The Gates of Evangeline (32 page)

Darkness.

Thin, stiff carpeting against my knees and bare feet.

A small window frames a slice of night sky: moon hanging over a busy road. Headlights, streetlights, a traffic light blinking from yellow to red—all cast a glowing square upon the floor beside me. Inside the square, a boy kneels, his hands pressed together in prayer. My heart leaps as I recognize the shaggy head.

Jo-Jo?

He looks up, liquid brown eyes bright and full of yearning. When his lips part, I see the chipped front tooth.

You comin' for me?
he asks.
You gone find me soon?

I have one final chance to get this right.

I've been looking for you,
I tell him.
But I don't know where to go. I went to the big white house where you used to live. Do you remember that house?

He nods, lower lip quavering, and his body slips into shadow.
He made me go.

Who?
I lean close to him
. The man who took you?

He's a bad guy.

I'm not sure what to ask, how to get more than vague, childlike replies from him. His communication skills are admittedly better than those of your average two-year-old, but without a name, a place, what good is this conversation?
Where are you now, honey?
I say.
Where can I find you?

I'm with the bad guy,
he whispers, eyes huge.
He wanna keep me foreva.

I don't know what this means, but it's quite possibly the most terrifying thing I've ever heard. Serial killers often keep trophies that remind them of their victims. Is some sicko hanging on to Gabriel's remains? Does that mean his killer is alive?

What's his name?
I ask.
You need to tell me who the bad guy is.

He hesitates.
You gone get him? You gone make him go away?

I'll do everything I can, I promise. I know he hurt you.

He said don't tell. He said he gone kill Mommy.

I know.
I don't tell him that his mother is old now and about to die anyway; it probably wouldn't make a lot of sense to a kid on the spirit plane.
We won't let him hurt your mom. But you've got to tell me his name.

As if in reply, the little boy lies down and stretches out flat on his back. He stares upward, unblinking, and I see the light around us lift to gray, feel the walls melt away and the worn carpet go wooden beneath us. A quick, sweeping glance around, and I know where we are. The creepy dock by the boat launch. I peer over the side and see the familiar dark water of the swamp. But something's off. There are bubbles. Dozens upon dozens of bubbles rise up, and then something neon orange shoots to the surface, bobbing there. Then another. And another.

Goldfish, I realize, unnerved. Not real ones. The crackers.

I turn away from the eerie ring of floating Goldfish crackers and look back at the dock, where Gabriel lies splayed, unmoving.

Are you in the water?
I ask.
You want me to look for you in the water? It's too big. You have to tell me where.

His dark eyes search mine, and I watch the hope in his gaze flicker out. He turns on his side and curls up as if preparing to go to sleep. I feel him fading on me.

Stay with me, Gabriel. You've got to tell me more. Who's the bad guy? Gabriel? Who's the bad guy?

But even a two-year-old can sense my weakness. I couldn't save my own child. How could I save him? Save his mother? The dock, the swamp, the bobbing Goldfish crackers, and the little boy all grow fuzzy. He's given up on me. I stand up, the only clear form left in a world that is starting to resemble a weird, smudgy piece of expressionist art.

Why?
I beg him.
Why don't you tell me?

I love my mommy,
he says simply.

I
t's time to leave Chicory, to admit defeat. Because I've been defeated. Thoroughly. The child I came to help has lost his faith in me. I have no idea who killed Gabriel Deveau
or
Sean Lauchlin or why. And I'm nursing a pretty bruised—if not broken—heart, having been stupid enough to fall for a charming liar, at best, or at worst, a murderer. How can I trust my judgment about
anything
after a mistake this severe?

I'm heading for a breakdown. Fast.

I push cornflakes around my bowl and logically assess the mess that is my life. It's Wednesday morning. I'm supposed to reconnect with Noah tomorrow. I still don't know if he intentionally left his phone with me or genuinely forgot it. I don't know if he'll ditch me or show up looking for me. And I don't know if I want to see him again. Part of me wants to tell him off, to feel empowered by my anger and not victimized by my hurt. Another part says,
Walk away. The only thing you have left is your dignity, girl.
And what if he did try to kill Jules? He could be dangerous.

In the end, I find myself sitting with a bowl of soggy cereal and an abundance of self-loathing. Whether or not Noah turns up tomorrow, I need to return to Stamford. To see Grandma, to put my house on the market, to finish the book somehow. To start my lonely new life, instead of postponing it here in Louisiana limbo.

I soon discover I'm not the only one having a bad day. In the kitchen, Leeann waves an oven mitt over a pan of smoky corn bread. She holds one hand to her head and looks ready to cry. It's the day after Mardi Gras, so I assume she's suffering from the usual postparty affliction.

“Hangover?”

She shakes her head miserably. “I got no excuse. Just did'n grease the pan.”

“Don't worry about it. Sydney and Brigitte aren't back yet. No one will care.”

“I know, I . . .” She takes a deep breath, but her voice wavers anyway. “I had a rough few days at home, is all.”

“I think the last few days have been rough on everybody.”

Her eyes fill up with tears. “I can't even believe it about Jules. I shoulda seen through it, that whole attitude. I shoulda seen him hurtin'.”

“They don't know exactly what happened,” I say. “Maybe Jules didn't mean to . . .”

She gives me a long look. “I heard 'e took a lotta pills. I don't think it was an accident.”

I don't think it was an accident either, but I'm not about to share my theory with Leeann. Not when all I have to go on is a hunch. Not when I want so badly to be wrong. I change the subject. “Listen, I wanted to tell you . . . I'm leaving Evangeline tomorrow.”

“What?! No! You mean, like, foreva?”

“I've finished my research.”

“Oh, Charlie, how can you leave now? I'm gone miss you. It's gone be so quiet.”

“You'll just have to start planning that trip to New York you've been dreaming about.”

“Shoot, if I didn't have the li'l man, I'd be there in a heartbeat.” She manages a wobbly smile. “But I guess I know someone else who's gone miss you. How's Noah takin' it?”

Evidently Jules's possible suicide attempt has eclipsed the news of Noah's firing. “He took it fine,” I say, unable to look her in the eyes. “The family canceled his project. So he's going home, and I'm going home.” I shrug and try to look like this is no big deal, like I wasn't planning to introduce him to my family just twenty-four hours ago, like he's not a liar and a fraud and maybe even responsible for Jules's near death.

“You two seemed so sweet togetha,” Leeann says wistfully. “I thought maybe things was gone work out.” The old rust-colored dog wanders into the room, a welcome diversion. Leeann looks thoughtfully at her ruined batch of corn bread. “Come see,
chien
,” she calls, and the dog trots over obediently. She sets down the pan and he digs in, his tongue and nose carving their way eagerly through the crumbs. Leeann scratches his ears while he gorges himself. “Always got one fan, don't I? You a good boy.” She turns to me. “Neva met a betta dog. You shoulda seen him with Jo-Jo. Had the patience of a saint.”

For a second, just a second, time stops. My heart stops. My blood freezes in my veins. “Jo-Jo?” I repeat.

“Jonah,” she says, making kissy faces at the dog. “Ma son.”

I lived in the big white house. I had a doggie.

Oh. God.

“Leeann,” I croak. “You said you used to live in one of the cottages, right?”

She grimaces. “A few months, yeah. Then we got floodin' from a storm, and our cottage was full up with mud. They spent all last spring remodelin'.” She takes the pan away from the dog and begins soaking it in the sink. “Lucky for us, Hettie had a sweet spot for Jonah and let us stay in the house. But I was so glad to leave. I swear, meetin' Mike and movin' in with 'im was the best thing ever happened to us.”

Mike.

He made me go
, Jo-Jo said when I mentioned the big white house. And Mike did, in his way, by inviting Leeann—and her son—to share a home with him.

Where can I find you?
I asked the boy in last night's dream.

I'm with the bad guy
, Jo-Jo said, and my mind turned to the macabre, imagined some serial killer fetishist who was hanging on to his remains. But it was simpler than that, much simpler. It's so obvious now, so clear what's been going on.

Mike, who watches her son every day. Mike, who, according to Leeann, loves her baby like his own. Mike, who saw the young, vulnerable, unwed mother of a toddler and made a terrible, evil calculation.

I might puke.

How could I have been so utterly blind? This isn't the first time I saw something
before
it happened. I dreamed about Zoey's injury in advance, and Didi's death. Why did I assume that I was seeing a child from the past? Why, when Jo-Jo was so close, did I overlook him again and again? I knew Leeann had a son. She talks about him all the time. I knew he was three years old. I knew she left him with Mike all day, just the two of them, and that her son called her once at work, sobbing, begging her to come home. I knew about this little boy, and not once, as a friendly gesture, did I ever ask his name.

Because I was jealous. I didn't want to hear about her child, not when I'd lost mine.

No wonder Jo-Jo gave up on me last night. He saw me for what I was. Clueless. Selfish. Too caught up in my own sadness to help anyone.

“Where is Jonah?” I ask faintly. “Right now, where is he?”

“With Mike,” Leeann says, searching through the pantry. “I think they goin' fishin' today.”

“Fishing? Like, on a boat?” It gets worse and worse.

“Yeah, Mike's got a motorboat for swampin'. Jonah said he didn't wanna go, but Mike was so keen on it. He tries, Mike really does, but it's hard these days. Ma baby's goin' through a mama phase where he cries any time I'm not holdin' 'im.”

Her ignorance leaves me breathless, although it's not so surprising, really. Faced with two explanations, the clingy child versus the sexually abusive boyfriend, what would most people prefer to believe? Sometimes, to stay sane, you let yourself trust the shiny surface instead of digging for the darkness beneath. And I'm hardly one to cast stones at someone who has grossly misjudged a lover or failed to see her child was in danger. There's just one more question, one last piece to fall in place.

“Leeann, this might sound weird, but does Jonah have a chipped tooth?”

Please say no,
I think.
If he hasn't chipped his tooth yet, maybe there's time. Maybe I can stop it.

Leeann peers at me, mouth hanging open. “He broke 'is front tooth yestaday ridin' 'is bike. You givin' me the frissons, Charlie. How'd you know that?”

I cover my face with my hands. Despair is setting in. I'm too late. Too damn late. “We need to find him. We need to find your son right away.”

“Why? Why you lookin' like that?” She's getting panicky now.

“What's Mike's last name?” I need to tell Detective Minot who we're looking for.

“Findley. Mike Findley.” She wrings her hands. “What's goin' on?”

“I want you to call him. Call him and tell him there's an emergency. Tell him you need Jonah home right away.”

“His phone won't work in the swamp.”

“Try.”

“That look on you face—you think somethin' bad gonna happen, don't you?”

“Where were they going fishing?” I persist. “Do you have any idea where Mike might've taken him?”

She shakes her head, big-eyed. It doesn't matter. Because I know where to find them. I've known all along.

•   •   •

T
HANK
G
OD
Detective Minot answers his phone. I can't imagine trying to explain this situation to a 911 dispatcher. “Hey.” I'm almost breathless. “You remember the boat launch I took you to? The one near Deveau property?”

“Sure. You find something?”

I jog along the gravel path toward my car. “Get every boat you can out there, Remy. There's a three-year-old boy, Jonah Landry, who's in danger.”

Detective Minot exhales deeply. “Please tell me you've got more than a hunch to go on. I can't launch some large-scale Water Patrol search if you don't have—”

“He's with a man named Mike Findley. And I think Mike's going to kill him.” I'm fully prepared to fabricate some story about a kidnapping if necessary, but Detective Minot jumps to conclusions without any deliberate deception on my part.

“Oh, Jesus. Findley took the kid?” From his voice, the name is not unknown to him. “I knew that pervert couldn't keep his hands to his damn self. I've been waiting five years to nail the piece of shit.”

I climb into the driver's seat of my car. “This is your chance.”

“We'll get him,” he promises me. “I'll move on this fast as I can. Just . . . stay out of it now, okay? Findley was arrested before when a kid came forward. The state felt we didn't have enough to prosecute and dropped charges, but Findley's not going to forget that. He's not going to leave witnesses this time. You don't want to mess with one of these creeps when they get cornered, Charlotte.”

I make a noncommittal noise and hang up. I remember how long it took the ambulance to arrive when Paulette was having her baby, and I can't imagine Water Patrol will move any faster. I'd be out there in a heartbeat if I knew how to help, yet despite my hustle to the car, there's little I can
do
at the boat launch. Assuming Mike has already got them in the water, I'm helpless. Land-bound. I could try to take Andre's airboat, but I have no idea how to operate the thing, and it's docked in front of the house, anyway. I've got no idea how the waterways connect, if at all.

I feel sick to my stomach. It's like Keegan all over again. I realize something's wrong only when it's too late. By the time help comes, Jonah will be gone. Mike will undoubtedly have some story prepared about a terrible fishing accident. And Jonah will never have the chance to speak against him, to reveal the awful things Mike did. There is nothing I can do to stop this.

Unless.

There's a piece that I've been forgetting. The boat. That spooky old rowboat in the carriage house.

Leeann said Mike had a motorboat, and that makes sense. There's no way he took Jonah out in that rowboat, no way he'd have access to—or even knowledge of—that item. And yet, when I touched the wooden boat that night, I had a clear vision.

I'm pushing the boat into the water. Trying to hold it steady.

I'm peering over the side. Searching. Searching.

Water. Murky. Plunging deep. Deeper.

What if this, like my dream of Jonah, was not a vision of the past but of the future? Before, I was convinced that boat was an instrument of Gabriel Deveau's death. What if it could be the only way to save Jonah Landry's life?

I take off running for the carriage house, praying that Jonah is still alive to save.