Meanwhile, Rachel was frozen in place with disbelief.
“ As for the bonfire, I even forgive you for that. Let’s say we’re even.”
“ Let’s not,” she said, regaining her voice. “Listen, David, you and I have too much history together for me not to feel some sadness about leaving. It’s been a long time coming, though. The vasectomy was just the last straw.”
He threw up his hands in surrender, but the small smile that tugged at his lips meant that he thought she would be back. “Where are you going, then?”
“ I don’t know,” she lied. “A road trip for now.”
He frowned with confusion. “A vacation?”
Just then, a horn blasted outside. A bright red pickup truck was out in the parking lot. Huge, impish smiles were plastered on the faces of Laura and Jill, who leaned against the front bumper. They were supposed to go pick up her rental car, a comfortable sedan; this last-minute change was obviously their idea of a jumpstart for Rachel’s new life. The truck stereo blared some rowdy, though appropriate, he-done-her-wrong, country music song.
A pickup truck? Is it. . . yes, I recognize that truck. It’s Hank’s. . . a classic he restored last year. Good Lord, what did Jill promise him to get him to lend me his precious baby? Oh, my God! Am I going to make a thousand-mile road trip in a pickup truck, with my Louis Vuitton luggage in the back like sacks of meal, and he-done-me-wrong songs blowing out my eardrums?
“ Don’t tell me. You’re leaving me in a pickup truck?” He smirked in a most unbecoming way.
Okay, so she’d had the same reaction, but she wasn’t about to let him look down his surgically sculpted nose at her. “Yes.”
“ You really have lost your mind.”
Maybe. Rachel grabbed her vintage denim jacket from the hall tree, leaned up and gave David a quick kiss on the lips—and thanked God that she felt nothing—and waved back to him over her shoulder.
“ So long, honey,” she called out.
But David didn’t catch the sarcasm. He still thought she’d be back. “Have a nice time.”
“ I plan to.”
Chapter 3
Truckin’ her life away
She’d driven only eighty miles or so on I-95 South before Rachel began to have second thoughts.
It wasn’t the hokey Elvis wobble figure her friends had placed on the dashboard. If he shakes his tushie at me one more time, though, I think I might puke.
It wasn’t the Dixie Chicks ad nauseam on the tape player—a gift from Jill who shared her enthusiasm for country music. If they don’t kill Earl soon, though, I will. She saved them the trouble by switching from tape deck to radio station—a country station, naturally.
It wasn’t the way people—men especially—gave her second looks as she tooled down the highway—a redhead in a lipstick-colored truck. In case the bozos didn’t get the visual message, the vanity plate her friends had dug up somewhere proclaimed, REDHOT. If one more man calls me “Red,” though, I’m going to do something I’ve never done before with my middle finger.
It wasn’t even the bumper sticker, also a “gift” from her friends, which read, DECORATORS DO IT WITH STYLE. I hope
no one I know sees me, though. That non-too-subtle message is way too graphic for my tastes.
Nope, what had Rachel wondering if she did the right thing were the tears making wet paths down her cheeks. She harbored no serious misgivings, but she was sad that a five-year relationship had come to this. She’d had doubts about herself and David from the beginning, but it had been flattering to have a good-looking, successful man in love with her. Plus, he’d offered a stability she’d never had, being in foster care all those years before being adopted. She kept telling herself that she was better off with a sure thing—which she hadn’t been, of course. And turns out he hadn’t been a sure thing, either.
Oh, well, maybe she would find someone in Loo-zee-ann-ah. Some long, tall, Southern boy with a sexy Southern accent. She thought a moment and laughed. “On the other hand, maybe not,” she said aloud.
Really, the last thing she wanted or needed was a man in her life anytime soon. Just a couple of months to settle back and relax. No complications. Just me time for a change.
The disc jockey broke in then, “And now, how about a little Toby Keith from his ’Pull My Chain’ album?” Immediately, a deep male voice crooned, ’I Wanna Talk About Me.’”
“ Criminey, do country singers have a song about everything?” she murmured.
“ Yep,” she answered herself.
Rachel wasn’t a die-hard country music fan, but she did like some of it: Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Bonnie Raitt, K.D. Lang. Mostly, she liked the way country music made her smile. However, by the time she pulled into the “Knock, Knock” motel outside Knoxville four hours later, Rachel was definitely not smiling. Who knew there were that many corny country music songs? Driving through Tennessee, hardly anything else played on the radio. Oh, the standard Garth and Reba-type recordings got their fair share, but there were also such mind-boggling, ear-numbing songs as:
“ Bubba Shot the Jukebox.”
“ I Changed Her Oil, She Changed My Life.”
“ Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ with Lovin’ on Your Mind.”
“ It Ain’t Easy Being Easy.”
“ She Offered Her Honor, He Honored Her Offer, and All Through the Night It Was on Her and off Her.”
If that wasn’t bad enough, once she settled in the motel room decorated in Elvis chic—velvet bedspreads, velvet paintings and lava lamps—Rachel checked her cell phone, which she realized had been turned off. Three messages waited for her.
The first was barely intelligible because of the heavy Southern accent. “Hullo! It’s one o’ them goddam answer machines, Granny. Hey, what’d ya slap me fer? Anyhow, is that you there, Rachel? This here is yer cuzzin Beauregard Fortier. Jist call me Beau. Granny sez to tell ya she got yer letter and she’s expectin’ ya tomorrow or next day. She even washed the bed sheets. Gater gumbo’s on the stove, awaitin’. Watch out fer snakes. Ha, ha, ha! Stop slappin’ me, Granny. Thass all.”
The next call was from Beau, again. He whispered, “Granny sez to pick up a bottle of Wild Turkey on yer way.”
Yeah, right. We know who wants the booze, big boy.
The third call came from David. Despite everything, Rachel’s heart skipped a beat. Was he calling to beg her to return? To apologize profusely? To say that he loved her?
Nope.
“ Rachel, where the hell’s my Della Robbia? You know that vase is one of the rarest pieces in my Roseville collection .. . worth ten thousand dollars. I want it back, and I want it back now. If you haven’t returned it by tomorrow, I’m calling the cops. Where are you anyway? Never mind. The police will be able to trace you through your cell phone.” The line went dead then.
So much for apologies or warm sentiments. Rachel should have known. David cared more for his stupid pottery than he did for her. The clues had been there all along. Still, it hurt.
Rachel glanced pointedly at her largest suitcase where the infamous piece was wrapped in a bath towel. She had taken the valuable vase because she could . . . and because she deserved it, in her opinion. Mainly, it represented a symbol to her—of what, she wasn’t quite sure yet.
However, it was one thing to be confident about her rights personally and another to flaunt the law—not that she was sure that cops could actually trace cell phone calls. But she took no chances. As she headed down the street to a diner where she planned to have a solo dinner in a local diner, Rachel made a quick call, cancelling her service, then dropped her cell phone in the parking-lot Dumpster.
“ Trace that, David,” she murmured under her breath.
Meanwhile, down on the bayou
“ This is the stupidest, most half-assed, lamebrained idea you have ever talked me into,” his brother Luc complained. For about the fiftieth time.
“I’m telling ya, Luc, we gotta look like we mean business.”
&n
bsp; Remy wore a cowboy hat, vest, jeans and boots, with a gun belt strapped onto his hips—just for effect. He wanted to appear formidable. Luc carried a rifle and wore a bulletproof vest under his denim shirt. The only saving grace to their dignity was that they hadn’t ridden in on horses. Instead, they’d pulled a “Go Devil” out of Remy’s storage shed and used the small boat to skim over the bayou water to his neighbor Gizelle Fortier’s place where he hoped to negotiate a land deal.
The woman they intended to talk with was sometimes referred to as “The Wicked Witch of Bayou Black.” The last time Remy had approached her, she’d told him to drop dead.
“ We look like Dumb and Dumber,” Luc continued to grouse.
Yep, Hopalong Tweedle-Dee and his sidekick, Tweedle-Dum. But he wasn’t about to say that to his brother. “Packing heat is a good idea, no matter what you say.”
“Packing heat? What the hell cop show have you been watching on TV? I’m carrying a hunting rifle, which I wouldn’t use to kill a deer if my life depended on it. And those pistols in your hip holsters probably haven’t been fired since nineteen fifty-two. Geesh! Talk about!”
“ We have to look as if we can defend ourselves. Ol’ Lady Fortier is a loose cannon. You never know what she’s going to do. Shoot you in the ass with buckshot, or cast a voodoo spell on your private parts.”
“ Uh-oh! Hold the reins, cowboy. You didn’t say anything about voodoo. All I promised was to intercede on your behalf in a land purchase. I’m a lawyer, for chrissake, not Wyatt Earp.”
“ Luc, I need the land. The DEA will give me the contract for aerial drug surveillance if I can expand my helicopter pad. I don’t have enough land myself to do that. Unless we can talk Gizelle into selling, I’m out on my butt. Frankly, if this falls through, I’m off to Alaska and a charter business.” That last was a low blow thrown in guiltlessly. He knew how much his brother wanted him to stay here.
And, actually, Remy had other reasons for wanting this government contract. He had been running in place for years, like one of those gerbils on a wheel. There was no real purpose to his life; he had taken whatever jobs came along. Removing a few scummy drug lords from the face of the earth would restore some of his much-needed self respect.
Now that Luc appeared not quite so anxious to skedaddle, Remy suggested, “Let’s roll this rock and see what crawls out.”
They both started walking up the grassy incline toward Gizelle’s home.
“ Yer trespassin’, fellas,” Gizelle screeched in a high-pitched voice. She had just stepped out onto her porch, and she carried a weapon which looked from here as if it might be an Uzi, but was probably just a souped-up shotgun.
Gizelle Fortier and her home were a stepback to another era. Better Homes ’N Slums, it was not, but then Architectural Digest wouldn’t be knocking on her door anytime soon, either. It could be a hundred and fifty years ago, and this log cabin on stilts would have fit right in. Built in the dogtrot style of the Cajun pioneers, there would be a central hallway leading front to back for ventilation, rooms on either side, with a loft on top for sleeping, and the requisite wide front porch.
On one side of the house, a clothesline stretched, filled with newly laundered clothing. Most everywhere else there were wood frames on which were stretched the skins of muskrats, possum, beaver and mink. Chickens wandered around the yard at will, pecking at the dried earth for feed. A pig oinked from a pen out back. And a vicious-looking hunting dog tied to a tree on the side barked wildly as it strained at its chain.
As for Gizelle’s clothing, “witch-chic” came to mind. Her ankle-length skirt and hip-length blouse, belted at the waist, were made of some homespun Acadian cotton that was colorless after so many washings. Her long hair hung gray and straggly. On her feet were men’s hiking boots. She had a bulge in her cheek—probably long-cut tobacco—and a matronly mustache. In essence, she looked mean as a coot. A witch, for sure.
“ How are you today, Ms. Fortier?” Remy tried to be polite.
She fired a bullet in the dirt near the tip of his boot.
Holy shit! So much for politeness.
“ Now, Ms. Fortier, you don’t want to be breaking the law,” Luc advised.
Her next bullet winged the barrel of the rifle Luc had braced over his shoulder. He jumped and muttered, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!”
“ This is my prop’ty. Yer the ones trespassing. So, I ain’t breakin’ nothin’, ’ceptin’ maybe that zipper on yer overalls.”
Luc glanced down at his private parts, then glared at
Remy. It was one thing to voluntarily get a vasectomy. Quite another to have a witch take care of the business.
“ Ms. Fortier, my name is Remy LeDeux, and this is my brother, Lucien LeDeux. He’s an attorney down in Houma. We . . . I. . . just want to talk to you about a little land purchase,” Remy tried again.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I know who you are. Valcour LeDeux’s whelps. What? You wanna drill fer some oil on my land? Ruin some more of the bayou?”
“ No, ma’am,” Remy said with as much sincerity as he could put in his voice.
“ That Valcour! As crooked as a barrel of snakes!” She spit out a stream of tobacco over the porch rail, her gesture bespeaking contempt for their father—or maybe for them. “I knew him from the time he was a youngen. Randier than a three-pronged goat, he allus was. You the same, boy?”
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. All the time. “Hardly.”
Luc stifled a snort of laughter. “He can barely handle one .. . uh, prong.”
“ Think I’m funny, do ya, ambulance chaser?” She aimed her weapon in the vicinity of Luc’s . . . prong. He stopped laughing.
Just then, Gizelle’s grandson Beau came ambling around the corner of the house. He carried a long-bladed skinning knife in one hand and a machete in the other . . . well, okay, a hay scythe. Beau was about twenty years old and not too bad looking if, number one, you disregarded the trailer park hairdo—short on the top and sides and long in the back . . . a “Mullet,” some people called it, or an “Ape Drape” . . . and, number two, if you disregarded the blood stains on his jeans and bare chest.
“ What’s goin’ on, Granny?” Beau inquired lazily.
“These no-account LeDeuxs wanna buy a piece of my land.” She still had her weapon raised.
“ Now, be reasonable, Ms. Fortier,” Luc said. “You haven’t even heard my brother’s offer yet.”
“ Reasonable? I’ll give you reasonable, you young full-a-yerself shyster.” To Remy, she added, “Keep flying that whirly bird over my prop’ty and I’m gonna haul that Civil War cannon from the town square back here and blast you outta the sky.”
“ Violence is not the answer,” Remy said.
“ You come one step closer and I’m gonna prettify up the other side of yer ugly face. Mon Dieu, you look as if you fell sideways in a cement mixer.”
“ That is totally uncalled for,” Luc yelled, coming to his defense like a raging bull. “My brother got injured fighting for this country, fighting for ignorant witches like you.” Red-faced, he began charging toward the house, hell-bent on beating up on the old woman.
Meanwhile, she yelled back, “Don’t you be having’ a hissy fit on me, you . . . you .. . you LeDeux, you.” Then she shrieked something about blowing the gizzards out of them all.
And Beau jumped into the melee by giving an old Rebel war cry and rushing forward with his raised knife.
They were all stopped dead in their tracks by a commanding voice coming from the back side of the house. A female voice, which demanded, “Stop this nonsense, all of you!”
To everyone’s utter amazement a big ol’ farm horse came cantering around the house, carrying what had to be the world’s oldest version of Dale Evans. It was Tante Lulu, wearing a fringed cowgirl skirt and blouse and tooled leather boots. A wide-brimmed Stetson, kid sized, topped her still-curly hair, which was white today.
“ A horse, auntie? A horse?” Remy choked out.
“ My T-bir
d’s still in the shop. Get me down off this beast before I fall on my face. I kin walk faster’n he trots.”
“ What the hell are you doing here, Tante Lulu?” That was Luc, full of tact.
“ Holy Sac-au-lait! Come to save your sorry behinds, thass what I’m doing here.”
“ How did you know we were here?” Luc wanted to know.
“ Sylvie tol’ me you two were engaged in some bizness.” Then she turned on Remy and wagged a bony finger up into his face, “What for you ask Luc to help you with Gizelle? You gettin’ dumb or sumpin’? I’m a better go-between than Luc with bayou folks, and don’t you forget it.”
“ Are you saying I can’t handle a simple business deal on my own?” Sometimes Remy didn’t know when to shut his mouth.
“ Sometimes you don’t know when to shut your mouth,” his brother whispered to him.
Sure enough, his aunt shut it for him. “I’m saying you have as much chance with Gizelle, on your own, as a one-legged man at a hiney-kicking contest.” Then his aunt turned on Gizelle, who still stood on the porch, thankfully with her weapon lowered by now. “Ellie, chère, how you bin?”
Ellie? Gizelle is Ellie? A witch named “Ellie”?
“ Come sit your pretty self down here, Lulu,” Gizelle said with a wide smile, waving a hand toward a glider on her porch. “You so little the crows gonna carry you off, girl. I get you a bowl of gumbo, yes?”
He looked at Luc and Luc looked at him. Was this the same Gizelle Fortier? Smiling? With a hospitable attitude?
“ It’s hot, hot, hot today. You got any of that sweet tea you make so good?” their aunt asked Gizelle.
“ For sure, darlin’.”
“ I’m thinking about throwing up,” Remy said.
“ Ditto,” Luc agreed.
A horn honked and a candy apple red pickup pulled into the crushed clamshell driveway. Bonnie Raitt was belting out “Something to Talk About” on the truck stereo.
The redheaded woman in the driver’s seat maneuvered the truck in a circle so that she could park off to the side. She opened the truck door and stood on the running board, stretching, as if she’d just completed a long drive, which she must have since the vehicle sported a D.C. license, in addition to a vanity plate up front that said, REDHOT, and a bumper sticker which read, DECORATORS DO IT WITH STYLE. Remy couldn’t begin to ponder the tempting implications of both of those messages because he was too intrigued by the thick swath of her fiery hair, which she pulled back off her face into a high ponytail. Only then did she jump down off the running board.