She strapped on her utility belt, tucked her cell and weapon into place, and grabbed her jacket. There was a pancake house a couple of blocks over on Watts Avenue. She could have coffee and wait for daylight.
Grabbing her creds on the way out, she made sure the door locked and headed across the parking lot.
The town was dead. Like rigor mortis dead.
She could never live here again. Maybe there had been a time when she had fit in, but no more.
She hated the way the refinery and chemical corporation had horned in on the natural way of life here. Pascagoula was about dredging the seas for its bounty while protecting the environment. That simpler way of life had been overtaken by progress and accessibility. The port and various waterways had long ago lured lucrative import/export business to the area, but the accessibility had also brought drug trafficking.
Funny, Hurricane Katrina had devastated many homes and too many businesses to count, though you could scarcely tell it now, but it hadn’t done a damned thing to slow down the flow of drugs. Adeline had been keeping tabs on the area since her mother refused to leave. Otherwise she would never have looked back.
The December air was crisp, the pavement damp. She hadn’t realized it had rained. Maybe the rain had triggered the dream. Rainstorms in particular had done it in the past.
The one shrink she’d made the mistake of spilling her guts to had insisted her dreams were related to childhood trauma. Adeline hadn’t bothered telling him that as childhoods went, hers had been as close to idyllic as was possible. Things had been just great until she’d hit eighteen and she’d learned the truth about what and who her uncle was. Life hadn’t been the same since. Unlike her father, she hadn’t been able to just pretend it didn’t matter and move on with her life.
She’d fought the wrong as if she’d been born to that one crusade.
Problem was, she hadn’t been able to fight it alone.
Eight cars were jammed into the small parking lot of the River City Pancake House. Not a chain joint, just a rinky-dink independent mom-and-pop operation that had been in the same spot and run by the same family for about fifty years. A large snowman and smaller snowflake clings adorned the plate glass window. Colored lights forming the wordsHappy Holidaysflashed and flickered in time with the jolly Christmas music wafting from inside.
The bell jingled over the door as she entered. The waitresses along with the dozen or so patrons stopped chatting and turned to check out the latest arrival.
Adeline walked to the far end of the serving counter to ensure a view of the door and mounted a stool. A good cop never sat with her back to the door. “Coffee,” she said to the waitress who lifted an eyebrow in her direction.
The hum of conversation resumed as did the shoveling of grits and bacon into hungry mouths.
Coffeepot in one hand, the waitress strolled over and plopped a stoneware mug on the counter. “You here about the Prescott case?”
Everyone knew everyone in a town this size. A strange face would automatically be connected to the latest gossip or news event. Adeline had been gone plenty long enough for the average citizen to forget whatshe looked like or that she’d ever even lived here. If she were lucky, it would stay that way until this was done.
“I am.” Adeline sipped the warm brew. It had a definite kick but tasted as smooth as any she’d picked up at Starbucks back in Huntsville.
“Anything else I can get you?”
“This’ll do it.” Adeline glanced at her nametag. “You new around here, Leslie?”
Leslie waved the half-empty coffeepot. “Moved to Pascagoula,” she pursed her lips and thought about it a moment, “about three and a half years ago.” Then she harrumphed. “Been working right here since day one.”
Adeline nodded and savored more of her coffee.
“You working with Sheriff Henderson?” The glint in Leslie’s eyes when she asked the question was unmistakable.
Ah. Another fan. “That’s right.”
“Whatever happened to that lady,” Leslie leaned across the counter and spoke for Adeline’s ears only, “the sheriff will find her. He never lets the folks around here down. He’s a damned fine man.”
“Good to know.” Adeline wasn’t surprised to hear the adoration. Wyatt had always been good at his job. Being a cop defined him. It was on a more personal level where the flaw lay ... hidden beneath all that fine Southern-boy charm. A too-familiar bitterness churned in her gut.
Don’t even go there.
“He comes by here about six for coffee.” Leslie straightened and patted her meticulously arranged bundle of platinum curls. “Black coffee and a cheese Danish. Every single morning.”
Wyatt had always been a cheese Danish man. The jingling of the bell over the door drew Adeline’s attention there. Even without the weathered leather jacket and the cowboy boots, she would have recognized the man immediately. Tension wired her nerves.
Clayton Cooper. First cousin and first-rate jerk.
He’d been a kid when she left, almost fifteen. Despite his youth at the time, his heartlessness and bullying tendencies had manifestedthemselves in all that he did. He was expelled from high school twice as a freshman. Got his girlfriend pregnant that same year. A real piece of work.