Dirty South Drug Wars (35 page)

“You can do this,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “You’re still the strong, courageous Rue I fell in love with. You can do this.”

I laughed off his concern and nodded. Tanner dropped his arms, intertwining his fingers through mine. He led me from the room with Shelby falling in place behind. We met Graham and Melissa at the foot of the stairs, looking like two models in their Sunday best.

The five of us loaded into Graham’s car and pulled from his driveway down the winding country road. We left Birchwood in our mourning clothes and headed to Mayhaw, to the same place where Tanner and I first met.

The funeral home hadn’t changed much in the years since they buried my father. The building was large and a sorrowful gray color with thick, white columns near the front. White, wooden rockers sat on each side of the door making an attempt to give the building a more simplistic, country feel. It didn’t work. The building stood out like a sore thumb, especially with the Mayhaw Dollar Store as a backdrop, which was the only new addition to the overall scenery.

The parking lot was tiny—so tiny, in fact, that people parked on each side of the road and filled the entire Dollar Store parking lot. If my sister were there, Lord, she’d have been excited to see so many people milling around in their Sunday best, hoping to catch one last glimpse of the latest fallen Monroe.

Graham parked the car across the street from the funeral home, and the lot of us filed out.

“You nervous?” I asked Tanner.

“Nervous? No, why?”

“Mingling with sworn enemies.” I gestured at the funeral home.

Tanner smirked. “Never.”

None of the Montgomerys appeared nervous. They held an air of cool indifference about them, with their heads held high and gentle smiles on their faces. Tanner grasped my sweaty hand in his and I peered up at him.

“Everything is gonna be okay,” he said, guiding me across the street. “Ignore the stares and whispers. You’re not here because of them. You’re here for Lucy’s sake.”

I nodded numbly. My chest was wound up tight, constricted, as though some demon force had a vise grip on it.

Various family members stood around conversing with small groups of people in hushed tones. A mixture of emotions played on their features as we approached.

The angry stares were more vengeful than they’d been the day before when I’d sat in the funeral home greeting visitors, family and friends alike. The Montgomerys had not graced Mayhaw with their presence yesterday at my request. I’d spent the day playing the part of the mournful older sister, smiling and dabbing my eyes with a tissue as people murmured their condolences. I did it for Lucy, to pay respect to my sister, but this day was
mine
. It belonged to
me
. The shock, the anger, and the betrayal—I craved it, but only from one person.

Amos.

I didn’t simply want him to hate me; I
needed
him to hate me. The gloves were off. By bringing the Montgomerys to my sister’s funeral, it was as though I was beckoning him to me, daring him to cross the same line with me as he’d crossed with Lucy.

It was time for Amos to pay for the pain and suffering he’d inflicted on my family and me our entire lives. It was time for him to pay for his sins and meet his maker. It was time for Amos to die.

I held my head high as I passed neighbors and family members from out of town. A tall man wearing a smart gray suit held the door open for me. The man was none other than Detective Holloway, who continued to nose around in my family’s business. I had a feeling I wouldn’t be able to shake him for a while, so I decided to simply ignore him, refusing to give him the acknowledgment he so desperately desired.

Tanner gave Detective Holloway a curt nod. “I loathe him.”

“You still think he’s got the hots for me?”

Tanner scowled and held my hand tighter. He had a silly notion that Holloway had some sort of sick fascination with me, and the Monroe family in general. His theory was crazy. There was nothing to indicate Holloway viewed me as anything more than a Monroe, a child of the murdered man whose case Holloway’s own father could never solve.

We entered the lobby, melting into the crowd of people gathered there. Their light whispers and chuckles faded away as our appearance became noticeable. Then the whispers returned tenfold, the quiet murmurings of curious townsfolk who had nothing better to do with their lives than spend it talking about others.

I stood behind Shelby, Graham, and Melissa, with Tanner by my side, as they took turns signing their name in the guest book. Tanner took his turn as well, and the four of us entered the sanctuary. There was a line from the lobby all the way through the middle aisle of the sanctuary, leading to the shiny white casket facing the rows of wooden pews. The smell of carnations assaulted my senses, drifting around me, pricking my memory and reminding me of past funerals and death.

A few brave individuals spoke to Graham and Melissa as we passed; they were businessmen who knew Graham through the factory he owned and operated. I was sure if Amos were nearby, they wouldn’t have ventured to speak to Graham and Melissa. But Amos was nowhere near us. He was in front of Lucy’s casket, along with my other family members, greeting the visitors with a smile on his face. He shook their hands and received their well-wishes.

There was a soft smile on his weathered face, a face so closely resembling my father’s, and I hated Amos for it. I hated him for playing the role of grieving uncle. I hated him for the strong resemblance he held to my father, but most of all I hated him for sending Drew to my house to murder my sister.

I grasped Tanner’s hand tightly before sliding my arm through his, and he escorted me toward the front of the funeral home. We breezed around the throngs of people waiting to hug or shake the hands of my various family members.

The faces of my aunts and uncles all darkened as Tanner and I approached. I gave them a simple little smile, nodded my head, and took a quick left turn. In the front pew sat Christine and my grandmother, at opposite ends from one another. I ignored Christine and fell into place near Nana, who struggled, and failed, to keep her tears at bay.

“Nana,” I whispered, touching her hand.

Unlike everyone else I’d encountered, Nana barely acknowledged my presence for a moment. She was too caught up in her own twisted emotions, mourning the loss of one of her young grandchildren. After several seconds, Nana’s eyes locked on mine. She stared at me as though seeing me for the first time, searching my face for heartache or discomfort.

“Oh, dear Lord. Rue. Come here, baby.”

Nana reached out and grasped my hand. Her wrinkled fingers were cold and clammy, but I paid them little attention. I leaned into her, showing my grandmother the affection we Monroes typically kept bottled up. I wished nothing more than to absorb her grief and guilt and reassure her everything was okay, but I couldn’t. The truth hurt, and the cold, hard truth was that Lucy was gone, and Nana thought she would never see her again.

“Everything’s okay, Nana.” I tried to convey with my words what my mind refused to say, the secret I kept bottled up inside. “You’ll see Lucy again one day. I promise.”

“But not on this Earth,” she said. “Nevermore.”

“Lucy wouldn’t want you to cry. She’d want you to remove those horrible flowers from the childish white coffin, but she wouldn’t want you to cry.” I smiled, trying to lighten my grandmother’s mood.

The white casket with shiny silver handles was completely un-Lucy-like. Lucy was vivid colors, bursting with life. She was reds, yellows, and blues splashed across a white canvas. Lucy’s favorite flowers were colorful Gerbera daisies, not the carnation mixture Christine had picked out. The music playing in the background was slow and morose. My sister was upbeat, fun, and silly. Sure, she was always getting into trouble and had her quirks, but she was beautiful nonetheless. Lucy deserved more posthumously than a cheap, stinky spray of flowers and depressing funeral parlor music.

I missed Lucy. God, how I missed her.

Only a handful of days had passed since the fire at the hospital, the fire that took out an entire wing of Birchwood Medical Center. Ironically enough, it was the Montgomery wing that had burned. Lucy and I had never been apart for more than a day or two our entire lives, and only then because she was off somewhere drunk or high. I always found her, no matter what, but there would be no more finding Lucy. You couldn’t find what didn’t want to be found.

The line of visitors moved along at a snail’s pace. After dropping condolences to those situated around Lucy’s casket, the visitors halted near the front pew, speaking quietly to Christine. The ladies blew air kisses near each of her cheeks, careful not to smudge her pristine makeup. They then moved to where I sat, shooting me tight smiles and light condolences before walking away. Their roaming eyes landed where Tanner sat beside me, powdery cheeks burning as he caught them gawking.

Tanner cocked his head to the side, lips only a breath away from my ear. “Is there something on my face?”

I nudged him for his poor attempt at a joke. He smiled for a second, earning a few scowls from onlookers.

Josie walked in sometime during the parade of well-wishers and pushed her way through the crowd. A tight, black dress clung to her body, hugging what little curves she had everywhere besides her large breasts. She plopped down beside me with a huff, forcing me to shift closer to Christine on the pew. The air around her smelled of cheap booze mixed with the scent of her floral perfume, and it burned my nostrils. I wrinkled my nose as she reached inside her cleavage, adjusting herself without a hint of remorse for her indecency. She poked and prodded at her boobs, paying more attention to them than anything else.

“Where’s Bryce?” I whispered.

“Drunk as a skunk, passed out in my truck.” She gave a dismissive wave of her hand.

“Josie, it’s over ninety degrees outside. You can’t leave Bryce passed out in your truck. He’ll die.”

Josie huffed, her rosy lips dropping into a frown. “Jesus, Rue. For Christ’s sake. I’m not a total sadist. I cracked a window.”

“How can you be so casual?” I asked. “You could at least
act
like you have a little semblance of grief.”

Josie turned up her nose. “Lucy would want me to be happy. Getting drunk and having sex makes me happy.”

Tanner snickered, covering it with a cough. “I’ll go check on Bryce. Give Josie a break. She’s not one to act like anything other than herself.”

With the nod of my head he stood, tugging at the lapels of his expensive black suit. Even in the midst of turmoil and sorrow, he remained humble and strong, sauntering past the nosy onlookers with a brief nod of his head.

Graham, Melissa, and Shelby approached the front of the sanctuary. They shook hands with my uncles, who nodded and smiled at Graham only for appearance’s sake, well aware of the hundreds of onlookers homed in on them from the surrounding pews, including the good detective in the back row.

The three parted ways with my uncles after their brief greetings. They spoke a kind word to Christine, who blatantly ignored them, and then to my grandmother. Nana murmured a polite greeting into her handkerchief. They disappeared after that, melting into the thick crowd of folks on the opposite side of the building, sliding into a pew near the back.

The hour approached to begin the dreaded service. A nervous knot formed in the pit of my stomach as people shuffled to their seats, already dabbing worn tissues at the corners of their watery eyes. A child had died, and there was no greater sorrow than the death of a child, no greater loss than the life of someone who had yet to really live. There were no possibilities left and no chance of a future.

If they only knew the truth.

Tanner returned, placing something soft and light in my lap. I couldn’t help the small smile curled on the edges of my lips or the fluttering flight of recognition tickling inside my chest. In my lap sat a bouquet of lilies. Pure white, flushed yellow at the base, and painfully beautiful, they emitted a heavenly fragrance. The startling green stems were held together by a long, silky white bow.

“You remembered.”

“Of course I remembered,” he said. “How could I forget the first time I saw the girl I want to spend the rest of my life with?”

I toyed with the ribbon, curling it around my finger. “Everything has come full circle now, hasn’t it?”

Tanner turned his head, looking behind us, his eyes flickering toward Amos. “Almost.”

Tanner draped his right arm around my shoulders, resting it on the back of the pew. I felt the cold, hard stares of my aunts and uncles, including Amos, from directly behind us. I imagined Amos wished he could reach forward and snap both our necks at that moment, but he couldn’t. There were too many witnesses. It was too public. Also, Detective Holloway sat somewhere nearby.

The service started, and we all stood. I struggled to find Chance sitting somewhere nearby, but he was absent. I hadn’t seen him in days, and I worried about how he was handling being away from his family. I wondered if he struggled with the absence of those he loved, as I had with Lucy, but I knew he was not alone. Keeping his family at arm’s length was a price he’d chosen to pay for Lucy’s well-being.

Mia’s voice trilled, cutting through the sobs and stifling scent of flower arrangements. Her voice carried over the audience and flowed through the dismal surroundings. Mia was a broken angel, her voice wavering and cracking at times, full of the emotion and distress of losing a friend. I’d been shocked when she’d
offered
to sing during the funeral.

“Lucy picked this song out,” I whispered to Tanner.

“Huh?”

“When you packed up my stuff at my house, I found Lucy’s iPod in the bottom of one of the boxes. She had a playlist for every event in her life, including her funeral. This song is from her funeral playlist.”