Dark and Shallow Lies(39)

I don’t understand what he means.

“I was out fishin’ one night back in January. Just at the edge of the river. Middle of the night. Nobody awake. And my line got all tangled, so I bent down to sort it out, and when I looked up again, there was this girl standin’ up there on the dock. Right where we were standin’ the other night.”

“Elora.”

I whisper her name like an incantation, and the long grass whispers it back.

“Full moon,” he says.

A rougarou moon.

“And I could see her plain. The kind of beautiful that steals the breath right out your chest. Couldn’t take my eyes off ’er. She was standin’ dere right on the edge.”

“The river was calling her,” I say, and Zale nods.

“Only I didn’t know dat then. So I watched her for a minute. And then she went over.”

I feel that fog at the edges of my brain, and I try to push it back.

“What do you mean, went over?”

“She went over the edge. Into the water.”

I gasp out loud, and my stomach clenches like a fist. It’s a fifteen-foot drop, at least, from the dock to the dark, churning river below.

Deep and fast-moving and treacherous.

“You saved her life that night.”

He shrugs, like it’s no big deal. “When I fished her out of the river dat first time, she cussed me up one side and down the other. Wouldn’t even tell me her name. But I still came back the next night, just in case. And we did the whole thing all over again. And again. And again. And again. I must’ve saved her a dozen times. A dozen different nights.”

“She wanted to die that bad?” I can’t stand to think of Elora like that.

Hopeless.

“No.” Zale shakes his head, and his eyes flash extra bright. “It was just the river she needed. That letting go. So I kept dragging her into the boat. I’d sit out dere in the dark and wait for the splash. Like I was a deep-sea fisherman and her some kind of Mississippi mermaid.”

“Mississippi mermaid.” I like the way the words feel in my mouth, but they sound better in Zale’s ocean-deep voice. Each m is a wave against the sand.

“Toward the end, she stopped fallin’. Stopped needin’ to, I think. And I didn’t see her near as much after dat. But we’d still meet out on the dock sometimes. After the town went to sleep. Three, four o’clock in the mornin’. And we’d just sit together till the sun started to come up.”

My heart aches.

I should have been there. I should have been the one to save Elora. To sit with her in the darkest part of the night.

Not this secret stranger.

“Why did you reach out to me?” I ask him. “What is it you want?”

He stares at me for a second.

“Like I said, I think maybe we can help each other.” Zale looks back out toward the distant river. “I saw her dat night,” he admits. “The night she disappeared. I just had this feelin’. Somethin’ about Elora. And then that storm blew in. So I set out in the rain to make sure she was okay. And I found her standin’ right dere on the dock. Just like the very first time I saw her.”

“She must’ve sneaked away.” I’m thinking out loud. “From the others.”

Zale nods.

“Slipped off while the rest of ’em were playin’ flashlight tag. That’s what she told me. Left ’em out dere lookin’ for ’er.”

And that makes sense. Because it sounds just like Elora. She would have loved the drama of it. Everyone worried and calling her name.

“Did she say anything else?” I ask him.

“Just goodbye. She was leavin’, she said. For good.”

“That was something she talked about a lot,” I tell him. “Getting out of La Cachette.”

“It was more than talk dat night. She was waitin’ for someone.” My insides flip-flop, and I grip the edge of the flatbed trailer. “And she was nervous. In a hurry.”

“Who was she waiting for?” I hear the desperation in my voice.

The longing for an answer. Any answer.

But Zale just shrugs. “She wouldn’t say.”

“Did she at least say where she was going?”

He shakes his head. “We only talked a few minutes. Just long enough to say our goodbyes. And Elora kept her secrets close to her own heart. But she gave me dat blue pearl ring as a friendship token. For savin’ her all those nights.”

I look down at the ring on my finger. The little silver band reflects the bright June sun.

“And then everyone was out lookin’ for her,” he adds. “And I was thinkin’, good for her. She fooled ’em all. Ran off. Like she said she was gonna. Only –”

“Only you don’t think that any more.”

Zale shakes his head. “It doesn’t feel right. Somethin’ tells me she never left La Cachette.”

I think about that bloody Saint Sebastian medal. The ugly picture it paints of Elora’s last moments. With Case. If he found her there – on the dock, waiting for someone else – maybe it doesn’t matter who it was she was running away with.

Maybe all that matters is Case’s reaction.

My breathing changes, and I feel this squeezing pain in my chest. Like my heart is being crushed into dust. But it’s at war with the insistent voice inside my head that’s still telling me this is all impossible. That there’s no way she can be gone.