Final Justice (26 page)

"No, that would only cause the families more grief to find out about it, and there'd be no way we could keep him out of jail once they did. There would also be lawsuits that would send you into bankruptcy."

"I'm so sorry, Luke. So very, very sorry. I know you think I'm a coward, a weakling, but you don't have to live with Hardy. He can be real mean when he wants to be."

And mean men rape helpless women,
Luke thought with a flash of rage.

"I'm ready to make atonement for my sin of neglect," she said with finality. "Just tell me how I can help."

* * *

In the privacy of his office, Luke dialed the laundromat. Emma Jean answered on the first ring, and he wondered if she had been waiting for him to call since he hadn't been around for several days. Not bothering with preliminaries, he asked if she could talk.

"Yes. But just for a minute. Bert took the trash out. He'll be back any second."

"Can you see him?"

"Yes. Through the window. He just got to the barrels."

"I wanted to see how you're doing."
I wanted to hear your voice.

"I'm fine. But where have you been?"

"I had a meeting out of town, and I've got to leave again to take care of some business and probably won't be back till late tomorrow. What shift is Rudy working next week?"

"Graveyard, eleven to seven."

"Can you meet me someplace Monday night?"

"I don't dare. He checks my mileage."

"I can run it back."

"I don't know. I'm scared. I mean, what if somebody sees me out that time of night? It might get back to Rudy."

"You're probably right."

There was silence as they pondered the situation, then Emma Jean suggested, "Could you come by? You know, pull around back after midnight? We could sit on the porch and talk like we did before."

"Sure, but I think it's only fair to warn you I've got something on my mind besides sipping KoolAid."

Suddenly, she hung up, and he was left to wonder whether someone had walked up on her or if what he had said had scared her off. Maybe, when it came right down to it, she was afraid to fool around. And he couldn't blame her if she were. He just wished she hadn't led him to believe otherwise because, not only did he feel like a fool, he also realized just how much he had been looking forward to being with her. But there was no time to dwell on it now. It was payback time for Hardy Moon, and there was work to be done.

Chapter 15

Luke could tell Lucy was nervous by the way she glanced all around to see if anyone was watching as she crossed the street to where he was parked.

"Don't look so scared," he said when she stood next to the open window on his side of the car. "We've been speaking to each other for years. No one will think anything about it."

"We've never talked about anything like this." She shuddered. "I feel so awful. I want it over with, Luke."

"After tonight, it will be. Are there any bodies at the funeral home now?"

"No. It's been real quiet, praise the Lord."

"Let's hope it stays that way. Now, like I told you on the phone, I want you to go to bed early and ignore anything you might hear later tonight. Understand?"

"I wish you'd tell me what you plan to do."

"It's best you don't know. Just do as I say, and everything will be fine."

As she walked away, Luke wondered if it were his imagination or if she actually had a little spring to her step. Maybe she was thinking how decency was about to be restored to her family heritage. It was Tuesday afternoon, and he had just got back to town. He knew he was going to catch holy hell from Alma so he was in no hurry to go home.

He stopped by the office. Kirby had left for the day, but Matt was still there and asked about the deep-sea fishing trip. That was the story Luke had made up for leaving so sudden, how his friend in Mobile had called to say he'd had a last minute cancellation on a planned outing and, if Luke could get down there fast, he could take the guy's place. Luke didn't care whether anybody believed it or not. He had to go, had to get everything ready to
bring the hammer down.

"Didn't catch a thing," Luke said. "So were things quiet while I was away?" He began to shuffle through the mail: wanted posters, law enforcement journals.

"Afraid not. Rudy Veazey and Buck Haynie got drunk and had a fight at the grill, and Rudy laid Buck's head wide-open with a tire iron."

"Did you lock him up?" Luke was quick to ask. He shuddered to think of Rudy going home to Emma Jean till he sobered up.

"Yeah, but I had to let him go the next morning because Buck didn't press charges. You know how these rednecks are. They like to settle things their way. Maybe they'll wind up killing each other."

"We'll never be that lucky."

"That wife of Rudy's was sure scared. She was shaking like a dog caught pissin' on the rug. She calmed down, though, when she saw I was gonna lock him up. Guess she was afraid he'd continue the fight with her."

Matt was heading for the door. Luke pretended to be focused on the mail as he casually asked, "Do you know where they'd been?"

"Probably that honky-tonk in Talladega."

"That's a breeding ground for trouble. A lot of affairs get started there, husbands dancing with other men's wives, flirting and making plans to meet on some back road."

Matt laughed. "What do you care? You don't ever go there."

"And I don't plan to, either," Luke retorted gruffly.

"So what are you so fired up about?"

"I'm not. It doesn't matter."

But Luke knew it
did
matter, a lot, only he wasn't going to let Matt know that. Neither was he going to confide how it burned his guts to think that blasted dance was what got Rudy stirred up to beat Emma Jean so bad she'd lost her baby. That had been a blessing in disguise because she had no business having a baby by that jerk. Hell, she didn't have any business being married to him at all. Just like he didn't have any business being married to Alma, except for Tammy, who would grow up and leave home, and then what was he going to have? Not a damn thing.

So he needed to hurry up and do what he had come back to do and get the hell out of Hampton, Alabama, once and for all before he wound up in bed with Emma Jean Veazey and then had to kill Rudy if he ever found out about it.

"Luke, are you okay?"

Luke shook his head to clear it from the demons tormenting. "Yeah, I'm fine. Take off."

Luke waited till Ned arrived, then decided to go home and face Alma and get it over with. He had a few hours to kill, anyway, because he didn't want to go to the funeral home till late.

With his hands gripping the steering wheel, he told himself not to drive by the laundromat but, at the last minute, yielded to temptation.

She was coming out the back door, and he slowed at the sight of her. There were no other cars around, no customers. The "closed" sign hung at a front window.

She saw him and froze.

Their gazes locked in question.

Time seemed to stand still, then she motioned he should follow her. She got in her car, drove to the corner, and turned in the opposite direction of the way she usually went to go home.

He stayed a discreet distance behind till she got out of town and turned off on a little used road. He then hit the switch to send the blue light on the top of the patrol car swirling.

Obediently, Emma Jean eased onto the shoulder of the road. He pulled in behind her and got out, trying to look very official should anybody pass by. It was taking a chance. If Rudy heard she'd been pulled over, he'd wonder what she was doing at this end of the county. But right then Luke didn't care because all he was thinking of was how they were going to have a minute alone together.

By the time he got to her car, she had rolled down her window and was waiting to tease, "Oh, officer, I didn't realize how fast I was going. You aren't going to give me a ticket, are you?" She batted her eyelashes at him and giggled.

Luke played along and pulled his ticket pad out of his hip pocket. "I'm afraid I might have to, miss, unless you'd like to pay it off now."

"Pay it off?"

"Yeah. You can do it here instead of at the magistrate's office. What do you say?"

"Well, it depends. What's it going to cost me?"

"This."

He leaned down and touched his mouth to hers, parting her lips with his tongue to plunge deep. She responded with a fervent hunger of her own, reaching out to clutch his shoulders and pull him closer.

Finally, breathlessly, he pulled away to swear, "Damn, you tear me up, woman."

"That's what I want to do," she admitted with candor, "and I don't care how wrong it is, Luke. The way I see it, I've got a right to a little happiness."

He saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes and knew she had not acted out of mere impulse. Like him, she'd given it a lot of thought. "Then why did you hang up on me the other day?"

"Bert came back inside. I got to listening to you and wasn't watching, and if I'd said another word, he'd have heard me."

"I thought maybe it was because of what I said."

She blinked, not remembering.

"About wanting to do something besides drink KoolAid."

Her soft, warm laugh was like a caress. "I don't have a problem with that, sheriff. I don't have a problem at all."

Glancing up and down the road to make sure no cars were coming, he opened her door. "Only God knows how bad I want you, girl." He began to move his lips over her face, her neck, licking the salty sweetness of her. She smelled of lint and dry cleaning fluid and soap and water softener, and he gloried in it.

"And I want you, Luke, like I've never wanted a man before in my whole life. Tell me it's not wrong," she begged. "I mean, I know we're both married, but I can't help feeling like I do about you. You've been such a friend..."

"I always will be."

"Rudy goes to work at eleven tonight. Can you come by?"

"Yeah, but it might be real late." He took out his handkerchief and rubbed her lipstick off his mouth. He'd have to throw it away.

Emma Jean knew what he was thinking and took it from him. "I'll wash it at work tomorrow."

He snatched it back. "No, you won't. Rudy might find it and see it's not his." He kissed her one last time. "I'll see you later on tonight. Keep an eye out for me because I'll kill my lights as soon as I turn off the road."

She watched in the mirror as he returned to his car, loving the way his uniform pants cupped his rear end. He probably had the cutest butt she'd ever seen on a man. She pressed her fingertips to her lips. He could kiss good, too.

And she knew from eleven o'clock on, she'd be perched in a window like an owl in a tree, waiting for him to show up. She just hoped nothing happened to keep him away, or that he wouldn't change his mind. But he'd be there. Luke Ballard was a
cockhound.
That's what Wanda Potts had told her the day she brought her waitress uniforms in to wash, and Emma Jean had managed to bring up Luke's name without looking obvious because she wanted to know if he messed around any at the grill.

"He's good looking, all right," Wanda had said dreamily, a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth. "I've had my eye on him for a long time, but I guess he don't want to jump another man's claim."

Emma Jean had given her a bewildered look.

Wanda had laughed, "Oh, don't look so shocked, honey. It's no secret me and Matt Rumsey have had a thing going for years."

"That long?"

"Yeah. Sure." Wanda had exhaled and sucked the smoke back up her nostrils, French inhaling, it was called. "It works out good for both of us," she had continued. "We both got kids, and besides, the way I see it, if you divorce one man to marry another, you're just exchanging one set of problems for another. So why bother? We see each other now and then and have us a time, and it makes the bad times with my old man easier knowing somebody out there gives a damn about me, you know?"

"But if Matt cares about you like you say, how come you want to go off with the sheriff?"