Dark and Shallow Lies(63)

Like he belongs.

“Are you sure?” he finally asks me.

“I saw her.”

“What about my father? Did you see –”

“No,” I say, and I reach out to brush my trembling fingers through his blond hair. “I’m sorry.”

We leave the boat at Holbert’s Pond again, and I don’t bother to go back to Li’l Pass for my flip-flops. I’m not as weak as I was, so I insist on walking. But Zale keeps his arm around my waist, and the buzz of that contact keeps me warm. He walks me all the way back to the boardwalk. Right up to the steps this time. He refuses to leave me alone in the dark.

We stand there staring at each other for a few seconds, then Zale pulls me to his chest. I feel his lips brush the top of my head. It’s so good. That tingling closeness. And his heart beating against mine. There’s so much I want to tell him, but I can’t find the right words. I don’t know how he can even stand to touch me, after what my mother did.

When he knows what she took from him.

“Grey,” he whispers, “look at me.” And he tilts my face up toward his. “Whatever your mother did, you’re not responsible for it.” I nod, but I’m not sure I believe him. His eyes are dark blue now. Like the night sky. “Did I hurt you bad? Before?” I shake my head, and he lets out a breath of relief. “I’m glad.” He lays a hand on my cheek. Little zips and zaps. Harmless. “I’d never mean to hurt you, Grey.” His eyes flash in the dark. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Of course,” I tell him. “You’d never hurt anyone on purpose.”

He’s so gentle. More summer rain than lightning storm.

“I know,” he says, and the wind picks up. “But sometimes people get hurt anyway.”

Thunder rumbles low across the bayou.

Zale leans in close, and I think maybe he’s going to kiss me.

Really kiss me.

But he doesn’t. He just whispers in my ear. Four words of absolute truth.

“There’s a storm comin’.”

Then he disappears into the shadows, and I climb the wooden steps to the boardwalk. But before I go inside, I stand on the front porch of the Mystic Rose and watch the river for a really long time while I listen to the night singing of Evie’s wind chimes.

Elora is standing right beside me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can just almost glimpse her dazzling smile. That long dark hair. If I just turned my head a little . . .

But I don’t turn my head. Because what if I’m wrong?

Across from me, on the dock, someone has put up more safety ropes. The rot has been spreading all summer. One whole side is blocked off now.

I turn and pull open the front door of the bookstore. Not locked. Of course. It’s never locked. There’s no crime to speak of in La Cachette. Never has been.

Unless you count arson, I mean.

And kidnapping.

Murder.

I close the door as softly as I can and twist the bolt behind me.

All the lights are off in the house, but I hear the radio playing in the kitchen. “Louisiana Blues.” I tiptoe in to get a glass of milk, and Sweet-N-Low stirs on his pillow. His collar jingles, and he whimpers in his sleep.

I open the fridge, and light spills across the linoleum floor. A weather update breaks in over the music, and I pause to listen.

“The National Hurricane Center is predicting that Elizabeth will become a major storm by the time it reaches the central Gulf of Mexico.” The voice on the radio is almost breathless with excitement. “The eye is now four hundred and sixty miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River. Everyone in the listening area is urged to prepare for an extreme weather event.”

The announcer goes away, and the harmonica comes back. Blues guitar.

And that’s when I hear my name. I freeze, afraid that – somehow – the shadow of my dead mother has followed me home from Keller’s Island.

But when I turn around, Honey is sitting at the kitchen table, all lit up in the refrigerator’s glow. She has on her old pink robe. Curlers in her hair. And I wonder what she’s doing down here. Sitting at the table. Listening to Muddy Waters moan “Louisiana Blues” into the dark.

But then I see the picture in her hand. The one of me and my mom. The one I left on the table beside my bed.

The one with the haunted eyes.

Honey looks down at the photo, then back up at me.

“Sugar Bee,” she says, “we need to talk.”





I close the fridge door and start to flip on the overhead light. Then I remember I’m barefoot. With mud up to my thighs. So I leave the light off and sit down across from Honey at the kitchen table.

“Didn’t you want some milk?” she asks, but I shake my head. She’s quiet for a second, staring at the photograph in her hand. “Lots to do tomorrow,” she eventually says. But she doesn’t take her eyes off the picture of me and my mom. “Gotta get the plywood up on the windows. Move everything from the bookstore up to my bedroom, in case the water gets high.”

I nod.

“Leo said he’d help us out. Hart, too,” Honey tells me. “Soon as they get their own place ready.”

I haven’t seen Hart all day. Not since he crawled in my window late last night. And the mention of his name makes me anxious.