Death's Excellent Vacation - By Charlaine Harris & Toni L. P. Kelner Page 0,67
sound annoyed, but she was. The man wasn’t listening to a word she’d said.
“Aw, now, darlin’ . . . crazy is not the word I was using. I said tired. That’s all.”
Sheriff Moore leaned in closer, imploring Jessica in a conciliatory tone of voice when she simply sucked her teeth and looked out the screen door. “You know I respect what your mother used to do, and you seem to have picked right up on her gift, too. She could see things. The whole department relied on her to help solve murders, since as long as I can remember . . . Why you know, the boys in Beaumont, Galveston, even as far as Houston would come see her when they couldn’t crack a case—and you’ve got her vision. That’s why I came to you for this one, especially after you helped us find that little girl before something even worse happened to her. You’ve got the gift, no arguing that. So, I wasn’t casting aspersions . . . but you’ve also been through a lot. Losing your job at the store in town, losing your momma . . . brother moving away just a year ago . . . I just thought—”
“That I was also losing my mind?”
“No, I didn’t say all that. You keep putting words in my mouth.”
“It was werewolves, Sheriff Moore. Plural.” Jessica said as calmly as possible. She stared at him and held him with her gaze. Thoughts of the way her father had been found years ago danced at the edges of her mind and caught fire, but she pushed the old haunting memory aside. “Those bodies you keep finding in West Port Arthur right off Sabine Lake are not all chewed up because of Mexican drug wars and gators feeding off of what’s left. Mark my words,” she added, standing and stretching, “if you comb down the Sabine Pass and the Sabine River, you’ll find more.”
The sheriff’s shoulders slumped for a moment, and then he finally pushed himself to stand. “Jess, honey, what am I gonna tell them federal agents, huh? They’ve been finding bodies up and down the Gulf of Mexico—that’s why they have FBI all over it with them boys from Homeland Security. They said drug warlords did it; I said fine by me, let’s bring ’em in. This is the U.S. of A.”
“It’s not that simple, Sheriff,” Jessica said quietly, hating to ruin the elderly man’s sanity with the truth.
He let out a hard breath and then carefully placed his hat back on his head, his eyes never leaving hers. “I was frankly trying to lay low and stay out of all this drug business, but when folks from the area started showing up missing, I had no choice but to report what we found. But facts being what they are, I can’t go telling them boys from up north about werewolves eating good townsfolk in the bayou and then dragging them across state lines to dump them in West Port Arthur, Jess! They’d have me committed.”
They stared at each other for a moment, both seeming to know that he hadn’t meant to raise his voice. He was in a ridiculous dilemma where the plain truth was totally unacceptable.
Still, Emma Atwater was many things, a whole mess of contradictions, but she didn’t lie to her children. Jessica remembered clearly that her mother had told her that Jessica’s gift was pressed down and overflowing compared to her momma’s own—no doubt an expression Momma had gotten from scripture readings on the rare occasion that she went to church. The one thing her momma couldn’t countenance was hypocrites, and since her momma could sense feelings and thoughts, church gave her the hives. Jess sent her gaze out the window, remembering how her mother would get so mad at the whisperers that said nasty things about her and her children behind their backs.
“I do miss her,” Jessica finally said in a quiet voice, trying to shift the subject to let the troubled officer off the hook. “Maybe that’s part of it?”
“I didn’t mean to holler at you, sugah . . . I’m just in a delicate position. I think you should maybe take a drive to get away for a few days. When you come back, then, we’ll talk . . . all right?”
Jessica nodded but placed her hand on Sheriff Moore’s forearm to stay his leave. “I want you to look at the pattern of the killings . . . the phase of