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Broussard rose and brought his fishing hat to his head. “I’ll be back tomorrow after office hours to check in. I recommend that you spend some time outside of these here walls, cher. Death’s a sad part of life, but it still has its place. Try not to let yore daddy’s death eat you up so much. Let yore mama get better on her own accord. Her mourning will end when she’s ready.”
As Haley watched Dr. Broussard drive off, she wondered if he was right. After all, her mother seemed to be making progress, albeit slow. So what if she thought she was seeing her daddy’s ghost. If that’s what it took for her to get better, it wasn’t such a bad thing. . . was it?
Chapter 36
ONE LIE DIDN’T necessarily beget another. Did it? That’s what Haley asked herself as she stepped into Mac’s truck. It was a question she’d been asking herself for days. It was Mac for Chrissakes. Mac. He would never intentionally do anything to hurt her. No one was perfect. Hell, she, herself, was far from it.
Mac had always been great to her and their relationship was unlike most. It was actually good, unselfish and healthy. Certainly not as passionate as her parents’ had been, but theirs had been rare. An almost fairy tale relationship, something she had dreamt of for herself when she was a little girl. But something she now understood was far from realistic. They had been married for almost twenty years, but never ceased acting like newlyweds. You could see the extent of their love in the way they looked at each other, the way they treated one another, the way they touched. They had the type of co
Although, daydreaming about Austin was something she did often, it was only a guilty pleasure. Mac was her man. He was the one who loved and wanted her.
As Mac threw the truck in reverse, she managed a weak smile.
“You’re smiling,” Mac said, sounding surprised.
Haley situated herself in her seat and reached out to touch his neck.
“What’s wrong with smiling?”
He eyed her. “I don’t know,” he said, forming each word slowly, as though he were suspicious. “It’s just been a while I guess. Seeing you smile. But it’s nice. It’s real nice.”
He threw the truck into gear and they headed toward Main Street, to the sno cone stand. Mac had taken the evening off from towing to spend time with her, something he never did, and they had the whole day to spend with each other. Time they hadn’t had in a long while.
“After sno cones, where do you want to go? Your pick. We can drive to Lafayette and catch a movie. Or we can go fishing? Whatever you’re in the mood for. The sky’s the limit today.”
“Mmmm. Let’s see a movie. We haven’t done that in ages.”
“Then a movie, it is,” Mac said, staring out at the road ahead of them.
Haley reached for her purse. She unzipped it and fished for her driver’s license. She’d need it to get into an R-rated show. She accidentally turned the purse at an angle and some loose change tumbled out, disappearing in the tight space between the passenger seat and the gear shift. “Dang,” she muttered.
The truck slowed and Mac killed the ignition. “Stay here,” he said, then hopped out. Haley forced her hand into the space to pick up the change and her fingers brushed against something smooth. She grasped it just as Mac opened the passenger door for her.
Her breath caught in her throat. It was a candy tin.
“May I, Miss Landry?” Mac was saying. He was trying to help her out of the truck.
Haley studied the little pink tin that Tiffany kept her breath mints in. And on many occasions, her marijuana. She turned it over and saw the familiar monogrammed TP. Tiffany Perron.
She tried to remember Tiffany ever being in Mac’s truck and couldn’t.
“What do you got there?” Mac asked.
She looked up at him. “It’s Tiffany’s. I found it between the seats.”
For a quick instant, Mac looked as confused as she felt. “Oh. She must have dropped it.”
“When was she in your truck?”
Mac rubbed the whiskers on his chin. “A few weeks ago. I picked her up. She was walking along Main Street. Said something about Charles dropping her off at Luke’s, and she didn’t have her car to get home.”
Thoughts swam through her head. Some making co
Mac squinted. “You okay, Babe?”
“Yeah,” she lied.
He gri
Chapter 37
IT WAS ELEVEN o’clock on Friday evening and Tom still hadn’t come home. The kids were in bed. At least she thought they were. Who knew these days, Rachel thought, especially with Kelsey.
She tossed aside the book she’d been trying to read, pulled on her robe, and walked down the hallway to Kelsey’s room. She opened the bedroom door and waited for her eyes to adjust. When they did, she saw that her daughter wasn’t there. Anger swelled inside her, and she remembered the previous Sunday when the raccoons knocked over the trashcan out back, creating that awful noise.
She’d awoken in a panic and raced to Kelsey’s room. There’d been a heaviness in her gut, screaming of something terribly, terribly wrong. When she reached the bedroom, she found that Kelsey had snuck out her window.
That was the first night when she’d gone into Kelsey’s room to find her not there, her bed empty, the covers barely ruffled.
The next morning they’d had it out, both yelling at the tops of their lungs. Kelsey had said she hated her.
Hated.
And that she was a horrible mom.
Horrible.
Her daughter’s words tormented her.
As she did that night, Rachel crawled into her daughter’s bed and awaited her return. Lying against the soft linens, she thought back to a time when she and Kelsey had been best friends.
Had anything happened to them besides puberty? Had it been something she did? She wanted to be closer to her daughter. She wanted Kelsey to trust her, to love her, to like her, but she knew she was partially to blame for Kelsey’s new attitude. She was supposed to be a mother first and a wife second, but for months, she had grossly reversed her priorities.
The room darkened. Rachel rose in the bed, realizing someone was standing in front of the window, blocking the moonlight. It was Kelsey. She was home.
Her mind raced as she tried to figure out how best to handle this one. Should she be angry again? Or could she be calm with her daughter and simply explain again the dangers of slipping out at night?
Rachel sat up straight on the edge of the bed and smoothed her silk nightgown with her palms. She then took a few long, deep breaths. Was now the right time to tell her that she was sorry for not being emotionally available? Yes, that’s what she’d do. She’d be calm. Kelsey would appreciate it and the two would begin to rekindle their relationship.
The room brightened again.
Where was Kelsey going? Had she sensed she was in there and fled?
Rachel hurried to the window, getting there just in time to see a figure slipping into the woods. A figure much too large and tall to be her daughter.
Chapter 38
THE FAN HUMMED loudly in the living room window, but did little to cool the Landrys’ small house. The living room was the coolest room by far, and the place everybody congregated in, whether they all liked each other or not—and as far as Erica could tell, they didn’t.