RUBY
I stared hard at the door of my cousin’s private investigation office before I knocked. For the past few years I had walled out my family, pretending I was an orphan or maybe someone who’d been knocked in the head and had forgotten who she was.
Because I had wanted to forget who I was.
The Balthazars had a reputation, even if some of them, like Griff, had managed to escape the shit stain of our birth. This particular cousin, Josh “Juke” Jefferson, had done okay for himself; well, for a while, anyway. That was because he’d married up to a woman who toed the line and made sure he did, too. He’d gone to the police academy as if to thumb his nose at the criminals in his family and had lived a good, upstanding life down south until his wife had gotten cancer and had the gall to die. That had been three years ago, and Juke had drowned his sorrows for months, eventually crashing his cruiser and getting dismissed from the force. Without a job or purpose for living, he’d headed home and hung out a shingle in north Shreveport, vowing to catch secretaries who stole petty cash and deadbeat dads who didn’t pay child support. So far he’d managed to complete a few dozen cases and drink his liver into early retirement. My gran had relayed the fact that Juke had been told by his doctor to quit the hooch or die.
I hoped he’d chosen the former, but I was fairly certain meeting his maker didn’t scare Juke.
So even though I’d promised I was done with being a Balthazar, here I stood, prepared to bring another back into my life. All thanks to Cricket.
Thing was, my boss needed to get her shit together, and if that meant asking another one of my cousins for help, then I would do it. Because running a business wasn’t as fun as it seemed. And I had been captaining the ship that was Printemps for far too long. Okay, it was only a little over a week, give or take a few hours, but I didn’t like haggling with old birds who saw imaginary scratches on their console tables, and I hated dealing with jerks in France who delayed shipments for a third time.
Stupid Gaston.
His name wasn’t Gaston, but the jerkface acted like that fictional blowhard, so that’s what I called him. Admittedly, I also had an issue with pronouncing his real name.
I turned the knob on the battle-scarred door and tried not to glance yet again at the sign for the bar below Juke’s office. The Bullpen had only been open for six months, but it seemed to be doing a steady business. And I couldn’t stop darting glances at it. Just in case another piece of my past popped out to toss a bag into the dumpster or something. I was certain that the place was successful because half the crowd came to see Dak’s dimples. The other half came to talk about his time as an all-American catcher for the LSU Tigers. That he’d played with the Yankees wasn’t nearly as interesting as reliving his home run in Omaha the year the Tigers won the championship. This was Louisiana. LSU reigned supreme.
The doorknob to Juke’s office was sticky, and the dank air that wafted out as I entered North Star Investigations made me wrinkle my nose. I had to focus on the task at hand—getting Cricket someone who could prove Scott was a dirtbag. Surely Juke could manage snapping a few incriminating pictures. Tangible proof of adultery. Then Cricket would be golden for nailing his cheating ass.
Therefore, I could not be distracted by the guy I had once loved who was probably downstairs slinging beers.
Focus.
“Hello?” I called out. There was no one at the desk occupying the middle of the office. If it was a desk. Stacks of scattered papers, a bulky computer, and a collection of coffee mugs pointed in that direction, but I couldn’t actually see the desktop. In the wastebasket next to the scarred wooden leg, I could glimpse what I assumed were empty whiskey bottles.
Not a good sign.
“Juke?” I called, eyeing the only other door, which was closed.
A resulting crash and several colorful curse words came from within. After a few seconds of thumping, a toilet flushed. Five seconds later, my cousin Juke stumbled out, looking like something that slept in an alley.
I could see he didn’t recognize me, but why would he? The last time I’d seen him had been at Loralee’s funeral, and he had looked totally out of it. And since I had been fresh out of Long Pines Women’s Correctional with shorter hair and eyes that had seen too much, I didn’t expect him to clue in that I was his baby cousin.
He narrowed glassy eyes at me. “Help ya?”
“Maybe.”
Juke shuffled over to a creaky rolling desk chair and sort of fell into it. He huffed as he sat, deflated like a week-old Mylar balloon. He motioned toward one of the two wooden chairs, likely swiped from my pawpaw’s shed, and said, “Okay, whatcha got?”
“Well, first. I’m Ruby.”
“Yeah. So?” He tented his hands across his expanding waistline. Juke was in his forties. I think. And he totally didn’t know who I was. Which could work to my advantage. I could keep the distance between me and my family. But Griff’s towing business was pretty much next door. Might as well be up front.
“I’m your cousin,” I clarified, sitting gingerly on the chair. “Leta and Bobby’s daughter.”
Juke made a squinty face. “Ruby? I thought you were, like, twelve years old.”
“Um, no. Let me refresh your memory. You were at my trial. Ed Earl. The meth. Me getting time for distribution.”
His vision cleared. “Oh. Yeah. You totally got hosed, but you had a shit lawyer. Eunice should have sprung for Morris Gatlin. You wouldn’t have served time. So what you doin’ here? I could have sworn Eunice told Mama you’d changed your name and turned your back on the fam.”
Eunice was my grandmother, and she was fairly close to Juke’s mother, my great-aunt Jean. Juke’s mama wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but she made a mean buttermilk pie and knew how to get any stain out of any fabric. She liked to knit and had taught me how to make scarves when I was ten years old. Between Jean and my gran, I had learned tatting, embroidery, and how to sew pleats, hems, and zippers into the dresses I made. “I did. Change my name, that is. And I have been avoiding the family, everyone except Gran. Betrayal makes the heart grow brittle.”
“Eh,” Juke said, nodding as if he understood. “So . . . ?”
“My boss needs an investigator.”
“So why isn’t she here instead?”
Good question.
I cleared my throat. “Because she’s too busy crying buckets and pretending her husband isn’t boinking her daughter’s tennis coach.”
“Man, it’s always the tennis coach.” Juke said it like it was a fact.
“Is it?” I asked.