What Washes Up (12 page)

It took Maggie a moment to answer, to admit to something she’d like to take back. “No.”

Boudreaux was quiet for a moment, watched the road. “I hope he was able to redeem himself somewhat in your eyes,” he said quietly.

Maggie looked down at the warm can of RC in the console. “Yes. He was.”

“Redemption is elusive,” he said.

Maggie started to say something, but her phone buzzed again. It was Wyatt. She took a deep breath and answered.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey. Where are you?”

“I’m, uh, on my way back to town.”

“From where?”

“Chipley.”

“Never heard of it,” Wyatt answered.

“Neither have most of the people who live there,” she said.

“What were you doing in Chipley?”

“Checking out Boudreaux’s farm,” she said.

“Huh,” Wyatt said after a moment. “I’m wondering how you’re traveling, because your Jeep is here at Boss. I’d appreciate it if you said by spaceship.”

“No.” Maggie bit the corner of her lip. “I’m with Boudreaux.”

There was a long pause on the line and Maggie grew more nervous as she waited.

“Well then,” Wyatt finally said. “That’s just Jim damn Dandy.”

Maggie looked at her phone and saw that he had indeed hung up on her. She dropped it back onto her lap and sighed.

“That didn’t sound like it went over too well,” Boudreaux said.

“No.” Maggie looked out of her window at the unrelenting miles of tall, skinny scrub pines. “But he was already upset with me.”

“I guess you told him about Gregory and Sport.”

“Yes.”

“And me.” Boudreaux said it matter-of-factly.

“Yes.” Maggie sighed. “Wyatt wasn’t exactly happy about me keeping so many things to myself.”

“We men aren’t that fond of finding out that we don’t know as much as we believe we know.”

“Professionally, he had every right to know.”

“I agree. But I’m willing to bet that he’s more upset personally than professionally.”

“I don’t know,” Maggie said. “Secrecy’s kind of a new thing for me. With that one exception.”

She was afraid that would lead to more discussion of Gregory. Or of David, and she didn’t have the heart for either topic. She looked over at Boudreaux. “What about you? Do you keep secrets from your wife?”

“No,” he said smoothly, watching the road. “She knows that I can’t stand her.”

They got back to the parking lot at Boss Oyster a little before six, and Boudreaux pulled in next to Maggie’s Jeep. She got out, and looked at Boudreaux through the open window.

“Thank you for coming with me,” he said, sounding tired.

Maggie nodded, then glanced over at a local couple coming out of the raw bar. They looked over at her, and Maggie felt her career and her reputation taking their last breaths. She was almost too drained to care.

“Goodnight, Mr. Boudreaux,” she said.

“Goodnight, Maggie.”

Maggie got in her Jeep and watched Boudreaux back out, then she looked around at the parking lot. She had almost hoped that Wyatt’s car would be there, but it wasn’t.

She sat for a minute, gathering her nerve, then pulled out her cell and dialed Wyatt’s number. He answered on the first ring.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” Maggie said. “I know you’re angry with me and you probably don’t feel like talking to me right now, but we could we please? Anyway?”

“We need to do that, yes,” he answered.

“Thank you,” she said. “What are you doing right now?”

She heard Wyatt sigh.

“I’m sitting on the steps with Stoopid,” he answered.

When Maggie pulled up in front of her house ten minutes later, Stoopid had apparently become bored with Wyatt. Coco had not. She was standing near his feet, smiling, until Maggie parked the car, then she barreled over, eyes wide and tongue lolling, and collapsed at Maggie’s feet as she got out of the Jeep.

Stoopid flailed over from near the chicken yard, apprised Maggie of the fact that Wyatt was present, then ran back from whence he’d come, neck feathers at half-mast.

Wyatt sat on the third step, a six pack of Yuengling on the step beside him. He was drinking one of them. He stood up as Maggie walked toward the house with Coco on her heels.

“Hey,” Maggie said.

“Hey,” he said back.

They looked at each other a moment, then he picked up the six-pack and stepped aside as she came up the stairs. She stopped a couple of steps up from him, looked him eye to eye. He looked tired and closed off from her, and she was surprised that she could feel that in a physical way.

“I just need to take a quick shower, okay? Five minutes?” she asked.

He nodded at her. “You want a beer?”

“No, thanks,” she said, as they started up the stairs again. “I don’t actually like beer. I just drink it if there’s nothing else.”

“You need to fix these stairs,” Wyatt said behind her.

“I know.”

She opened the front door and stood aside for Wyatt.

“I’ll just sit on the deck,” he said.

Maggie faltered for a moment, then nodded. “Okay. I’ll be right out.”

Coco followed her inside, and Maggie quickly got out of her sticky clothes and into the shower. She tended to linger in the shower until the hot water was gone, but this time she was out in less than five minutes. She’d spent the entire time dreading the upcoming conversation and trying to come up with justifications for her actions, but she wasn’t so far gone that she could find any.

She threw on some khaki shorts and a white tee shirt, poured a glass of Muscadine wine, and walked out to the living room. Coco was sitting at the sliding glass door, vibrating at Wyatt, who was sitting at the small round table outside.

He looked up when she walked out onto the deck, and she had an urge to curl up on his lap. She remembered what that had felt like. It had felt safe, and it had felt right.

Instead, she sat down in the chair across from him. Coco sat in the middle, but it was Wyatt she was smiling at. Wyatt wasn’t smiling. Maggie was glad she got a good swallow of wine before he spoke.

“Did I ever tell you about when Lily told me she had cancer?”

That threw Maggie. “No.”

He sighed. “It was three weeks
after
she decided to have a lumpectomy instead of a mastectomy,” he said. “She told me two days before she went in for the surgery.”

Maggie had no idea what to say to that. He looked up at her. “I realize it was her body and it was her cancer, but it was our lives, and I had no idea. No idea at all, until it was too late for me to have any say in it.”

“I’m not sure what to say,” Maggie said. “I’m sorry.”

Wyatt took a long pull of his beer, then banged the bottle down on the table, making both Maggie and Coco jump just a little.

“I don’t want you to be sorry,” he said. “I want you to trust me enough to be honest.”

“I get what you’re—” she started.

“No, you probably don’t,” he said. He stood up and took a couple of paces, then stood with his hands on his hips. “I understand why you didn’t tell me about the rape, and I understand why you felt like you couldn’t tell me about Gregory Boudreaux. But Wilmette? And Boudreaux, freaking Boudreaux!”

“I told you because I do trust you, Wyatt!” Maggie said. “I know I waited too long, but I told you. I don’t want to have secrets.”

“But you do, Maggie.” Wyatt glanced at Coco, who had stopped smiling and was looking confused. He lowered his voice when he spoke again. “You do. Because I don’t know what the hell is going on with you and Boudreaux.”

“I don’t either, but it’s not—it’s not a romantic thing, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she said.

“That’s not what I’m worried about, but I wouldn’t be too sure of that if I were you.”

“That’s not it, Wyatt,” she said.

“Then tell me what the hell it is!” he yelled.

Coco whined and stood up, and Maggie put a hand on her neck before she stood up, too. Sitting made her feel too small.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you need to figure it out, because you just took a road trip with the guy that
you
told me chopped up Wilmette and dumped him in the ocean.”

“Look, I know you don’t get it, but I really don’t think he wants to hurt me,” she said.

“That’s not even the point.” Wyatt bent over a little so she could look him in the eye. “You’re a cop. You’re a mom. You coach girls’ softball, dammit! But you voluntarily got in a car with a guy that chops people up.”

Maggie shook her head. “I know. I
know
.”

“I want to go over there and shoot him because he’s messing with your head!” he yelled.

“Everything is messing with my head!” she yelled back. “Are you kidding me? In the space of a month, I work the suicide of the guy that raped me, find out the foot in my other case belonged to the guy that watched it happen, I get caught up in some kind of weirdness with Boudreaux, and I watch my ex-husband get blown up right in front of me! You’re damn right something’s messing with my head, but it’s not just Boudreaux!”

Coco whined and licked Maggie’s hand, then stretched her neck and nudged Wyatt’s. He reached down and put a hand on her head, then ran the hand through his hair.

“You put me in a position of having to choose between protecting your privacy and doing my job, Maggie, and you did it at least partly because of this thing with you and Boudreaux.”

“That’s not true! I told you as soon as I knew for sure that he killed Wilmette.”

“Now you’re not even being honest with yourself,” Wyatt said. “How long did you suspect he did it?”

Maggie paused, not because she didn’t want to answer, but because she wasn’t sure what the answer was. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “But I needed to be sure.”

“And now you are, and you’re riding around the countryside with him like he’s your real estate agent!”

“It was about the Guatemalans, Wyatt, the one case I can still touch with a ten foot pole!”

“But riding in his car was not about the Guatemalans, Maggie. It was about you and Boudreaux!”

“Look, I realize that doesn’t seem like the smart thing to do—”

“Smart thing? It doesn’t even seem like the normal thing to do,” he shot back.

Maggie felt a coldness pass through her chest, and she took a deep breath. “I’m as normal as I need to be,” she said. “And I’m sorry that I put you in a bad position, and I’m sorry that this is getting in the way of something that has barely even gotten started—”

“Don’t kid yourself, Maggie. This,” Wyatt said, and pointed at her and back at himself. “This has been going on a lot longer than a month and you know it.”

“I don’t want to fight with you,” Maggie said.

“Well, that’s too bad! I fight when I’m mad!” Wyatt said. “People fight.”

“David and I never fought,” she said, and instantly regretted it. She hadn’t meant it to be a dig, she just wasn’t used to arguing this way.

“Of course you didn’t, Maggie,” Wyatt said. “You guys were practically brother and sister.”

Maggie stared at him, and he huffed out a breath and started walking toward the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Maggie asked, following him, her vision blurred by sudden tears.

Wyatt turned around on the stairs, but he didn’t look at her. “That was a crappy thing to say, and if we’re going to start saying crappy things, it’s time for me to leave,” he said. He started back down the stairs. “I didn’t come here to hurt you.”

“What did you come here for?” she called after him.

He stopped and turned around. “I came here to fix it, dammit,” he said.

“Then let’s fix it,” she said.

“I can’t fix it, Maggie! You need to fix it.” He took a few steps across the gravel, then turned around and put his hands on his hips. “Let me tell you something, lady. I didn’t care whether Lily had one breast, two breasts, or no breasts. I would have loved her anyway.”

Then he stalked to his car and got in, and Maggie and Coco watched him turn around and drive down the road, away from them, and into the twilight.