Not One of Us(3)

Deacon had bought me a wrist corsage for the prom. A silly grin split my face for an instant before worry caught up to my spinning thoughts. What was the corsage doing on the table? They should have stored it in the refrigerator to keep it fresh for prom night. My gaze swept the room more thoroughly, searching for anything out of place or different. All was spotless, including the floors. Except . . . a few tiny clusters of white pilled under the sofa. I couldn’t explain what drew me, but I got on my hands and knees by the sofa and peered closer.

A sprig of white baby’s breath dotted with bright-red flecks.

How did it get there? What were those flecks? I reached out my hand and touched a dot of red with one fingertip. It felt wet, sticky. I drew my hand back and stared at the drop of blood smeared on my finger. Had he accidentally pricked himself with the corsage pin and dropped the bouquet?

Where the hell was Deacon?





Chapter 2


JORI


Thirteen Years Later

“There he is,” Dana said, jabbing her elbow into my side. We were jammed into a booth at Broussard’s Pavilion, where the crowd grew more boisterous by the minute. Maybe coming tonight had been a good idea, a welcome change from the stress of returning home last week. The whole place buzzed with cozy conviviality—a shelter from the gathering storm that at the moment was only a whisper of wind rattling the pines and cypress.

I practically shouted into her ear. “There who is?” I asked.

She nodded toward a booth on the opposite side of the bar. “Ray Strickland.”

Through the slight fog of my two bloody marys, I realized the name was familiar, but I couldn’t quite grasp its significance, other than a vague unsettling. It registered that he wasn’t a good person, although the specific details associated with the name remained fuzzy. My forehead drew together from a vodka-befuddled haze, and my friend elaborated.

“Raymond Strickland,” she said again, enunciating each syllable as though speaking to a daft child. Her voice formed green arrows that fizzed harmlessly against a black backdrop. “You know, the guy who murdered your cousin.”

Click. There was a blast from the past. Hadn’t heard his name mentioned in ages. “They let him out of prison?”

“In February.” She shot me an incredulous look. “Your family didn’t tell you?”

“We never speak of him or the murder. Ancient history.”

Dana’s eyes held the tiniest trace of reproach. She quickly sipped her beer, trying to cover it up, but we’d been friends since kindergarten, and she could hide nothing from me. Even though we’d drifted apart a bit since I’d left the bayou years ago, we always got together when I visited to catch up.

“It’s not like I knew Jackson,” I said defensively. “He was my second cousin, and I was only two when he died.”

“Still. Family is family. My folks? They’d have rallied all of us together and devised sneaky schemes to make Ray’s free life as miserable as possible.”

“Good for y’all.” I couldn’t quite keep the sour note from my voice. Nobody had to lecture me on family loyalty. If it hadn’t been instilled in me since childhood, I’d never have returned to Bayou Enigma two weeks ago.

Dana patted my hand. “That wasn’t a criticism. You never knew your cousin. And from what everyone says about Jackson Ensley . . .”

I frowned, not liking her implication. “You saying he deserved to die? I’ve heard all the tales about what a low-life piece of trash Jackson was. But c’mon, Dana—we’re talking about a sixteen-year-old kid.”

She held up a hand. “You’re right. Sorry. The older I get, the younger sixteen sounds. Who knows? He could have just been going through a troubled adolescent stage and would have turned his life around. Become a respectable, upstanding citizen.”

I chose to ignore the doubtful tone as she uttered those words. It was hard to get worked up about such an old crime involving a relative I never knew. Call me heartless, but I had enough on my plate dealing with present circumstances.

I’d been cruising along just fine with my mostly solitary life in Mobile. Since leaving government employment and striking out on my own as an event coordinator, I’d stayed holed up in my apartment, glued to the computer and dedicated to making a go of my new business. On the few occasions I’d come home to visit my grandmother and younger brother, Zach, I’d tamped down my feelings of uneasiness. Yes, Mimi had grown a tad too forgetful for my liking. But didn’t most people become that way as they aged? Trouble was, Mimi was Zach’s sole caretaker, and his autism was on the severe end of the spectrum.

Last week’s call from Social Services had jolted me from my false complacency. Zach hadn’t showed at his regular day program, and the concerned director had driven to Mimi’s house. Zach was home alone, unharmed and watching TV. Mimi drifted in a good twenty minutes later, a dazed expression on her face. Turns out she’d walked to the end of the driveway to set out the trash can that morning, talked to a neighbor for several minutes, then apparently become confused and wandered up and down the road until she remembered which house was hers.

So here I was. Back in the bayou. Trying to figure out what the hell I needed to do to understand Mimi’s medical condition and get her help and at the same time ensure that Zach was safe.