A Secret Life

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

HEATHER SAT cross-legged on the floor of Samuel’s trashed bedroom, separating shorts from T-shirts from slacks and boxers while the hot sun set far over Bayou Teche. They’d spent the entire day in the kitchen and living room, and the cottage was finally starting to look livable.

“What happened to all your underwear?” she asked, gauging the relative size of the piles in front of her.

Samuel glanced up from where he was gluing one of the dresser drawers back together. “What underwear?”

She pointed to two pairs of black silk boxers. “Maybe we finally figured out what he stole.”

“I sleep in those,” said Samuel.

Heather glanced around. “So, where’s… Oh.”

He laughed and went back to work. “Guess they don’t do that in Boston either, huh?”

She stood, carrying the T-shirt pile to one of the empty drawers that hadn’t been broken. “It’s a lot colder up in Boston.”

“And the men are a lot more upright.”

“They wear suits. Some of them are wool.”

“Poor babies.”

“There’s nothing wimpy about wearing underwear. I wear underwear.”

“Sometimes.”

“Don’t start with me.”

“Start what?”

“You’re still wearing your sling, bucko.”

“I can take it off anytime.”

She layered the shirts by color order in the bottom of the drawer. “The doctor told you to wait until tomorrow.”

“What does he know?”

“You mean just because he took the trouble to attend medical school?”

“It’s my arm.”

She returned for a pile of western shirts. “And if you want to keep it, you’ll do what he says.”

“Are you threatening me?”

She turned to give him an incredulous stare. “No.”

“You’re not threatening to take off my arm if I don’t obey orders?”

“I’m suggesting you’ll get an infection if you don’t listen to your medical professional.”

“Oh.”

She headed toward the dresser. “You’re weird.”

“Don’t put those in the dresser.”

She turned.

“They go in the closet.”

She gave him a snappy salute. “Yes, sir.”

He grinned. “Gotcha.”

“Oh, get over yourself.” She tried unsuccessfully to fight the shimmer of awareness caused by his smoldering gaze. Angling her path, she opened the door to his closet. The thief had dragged most of the contents from the closet, and now nothing remained but a few stray hangers on the bar and a black…

She peered into a darkened corner shelf.

Hello.

She set down the shirts and slid the old leather case into her hands. “What’s this?” She turned to Samuel, holding it out.

“Dad’s fiddle.”

“May I?” she asked.

“That’s right. You play, don’t you?”

“I play the violin.”

“Excuse me.”

She felt a twinge of guilt. She hadn’t meant to insult his father. “You mind if I take a look?”

“Go ahead.”

Heather set the old case on Samuel’s bed and flicked open the catches. When she raised the lid, her breath caught in her throat.

She looked closer, running her fingertips along the satiny varnish and the exquisite arching of maple and spruce. The grain was tight and well defined. But it was the scroll that caught her eye and made her catch her breath. She carefully lifted the instrument from the case and looked for the telltale stylized A.

Her heart rate tripled. “Samuel?” It was impossible to keep her voice from shaking.

“What’s wrong?”

“This is an Ambrogino.”

“No, it’s a fiddle.”

She shook her head. “This is no fiddle. Ambrogino was second only to Stradivarius as a master violin craftsman.”

She pivoted to face Samuel. “Do you know where your father got this?”

Samuel’s brow furrowed. “Are you insinuating he stole it?”

“Of course not. Quit being paranoid. Does your family have money or something?”

“Only what I make.”

“Because this is museum quality.”

“I think he got it from his dad.” There was a faraway look in Samuel’s eyes. “It was just what he played on the porch after supper.”

Heather looked back down at the magnificent instrument, her fingertips itching. She’d give anything to play it on somebody’s porch after supper. “May I?”

Samuel shrugged.

She drew the bow out of the case, found the rosin and tightened the strings. Then she plucked the strings, bringing them into tune. When the violin was ready, she took a very deep breath.

She started with Vivaldi, the rich tones flowing through her like melted honey. Then she moved to Chopin and finally to a Bach sonata.

When the last note died away, Samuel frowned. “It didn’t sound like that when Dad played it.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “He actually played Cajun music on an Ambrogino.”

“Well, that sure made you sound like an insufferable snob,” said Samuel.

Heather’s conscience twigged again. But Cajun music was repetitious, full of simple double-stops and open string drones. It seemed sacrilegious to own an Ambrogino and not play around with intricate shifting and vibrato.

He crossed to the closet, going to the same shelf where she’d found the violin, and pulled out an old, leather-bound book.

He dropped it on the bed in front of her, staring defiantly into her eyes. “Here’s what my dad played. I loved his music. Didn’t like yours much.”

Heather bit guiltily down on her lip. She’d insulted a man’s dead father.

Samuel went back to gluing, and she gingerly opened the leather-bound book. It was full of random sheets of paper, some twenty years old, some maybe a hundred years old. It looked to be original music.

She stared at the beats and run-ups on the first pages-fascinating, intriguing and not nearly as simple as she’d imagined.

She went over the top tune in her mind, mentally feeling out the notes, nodding her head to the rhythm and ghosting the fingering until she was sure she had it right. Then she brought the violin to her shoulder, drew her bow and worked her way through the tune.

When she finished, she looked up to see Samuel standing frozen across the room, his expression haunted.

She set down the violin and rushed toward him. “Samuel?”

He blinked away a sheen of tears.

“Oh, Samuel. I’m so sorry.” That had been horribly unthinking of her. He probably hadn’t heard that music since his father died.

She placed her hand on his arm. His muscles were taut as steel beneath her fingertips.

“Play it again,” he said, blinking her into focus. “Will you play it again?”

She felt her own tears well up. “Of course. Of course I will.”

“I know it’s not your kind of-”

She put her fingers to his lips. “It’s beautiful music. It’s wonderful music. I was a fool to think it was undeserving of an Ambrogino.”

He nodded.

“You okay?”

He nodded again, kissing her fingertips one at a time.

She returned to the bed, spread the music in front of her, and went through a selection of the songs. Some were simple and catchy, some were breakneck and rollicking.

And Samuel danced.

It was incredible to see such a large man shuffle his feet to the beat. He turfed the sling, and she didn’t blame him.

She joined with him when she could, moving her body to the simpler tunes that didn’t require her concentration on the written music.

And when the last note from her final song died away, he pulled her into his arms and swung her around.

He kissed her on the mouth, and she quickly replaced the violin in its case so that she could kiss him back properly. She stretched up, tangling her hands in his curly hair, opening her mouth to welcome his tongue.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, running his big hands down her body.

She pulled her T-shirt over her head and stood before him in her lacy bra. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

He reached out to trace his index finger up her stomach, dipping under her bra, deftly clicking the front catch so that it dropped away.

“You got that right,” he breathed.

She slipped her hands under his T-shirt, reveling in his hot skin, his tense muscles, the gasp of his breath.

His hand closed over her breast, and he kissed the crook of her neck, his tongue flicking out to leave a hot trail along her collarbone to her shoulder. It was nice. A little sweeter and safer than she’d expected, but very nice all the same.

She urged him to remove his own shirt, and they were skin to skin. He kissed her mouth, smoothed her hair, trailed his fingers along her spine, stopping at the waistband of her shorts.

She kissed him more deeply, waiting for his hands to move down, waiting for that swift, intense sensation, when he took her by surprise. He kissed her back, his mouth roaming her face, her cheek, her temple, the tip of her nose. But his hands didn’t move.

Finally, he drew gentle circles at the base of her spine, until she squirmed in frustration.

He cupped her face, kissing her eyelids.

She arched her spine, hinting, waiting, hoping.

He kissed her neck, her collarbone, the mound of her breast. His hand was shaking where it bracketed her rib cage. Okay, now they were getting somewhere.

But then he stopped, and went back to her mouth.

She drew back. “Samuel.”

“What?” he asked from between clenched teeth.

“What are you doing?”

“What do you think I’m doing?”

“You’re treating me like I’m fragile.” She peered at him. “You’re treating me like I’m…” She pulled out of his arms. “Like I’m your Ambrogino.” She launched forward and smacked him on the chest. “I can get that in Boston, bucko.”

He grabbed her wrist, and she hit him with the other hand.

He grabbed that, too, pulling her arms apart, forcing her up against him, breathing hard as he stared down into her face.

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” she said.

“You want it rough?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know. How am I supposed to know? But you’ve been pushing me, teasing me, promising me something different for days now.”

A slow smile grew on his face. “You’re ready to do what you want instead of what’s proper?”

“Yes.” She was definitely ready for that. She could go back to being proper next week in Boston. For today, she wanted to belt out fiddle tunes and have wild, unbridled sex with Samuel.

He nipped at her neck, moving down toward her breasts, leaving small love bites as he made his way toward her nipple. “You ever been on top?”

Her eyes fluttered shut, and she shivered. “No.”

“You ever been tied up?”

Her eyes flew open at that one.

He chuckled. “Okay. Baby steps.”

“I don’t. I mean. I-”

He tugged her shorts down in one decisive motion. “I’m not tying you up.”

“Good.” She licked her lips. It might not be that bad. Maybe…

“You scare the hell out of me, you know that?”

“Why?”

He answered her with rough kisses. “Because you are the most gorgeous, exotic, erotic, repressed… You make me want to teach you everything.”

“So teach me.”

“We don’t have that kind of time.” He retrieved a condom from his pocket then shucked off his pants and sheathed himself.

He slid his hands behind her thighs and easily lifted her from the ground. Then he wrapped her legs around him and pulled her into the cradle of his body, immediately sliding inside her, making her groan with pleasure.

He took the few steps to put her back against the cool wall. Then he pinioned her hands against it, forcing pulses of sensation through her body.

“Fast or slow,” he rasped.

“I can get slow back in Boston.”

He immediately jerked into motion. “That’s my girl.”

His kisses were soft. The wall was hard. And his body possessed an inexhaustible supply of strength and stamina. She lost track of time and space as fireworks went off inside her head over and over again.

Finally, when she was limp and tingling and totally satisfied, he slowed, then stilled against her. She blinked her eyes open, and the world shimmered back into focus-the plump, white pillows, the messy floor, and his father’s violin surrounded by sheet after sheet of priceless music.

JOAN SMACKED a file folder down on the table in the breakfast nook of La Petite Maison. “I just don’t get it. What are they scared of?”

Anthony empathized with her frustration. He’d read the entire transcript from the inquest, and he couldn’t make any kind of an incriminating connection with Bayou Betrayal.

Heather sat up, cross-legged on the window seat overlooking the back lawn and the oak grove. “What do we know for sure?”

“That my parents were murdered,” said Samuel.

“That’s beginning to look more and more likely,” Anthony agreed. He was surprised the state police hadn’t followed up on the blunt force trauma suffered by Samuel’s mother.

“But why come back now?” asked Joan, picking up Luc’s copy of her book. “What is in here that’s got him spooked?”

Anthony stood up and paced across the room. “And why your parents?” he asked. “Was it random? Was it theft? Did they see something? Were they-” He snapped his fingers, freezing in place. “Is there any chance your parents witnessed a crime?”

“In Indigo?” asked Joan.

“Why not in Indigo?” He turned to Samuel. “Can you remember anything about that week? Did they seem spooked? Upset? Did they try to contact anybody?”

Samuel shook his head. “Everything was normal. It was a Monday. They’d been down to the shack over the weekend. I stayed home because of-”

“The shack?”

“Dad liked crayfish. He had a little shack about thirty miles up the bayou.”

“What else is up there?”

“Nothing, as far as I can remember. I haven’t been back since.”

“Moonshine? Drugs? Gunrunners?”

Samuel frowned. “Moonshine’s hardly worth getting shot over.”

“Survivalists?” asked Heather.

“Or lunatics,” said Samuel. “There’s a few people in the backwoods that I wouldn’t want to meet on a dark night.”

Joan shook her head. “A crazy hillbilly isn’t going to follow them all the way back to town and shoot them.”

“Drugs, then,” said Heather.

It was a distinct possibility.

“But why did my book spook them?” asked Joan. “There were no drugs in my book.”

“But there is money,” said Anthony. “Or maybe it was as simple as you guessing it was a murder and not a suicide.”

“So what are they looking for in Samuel’s house?”

“Son of a bitch,” Samuel barked.

All three heads turned his way.

“The first time the guy broke in, he went through my photo albums.”

Anthony turned cold. “Your parents took pictures that day?”

Samuel shook his head. “No, they were just family photos.”

Heather uncurled her legs and swung them over the edge of the bench. “But the bad guys might think you have pictures.”

Anthony met Samuel’s gaze. “Thirty miles up the bayou, you say?”

“Luc!” called Samuel, rolling to his feet. “We’re gonna need a boat.”

ANTHONY FOLLOWED Samuel’s hand signals from the bow, maneuvering the airboat toward an aging dock on the lush shore as the atmosphere and insects thickened around them. They were ten miles down Bayou Teche, another twenty miles into an increasingly complex web of narrow, winding channels that formed tributaries draining into the bayou. The oak canopy had closed over them. Gnarled roots from half-submerged cypress trees twisted between strands of hanging moss that curtained the forest and undulated in a snaking breeze.

If something happened to Samuel, they could be lost out here for months.

Anthony cut the engine, and the big fan blades whirred to silence as they drifted the last few feet. The bushes creaked and groaned with unseen secrets, while insects whirred and chirped in the undergrowth. With a rope in one hand, Samuel grabbed a pillar on the dock and levered himself onto the weathered planks.

“Hold still,” he warned the women as he tied off.

Anthony stripped off his life jacket and tossed the coiled stern rope into Samuel’s waiting hands. As the craft stabilized, he stood up to help Joan and Heather.

“Spooky,” Heather remarked, gazing around at the dense bush as she got her footing on the dock.

“You sure this is the place?” Joan asked Samuel when he handed her up. Anthony released his stabilizing hold on her hips.

Samuel’s gaze moved to a narrow, crumbling set of stairs cut into the bank between two sentinel oaks. He nodded. “This is the place.”

“So now what?” asked Heather, dusting off the back of her lightweight green slacks.

Anthony hopped out of the boat, automatically testing the strength of the boards as he moved. “Now we check out the neighborhood.”

There could be a grow operation or a drug cache of some kind, maybe even a hidden safe house. He didn’t want to speculate about shallow graves. Although he imagined the forest would have swallowed up anything like that over the past twenty years.

Joan glanced down at her open-toed sandals. “We’re going trekking.”

“You two can wait in the shack,” said Samuel. “Or out here, if you want.”

Anthony moved toward the stairs to see if the Kanes’ shack was still standing. There were walls and a roof, at least, although the porch sagged to one side of the small, square plywood building.

Heather smacked a mosquito on her bare arm. “I vote for the shack.”

“Let’s go check it out.” Anthony started up the stairs.

The wind freshened as he climbed, easing the number of insects buzzing around his head. He was too proud to bat at them the way the women were doing. As long as Samuel remained stoic, Anthony would, too.

After a few days in the heat and raw earthiness of Indigo, he was gaining a whole new respect for the residents of Louisiana. The song said if you could make it in New York, you could make it anywhere. He was beginning to think some of these Southerners could kick New York’s butt.

They crossed the canted porch and Samuel eased the door open.

It was surprisingly neat inside.

The floor was dusty, but you could see it had originally been sanded and polished. The walls were painted a bright white, and the furniture was protected by dust covers. Whoever last left the shack hadn’t been in a hurry. And there were certainly no signs of foul play.

Samuel opened the curtains on two small windows. Then he pulled back one of the dust covers to reveal a willow rocking chair with brightly colored cushions. Next, he uncovered a small, floral couch. There was a dusty kitchen table and three chairs in one corner, and two beds against a back wall.

“Toilet’s out the back.” He gestured with his thumb.

Heather groaned.

He chuckled at her reaction. “I’ll check it for snakes before we leave.”

This time, Joan groaned, and Anthony snickered. He wasn’t too crazy about an outdoor privy, but he’d be a man about it. “I’ll get the water bottles out of the boat.”

Luc had thoughtfully provided them with a knapsack stuffed full of drinks and baked goods from the B and B. Smart man. Anthony was already thirsty.

Heather thumbed through a stack of magazines on a side table Samuel had uncovered. “Good Housekeeping,” she said, turning to grin at Joan. “Maybe we can learn something useful.”

“Speak for yourself,” Joan returned. “You’re spoiled.”

Heather flipped open the magazine. “I suppose that’s true enough. I’ve never used an outhouse.”

“It’ll teach you a little humility,” said Samuel, as Anthony left the shack. Anthony didn’t hear Heather’s response.

The dock was in full shade now. Between the bent branches of the oak trees, Anthony could see clouds forming above them. He hoped that would bring the temperature down a few degrees. If fall was this hot, he honestly didn’t know how people around here survived the heat of summer.

He turned at a series of splashes out in the bayou channel and thought he saw a scaly, green tail disappearing on the far bank. He continued to wonder how anyone survived down here. If the insects didn’t get you, the alligators would. And that was before you worried about snakes lurking in the outhouse.

Give him rats and muggers and street gangs any day of the week. At least he knew how to avoid those.

He hopped down into the airboat and grabbed the knapsack from the bench seat. Another breeze came up, and he inhaled the cooler air in relief as he climbed back onto the dock and headed up the stairs.

“You have everything you need?” Samuel was asking the women as Anthony came through the door.

“Anthony.” Heather rushed toward him. “My hero.”

Samuel snorted. “I cleared the cottonmouth out of the privy.”

“I need water before I worry about the outhouse,” she retorted. “There’s biology at play here.”

Anthony grinned. Okay, so Heather could grow on you after a while. He unzipped the pack and handed a water bottle to each of them, then opened his own and drank half of it down.

“So, what else is around here?” he asked Samuel.

Samuel nodded toward the north. “Old Man Barns used to live about a mile up the shore. I’m sure he must be dead by now. And there was a bizarre little hippie place down the other way. Don’t remember anyone living there full-time. There’s a network of trails out back that’ll take us to both.”

“Quieter than using the boat?” asked Anthony.

Samuel nodded.

Joan looked at Anthony. “You think there’s someone out there now?”

“The guy who broke in the second time pretty much vanished into thin air.”

The night photographs Samuel had taken had turned out not too badly, but nobody had seen the man around town.

Joan looked worried. She also looked as if she needed a hug of reassurance. She was obviously holding back because of Heather and Samuel. She and Anthony hadn’t announced their new relationship to the world. Not that he knew what their new relationship was, exactly.

He only knew he wanted to hug her, too.

He touched her shoulder, but it was wholly unsatisfying. “We’re just going to look around. If we see anything suspicious, we’ll report it to the police.”

Joan gave a slow, uncertain nod. “Okay.”

He turned to Samuel. “You ready?”

“Let’s do it.”

ANTHONY WAS dripping with sweat by the time they found Old Man Barns’s shack. Despite the earlier tease of a wind, the air had stilled and the temperature had crept up several degrees. They found the hippie place easily enough. But it was empty, and had been for some time.

Then they’d circled back farther into the forest, trying to find evidence of human activity. Again, nothing.

They were coming up on the Barns shack along a trail through the bush. There was nothing to indicate humans had used it recently, but then it wasn’t completely grown over like some of the old trails Samuel had pointed out.

Suddenly, Samuel put a hand on Anthony’s shoulder.

Anthony came to an immediate halt, twisting his head to look at Samuel’s expression. Samuel tapped his ear and then pointed to the shack. Anthony cocked his head.

They waited without breathing for a few seconds, and Anthony heard a thump. Somebody was inside the shack.

His heart rate jumped, and his sweat turned cold against his skin. The thump was replaced by a scraping noise, as if something were being dragged across the floor.

Samuel indicated with hand signals that he thought they should approach from the back. Anthony nodded.

They backed into the underbrush and made their way around in a wide circle. Scrapes and scratches formed on Anthony’s bug-bitten face and arms. Deep down, he wondered if they were crazy. But he also knew he had to figure out who was threatening Joan.

They made it within ten feet of the back wall of the shack, still camouflaged by the underbrush and the hanging moss.

The noise continued without pause or change. Whoever was inside didn’t know he’d been discovered.

Anthony pointed to the right. “Meet at the front door?” he whispered.

Samuel nodded. “Might as well find out if he’s armed.”

They split up to round the building.

On the way, Anthony checked the small window at his side of the building, but it was dusty and greasy and impossible to see through.

He carefully rounded the final corner to see Samuel coming the other way. Samuel checked out the front window, then shrugged his broad shoulders. He obviously couldn’t see anything, either.

They carefully inched toward the door. It was half-open, sagging on a crumbling jamb. The scuttling inside increased.

Anthony reached out and shoved the door open. Then he and Samuel flattened themselves against the outside wall.

The noise abruptly stopped. But no bullets rang out.

“Hello in the shack,” Anthony called, on the off chance it was an innocent tourist or some kind of squatter.

No answer.

“Get yourself out here,” Samuel called, more menacingly this time, still crouched low in case whoever it was started shooting.

Still nothing.

Anthony crept a little closer.

Samuel crept a little closer.

Anthony made his way onto the low sagging porch, carefully squinting into the dusty, dim interior, ready to bail if things went wrong. He blinked for a second, thinking he saw bones.

“What?” asked Samuel.

They were bones. “What the hell?”

Samuel swung up on the porch for a better look.

Suddenly, a massive gator burst full-bore through the doorway, its jaw wide-open.

Anthony shouted a warning, leaping out of the way.

Samuel reacted a split second too late.

The gator moved with lightning speed, its jaw snapping down on Samuel’s boot.