After the Night (30 page)

Pure rage began to build, and push aside the grief. Her mother and Guy had created a tangle, twelve years ago, that was still wreaking destruction. Faith had to absolve Renee of any involvement in Mr. Pleasant’s disappearance, since her mother hadn’t known the man existed, but she was still part and parcel of the root cause.

For Faith, deed followed closely on the heels of thought. Furiously she picked up the telephone and dialed her grandmother’s number.

She was thwarted, however, by the endless ringing on the other end. No one was home.

She called four more times before she got an answer, and her grandmother’s cracked voice called Renee to the phone. "Who is it?" she heard Renee ask in the background. "That girl of yourn, the youngest one." "I don’t want to talk to her. Tell her I’m not here." Faith’s hand tightened on the receiver, and her eyes ‘narrowed. She heard her grandmother fumbling with the phone again. She didn’t wait for the parroted excuse. "Tell Mama that if she doesn’t talk to me, I’m going to the sheriff." It was a bluff, at least at this point, but a calculated one. Renee’s response to it would tell her a lot. If her mother didn’t have anything to hide, the bluff wouldn’t work. If she did –

There was a pause as the message was relayed, then more fumbling with the telephone. "What on earth are you talkin’ about, Faithie? What’s the sheriff got to do with anything?" The tone was too bright, too cheerful. "I’m talking about Guy Rouillard. Mama – " "Would you quit harping about Guy Rouillard? I told you, I ain’t seen him."

Faith suppressed the nausea roiling in her stomach, and made her voice more soothing. "I know, Mama. I believe you. But I think something happened to him that night, after you left." Don’t let Mama think she was suspected of anything, or she’d close up tighter than a miser’s purse. "I don’t know nothing about that, and if you’re as smart
 
as you think you are, missy, you’ll stop pokin’ your nose into other folks’ business."

"Where did you meet him that night, Mama?" Faith asked, ignoring the motherly advice.

"I don’t know why you’re so worried about him," Renee said sullenly. "If he’d done what he should, I’d’ve been taken care of. You kids, too," she added as an afterthought. "But he kept puttin’ it off, waiting until Gray was out of school – well, it don’t make no difference now."

"Did you go to the motel? Or did you meet him somewhere else?"

Renee drew in a seething breath. "You’re like a bulldog when you get something on your mind, did you know that? You always were the most stubborn of my kids, so bound and determined to have your way that you’d do what you wanted, even knowin’ your Pa would slap you for it. We met at the summerhouse, where we usually went, if you just have to know! Go nosing around there, and you’ll find out in a hurry that Gray ain’t nearly as easygoin’ as Guy was!"

Faith winced as Renee slammed down the phone, then drew a deep, shaky breath as she replaced her own receiver. Whatever had happened that night, Renee knew about it. Only her own self-interest could stir her to do something she didn’t want to do, so she had a reason for not wanting Faith to talk to the sheriff. Getting her to admit it, however, would take some doing.

It had to be the summerhouse, of course, Faith thought with resignation. Why couldn’t Guy and Renee have rendezvoused at a motel, in keeping with the American tradition? Faith’s memories of the summerhouse were bittersweet, like everything else connected with Gray Rouillard. She didn’t want to see it again, for doing so would remind her too vividly of the child she had been, of the long hours she had spent lurking at the edge of the woods, hoping for a glimpse of Gray. She had lain on her belly in the pine needles and contentedly watched him and his friends swimming in the lake, listened to their boisterous Shouts of laughter, and woven fancy daydreams of one day joining in their fun. Silly dreams. Silly child.

There, too, she had watched Gray making love to Lindsey
Partain. Her stomach tightened now as she thought of it, and her hands curled with an impotent mixture of anger and jealousy. At the time, she had merely thought how beautiful he was. Now, however, she was a woman, with a woman’s needs and desires, and she didn’t want even to think of him making love to another woman, much less see it.

That had been fifteen long years ago, but she could still call up his image in her mind as if it had been yesterday. She could hear his deep, smoky voice murmuring French love words and husky reassurances, see his powerful young body moving between Lindsey’s spread legs.

Damn him. Why had he kissed her, that day in New Orleans? It was one thing to dream of his kisses, and another to know exactly how he tasted, how soft his lips were, how it felt to be in his arms and feel his erection thrusting insistently against her stomach. It was unfair of him to feed her hunger, and then try to use it against her. But then, everything about Gray was unfair. Why couldn’t bis hair have thinned over the years, rather than remaining that thick, vibrant mane? Why couldn’t he have put on weight, developed a beer belly and worn his pants slung low under it, rather than honing down to such lean muscularity, even more finely tuned than during his football days? And even if he hadn’t changed, why couldn’t
she
have, altering enough so that he no longer affected her so violently, or her heart would beat normally in his presence?

Instead, in that respect, she was still the adoring girl who had spent hours, weeks,
months
of her childhood lying on her belly in the woods, her eyes straining for a glimpse of her hero. Not even finding out that her hero could be a ruthless bastard when he wanted had been able to shake that painful
fixation.

She didn’t want to go back to the summerhouse, to the scene of her youthful foolishness. What could she possibly find there, after twelve years? Nothing.

But no one else had looked at it with her eyes. No one had suspected that Guy Rouillard might have spent the last hours of his life there.

Faith growled at herself. She was tired and hungry, after the long drive to New Orleans and back, as well as exhausted
by worry over Mr. Pleasant. She didn’t want to go to the summerhouse, but she had just given herself a convincing argument on why it was necessary. And if she was going, she should do it now, while the afternoon sun was still strong.

She grabbed her keys and stalked out of the house.

The best way to get there, she supposed, was the way she had gone when she’d been eleven. There was a road from the Rouillard house to the lake, but she could hardly take that route. From her younger days of roaming and spying, however, she knew the Rouillard land as well as she knew her own face. She drove to a secluded spot close to the old shack where she had grown up, but when she reached the last curve before the shack would come into view, she stopped the car and sat for a moment, hands gripping the steering wheel. She couldn’t bring herself to drive around the curve. The shack had probably fallen in by now, but that wouldn’t ease her memories. She didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to relive the memories of that night.

Pain was a lump in the middle of her chest, obstructing her breathing, making her eyes burn. She didn’t cry. She had cried for Mr. Pleasant, for Scottie, for Kyle. She hadn’t cried for herself since the night Renee had left.

Well, delaying wouldn’t accomplish anything except putting
off
dinner, and she was already starving. She got out of the car and locked the doors, and dropped the keys into her skirt pocket. Brush grew thickly along the sides of the road, now little more than a track as the vegetation gradually reclaimed the land. She had to pick her way around some briar bushes, but once into the woods, it was fairly easy to walk. She picked up a stick, in case she came across a snake, but she wasn’t at all afraid. She had grown up in these woods, played in them, hidden in them when Amos had been drunk and slinging his fists at anyone who got in his way.

The familiar scents washed over her, fresh and powerful with spring, and she stopped for a moment to absorb them. Her eyes closed so she could concentrate. There was the rich brown scent of the earth, the fresh verdant of leaves, the spicy golden scent of pine sap. She inhaled that last with a little shiver of recognition. Gray’s scent contained a hint of
that golden spice. She would love to have him naked and at her disposal, so she could explore all the shadings of his scent. She would absolutely wallow on him, drunk with delight –

Her eyes popped open. The telltale wanning of her body told her where that particular fantasy had been going. It was coming back here that had done it; in her mind, the smells of the forest were inextricably linked with Gray: the hope of seeing him, the fizzing joy of seeing him.

Resolutely she walked on. If she didn’t get him out of her mind, she’d find herself lying on her stomach in the pine needles at the edge of the woods, completely reverted to childhood.

The walk to the lake wasn’t a long one, about twenty minutes. The forest had changed, of course; time didn’t stand still with trees any more than it did with people. She had to pick her way around obstacles that hadn’t been there before, and old landmarks were missing, but still she knew her way with the accuracy of a homing pigeon.

She approached the summerhouse from the angle she always had, from the back and right side. From there she could see the dock, and a corner of the boathouse. Once she had prayed to see a Corvette parked in front, but now she was just as glad not to see a Jaguar there. It would have been too ironic for Gray to appear. Thank God he had business concerns now, and didn’t have the luxury of spending long, lazy days swimming and fishing.

Time had laid its hand on the summerhouse, too. It wasn’t dilapidated, Gray had kept it up, but an air of disuse had fallen over it. Things that had regular human use wore a certain sheen of accomplishment, a sheen that the summerhouse no longer possessed. There was a subtle reverse of order. Before, the grass had always been neatly manicured, and though the yard wasn’t overgrown with weeds now, it still showed a certain roughness that said it had been over a week since the grass had been cut. On the other hand, the summerhouse had always been littered with the flotsam of human habitation, and now it was
too
neat, without the activity that had kept it cluttered and alive.

She went up the back steps, the same steps where she had crouched to listen to Gray making love to Lindsey Partain. The screen door to the porch wasn’t latched, and creaked a little as she opened it. The sound made her smile, so woven was it into the days of her childhood.

For all the difficulties, she hadn’t had a horrible childhood. Much of it had been downright enjoyable, rich with fantasy, especially the long hours spent exploring the woods. She had waded in creeks, caught crawdads with her bare hands, marveled at the delicate tracery of a leaf held up to the sun. She had never had a bicycle, but she’d had fresh air and blue skies, the anticipation of turning over a rotting log to see how many insects and worms it hid. She had eaten wild berries straight off the bush, found the occasional arrowhead, and painstakingly constructed her own bow and arrow from a green limb, old fishing line, and sharpened sticks. The joys of all those things had created a reserve of strength for her to draw on when times were bad.

The boards of the porch creaked beneath her feet as she crossed to the back door. In the old days, there had been several rocking chairs scattered about the porch, for the enjoyment of fine summer nights. All swimming and fishing paraphernalia was supposed to have been kept in the boathouse, but somehow bits of it had always been lying about on the porch: an inner tube that needed patching, a fishing rod, an assortment of lures, hooks, and floats. Now, however, the porch was empty, no longer a place for rowdy teenagers and rendezvousing adults.

She walked to the window where she had watched Gray and Lindsey making love; the room was empty now, the hardwood floors bare and coated with a light layer of dust. She stood for a moment, remembering that long-ago summer day, gilded with the magic of childhood.

Turning away, she tried the back door, and was surprised when the knob twisted easily in her hand. She had never been inside the summerhouse. The closest she had ever been was on the porch, that one time. She stepped into the kitchen, looking around with interest. Once there had been a refrigerator and stove, for empty spaces and the electrical
connections marked where they had stood. She opened the cabinet doors and drawers, but they were all empty. Each sound echoed through the bare rooms.

Everything was clean enough, without the smell of mice, though it had obviously been a couple of weeks since the last cleaning. As she wandered into the other rooms, she saw that none of the light fixtures sported so much as a single light bulb. There was a small closet in each of the two bedrooms, and she looked in both of them. Nothing, not even a single clothes hanger. The summerhouse was completely empty.

Which one of the bedrooms had Renee and Guy used? It didn’t matter; there was nothing to be found here, no interesting nooks or crannies where a body could have been hidden. There was absolutely nothing suspicious about the house. Any evidence had long since been swept away, mopped up, or painted over. She wondered that there wasn’t any sign of vagrants, considering the house was unlocked, but since it was in the middle of Rouillard land, she supposed there weren’t many passersby.

There was still the boathouse to check, though she didn’t really expect to find anything. She had come only to satisfy herself that she had done everything possible to find out what had happened to Guy, and Mr. Pleasant. Leaving by the front door, she walked down to the dock. Both the dock and boathouse were set at an angle to the house, slightly to the left, positioned on the curve of a small slough. Since she had been here last, twelve years ago, vegetation had been allowed to grow over the banks. Young willow trees, growing in clumps along the lake’s edge, had matured to provide much more shade and cover than she remembered. Once there had been an almost unobstructed view of the lake, except for the boathouse, but now saplings and bushes had taken advantage of the subtle neglect to sink their roots into the rich soil.