Chapter 8
She held her breath.
Adeline struggled to escape. Flung her arms outward to knock free the restraint keeping her beneath the water.
She couldn’t hold her breath much longer! Why didn’t somebody help her?
Help!
Her lungs burned.
She couldn’t resist any longer. Her lips parted and water rushed into her throat.
Adeline bolted upright.
She gasped. Coughed. Fought to catch her breath.
Her skin was damp . . . her T-shirt soaked.
She peered through the darkness. Struggled to regain her bearings.
“Damn.”
She rested her face in her hands and waited for the calm to replace the fear.
The dream.
Same one she had suffered her whole life. She was under the water. It was too murky to see what was holding her down. Something strong . . . heavy . . . sat on her chest, making it impossible to rise up or to get away.
She flung the covers back and got out of bed. Her body shivered as the cool air in the room rushed over her sweaty skin. The digital clock on the table next to the bed mocked her: 4:01. It wouldn’t be daylight for another couple of hours. No one she needed to talk to would be out and about yet.
“Dammit.” She turned on the bedside lamp, then rummaged through her bag for clothes.
A shower to wash away the lingering funk that held on after those damned dreams would be good. Back when she was a kid she used to climb into bed with her mom to chase away the icky feeling of dying. Later she had . . .
Stop. She didn’t want to think about that.
The bathroom looked just as crappy this morning as it had last night.
Maybe worse. Dark spots on the wall behind the toilet warned that something related to a long-term water leak was flourishing.
The wallpaper had curled and drooped around the ceiling.
But the fixtures looked clean enough. The fake stone linoleum floor had seen way better days.
“Could be worse.” She grabbed a white towel that looked and smelled clean and slung it over the shower curtain rod. After adjusting the spray of water, she stripped off her T-shirt and panties, then stepped beneath the welcoming heat and dragged the dingy curtain into place.
Memories of showering with Wyatt barged their way into her head. She opened her eyes and forced the images away.
“What’s the deal here?” She gave herself a mental shake.
For most of the nine years she had been gone from this godforsaken place she’d done a stellar job of not thinking about him.
It had been hard at first, but then her career had gained momentum and she’d started to date other men and eventually it had become a lot easier.
Adeline had finally succeeded in tucking him into the furthest reaches of gray matter—where he’d obediently stayed.
She actually hadn’t thought about him in ages.
How could seeing him after all this time make such a totally screwed-up impact on her willpower? Have her reliving the past so vividly?
Maybe it was that whole closure thing.
They hadn’t talked since that last day. He’d called and left messages that she had erased without listening to. He’d spoken to her mother and attempted to pass along more urgent messages.
Ignore. Ignore.
How could something that happened a decade ago still matter? At all? “Stupid.” She swiped the water from her face. “Just totally stupid.”
She rinsed her hair and skin, then shut off the water. What difference did it make if she forgave him or not? They had been over like . . . forever. She had moved on. If some rogue brain cell was still clinging to the idea of closure, then that cell needed to screw off.
Adeline didn’t need closure or anything else from Wyatt Henderson. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She needed him to do his job and to find the facts related to this investigation. And to stay out of her way.
As she dried off she studied her face in the mirror.
She still looked young. Turning thirty last year hadn’t been the end of the world.
She kind of liked being in her thirties.
She felt stronger and more confident. Her twenties had been too full of turmoil and making a new life.
As a cop and a woman she’d always felt secure .
. . it was the whole relationship thing where she had fallen below the mark.
Some would say her life was pretty damned dysfunctional on a personal level.
Her father had died within weeks of her twenty-first birthday.
Her mother refused to leave “Cooperville” except for rare visits to Huntsville.
No one Adeline had grown up with or gone to school with remembered her fondly.
Why the hell should she care what those people thought of her?
She didn’t.
She didn’t need this place or these people. Nothing about being back here was going to make her feel uncertain about who she was and what she did. “No way.”
She dried her hair, took forever with the worn-out dryer provided by the motel.
She wiggled into her panties, said to hell with the bra, then pulled on her jeans, blouse, and sweatshirt.
Who needed a bra under all this? She’d never been blessed with big tits.
Unlike Deputy Sullenger. The woman’s cup size was likely the only reason she’d gotten the job.
There you go again . . . what’s up with the jealousy thing?
Socks, sneakers. Adeline was good to go.
5:12 a.m.
Damn. Still too early to accomplish anything useful.
She strapped on her utility belt, tucked her cell and weapon into place, and grabbed her jacket. There was a pancake house a couple of blocks over on Watts Avenue. She could have coffee and wait for daylight.
Grabbing her creds on the way out, she made sure the door locked and headed across the parking lot.
The town was dead. Like rigor mortis dead.
She could never live here again. Maybe there had been a time when she had fit in, but no more.
She hated the way the refinery and chemical corporation had horned in on the natural way of life here.
Pascagoula was about dredging the seas for its bounty while protecting the environment.
That simpler way of life had been overtaken by progress and accessibility.
The port and various waterways had long ago lured lucrative import/export business to the area, but the accessibility had also brought drug trafficking.
Funny, Hurricane Katrina had devastated many homes and too many businesses to count, though you could scarcely tell it now, but it hadn’t done a damned thing to slow down the flow of drugs.
Adeline had been keeping tabs on the area since her mother refused to leave.
Otherwise she would never have looked back.
The December air was crisp, the pavement damp. She hadn’t realized it had rained. Maybe the rain had triggered the dream. Rainstorms in particular had done it in the past.
The one shrink she’d made the mistake of spilling her guts to had insisted her dreams were related to childhood trauma.
Adeline hadn’t bothered telling him that as childhoods went, hers had been as close to idyllic as was possible.
Things had been just great until she’d hit eighteen and she’d learned the truth about what and who her uncle was.
Life hadn’t been the same since. Unlike her father, she hadn’t been able to just pretend it didn’t matter and move on with her life.
She’d fought the wrong as if she’d been born to that one crusade.
Problem was, she hadn’t been able to fight it alone.
Eight cars were jammed into the small parking lot of the River City Pancake House.
Not a chain joint, just a rinky-dink independent mom-and-pop operation that had been in the same spot and run by the same family for about fifty years.
A large snowman and smaller snowflake clings adorned the plate glass window.
Colored lights forming the words Happy Holidays flashed and flickered in time with the jolly Christmas music wafting from inside.
The bell jingled over the door as she entered. The waitresses along with the dozen or so patrons stopped chatting and turned to check out the latest arrival.
Adeline walked to the far end of the serving counter to ensure a view of the door and mounted a stool. A good cop never sat with her back to the door. “Coffee,” she said to the waitress who lifted an eyebrow in her direction.
The hum of conversation resumed as did the shoveling of grits and bacon into hungry mouths.
Coffeepot in one hand, the waitress strolled over and plopped a stoneware mug on the counter. “You here about the Prescott case?”
Everyone knew everyone in a town this size.
A strange face would automatically be connected to the latest gossip or news event.
Adeline had been gone plenty long enough for the average citizen to forget what she looked like or that she’d ever even lived here.
If she were lucky, it would stay that way until this was done.
“I am.” Adeline sipped the warm brew. It had a definite kick but tasted as smooth as any she’d picked up at Starbucks back in Huntsville.
“Anything else I can get you?”
“This’ll do it.” Adeline glanced at her nametag. “You new around here, Leslie?”
Leslie waved the half-empty coffeepot. “Moved to Pascagoula,” she pursed her lips and thought about it a moment, “about three and a half years ago.” Then she harrumphed. “Been working right here since day one.”
Adeline nodded and savored more of her coffee.
“You working with Sheriff Henderson?” The glint in Leslie’s eyes when she asked the question was unmistakable.
Ah. Another fan. “That’s right.”
“Whatever happened to that lady,” Leslie leaned across the counter and spoke for Adeline’s ears only, “the sheriff will find her. He never lets the folks around here down. He’s a damned fine man.”
“Good to know.” Adeline wasn’t surprised to hear the adoration. Wyatt had always been good at his job. Being a cop defined him. It was on a more personal level where the flaw lay . . . hidden beneath all that fine Southern-boy charm. A too-familiar bitterness churned in her gut.