She’d wanted both, but she’d also wanted a partner, someone who would back her up, who cared about her career as much as he cared about his.
Like Benjy’s wife had. Her partner’s wife had been endlessly supportive—even when Benjy died. She hadn’t blamed Roxie. She’d held her hand as they’d watched the coffin be lowered.
He adored you, Roxie. He wanted you to be happy. I don’t think you’re happy, honey.
She wasn’t. Maybe she never had been.
“I should have known you would behave like a child,” her soon-to-be ex-husband said. “I’ll talk to you when you’ve taken the time to cool off.”
She walked out because she wasn’t planning on talking to him again. It was odd. She’d spent the last year worried that her marriage would end, and now all she felt was an odd sense of relief.
It was over. Her career. Her marriage. Any shot at being the daughter her parents had wanted. The last part sparked a sense of sorrow, but she couldn’t let that hold her back anymore.
“Roxanne!” Joel shouted her name, finally showing a crack in his calm composure.
But she didn’t look back. She got on the elevator and hit the button for the ground floor. Rock bottom. That was where she was going, and it was a freeing idea.
But still, her gut twisted as she thought about finding a new job. Joel’s influence went far and wide. Quitting with a bad review and no real references might make the larger city PDs hard to get on.
As the elevator made its way down and she could feel her cell phone vibrating, a thought crossed her mind. She’d recently met a small-town sheriff. Armie LaVigne. They’d met at a conference and he’d talked about making the transition from New Orleans PD to some weird town in Southern Louisiana. Pappy Lon or something like that.
She’d liked him. He was smart and seemed interested in real community policing.
Maybe he could give her some advice. New Orleans would be a change of pace, and Sheriff LaVigne likely still had contacts there.
Yes, another big city. She didn’t want too much change, after all.chapter onePAPILLON, LOUISIANA
Present day
Roxanne King stared at the man who’d called her out to his small farm at three in the morning. Archie Johnson was in his late seventies, and he didn’t mind running around in the middle of the night in his underwear. The man was wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts and a thin white T-shirt. His hair was wild and his glasses threatened to fall off his face.
“I’m confused. Who do you think is in your barn?” She’d gotten the call as she was working the night shift. She worked days, but she took the occasional night shift when the normal guys needed time off. Usually it involved catching up on paperwork and breaking up the occasional bar brawl. It sometimes ended up being a weird therapy session with the participants of the aforementioned brawls. She’d taken more than one person in custody straight from jail to their first AA meeting.
Sometimes the person in jail was merely a dumbass who pushed her until she couldn’t ignore him and she tossed him in the back of her cruiser because she couldn’t let herself do what she wanted to do with him.
She was not going to think about Zep Guidry. No. She was concentrating on this very important breaking-and-entering call.
“It’s the rougarou,” Archie said, pointing toward the barn. He’d said the word like it had some magical power and he didn’t want to be too loud about it.
“Rouga-what?” She didn’t recognize anyone by that name, but then Cajun ways were still a mystery to her and she was several years into this job.
How the hell she’d ended up in a tiny parish in Southern Louisiana she had no idea. To say her new home was a big dose of culture shock would be underplaying the experience.
“Archie! Archie!” The diminutive Caroline Johnson made her way down the steps, a robe in her hand. Unlike her husband, Caroline was dressed from head to toe in a housedress, slippers, and robe, her hair in a silky-looking wrapper. She held the extra robe out. “You put this on.”
Archie frowned his wife’s way. “It’s hot as stink out here, woman.”
Caroline shook her head. “No. You’re showing off for the ladies. You be a gentleman. You know how I feel about other women appreciating your body.”
Roxie was sure Archie was in fine shape for his age, but the sight of his skinny body did not inspire lust.
“You keep your jealousy to yourself,” Archie proclaimed. “It’s hot and I’m not covering up because the deputy might get the wrong idea. I’ve never cheated on you in fifty-two years.”
They started to argue about the prospect of Archie’s skinny body causing the women of Papillon to lose their minds with desire, and Roxie again wondered how she’d gotten here. She’d been on a fast track. She’d been one of the first female snipers ever to serve in ESU. One man who couldn’t be a decent human being and here she was refereeing bar fights and calming down tourists who thought Otis was going to eat them—calling a gator by his given name, and somehow that being the most normal part of her day.