Night Moves : Dream Man/After the Night Read online

  Amos weaved back and forth on his bare feet, and suddenly belched. He was bare-chested, his pants still gaping open. His uncombed hair stood out in all directions, he was unshaven, his eyes bloodshot, and his breath foul with sleep and drink. In contrast, Gray towered over him, six feet four of lean, steely muscle, his black hair neatly brushed back, his white shirt spotless and his slacks hand-tailored to fit him.

  “You ain’t got no call to be shovin’ me around, I don’t care who your daddy is,” Amos complained. Despite his bluster, he cowered back every time Gray moved.

  Russ and Nicky had crowded out of their bedroom, but they made no move to back their father. Facing down a raging Gray Rouillard wasn’t their style; attacking anyone who could cause them trouble wasn’t their style.

  “Do you know where Renee is?” Gray asked again, his voice icy.

  Amos hitched one shoulder. “Must’ve gone out,” he mumbled sullenly.

  “When?”

  “Whaddaya mean, when? I was in bed. How in hell would I know what time she left?”

  “Did she come home last night?”

  “Course she did! Gawddammit, what’re you sayin’?” Amos yelled, the slur in his words testimony to the alcohol still in his blood.

  “I’m saying your whore of a wife has left!” Gray yelled back, his dark face twisted with rage, his neck corded.

  Pure terror sliced through Faith, and her vision blurred again. “No,” she gasped.

  Gray heard her, and his head snapped around. His dark eyes were glittering with fury as they raked over her. “You look sober, at least. Do you know where Renee is? Did she come home last night?”

  Numbly Faith shook her head. Black disaster loomed in front of her, and her nostrils were filled with the sharp, yellow, acrid smell of fear . . . her own.

  His upper lip curled, showing strong white teeth in a snarl. “I didn’t think so. She’s run away with my father.”

  Faith shook her head again, and then couldn’t seem to stop it from wagging. No. The word reverberated through her brain. God, please, no.

  “You’re lyin’!” Amos yelled, tottering toward the rickety table and sagging into one of the chairs. “Renee wouldn’t leave me and our kids. She loves me. Your whore-hoppin’ pa’s out with some new piece he’s found—”

  Gray lunged forward like a snake striking. His fist connected with Amos’s jaw, knuckles smashing against bone, and both Amos and the chair crashed to the floor. The chair splintered into kindling beneath him.

  With a terrified wail, Scottie burrowed his face harder against Faith’s hip. She was too frozen to even put a comforting arm around his shoulders, and he began to cry.

  Amos groggily scrambled up from the floor, and staggered to put the table between him and Gray. “Why’d you hit me?” he whined, holding his jaw. “I ain’t done nothin’ to you. Whatever Renee and your pa done, it ain’t my fault!”

  “What’s all the yellin’ about?” came Jodie’s deliberately sultry voice, the one she put on whenever she was trying to entice a man. Faith looked toward the entrance to the lean-to, and her eyes widened with horror. Jodie posed against the doorframe, her uncombed reddish blond hair tossed back over her bare shoulders. She wore only a pair of red lace panties, and demurely held the matching lace camisole so that it barely covered her breasts. She blinked at Gray with wide-eyed innocence so blatantly false that Faith cringed inside.

  Gray’s expression tightened with disgust as he glanced at her; his mouth curled and he deliberately turned his back. “I want you gone by nightfall,” he said to Amos, his voice steely. “You stink up our land, and I’m tired of smelling you.”

  “Leave?” Amos croaked. “You high-and-mighty bastard, you can’t make us leave. There’re laws—”

  “You don’t pay rent,” Gray said, a cold, deadly smile twisting his lips. “Eviction laws don’t apply to trespassers. Get out.” He turned and started toward the door.

  “Wait!” Amos cried. His panicked gaze darted around the room as if looking for inspiration. He licked his lips. “Don’t be so hasty. Maybe . . . maybe they just took a little trip. They’ll come back. Yeah, that’s right. Renee’ll be back, she didn’t have no reason to leave.”

  Gray gave a harsh bark of laughter, his contemptuous gaze moving around the room, taking in the mean interior of the shack. Someone, probably the youngest girl, had made an effort to keep it clean, but it was like trying to hold back the tide. Amos and the two boys, who were younger editions of their father, sullenly watched him. The older girl still lounged in the doorway trying to show him as much of her tits as she could without actually dropping that scrap of cloth. The little boy with Down’s syndrome was clinging to the younger girl’s legs and bawling. The girl was standing as if turned to stone, staring at him with huge, blank green eyes. Her dark red hair hung untidily around her shoulders, and her bare feet were dirty.

  Standing so close to him, Faith could read his expression, and she cringed inside as his gaze swept over the shack and its inhabitants, finally settling on her. He catalogued her life, her family, herself, and found it all worthless.

  “No reason to leave?” he sneered. “My God, as far as I can tell, she doesn’t have a reason to come back!”

  In the silence that followed, he stepped around Faith and shoved the screen door open. It banged against the side of the shack, then slammed shut. The Corvette’s engine roared to life, and a moment later Gray was gone. Faith stood frozen in the middle of the floor, with Scottie still clinging to her legs and crying. Her mind felt numb. She knew she needed to do something, but what? Gray had said they had to leave, and the enormity of it stunned her. Leave? Where would they go? She couldn’t make her mind start working. All she could do was lift her hand, which felt as heavy as lead, and smooth Scottie’s hair while saying, “It’s all right, it’s all right,” even though she knew it was a lie. Mama was gone, and it would never be all right again.

  Four

  Gray managed to make it almost half a mile before the shaking became so hard that he had to stop the car. He leaned his head on the steering wheel and closed his eyes, trying to fight off the waves of panic. God, what was he going to do? He had never before been as scared as he was now.

  Bewildered pain filled him, and he felt like a child who runs to hide his face in his mother’s lap, much as that Devlin kid had tried to hide against his sister’s skinny legs. But he couldn’t go to Noelle; even when he had been a child, she’d pulled away from clinging little hands, and he’d learned to go to his father for reassurance. Even had Noelle been more affectionate, he couldn’t look to her for support, because she would be looking to him for the same thing. Taking care of his mother and sister was his responsibility now.

  Why had Guy done it? How could he have left? His father’s absence, his betrayal, made Gray feel as if his heart had been torn out. Guy had had Renee anyway; what had she offered that tempted him into turning his back on his children, his business, his heritage? Gray had always been close to his father, had grown up surrounded by his love, had always felt his support like a solid rock at his back, but now that loving, reassuring presence was gone, and with it the foundation of his life.

  He was terrified. He was only twenty-two, and the problems looming over him looked like unscalable mountains. Noelle and Monica still didn’t know; somehow he had to find the strength to tell them. He had to be a rock for them, and he had to put aside his own pain and concentrate on holding the family finances together, or they stood to lose everything. This wasn’t the same situation it would have been if Guy had died, for Gray would have inherited the shares, the money, and the control. As it was now, Guy still owned everything, and he was gone. The Rouillard fortune could come tumbling down around their ears, with wary investors jumping ship and various boards of directors seizing power. Gray would have to fight like a son of a bitch to keep even half of what they now had.

  He, Monica, and Noelle had some assets in their own names, but it wouldn’t be enough. Guy had been