Heart of Lies (8 page)

“That depends on whether or not he confesses to the kidnapping.”

She nodded that she understood.

“But when he doesn’t?”

“Confess, you mean?”

“That’s right. When he doesn’t confess?” She knew they’d have to light Terrance on fire to get him to talk. She doubted that would happen, so sooner or later they’d have to let him go.

“Do you think he did it?”

“I can’t say.”

“Then he could have? Is that what you’re saying?”

“He’s not the confessing kind. That’s what I’m saying.”

He let her lead the discussion. If Maddie did know something, he wanted the information to come from her voluntarily. He wasn’t about to spook her and make her bolt — or worse, panic her into getting rid of the child to escape prosecution.

“Which is why we need to find the girl. Terrance wounded a policeman. He won’t be getting out of prison anytime soon.” Tom looked at Maddie. “I wouldn’t fret too much unless you know more than you’re telling.” He picked up his fork and dug into the meal.
It was some of the best food he’d ever eaten. Simple, flavored just right.

“Never had bacon and crab together before. You concoct this recipe yourself?”

She shrugged. “Crab is easy to come by. Bacon came from …” She paused and studied her hands. “The bacon came from a friend up the bayou near Clearwater.”

“Must not be easy to make friends out here. It’s pretty isolated.”

She didn’t respond. Her gaze fell to the paper and then darted away. He noticed but pretended to ignore it, with the niggling feeling she knew a lot more than she would admit.

He polished off half the meal and took a long swig of coffee. Maddie shook her head and ran her fingernail over an indentation in the tabletop. There were a few burn marks here and there, as well as oil stains. She was quiet, lost in contemplation as he finished his breakfast.

She tucked her long hair behind her ear. “Would you like more?”

He leaned back and sighed. “That was delicious, but no thanks. I couldn’t swallow another bite.”

She surprised him by reaching for the
Times Picayune.
Opening it, she set it on the table and tapped the drawing of Penelope Perkins. “What does this say?”

He leaned over the paper. His heartbeat accelerated. “It’s a story about the kidnapped child. Why?”

“I can’t read. I was just wondering what it says.”

Her expression gave nothing away. If the twins were guilty and if she
did
know something about the child, then Maddie Grande was a consummate actress.

He picked up the paper and read the article to her word for word.

“ ‘Penelope Perkins, eight years old, was kidnapped by two men on the river road as she and her nanny occupied a carriage headed for Kentucky where she was to visit her maternal aunt. Her parents, Peter and Mary Perkins, are offering a reward of two thousand dollars for her safe return, no questions asked.’ “

“A mother’s heart can’t bear losing a child.”

He had to strain to hear her. There was something so bleak in Maddie’s voice, such heartfelt understanding in her whisper, that he couldn’t help but wonder if she was speaking from experience.

“You almost sound as if you know—”

Pushing out of her chair she picked up his plate and crossed the room.

“Two thousand dollars is a king’s ransom,” she said.

“The Perkinses are desperate.” He added, “It says here they lost a baby boy a month ago.”

He watched her shoulders sag. Her hands stilled. She recovered quickly and slid his plate into a tub of soapy water before she dried her hands on a rag draped over the dry sink.

“You sure you don’t know anything about this?” He tried to sound as if he didn’t care. As if this wasn’t the very heart of the reason he was here.

She kept her back to him, stared down into the dishpan. “How could I?”

But when she finally faced him again, her eyes were haunted. A frown marred her brow. “You’d best be going, Mr. Abbott. I’ve got to see to my traps today.” She sounded distracted as she headed for a rack of antlers with hats and an oilcloth slicker hanging on it.

If the Perkins child was on the premises, he’d have seen or heard her by now. Last night it had struck him that the Grandes could have hidden her somewhere nearby. There were hundreds of waterways threading through the swamp. She could be hidden in a shed on a spit of land somewhere, in a hidey-hole where they stashed stolen goods.

“Mind if I go along?” He figured he’d worn out his welcome, but why not press his luck?

“Would it do any good to tell you no?”

He shrugged. “I’m not the law, Maddie. You don’t have to have me along.”

He could almost see her mind working.

She wasn’t happy about his request but she said, “It’s up to you. Come along if you want.”

She didn’t seem overly concerned. Perhaps because she wanted him to think she knew nothing of the kidnapping.

Or maybe he was just hoping that she was innocent.

T
he longer Tom Abbott hung around, the more desperately Maddie wanted him gone. She had a feeling he was just waiting for her to accidentally reveal Penelope’s whereabouts. That he was just waiting to pounce. She’d seen him weigh every word, watch her every move, while they discussed the newspaper story.

She reached for an oilskin coat on the antler rack and pulled it over her brown serge skirt and stained blouse. She’d trimmed the deep hem off the coat and cut the sleeves down but it was still four sizes too big across the shoulders. She sat on the edge of her bed to unfasten and slip off her shoes, then shrugged into a pair of tall leather boots. Once she had the shotgun in hand and her skinning knife sheathed and dangling from her waist, she was ready to leave. Because of the storm, her trap line had gone unchecked yesterday. With the swamp full of predators, if she didn’t get to them soon, there’d be nothing worth saving of the muskrat catch.

Tom Abbott finished off his coffee. She watched with curiosity as he carried his mug and the rest of his dishes and cutlery to the dry sink before he followed her out onto the dock. As she went about preparing the pirogue, her thoughts were consumed with the Perkins girl.

She could not shake the sound of Abbott’s voice as he read the story to her. The reward money offered was more than she could fathom.

“No questions asked.”

No questions. If she could just deliver the girl, collect the reward, and escape, she’d be free. But even if she
did
take the child home, there was no way to keep Penelope from telling her parents she had been in league with the twins all along.

Maybe instead of handing Penelope over, she should have a lock of the child’s hair delivered as proof she had possession of her. Or better yet, the red cape. Maddie could then demand a meeting and exchange Penelope for the reward.

If she could shake Abbott.

“Trust no stranger.”

It was a cardinal rule of Dexter’s.

Maddie lowered the gun into the pirogue and climbed down from the dock, careful to keep the craft balanced. She held firm to the iron ring where she’d lashed the craft for the night. Catching a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye, she glanced up. Abbott was waiting to join her.

“Take care climbing down. Don’t make any sudden moves or you’ll upset the balance and we’ll go over.” She waited until he was aboard before she took up the forked push pole. She loosed the rope and they floated free.

Abbott sat in silence in the bow of the boat, watching the banks intently. The bayou had had the same seductive affect on her the very first time she’d taken to the water. The twins were unmoved by the haunting, natural beauty of the swamp. The silence did not speak to them the way it did her. Unfortunately, the notion that Tom Abbott was in awe of it too brought her defenses down another notch.

She studied the way he sat there so casually, one arm propped across his knee, his broad shoulders thrust forward as he studied one side of the bank and then the other. They passed a blue heron poised on one leg near the reeds along the bank and then floated silently past a black snake on the surface of the water.

“Where are we headed?”

She jumped at the intrusion of his voice and nearly dropped the pole. She took a deep breath.

“To the heart of the marsh. Muskrats make tunnels in the soft ground away from the water. When we get there, I’m going to tie up and get out, but you stay put. Walking around on damp ground
with tunnels beneath takes some practice.” She feared he might be too heavy-footed to make his way safely across the marsh.

“I’ll stay put. Guard the pirogue,” he said.

“Most likely you won’t see anyone out here. If you do, just wave and don’t look threatening.”

She slowly edged to the left and poled along between an ever-narrowing thread of water until the boat refused to go any further.

“How do you know where to set the line?” Abbott had his hand to his brow, shading his eyes as he scanned the landscape. “It all looks the same to me.”

“A friend told me I’d begin to feel where the rats might be. I choose spots where I’ve found them before and set traps in tunnels and holes. If you look close you’ll get better at recognizing paw prints. Sometimes there are gnawed roots and droppings around the entrances to tunnels.”

“Your brothers make a lot selling pelts?”

“My brothers wouldn’t do this on a bet. I do all the trapping and skinning myself, sell the pelts in Clearwater. First town up the road.”

Abbott turned slowly and carefully, his hands steady on the sides of the pirogue, and stared up at her. “You aren’t joshing, are you? You catch and skin muskrats yourself?”

“I don’t make jokes, Mr. Abbott.” There wasn’t much in her life to tease about and never had been.

Carefully, she set down the pole and picked up an axe handle she used to club muskrats that hadn’t died in the traps.

“Hand me the rope,” she instructed.

He grabbed the end and stretching toward her, held out his hand. Their fingers touched as he passed the rope over. At the slow brush of his warm skin against hers, Maddie’s gaze involuntarily flew to his eyes. They were dark, unreadable, and held her gaze far longer than she would have liked.

Did he know what she was thinking? Did her reaction give away just how long it had been since she had been close to someone?

She was the first to look away. Shaking off her surprise at her reaction, she picked up the shotgun and stepped out. She tried to concentrate on the soft ground beside the boat. This was no time to let her mind wander. If she wasn’t careful, she’d end up halfway to her waist in muck.

“You leaving me here alone?” His voice shattered her concentration.

“You’ve got your gun. I won’t be that long.”

“What about alligators?” He looked around.

“Keep your hands in the boat. I’ll be back shortly.” She’d try to hurry, but haste fueled accidents.

“Maybe I should go with you.”

“Maybe you should stay put and let me get on with it. You’re safer here, believe me.”

“Just don’t dawdle.”

She almost smiled. The unaccustomed lightness fluttering deep inside her was more than a little disturbing. She thought of Lawrence and reminded herself she had nothing to smile about.

The ground was soggy from yesterday’s downpour. Her boots were mud-caked after the first two steps and her hem was quickly soaked, but she kept her footing.

The first trap held the mutilated remains of an otter. The pelt was unsalvageable. She carefully opened the trap, pulled out what was left of the creature, and flung it as far off into the marsh as she could. It sailed out over the high grass and landed without sound.

When Anita first suggested she learn to trap and skin to provide for herself, Maddie had found the blood and guts disgusting. Her life had always been far from glamorous, but she was a city girl at heart. She knew the streets and warrens of New Orleans like the back of her hand. On her first few trips into the swamp, she would have been impossibly lost if she’d been alone, but Anita was wise and patient, and that, coupled with the lure of the bayou, helped Maddie quickly learn to read the signs. Nature always pointed the way.

Torn-up and half-eaten critters no longer disgusted her. A
ruined carcass represented no more than a lost pelt. She moved on, checked six more traps. Five of the six held round-eyed muskrats. They were compact little animals with wide heads, round ears, and dark, brown-black pelts. Many had red-gold tints running through their dark coats. Their underbellies were silver.

There was good money to be made selling the thick pelts — she not only used her earnings for food and supplies, but for rent on the cabin—yet there was never any left over. Nothing to save for a new start.

She kept her promise to Abbott and soon made her way back to the pirogue with the heavy line of muskrats dragging from her hand. He was stretched out with his arms folded over his chest, his hat brim pulled down to shade his eyes. She tossed her catch into the bottom of the pirogue, where they hit the wood with loud, wet slaps.

Abbott quickly sat up. Even without looking at him, she felt his gaze. As before, he was a master at masking his thoughts.

They passed the journey back to the cabin in silence. She grabbed the shotgun and climbed up onto the dock, and Abbott handed her the string of muskrats. She turned away to let him climb out of the pirogue on his own and was about to head around the house to wash the muskrats with fresh water when the cabin door opened and Anita Russo stepped out.

Maddie stared in shock but quickly covered her dismay.

“Hey, Anita.” She was certain Abbott could hear her heart pounding. Maddie glanced back and saw him climb onto the dock. He made certain the pirogue was secure. She held her breath, expecting Penelope to bound out of the cabin behind Anita, but thankfully, the child failed to appear.

Maddie knew it was too much to hope that Anita had taken the girl home.

“You been here long?” Maddie spoke to Anita, fully aware that Abbott was making his way toward them.

“No.” Anita eyed Abbott with suspicion. “Just got here.”