Richard Bonaive? Jesus, was it that simple?
There was a thump behind them, the old man in the red shirt reappeared and Cheryl vanished like a ghost.
“That will be two hundred twelve dollars and thirty-two cents,” Doug said. I blinked, stunned to see all of my stuff in bags and Doug smiling at me as if he hadn’t been saying the foulest things about Savannah moments ago.
“Hold on there, Doug. Add two bags of ready-mix,” the old man said, then turned to me. “You’ll have to go around back to get them.”
“No problem,” I said and took out my wallet.
“I got it from here, Doug, thanks,” the man said and Doug walked off. He said he was going to check on fishing rods, but the safe bet was Doug finding mommy and doing what they did best.
I put my money on the counter but the old guy ignored it, looking hard into my eyes.
“Don’t listen to my family,” he said. “Those O’Neill women are good people. Don’t deserve what’s been done to them.”
“What’s been done to them?”
“They been left, boy. Time and time again, they been left and that will make a person do some crazy things.”
The night had a texture to it, a lush throbbing weight that reminded me that there were a lot of living things out in all that blackness. Living things like snakes. Alligators. Big bugs that I wasn’t real fond of. And the only thing between me and them was the thin metal screen of the sleeping porch.
It hadn’t seemed quite as bad the past few nights, but I’d been falling asleep so hard and so deep it was as if I’d died.
Tonight, my head was spinning, trying to separate malicious gossip and rumor from what might possibly be the truth.
Vanessa and Richard married?
The gems, here?
Christ, it would make my life a whole lot easier. And, frankly, it explained why the kids were always breaking into the back courtyard. Why the greenhouse was destroyed and why suddenly someone was bold enough to try to get into the house.
Why they wanted a security camera in their garden.
Gems, thousands of dollars in a wall safe.
People did worse for less.
Like you, I thought, guilt eating at the edges of my mind.
I should have said something to Doug, a little something to keep his mouth shut about Savannah. But I hadn’t. I’d walked away and now I was going to use Doug’s gossip against them.
I’m worse than Doug.
I turned on the lamp. The white sheets on the narrow cot glowed, and other than some gardening pots in the corner of the room where I’d hidden the surveillance photos and files, the porch was empty.
No wall safes. No gems.
Bugs were attracted to the light and buzzed against the screens, beating giant wings against the metal.
I turned off the light, opting for the ghostly half-light of the moon.
Room 3 at Bonne Terre Inn was getting more appealing by the minute.
But there were no chances to study the lovely, wounded and Notorious O’Neill women in room three.
I checked my watch. Dad called me every Wednesday at this time. Jail was a lonely place and these weekly calls were important. To both of us. Joel Woods may not have been the best father, but he’d done the best he could.
I grabbed my cell phone which I’d been ignoring for weeks, turned it on and the annoying chime of an activated phone sounded loud in the quiet night.
“Hello, Matt,” my phone said. “You have twenty voice mail messages.”
I groaned and looked down at the display. Erica. Twenty voice mail messages from Erica, trying to get me back to work. Trying to get me to care.
I erased all of them with one push of my finger.
But then the screen illuminated with a text message.
Twenty messages, you jerk. You’ve lost two clients. I’ve paid all the bills I can. Consider this my two weeks notice. Erica.
6
I searched myself for any emotional reaction, but felt nothing. It was as if it were someone else’s incredibly prized personal assistant leaving.
That whole life, the office and the buildings, the door with my name on it, all of it seemed so far away. So removed from me.
The fact that I didn’t care, not about losing Erica or my clients, actually terrified me.
Who am I becoming?
I deleted the message only to have another one pop up that had been sent three hours after first.
Okay. I’ve had a glass of wine and expensed a nice dinner on you. I realize leaving now would be a disaster. For you. You need help, Matt. Lots of help. I’m not quitting. Thanks for the steak.
You should, I texted back. In fact. You’re fired. Effective immediately.
With a shaking finger, I turned off my phone. Erica was too good to wait around for me. For an act that was never going to get together.