Chapter Thirty
Natchitoches, Louisiana
I follow Marshall Sanders’s car over a short bridge and into the drive-through lane of Raising Cane’s chicken.
I stay close and inch through the line behind him.
The press, former students, and their parents aren’t the only people being drawn to this town.
I run through options of what to say to him when we get to wherever it is he’ll lead me.
I text Katrina that I’ll call in a bit, then ease the truck up to the speaker box. It’s my time to order. Fried chicken strips are not on my diet, ever, but that, fries, and Texas toast are all that’s offered here. I lower my window.
“Hey, good lookin’, what can I get cookin’?” a woman says.
I roll my eyes and scan my options, which include chicken strips or chicken strips.
I pick a combo. She tells me the price, and I pull up behind Marshall again.
When it’s my turn at the window, I keep my eyes on Marshall’s car as I pay.
The smell coming from the Styrofoam container as I pull away has my stomach rumbling like there’s a primal need inside me that has been ignored for far too long.
As I follow Marshall out of the lot and back through town, I open the lid and take a bite of the Texas toast inside and almost whimper when I eat it.
Marshall pulls into the parking lot of a Holiday Inn Express near the interstate, and I count five white vans in the parking lot. One says NCN on the side. I want to get to him before they do. He parks on the side of the building, and I pull up behind his parked car and lower my window.
When he steps out, I say, “Marshall Sanders.”
He looks up, fight or flight in his eyes. He takes his daughter’s hand, who has gotten out of the car as well. She looks at me and smiles.
“I remember you,” she says.
Marshall squints at me; then recognition dawns on his face. “No comment.”
“I’m not here for a comment, Marshall. I just want to talk. Off the record.” I glance toward the front of the hotel. “And you may not want to take her in there right now.”
He looks between me and the building.
I hold up my bag of food. “Maybe we could have lunch together?”
A group of reporters exits the front of the hotel, Carl and Erin among them. Marshall pulls his daughter closer.
“One lunch,” I say. “That’s it.” I nod toward the cluster of reporters. “It will be better than that.”
Carl spots me; then Erin follows his gaze.
“Get in,” I say.
Marshall walks his daughter to the passenger side of the truck and helps her into the back seat; then he climbs up next to me.
I peer over my shoulder and back out as Carl and Erin start toward us.
I swing the truck around and pull out of the lot before they can get too close.
My phone starts ringing as I head back for town.
Marshall is watching me like he is regretting his impulsive decision.
His daughter has buckled her seat belt and meets my gaze in the rearview mirror.
“Let’s find a place to talk before you have to deal with all of that,” I say to Marshall.
I turn down a side street and pull over. I grab my phone and call Grant.
“Hey,” I say when he answers. “Are you at that bed-and-breakfast you told me about?”
“No. But I will be later,” he says.
“Any way I could go by there for a bit?”
“Yeah. Of course. You’ll be the only one there. The owner left me a note saying she had a family emergency, so I’ve got the place to myself.”
“Can you send me the address?” I say, cutting him off.
“Oh, sure. Are you—”
“I’ll explain later,” I say and hang up.
I click the link he sends and follow the directions through the narrow windy streets to a small Southern cottage with dark-green shutters, white columns, and dormer windows in the roof.
A plaque planted in the front lawn says it was built in 1855.
I keep driving and find a place to park a few streets over.
I grab my bag of food. “Let’s go.”
Marshall and his daughter follow me on the oak-lined street to the bed-and-breakfast. There’s no keypad on the front door, and it’s unlocked. What is this place?
We walk into a small foyer with polished hardwood floors and a giant crystal chandelier.
Stairs sit in front of us, and two sitting rooms sit on either side.
Each space is painted a different color.
The foyer a dark red, the sitting room on the right mustard yellow, and the one on the left forest green.
I pick the yellow room, and they follow me into it.
The room is set up like it’s going to receive guests from a different era.
An antique writing desk sits against one wall.
A small fireplace against the other. I choose an Empire-style chair, while Marshall and his daughter choose the sofa.
We place our food on the oval marble-top table in front of us.
I look at the girl. “My name is Rita,” I say. “I don’t think we properly met last time I saw you.” My smile falters. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned the last time I saw her. That’s a moment this little girl may never want to remember again.
She looks up to her father.
“This is Jasmine,” he says.
The bite I just took gets stuck in my throat. I have to take a giant sip of my drink to get it down without choking. Oh, Heather.
“Hi, Jasmine,” I say in a voice that sounds more like a croak.
Jasmine hops off the sofa and sits on the floor to make it easier to eat, and I follow suit.
“It’s been a long time since I ate fast food,” I say to Jasmine.
She smiles and dips her chicken strip into the side sauce. I pull one of my strips out and do the same. I chew it slowly and swallow. “That could be the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”
She giggles and looks to her father. She’s looking to him a lot. I know that feeling.
“How did you know we were here?” Marshall says. His arms are crossed over his chest, sitting on the edge of the sofa as if he might bolt at any moment.
I eye Jasmine. “I didn’t. I just saw you in town.”
“And you followed us?”
Jasmine is ignoring us, but I know she’s listening. I was a girl her age once, and I was always listening too.
“I didn’t want to miss a chance for us to talk.” I take another bite. “That’s all,” I add.
His shoulders lower slightly.
Jasmine and I continue to eat, but Marshall leaves his food untouched. When Jasmine finishes, I say, “You can go explore around here if you want. We’re the only people here.”
“Really?” she says, her little eyebrows shooting up. She glances at Marshall again. “Can I?” The look in her eyes reminds me of Heather. Something mischievous and maybe a hint of risk-taking. But Heather never would have asked permission.
Marshall nods, and she runs for the front stairs. He looks at me. “I’m here to get answers about my wife,” he says. “I pulled Jasmine out of school for a few days. I don’t want to leave her right now.”
“I’m here for the same reason,” I say. He starts bagging the trash his daughter left. “Did you know Laura’s real name?” I say.
He shakes his head. “No. I had no idea.”
“You told me in Key Biscayne Laura had demons. What did you mean?”
He stops cleaning up and releases a long sigh. “Laura had nightmares. She drank too much. I knew it was something from her past, but I figured it was that she lost her parents so tragically.”
“So she told you about that?”
“Yeah.”
“Did she tell you about Poison Wood?”
“No.” He rubs his hands on his jeans. “She told me she had to go to boarding school, but that was it.”
“And after boarding school? Did she talk about that?”
“Just that she didn’t go to college. She worked in New Orleans. Followed a boyfriend to Miami. And then she met me.”
“What about her aunt and uncle? Did she ever talk about them?”
“No. I had no idea about them. But we’ve talked since . . . since Laura was found.” He releases another breath. “This is all so overwhelming. And I’m trying to explain it to Jasmine, but it’s hard.”
I want to tell him that taking his child to a crime scene and to this town is not the way to explain it, but lecturing him right now about what’s done is not going to help anything. Besides, I’m not a parent. I only know what it’s like from a child’s perspective.
“What did you know about my wife?” he says.
Where to start. Maybe with diary entries recorded by a girl named Jasmine. Hers were the shortest, and yet, something in the words she did write felt impactful. “She was like all of us,” I say. “Reckless and wild.”
“Were you friends?”
“Yes. But at Poison Wood friend groups were . . . complicated.”
“Daddy!” Jasmine runs into the room out of breath, her pigtails askew. “There’s another staircase up there that goes to a secret room. It’s full of books and like a little nook. Can I go back up?”
“Sure,” he says.
She grins and runs back for the stairs.
“Some days I wish I could be like her,” Marshall says, exhaling. “Carefree. Not affected by all of this.”
The stone that lives in my rib cage shifts.
“Don’t be fooled by that, Marshall. Be careful with her,” I add.
“I lost my mother around her age. One day this will catch her, and she’s going to need to talk about it.
Don’t make her hold it in.” Now it’s my turn to release a breath.
“Anyway, I want to ask you about something else.” I stand up from the floor and sit in the chair next to the couch.
“How was your wife acting in the days leading up to her death?”
He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’ve gone over this dozens of times with the police.
Laura was off. She was paranoid and drinking too much and taking sleeping pills like they were candy.
When she said she was going to a spa for treatment, I was glad.
I thought maybe she was trying to find a healthy way to cope with whatever it was that was bothering her. ”
“And she didn’t tell you anything?”
He meets my gaze. “Nothing. Look, I’ve told the police everything I know. And I didn’t know much. I didn’t even know about the money stuff.”
My pulse quickens. “What money stuff?”
“After Laura was . . . gone, I found a stack of Grey Wolf Capital envelopes in her bedside drawer along with her personal checks. Some checks were made out to Rosalie Adair.” He shuts his eyes a moment, then reopens them. “I think she was being blackmailed.”
Or she felt unbelievable guilt, I think, but I say, “Why do you think she was being blackmailed?”
“I think Laura knew something she shouldn’t.” According to one of the diary entries, Heather knew enough to creep into Meadow’s bed and whisper she knew something in Meadow’s ear.
“Is there anything else you can tell me?”
He nods. “She had a secret safe-deposit box. The bank owner said she’d been in recently to remove things.”
My hands start to tingle. Like me, Laura Sanders had a Pandora’s box as well.
“She sent me something,” I say.
He studies me. “What?”
“A pregnancy test.”
“What?”
“I think it was from our time at school. Did she ever mention being pregnant before she met you?”
He shakes his head. “Never.”
“Anything else?” I say.
He shifts on his seat and nods. “She left a note addressed to me in that safe-deposit box along with a stained love letter.” Heather knew everything. He goes pale. “The note said if anything ever happens to her, I need to find a woman named Summer Chamberlain.”