Chapter Three
Riverbend, Louisiana
As the last commuter flight from DFW to Northwest Louisiana bucks against the turbulence, I toggle between the stress of Debby’s text and chiding myself for the hornet’s nest I’ve kicked at work.
I promised Carl I’d talk to Dom, and I assured Dom that Carl could jump into any scrums that pop up and get vis for us.
He’s more than capable of getting footage of any press conferences or briefings without me.
Hell, Carl could teach a master class on it. Carl.
Jeopardizing my career is one thing. Jeopardizing the career of the man who has done nothing but support me and make me look good for the past eight years is another.
I’ve got to figure out a way to not only make this right but also find a way to keep Laura Sanders.
The plane drops, and the woman next to me crosses her chest.
Getting to Dallas from Miami was easy enough, but then a winter storm had hit once we landed at DFW and we’d had to wait it out.
I could have tried to get to my house in Highland Park, at least grab a change of clothes, but I couldn’t risk missing the last flight to Louisiana.
I’d considered renting a car at DFW and driving, but I know how I-20 gets in these storms, and coming up on a jackknifed tractor trailer in the dark wasn’t appealing either.
I exhale and stare out the window. My leg taps nervously as we finally begin our descent.
“Praise Jesus,” the woman next to me says.
I study my phone and wait to see a signal pop up. I’ve been texting with Debby since leaving Miami. She said my father had been rushed into surgery, then sent to the ICU, and now she’s annoyingly silent. She hasn’t answered my last four texts, and this small plane does not have Wi-Fi.
I chew my bottom lip. Come on. The plane drops again, and a few passengers yelp. Then a signal appears. Yes. My phone dings, and the lady looks at me. I shrug and open the text thread with Debby. Touch and go.
I reply: What does that mean! Send.
I rub my face as the plane touches down, and the passengers around me actually clap.
When we park at the jet bridge, I jump up. The entire thirty-five-minute flight was deadly silent, but now that we’re all safe, the talking has begun. I hear conversations about nightmare travel days and long drives still ahead.
Finally, the cabin door opens and people start filing out. I feel a tap on my shoulder, and when I look back, a woman with a round, friendly face says, “I thought that was you.”
I smile at her the best I can.
“Carita,” she says. Oh boy. Only people in this area know me by that name.
“Rita now,” I say.
“Oh, right. Of course.” We start moving toward the front. “I’m Sarah Lynn Hebert. Your daddy, Judge Mac, helped our family. I’ve never forgotten how much we owe him.”
It’s a phrase I grew up hearing. Judge McCormick Meade brought justice to a lot of families. He has always been known for being tough, fair, and unflinching. Traits he passed on to his only child.
“Please tell him Sarah Lynn Hebert said hello.”
This happens every time I visit Riverbend, but I never quite get used to it. In Dallas, I can disappear in a crowd. In my hometown, the crowd is filled with people who know my father or went to grade school with me or took art classes from my mother.
“I will.” My gut clenches for a moment as the thought that I may not ever get to tell him that passes through my mind. I choke the thought back, shake it away, and concentrate on getting the hell off this plane.
I make it to the top of the jet bridge in time to see some random dude walking off with my gate-checked bag. I left my larger bag with my makeup and wardrobe in Miami with Carl, at a new hotel that did not serve $125 drinks.
I run after the guy with my bag. “Hey,” I yell as I catch up to him.
He stops and turns. His hair is dirty blond, and he has a slight scruff of a beard. His eyes remind me of a golden retriever’s.
“That’s my bag,” I say.
He looks down and sees the giant red tag I attach to it to distinguish it from the other black carry-ons.
“Oh shit,” he says, rolling it to me. “Sorry. Little distracted.”
“It’s fine,” I say, and I hurry for the escalator that leads to the rental-car stations. As I’m walking away I feel him watching me, but I don’t look back.
I head to the rental-car desk. The clerk looks twelve. I pull out my ID. “I have a reservation under Rita Meade.”
He just looks at me.
I look over my shoulder, then back to him. “Reservation. Rita Meade.”
“Damn, it’s really you,” he says. “I been reading about you. Saw that documentary-series thing you did on that town in South Louisiana. That’s some creepy shit.” He leans forward and lowers his voice as if we are in cahoots. “Are you here for another story?”
My stomach drops. “No. I’m here for a car.”
He straightens. “Right. Yeah. Well, you’re not going to get one here.”
“What are you talking about? I have a reservation.”
“Reservations don’t guarantee cars. People rent them here and don’t bring them back on time. Happens every day.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me?”
“Nope.”
I look at the booth next to his, and he says, “They don’t got any either. We’re all out.”
Fifteen minutes later I’m clinging for dear life to the seat in front of me in the back of a Dodge Charger going ninety on I-20.
“I said I’m going to the hospital, not that I want to be in the hospital,” I say over the loud death metal music to my Lyft driver. “Can you slow down?”
The driver eases up on the gas, slightly. I’m guessing his spare time is spent playing Grand Theft Auto or watching Fast & Furious.
My phone rings, and I answer it without looking who it is.
“You at the hospital yet?” Carl says.
“Not yet.”
“He’s gonna be okay,” Carl says. “He’s tough.”
Carl has known my dad since he and I teamed up.
They met when Carl and I drove through Riverbend to cover a story in Mississippi years ago.
We stayed overnight with Dad, and Carl entertained him with stories of when he’d been in the NFL.
A shattered left leg suffered during a motorcycle crash had ended that dream but put him on the road to becoming an award-winning camera guy.
He always sees the bad things coming. Speaking of.
“What’s happening with Laura Sanders?”
“Have you talked to Dom?”
I tap my nails on my leg. “Not yet. But I will. I promise. Just tell me what’s going on there.”
He’s quiet for a second, and right before I start to repeat myself, he says, “Jumped in on a scrum a few hours ago. Brief press conference by Mulholland. Only local reporters and me. This one is not out yet. But the clock’s ticking.
Marshall Sanders is a handsome rich dude whose blond wife washed up on a beach. This ain’t staying quiet long.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“Keep me updated on Judge Mac.”
We hang up as the Charger whips off the interstate and takes a screeching left through a yellow light before sliding into the ER entrance of Valleyview Hospital.
I climb out, retrieve my bag from the trunk, and race for the door. I check my phone again. Debby texted for me to go to the fourth floor. ICU.
I spot a bank of elevators down the back hall and suddenly feel the need to run.
The elevator door opens on the fourth floor. It’s empty except for a small woman with a blond bouffant that would make Dolly Parton swoon, sitting alone, staring at her phone.
“Debby,” I say, moving toward her.
She looks up. Her normally perfect hair sits lopsided on the top of her head.
Her blue eyes puffy and red. Debby was one of the casserole ladies who came by shortly after my mother died.
She even beat Betty Ann Lovelace—who was rumored to read obits in order to find the new eligible bachelors in Riverbend—to the punch.
But my father stayed a carefree bachelor for years until his path and Debby’s crossed again at a rodeo of all places.
“Oh honey,” she says.
My heart completely stops beating. Oh honey. Oh honey. No, no, no, no. “Debby,” I say again as my entire body shakes.
“He’s going to be okay,” she says as fresh tears start.
I release a sound that sounds more animal than human. My bones feel liquid, and I fall into the seat next to her. My hands shake as I cover my face and thank a god I stopped praying to decades ago. I take several deep breaths. “Holy fuck,” I whisper.
“Oh, hon. Not here,” Debby says, looking around at the empty waiting room.
“Debby, if there’s ever been a time and a place to use explicit language, it’s in the fucking ICU.”
She tilts her head and purses her lips in disapproval. Her language hasn’t been salted by years on a crime beat. She looks me up and down, and her face softens. “Rita, are you eating? You look too thin.”
Debby is built different from me. She is short and stocky and can carry a bale of hay by herself.
I’m built like my mother, Lara-Leigh Meade, who was a tall reed of a woman who would rather clean paintbrushes with turpentine on a sunny day than saddle a horse.
A perfectionist who said she totally understood why Leonardo da Vinci worked on the Mona Lisa until he died.
Ignoring Debby’s comment, I say, “How do I get back to see him?”
She fiddles with a stray hair by her ear. “Well, visiting hours are over. So . . . you’ll have to wait until the morning.”
I roll my neck. After the harrowing hours of this day, that is not an acceptable answer. “I don’t think so,” I say.
“Now, Rita,” she says. “Don’t cause a scene.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m not going to cause a scene. Unless they don’t let me in there. How do I get back to see him?” I repeat.
She points to the phone on the wall.
Thirty seconds later two large doors swish open, and I’m escorted into a small room by a nurse who looks as if she’s the accomplice in a bank heist. “A couple of minutes,” she whispers to me as she pulls back a curtain.