Blood on the Bayou

  There.

  I spot him at the far end of the garden, by the clutch of potted palms he brings out to give the hot tub area a tropical feel in the summer. I’m about to call out when I see the arm around his waist. Fern isn’t alone. I step back and prepare to flee the scene—unlike Tucker and Bernadette and everyone else in Donaldsonville, I don’t make a habit of spying on other people’s liaisons—when curiosity gets the better of me.

  Fern hasn’t been dating much lately. At least no one he’s felt the need to tell me about. But something in the way he’s standing—so relaxed, leaning into the man in front of him with such familiarity—tells me this isn’t a quick slap-and-tickle session. This is someone he cares about, who he’s been involved with for a while. And if that’s the case, why hasn’t he said anything to me about it? We’re best friends.

  I’ve had my share of things I can’t share with him lately, but that’s because lives are at stake and unusually strange shit is going down. Back in the good old days, I never would have kept anything from him, and he usually can’t wait to dissect every aspect of his latest love affair.

  I pause, easing far enough into the shadows of the arbor of grapevines to hide myself, while giving me a clear view of Fernando and Friend as they kiss. And kiss. And kiss. And then there’s a little groping and hips shift and I’m starting to get uncomfortable enough to sneak back through the door without discovering Friend’s identity, when Friend pulls away and shoots a wary look around the garden, as if he can sense his private moment is being observed.

  I smash back against the bricks, holding my breath, hiding behind the grape leaves, praying I haven’t been seen. Because I know Fern’s friend, and I know why Fern’s been keeping their relationship under deep cover. Friend is Abe, Cane’s older brother, captain of the DPD, a man assumed to be straight as a willow switch by everyone in town.

  Holy crap. I always thought Abe crossed the street when he saw Fern and me coming because he was a homophobe. But he’s actually one of the “homos”—albeit a deeply closeted one. Cane and his mom certainly have no idea that Abe is gay, and I have a feeling his mom would experience a cardiac event if she knew Abe was never going to give her grandbabies.

  Dozens of questions rush through my mind—how long has this been going on? Why has Fern pretended to think Cane is such a hot piece when he’s been scoring with his almost equally hot brother all along? How could Abe let Cane arrest Fern for a child’s murder last month? How could he have so little faith in his lover?

  Because they are in love. I can see it in the way Fern reaches for Abe’s shoulders, in the way Abe lets Fern whisper him back into his arms and pull him into the shade of the palms. In the way they move together, touching with such careful deliberation.

  Poor Fern. He must have been ordered to keep this a secret.

  Abe knows our town better than anyone. He knows homosexuality is tolerated, but not truly accepted, and that being “the gay cop” wouldn’t give him street cred with the criminal element. Abe and Fern may never be able to be openly together, and Fern’s crankiness suddenly makes more sense.

  So does his disapproval of seeing me with anyone other than Cane. Abe has never been my biggest fan, but he knows that his brother loves me and wants to build a life together. And Abe wants whatever his brother wants. Usually, anyway. It makes me wonder if Abe knows what Cane’s doing in the bayou today, if he’s in on the sketchy business, or if, for once, Cane is acting as a solo agent.

  Maybe Abe has something left to lose. A tall, sexy, something who is even now pushing him back against the brick wall surrounding the patio.

  I wait until the two men start kissing again and slip quietly back into the lobby to find Hitch standing by the front desk. He has the case containing his iron suit in hand and has changed into a tight brown T-shirt, the better not to bunch beneath his holster. The sight of his gun snuggled against his chest makes me think of my own weapon. I almost grabbed it before we left, but I’m kind of glad that I decided against it. I don’t want to be armed for a meeting with Marcy.

  Marcy. God. I’m going to see her this afternoon. I have to find a way to ditch Hitch before two o’clock. Hopefully our trip this morning will lead us straight to the cave and Hitch will need to hightail it back to New Orleans to arrange backup for an FBI raid.

  “You look ready.” I shove my glasses on top of my head. My eyes are feeling better, at least good enough to do without protection indoors.

  “Past ready.” His voice is distant, brisk, the teasing Hitch of this morning vanished without a trace. “Stephanie called while I was out. We need to get this done. I have to get back to New Orleans as soon as possible.”

  It’s exactly what I wanted to hear. At least the part about him leaving. Still, it hurts to see the wall thrown back up. Romantically, Hitch and I are a hot mess waiting to happen, but I was enjoying feeling like his friend again.

  “Sounds good.” I turn away with a stiff nod. Simona’s working the front desk. I can trust her to give Fern a message. “Will you tell Fernando I stopped by to apologize, and ask him to call me when he gets the chance?”

  “Sure thing,” Simona says, swiping off a sheet of official flophouse stationary—yellow and purple with Fern’s signature at the bottom—and writing a note. “Anything else I can do for you, Miss Annabelle?”

  Hmmm . . . well, since she’s offering.

  “Yeah. I was wondering if my cousin was staying here this week? His name is Tucker? I saw him leaving a few minutes ago with Bar—”

  “We don’t have time for this,” Hitch says, a surprising degree of heat in his tone. For a man who was teasing me about nicknames a few minutes ago, he’s awfully testy.

  “This will only take a—”

  “Let’s go.” He grabs my elbow, making Simona’s pencil-thin eyebrows shoot toward her braided hairline. We’re not close, but she knows me well enough to know macho demands don’t go over well.

  I tense my arm and give Hitch’s hand a cool look. His fingers tighten for a moment before sliding away with a sigh. “Sorry.” He takes a step back. “I apologize. I’m . . .” He pulls in a breath, fighting for a gulp of air. “I need a cigarette. I’ll meet you outside.”

  He turns and charges away, nervous energy pouring off him in waves. The man at the cream-and-sugar station flinches as Hitch flings open the door.

  “He doesn’t seem like the smokin’ type,” Simona says, dropping her formal tone now that there are no guests close enough to overhear. “I mean, he gets up to run before the chickens, you know?”

  “Yeah.” I shake my head, wondering what Hitch isn’t telling me. There’s got to be something. Even the double threat of going out into the infested marsh to hunt bad guys and facing the wrath of Stephanie when he gets home couldn’t have made him this rattled.

  “You okay?” Simona asks.

  I force a smile. “I’m fine. And he’s harmless. Just having a hard time with his fiancée.”

  Simona nods and leans over the counter, looking both ways to make sure we’re alone before whispering, “I could tell. She’s called the front desk like six times a day since Mr. Rideau checked in.”

  Well. Stephanie is either very concerned for Hitch’s safety or she realizes that—despite the fact that they’re having a child together—Hitch isn’t completely ready to make her his Mrs.

  “Any woman who’s checkin’ on her man that often is trouble,” Simona says. “Or she’s expecting trouble . . .” She lifts a scrawny brow, silently inviting me to share the dirt.

  “Is there something on Fern’s employment application that says all employees must have a lust for gossip?”

  Simona smiles. “No, he talks about that during the interview.”

  I’m laughing when the door to the garden opens and Fernando breezes in, fresh and unrumpled in a tight gray polo and battered black jeans I know he purchased already roughed up. He doesn’t wear anything often enough for it to become battered. Looking at him, no one would guess he’s been
outside mauling his lover in the garden.

  I meet his amber eyes and try to hold on to my smile as my laughter fades. I don’t have time to confront him about the secret he’s been keeping, and I don’t know if confronting is even the best call. Maybe it’s natural for people to grow older and more secretive. Maybe the intimacy we’ve shared since we were teens is the unusual thing, a part of life we’ll leave behind as we choose significant others and they become the shoulders we cry on.

  Sniff. It’s . . . sad.

  No matter how rocky our friendship has been the past couple of months, the thought of a distant, superficial relationship with the man who’s been like a brother to me makes me want to pull Fern into my arms and squeeze him until he promises we’ll always be family.

  And then he opens his mouth.

  “What the heck do you think you’re doing?” he hisses, leaning up against the desk, cutting his eyes at Simona in a way that—after a sympathetic look in my direction—makes her turn and busy herself at the other end of the reception area.

  “Good morning to you, too.” I knew he’d be pissy, but I can’t help but be embarrassed that he got snarky with me in front of someone else.

  “It’s not a good morning.” His voice acidic, but his expression remains calm for the benefit of the guests milling about the lobby. Fern’s a drama queen, but he’s also a good businessman and host. You have to be to lure clients into the fairy-infested boonies for a weekend break.

  “Listen, I’m sorry about last night,” I say. “I didn’t mean to stand you up. I ran into some trouble and—”

  “Barry came to tell me you were here.” Fern crosses his arms, erecting another barrier to letting me back into his heart. “He said he saw you walking up the road with Hitch. Arm in arm. Cozy as pigs in shit.”

  Barry. What a rat fink. He must have been spying on me out the window for a good twenty minutes before I came inside. I’m going to have to seriously rethink my opinion of him as sweet or cheek-pinch worthy.

  “You have nothing to say for yourself?” Fern asks.

  I fight the urge to tell him to mind his own goddamned business. I did bail on him, and there’s nothing he hates more than being abandoned. “Hitch came over to my house this morning. We were—”

  “Noticed he wasn’t here,” Fern says. “Just like he wasn’t here last night when I got back from lugging two pounds of prime steak meat and marinated sweet potatoes and zucchini over to your house and back.”

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. But I swear I’m not making some lame excuse. I really did run into some trouble. I was in the junkyard and—”

  “So what did Cane say?”

  My explanation stumbles and falls into a pile of What the Hell. “What?”

  “Cane was here last night. When I got back, he and Dicker and Dom were drowning their cop sorrows at the bar. He took one look at me and knew we weren’t having dinner.” He leans against the desk and sticks out a hip. “He asked me where you were. I said I didn’t know, but that I hadn’t seen Hitch lately, either, so . . .” He lifts one shoulder, lets it fall. “I told him he might want to check your place. Later in the evening.”

  My lips part and a pained sound slips out. How could he? “You sent Cane to my house?”

  “I didn’t send him anywhere.”

  “To try to catch me with Hitch?”

  “Listen, girl, it’s not my fault if—”

  “It is your fault,” I snap. “You don’t do that kind of a thing to a friend. Especially not because you’re pissy that you got stood up for dinner.”

  “I didn’t do it because I was pissy, I did it for Cane,” he says, a noble note in his voice that makes me want to puke. “You’re never going to love him the way he loves you. He needs to move the fuck on.”

  “You . . .” I swallow. I feel scorched inside. Like Fern’s set fire to the underbrush of our friendship and is standing there watching me burn. “Who the hell are you to decide that for me? Or Cane?”

  “He loves you, Annabelle. And you treat him like crap. It’s not right.”

  “I don’t treat him like crap, and since when are you in the place to judge what’s right and wrong?” I ask, grateful for the anger knotting in my belly, banishing some of the sickness. “Less than a month ago, you were dealing hard drugs, junk that kills people.”

  “And you’re never going to forgive me for it, are you?” Hurt tightens the skin around his eyes. “No matter how many times I say I know I screwed up. No matter how many steak dinners I make. You’re always going to look down your nose at me, like I’m trash that belongs in a Breeze house.”

  “I never—”

  “You’ve been looking down on me ever since I got out of jail. You’ve been judging me every single day. I was just returning the favor.”

  I bite my lip. He’s right. I have been judging him, but that doesn’t give him the right to try to sabotage my life. “You’re supposed to be on my side,” I whisper. “I have always been on your side. Always.”

  For the first time he looks guilty, but not nearly as guilty as I need him to look. “I’m sorry,” he says. “But I care about Cane. He’s almost forty, and he wants a family.”

  He reaches for my shoulder but I step back, lifting my hands in silent warning. If he thinks we’re going to hug this out, he’s crazy.

  “You’re never going to want the same things he wants,” Fern continues, clearly frustrated that I’m not seeing how right he is. “It’s criminal to lead him on. Let him find someone else. While he still has time.”

  I cross my arms and clench my jaw. “Okay.” I breathe in. Breathe out. “Maybe you’re right. But it’s not your place to decide. Just like it’s not my place to do anything to damage your relationship with Abe.”

  His expression is priceless. I’ve never seen him so completely at a loss, so exposed and panicked that he can’t figure out what face to make. Too bad I don’t get off on pulling the rug out from under my best friend. But enjoy it or not, I’m not backing off until Fern realizes how far he’s overstepped his bounds.

  “Abe will never come out of the closet and live Gaily Ever After with you. Never.” I hit the word hard enough to make him flinch. “I know that. As a friend, I know it would be better for you to move on and find someone who isn’t ashamed of who he is or who he loves.”

  “You don’t know anything about me and Abe.” His protest is weak. He’s still too thrown to put up much of a fight. What’s more, he knows I’m right.

  “But I have too much respect for you to do something like that,” I continue. “And you know what? Even that hypothetical doesn’t work. Because if I did something to break you and Abe up, I’d still be thinking about what’s best for you. Not Abe.” I look up at him, throat so tight it hurts to speak. “You’ve been my best friend for almost half my life. You’re the closest thing I have to family since Marcy left, and you tried to screw me over.”

  “Annabelle—”

  “Don’t Annabelle me.” I shake my head. “Don’t speak to me. For a while. A long while.”

  Maybe forever.

  I turn to go, but spin back before I’ve taken two steps. “And so you know, I was alone last night when Cane let himself in. I almost shot him. I thought he was a burglar.”

  “Shit,” Fern whispers, going pale beneath his golden tan. “I—”

  “But I didn’t. I fucked him instead,” I say, hating the tremble in my voice. “And I told him I loved him.” I take a deep breath, but it doesn’t make me feel any more in control. It’s not only Fern who’s betrayed me. “Now I know he only came over because he was trying to catch me with someone else. So I guess he’s as big an asshole as you are.”

  Ferns eyes shimmer. “Now come on. I’m sorry. You know I love—”

  “No. I don’t. I really don’t.”

  “I was trying to do what I thought was best for everyone,” he says. “You included.”

  “No. You were trying to punish me.” I take another step back. “And you succ
eeded.”

  I turn toward the door, ignoring the curious stares of the couple camped out on the paisley couch who’ve obviously overheard at least part of our conversation. We were quiet, but we weren’t that quiet, and emotional outbursts don’t go unnoticed in the court of the drama queen.

  Hitch is waiting for me outside the door, his clove cigarette burned nearly to the filter. I see him quickly notice that I’m upset and even more quickly decide not to appear to notice. He crushes out his cigarette in the dirt-filled wine barrel, keeping his eyes on the collection of butts. “You ready? Truck’s in the parking lot.”

  “I’m ready.” I knock my glasses back down onto my face and hold out a hand. “Keys and a cigarette please.”

  He obliges, handing over his keys, fishing a fresh clove from the pack on the other side of his holster and lighting it with matches from his back pocket, happy to give me whatever I want in the name of ignoring my fragile emotional state.

  I’m glad about that. I’m mad about it, too. I’m angry and confused and so hurt that I want to turn around and stab Fernando with this cigarette. But that wouldn’t make things better, and I’m already choking so hard I wouldn’t be able to stand up straight long enough to stab him, anyway.

  “Been a while since you smoked,” Hitch remarks as we head for the parking lot.

  “Master of observation.” I hack, wincing at the burning in my lungs.

  His long fingers drift in front of my face. “Maybe you should give that to someone who can handle it.”

  “You’re not supposed to chain-smoke. Stephanie would be pissed.” At the mention of his future wife, Hitch’s arm drops to his side. I throw the cigarette on the ground and stomp it out. I think about picking it up and throwing it in the trash like a good citizen, but then I realize I’m still on Fernando’s property and leave it to clutter his sidewalk. “And you need to spend the ride to the gate getting into your suit, not smoking. I’m not going out into the swamp until you’re suited up.”

  “I hear you,” he says. “I do learn from my mistakes. Sometimes.”