Dead on the Delta (12 page)

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 asshole 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?”