I don’t like it.
Ignorance is bliss, and the longer I can keep Beau ignorant of my connection to Guidry, the longer I can pretend I’m not connected at all.
That’s how I felt before I started talking.
Now, I’m tired all over again.
“Micah had no other family, and Mimi tried her best to get him,” I say, watching as Beau sits back. He doesn’t reach for my hand anymore. I’m not offering it either. Not now. I wonder if he’s thinking of his own past. No time to dwell. I need to get this out in the open. “She’s a caring soul first and foremost, but also a part of her wanted to take care of the babyherbaby died saving. But it was no luck. She was denied at every stage. That is, until Guidry’s grandfather was given guardianship.”
Beau’s eyebrow shoots up. “Were they related?”
I shake my head. “No one knows how everything lined up like that, but that’s how it went,” I answer. “Micah went to live with the Guidry family, and I went to Mimi who’d come back to town.”
I could end the story there, I know. I could pretend our tragic tale ends there.
But it doesn’t.
I keep on. “I started visiting Micah a few months after my parents’ funerals. Mimi was worried it would trigger me somehow, but well, we’d been through something. We’d lost our parents together. That counts for something you can’t really describe, I guess.”
Beau nods deep.
I think I see tension in it but continue. “I wasn’t sure he’d remember me the first time I went, but sure enough, he ran up to me and hugged me like there was no tomorrow. And well, it just clicked for us. After that moment, I knew I wanted to be there for him. Help him, love him, take care of him any way I could.” My smile leaves. “That came with a price, though. One I didn’t realize I’d be paying at the time.”
“Guidry,” Beau guessed.
I nodded. “I became Micah’s babysitter of sorts through the years until it was more like I was his mom. Which made Guidry’s presence become like a father. One who was there but never really there. Then, when his grandfather passed away, Guidry became Micah’s guardian. By that time, he’d already startedLa Lumiereand somehow had managed to make everyone in this town pay attention.”
“But how?” Beau asks. “What is it about Guidry that makes people listen? What does hedo?”
Ah. The million-dollar question. “What does any cult leader need to keep everyone happy and under their thumb at the same time?”
Beau takes a beat. “Charisma.”
I nod. “Guidry has that in spades. Not only can he charm people, he knows exactly when to apply pressure to break them.” I try to think of an example, but I’m too tired. I go for brevity. “My theory is Guidry finds your weakness, holds it against you, and can manipulate everyone and everything from there. Blackmail too. And yet for all of his power in this town, no one really talks about it outright. He’s Robin Tree’s own personal version of the Boogey Man. Impossible to ignore or fight.”
“What aboutLa Lumiere? What do they do there? How do they make their money?”
“They make things inLa Lumiere.” I shrug. “Anything and everything. Crafts to sell, produce too. There used to be an artist who’d come to town and paint you if you sat for her. There’s also an industrial side and a workforce. A handyman named David Bower works with the whole town, though not the most social guy.” I move because I’m uncomfortable to say what I’m thinking next. Still, I say it. “There’s also a lot of hush-hush there. See, people who live onLa Lumiereare largely private. Not all of them come to town for work. Or often at all. They seem to all thrive there, out of sight. There have been rumors of…less straight and narrow ways that they make their livings, but only rumors. No one inLa Lumiereever gets into trouble with the sheriff’s department at least.”
“What does Guidry specifically claim to do there? For a living?”
“He says he comes from good money off a lumber company his father founded in Tennessee. He inherited it along with Damien.” I bristle. “He’ll tell you quick that money isn’t important. That people are, and that’s why he deals in them.”
“He deals in people?”
I nod. “The man has a flair for being dramatic.”
“Most charismatic people do,” Beau decides. “And no one has ever gotten involved withLa Lumiere? Questioned them, tried to go against Guidry?”
“If they have, it wasn’t done publicly.” I sigh. “Most people in Robin’s Tree treatLa Lumierelike a neighboring town. We nod and smile when we see its residents, but we don’t bother with the drive out to visit.”
“Except for you.” Beau looks thoughtful.
“Yes, but when I go there, I go straight to Micah.”
Beau considers me a moment. “And Guidry allows it. That’s why everyone keeps thinking you know where he is. You mean something to Guidry. He considers you family.”
My cheeks heat. I’m angry now, not embarrassed. “All I’ve ever done was be there for Micah because heaven knows Guidry hasn’t shown that boy a scrap of love. Yet everyone whispers about me and Guidry. About the strangeness of it all. And Guidry never has said a word to silence the talk. Instead, he does what he does best—uses my weakness against me.”
