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It made me want to ease her to the grass, take off those pants of hers. Feel those legs, endless and strong, wrap around my back. I wanted to cover her smart mouth with mine. I wanted to lick her and bite her, feel her breath in my ear, her nails in my back. I wanted her under me, to remind her that even with all that smug superiority, bad, bad Tyler O’Neill could make good girl Juliette Tremblant want me so bad she’d scream with it.
Juliette stepped away, a blush on her cheeks, and I guessed I didn’t hide my desire very well.
“I need to go find Miguel,” she said.
“You want help?” I asked, knowing the answer before I asked it.
She shook her head and I nodded, keeping my mouth shut. There was no telling what would come pouring out of me right now.
I didn’t watch her drive away. Instead I stepped up to the front door, now two feet above the ground with no porch.
Stupidly, it had never occurred to me that having torn the damn thing down we’d have to rebuild it. And if this situation with Miguel was somehow over, I’d have to do the work myself.
Great. Just freaking great.
Once inside, my father crept out of the shadows, a bizarre housewife with a tumbler full of amber liquid at the ready. I shook my head, waving off the glass.
“What do you say we drive over to Franklin Parish,” Dad said. “Get ourselves some catfish and watch the dancing girls at Sully’s.”
I didn’t answer. I pulled my shirt over my head and draped it across one of the stools in the kitchen. My skin felt too tight, my head too full. The house was getting dark, night bleeding in moment by moment. Hours of time stretched in front of me with just my father for company.
I’m going to lose my mind.
“Son?”
“I’m going out,” I said.
“Where?”
“Remy’s.” The old dance hall out in the bayou was exactly what I needed. Music. Beer. Beautiful women. And Remy. I wondered if Priscilla Ellis still worked the bar and I really, really hoped she did. I could use some kindness, a happy word in my ear.
“Good idea. Let me just get—”
“You’re not coming,” I said.
JULIETTE
I found Miguel pacing a hole in the carpet in Patricia’s living room. I was barely through the door and into the living room that smelled like laundry soap and cooking ground beef before he was charging down the hallway toward me.
“You said no social workers!” he yelled, anger making him somehow younger and older at the same time.
“I didn’t call them,” I said, watching out of the corner of my eye as Patricia disappeared into the kitchen.
“Then who did?” he demanded and I shook my head. I’d been wondering the same thing, torn between Dr. Roberts and Ms. Jenkins at school. His face was still pretty messed up; the burn had faded, but not the worst of the bruises, and Ms. Jenkins might have finally had enough of Miguel’s half truths and cover-ups.
But something in my gut said the surprise visit from the social worker had Owens’s dirty fingerprints all over it. It was just a hunch, but it felt right.
“I don’t know,” I said, wishing I could hug him and convince him that I would keep him safe.
But I couldn’t lie, because the truth was, I might have screwed this up for everyone. My mistakes might end up sending him into foster care.
Maybe my father was right. I was too soft for this job. Perhaps what I wanted to accomplish couldn’t be accomplished from the Office of Police Chief.
“But I am going to talk to the social worker and we’ll get this all squared away, I promise.”
“Yeah, you promised me shit before and it ain’t worked out so well, has it?” he spat.
Louisa, his sister, crept out of the dark hallway to come stand by her brother. Her pretty black hair was pulled back in braids framing a round face, so sweet in its youth. In its innocence.
My heart cracked.
Louisa tucked her little hand in Miguel’s and he held it, cradled it in his own not much bigger than hers. The two of them, two children, were a united front against a world determined to pull them apart.
“I’m not going to some foster home,” he said. “We’re not getting split up.”
“I don’t want you to get split up,” I said, praying he would listen, that I could convince him, somehow, that after all this, I wanted him safe. “I don’t want you to go to foster care. And right now, I’m telling you that your best shot of staying together is to wait this out. Let’s see what happens with the social worker.”
“I like you, Chief,” he said.
“Me, too,” Louisa piped up, and my throat burned with acidic regret.
