Cemetery Road

Just as I start to break away, another member of the Poker Club emerges from the parked cars and calls, “Tommy Flash! What you doin’ fraternizing with the enemy?”

Beau Holland is a real estate developer, and he likes to tell people that his family can trace itself back eight generations in Bienville. If you let him talk, Beau will swear he’s descended from French royalty. A few years shy of fifty, Holland is the second-youngest member of the Poker Club. He owns property all over south Mississippi, and he developed both white-flight subdivisions on the eastern edge of the county that have attracted affluent young professionals from Jackson. Word is he’s speculated heavily in all sorts of ventures since finding out that Azure Dragon would be building its newest mill at Bienville.

“Marshall’s not the enemy,” Russo says as Holland catches up to us, wearing a suit that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe. “He’s just doin’ his job.”

“Could’ve fooled me with that story on Buck Ferris.”

Beau Holland always sounds like an irritated spinster to me. He reminds me of some Mississippi Delta boys I met when I went to Boys’ State as a junior in high school. They weren’t gay, but they spoke with a soft lisp and a passive-aggressive sarcasm that fit the old stereotype. What they were was mama’s boys.

“At least we won’t have to worry about Buck anymore,” Beau adds, finding it impossible to suppress his bile.

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” I mutter.

“What?” he asks sharply, reaching out to stop me.

I keep walking, and Tommy stays apace.

“I’m talking to you, McEwan!” Holland snaps.

“Keep talking,” I call over my shoulder. “Maybe somebody will come by who gives a shit.”

Tommy Russo snickers under his breath.

As we come to the tents, I say, “Catch you later, Tommy,” then break away and push into the edge of the crowd, trying to avoid eye contact where possible. I don’t want to suffer through fishing expeditions by people wanting information about Buck’s death.

Moving into the crowd’s center, I see Max Matheson holding court beneath the Prime Shot tent. Max radiates the same vitality he always did as a younger man, his lean build, deep tan, and hard blue eyes making it easy to visualize him in a sergeant’s uniform in a Vietnam rice paddy. As I focus on his gray-blond head, I see his son standing to his left and, beside Paul, several attractive young women wearing Prime Shot polo shirts. Something tells me they’re here to keep the Chinese officials entertained. As I hover between two tents, a dark-skinned, black-haired beauty behind the Prime Shot girls draws my gaze. She’s wearing an indigo sundress that exposes perfect shoulders. She’s older than the Prime Shot girls, but even behind large sunglasses, she’s clearly out of their league. As I shield my eyes against the glare of the sun, I curse out loud.

The unknown beauty is Jet Matheson. And she’s looking right at me. Glancing at her husband’s back, Jet points to her right, where a refreshments bar has been set up. Without nodding, I head in that direction, my heart rate increasing with each step. What is Jet doing here? She’s supposed to be taking a deposition in Jackson. I get into the queue at the refreshments bar and force myself to focus on a stack of soft drinks and bottled water.

I can’t believe I was looking right at Jet without recognizing her. Especially since she’s one of the most unusual-looking women I’ve ever seen. Buck Ferris once described her as an Arabic Emmylou Harris. Jet’s father was Jordanian, her mother American. That’s one reason she always stands out in Mississippi crowds. I suppose the Jackie O sunglasses and the crowd of Prime Shot hostesses obscured enough of her to confuse me, and my belief that she was sixty miles away did the rest.

“I heard about Buck’s death before I went into the deposition,” Jet whispers from behind me in the line. “I canceled it and headed straight back. I had Josh with me, so I didn’t text you.”

Josh Germany is her paralegal.

“Are you all right?” she goes on. “I know what he meant to you.”

I nod but say nothing.

“Do you know who killed him?”

Almost imperceptibly, I shake my head.

“Betsy Peters!” Jet says effusively. “My God, it’s been an age. What a pretty day, isn’t it? What a crowd.”

“It’s awesome,” says a woman with a heavy Southern accent. “Good times are finally coming. I’m so ready for that party tonight.”

“Me, too,” Jet gushes, as though she has all day to shoot the breeze. “I was actually thinking of quitting early today. By three, probably.”

My heart thumps. Jet’s last statement was code, telling me that she wants to meet me in private. Today—at three P.M. Our default meeting place is my home.

“Did you hear about old Buck Ferris?” Betsy Peters asks in a softer voice. “They found him dead in the river.”

“I did,” Jet replies.

“I hate to say it,” Betsy goes on at 50 percent volume, “but it’s a damn lucky thing for Bienville. We don’t need that old crank screwing up this China deal. I don’t care if the damned Indians raised the dead on this ground we’re standing on. Their time’s done. This is survival.”

“It is,” Jet says, but her tone sounds contemplative rather than indicative of assent.

After Betsy passes on, I turn as though looking casually around. “Jet Matheson!” I cry, feigning surprise. “What are you doing here? Spying on the enemy?”

Through her sunglass lenses, I see Jet’s eyes cut over to the Prime Shot tent. “You could say that,” she answers in a theatrical voice. “But God knows I want success for this town. I just want it to be on the up-and-up.”

She’s wearing sapphire stud earrings and a silver pendant necklace that hangs just above the neckline of her sundress. Beads of sweat glisten around the pendant, which appears to be an Arabic symbol. Smiling at her, I glance quickly around, taking in everyone standing within thirty feet of us. A couple of faces look familiar, but none do I know well. Of course, that doesn’t mean they don’t know me.

“I’m jealous,” I tell her. “I’m way too busy to take off early. I’m working overtime every day this past month.”

“I’ll bet.” She reads my negative reply as the coded positive it was. Looking back toward her husband, Jet says in a louder voice, “I need to get back to the tent. Could you bring me a Sprite or something? Paul wants me close today for some reason. Arm candy, I suppose.”

“Sure, glad to,” I tell her, forcing another smile, but feeling almost dizzy with disorientation. I’m not sure whether her request was serious or she was using it to break away from the queue—and from me. “What’s that symbol mean?” I ask, pointing at her necklace.

She smiles, and her brilliant teeth shine against her dark skin and red lips. “Peace, of course. Salam.”

“Ah. We could use some of that, all right.”

No one but me would have noticed the flash of emotion in her eyes.

“Thanks for the Sprite, Goose,” she says brightly, using my high school nickname, which will instantly put distance between us for anyone within earshot. As she turns to walk away, she catches hold of my wrist in a seemingly casual gesture of thanks, but she squeezes so hard that pain shoots up my arm. Then she lets go and recedes into the crowd, her dark shoulders and long neck making her easy to follow to the Prime Shot tent.

Her painful squeeze communicated intense emotion; the problem is, I can’t read it. Was she reassuring me of our bond, despite the public charade? She doesn’t usually risk that kind of thing. Was she signaling fear? Even desperation? A combination of all three? The moment she touched me, I felt myself getting aroused. I hope my face isn’t flushed, but it’s hard to control that response when a woman touches you like that—especially the woman you’ve been fucking every day for twelve weeks.

CHAPTER 10 (#ulink_1f65abc1-742e-5edf-bb11-15907a2cc8d1)

THE TOUGHEST ACTING job in the world is behaving normally in the presence of someone with whom you’re having illicit sex. Most people who find themselves in this situation think they can handle it, but the truth is sooner or later people pick up on intimacy. Even if they don’t see it, they feel it. They notice a hitch in the breathing, an altered tone of voice, a difference in the way you deal with space around someone. And, of course, the eyes. Reality abides in the eyes. What keeps most of these situations from exploding is the tendency of the betrayed not to see what their eyes and other senses tell them.

After my surprise interaction with Jet, I have to decide whether she was serious when she asked me to deliver a Sprite to the Prime Shot tent. To do so will mean interacting with her husband, Paul, whom I have known since I was three years old. Also with her father-in-law, Max, who’s one of the most powerful members of the Poker Club. Since Paul might have watched us talking in the refreshment line, the best choice is probably to take Jet the drink.

Prime Shot Premium Hunting Gear was founded by Wyatt Cash, a Bienville native who made some money as a professional baseball player, then parlayed it into a wildly successful company that makes everything from custom camouflage clothing to all-terrain vehicles. Most of the Poker Club members on hand today have gravitated to Cash’s tent, although I see a couple of older members at the Bienville Southern Bank tent, paying court to its octogenarian founder, Claude Buckman.

“Yo, Goose!” Paul Matheson calls as I approach the Prime Shot tent. “Wassup, man?”

At six feet even, Paul is a slightly smaller version of his father. Blond, gregarious, still muscular at forty-seven. There’s no one on earth with whom I have a more complex history.

“Just covering this Chinese fire drill,” I tell him. “Jet passed me in the drink line and asked me to bring her a Sprite.”

“What a gentleman. We got beer in a cooler back here. Scotch if you’re feeling frisky.”

“At eleven A.M.? I’ll pass.”