“To commit me?” The panic is starting to win.
“Just come with me, Ruth. It’s for the best. Blanchard’s your daddy’s place now, so they’ll treat you right, keep it hushed. They’ll do whatever he asks.”
“No. I have to go.” I shoulder past Barry to my door.
“You think I’m a fool?” He grabs my arm and yanks me so hard I rebound to him with a gasp. “You’ve made a habit of slipping past me. But no more, girl. I came for you and I’m leavin’ with you.”
“As a deputy, you should know this is assault.” I pull my arm back, but Barry’s stronger than me. I can’t break his grasp.
“Where exactly do you think you’re goin’?” Wrestling with me has finally mussed Barry’s perfect hair—it hangs over his forehead, covering one eye, making him look unhinged. “The entire town’s up in arms. That’s what I came to warn you about. They think the Low Man murdered everyone and is gonna kill more people if we don’t stop him. All those damn Fishing Company boys, all them fools from church. They’re in Main Street, practically riotin’. Sheriff can’t control ’em. We’re ’bout to call in reinforcements from the next parish.”
“They’re rioting?” For a moment I forget to fight him, lost in the image of Main Street flooded with angry townspeople outside my father’s or the sheriff’s control.
“But you and I both know the truth. There’s no supernatural creature.”Barry shakes me so hard I think he’ll dislocate my arm. “See, I had Everett figured from the beginning. That all-black freak-show look, never talkin’, always drawin’ weird symbols in his notebooks. Just look at his father, the way he beat on him. I bet you anything that’s what made him snap. That’s who he killed first, you know—his daddy. Gave him a taste for it and now he can’t stop. That’s why he moves around all the time. Slips ’round like a ghost so he can kill all over Louisiana.” Barry has the audacity to soften his voice. “He’s gonna hurt others if we don’t stop him, Ruth. We need you to help.”
“Get your hands off me.”
Barry seizes my shoulders and pushes me down the stairs. “We’re goin’ to the hospital. Once you get right, you’ll see your so-called friend’s a predator.” My feet hit the grass and I stumble, but Barry’s grip on me keeps me upright. “I’m gonna keep you safe, Ruth. You’ll thank me later.”
For the first time in my life, my panic becomes a gift. It fills me with such powerful frantic energy that I’m able to twist and yank my arm free from Barry’s grasp. I slap him across the face with all my might.
Barry’s head swivels with the force of the blow. He drops my arms and staggers back, almost tripping into the staircase. He blinks up at me, incredulous, one hand finding the sharp red mark I’ve made across his cheek.
“You think I’m at risk fromEver?” My voice booms across the lawn. I swell to my full height, letting my fear become a source of intensity, of might. Barry watches me, transfixed. “You think I need you to swoop in and shield me, take me to the hospital and chain me up for my own good? Listen to me, Barry, and listen well:Iam the one you aren’t safe from. You better hurry up and run fromme.”
I don’t know where it comes from. But I hold his gaze without flinching, chest heaving, until—to my shock—Barry scrambles up and runs.
43
NOW
When I finally step into my house, the phone is ringing, loud and shrill. No one ever calls on the landline except for telemarketers. Covered in dried mud and still shaking from my standoff with Barry, the last thing I want to do is make forced conversation. I sink to the living room floor, back against the couch, and let it ring. Finally, the noise cuts off as the answering machine picks up.
“Hello, Miss Cornier?” warbles a thin voice from the speaker. “This is Mr. Johnathan Abraham giving you another call. I dialed you yesterday at the request of your friend Mrs. Nissa Guidry and left a message but never heard back. She gave me the impression you wished to speak with me rather urgently—”
I leap from the floor so fast I nearly trip over my dressing gown and lunge for the phone, yanking it off the receiver. “Mr. Abraham? Are you still there?”
“Why, yes.” He sounds startled. In addition to the reediness of his voice, which suggests Mr. Abraham is older, there’s an oddly formal cadence to his words. I’ve noticed it’s the way well-educated Southern men sometimes speak when they have a chip on their shoulder and need the world to know they are, in fact, well educated. “Is this Miss Ruth Cornier?”
“It is.” I’m still a little out of breath. This istheJohn Abraham, the oldBuglejournalist, manifested out of the ether, or perhaps just the telephone book. Either way, Nissa has worked some magic to locate him this quickly. “Thank you for calling.”
“I’ll be honest with you.” His voice turns wry. “Receiving a call out of the blue that Reverend Cornier’s daughter wished to speak with me certainly piqued my interest. My history with your daddy goes back.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” I twist the phone cord around my fingers. “Mr. Abraham, I know you used to live in Bottom Springs and work for theBugle. I read some of your old stories.”
“Yes, I did. Before Augustus Blanchard and your daddy ran me out of town. So imagine my surprise to find myself talking to a Cornier on the phone.”
My heart rate picked up. “I found your earliest articles about my father, before he worked at Holy Fire—”
“Oh, he didn’t like those,” interrupted Mr. Abraham. I could feel his bottled frustration through the phone line. “Back then he was so green. This young whippersnapper who popped up out of nowhere and starting riling people up. I was a seasoned reporter—I’d come down to Bottom Springs from New Orleans after twenty-two years at theTimes-Picayunelooking for a slower life. My health wasn’t great at the time, on account of a lot of stress that wasn’t good for my heart. When the owner of theBugleoffered me a job, I thought, why not go down South? I could whip the old paper into shape, maybe turn it into an award-winning local outfit, leave my mark that way. And then I met your daddy. At first, I thought he didn’t stand a chance against me.” Mr. Abraham’s laugh is tinged with bitterness.
“What happened?”
“Turns out people liked what he was peddling more than what I was. Liked his nightmares and fairy tales better than the truth.”
“I’m guessing you’re not particularly…religious?”
Mr. Abraham remains silent for a beat, then asks, “And exactly how straight and narrow are you, Miss Nosing Around in Her Daddy’s Business?”
