The Bourbon Thief(57)

Athens Timber and Lumber, Athens, Georgia. There was a phone number printed on the card and a name written on the back in her father’s handwriting. Tamara smiled. Finally the river had gotten a message to Daddy and Daddy had found a way to get a message back to her.

Tamara tucked the card away in the cabinet, put the liquor bottles in front of it again and shut the door. She went back to bed and fell fast into a heavy dreamless sleep.

Levi said you couldn’t hurt people who were already dead.

But maybe she could.





19

Paris

McQueen rose from his seat and took a white linen napkin off the bar. He brought it to Paris, holding it out for her. If she wanted it, she could have it, but he wouldn’t force it on her.

“Thank you,” she said, taking the napkin from him and using the corner to dab her tears.

“Saltwater tea?” McQueen asked.

“My least favorite drink. Too bitter by far.”

“I’ll stick to bourbon,” McQueen said.

“I’m sure you will.”

She smiled slightly and it transformed her face. He saw the real Paris in that smile, the real Paris behind the veneer of the red dress, the role she played, his femme fatale, his Brigid O’Shaughnessy, his Maltese Falcon. He wanted to touch her. For the first time since she’d stolen his bottle, he wanted to touch her. But he dared not.

“Maybe it’s not a rock fence around you at all,” he said. “Maybe it’s an eggshell.”

“You’d like to think that.”

“I would like that, yes. Very much.”

He took his seat again and waited for her to speak. Usually he wasn’t the sort of man to wait on others. Others waited on him. But for her he would wait. For her he might wait a very long time.

“Tamara wasn’t pregnant,” Paris said. She laid the napkin on her crossed knee and carefully folded it. He watched her fingers dance over the linen and soon she’d transformed it from a square into a swan.

“I’m sure Levi was relieved.”

“Profoundly.”

“And Tamara? Disappointed?”

“No. Only determined. Still determined.”

“I imagine.” McQueen sat back, put his arm over the back of the armchair and watched Paris turn her swan back into a square. “Should I feel bad I got a little turned on by their first time together?”

“Yes.”

McQueen shrugged. He was what he was. He wouldn’t apologize for it. Not in his nature.

“I assume Levi didn’t go through with his threat to take them back to Kentucky?”

“He did not, no. A week passed on Bride Island. Two weeks. Levi fixed the fuse box and they had electricity at the house, which made the waiting a little easier. Every couple of days Levi went into town and called Judge Headley’s office to see if the will had been fully executed yet. Not yet, the judge’s secretary said. These things take time. So they waited. And waited.”

“Sounds nice, peaceful. Spending a summer on your own island isn’t so bad. I’ve done it myself.”

“I’m sure you have.”

McQueen winced. Why couldn’t he stop saying the wrong thing to this woman? She was a minefield. He knew it. So why did he keep walking?

“Peace and quiet they had aplenty. And too much for Levi’s sake. But peace and quiet should always be appreciated while it lasts because, as you and I know, it never lasts.”

“What happened?”

“Tamara and Levi had houseguests.”

“Houseguests ruined their peace and quiet. Must have been bad guests.”

“I wouldn’t call them bad, but...well...Tamara did have to kill one of them. Then again, I probably would have, too.”





20

Levi told her to leave him alone, so Tamara left him alone.

It was surprisingly easy to do even in such close quarters. While the house might be small—only two little bedrooms, one little office, one little living room, one little kitchen and one tiny bathroom—the island itself was big enough to get lost on for days. Their second day on the island, Tamara had walked the dirt road from the cottage to the island’s ocean side and seen a sandy white beach simmering in the South Carolina sunlight. As soon as her feet touched the sand, she knew she’d found her daddy’s beach, the one he’d walked on and brought home with him after every business trip. Daddy’s beach was now her beach and every single day she came out here to swim and sunbathe and sleep under the big blue-and-white-striped umbrella she’d found in the little shed behind the house and kept tied to an oak tree every night so that it would be waiting for her every morning after breakfast.

Levi did not come with her to the beach. He stayed home, worked on the house. He did good work, but she didn’t tell him that. She told him as little as possible. For three weeks she’d let him be and he’d returned the favor. She’d always wondered how her mother and father had managed to stay married even though they rarely talked, didn’t sleep together and didn’t like each other.

Well...now Tamara knew, didn’t she?

Tamara turned over onto her back, trying to dry out completely from her last dip into the ocean. Boats never came within five hundred yards of the island, so she had no qualms about sunbathing in only her underwear. No one would see her, so what did it matter? And it felt good to lie topless in the warming sun as the cool waters evaporated off her body. Too good sometimes. So good it made her remember things she didn’t want to remember, like her one and only night in bed with Levi.