href="#litres_trial_promo">CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER ONE
The marshlands off Bayou Lafourche, Louisiana, 1986
SAL COMEAUX GLANCED in the rearview mirror for the fifth time that night and muttered a curse. The child still stared at him with those freaky blue eyes. No longer crying, just gazing into his soul with stabbing accusation.
He clutched the steering wheel tighter, trying to ignore the weight pressing down on him. Guilt. God. Whatever. It threatened to suffocate him. Cold sweat rolled down his back as he searched the inky night for the dirt road. Ten years ago if he’d a blinked, he’d a missed the turn. Much had changed in his life, but one thing was constant—the turn to the Cheramie homestead.
“Almost there,” he said to the void surrounding him, not bothering to look back at the girl.
He felt so alone.
Why had he let Billy Priest talk him into doing something so dadgum stupid? His friend had ulterior motives that had nothing to do with mere money. Billy hated Martin Dufrene. Thought the man responsible for all his problems, for losing his family. Dufrene was a bastard, but he’d not caused Billy’s wife to leave taking their son with her. Her leaving had been a result of Billy’s alcoholism and quick fists—the reason the man had lost his job at the Dufrene mill. “An eye for an eye, and money for us both,” Billy had said, knowing Sal was soft—and that he owed half the bookies in Baton Rouge, guys meaner than a water moccasin and just as dangerous. Self-preservation had won out over loyalty, and Sal had convinced himself no harm would come to the child. He was weak, true, but he was no monster.
He’d not have the child’s blood on his hands.
He risked another look even though the girl’s eyes felt like God’s sitting upon him, like in that damn Gatsby book he’d had to read in eleventh grade. The child’s gaze was steadfast, her small mouth slack, her tear-streaked cheeks pale.
She gave him the creeps.
An old white fence post materialized in the tangled brush beside the dirt road like a specter. Relief flooded him. The old landmark tilted crookedly in the headlights. He hooked a turn left and bumped down the pitted road toward the old house where his grandmere lived.
The place wasn’t welcoming. Old, wooden and leaning like half the stumps in the land surrounding it. Though he couldn’t see it, he knew a tributary of the Bayou Lafourche sprawled behind the old house, a dark ribbon unraveling across lank swamp grass. He loved Mere’s house almost as much as he hated it.
He braked on the crushed shell drive and shut off the headlights of the stolen truck as the screen door cracked an inch or two. Then he saw Pap’s shotgun muzzle appear.
He rolled down the window. “It’s me.”
Moonlight flashed on the metal of the gun. She didn’t lower it. “Who’s ‘me’?”
“Sal.”
The gun disappeared and the door opened. “Why you here? I ain’t seen you since your mama ran off with that Morgan City boy.”
“Sorry, Mere. I—”
“Didn’t need you around here no how, so why you here tonight?” Her voice sounded tired, disinterested. She’d never liked him much, but he was her only known grandson.
He eased out of the truck, mindful Grandmere might decide he wasn’t worth a damn and hoist the shotgun again, but he knew the old woman was his only chance to hide the child until he could figure something out. What, he wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t killing no child and feeding her to the gators. Billy and his threats be damned.
“I got a little girl here.”
His grandmere shut the door and stood in her bare feet and flannel housecoat. Her face sagged in the light of the moon. She’d aged. Life was hard on the bayou and Enola Cheramie wore that life like a badge. “A girl?”
“Yeah, uh, my kid.” He hesitated. Hadn’t thought much more beyond getting the child here. Mere wouldn’t keep no child that wasn’t blood. “Um, my old lady’s strung out, beats the ever-loving shit out of the kid. She tried to kill the girl tonight. Grabbed a—”
“You got a child? Off who?”
“Some gal from Houma. You don’t know her. She’s bat-shit crazy, and I should have never taken up with her. Just need the girl to stay with you for a spell.”
Grandmere shook her head. “I can’t keep no child. I’m still fishing. Got no one to watch her.”
He jerked the girl from the backseat of the cab. She didn’t make a peep. Just allowed herself to be dragged toward the porch. Her hair was tangled and her dress stained with the black dirt of the bayou. He’d tried to do what Billy had wanted. Tried to kill the child. He’d stood holding a trembling gun on her. He wasn’t weak. He’d killed dogs when they’d needed putting down, but this child was different. And she wouldn’t close her eyes. Just looked at him. Like Christ on the crucifix had looked down on him at Our Lady of Prompt Succor. Vacant. Hopeless. And he couldn’t pull the trigger.
So he’d lowered the gun, knowing God spoke to him through the eyes of the child. Knowing he had to find a way to save her and placate Billy. Knowing his own sin would lead to pain.
Enola Cheramie was his only chance for redemption.
The little girl was pretty and barely three years old. No woman, not even a tough, old crane like Enola, could resist a child like this one.
“She’ll go with you. She’s a good girl.” He pushed the child toward his grandmere. The little girl clutched her pink blanket and turned those strange eyes on Mere.
“She don’t look like you” was all his grandmere said before beckoning the child forward.
The girl didn’t move. Just stood unblinking at the foot of the rickety stairs. His grandmere wasn’t much to look at. Wizened like fruit sitting out too long in the sun, with a square face and broad chest. He’d likely not go near her either. He pushed the girl again between her shoulder blades. “Go on. Mere will take care of you.”
“I didn’t say I would,” his grandmere said, but Sal could see it in her eyes. She’d watch over the girl until he could figure out a way to fix what he’d done. What Billy had done.
“I gotta go, Mere. I’ll be back to get her. Don’t let no one know too much about her. They might send her back to her mama and then she’d be as good as dead.”
Enola crept down the steps and reached out for the child. The little girl didn’t move, merely turned her head and watched as the old woman’s hand clamped down on her shoulder. Then the little girl did something surprising. She held her arms out.
Mere lifted the child into her arms.
