He gave her a look, his eyebrows drawn together. “You really think someone is hiding under there? Right now?”
“Well, I mean.” Clearly no one was, but she didn’t know what was hiding under there, and she’d rather find out with a man who was carrying a gun. “No. But can you help me?” But she didn’t want to yank them off herself and discover who-knew-what, so she motioned for him to take one end of the fabric, and she’d take the other.
“On three?” she asked, and his mouth twisted in a grimace.
Their grappling stirred up so much dust that both of them started coughing, and that was what startled the rat to run out in her direction, toward the fireplace.
Her shriek echoed off the walls, and he yelled too, but probably because of her and not the rat, which disappeared into a fissure in the wall behind the fireplace.
Great. Just great. Something else she was going to have to deal with.
She bundled up the sheet and tossed it on the settee, one she’d never been allowed to sit on when she was a kid. She never could understand why her grandparents kept furniture they refused to use, antique or no, especially since now it was ruined and needed to be thrown out.
She persuaded the deputy to help her remove the other sheets, all without incident, thank God, before they moved into the dining room—she made him open the doors of the buffet, still filled with dishes—and then into the kitchen.
His skepticism was palpable as she made him open every cabinet door.
“I read this thing once, online, the worst thing I’ve ever read because it haunts me to this day—about people who squat in other people’s houses while they’re living there. They hide in the walls or the attic, and come out at night while the owners are asleep, or during the day while they’re at work. Have you ever heard of that?”
She didn’t know why she felt the need to explain her fear to the deputy, but it seemed a likely scenario, since her grandfather hadn’t lived here for a few years.
He shook his head, and headed toward the study. She closed the cabinet doors behind him and followed.
The room smelled terrible, the air heavy with the lingering odor of her grandfather, the decaying odor of the books that still weighed down the shelves, coated with dust. She studied the heavy oak desk her grandfather had once ruled behind, where he took care of town business a few hours each day. Some days she’d come in, just to sit with him, and color at the edge of his desk, or curl up in one of the chairs and read, just wanting to be near him. She could almost see him superimposed over the decay. The leather of his blotter and of his chair were rotted. She would need to throw those out, in addition to many of the books that had probably mildewed in the humidity.
Behind the desk was an arched window looking out on the back porch, and beyond that, the bayou. She’d always wondered why he had his desk turned this way, and not where he could look out on the bayou he loved.
“Don’t see nothing in here,” the deputy muttered, checking the window for a latch, but it didn’t open.
This time she was the one to open the cabinets at the base of each bookshelf, too small for a grown person to hide, but for some reason she didn’t want the deputy looking, touching. She couldn’t say why.
She would look in the desk drawers later.
“So I have a question,” he ventured as they walked out of the study and toward the stairs. “Your last name is Benoit, but this house belonged to your mama’s parents.”
“My mother kept her name when she married. The idea was that sons would get my father’s name and daughters would take my mother’s. There were no sons. But Benoit is a good professional name.” She would have changed her name to it, anyway.
“I guess,” he said, not convinced.
“How long have you been with the sheriff’s department? And where is it, anyway? I didn’t see an office or anything in town.”
“We’re not. We’re in Beaullieu, other side of town. Little bigger than Phantom Bayou, but not much.”
“And you live there?” Maybe she could look for a job there.
“Nah, I live in Maillard. More options.”
“What’s there to do in Beaullieu? I mean, more than here, I guess?”
“Not much. Again, why I live in Maillard.”
“Places to work?”
He glanced over from the window in the upper hallway. “Nobody hiring.”
She was grateful he had his back turned so he didn’t see the sag of her shoulders.
None of the four bedrooms revealed anything. They removed the sheets from what furniture they found in there, too. She didn’t know why she was compelled to uncover it, since she didn’t know how long she was staying, and what she’d do with it, anyway. But she felt better having it uncovered. The place felt more like home, and less like a stopover on the way to whatever was next.
