Light of the World (Dave Robicheaux 20)

“Do you think I’m going to allow my family to expose themselves to risk without my being there?” she replied. “Is that what you think of me, Dave?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then why did you leave me behind?”

In my frustration, I took the phone away from my ear, then replaced it. “Maybe I didn’t want you to see something.”

“Like what?” she said.

“Maybe Surrette’s not going to be around much longer.”

“I don’t like what you’re suggesting.”

“That’s the way it is.”

“No, it is not. We don’t do things that way.”

“Where are you?” I asked.

“We just passed a marina. I didn’t catch the name. There’s a house down the slope with a couple of junk cars in the yard. There’s a shed with an auto repair sign on it.”

I had no idea where she was.

“Let me call you back,” she said.

“No, listen to me—”

She broke the connection. I tired to redial, but we had gone around a curve on a high spot above the water and had lost service.

“She’ll be all right,” Clete said.

“Albert is with her.”

Clete scratched his cheek. “I guess that’s a little different.”

I was trying to concentrate. I had missed a detail in Molly’s conversation. What was it?

Clete put his hand on the wheel. “Watch where you’re going. There’s an eighty-foot drop on the other side of that rail.”

“The wrecker,” I said.

“What wrecker?”

“See if you can get the sheriff on the phone,” I said.

“Are you kidding? I can’t stomach that guy.”

“For once, don’t argue, Clete,” I said. “Can you do that? I know it’s hard. But try. I’m sure you can do it if you work on it.”

“Who lit your fuse?”

A tractor-trailer rig passed us in the other direction, then a truck pulling a camper and what looked like a Cherokee. Up ahead, I saw Gretchen’s brake lights go on. I followed her to the bottom of the grade and into a parking area by a guardrail overlooking the water. It was almost midnight, and the heat lightning had drained from the clouds and disappeared in a dying flicker beyond the mountains. Small waves were capping on the lake, slapping the beach with the dull regularity of a metronome.

Gretchen stepped out of her pickup. “Did you recognize the guy in the Cherokee?” she said.

“I didn’t pay any attention,” I said.

“I think it was Jack Boyd,” she replied.