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“Brought what out?” she asked.
Lou Ann steered the boat to the left, pointed its nose toward the mouth of Hope Creek, and slowed to a crawl through the deep water. “Them.”
Themconsisted of twenty or so trawl lines stretched along the deepest recess of Hope Creek, with floating cages strung at even intervals. Seagulls, perched on each buoy, cocked their heads and eyed the boat warily as it approached.
Kit leaned to the side, her stomach dipping, as water rippled around the wire frames half-submerged along the creek’s surface. Dark outlines of mesh bags were just visible. “An oyster farm?”
Lou Ann nodded. “Singles. A buck each, and them oysters get eaten faster than they can grow ’em.”
“Who’s they?” Kit asked. As the sun lowered behind live oaks, the solid lines of the cages blurred, morphing into soggy shadows lurking in the dusk, littering the natural beauty of the tidal creek.
Lou Ann gestured toward the left side of the creek, about seventy-five feet away, where festive lights strung along the metal railings of a deepwater dock emerged, twinkling amid soft music and distant laughter. “Suttons. Beau and his dad, in particular.” Lou Ann glanced over her shoulder again and cocked an eyebrow. “Your sister, too.”
Kit bristled, struggling to imagine it. To even conceive of it. “Viv’s been working for the Suttons? And living with them?”
Viv should be at home, working with Dad for the family business. Lord knew, Kit had sent enough money each month over the past fifteen years to keep Teague’s Seafood afloat, and Viv had cashed every one of the checks. Viv’s signature—scrawled in angry spikes on the endorsement line—had always been accompanied by varied phrases marked with an asterisk: *Guilt money. *Shame. *Selfish.
What had Beau said to draw Viv away? What state of mind had she been in to even contemplate going? And Mackey . . . Who was taking care of him?
“Pearl Tide Oyster Company’s what they call it,” Lou Ann said. “Beau’s dad spearheaded it, but Beau and Viv are the muscle behind it. Viv’s been helping them Suttons siphon away your daddy’s business for two years now.” She hesitated, glancing at the last trawl of floating cages as they passed. “That’s how Viv found your mama. She was out here the other morning, tending to those cages. Your mama had killed h—” She waved a hand in the air, her cheeks reddening. “Had passed away hours earlier by your dad’s dock, then had drifted, from what I hear. Her sleeve caught on one of them cages. Kept her from floating off any farther.”
Stomach heaving with each roll of water beneath the boat, Kit spun away from the trawl line. She tossed her bag on the seat, shoved herself to her feet, and wrapped a shaky hand around the guardrail. Glancing up from beneath her lashes, she focused on the dark, weather-worn dock located several feet beyond the Suttons’ brightly lit one. Royal’s shrimp trawler and oyster boat looked forlorn.
“How much do I owe you?” Her lips felt numb. Barely moved.
“Nothing.” Lou Ann’s tone had turned hard. She stopped the boat, its side bumping the wooden dock.
Kit hefted her overnight bag in one hand, grabbed one of the dock pilings, and sprang out of the boat and onto the dock, breath bursting from her lips at the satisfying clack of her high heels on the wood planks.
“Baby girl,” Lou Ann called.
Kit stilled.
Dusk shrouded Lou Ann’s features, a spectral glint in her eyes the only clearly visible detail. “Don’t lower your eyes for no one but God. It’s what your mama would’ve wanted.”
Kit watched Lou Ann leave, listened to the slosh of water against the boat until it morphed into a dark blot in the distance, melding with the black sprawl of oak limbs and thick brush along the bank, water rippling in its wake.
The dark depths of the creek seemed to reach out, and the tang of salty air hit her tongue. A throbbing in her temple intensified. She unclenched her teeth and flexed her jaw, then walked up the long dock as night fell. Hope Creek’s evening chorus rose from the murky depths below the dock, the rhythmic pulse of crickets and frogs emerging from the sticky mud and thick cordgrass, echoing against the trees, mingling with the music drifting from the Suttons’ expansive property.
She barely recognized the backyard of her family home, Teague Cottage, when she reached it. Dense grass, tall enough to cling to her knees, had swallowed the stone firepit and Adirondack chairs she remembered, had choked the shrubs she’d planted, and had ensnared the picket fence she’d driven into the ground along the back deck years ago. Only a speck of yellow jessamine, her mother’s favorite, managed to peek through the tangled overgrowth.
Kit gritted her teeth, flinched as the edge of a molar cut into her tongue, and trudged through the tangle of wild grass until she reached the screened-in front porch.
The outer door was locked. She pulled her keys from her pocket, sifted through them, and tried the house key she’d carried for fifteen years, but it no longer fit.
“Dad!” She pounded on the screen door with her fist, and the weak screen mesh dented beneath her assault. The inner hardwood door remained closed. “I’m home. Open up.”
She glanced around. The dim front porch light struggled to illuminate the even more overgrown front yard. A rusty truck slumped in the dirt driveway, and a metal bat had been abandoned beside a battered mailbox that barely lifted its head above the weeds, the wood post supporting it almost broken in half, graffiti emblazoned on the mailbox’s metal side:wild cat.
Cheeks blazing, Kit pounded on the screen door again.
A soft creak broke through the vicious buzz in her ears. Her fist froze inches from the screen as the inner door swept open and a man, large spoon in one hand, wearing a collared shirt and tie, khaki shorts, and no shoes, emerged.
Kit dropped her bag on the front steps and sagged against the screen door. “Mackey.”
Her brother squinted and stepped closer, a broad smile flashing across his face. It died almost instantly, and his hand, having lifted toward the screen door, dropped back to his side. “You don’t live here no more.”
Kit sucked in a slow breath. “I know. I haven’t . . .”
