Dark and Shallow Lies(24)

It’s early evening when Honey sends me out back to the storage shed. She needs an extension cord for the Himalayan salt lamp she wants to show off in the bookstore window.

But when I step outside, the shed door is cracked open and boot prints stain the white paint of the boardwalk. They remind me of the muddy track that cottonmouth left. The one that ended up dead on the end of a frog gig. And it makes me uneasy. Because I know someone’s been in the little storage building. Maybe is in there now.

I hold my breath and creep toward the door. When I put one eye to the crack, I see someone crawling around on his hands and knees inside the shed, looking for something on the dusty floor. From my angle, all I can see are jeans and a worn pair of boots. It could be anybody in Plaquemines Parish.

But then then I get a glimpse of dark red hair.

“Fuck.” The word comes out in a low growl. Whatever Case is looking for, I guess he didn’t find it.

I turn and head back into the kitchen as quickly and quietly as I can. Sweet-N-Low is passed out on his pillow in the corner. Snoring. Some watchdog. Case could be robbing us blind, for all he cares.

I peek through the curtains and keep an eye on the shed. It’s only a few minutes before Case comes sneaking out. He eases the door closed behind him, then he hops down from the boardwalk and takes off through the mud in the direction of his house, like somebody lit his feet on fire.

I think about the summer we were all twelve. Case taught Elora and me how to play baseball. I can still see him sidling up behind her with a big grin on his face, arms reaching around her middle to show her how to hold the bat. I’d been so jealous of the easy way she’d flirted, even back then.

Then she popped the very first ball he tossed in her direction. And that’s when it hit me.

Bam!

Like the crack of the bat.

Exactly where things were headed between the two of them. I never saw it ending up here, though.

I only wait a minute before I head straight back to the shed. I leave the door wide open, to let in all the light, and I drop down to my hands and knees to feel around on the floor. Like Case was doing. I look in the corners. Under the edges of boxes. But I come up empty-handed, so I grab the extension cord for Honey and pull the door closed behind me.

I drop the extension cord on the kitchen table before I head back out again to pull on my boots. I take the wooden steps down into the wet grass, and I feel the familiar squelch of mud beneath my feet.

I didn’t find any answers in the dark corners of Honey’s storage shed, but maybe I’ll find some in the last place anybody saw Elora.

Back at Li’l Pass.

In between the place where the La Cachette boardwalk rises out of the muck at the river’s edge and the vast wetlands that lie beyond, there’s a long, narrow strip of high, solid ground. Lil’ Pass runs right behind it. It’s not much of a waterway. Way too small and shallow to navigate, even in a kayak. Or a pirogue. We played back there all the time when we were kids. Jumping across the water and chasing each other. I’ve been avoiding going out there, since I got home this summer. To the place Elora disappeared. Tonight, though, it’s almost like the spot is calling to me.

It used to seem like a long way, but now it takes me less than ten minutes to cover the distance. Clumps of skinny trees are scattered across the landscape. Patches of tall grass here and there. A few things people have dumped. An old clothes dryer with the door half off. A molding living room recliner. A flatbed trailer with no wheels.

This is where they were that night.

I look around, and that strange feeling comes over me again. That feeling of being watched. I tell myself I’m being ridiculous. Maybe there never was anyone outside my window. Maybe I imagined my stranger.

The way Wrynn imagined her rougarou.

I crawl up on the old dryer to stand on top and take it all in, like some kind of animal in a documentary about the savanna.

And I don’t see a damn thing.

I don’t know what I expected. I could get down and comb through the grass. But I still wouldn’t turn up anything. Hart said the searchers went over this whole area with a fine-tooth comb. If there’d been a clue here, they would have found it.

“She ain’t out here.”

“Jesus!” I almost jump right out of my clothes, but it’s only Wrynn. “You scared me half to death.”

She’s wearing shorts. Mud splashed all up her skinny legs. No shoes. And she’s eating CheeWees right out of the bag. Her fingers are stained orange from the fake cheese dust.

“You’re lookin’ in da wrong place,” she says.

“I’m not looking for anything,” I tell her, sitting down cross-legged on top of the clothes dryer.

“This ain’t where it happened.” She offers me a CheeWee, but I shake my head. Wrynn shivers hard. “Gives me the frissons, sure, thinkin’ about dat ol’ rougarou.” Her eyes are huge. She takes her thumb and one bright orange finger and rubs at something hanging around her neck. A silver dime with a little hole drilled in it for the string. It’s a talisman to ward off evil. Lots of folks down here still hold with the old superstitions.

“Wrynn –” I start.

“You need to be lookin’ over dat way.” She licks CheeWee dust off her index finger and points. “Not way out here.”

I follow Wrynn’s finger with my eyes. The boardwalk glimmers bright white, like the sun-bleached ribs of a snake stretched out along the river.