There might as well have been shutters covering windows.
The difference between where I was now and one of Rett’s suites was size.
Instead of being trapped in a nine-hundred-square-foot suite of rooms with a guard outside my door, I was captive in the middle of an untamed wilderness, my escape guarded not by a man but by insects and alligators.
The sweltering heat added to the uneasy feeling the landscape instilled. Large trees reached up to the sky, their roots—some visible—disappeared into the muck. High above, the leaves created a green ceiling successfully obscuring this settlement from the sky. At the waterline, the roots created cages and mazes where insects, reptiles, and animals could live, hide, and eat.
I turned to my left as bubbles surfaced in nearby wetland. As the others on the porch tended to Jezebel, I waited and watched. The bubbles grew larger and then stopped. Nothing surfaced and the water was too dark and dirty to see the source.
The realization came slowly.
We were in the interior of the bayou that Rett had mentioned.
I turned my attention back to Kyle and Edmée. They seemed to work in unison to placate Jezebel. Leaning back in the rocking chair, Jezebel fanned herself with Edmée’s fan. Her hand trembled and I noticed how her complexion had paled since I first saw her within the car.
“May I get her something to drink?” I asked, trying to help.
Three sets of eyes came my direction.
Jezebel was speaking, but from my distance, I couldn’t make out what she was saying.
Kyle nodded and stood.
Somehow, as he approached, my assessment of moments earlier shifted. Kyle had changed, grown, and matured. He seemed more muscular and taller than I remembered. I hadn’t noticed those features while in the grandeur of Rett’s home, but here on this porch, he was different.
Did men continue to grow after the age of twenty-three?
Even Kyle’s voice seemed deeper, more in command. “Come with me, Em.”
I shook my head and held on to the porch post. “Kyle, I need to call my husband.”
Kyle tilted his head to the inside as he opened the screen door.
“What about Ian and Noah?” I asked.
His expression hardened as he moved his head from side to side.
I’d seen this expression years before when he wanted his way. When we were ten and eleven it meant he didn’t want to hear my thoughts. Sixteen years later, I believed the meaning was the same.
With a deep breath and one last look at the bayou, I let go of the post and followed, careful of my heels not catching between the slats of wood on the porch floor.
Once we entered the house, the floor improved. The temperature seemed to rise not lower.
Perspiration beaded on my forehead and dripped down my back and between my breasts with each step. With the uncomfortable heat, I barely noticed my surroundings. Yet what I saw was unquestionably beautiful—polished hardwood floors, crystal lighting fixtures, and expensive furnishings. It reminded me of Rett’s home on a slightly less ostentatious scale.
Kyle continued to move deeper into the house, not saying a word.
Scanning my surroundings for a plan as we walked, I peered right and left. Within this hallway, we passed a wooden staircase with ornate banister posts, that led upstairs. There were also multiple doors and archways. From what I could see, the rooms were filled with natural light, the windows all opened. And yet the draperies hung motionless as no breeze infiltrated the stagnant air.
By the time we made it to the kitchen in the back of the house, my white blouse was sticking to my skin. I lifted my ponytail from my neck, wishing I had a clip or some way to keep it off of me.
The sound of our footsteps announced our arrival.
A couple—a man and a woman—turned our way. It appeared they’d been doing something with vegetables along a far countertop. When they saw us, or maybe when they saw Kyle, they both nodded, stopped what they were doing, and departed through the rear screen door.
Kyle walked around the counters and cupboards to a small hallway on the right. I followed a few steps behind. He stopped at a big wood door and pushed back a dead bolt, not unlike the one I’d had installed in the third-floor suite. Turning the knob, he opened the door.
“The heat takes some time to get used to,” he said. “You’ll be more comfortable down there. It isn’t really a basement, not like what we had in North Carolina. Edmée calls it a cellar.”