“He's ourpastor—”
“He's thirty-two and he looks like that and he's got those—” Brie dropped her voice half a register but not enough. “You've seen his hands, right? Like have youlookedat his hands?”
A pause.
“I've looked at his hands,” Jessie admitted.
I moved to the next aisle. Parallel. Dry goods shelf shoulder height between us. I picked up a tin of chickpeas and studied it like it was the most meaningful thing I’d seen all day.
“My cousin's boyfriend says the Beaumonts are in everything,” Jessie said, voice lower now. Different register entirely — the one girls used when gossip crossed into something that felt more like actual information. “Like not just church money.Everythingeverything.”
“What's everything?”
“He didn't say specifically but he got real weird about it. Like changed the subject weird.”
Brie was quiet for a second. “You know Cody Treme's older brother?”
“Which one, there's like four—”
“Marcus. The one who did two years up in Wisconsin?”
“Yeah.”
“He told Cody that the reason he went in wasn't actually the thing they said it was. That he saw something he wasn't supposed to see and someone made a call and that was that.” A beat. “He said it was a Beaumont call.”
The chickpeas were very interesting.
“Marcus Treme is full of shit,” Jessie said, but she said it quietly.
“Maybe.” Brie opened her bottle. “You remember Danny Arceneaux? Billy's cousin?”
“He moved.”
“That's one word for it.” Brie's voice dropped further. “Cody said he and Judah had some kind of—”
“That's enough of that.”
Thibodaux Senior's voice came over the shelf.
The girls went quiet so fast it was almost funny.
I set down the chickpeas and picked up my basket.
“Yes sir,” Brie said, small-voiced.
Nothing else.
I came around the end of the aisle and set my items on the counter without hurrying. Jessie clocked me the second I came into view — that fast girl-math, the quick calculation.New face. Adult. How much did she hear.
I gave her my most pleasant, most useless smile.
I heard enough.
She looked like she wanted to evaporate.
“Find everything?” Thibodaux Senior asked, already running items through.
“Everything I needed,” I said.
