Marisa Carroll - Hotel Marchand 09 (18 page)

It wasn’t a flattering pose, Cecily thought a little hysterically.

“Don’t shoot, Damien. It’s me, Marie Lesatz.”

“Whoever’s inside, open the fire escape door slowly and come out with your hands up.” Cecily did as she was told, her hands shaking so badly it took two tries to turn the deadbolt on the door.

“Good Lord, Mrs. Boudreaux. Is that you?” The young cop’s eyes were as big as saucers in his round face.

“Yes, Damien, it’s me,” she said. She wished she’d had the courage to take Marie’s advice and run into the darkness of the auditorium, but no matter how much they argued and sniped at each other, Marie was her friend and she wasn’t going to leave her to face the consequences of their stupidity alone. “Put your gun down, will you? It’s scaring me to death.”

“T
HEY’RE BOTH ASLEEP
.
Thank the Lord. I don’t know what I’d do if Dana decided to upchuck on your leather seats.”

“They’re washable,” Sophie replied in a low voice. She had hoped the very mild sedative the urgent-care doctor had given Dana would allow the poor little girl some rest, and it seemed to be working. She wasn’t seriously ill, thank heaven, just worn out from too little sleep, too much excitement and too much rich food. She’d kept down the electrolyte drink they’d given her at the clinic, and a little later a protein shake that tasted enough like chocolate milk to pass muster with an exhausted and petulant seven-year-old.

It had been Guy, not her mother, who had talked a pale and teary-eyed Dana into cooperating with the doctor to avoid a time-consuming and scary-to-a-little-girl IV to treat her dehydration. Sophie hadn’t been present in the exam room, but the walls of the Biloxi walk-in clinic were paper thin, and both Dana’s voice and Guy’s carried to where she sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair.

“You’d never get the stink out of them and we both know it.” Casey Jo settled back into the bucket seat of Sophie’s Lexus and braced her foot on the dash. “My God, what a day.” Sophie kept her attention on the road, watching the approaching headlights of a big semi-rig through the swish-swish of the windshield wipers. The silence lasted for a minute or two and then Casey Jo spoke again. “I suppose I’d better get this over with. There hasn’t been time, what with sittin’ in the doctor’s office and packing the car and all, but I want to thank you for driving Guy all this way to get us.”

“It was nothing,” Sophie said automatically.

“Bull—” Casey Jo glanced over her shoulder at her sleeping children.

Sophie found their reflections in the rearview mirror at the same time. Dana was curled up against Guy’s side. His arm was wrapped protectively around her shoulders while he sprawled in the corner of the seat, his jacket rolled up beneath his head as it rested against the car window. His mouth was open and he was snoring, just a little.

“Bullcrap,” Alain’s ex-wife replied. “It’s a hell of an imposition and I have enough manners to say thank you when someone deserves it. But I don’t think you did it just out of the goodness of your heart,” she added bluntly.

Sophie had had a lot of time to think about why she had made the trip, and although she tried to tell herself it was only the act of a Good Samaritan, or a good friend, she knew she was lying. She had done it because she loved Alain, and by extension, his children. For that simple, earth-shaking, life-altering reason, and no other.

“You’re in love with that stick-up-the-butt ex-husband of mine, aren’t you?” Casey Jo wasn’t looking at Sophie but staring straight ahead into the gathering night. The other woman hadn’t bothered with her hair or makeup today, or more likely just hadn’t had the time to spend on herself. Tonight she looked tired, not so young as she once was, and just a little worn around the edges.

Sophie considered not answering her, but didn’t give in to the urge to dodge the question. “Yes, I am.” If she and Alain did manage to carve out a future for themselves, this woman would be part of it whether Sophie liked the idea or not. She didn’t intend to run away from Casey Jo ever again.

“Did he ask you to marry him yet?” Casey Jo shifted a little in her seat, one foot still propped on the dash like a teenager.

“No. We haven’t discussed marriage.”

“You want him, though, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Sophie said. “I do want him. With all my heart. I have for a long time somewhere deep inside. But we never did anything to dishonor the vows he made to you, Casey Jo.”

She waved her fingers in the air. “Hell, I know that. Alain’s too full of himself to sneak around on me.”

“Then why did you accuse us of having an affair all those years ago?”

“’Cause I was pregnant and broke and I wanted him back and I knew guilt was the only thing that would hold him to me. Hell, we’d still be married if I hadn’t just got fed up with all of it and left town again. Best thing I ever did for myself.”

“You gave up your place in your children’s lives to chase a dream?”

“And I’d do it again. It’s not my fault it’s been so long coming. But I still have hope. Vegas is my next stop.”

“Why are you coming back to Indigo, then? We were only about twenty miles from where you live, weren’t we?”

Casey Jo’s expression turned crafty. “That would really put a crimp in your plans if I came back to Indigo for good, wouldn’t it? Well, you don’t have to worry about that. I have a boyfriend now. He’ll be bringing my car to town when it’s fixed to pick me up. We’re living together. We’re going to get married someday,” she said just a bit defensively. “We’ve been together for almost a year. He’s a pit boss at the casino where I deal blackjack. He thinks I can make it as a lounge singer. In the big hotels, not fly-by-night joints off the Strip. He’s got faith in me. He’s helping me look for a new agent. We’re heading to Vegas in a couple of months. That’s why I wanted to give the kids this treat. After we leave Mississippi, I won’t be able to see them again for maybe a long time.”

“That’s what you really want in life?” Sophie heard herself speak the thought aloud and apologized. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Don’t bother. I might ask you the same thing. You’d give up all this?” Casey Jo indicated the interior of the expensive car, but the gesture was meant to encompass much more: Sophie’s job, her condo, her life in Houston.

“To have what you walked away from, you mean?”

Casey Jo blinked as she absorbed the words. “I suppose you think I screwed up with my kids, taking off like I did and leaving them behind.”

“I wouldn’t have done it,” Sophie replied.

“No, I imagine you wouldn’t. But then you didn’t grow up on the wrong side of the tracks in a one-horse town with your mom tending bar nights and your dad so long gone you can’t even remember what he looked like. Besides, they’ll thank me for it someday when I’m rich and famous. When they’re grown up we’ll all be friends.”

Sophie thought of the hard set to Guy’s face when they’d finally tracked his mother and sister down at the shabby motel on the outskirts of Biloxi. The place bore signs of past hurricane damage in its mismatched shingles and two-toned aluminum siding. She could still hear the angry note in his voice as he argued with her to take Dana to the doctor to get her help for the retching that convulsed her little body. It would take a bigger miracle than Casey Jo’s winning a Grammy for that wish to come true. “I pray you’re right about that.”

“Lordy, you’re a real goody-goody, aren’t you,” Casey Jo said with a flip of her dark hair. “You deserve to be saddled with Alain. You’re two of a kind.” She peered over the console at her sleeping children. Sophie pretended not to see the mixture of pleasure and pain on her face. Her voice was quieter when she spoke next, less brash and confrontational. “I’m not a complete fool. They’re better off with their father and we both know it.”

As she continued to watch, Dana stretched and yawned, then sat up rubbing her eyes. “Mommy, where are we?”

“About halfway home, Snickerdoodle. Are you going to be sick again?”

Dana closed her eyes and scrunched up her little face. Sophie scanned the roadside for a place to pull off, just in case. “No,” she said after a few moments. “I’m not going to be sick. But I’m thirsty. And I have to go to the bathroom.”

“We’ll get off at the next exit,” Sophie promised as Guy stretched and came awake, too.

“Where are we?” he asked, peering into the late-winter darkness that had fallen while she and Casey Jo talked.

“About an hour from Indigo. We should be home by eight-thirty or a little before.”

“Just an hour and a half late.” He sounded pleased with himself, as though he’d accomplished what he’d set out to do.

“I’m hungry,” Dana said with a little quaver in her voice. “My tummy’s growling.”

“There’s a McDonald’s at this exit,” Sophie said doubtfully.

“I could do with a couple of quarter pounders and a biggie fries,” Guy prompted.

“The doctor said Dana should only have soft, light foods for a day or two. I don’t think a burger or chicken nuggets qualify, do you?” Sophie deferred to Casey Jo as the children’s mother, however reluctant she was to assume the responsibilities that went with it.

“She’d heave them back up in five minutes,” Casey Jo agreed in her blunt way.

“Maybe a little ice cream and one of the protein shakes they gave us at the clinic will hold her until we get back to Indigo.”

“Or yogurt,” Dana piped up. “They have yogurt with fruit on top. I like it.”

“Definitely on the mend.” Casey Jo’s smile was genuine and Sophie returned it. She doubted they would ever be friends, but maybe they could get along for the children’s sake, if not Alain’s.

There I go again, planning for a future that might not come to pass.

“I think I’ll top off the gas tank when we stop.”

“It’s over half full—more than enough to get to Indigo,” Casey Jo observed.

“I’m leaving for Houston tomorrow. It will save me doing it then.”

Casey Jo glanced into the backseat. Guy was busy helping Dana into her sweater and shaking the wrinkles out of his jacket. They weren’t paying attention to the adults in the front seat, at least for the moment. “I figured you’d be staying in Indigo.”

“I can’t,” she said as bluntly as Casey Jo would have. “Not yet, at least.”

A
LAIN WOKE
from a slight doze. He’d been sitting in the wing chair that occupied the place of honor in front of the big window in the living room. No one ever sat in it except at Christmas and Thanksgiving, when the house was overflowing with his sisters and their families, aunts, uncles, assorted cousins and sometimes a neighbor or two, but it commanded a view of the street in both directions and made the perfect observation point.

He hadn’t planned to fall asleep, but it had been a long day and his body had overruled his mind. The house was dark and quiet, no television, no radio, no one talking on the phone. He realized his mother hadn’t come back from
Mamère
Yvonne’s. She’d been gone for over an hour and he was surprised they both hadn’t returned to keep vigil with him. He glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. A few minutes after eight o’clock. He hadn’t heard anything from Guy or Sophie since they’d left Baton Rouge. If Sophie drove the speed limit, and Dana hadn’t started vomiting again, they should be pulling into the driveway any time.

With Casey Jo in tow.

He stood up, laced his fingers together palms out, and stretched, then shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He walked to the front door and flipped on the porch light. He couldn’t help wondering how Sophie was handling the drive back with his ex-wife riding shotgun.

Headlights speared down the street. He felt his heart kick up a beat or two as a car slowed and turned into the driveway. It wasn’t his mother’s Blazer but a low-slung Lexus. Sophie’s car. He was out the door before it came to a stop. The back passenger door opened and Guy got out, unwinding to stretch his arms high over his head as Alain had just done. A moment later he ducked back inside to re-emerge with Dana clinging to his neck, her legs wrapped around his waist.

“Daddy,” she called, then must have remembered she didn’t feel well and laid her head on her brother’s shoulder. “Daddy, I’m sick,” she said in a much less robust tone as Alain descended the porch steps to meet them.

He held out his arms and she tumbled into his embrace. “I throwed up and throwed up.”

“I can tell,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “I think you got some in your hair.”

She nodded solemnly. “I did, and all over my clothes. We had to wrap them up in a plastic bag. They smell awful.” She dropped her head on his shoulder and started to sob. “I missed you. I don’t like to be sick when you’re not there.”

Alain looked over the top of her head to see Casey Jo coming around the front of Sophie’s car in time to hear Dana’s last words. Sophie was standing with her hand on the open driver’s door. She had heard, too. She glanced at Casey Jo’s back and pity filled her eyes.

Sophie would never neglect a child of hers the way Casey Jo did Dana and Guy, not as long as she had breath in her body. Alain was as sure of that as he was that the sun would rise in the east come morning.

“We got back pretty darn close to your deadline,” Casey Jo said, ignoring Dana’s remarks, although there was no way she could have missed hearing them.

“Only because Sophie was willing to make the trip with Guy.”

“I was going to say I appreciate what she did for us if you would have given me time to take a breath of air before you jumped down my throat.” Her eyes glittered with anger, and beneath that a shadow of hurt and regret. Maybe she did realize what she was missing out on with Guy and Dana, but she would never admit it.

Guy was busy taking suitcases out of the trunk, but Dana had lifted her head from Alain’s shoulder to listen to what was being said by the adults. “We’d better take you inside and get you cleaned up and settled for the night. Have you had anything to eat?”

“We stopped at McDonald’s. I had ice cream and yogurt. I’m tired. I want to go to sleep. Where’s Grandma?” she asked as Alain turned to remount the porch steps with her still in his arms.

“Sophie, will you wait?” He was afraid she’d drive off if he didn’t ask her not to.

Casey Jo swiveled her head to stare at Sophie, then turned back to him and held out her arms. She rolled her eyes. “You’re pathetic. Here, give her to me. I can still find my way around this house. I’ll put her to bed then call my mom to come and get me. You can have a few minutes to take one last stab at talking Sophie here into staying in this godforsaken burg.” Casey Jo snorted as Dana unwound her arms from around his neck and settled into her outstretched ones. “Good luck.”

“Don’t be long, Daddy. I want you to tuck me in.” Once more he thought he saw a shadow of hurt flit across Casey Jo’s face, but if he did, it lasted only a moment.