Not One of Us(40)

My heart squeezed, and I drew a deep breath. This was good news, right? Not that they were sure the family was murdered—I’d always believed that. But that finally somebody didn’t believe the Cormiers had been so devious as to let everyone assume they’d been killed when they were still alive.

Deacon’s face flashed before me, the wide-spaced blue eyes and his slow, easy grin. No, there was no happy news in anything this officer had related.

“I-I don’t know what to say,” I stammered at last.

“Not only that,” Blackwell continued, “but I’ve stumbled on a connection between the past and present murders. Two weeks before Mr. Cormier disappeared, he visited Raymond Strickland at Fountain Correctional Facility.”

“Why?”

“We don’t know. Inmate-attorney meetings are confidential, so no recordings were ever made. There were also two prison phone calls between Louis Cormier and Raymond Strickland before Cormier’s disappearance. All I know for sure at this point is that they did meet.”

“Strange,” I whispered. I never would have guessed those two had ever met. But maybe it shouldn’t have been surprising. Louis had been an attorney, and Ray might have wanted Louis to represent him in some matter like an appeal. It wasn’t like Bayou Enigma was a large town.

“Very strange,” Blackwell agreed.

Neither of us spoke for several minutes.

“Let me ask you once more,” Blackwell said, her tone soft and encouraging. “Can you recall anything suspicious happening at the Cormier household? Anyone ever over there that seemed out of the ordinary or anything the Cormiers might have said that, in hindsight, might be significant now?”

I started to again deny it but pulled up short as the image of Cash Johnson rose in my mind.

Blackwell caught on at once. “What is it?”

“This is embarrassing, but yeah, I thought of something. It’s probably nothing. Maybe I shouldn’t even mention it. I don’t want to get an innocent person in trouble.”

“Tell me. You’ll feel even worse if you discover later that they’re guilty or have a clue about the old crime.”

I nodded and spoke, hoping she couldn’t see the color heating my face. “I used to sneak out at night to visit Deacon in the old smokehouse on his property,” I admitted. “More times than not, when I’d leave the smokehouse to return home, I’d run into Cash Johnson. Even if it was before dawn, he’d be carrying a rifle and say he was going hunting. It always made me feel uncomfortable.”

“Who is this man? A neighbor of theirs?”

“Yes. He’s my Uncle Buddy’s business partner at Enigma Expeditions and lives in a cabin near the old Cormier home.”

“Buddy Munford? He’s a county commissioner, right?”

“Right.” Everyone seemed to either know Uncle Buddy or have heard of him.

“I’ll check that out. Thank you. If you think of anything else—anything at all—you call me.”

Still, Tegan didn’t rise to leave. She rocked in the chair, her gaze off in the distance, as though debating something in her mind. Finally, she faced me.

“What I’m telling you needs to be kept between us. Because of the connection between the cases, I wanted you to know we’re taking the threat against you very seriously. We’ll continue to have sporadic drive-bys of your house. Be careful, Ms. Trahern.”

I looked through the front window where Zach and Mimi sat side by side. Zach’s head rested against Mimi’s shoulder, and she absently patted his hand as they watched their movie.

“I will,” I promised. “I can’t let anything happen to me or my family.”

Tegan followed my gaze. “You have a lot of responsibility for someone so young.”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

“You must care about them a great deal.”

“I do.” I continued staring at the intimate tableau—my little brother who depended on me and the woman who helped raise us after the death of our mother. “Mom died of cancer when I was in high school,” I explained. “Near the end, when it was obvious she wasn’t going to make it . . .” The back of my throat burned, and I swallowed hard before continuing. “Mom asked me to always look out for them.”

“A deathbed promise,” Tegan said softly. “The teenage years are tough even without the loss of a parent.”

I glanced at her curiously. “I take it that high school was no picnic for you either.”

“Nothing that a year of counseling didn’t help fix.”

I started to grin, then realized she wasn’t joking. “I-I’m sorry.”

She lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “I don’t talk about it much. We all have our problems, and you’ve had more than your fair share. Not only with your mom’s death, but your boyfriend up and disappeared into thin air. Must have been tough.”

“It was. At least I had Mimi. And in his own way, Zach’s a comfort. He has this calm, Zen-like quality most of the time. Unless you change his routine—then all hell breaks loose.” I smiled thinly. “They’re all I have left. The thought of them being in danger makes me crazy.”

She nodded slowly. “I’m a single mother of two children. Twins. If anything happened to them, well . . . they’re my whole life.”