Chapter Twelve #2
For just a moment she couldn’t make sense of it being there. Nola? Nola had the book? Her brain struggled to make sense of it all. But that meant…oh God, that meant Nola had killed her mother. Nola had beaten Monique and tried to kill her?
She had to get out of here. She needed to tell Jacque. Daniel needed to know. The killer had been identified, and Monique’s head whirled with the sickening truth of it. She jerked up out of the chair and put her glass in the sink.
“Monique? Oh, here you are.” Nola came into the kitchen.
Act natural, a voice whispered inside Monique’s head. Don’t let her know that you saw the book. “I just came in to get a quick drink of tea.” She was grateful that her voice sounded completely normal despite the intense horror that bubbled up inside her.
“I see you found it okay,” Nola replied.
Monique forced a smile. “I did. You’ve always made the best sweet tea. And now it’s probably time I head back. If Jacque wakes up, he’ll worry that I’m gone.”
Together, the two of them walked out of the kitchen. Monique immediately saw that her knife was no longer on the coffee table. It was nowhere in sight.
She started to head for the front door, but Nola got there first. She put her back to the door and frowned at Monique.
“You know I can’t let you leave here,” she said.
To Monique’s horror, she pulled a long, wicked-looking knife out of her housedress pocket.
“There’s no need to pretend, honey. I’m sure you saw the book. ”
For a moment Monique thought about playing dumb, but more than anything and in spite of the danger she knew she was in, she wanted…she needed answers.
“You killed her? Why?” Monique looked at the woman she thought she knew but now realized she didn’t know at all. Nola had to be a monster to slice her best friend’s throat.
“Your mother was a damned fool,” Nola said.
There was a hardness in her eyes Monique had never seen before.
“That night I came to her with a plan that would have made us both a lot of money, enough money so that I could finally get out of this damn swamp and spend the rest of my life someplace nice.”
“What kind of a plan?” Monique mouth had gone dry, and she was torn between the need to understand everything and the desire to scream.
“Your mother knew secrets about a lot of people…wealthy people who would pay a lot of money to keep those secrets from coming out. The plan I suggested to your mother was that we blackmail her clients. Unfortunately, Mystique didn’t see things my way.
All the times I cooked meals for her and the three of you…
all the times I wiped you and your sisters’ snotty noses, and she couldn’t do this one thing for me.
She knew how much I wanted to get out of the swamp and live an easier life someplace else. ”
She sneered with obvious disgust. “She told me I was crazy, and she would never do anything like that. Her clients trusted her and blah…blah…blah. I told her I would do it without her, and I tried to grab the client book from her. Anyway, we fought over it, and I killed her and took the book.” There was no remorse, no regret at all in her voice.
She said the words without any emotion, like she was announcing lunch options.
“But what about me? You left me the notes? You were the one who beat me and tried to shoot me?” Monique felt as if she was in a dream…a nightmare from which she couldn’t awaken.
Nola narrowed her eyes. “I had to stop you. I knew you wouldn’t stop your digging until you found me out. Out of the three of you girls, you were always the smartest, the most determined, and you were a definite threat to all my plans.”
Tears blurred Monique’s vision as she continued to stare at the woman. “I… I thought you loved me… I thought you loved all of us.”
“Oh, I do. But I love money more. I’ve been wanting to leave this swamp behind for years, and this is my way to finally get what I want.
” Nola took a step toward her. “I intend to lie low for a little while and then I’ll start blackmailing the people who will pay me the most money to keep their secrets. ”
“I could be your partner,” Monique said desperately. “Nola, I could work with you, and I swear I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
Nola laughed. It wasn’t the sound of merriment, rather it was the raucous noise of the devil come calling. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she scoffed. “Ah, Monique, you don’t fool me. You’re a moral fool just like your mother was.”
“Jacque knows I’m here.” Monique said urgently and took a step backward. “In fact, he should be here at any time.” God, where was he? Was he still in his bedroom, unaware that she was gone? Unaware that she was in danger? Did he just assume she’d be safe here with Nola?
“But he isn’t here now, and probably by the time he gets here, you’ll be dead in the swamp, attacked by the unknown killer who has been after you. Nobody will ever know you made it here to my shanty.” Nola sprang forward, the knife thrusting outward.
Monique screamed and grabbed one of the electric lanterns from an end table. She threw it at the woman, but Nola batted it away like it was nothing, and with another wild burst of laughter, she continued to advance.
Jacque awakened, shocked that he’d actually fallen asleep. He never napped during the day. But he’d never talked about the old trauma before. He’d obviously been overwhelmed by it all. He rolled over on his back and stared up where twilight shadows danced on the ceiling.
It had been such an emotional afternoon, but he felt surprisingly refreshed.
Telling Monique about Lauren and Lily had been cathartic.
He recognized now that he’d healed a lot in the past four years.
His loss of his wife and child would always bring an enormous sadness to him, but it was a sadness now tempered by time and distance.
She loved him.
Monique’s words slammed into his chest with a new pain. He shouldn’t have been surprised. If he thought about it, he’d seen her love for him in a million ways before she actually spoke the words.
Her eyes had whispered of her love each time she gazed at him. Her smiles had told him how she felt about him. Her simplest touch had spoken of love. When she’d knelt by his side and cried tears for him, it had touched him deeply, and once again had shown her love for him.
He’d been a fool not to have seen it sooner, not to have somehow stopped it from happening. Maybe she was mistaken. He could certainly understand how she might think she was in love with him when actually what she really felt was an enormous amount of gratitude and friendship.
They had been living in such close contact, virtually like husband and wife. He’d been her protector for weeks. Was it any wonder she might mistakenly believe herself to be in love with him?
As for his love for her? He’d get over it. Once this was all over and she moved out of his shanty and went back to her own life, he would make himself forget that he ever loved her.
He finally sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed.
The shanty was quiet, and he wondered if she’d gone into her room and fallen asleep like he had.
If that was the case, then he’d talk to her tomorrow.
He was hoping that maybe he could make her see that her love for him wasn’t real but rather a manifestation of their circumstances.
He got out of the bed and left his room. The door to her room was closed, so he assumed she had, indeed, fallen asleep after all the wild emotions that had been spent.
He went into the living room and sat back in his recliner. For the first time since he’d moved to the swamp, he wished he had a television. He would have loved to turn on some mindless show and lose himself in it. He was so tired of thinking.
Since he didn’t have a television, he picked up the book he’d been reading and tried to concentrate on the words on the page. But within minutes he put the book back down. He couldn’t focus.
He got out of his chair, deciding he needed a glass of the orange juice that was in his cooler. Immediately, he saw the note on the table.
Needed to talk to somebody. Went to Nola’s. Be back later.
With surprise, he went back to her bedroom, wondering if she was already back from Nola’s. He opened the door. Her bed was neatly made, and she wasn’t there.
He returned to the kitchen, poured himself a glass of juice and sat down at the table. She should be safe at Nola’s. Surely if anything had happened to her on the way there, he would have heard about it by now. That was one thing about the swamp: when things happened, the grapevine worked overtime.
In a little while, he’d head out to Nola’s so he could make sure Monique got back here safely. He could understand her need to talk to somebody. It didn’t surprise him that she wanted to share things with the woman who had been in her life for so long.
He didn’t know Nola well, but he knew how much Monique and her sisters all loved her. According to Monique, Nola had been like the favorite aunt who always had candy in her pocket and hugs and kisses for the girls.
She had been Mystique’s best friend.
She would have had a key to Mystique’s house.
The night of the murder, there had been no forced entry, leaving the police to believe either the front door had been unlocked or the killer had a key.
As far as he knew Nola hadn’t even been a suspect in the case. Should she have been? His mind suddenly raced with wild suppositions.
Nola lived in the swamp. It would have been easy for her to eavesdrop at his windows.
She could have also easily left the notes for Monique.
The woman had a sturdy build and was probably strong as an ox…
strong enough to fight with Mystique and slice her throat…
strong enough to beat the hell out of Monique.
She was a woman who had lived in the swamp alone all her life.
She probably owned a gun and would know how to shoot it.