Page 47 of Broken Bayou
Nan’s Café is not quite the clatter of activity it was a few days ago. Even though every table is full, some locals, some media, a heavy silence hangs over the room. The clink of silverware on plates is the loudest sound. Except for the orange boots and the fact I couldn’t bring myself to fix my hair before I left, I still fit in more with the media, an outsider looking in. A few people study me. The locals look tired, their eyes turned down, their mouths in tight, straight lines. The media folks look hungry, not for food, for more death. Unlike the locals, their eyes are bright and focused. And most focused of all is a green pair staring straight at me. Rita Meade.
A text pops up on my cell, a new number.
The more you try to ignore me, the harder it will be. This is Rita.
I look over at her. The sides of her mouth curl up.
Great.
Even with Rita here, this is still better than sitting around Shadow Bluff, waiting for Charles LaSalle to call me back. I’d placed the license plate in the kitchen next to Eddie’s dolls and stared at them so long my eyes hurt. Why would Doyle leave that for me? And when I take it to the police, will they believe that’s how I got it?
If I stayed in that house one more second, I would have driven myself crazy with questions and eventually started on the tape again. Or worse, gone back to my toiletry bag. And I can’t do that. So I decided,despite the fact I look and feel like a zombie, I needed to be in a public place.
A couple exits one of the booths by the bank of windows, and I slide in even though it hasn’t been cleaned. A young waitress with blonde bangs and a mouthful of gum wipes the table with a wet rag, then sets a plastic menu in front of me. She disappears for a moment, then returns with a thick ceramic mug she clunks onto the table.
“Coffee, hon?”
A waitress half my age calling mehonmanages to bring a smile to my face. But it’s not a real smile. Nothing feels real at the moment. I feel like I’m an actor on a set, stumbling through a scene I’m not prepared for. Amy once did a stint in her early twenties as a production assistant in Los Angeles. She told me how, when she was on set, she lost all perspective. Her world would shrink to the actors, the director, the gaffers, and grips, and that would become her new world.
That’s how this town feels. Except no one is yelling “That’s a wrap.”
The coffee is strong, and I don’t bother with creamer or sugar. I don’t need it diluted right now. My nerves are crackling under my skin, and although caffeine may intensify it, I don’t care. I need fully loaded.
I feel someone staring at me from across the room. I look up, expecting Rita again. Worse. It’s Travis. He’s a few tables away, sipping coffee and watching me.I nod. He nods back. I don’t like the way he’s studying me. He wads his paper napkin into a ball and drops it on his plate; then he scoots back from the table and heads my way.
I sit up straighter, push the hair off my shoulders.
“Morning,” he says. He’s smiling, but the smile is too pinched, too static.
“Hi.”
“We need to finish our conversation.”
I think about the license plate. “Yes, we do.” I shift in my seat.
The look he’s giving me has me breathing a little faster than I should be. Recalling everything I watched on that tape isn’t helping.
“Not here, though,” he says.
I nod.
He looks down at me like he’s waiting. Maybe he wants me to get up and follow him, but I’m not quite ready. “I’ll call you later,” I say.
“Willa.”
“I promise.”
He sighs and exits Nan’s. I watch him climb into his truck and pull out of the lot. I need to tell him I’m going to the police. Tell him what’s on that tape. But even thinking of saying that out loud has my throat closing off.
The waitress returns to take my order, but I have no appetite. I tell her I’m sticking with coffee only, and as if in a choreographed dance, chairs begin scraping on the diner floor, and suited patrons start sliding from booths, adjusting ties, and applying lipstick. All race for the door, including Rita, who pauses at my table. “Information flows both ways,” she says.
In seconds, the place is cleared out to the point I wonder if I missed a fire drill of some kind. Rita’s cryptic words ring in my head.
“Did I miss something?” I say to the waitress as I motion around the now empty diner.
She chomps her gum. “Nah. This is what they do when the sources tell them something’s up. It’s like a horse race to the bayou.”
The internal magnet that pulled me back to this town in the first place vibrates. I ask for my check.
