A right turn on Hamilton and they traveled a couple of blocks. Annie’s stomach hit her diaphragm. Not much had really changed and she didn’t want to be there. Abruptly, Max turned in at a narrow alley she didn’t recall and made a quick right into a forecourt large enough for half a dozen cars. One open space remained and the Boxster slid in tidily.
A single window on the left side of a boxy little building gave a clouded impression of rapidly moving figures inside. The door, with an oval of glass at its center, stood to the right. Whoever painted “Char’s Bagels” over the window wouldn’t be making a living in signs. Each turquoise letter was of a different size from its partners. And the closer the offender got to the end of the two words, the smaller his or her efforts became. Apparently he had eventually noticed his mistakes and attempted to fill up ragged spaces with yellow-brown pocked circles with holes in the middle. Those would be bagels, Annie decided.
Max switched off his engine but didn’t attempt to get out of the car. He turned her heart, and caused an ache in some places she shouldn’t allow to react at all. An incredibly good-looking man with a square jaw, a dip in the center of his chin and a wide, firm mouth that turned up at the corners, he was tall, with a muscular body—and if he knew how much time she spent fantasizing about him, he would probably laugh, or pity her.
He got out but she couldn’t make herself move. Max opened her door and offered her his hand.
Reluctantly, she joined him. He looked steadily down at her, his black brows drawn together. “What’s wrong? There is something, isn’t there.”
One of the blushes that cursed her life blossomed on Annie’s face. “Nothin’ wrong.”
He eased her away from the door and shut it. Once again they were pounded with rain and he swiped a hand across spiky eyelashes. “Yes, there is. What happened this morning? Why weren’t you at Pappy’s? You don’t miss work.” He’d done everything wrong with her so far today. The clock needed to be turned back. No hope there.
“Whoa, boy,” she said. “I don’t have to explain my actions to you.” Adrenaline started to rush and gave her some strength, together with a whole heap of nervous jumpiness.
Someone needed to get them out of this tight corner and it should be him. “You’re right. This is my fault. I got a bad shock this morning and when I saw you, it was like reaching someone sensible and sane who made me feel…calmer, I guess. I wanted to stay close to you.”
“I guess we both had rotten mornings.” Yet again, she said something she should have kept to herself. “Happens that way sometimes. Irene got out and had to be chased down.” She hated lying and lies were coming too easily lately.
“Your cat? You found it?”
“Her, yes,” she said and looked around the area. She had been down here at some time but the bagel shop had to be relatively new. Petals from magnolia blooms rolled over the forecourt. She could smell their sweet, musky scent.
Two laughing women spilled from a beauty shop on the corner and Annie spun away in case they looked in her direction. She put a hand to her throat and tapped the toes of her damp pumps. If they did see her, they’d only get a view of her back and never guess who she was, not that she recognized them.
If he had made her this edgy, Max thought, then he hated himself. “Come on. We’ll get some hot coffee and warm up a bit. Then I’ll drop you at your place so you can change. I’ll hang and get you back to work.”
He realized she was looking at something behind him and it didn’t make her happy. He resisted the urge to find out what had caught her attention. Annie didn’t seem to want to be here. And he didn’t want to be in Toussaint now, but he had no right to pull her into his problems.
He put a hand on her shoulder and found it rigid. “You coming?”
Her lips parted and her eyes filled with tears.
Tears?
Hell, what had he done to her? When he looked over his shoulder he saw nothing but a man leaving the shop with a bulging white paper bag.
“Annie?”
If she could close her eyes and be miles away, she would. “No! No, I can’t stay today. You go on in. I know how to get back to Pappy’s on my own.” As soon as she got away from this parking lot she’d call Carmen to come and get her. He didn’t ask questions and he didn’t discuss people’s business.
Max didn’t move.
“Really,” she told him. “I’ll see you back there—maybe tomorrow if you’re in.”
He reached for her right hand, turned it palm up, dropped his car keys there and folded her fingers over them. “Take my car. I’ve got a few things I should do while I’m here. Roche will be along and I’ll go back with him. Just leave the car at Pappy’s.” Meanwhile he’d get his act together and make sure he never made another stupid slip like this one. But then he intended to find out why Annie was nervous in this town. More than nervous, just about paralyzed. “Off you go.”
“No. That’s not necessary,” Annie said. She tried to push the keys at him but he stepped away. He blinked and worked his jaw, said, “Just take the car. I’ve got to go now.” He walked from the lot and turned toward Bayou Teche.
Confused, her skin damp and clammy, Annie watched him move rapidly out of sight. She looked at the keys, then at the Boxster. Of course she couldn’t take his car and leave him here. But the man with the white bag had stopped outside the bagel shop door and she felt him staring at her.
Max wouldn’t have gone so far. She’d go after him now and give back the keys.
Only her feet wouldn’t move. She pulled up her hood and bowed her head, moved close to the car.
It was Bobby Colbert who stood, looking directly at her.
How old was he now? A couple of years older than her, thirty-one maybe?
Move. Get out of here.
Annie pivoted from the vehicle. No one would think anything of someone who took off running in this kind of weather.
“Annie? Is that you?”
She froze. He might as well have taken her by the throat and squeezed. Annie didn’t react.
The sound of his footsteps, coming in her direction, horrified her.
He’s not bad. He was just a boy back then. We were both kids. And the last time I met him he was trying to help me—he did help me. I would probably have died if he hadn’t showed up. But he saw what that crazy man did to me. Bobby knows all about what I have to hide…No one else could know. She couldn’t bear it if…If Max found out, she would leave Toussaint rather than put up with either his revulsion, or his pity.
“Annie, it’s me, Bobby. I didn’t know you were back.”
She raised her face as he reached her. Not a boy anymore. Slim as he had been, but with the mature development of the man he had become. Sandy hair, curly and well cut. Earnest brown eyes. Even, white teeth. The all-American kid had grown up and his open face only intensified her shock and fear at seeing him.
“I’m not back,” she said and shuddered at the thin, wobbly sound of her voice.
Bobby smiled. “I think about you a lot, cher. How you doin’? How did it all…?” He glanced downward over her body.
Annie unlocked the Boxster, dropped inside and locked the door. Not until she saw him jump away did she register that when she shot backward, she almost hit Bobby Colbert.
He could destroy everything she had worked for.
M
ax’s shoes slipped on wet leaves and mud.
Sounds traveled from the bayou but there were no visuals of the water. He heard voices calling out there, from one boat to another. They headed for a dock and shouted back and forth to avoid a collision. Even the fog had a presence, as if it repeatedly whispered for the world to “shush.”
He knew exactly where he was and kept moving quickly, corrected once for almost losing his balance and hurried on. A large piece of land lay ahead about a mile, and back through pretty dense trees. He had wanted to build the clinic there but the others preferred to work on an existing building. Today, he was convinced he should have insisted on that piece of land over Green Veil. A simplistic reaction and the result of pressure, but so what? If he could, he would change everything he had done since arriving in the area. Everything except meeting Annie and he’d managed to scare her away, too.
Under the leaves lay a concrete track, pitted, cracked and long past needing repair. If he had bought and built there, a good road would have been put through. He had thought about gardens and terraces where patients could wander and sit outside while they recuperated.
At a spot where he knew he could get through the trees easily, he climbed up a shallow bank from the track, stepped over a sagging wire fence and slapped a jungle of vines and bushes away as he passed.
He knew the sound of his own engine when he heard it. Annie had followed him. It was no good, he had to stay away from her until he found out if the unthinkable had happened, if Michele had been hurt, or…Max couldn’t bring himself to form the other word.
Ducking under a low branch, he pressed on and hoped Annie hadn’t seen where he went.
The noise of the car got closer.
A clearing opened in front of him and he stepped onto uneven ground where shadow from the surrounding trees had killed any grass and left moss and hardy weeds in its place.
The car passed. Max sighed. His gut told him the next news of Michele might not be what he wanted to hear. And a blow like that was what it took to knock sense back into him? Annie was off-limits; off-limits because he wanted her too much and the wrong people could find out how he felt.
Being important to Max Savage increased a woman’s chances of premature death.
If Max wanted her company, he would not have taken off the way he had.
Annie braked gently and looked in her rearview mirror. He had left the road about a mile back.
She chewed a fingernail and immediately jerked it away from her mouth, muttering at herself.
Slowly, she eased the car into reverse, took her foot partway off the brake and coasted backward, stopping before she reached the exact place where she thought Max had gone.
Without giving herself time to back out, she left the car and went up the bank. He had stepped easily over the fence; the operation took her longer because she had to use a foot to draw the loose top wire to the ground so that she could move on.
Trees closed around her—old timber, a mixture of conifers and heavy deciduous trees—their branches seeming to push at one another for more space.
Debris crackled under her feet and she made no attempt to be quiet. She didn’t want to surprise Max.
Annie leaned a hand against the furrowed bark of a dripping live oak. She had nothing to offer Max but friendship. By now he had to want more than that—and a few memorable kisses quickly cooled by Annie. The scent of rotting leaves rose around her, tannic and disturbing. In dreamy moments alone, she visualized, even felt, unbearably good sex with Max. She wanted to share his bed, to tear away her hang-ups and give herself to him—and take him in return. Annie’s skin heated yet she shivered. The chance was too great that real intimacy with him would be a disaster.
But she couldn’t leave him here. More quickly than she expected, spaces between the trees grew lighter. She saw Max move in a clearing, but hung back.
Standing close to a tree, she watched him. He trailed one end of a long stick along the ground, stopping from time to time to make marks before carrying on with one line after another. And at intervals he glanced up as if taking measure of the area and his chart, or whatever he was making.
Darkness fell rapidly. It wasn’t time. Annie gasped, or rather opened her mouth and heard a gasp. She did not feel the muggy air enter her mouth. “Max,” she called.
He didn’t hear her.
Light went out completely, scarred by an immediate flash of flame. It crackled, and hissed, and went away, but not before she felt its heat.
She knew what was happening. Once again the nightmare closed in on her while she was awake. Only she wouldn’t let it.
A rushing cloud of leaves billowed past her, grazed her hair and neck. Annie batted at her head, shook her hair. A sound squeezed from her throat, a sob.
Dragging.
From nearby she heard something being dragged, and the brittle sound of a hard object hitting rocks as it bounced along.
She closed her eyes but saw clearly just the same. A man dragged a woman’s stiff body into the clearing and dropped it. He took up a shovel and cleared away leaves at least a foot deep that hadn’t been there before. He poked at the leaves, making a hole through them to dig beneath.
Annie dropped to her knees and huddled against the tree. Her tan linen skirt soaked up water. She screamed, but the man took no notice.
The darkness faded, gradually thinned, and she couldn’t see the man with the shovel, or the broken figure on the ground. Like stage lights, a glow rose slowly until she saw Max again. He was farther away, still scraping his stick on the ground.
She called his name again, “Max!” But he didn’t as much as look up. Annie wanted to go to him but her limbs wouldn’t move. Pain pounded in her head and she grew hotter. Was she there at all? If she was, why didn’t he hear her?
Why didn’t anyone know she was there?
A step, at last she took one step, her leg heavy, her foot scuffing over the ground. And another step. And another. Huge, ponderous steps but each one covered perhaps an inch. She wobbled and spread her arms to balance.
“Max!”
He turned his back on her and began to stride, only for him each stride became a bound, as if he were a space-walker, and his figure grew smaller.
As Max grew smaller the light failed, just as fast as before. Annie squeezed her eyelids together. She shook her head and heavy, damp hair slashed from side to side across her face.
There was no sound, no dragging, no cracking of metal on stone.
Holding her breath, she slitted her eyes to look ahead. Nothing, only darkness, hot, wet darkness. Somewhere behind her lay the road and the car. She knew with shocking clarity that everything hung on her retracing her steps and getting away. And never coming back. She should never have come back to St. Martinville, never.
A lone horn wailed a single, endless note. Deep and mournful.
Annie marshaled her spirit and looked over her shoulder. The man approached from behind. This time he shouldered the shovel and carried a woman under the other arm. She kicked, flailed, but silver tape wrapped around her head sealed her cries away.
Annie opened her mouth to scream. The man passed only yards from her, his face averted. She had to stop him from killing the woman.
He dropped the woman on the leaves and set to work, raking together a pile of sticks and leaves. He brought logs and tree limbs and tossed them on the heap. The pieces of wood arced in slow motion and settled softly.
He stepped away, lit a crude torch that shot forth flames, and buried the pointed end in the ground. Then he picked up the woman and threw her in the same slow arc as the bits of wood. She spun in the air, illuminated by the torch, her arms and legs flopping and twisting with each turn.
Annie shoved her hands out and screamed. She moved forward, faster this time, she thought. Sparks reached her, pricked her face and legs like white-hot needles.
“Don’t kill her,” she cried. “Don’t burn her.”
Max dropped the stick and spun toward the garbled voice he heard.
“Hey, hey,” he called, running toward Annie. She stumbled, knees sagging, arms outstretched.
He covered the space between them in seconds. Her eyes were unfocused, her face white, her hair hanging in sodden clumps. “Annie,” he cried, reaching to grab her.
Her awful cry ripped through him. She screamed and screamed, and flung her arms back and forth as if in some imaginary fight.
“Annie!” He caught and shook her. “Take a breath. A deep breath, now.”
A growling noise came from her throat. She appeared to look at him, but he could tell that her eyes were only turned in his direction. He doubted if she saw anything.
At first he’d thought she must have epilepsy, but this was no seizure.
Bending his knees, dropping his weight, he rose under her arms and caught her around the waist.
Her right forearm connected with his ear and the power of the blow astounded him. She struggled with enormous purpose, as if fighting for her life. Max steeled himself to stop her from hurting herself—or him.
Slamming her against him, he trapped one of her arms with his body and slid his left hand around her back to grasp the other arm. He lifted her and rolled her toward him until her face pressed into his chest.
He began to walk toward the trees.
“N-no-o!” She made room to free her mouth and yelled. “Stop it. Don’t hurt her anymore.”
Max tried to shut out the words. They had no meaning—or did they?
Carrying Annie was easy; she didn’t weigh much.
“It’s okay,” he said, gently but loud enough for her to hear. “I’m going to help you. This will all be over soon.”
“No, no, no.”
Her bucking jarred him.
“No, don’t burn me.” She went limp, her eyes dulled. “I don’t want to die like that.”
At the car, Max set Annie inside. She seemed docile now, limp.
His cell rang and he answered. “Who is this?”
“Did you get my letter yet?” The voice on the phone sounded like a speaking harmonica.