“Aren’t you the one who told me that the brain shuts down because of trauma, to protect itself?” Anna pushed her long hair from her eyes. She was close enough that Eve smelled the smoke and coffee on her breath, the hint of perfume clinging to her skin. “Maybe you don’t want to know what happened.”
“I want to know,” Eve responded evenly.
Across the street, a door opened. In a striped terry robe and slippers, a balding man pushing eighty stepped onto his porch and shot a glance their way from behind thick glasses. He sketched out a wave then bent to retrieve his newspaper.
“Morning, Mr. Watters,” Anna said, waving back as her neighbor scanned the headlines and disappeared inside. She lowered her voice and moved closer to Eve. “I’m just asking you to wait. A week. Maybe two. ’Til you’re stronger, and maybe by then we’ll know what Cole is up to. Stay here until we’re certain you’re safe.”
“I am.”
“He’s dangerous.”
Eve had already started up the drive again. “Besides, I’m thinking of getting a dog…a puppy.”
Anna Maria took a final hit on her Virginia Slim and sent it to the concrete of the driveway, where she stomped the butt out with her pink mule. “A puppy? Like that’ll keep the bad guys at bay!”
“I’m talking about a really, really tough puppy.”
There wasn’t the slightest hint of humor in Anna’s worried eyes. “Look, Eve, you can laugh and make light about this all you want, but the bottom line is: someone tried to kill you.”
“I was at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Anna tossed her an exasperated look. “You think it was Cole. You were going to testify that he shot you. And now…now they expect him to be released from prison. The whole case against him has fallen apart. But that doesn’t mean he won’t come after you. He did before, didn’t he? When he was out on bail? He called. Planned to meet with you, and you, being some kind of idealistic numbskull, were actually going to see him! What the hell were you thinking?”
Eve’s stomach knotted. The headache that never seemed to quite go away began to beat slowly inside her skull. She didn’t want to think about all this again.
“Cole thought you were having an affair. Probably with Roy.”
Anxiety clamped over Eve’s lungs. The truth of the matter was that she couldn’t remember. Her headache thundered. “Damn it all.” She found her purse in the car, scrounged through a zippered pocket, came up with a nearly empty bottle of ibuprofen, and tossed two pills into her mouth. “I told you, I don’t want to rehash this. I’m done arguing.” She grabbed Anna’s cup and washed down the tablets with a swallow of tepid, milky coffee. “God, this is awful.”
Anna snagged her cup.
Feeling a tic develop beneath her eye, Eve sensed another panic attack in the making. Her heart was racing, and she felt as if her lungs were strapped by steel bands.
Not now. Not here. A full-blown anxiety attack will only add fuel to Anna Maria’s you-aren’t-ready-to-leave fire…. One …Breathe!… Two…Think calm thoughts…. Three ..Slow your heartbeat…. Four …
By the time she reached ten, she was taking normal breaths again, but Anna was watching her closely. “I gotta go.” Eve grabbed her makeup kit, not that it would do much good. Her face was still a bit puffy, the plastic surgery around her right eye not quite healed. She placed the makeup bag beside the cat carrier, then turned to reach for her large roller-bag.
“Okay, fine. Hey! No! Stop! For God’s sake, don’t lift that. Just wait a sec, will ya?” Anna set her cup down then grabbed Eve’s roller-bag. “Jesus, this weighs a ton. What’ve you got in here, lead weights?”
Eve smiled faintly. “At least you didn’t say a dead body.”
“I thought about it.”
“I know you did.”
From within the interior of the car came the pitiful sound of a cat who thought he was being tortured. “Won’t that drive you nuts?” Anna asked.
“Probably.” Eve flipped up the lid of the trunk. “But I’ll survive.”
“You know you’re impossible, don’t you? As stubborn as your brothers.” Anna refused Eve’s help as she hoisted the bag into the trunk. “And don’t give me any of that crap about you not being from the same genetic pool as Kyle and Van. It doesn’t matter. You were all raised under the same roof, and that’s why you’re all so bullheaded.”
Eve had given up arguing. There was just no point to it. Not when Anna Maria got going. Logic didn’t count, and the fact that Eve’s older brothers were from their mother’s first marriage, that they were twelve and ten years old when Eve, as an infant, was adopted by Melody and Terrence Renner, wasn’t going to change Anna’s mind. Eve suspected that the only reason she’d ended up living with Kyle and Anna after being released from the hospital was that Anna Maria had insisted upon it. It hadn’t been any bit of brotherly love, or nobility, or even guilt on Kyle’s part.
Anna picked up her cup, took a swallow, and scowled. “You’re right. This is really bad.” She tossed the dregs into the dirt beneath the magnolia tree.
“Told you.”
“So, if you’re going to go,” Anna said, glancing up at the menacing sky, “go already. And Eve?”
“Yeah?”
“Avoid Cole. He’s just plain bad news.”
“I know.”
“That’s not the answer I want to hear.” Anna wrapped her arms around Eve and held her tight, as if she didn’t want to let go, and Eve wondered if it was because she was worried for Eve or because she didn’t want to be left alone with her husband. Eve knew only too well what a brooding, moody tyrant her oldest brother could be. The fact that Anna had never bent to Kyle’s will or had let him break her spirit was testament to her strength.
“Take care of yourself, Anna,” Eve whispered emotionally. “Thanks for everything. I owe you!”
“I’ll try. You too.” Before the whole scene got any more difficult, Eve extracted herself from Anna’s embrace, slid behind the wheel of her car, ignored the yowling cat, and fired up the engine. “Bye!”
Anna was already reaching into her pocket for her pack of cigarettes. She shook out the last one before crumpling the empty pack.
As Eve headed out the drive, drops of rain began to pepper the ground. Just what she needed. She had over four hundred miles of asphalt between here and New Orleans.
And once you get there, then what?
“God only knows.” She flipped on the wipers and pressed her toe to the accelerator. To drown out Samson’s mournful cries, she turned on the radio, found a country station, and wondered which was worse, the wailing guitar or the unhappy cat.
The rest of her life, whatever that was going to be, was waiting.
“Get me the hell out of here!” Cole Dennis paced from one end of the small holding cell to the other. He was tense. Agitated. This tiny room, with its scarred cinder-block walls and steel bars, smelled of must, dirt, and broken dreams. Worse yet, beneath the strong odor of some pine-scented cleaner was the whiff of ammonia and urine, as if the someone who’d been here last had been scared enough to lose control of his bladder. Or maybe he’d pissed on purpose to mark his territory or just make a defiant, in-your-face point to the cops.
Cole’s attorney, Sam Deeds, was seated at the simple table that was bolted to the floor. Impeccable in an Armani suit, a silk tie, and a haircut that cost what some men made in a month, Deeds looked the part of the slick attorney: clean shaven