though I know Stephanie and Hitch are looking for evidence that Grace’s murder is one in a string of serial killings. “But I thought you said Kennedy’s dad took her? That she went with a white guy she seemed to know?”

“That’s what Naomi said, but she never met Kennedy’s daddy.” Marcy sighs and releases my hand. “And you know Naomi. She might have just been covering her skinny butt.”

Naomi was the woman on playground duty at Blessed Hands the day four-year-old Kennedy Grayson disappeared about a year ago, the woman who was promptly fired when Kennedy’s mother tried to sue the day care for negligence. Naomi let the girl leave with a man claiming to be her father without bothering to make him go inside and type in the code required to pick up any of the kids.

A few hours later, the mother, Kelly, also came to pick up her daughter. She lost her mind when she learned Kennedy was gone. She and Kennedy’s father were getting a divorce. Kelly had just given birth to Kennedy’s little brother, a baby boy with dark mocha skin he certainly hadn’t inherited from either of his pale-as-they-come parents. The Graysons were both Caucasian with light hair. Kennedy’s was so blond it was nearly white.

A pale, blond girl who liked sparkles and unicorns, just like Grace.

“So they think a serial killer pretending to be her dad might have taken her?” I ask. “And then come back for Grace?”

“The agent didn’t say anything about a serial killer, but that’s good to know. I was under the impression she thought I might know more about Kennedy going missing than I’d let on. I’m from Lafayette. She seemed to think that was interesting.” The furrow between Marcy’s eyes deepens. She’s worried, though she certainly has no reason to be. Marcy could never hurt a soul. She can’t even kill spiders. She collects them in jars and sets them free near the levee.

Anger burns along my skin. Stephanie can act like I’m enemy number one all she wants—I’ve actually done things to deserve her attitude—but Marcy is one of the best people I know. Playing head games with her is just harassment, plain and simple.

“I’m going to tell that witch to back off.”

Marcy shakes her head, and one finger snaps up to point at my chest. “You’ll do no such thing, Annabelle Lee. You’ll watch your mouth and be respectful to the FBI and kiss tail until you’re out of trouble for this Breeze business.”

Crap. I was hoping Marcy wouldn’t find out about that. “Cane called you?”

Her skin smooths. She loves Cane. She’d never push the way his mother does, but I get a feeling she has her own fantasies about a big wedding and a surrogate grandbaby or two. Marcy doesn’t have any biological kids. Traynell, for all his legendary virility, is shooting blanks. “He did. That boy’s worried about you.”

“He shouldn’t be. I’ll be fine.” And I will be. Hopefully. “I’ve gotta go, the other FBI agent will be out any second and I should be in the car and ready to scoot.”

For a second I feel icky inside for neglecting to tell Marcy that the other agent is Hitch, my old Hitch, the one she’s heard so much about, but never met. I ignore the feeling and head toward the car. There isn’t time for a thorough debriefing, and if Hitch and I decide to keep our past a secret I may be able to avoid spilling my guts altogether.

Even Marcy doesn’t know what wrecked me and Hitch, only bits and pieces of information she pulled from me in the months after. I prefer to keep it that way. I’m honestly not sure what happened that August night.

Was it what little I remembered? What I’d told myself later? Or what Hitch heard floating around the halls of the hospital?

I don’t know. I don’t want to know. It’s better if it all stays buried.

Hopefully Hitch will agree.

“Okay. Be good, be safe,” Marcy says, following me toward the cars. “And come over straight after. You’ve got clothes at our place. You can shower and have something real to eat before you go home.”

“Do I smell that bad?”

“Not a bit. You never do.” Marcy is baffled that my sweat repels fairies. She swears I “don’t smell like a real person.”

It’s true I don’t usually get really foul, but I don’t usually go around with swamp dried in my hair either. It’s nice to get confirmation that I’m not completely repulsive. I couldn’t care less what my ex thinks of me, but we are going to be in a cramped car together. I don’t want to disgust or offend.

“But you look like hell,” Marcy continues, snatching away her scrap of encouragement. “Like you were hung up wet, and you’ve got a sunburn on your nose. Again. It’s red as fire.”

My fingers drift to my nose, where telltale heat throbs beneath the skin. “I forgot my sunscreen.”

“You’re going to get skin cancer, and when you do,” she says, grunting as she lowers herself into Theresa’s car, “I don’t want to hear any complaining about having a hole cut in your face. You were warned. From the time you were—”

“Yeah, yeah. You told me so. ’Bye. Go. Thanks.” I peck her cheek, close her door, and give a wave, breathing easier when she starts the car with a final wag of her finger and pulls out of Dicker’s spot.

Hitch is on his way out of the station, but doesn’t seem to notice who’s driving Theresa’s car. There’s a chance he would recognize Marcy. He saw pictures of her when we lived together and was hurt that I wouldn’t take him home to meet “mama.”

I just … hadn’t wanted to share him with anyone. I never thought about marriage or “forever” or any of those things I probably should have thought about; I just wanted us to be on the same team. In a way, now we are.

Irony. It’s less tasty than usual.

“You ready to get this over with?” he asks, not bothering to look me in the eye as he pulls Cane’s keys from his pocket. His iron suit is folded in a clear plastic tackle box in his other hand.

“Aren’t you going to suit up first?”

“Nope.” He circles around to the driver’s side and places the box in the backseat before sliding into the front.

I open the passenger door, but don’t get in. “We’re going a good way past the fence and it’ll be getting dark soon. Don’t you think—”

“No, I don’t.” His blue eyes meet mine, as cool and unimpressed as they were in the bar. He’s still distant, a stranger. The part of me that hoped this would get easier when it was just the two of us withers and dies. “Get in the car.”

If had been anyone else, at any other time, I would have told him to go f*ck himself.

Instead, I force a smile and get in the car.