Dead on the Delta (13 page)

“That’s what Naomi said, but she never met Kennedy’s daddy.” Marcy sighs and releases my hand. “And you know Naomi. She might have just been covering her skinny butt.”

Naomi was the woman on playground duty at Blessed Hands the day four-year-old Kennedy Grayson disappeared about a year ago, the woman who was promptly fired when Kennedy’s mother tried to sue the day care for negligence. Naomi let the girl leave with a man claiming to be her father without bothering to make him go inside and type in the code required to pick up any of the kids.

A few hours later, the mother, Kelly, also came to pick up her daughter. She lost her mind when she learned Kennedy was gone. She and Kennedy’s father were getting a divorce. Kelly had just given birth to Kennedy’s little brother, a baby boy with dark mocha skin he certainly hadn’t inherited from either of his pale-as-they-come parents. The Graysons were both Caucasian with light hair. Kennedy’s was so blond it was nearly white.

A pale, blond girl who liked sparkles and unicorns, just like Grace.

“So they think a serial killer pretending to be her dad might have taken her?” I ask. “And then come back for Grace?”

“The agent didn’t say anything about a serial killer, but that’s good to know. I was under the impression she thought I might know more about Kennedy going missing than I’d let on. I’m from Lafayette. She
seemed to think that was interesting.” The furrow between Marcy’s eyes deepens. She’s worried, though she certainly has no reason to be. Marcy could never hurt a soul. She can’t even kill spiders. She collects them in jars and sets them free near the levee.

Anger burns along my skin. Stephanie can act like I’m enemy number one all she wants—I’ve actually done things to deserve her attitude—but Marcy is one of the best people I know. Playing head games with her is just harassment, plain and simple.

“I’m going to tell that witch to back off.”

Marcy shakes her head, and one finger snaps up to point at my chest. “You’ll do no such thing, Annabelle Lee. You’ll watch your mouth and be respectful to the FBI and kiss tail until you’re out of trouble for this Breeze business.”

Crap.
I was hoping Marcy wouldn’t find out about that. “Cane called you?”

Her skin smooths. She loves Cane. She’d never push the way his mother does, but I get a feeling she has her own fantasies about a big wedding and a surrogate grandbaby or two. Marcy doesn’t have any biological kids. Traynell, for all his legendary virility, is shooting blanks. “He did. That boy’s worried about you.”

“He shouldn’t be. I’ll be fine.” And I will be. Hopefully. “I’ve gotta go, the other FBI agent will be out any second and I should be in the car and ready to scoot.”

For a second I feel icky inside for neglecting to tell Marcy that the other agent is Hitch,
my
old Hitch,
the one she’s heard so much about, but never met. I ignore the feeling and head toward the car. There isn’t time for a thorough debriefing, and if Hitch and I decide to keep our past a secret I may be able to avoid spilling my guts altogether.

Even Marcy doesn’t know what wrecked me and Hitch, only bits and pieces of information she pulled from me in the months after. I prefer to keep it that way. I’m honestly not sure what happened that August night.

Was it what little I remembered? What I’d told myself later? Or what Hitch heard floating around the halls of the hospital?

I don’t know. I don’t want to know. It’s better if it all stays buried.

Hopefully Hitch will agree.

“Okay. Be good, be safe,” Marcy says, following me toward the cars. “And come over straight after. You’ve got clothes at our place. You can shower and have something real to eat before you go home.”

“Do I smell that bad?”

“Not a bit. You never do.” Marcy is baffled that my sweat repels fairies. She swears I “don’t smell like a real person.”

It’s true I don’t usually get really foul, but I don’t usually go around with swamp dried in my hair either. It’s nice to get confirmation that I’m not completely repulsive. I couldn’t care less what my ex thinks of me, but we
are
going to be in a cramped car together. I don’t want to disgust or offend.

“But you look like hell,” Marcy continues, snatching away her scrap of encouragement. “Like you were hung up wet, and you’ve got a sunburn on your nose. Again. It’s red as fire.”

My fingers drift to my nose, where telltale heat throbs beneath the skin. “I forgot my sunscreen.”

“You’re going to get skin cancer, and when you do,” she says, grunting as she lowers herself into Theresa’s car, “I don’t want to hear any complaining about having a hole cut in your face. You were warned. From the time you were—”

“Yeah, yeah. You told me so. ’Bye. Go. Thanks.” I peck her cheek, close her door, and give a wave, breathing easier when she starts the car with a final wag of her finger and pulls out of Dicker’s spot.

Hitch is on his way out of the station, but doesn’t seem to notice who’s driving Theresa’s car. There’s a chance he would recognize Marcy. He saw pictures of her when we lived together and was hurt that I wouldn’t take him home to meet “mama.”

I just … hadn’t wanted to share him with anyone. I never thought about marriage or “forever” or any of those things I probably should have thought about; I just wanted us to be on the same team. In a way, now we are.

Irony. It’s less tasty than usual.

“You ready to get this over with?” he asks, not bothering to look me in the eye as he pulls Cane’s keys from his pocket. His iron suit is folded in a clear plastic tackle box in his other hand.

“Aren’t you going to suit up first?”

“Nope.” He circles around to the driver’s side and places the box in the backseat before sliding into the front.

I open the passenger door, but don’t get in. “We’re going a good way past the fence and it’ll be getting dark soon. Don’t you think—”

“No, I don’t.” His blue eyes meet mine, as cool and unimpressed as they were in the bar. He’s still distant, a stranger. The part of me that hoped this would get easier when it was just the two of us withers and dies. “Get in the car.”

If had been anyone else, at any other time, I would have told him to go fuck himself.

Instead, I force a smile and get in the car.

I
sit in the strained silence
for ten long minutes, determined not to be the first one to break it. We’re nearly to the gate when Hitch speaks. “I read your file today. The entire thing. It took twenty minutes.”

“Glad it didn’t suck up too much time.”

“You haven’t been promoted once in five years. Isn’t that unusual in your line of work?”

He knows damned well my job is reserved for the newest FCC recruits, a way to pay their dues for a year or so before they’re advanced to cushier jobs at the ports or the camps or the occasional research facility. If the person in question has a college degree and any kind of medical training, it’s a no-brainer they’ll be on the fast track to ruling a research facility.

The U.S. government isn’t the only employer for the immune. There are other countries running investigative operations in the Delta, each wanting to be the first to unlock the secrets of the creatures who’ve hidden among us for thousands of years. I’ve
been approached by representatives from France and Brazil, but I told them both no thanks. I don’t want to rule the world or even a research facility. I just want to scoop shit in peace and go home to a cold beer or four.

But Hitch will never understand. He works even harder than he plays. He’s driven, in the way that makes people captains of industry or Peace Prize winners or eventually eats them alive and leaves them drooling in a corner.

“It
would
be unusual,” I say. “If I’d applied for a promotion.”

“And you’ve been passed over for two pay increases. Because of habitual lateness? If I was reading between the lines correctly?”

“You probably were.” I shrug. “I make enough money.”

I make more than twenty average D’Ville residents combined, but you’d never know it from the way I live. I don’t need the excess. I grew up with an entire floor of a house to myself and unlimited charging privileges. I know firsthand that money doesn’t buy happiness. Or safety.

Speaking of safety …

“Do you want to put your suit on before we go through?” I ask, as Hitch brakes in front of the gate.

“Nope.” He hits the button on the dash, the automobile portion of the boundary tilts upwards, and we drive through the iron mesh at the mandated five miles per hour. The mesh slithers across the hood and
over our heads, scratching like a hundred tiny fingernails. “I’m assuming we’re going right.”

“Right for about a mile. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

He nods. “So what happened to all the ambition?”

“It became more environmentally friendly.”

“Like your bike?”

There’s the smart-ass. I’d known it was coming. It’s almost a relief to hear the derision in his tone. The pleasant neutrality was hurtfully impersonal.

“Let’s talk about you,” I say, shifting in my seat, giving him my full attention. “Do you have a death wish? Or has the FBI developed some kind of vaccine I don’t know about because—”

“No death wish, no vaccine. I don’t plan on getting out of the car.”

“You don’t plan on getting out of the car?” I’d considered that he wouldn’t have to, but assumed he’d at least want to be prepared.

“Nope.” It’s his turn to shrug. “This is your mess, you should clean it up. It’ll be dark by the time we get there and I’d rather check out the Breeze house during the day when I can see something. I’ll come back suited up tomorrow.”

“So why’d we waste time going back for your suit?”

“I didn’t want an innocent man risking his life,” he says, giving no sign that he realizes the “innocent man” is
my
man or that he cares one way or the other. “And I needed my guns.”

“How are you going to shoot someone from inside the car?”

He sighs. “I think we both know there’s not going to be anyone there to shoot.”

“We do?”

“If this woman had friends they either untied her and got the hell out of town, or left her there and got the hell out of town. They’re going to know they’ve been discovered and react accordingly.”

“Right. Because Breeze heads
always
react the way they should.” My eye roll is so intense my head gets involved. “Are you the same man who spent a year in the ER? Because I know you’ve seen your share of—”

“No, I’m not,” he says, his words shutting me down as thoroughly as he knew they would. “I’m a different person, and I’d appreciate it if you’d respect that.”

“The way you’ve respected my differences?”

“I wouldn’t call being a drunk and lousy at your job respect-worthy differences.”

My jaw clenches, but I manage a soft laugh. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know what I read, what I see.” He casts a look exquisite in its disdain toward my side of the car.

It’s all I can do not to run my hand through my hair, straighten my stained tank top, do something to make myself less repugnant. Instead, I search the road ahead, breathing in and out through my nose, fighting not to say things I’ll regret.

“Pull over. Park at the end of the gravel.” I point to a stretch of dry land that reaches further into the
water than most. I should be able to see the Breeze house from …

Yep. There it is, floating among the gnarled branches, gray clapboard sides nearly black in the fading light, tiny windows as flat and empty as fairy eyes.

“That’s it?” he asks. I nod. “I don’t see—”

“We won’t be able to see her from here. I pulled her around to a dry patch on the other side.” I’m pretty sure that’s where I put her. I pray so, anyway.

As I grab my flashlight from my bag, I honestly
do
pray for the first time in a long time, sending out a promise to suck less at everything if God will help me find this woman and let her be okay. Or as okay as when I found her.

“Guess you’d better get going,” Hitch says. “Unless you’ve got something you’d like to share with the class.”

I take a deep breath. “No, nothing to share. I just guess I’d rather be a drunk than a condescending asshole.”

Hitch smiles, a stiff curve of his lips I can barely make out in the near dark. “I’d rather be a condescending asshole.”

“Clearly.” I hit my seat belt and reach for the door, but pause to check for fairies.

None have dared get close to the iron-plated car, but the rest of the dusky bayou is aglow with orbs swooping through the air, their reflections dancing in the still water beneath. It’s beautiful, like a house
fire or a tornado writhing in the sky. There are times when you can’t help appreciating something, no matter how deadly it is.

I pause a second too long, and Hitch lets out a frustrated sigh.

“If you really think you’re in danger, you can have one of my guns. I have two.”

I turn, surprised to see the handle of his semi-automatic hovering near my face. “Am I supposed to be carrying an FBI weapon?”

“I don’t care.”

“I thought you were a big rule follower these days.”

“Sometimes. Sometimes not.” The gun inches closer. “If it will make you feel safer to have a gun, take it. I know you know how to use it.”

It’s not much of an opening, but I could try to make this lead into a chat about how much of what we know about each other we’re going to admit to in our new, shared workplace. But I can’t muster the gumption. Hitch is sending me out into the bayou alone. He isn’t even going to suit up so he’ll be ready in the unlikely event I need backup. He doesn’t care if I live or die. He volunteered to come out here solely to spare the life of a stranger.

If that isn’t confirmation that he’d just as soon forget he ever knew my name, I don’t know what is.

“Thanks.” I take the gun, but keep my eyes lowered. I don’t want him to see that he’s hurt me. Again. “If the fairies get too close, turn on the lights up top.” I gesture toward the control on the dashboard. “They
don’t like the white and blue.” Police lights are no longer red. Red attracts fairies.