Page 77 of Broken Bayou
She releases a loud laugh, and the other two customers in Taylor’s turn to stare. “Good.”
I don’t bother to tell Rita exactly what my mother told me, that this could be bigger than her. She’s beyond listening. Whether it’s her that puts all this together or not, I hope it gets done quickly. Despite the good night’s sleep, despite the coffee, I feel something ominous hovering close.
Rita gazes down at me. “I’ve got something I’m checking out this afternoon. Somebody I want to interview. Possibly a secret boyfriend of Emily’s. My digging uncovered that gem as well. Then I’m heading over to talk to Tom Bordelon.”
The drawing from Mabry’s sketchbook comes to mind. Like the pictures she’d drawn of Ermine and her husband, Travis and me, even Mama and her boss, Mabry was capturing what love looked like to her. Emily and a boy.
Rita points a long manicured nail at me. “Keep your phone on. I’ll fill you in when I’m done.” She clips to the front of Taylor’s and is out the door before I can yell after her.
Ermine slips up beside my table. “That one’s a real piece of work.”
“Indeed.”
“She bothering you?”
I shake my head. “I actually think I’m starting to like her.”
Then Ermine says to me what I intended to yell to Rita. “Be careful.”
I text Travis and ask him to please come by again. When I get back to the house, I go through each room, with my gun. Although, I’m not sure what I would have done if someone had been here. I didn’t think that far into my plan when I started looking in rooms. Thankfully, it hadn’t mattered.
I set my keys and gun on the kitchen table and look at the kitchen door. The chair I wedged under the knob before I left is still there. I hear tires on the oystershell driveway, then someone calling my name out front.
Travis sits in his truck with the windows down. I walk up to the passenger window. He looks as if he’s been up all night. His hair is scattered in all directions. His clothes are wrinkled. He looks at me with sad eyes. “Doyle’s missing.”
“What?”
Travis tilts his head. “I figured that’s why you texted me.”
“No, Travis. It’s not. I texted you because I just had a very interesting conversation with Rita Meade and—”
Travis scoffs.
“And,” I continue, “she mentioned something that got me thinking.”
“What’s that?”
“Did Emily have a secret boyfriend?”
“What? Why?”
I hold up my finger. “I’ll be right back.” I race to the kitchen and snag Mabry’s sketchbook from the counter. I fumble through the pages until I find the loose sketch Liv Arceneaux ripped in half; then I race back to Travis.
I hold out the drawing, slightly out of breath. “Mabry drew this. The other half is a drawing of Emily.”
Travis’s jaw goes slack. “What the fuck?”
He grabs the picture and holds it closer. His throat moves as he swallows.
“Do you know who that boy is?”
Travis’s jaw is no longer slack. It’s tensed so hard I can see the muscle in it. Travis looks up, and the answer dawns on me even before he says it. The expression on the boy’s face. I’d seen it last night, by the bayou. On Raymond St. Clair’s face.
“It’s Raymond,” I say.
Travis nods and thrusts the picture back into my hand. “Yeah. I always suspected.”
Then something else comes to mind, and the sketch shakes in my hand. “Rita also mentioned there may be evidence at least some of the victims were drugged.”
