to almost kill her?
Cyrus touched his back, letting him know he’d seen the same thing and had his own thoughts.
“Did Caruthers stop the bleeding?” Cyrus asked. “I should like to tell him how grateful we all are.”
“He did it,” Edith said. “He’s so strong. Laura told me all about it. He did it with his hands and told Laura to call for help. When I started to come to, Caruthers was still gripping my arm. It hurt so much. He’s a very strong man.”
The very strong man was nowhere to be seen.
“He’s on an errand for me,” Preston said to Cyrus. “I’ll give him your regards when he gets back.”
Guy nodded. He couldn’t take his eyes from Edith’s left arm. He’d been around enough lowlifes to know needle tracks when he saw them. Cyrus’s fingers pressed slightly harder on his back.
At least the tracks didn’t look fresh.
How had Edith got from the bathroom to the bed without dripping blood everywhere on the light-colored carpets? Surly she wouldn’t shave her legs on the bed. If he didn’t think Jilly would accuse him of deliberately making trouble, he’d suggest contacting Spike. As long as Edith continued to improve, Guy decided he’d keep his mouth shut.
She kept on smiling, apparently oblivious of a new and chilly atmosphere in the room.
Cyrus’s cell phone rang, and as usual, it took him a couple of seconds to realize he’d got a call. “Excuse me,” he said, and left the room.
“Father Cyrus Payne here,” he said, looking over the banisters into the hall below, where the front door stood wide open.
“This is Spike. Madge said I should get in touch with you in case you know where Jilly is.”
“She’s here,” Cyrus said, keeping his voice down. “We’re at Edwards Place.”
“Why?”
“Mind if we discuss that later?”
“No, but we can’t put off what I’m dealing with. I wish Joe was in town. I’m at Jilly’s place.”
Cyrus looked at the door to Edith’s bedroom. “Her house? Why?”
“No, All Tarted Up. Folks across the street called…oh, shit! Keep her out of here.” Spike talked to someone in the background.
“What?” Cyrus said. A man walked into the hall below, his face shadowed by the brim of his fedora. He shut the door and strode toward the back of the house, but not without feeling around in his pocket for a scrap of paper, spitting out his gum and tossing it into a tall Dresden vase.
Spike hadn’t answered, although Cyrus could hear voices and shouts in the background.
“You there, Spike?”
He told Cyrus he was, and added, “That Lee O’Brien from the Trumpet’s showed up and she doesn’t hear the word no.” He coughed. “I need Jilly over here. You should come with her. This isn’t pleasant.”
“Just tell me about it.” Sometimes he got irritated when people tried to soften things for him. “Guy’s here, too, by the way.”
“Fine. Bring him with you. How about the Preston men?”
“Also here.”
“I should speak to Preston himself but I want to wait on that. At least for now.”
“Spike, would you spit it out?”
“Right. There’s a body in the yard behind Jilly’s café. It’s pretty fresh.
9
“Did you do it?”
Laura closed the bedroom door and gave a smile her best shot. “I haven’t—no, I can’t do it.” Wes was an angel, a tough angel and her drug of choice. And even after she’d been married to him for seven years he could still frighten her. “Everyone’s gone but one of the nurses.”
Wes gave her an open-handed slap on the shoulder and sent her sprawling over the shoes he’d taken off and onto the floor by the bed.
She could tell him Daddy would punish him if he knew, and she’d be right, but Wes would only beat her in places that didn’t show until she was too cowed to fight back.
The anticipation made her shiver. They danced to different beats. Wes got off on pushing her around, then turning into a whimpering puppy. Fortunately, Laura preferred the opposite scenario.
The perfect couple.
He kicked her hip. “Don’t look at me like that. I gave you one little job to do and, as usual, you let me down. I hate the sight of you. It’s about time you stopped dyeing your hair red. It makes you look so old.”
“I don’t dye it.”
“What’s so hard about paying someone off and making sure you’ve got enough on ’em so they never come back—or talk out of school?”
Wes was a looker and he knew it. He swaggered, even at times like now when he was barefoot and wearing nothing but a pair of black bikini briefs.
She made herself look straight into his green eyes. “If it’s so easy, why don’t you do it?”
He kicked her again.
Laura curled her legs tightly. She’d have blood-filled bruises by morning.
The membership in a high-class New Orleans gym, a personal trainer who worked Wes over every day, and lifetime access to a tanning bed kept him bulked up and bronzed. When he smiled, he flashed white teeth. He kept his dark brown hair cut short and carefully gelled up to camouflage a thinning area.
“Give her money,” Wes said. “I already said you could have as much as it takes. It’ll be a lot less than you think because there’s no way she understands what she could get. You’ve seen how he is with her. I want her out of our lives before he gets into her pants, and she gets into the will.”
“I don’t believe she would sleep with him. She’s got other interests.” And Laura also thought Jilly had a real honor and honesty about her.
“What other interests?”
“Some man who works for Homer Devol out at the gas station.”
Wes laughed. He stood close to Laura, close enough that the toes of his right foot slid easily upward, between her thighs to her butt, then forward where he could always get a reaction.
She didn’t try to stop him.
“A gas jockey is going to hold her interest when Daddy waves the big green bills in front of her face?” he said. “I don’t think so. In fact I’d put money on my Daddy fuckin’ her whenever he decides the moment is right. And she’ll be good. She’s got that thing about her. You
