The Whispering Room

“Maybe he was afraid you’d get the wrong idea.”

No kidding, Evangeline thought now as she gazed down at her son.

But she’d never given Johnny a reason for worrying she’d jump to the wrong conclusion. She wasn’t clingy and emotional, nor had she ever been the jealous type. She was not the kind of wife who harbored unwarranted distrust for any woman who came into contact with her husband. Evangeline had no problem with Johnny having female friends.

After all, she had Mitchell.

So there was no reason for him to keep things from her, even a friendship with a female witness.

Evangeline had always believed their relationship was open and honest and mutually trusting. There was nothing they couldn’t tell one another.

Apparently, she’d been wrong.

Not only had Johnny kept that friendship from her, he’d never mentioned Lena Saunders, either.

Now Evangeline couldn’t help wondering what else she might discover about her dead husband. Something Meredith Courtland said about her own marriage came back to her.

I guess that’s why they say the wife is the last to know.

Maybe the cracks had been there in their marriage all along, but also like Meredith Courtland, Evangeline had chosen not to see them.

Impulsively, she reached across the table and took her mother’s hand. “I’m sorry you’re having to go through this. But all marriages have problems. Maybe Dad will come to his senses and it’ll all blow over.”

“Maybe he will,” Lynette said with a wan smile.

“Can I ask you something, Mom?”

“What is it?”

“What was Dad’s problem with Johnny?”

Lynette looked up in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“It was so obvious he didn’t like him, and I never understood why.”

“Fathers are always protective of their daughters. It’s only natural.”

“Are you sure that’s all it was. Dad didn’t…he didn’t suspect something about Johnny?”

“Like what, honey?”

At her mother’s tender tone, Evangeline felt an unexpected flood of tears. She lifted J.D. to her chest and rested her cheek against the top of his head. He tolerated the affection for a moment before he pulled away.

What if Johnny really had been involved with another woman? What if everything she thought about him, about their life together, was nothing but a lie?

What if he had never really loved her?

“What’s wrong, Evangeline?”

She squeezed her eyes closed. “I still miss him, Mama. Sometimes I don’t think I can bear it, I miss him so bad.”

“I know, honey.”

“At least with Dad, you’ve still got a chance to make things right. But with Johnny…I just keep thinking about all the things I wished I’d said to him before it was too late. I lie in bed at night and all the arguments we ever had go round and round in my head. I remember every petty little thing I ever said to him, the way I used to nag at him for leaving his clothes on the bathroom floor or dishes in the sink. And I wish I could take it all back. I wish…even now…I wish…” She wiped a hand across her wet cheek. “I just want him back. I don’t care what he did…I just want him back.”

Later that night, Evangeline awakened to the strangest feeling. She’d been so certain when she opened her eyes that she’d find Johnny standing over her, she was actually startled when no one was there. Something lingered, though. She thought at first it was his cologne, but it was really just a memory.

Even so, she got up out of bed and checked in the bathroom. Then she padded down the hallway to the baby’s room. She checked every inch of the house before crawling back into bed and huddling under the covers.

Johnny was gone. He wasn’t coming back. Ever.

She rolled to his side of the bed and buried her face in his pillow. But the linens had been laundered too many times and his scent had long ago faded.

And Evangeline knew that no matter how hard she tried, eventually some of her memories would slip away, too.

Fifteen

Hours after Nathan Mallet left Mount Olive, he drove to a bar a few blocks from the cemetery and parked on the street so that anyone tailing him would be sure to spot his car.

Taking his time, he locked the door, pocketed the key, then went inside and found a table at the back where he could watch the whole room, including the front door.

When the bored waitress came over to take his order, he discreetly showed her his badge—after all, she wouldn’t know that he’d walked off the job months ago—and asked if there was a back way out of the place.

She pointed to the restroom area. “Go through that door, past the men’s room and it’s at the end of the hall.” Nervously, she glanced around the empty bar. “Is there going to be trouble?”

“Nothing for you to worry about,” he told her. “I just need to get someone off my tail.”

She didn’t look at all reassured. Mallet saw her talking to the bartender a few minutes later, and they both kept glancing in his direction. He just hoped they didn’t decide to call the cops, at least not before he could get out of there.

When the waitress returned with his drink, Mallet downed the whiskey, slid the empty glass to the edge of the table and motioned for another. He discreetly dropped some bills on the table, then got up and headed toward the restrooms, bypassing the men’s room for the rear exit at the end of the hall.

He opened the door and slipped outside. Pressing himself into the shadows, he peered down the alley toward the street. When the coast seemed clear, he hurried to the back where he climbed a chain-link fence and jumped down on the other side.

A few minutes later, he was back at the cemetery.

The gates were closed and locked by this time, but he scaled the brick wall easy enough and soon he was making his way through the crypts and mausoleums to his first wife’s vault, where he’d been earlier.

Dropping to the ground, he leaned back against the still-warm concrete as he removed his gun from his pocket and tucked it beneath his leg. Then he pulled a fifth of whiskey from his other pocket, uncapped the bottle and took a long swig before letting his head fall back against the vault.

After a while, it started to mist and he turned his face skyward, letting the moisture cool his overheated skin. He was nervous and punchy, but being back here with Teri helped calm him. It always did.

Man, he still missed that girl.

She’d only been eighteen when they married, fresh from her high school graduation when they ran off to Biloxi. He’d just celebrated his twenty-first birthday. Young, stupid, crazy in love.

Back then he’d wanted nothing more than to be with her day and night. Even now, he could remember feeling that he would never be able to get enough of her.

A year later, she was dead. Killed by a drunk driver when his car hit hers head-on.

Nathan had quit drinking after the accident. He felt he owed her that much. For years, he never so much as touched a drop, but then his life had taken one bad turn after another. His mistakes had started to catch up with him, and he’d sometimes have a drink or two just to get through the day. Before he knew it, he couldn’t crawl out of bed without the sauce. He went to sleep loaded and he woke up reaching for his next drink.

His second wife, Kathy, was a good woman and God knows she deserved a lot better than what he’d put her through over the years. But after all this time—well over a decade—he’d never been able to forget about Teri. He’d never been able to stop thinking about what might have been. If only he’d been with her that day. If only she’d