Dead on the Delta

  “Seriously, Red. If you say a word, your life is over,” Tucker says, each syllable firm and deliberate. “It won’t be me. It’ll be someone you’ll never see comin’ until it’s too late. You listen to me now, and do what I say when I make contact, or chances are you won’t live to see your next birthday.”

  Something in his tone, in his expression, in the way his fingers caress my cheek as he lifts his hand, makes me believe. Crazy or not, I can’t tell anyone about this. I won’t tell. He smiles and springs to his feet, heading for the back door. I try to call out, try to sit up, but I’m frozen on the ground.

  Still, I hear him loud and clear when he speaks from the doorway, delivering a final warning only a little less confusing than the first. “And stay away from the Breeze house and that woman. She’s going to get what’s coming to her, for Grace and all the rest of it.”

  I swallow, but still can’t form words. What does he mean? Does he know who killed Grace?

  “But if the Big Man sees you talking to her again, you won’t get another warning. You’ll just get dead. He knows she’s got his stuff,” he says, his face appearing at the edge of my vision as he walks a few steps back into the room. “You’re just lucky it was me out scouting today and not him. He doesn’t want any more new recruits. Not government types like you, anyway. He would have killed you.”

  “Getting … shot up … so much better.” I force the words out, though my throat is so raw it feels like I’ve got the world’s worst case of strep.

  Tucker laughs. “Girl, you have no idea how much better it can get. Just don’t trust anyone you can’t see. Except me, of course.” Slowly, like the Cheshire cat fading out of Wonderland, Tucker’s face disappears, until only his bright eyes and killer smile hang in the air. “See you later, Red.”

  And then he’s gone, stomping through the kitchen and out the back door.

  Twenty-two

  My thoughts race like dominos tumbling over each other in their haste to get to the big finish.

  I’m not losing my mind. There are invisible people. One of whom shot me up with a drug he swears will help me—though it doesn’t appear to be working so far—and others whom I need to “beware.” Including the man from the swamp who now knows I don’t have his drugs, but isn’t interested in keeping “government types” alive.

  The rest of Tucker’s gobbledy-gook is hard to comprehend, but that much I heard loud and clear. As well as the warning to keep our meeting and my injection a secret, and the strong encouragement to stay away from “her,” the one who will pay for killing Grace, the one Tucker saw me talking with today.

  Percy. It has to be Percy. Tucker must have seen me by her car and decided to come lie in wait at my house. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Percy is one of the family, took care of Grace for years, and had complete access. She could have poisoned the girl with her mother’s pills a year ago, just as Benny suspected. She could have kidnapped Grace from her room—or even smothered her in her bed—and then carried her to the barn to await the opportunity to dump her body outside the fence. And if Percy is responsible, and if her daughter saw something that made her suspect her mother, it would totally explain Deedee’s odd behavior lately.

  Her assertion that her mother will “kill her” takes on a whole new meaning, making me flop uselessly on the floor.

  Percy is looking for Deedee now. What will she do to her if she finds out Deedee told me about finding Grace in the barn and stealing her necklace? I don’t want to believe Percy would hurt her own kid, but she’s a big woman. Big enough to do damage, big enough to leave those footprints in the ground outside Grace’s window.

  Big enough to carry a refrigerator out of the swamp and lug it over to Fernando’s, in an attempt to frame him for the murder and throw suspicion off herself and the family. How she’s involved in the Breeze operation, I can’t say, but the way Tucker said “stuff” makes me certain it’s drug stuff. What other kind of “stuff” is going down around here?

  Invisible people. More than one. That’s definitely “stuff.”

  Whatever. My gut assures me the voice of reason is on crack and that Tucker was talking drugs. Selling Breeze would certainly explain how Percy pays for Deedee’s nice clothes, and I don’t doubt that she’s got the guts to get into the drug business. Most people—even those tempted by the big cash payoff of selling Fairy Wind—would be too afraid of a bite to venture out to a Breeze house. But Percy wouldn’t have any trouble getting safely in and out of the bayou. She has use of the iron-sided Beauchamp family van and probably even some sort of suit. The storage unit I spotted in the back of the van certainly looked like an iron suit container.

  The only piece that doesn’t fit is Amity’s attack. If she knows Fernando is in on the operation, she has to know Percy is a player, as well. So why was she so certain that I was the one hiding the stash?

  “She must have already questioned Percy, and Percy made her believe she didn’t have it,” I tell the ceiling, wincing only slightly. It hurts less to speak than it did a few minutes ago and my tongue actually feels … normal. More normal than when I came in after my run.

  I do a swift body scan, relieved to find my aching head is also faring better. There’s no more throbbing or pounding, only a faint … buzzing. It isn’t a sound, but a sensation, a low-voltage stream of electricity that courses through my nervous system, keying me up, focusing my energy, enhancing that “sharp” feeling I had this morning in the bayou. It makes me wonder how my eyes are doing.

  If only I could move the rest of my body, I might be able to get to a mirror and find out.

  Trying to sit up only results in another fish-flop on the floor, and then another, and another, until the frustration of not being able to control my body is replaced by a deep, pressing fear. What if I’m paralyzed? What if that injection lands me in a wheelchair? Will I still feel it’s best to keep my mouth shut about my and Tucker’s interlude then?

  Hell, no. We’re calling 911 as soon as you can move your fingers, one part of me insists, while another part assures me that keeping quiet is our only choice, we have to trust this guy, at least until we know more, and yet another voice—one that sounds a lot like the Marcy of my teen years—reminds me that the devil always comes wearing a pretty face.

  “He’s not the devil,” I whisper. I don’t believe in the devil.

  But then … I didn’t believe in invisible people until a few minutes ago.

  Tucker really was invisible when he walked out my door. He was probably invisible when he broke in, as well. That means no one will have seen him coming or going. There will be no witnesses, and a search for the man would prove futile. He can vanish at will. Even if I run straight to Cane and have him put out an APB, I’ll be shit out of luck. And I would have broken an inplied promise to Tucker. Despite the easy smile, I have a feeling that’s a bad idea.

  Still, I need some explanation for why I’m going to be late to my review with Stephanie. Assuming I make it to the station at all. Right now, it’s not looking good. I’m still horizontal, muscles twitching, incapable of even dragging myself over to the phone to call for help.

  Shit! I have to get up, I have to throw off this poison and—

  “Miss Annabelle?” The door creaks on the hinges. “Miss Annabelle?”

  Deedee. What’s she doing at my house? At my back door, no less?

  “Miss Annabelle, are you … ” Deedee’s words end in a gasp. “Miss Annabelle? Are you okay? Are you dead? Miss Annabelle, are you—”

  “I’m okay, Deedee.” I cut her off before hysteria can morph into a full-fledged meltdown. “I just … fell and hurt my back.”

  “What did you hurt it on?” Deedee’s tear-streaked face appears above me, her eyes puffy. Even her lips look swollen, as if she’s had one of those epic crying jags that leave your head feeling like an overstuffed pillow filled with snot.

  “I just fell. Wrong. I fell wrong.” The lie sounds like a lie.

  Deede
e wrinkles her nose. “You don’t look good.”

  “I’m okay.” I try to shrug, but end up twitching my neck. “I’m going to be fine.” I hope.

  “Can you get up?” she asks.

  Can I? Excellent question. “Maybe. With some help.”

  I will my hand toward her, funneling all my energy into those few muscles, imagining how my shoulder bone should rotate in the socket. After a twitch or two, I achieve movement. Eureka! Maybe that’s all I need to do: focus on one piece at a time. Of course, help wouldn’t be a bad thing. I’m over the whole “lying on the ground looking up noses” thing. Poor Deedee’s is leaking in a major way. If I don’t get out from underneath her, it’s only a matter of time before I’m christened by snot droplets.

  “Just grab it and pull. Don’t be afraid.” Tentatively, she takes my hand. “Go ahead, pull hard. You won’t—Ah!”

  My words end in a scream as Deedee hauls me into a seated position with more strength than I was expecting. My back cracks, my tailbone grinds against the hardwood, and for a second I’m afraid I’ll fall back onto the floor. Thankfully, my abdominal muscles engage at the last second, clenching tight, holding me in a hunched-over, trollish version of upright.

  I gasp, open-mouthed, for air as my brain seeks to assimilate what just happened. It’s like I’ve suffered nerve damage. I can almost feel the electrical impulses hacking through the tall grass that’s grown over usually well-cleared neural pathways.

  “Sorry,” Deedee says, but she looks more fascinated than sorry. “Does it hurt a lot?”

  “Yeah. Kind of. Not too bad.”

  She crouches next to me, peering at my face. “Your skin is really white.”

  “I’m a really white person. Part of the whole redhead deal,” I say, mind drifting back to Tucker.

  No one’s called me “Red” for years, not since junior high when my hair morphed from carrot top to auburn. The nickname warms my cockles. A little. Not enough to make up for the fact that the man jabbed a needle in my leg and nearly paralyzed me, but it’s nice to feel likable and nickname-worthy.

  You are pathetic. And insane.

  I’m not pathetic or insane. I’m trying to look on the bright side.

  “No, you look … sick.” Deedee pulls her hands from mine. “But your eyes look better.”

  “They do?” Well, that’s good news. My eyes are better. Now, if I can catch my breath, get my stomach muscles to unclench, and stand up, I’ll be doing great.

  “Yeah … they’re not like hers anymore.”

  “You mean Grace’s?” I ask, figuring I might as well try to figure out what Deedee’s talking about while I cajole my knees into bending. I’m intrigued by the idea that maybe … just maybe … this isn’t crazy kid stuff. “Were Grace’s eyes really big like mine were?”

  Deedee nods. “After she got the magic.”

  “What magic? Like … a magic trick kit? Or a book or—”

  “Like magic. Real magic.” She shoots me a look that hints at how frustrating it can be to communicate with stupid adults.

  “Like what kind of real magic? Help me out, I’m not a creative thinker.”

  Deedee shrugs. “I don’t know … She could move stuff without touching it and, one time, she made her hands disappear. She had no hands. Like, for a whole day.”

  A shiver runs down my arms, making me wish I could get up and turn off the air conditioning. Invisible hands. It isn’t an invisible person, but it’s enough to set my mind racing. Grace had the funny eyes, and then she acquired this “magic” and started to disappear. I certainly had the weird eyes … but as for the rest of it …

  My mind flashes on that moment in bed last night when the clock flew across the room—though I would have sworn I didn’t touch it—and today, when Amity’s head snapped back before my foot connected. Is there a chance that I’ve contracted whatever Grace had, this … catching magic?

  “Was Grace ever bitten?” I ask.

  “No.” Deedee doesn’t ask “bitten by what?” Like anyone born after the mutations, she knows there’s only one thing you need to worry about being bitten by. “Grace never even left the house. Or hardly ever. Miss Barbara made her stay home after her eyes started lookin’ funny. They’d get better sometimes, but she still had to stay inside.”

  Hmmm … I believe Deedee’s telling the truth as she knows it, but there’s still a chance Grace was bitten. If her wounds healed as quickly as mine, it would have been easy to miss them. And even if a family member knew she’d been bitten, it wouldn’t have been strange for Grace’s mother to refuse to bring her to a hospital.

  A lot of parents conceal fairy bites in hopes of keeping their children from the camps. If the child isn’t severely allergic, the family can manage for a time, but the deception never lasts long. Eventually, the kids grow too mad to function. But maybe Grace didn’t. Maybe her wounds healed and she acquired this “magic” instead of a case of the crazies.

  And maybe … maybe Grace’s family wasn’t worried about fairy bites because they knew Grace was immune.

  My mind flashes on the image of her body, ravaged by animals, yet untouched by the Fey, despite the fact that she was out in the bayou for hours before she was found. Grace must have been immune, and that’s why the fairy bites affected her the way they did.

  That’s so dumb I’m not even going to comment.

  The Voice of Persistent Doom has a point. If immune people were affected by fairy bites—whether in the form of developing magical powers or amazing vanishing skin or anything besides a sour stomach and a bad case of the runs—I would have heard about it. I’ve seen dozens of immune people with bite scars, and not one of them can move objects with their mind or disappear. Besides, the government would be all over a development like that faster than a fairy swarm on a warm body. There’s something I’m missing.

  “So Grace looked funny … did she act funny too?” I ask. “Was she the one you were saying was bad?”

  Deedee’s fingers twist in her lap. “Yeah, but I shouldn’t have said that. It ain’t right to say bad things about dead people.”

  “It’s okay to say bad things if they’re the truth. It’s always okay to tell the truth.” My hand moves to Deedee’s without any major mental gymnastics. Thank God. It looks like once I’ve made contact with a body part, my brain-to-muscle response time is returning to something close to normal. “What did Grace do that was so bad?”

  Deedee darts a look over her shoulder, as if she’s worried someone might be listening. With effort, I straighten, shifting to get a better look at the door. It’s open, but there’s no one there. No one I can see, anyway. The knowledge that Tucker or “the Big Man” could be lurking anywhere, anytime, spying on my every move, is probably going to make me paranoid once I’ve had a chance to think about it. But for now, I concentrate on Deedee, on reassuring her that anything she says won’t leave this room.

  “Remember when you asked me not to tell your mom what you did? About stealing the necklace?” I ask.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, do you know what happened right after I saw you?”

  “What?” she whispers, gaze lingering on the empty doorway.

  “I ran into your mom.” Deedee’s head snaps around, eyes wide. I hurry on, fingers wrapping around hers in case she decides to run again. “She was worried, so I told her where she might find you, but I did not tell her what we talked about. About the necklace or anything else. And I won’t. Ever. I promise.”

  There’s a long pause while Deedee checks me out, apparently trying to decide if I’m playing some kind of grown-up trick.

  “Even if the police ask you?” she asks.

  “Even if the police ask me.”

  “Even if God asks you? It’s a sin to lie to God.”

  “I won’t be lying if I just don’t say anything at all.” I leave out the part about not being sure I believe in God, figuring the way into a kid’s trust isn’t by confessing you have theological doubts. “I won
’t say anything, to anyone. Whatever you tell me will be our secret.”

  She swallows, casts one last look over her shoulder, and then leans in close. “Grace used to do bad things. With the magic.”

  Yeah. I got that much, kid. Get busy with the details already!

  I do my best impression of a Patient Adult. “What kind of bad things?”

  “She … She crushed all the bunnies. Every single one. All the bunnies Miss Libby was raising for the charity Easter sale at the church last spring,” Deedee says, her voice a terrified whisper and her eyes still busy, searching the room. I get the very strong impression that she’s been warned several hundred thousand times never to tell this story, upon penalty of something severe. “I was going to get to have one, my mama said I could. But Grace crushed them all. Even the babies.”

  Twenty-three

  You mean … she killed her sister’s rabbits?” I try to keep my voice neutral. Deedee sounds sincere, but this story is hard to believe. It seems more likely that a precious pink princess who loved unicorns and playing pretend would be petting the bunnies and drawing sparkly pictures of their babies, not killing them.

  And Marcy was so positive that Grace was a nice, normal girl. Marcy … who apparently also thinks it’s okay to kill people and help fathers kidnap their daughters.

  “Are you sure she did it on purpose?” I ask.

  Deedee nods, fresh tears in her eyes. “She used the magic. She took the rocks from around the big fountain and dropped them on their heads. Right on top.” Deedee’s sobbing softly now and snot leaks down her upper lip. I would get her a tissue—if I could move, or if she hadn’t just made the gesture futile by swiping her nose with her arm, leaving a glistening trail from her elbow to her wrist.

  “You’re sure? You saw her do this? You saw her carry the rocks—”

  “She didn’t carry them. She made them move with the magic,” Deedee corrects without a second’s hesitation, sticking to her story. “And she told me I had to watch or she’d tell her mama that I was the one that killed them.” She shudders, as if the idea sickens her. As it should. As it would anyone but a psychopath or a future serial killer. “I knew Miss Bee wouldn’t believe her ’cause she knew Grace was turnin’ bad, but I was afraid to leave. I was afraid she’d crush me with the rocks too.”