“Judge Terril Landry, Sr.,” Hank finally said, flipping through the pages Simon had fairly memorized. “I’m not familiar with the name.”
Simon was familiar enough for the both of them. Judge Terrill “Bear” Landry, Sr. no longer served on the bench but worked as a land man instead. During his time with Division C of the Fifteenth Judicial District of Louisiana, however, he’d been the one who’d sentenced both Simon and King after investigators determined the fire that ate through the latter’s family home to be arson.
“Le Hasard. That’s what you cal
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the place?” Hank asked, and after Simon nodded, added, “You going to sell? Hang on to the mineral rights? Unload the whole caboodle?
Because I know you’re not going to keep walking away.”
And that was Hank, seeing through his SG-5 operatives’ bullshit and never letting any of them slide. They were all good men, each with a lot to account for, to make up for. Yet Hank never played favorites, demanding they own up to their sins, forgiving them even when they might not know how—or be ready—to forgive themselves. Simon scrubbed his hands down his face. “I’m not sure what I’m gonna do, but I do know I have to go, see what condition it’s in and all.”
“Then go.” Hank hooked a forefinger and thumb around the stub of his cigar and pul ed it from his mouth. “You’ll figure it out when you get there.”
“Might be I screw it up, sell it when I should keep it, keep it when I should sell.” He didn’t mention anything about King. “It’s been known to happen. Me screwing up.”
Hank knew what had gone down with Simon and Eli McKenzie, his most recent partner. Hank had been the one to bring Simon back from the brink. And Hank wasn’t having any of it. “There’s not a man here who hasn’t felt the screwed-up fit of your shoes.”
“Too true that, boo,” Simon said, knowing they’d al
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spent time in their own versions of hell. “Maybe I should be getting one of them to go in my place.”
He couldn’t see Bear Landry—who had to be closing in on, what, sixty-five, sixty-eight by now?—knowing what to make of the fierce warrior that was Eli McKenzie. Or Lorna Savoy—and why was she still a Savoy?—putting up much resistance to Tripp Shaughnessey’s charm.
And his cousin King knocking heads with Kelly John Beach would be worth the price of the ticket, since his cousin’s head had no doubt grown harder with age. But this was one of those man-doing-what-he-had-to-do situations.
Hank folded the documents and slid them back into the envelope, tapping it against Simon’s arm. “You know any one of them would. ’Cept that wouldn’t be much in the way of a favor. None of them can kill off the bugaboos been keeping you away for twenty years.”
Simon had never laid out the events of the past to Hank, but he wouldn’t be at al
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surprised if the boss knew what had gone down with the fire, or why Bear Landry had wanted Simon and King out of the way and had meted out punishment that made it happen. Getting to the bottom of that mystery as much as dealing with King and the land was the very reason Simon had to be the one to go.
“You can run things around here on your own for a while?” he asked. “I don’t want to leave you in more of a bind than I already have.”
“We’ve got the bad guys under control, hotshot. You go and do what you need to do for yourself. We’ll be here if you want to come back—”
Want to? Why wouldn’t I want to? What would I do instead?
“—and we’ll know where to find you if you don’t.”
“I’ll be back. As soon as I can make it.” That was a promise. “There’s not a thing on the Gulf Coast worth stayin’ there for.” And that was a fact.
Three
“H e’s coming home, Baby Bear. He’s finally coming home. I swear I don’t know whether my heart’s beating itself full of fear, or if it’s fluttering from waiting to see what he’ll look like after all this time.”
Terrill Landry, Sr.—Bear to everyone living in Bayou Allain, Baby Bear to Lorna Savoy, who knew more of his secrets than his wife had ever been privy to learn—slapped a thick palm on a file folder to the right of the leather blotter centered on his desk.
“I’ve got a picture right here, Lorna, if it’l save you from peeing yourself,” he told her, glancing to where she stood at his office window, the green paisley drapes more expensive than her outfit, her manicure, and her haircut combined.
For not the first time in the twenty years of their association, he found himself wishing he’d taken on someone who hadn’t turned out so silly, so easily flustered, so goo-goo eyed when it came to men—except that particular bit of Lorna’s being female had played well with his dealings and made the rest of who she was easier to overlook. Then there was the surprising fact that inside all that fluff, she had a good head for his work. He supposed that had a lot to do with the pit of her existence before he’d plucked her out of her family’s shack in the swamps, and knowing he was giving her a chance she’d never get again.
He looked her over.
Her hair was a nest of bottle-red flips and teased curls, her tits 100 percent real, still firm and high, and more than enough for any man’s hands, mouth, or dick. Her hips, still trim, were curvier now than they’d been years ago when he’d crawled between her legs without help. Her stomach remained bikini flat above her shaved-bare pussy. Even thinking of all that, he couldn’t deny that these days he found more pleasure elsewhere. These days in particular it came from the impending culmination of what he’d been working toward for near on half his life. Being on the back side of sixty, it took more than what he could get from Lorna to keep his flames fed, even if once in a while it was nice to remind her of all that she owed him for.
She turned away from his office window, lifted a brow darker than her hair, and after a long moment, approached in that slow, easy way she had, using the bright white tips of her nails to pick at the loose end of the belt cinched around her waist, her lips pursed.
“If I pee myself, Baby Bear, it’ll be because I’m scared out of my wits. When he called to tell me he was coming to look over the place, I thought I was going to die.”
Scared of Simon Baptiste when she should’ve been worried about Bear himself. “All you have to do is follow the script. If he asks why Le Hasard has gone to hell, give him the reasons we worked out. You’ve done things a lot more fearful than that in your life.”
He saw it in her bright blue contact lens–covered eyes when she snapped, “The minute he sees the place as rundown as it is, he’s going to know something’s up. Of course he’s going to ask; wouldn’t you? Or are you too feeble-minded to remember that he’s been paying me to keep the place spruced up and rented out? And I haven’t been doing either, thanks to you.”
He waited, letting her think on what she’d said, on whom she’d said it to, on how much she should be wanting to take back her words. Then he reminded her of a few things, doing nothing more threatening than making one big fist out of his laced hands and making sure he had her eye. “My mind’s as sharp now as it was twenty years ago. I remember everything, and you’d do good to do the same.”
She knew where her bread was buttered and that helped her shed the attitude. She sunk defeated into the chair in front of his desk, wrinkles showing in her neck as she slumped.
“That’s the problem, B.B. I remember it al
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. I know every one of the things I’ve done, and especially what I did that night to Simon and King….” She let the sentence trail with a shudder that took over her body.
Bear wasn’t worried. He’d made sure she’d been as high as a kite that night. He doubted she remembered what he didn’t want her to. And the only two people who’d been with her when the fire had started had no cause to question the past. He stood by his admonition. “This is what you’ve been doing for years, Lorna. You’re a professional. You make deals. You buy property. You sell property. You take your commissions and doll your gorgeous self up with the money you rake in. There’s no reason to start second-guessing yourself this late in the game.”
He planted both hands on the top of his desk and pushed out of his chair, standing tall, looking down. He needed this taken care of so he could get back to looking toward a future he’d never thought would come. “You can make Simon Baptiste believe anything you want him to, Lorna. Anything at al
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.”
LATER THAT NIGHT in his regular booth at Red’s, his usual drink in one hand, his unlit cigar in the other, Bear found himself facing the most aggravating of quandaries. How in the hell did his son survive the life of a deputy sheriff with a goddamn limp dick for a spine?
“Jesus Christ, Bear.” Terrill Jr.’s voice was scratched raw and brittle like al
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he’d done for days now was cry. “We should’ve found something by now. People don’t just disappear into thin air.”
The boy sat with his shoulders slumped, his hands wrapped around a near-empty mug. He hadn’t gone home since Monday to do more than see if his wife had come home. Bear was fairly certain the boy hadn’t slept but maybe an hour or two in the same expanse of time.
It showed in his eyes, which were bloodshot, his face, which needed a shave, his uniform, which smelled of sweat and long hours behind the wheel of his cruiser, driving aimlessly as if he’d find Lisa wandering the streets of Bayou Allain, or strolling through Vermilion Parish, lost.
All in all, Bear was disgusted. “Terrill, take yourself home and get cleaned up. You look like shit. That’s no way to treat your uniform.”
“I’m off duty,” Terril told his mug, rubbing at his rheumy eyes. “And if anything, I look like a man whose wife vanished without a trace. I doubt anyone is going to care about a few stains or wrinkles.”
“I care, and that should be reason enough.” On this, Bear put down his foot. No matter their personal trials, the Landrys would maintain a strong front. They couldn’t have people talking, speculating, digging into their lives and their business. Not now. Not now.
“If it’s not, then you should look to the people who put you where you are today.”
“One and the same, Bear,” Terrill said, leaning his chin into the cup of his palms. “You put me where I am. You think I don’t know that?”
Bear glanced away from his son and toward the two men sitting on stools at Red’s bar beneath the sign for Abita Beer. He looked around at the tables clustered to the side of the dance floor. He took in the members of the band playing from the small stage near the door.
No one seemed to be paying his corner more attention than usual, so he turned again to his son. “What you need to know is that your appearance matters. Your appearance affects your reputation, and your reputation is what earns you the respect of the people.”
“What matters is my wife,” Terrill said, his voice getting louder with each word, his hands coming away from his face to slam against the table. “You may run this town, but you are not going to tel
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me how I should act when my wife is missing.”
“People wil
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see that you’re grieving whether you’re wearing a shirt that’s wrinkled or pressed.” Bear covered one of Terrill’s hands with his own.
“Then at least they’ll be seeing the truth.” Terrill pul ed away, signaled Red to send him another beer.
Agreeing it was time for a refill, Bear glanced in the same direction, catching King Trahan’s eye in the bar’s mirror. As if enough wasn’t enough; damn his indigestion. Dealing with Terrill and Lisa and Lorna Savoy already had his gut in an uproar. Now seeing King was souring the drink in his gullet. The Trahan boy hadn’t spent near enough time behind bars to Bear’s way of thinking, but then he had no one to blame but himself for the way that had worked out.
Still…Bear could read a whole lot of what King was thinking in his eyes. And there was just enough wild-man hatred there to give Bear a good solid pause. When he finally tore his gaze away and checked in with his son, he decided the refill could wait. It was time for Terrill to call it a night. He reached for the mug, unexpectedly caught by the sadness twisting his son’s face.
He shouldn’t have been. He shouldn’t even have noticed. Not emotion or sentiment or anything soft. And yet…“Go home, Terrill. Shower. Sleep. Then come by my office before you head for Abbevil e in the morning.”
“What the hell for?”
“I’ve got a man in Houston’s done work for me in the past. We’ll get him over here looking for Lisa,” Bear said, knowing he was going to end this night in bed with a roll of antacids.
Terrill’s head came up. “You didn’t want anything to do with a P.I. yesterday.”
The boy’s petulance was plucking at Bear’s last nerve, and he deserved it for making the suggestion—a show of support at odds with what he was feeling. “Yesterday I was waiting for the girl to get back from whatever shopping trip she forgot to tel
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you she was taking.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Terrill’s question was rhetorical and dripped with sarcasm. “If anything, she would’ve gone back to the library. And she would have called.”
“Maybe so.” Bear had never imagined his daughter-in-law’s genealogy research would turn into a time bomb. The ticking had become a relentless pain in his head. “But bringing in a P.I. before now would’ve been jumping the gun. You’re law enforcement. You know how this works. Lisa being family doesn’t change procedure.”