Pastor’s Girl
Billy let himself in through the study window.
Not because the door was locked — Judah never locked the study — but because Billy had been letting himself in through the study window since he was fifteen.
And there was the small matter of being on the run from a particularly irate husband who accused him — for no good reason — in the very mundane crime of sleeping with his wife.
Billy dropped onto the leather chair across from the desk, crossed his ankles on the ottoman, and helped himself to the bourbon on the side table without asking.
Judah didn't look up from what he was reading.
“You could use the door,” he said.
“I could.” Billy poured two fingers. Considered. Poured a third. “Aunt Ida is in the drive. She'd want to talk.”
“About what?”
“About your girl.” Billy settled back. “Same thing everyone wants to talk about.”
Judah turned a page.
“Fontenot's wife told her,” Billy continued, “who told the Tureaud women, who apparently have formed some kind of ecclesiastical committee on the matter, that the pastor's girl reorganized the entire donation ledger in her first week and hasn't made a single filing error since.” He drank.
“They're calling her that, by the way. The pastor's girl.
Not the new coordinator. Not Miss Evangeline. The pastor's girl.”
Judah set the paper down.
Billy watched him do it.
“How long?” Judah asked.
“The pastor's girl? Two weeks, maybe three.” Billy turned the glass in his hand. “The restaurant didn't help. Or helped, depending on your angle.” He paused. “Maison Fontenelle, Judah. On a Monday. In last night's dress.”
“She needed breakfast.”
“She needed breakfast,” Billy repeated, tasting the words and setting the glass down.
“Right.” He stretched his arms over his head.
“You know what's funny. Three hundred thousand dollars. I was there when you wired it. I watched your face.” He lowered his arms. “You didn't look like a man making a business decision.”
Judah said nothing.
“Hargrove had two others interested. Serious interest. Those book one-way travel.” Billy's voice stayed light.
It always stayed light. That was the trick of him — the weight was always underneath, never on the surface.
“You paid over ask. Didn't negotiate. Didn't sleep on it.” He looked at his glass.
“For a man who negotiates everything, that was—”
“Enough.”
“—notable.” Billy finished the word anyway, because he was Billy and the leash only shortened, never fully held. He looked at Judah across the study. “She doesn't know.”
“No.”
“When?”
“When I decide.”
Billy made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh.
“She's living in your house, Judah. She's wearing your— “ he gestured vaguely, encompassing something Judah had apparently not kept entirely private, “—whatever. The whole town calls her yours.” He set his glass down.
“She's going to find out. The only question is whether it comes from you or from something else.”
The something else hung in the room.
Judah looked at him. “Hall.”
“Still at the Prosperity Inn.” Billy kept his voice easy. “Cash. Still loose questions, still scattered. But he's been back to Thibodaux twice. And—” a moment, brief, “—he came to the church.”
Silence.
“I know,” Judah said.
“You know.”
“He spoke to Mercy.” His jaw did something. Brief. “I was there for part of it.”
Billy picked up his glass again. Looked at the bourbon. “And?”
“She told him nothing useful. She doesn't know anything useful.”
“Yet,” Billy said.
Judah's eyes came up.
Billy held up one hand, palm out. “I'm just doing the math,” he said. “She's smart. She noticed the flyer before I got to it. She asked me about the cherry inside of a week.” He paused. “She asked me what it meant, man.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Nothing worth repeating.” He smiled, but it didn't reach anything.
“She's not stupid. She's also not asking questions she doesn't already half know the answer to.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees. “The Fontenot thing is still out there. Curtis talked before your guys got to him. Not much, but some.” He turned the glass. “And Hall is the kind of man who collects halves until they make a whole. Fucking annoying but that’s who he is.”
The study was quiet. Outside, the oaks were doing nothing in the dead still heat, the moss hanging motionless. A bird flew past the window.
“Hargrove's going to want the next event confirmed,” Billy said, shifting. “October. He mentioned the girl from New Orleans. The Melancon connection.”
“I heard.”
“You going to be there?”
Judah looked at the window Billy had climbed through. At the trees outside. At the still branches. He didn’t wish to be there.
He didn’t wish to be anywhere near there.
It had been like that for the past thirteen years.
“I'll be there,” he said.
Billy watched him. “She'll be in your house in October,” he said. “Your bed. Your table.” A pause. “Your name, the way the town's yapping about it.”
“I know what she'll be.”
“Do you.” Billy stood, downing the remains of his glass in one long mouthful.
He winced and continued, “Well. I see you have it all figured out then.” He said the words but the words didn’t fit what he said.
He was still grimacing from the burn the whiskey left behind — not entirely in an unpleasant way.
“That’s some good stuff.” He pointed the finger at the bottle, blowing out a steady breath.
“Anyway. Just keep in mind — I know you’re Mr. Have-it-figured-out, but Hargrove sees her at the October event, he's going to have some choice words with you about this investment.”
The word investment refused to be absorbed by the walls of the room.
“You are not meant to keep her,” Billy said more silently.
Judah stood.
He didn't say anything. He crossed to the side table and poured his own drink and stood with it, not drinking. His back was to Billy. The suffering Christ stretched across his shoulder blades, the burning garden, all of it still and dark under the fabric.
“She's not going to the October event,” he said.
Billy looked at his back for a moment. “Hargrove—”
“Has no say. I paid for her.” He turned around. “She's not going.”
Billy looked at him for a long moment, then — put his jacket on and moved toward the window.
“The town calls her yours,” he said, one hand on the frame. “Make sure you know what that means before she decides what it’s supposed to mean.”
He dropped out the window.
The study was quiet. Somewhere a low, rough voice called out Billy’s name with a certain kind of vengeful frustration.
The bourbon sat untouched in the glass. Judah stood in the middle of the room with the October event on one side and Mercy asleep in his bed on the other and did what he always did when the accounting didn't balance.
He stayed very still and waited for the numbers to change.
Only they didn't.