The Whispering Room

Twenty-Seven

The tow truck dropped Evangeline and her car off at the nearest garage and, while the lone mechanic checked the extent of the damage, she called Sheriff Thibodaux to let him know what had happened.

“You sure you didn’t leave your door open? Maybe that’s how the dang thing got inside.”

“I didn’t leave my door open and I only had my window cracked. Someone put the snake in my car,” Evangeline said.

“This fellow you said you saw out there…what did he look like?”

“Tall and thin with black hair and a big scar on one side of his face. Have you seen anyone around town lately that fits that description?”

“No, but there’s a lot of fishing cabins back in the swamp. Could be somebody staying in one of those. I’ll keep an eye out for him. Meanwhile, I’ll send a deputy out there first thing in the morning to have a look around.”

“Thanks. I’d appreciate a call if you find out anything.”

“You bet.”

As she hung up the phone, the mechanic came around to give her the bad news.

“Two words,” he said as he rubbed at a grease streak on the side of his nose. “Busted radiator.”

“Oh, man, I was afraid of that. Any chance you can fix it?”

“You mean tonight? ’Fraid not. It’s already past closing time. I can get to it tomorrow after lunch, but that’s the best I can do. You need a ride somewhere?”

“You’re not headed to New Orleans, are you?”

“That’s a long way from here.”

“Yeah.” She gave him her card. “I’ll need an estimate before you start to work.”

“No problem. You sure you’ll be all right here?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll figure something out.”

What that something would be, she wasn’t sure. She could call her mother, but Lynette would worry herself sick the whole way. Besides, she had the baby today. As for the rest of her family, Vaughn’s old Plymouth probably wouldn’t even make it out of New Orleans, and at the moment, Evangeline wasn’t all that anxious to spend time cooped up in a car with her dad. She’d probably end up saying something she’d later regret.

So she called Nash.

When the black sedan finally pulled up beside Evangeline, she got up slowly and walked over to the car. The side window came down, and she leaned down to peer inside.

“Thanks for coming.”

“No problem,” Nash said.

“No, seriously, this is a huge imposition, and I’m really sorry to put you out like this. But I didn’t want to call my mother. She has the baby today and my brother’s car—”

“Evangeline?”

“Yeah?”

“Just get in.”

She opened the door and climbed in.

The interior of his car smelled of leather and aftershave, and Evangeline drew a long breath. She still had the fishy odor of the swamp in her nostrils, but this helped.

She turned to Nash. “I really am sorry to trouble you. This is a lot to ask of someone you hardly know. I’m a little surprised you agreed to come.” When he merely shrugged, she said, “You could have said no. Why didn’t you?”

“You know why.”

Dusk was drifting into night, and the lights from the oncoming cars polished his dark hair and reflected like pools of moonlight in his eyes.

Evangeline’s heart beat even harder as he reached for her hand. He held it until she slid hers away on the pretense of pushing her hair out of her face.

She turned back to the window because she didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to acknowledge the attraction that suddenly smoldered between them. She wondered if he realized what it had cost her to reach out to him. If he knew, even now, how hard she had to fight an overwhelming sense of guilt and betrayal.

No man had tempted her since the moment she met Johnny, but now when she thought of him, remembered what he’d done, she wondered if her love for him could even be real because the man she’d married had never really existed.

“You okay?”

She turned, met his gaze, then glanced away again. “I’m fine.”

“What did you find out?”

“Not a lot more than I already knew, but one thing’s certain. Something really creepy is going on here.” She took a few minutes to tell him about the man she’d seen beside her car and the snake that had crawled out from underneath the front seat.

“I know he put that snake in my car,” Evangeline said. “It didn’t just crawl in there by itself. Luckily, I had a fingerprint kit in my trunk and I managed to lift some latents from the door handle while I waited for the tow truck.”

“Give them to me,” he said. “I’ll run them through our computer.”

“Thanks.” She paused for a moment, watching the dark landscape flash by. “And then there’s the trail of origami cranes that someone has been leaving me.”

He turned with a puzzled frown.

“On the same day that Paul Courtland’s body was found, someone sent my son a mobile made out of origami cranes. I thought my mother had sent it, but she didn’t. Later, I saw one at the cemetery near Johnny’s vault and another in my brother’s office. Earlier today I drove up to the psychiatric hospital where Mary Alice Lemay is incarcerated. She tried to give me a crane that looked identical to all the other ones. The doctor I spoke with said she makes them all the time. It’s almost an obsession. At first, I thought the cranes were some kind of message, but now I think someone has been leading me to Mary Alice this whole time.”

Nash scowled at the road. “For what purpose?”

“I’m starting to wonder if all this could somehow be connected to Johnny.”

He gave her a startled glance. “Johnny? How so?”

“He knew Lena Saunders. According to her, he’s the reason she insisted on talking to me. When I saw her that first day, she said if I’d locate Rebecca Lemay for her, she’d help me find out what really happened to Johnny. She’s the one who gave me your name.”

Nash’s gaze seemed frozen on the road. “How did she know about me?”

“She claims to have a lot of contacts in law enforcement. And evidently she does because she was right about you.”

When he didn’t respond, Evangeline shrugged. “The point is, maybe she struck the same deal with Johnny. Maybe he went to the parking garage that night looking for Rebecca Lemay.”

“You saw the files,” Nash said softly. “You know what he was into.”

“I can’t accept that’s all there is to it.”

He waited a beat, then said, “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

“I’m not very good at letting things go,” she said. “It’s a weakness. When Johnny died, I would catch glimpses of him everywhere. I’d wake up in the middle of the night, so certain he’d been standing over me, I’d get up and search the house. He was on the other end of any hang-up call. Hidden behind the tinted windows of every car that drove by the house. Sometimes his presence was so strong, I thought I must be going crazy.”

Nash’s eyes were dark and penetrating as he turned to stare at her. “You’re still in love with him, aren’t you?”

They were crossing over the Huey Long Bridge, and the lights dancing off the dark surface of the river looked like stars twinkling against a black sky.

They were heading back into the city, back to the world Evangeline had shared with Johnny.

“A part of me will always be in love with him,” she said.

“Even after everything you know about him.”

“Yes. I still want him back. If I had the power, I’d still turn back the clock. No matter what.” She paused and drew a breath. “So with all that considered… maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”

He shrugged. “You’re probably right.”

She turned back to the window, strangely disappointed that he had acquiesced so easily.

Nash dropped her off at her house and waited while she went across the street to her neighbor’s to pick up the keys to the new locks that had been installed on both front and back doors earlier that morning.

Letting herself in, she stood at the window and watched as he drove off. Then she showered and grabbed a bite to eat while she waited for Lynette to bring the baby home.

After she fed him, she filled his little bathtub and washed the pureed carrots out of his hair as he splashed in glee. He loved bath time and the warm water seemed to relax him. By the time Evangeline lifted him from the tub and wrapped him in a big, fluffy towel, he was already rubbing his eyes. Freshly diapered and dressed in a sleeper, he lay cuddled against her shoulder as she rocked him to sleep.

As she placed him in his crib, her shoulder bumped the mobile, setting the cranes in motion. A shiver streaked up her spine, and for the longest moment, she stood gazing down at her slumbering son, wondering why she’d suddenly been drawn into Mary Alice Lemay’s dark and troubled life.

Walking over to open the window, Evangeline stood gazing out. The evening was soft and dreamy, with moonlight pooling on the grass and the scent of her neighbor’s roses filling the dusky heat.

It was very still out. No movement at all in the yard except for the subtle shift of shadows as the moon floated across the sky.

Evangeline leaned a shoulder against the window frame. Loneliness settled over her, but she welcomed it tonight. The desolation was like an old friend. Familiar and almost comforting.

She closed her eyes and tried not to think of Declan Nash.

A little while later, Evangeline curled up on the couch and closed her eyes.

For the longest time after Johnny’s death, she’d felt helpless and broken, so lost and lonely, she wondered how she would be able to get through another night. She knew that some women in her situation turned to other men, but the momentary solace of a stranger’s warmth was not for her.

Still, on some of the long, sleepless nights, she would allow herself to remember the comfort of a man’s arms around her, the erotic thrill of a gruff whisper, a shared laugh in the heat of the night. The intimate look that passed between a man and a woman when they wanted one another.

As she rolled onto her back, a soft knock sounded on the door. Evangeline closed her eyes. This was a complication she didn’t want or need in her life right now.

She swung her legs over the couch and sat for another moment before she got up to let him in.

“I’m surprised you’re still up,” Nash said.

“I’m too wired to sleep.” She stepped back from the door. “You want to come in?”

His gaze met hers for a moment, and then he moved past her into the living room.

She followed him in. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve been thinking about those origami cranes,” he said. “You think someone left you a trail that led you to Mary Alice Lemay, but my question is…why you?”

Evangeline shrugged. “I guess it could be something as simple as my being assigned to the Courtland murder case.” She headed for the kitchen. “I could use a drink.”

She brought back a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses. Motioning him to a chair, she poured the wine and settled down on the sofa. “Did you really come all the way back over here to talk about origami cranes?”

Light pooled in his eyes, making them seem dark and light at the same time.

He leaned forward and set his glass on the coffee table. His gaze never left hers. “I’ve got a lot of baggage, Evangeline.”

She set her wineglass aside, too. “What am I supposed to say to that?”

He didn’t answer. “Two failed marriages, a daughter in prison. In prison. A job that sometimes demands a twenty-four-seven commitment.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“You know why.”

Evangeline saw the desire in his eyes before he could cloak it with the shadow of his past. She got up and went over to the window to glance out at the street.

“You’re not the only one who’s made mistakes, you know. We all have crosses to bear.”

He got up and came to lean against the window frame. “Is Johnny your cross?”

Outside, the palm trees were like shadows against the soft violet of the city sky. A few stars twinkled out, but the moon was obscured by a bank of clouds moving in from the gulf.

She glanced up at Nash. He was staring out, too, his face calm and pensive.

“You wanted me to find out about him, didn’t you?”

For a moment, he looked caught. Then his gaze went back to the darkness outside the window.

“Are you surprised I’d figured that out?”

“No, not really.”

“Why did you come to the crime scene that day when you already knew you were going to have me removed from the case? You didn’t even bother disguising the fact that you were the one pulling the strings.”

They were so close she could smell his aftershave, could feel his breath warm against her face. Evangeline shivered, both in dread and anticipation because he had denied none of her accusations.

“You wanted me to see those files.”

“I wanted you to stop asking questions about Johnny.”

A silence fell between them.

“Do you want me to go?” Nash finally asked.

Evangeline shivered as she stared out into the night. She felt his hand on her neck, in her hair and something gave way inside her.

She closed her eyes and told herself this wasn’t a betrayal. Johnny was dead. And before he died, he’d betrayed her. Maybe not with a woman, but in a way that hurt her every bit as much as infidelity. Maybe more.

Nash was watching her, and his eyes darkened as she reached up to touch his cheek, to trace the strong contour of his jaw with her fingertip, to outline his mouth with the pad of her thumb.

He didn’t move, even when she wound her fingers around his neck, but his eyes dared her to forget.

She pulled him toward her and they kissed.

Evangeline couldn’t stop trembling. She hadn’t been with another man since Johnny. Abstinence had never been a conscious decision, but her grief had allowed no room for any other emotion. Now it was as if a fragile dam had broken and a pent-up need rushed out of her.

She tugged at Nash’s clothes; ran her hands up and down his hard body; opened her mouth and deepened the kiss.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he said against her neck. “You’ve been driving me crazy since the first day I met you. And I swore I’d never let another woman do that to me.”

“You mean this?”

She jerked his shirt apart and the buttons went flying.

He laughed softly against her mouth.

They shed clothes all the way to the bedroom, and when they fell back against the mattress, Evangeline didn’t bother crawling underneath the cover. She lay naked on top of the quilt, watching him. Not caring that he watched her right back, not caring that he was seeing her in a way that no man but one had seen her in years.

A little while later, they got up and showered together, and afterward Nash brought Evangeline a glass of wine. She sipped it in bed while she watched him knot his tie in the mirror.

He looked amused by her scrutiny. “What?”

“Do you even own a pair of jeans?”

“That’s an odd question to ask at a time like this.”

“It seems the perfect time to ask.” She studied him over the rim of her glass. “I really don’t know anything about you.”

His gaze met hers in the mirror. “That’s not exactly true.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Okay. I do own a couple of pairs of jeans. I even wear them once in a while. Never at work, though.”

“Are you implying this is work?”

“Hardly.” He turned from the mirror and came back over to the bed. Placing one hand on either side of her, he leaned down and kissed her. “This is what I call incredible.”

“It is. Was.” But self-doubt filled Evangeline and she was glad when he straightened and moved away.

The phone rang, but she decided to let the machine pick up in the other room. After her recorded message, she heard only silence and, after a moment, the soft click that severed the connection.

Her glance darted to Nash. His reflection stared back at her, and she remembered what she’d told him earlier about hang-up calls. She always imagined that Johnny was on the other end of the line.

He reached for his jacket. “I should get going. I need to put in a few more hours at the office tonight.” He turned with an apologetic smile. “I’m terrible at this. I’ve been married to my job for so long, I make lousy company.”

Evangeline drew up her legs under the cover and rested the wineglass on her knee. “I’m not so great at it, either.”

He came over and sat down on the edge of the bed. “I’m no good at relationships, Evangeline. I’ve got two failed marriages to prove it.”

“So you’ve mentioned.”

“I just want you to know what you’re getting into.”

“Who says I’m getting into anything? Tonight was great, but it was just one night.” She paused. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

He took the wineglass from her hand and set it on the nightstand, then draped an arm over her knees. “This may sound corny and totally insincere considering how long I’ve known you, but tonight meant something to me.”

“It meant something to me, too, but I don’t expect anything. And you shouldn’t expect anything from me, either. I’m not ready for a relationship. It’s too soon, and I have my son to think about and a career that also takes a huge commitment, just like yours. I don’t have a lot of energy left over for anything else.”

“You had plenty of energy earlier,” he teased.

She felt her face heat. “I’m just trying to tell you, you don’t need to worry about me. We had a nice night. I’m cool with leaving it at that.”

She reached for her robe, slipped it on and walked him out. Locking the door behind him, she moved to the window and watched him leave. He strode down the walkway to his car and climbed in, but he didn’t start the engine right away. Instead he sat there for so long that she wondered if he meant to come back inside. Then she decided that he must be watching the house. She was a cop, so a part of her resented the intrusion while another part felt touched by his concern.

Surely he would leave in a minute, she thought. Surely he knew that she could take care of herself.

She left the window and took her time washing out the wineglasses and tidying up the kitchen.

Before she turned in, she glanced out the window again.

Nash was still out there.