Sins of the Storm by Jenna Mills

his wife, the past. She’d tried to make him see none of it was his fault.
    But somehow he’d twisted the conversation. He’d stepped off the defensive, and gone on the prowl. Because she was too close, she realized. She’d slipped too close to the place he kept walled away. Even from himself.
    Especially from himself.
    “You think so?” Her mouth curved. “That’s a mighty big assumption considering it takes two—”
    “My point exactly.” Watching her, his eyes so hot she instinctively swallowed, he stroked his thumb along her lower lip. “If you didn’t know me…if the past wasn’t there…there’d be no reason to say no.”
    The quiet words, so excruciatingly true, jammed the breath in her throat.
    “But Cami knows,” he said, and his smile was no longer predatory, but oddly gentle. “Cami Rose has always known.”
    She refused to step back.
    “I see you, Camille, ” he drawled, letting his hand fall from her face. “And trust me, I know exactly who you are.”
    And he didn’t sound the least bit pleased about it.
    It was an odd time to smile, but she did anyway. “Keep telling yourself that, Sheriff…and one of these days you just might believe it.”
     
    The night deepened. Off in the distance heat lightning flickered across the horizon, but no thunder followed, and no rain would come.
    Jack stood at the edge of the porch with his hands around the rail, and waited. At his feet, his big yellow Lab watched intently. Beauregard’s tail swished. His eyes glowed. In his mouth he held a slobbery, chewed-up yellow Frisbee. But Jack had played enough. Any minute headlights would cut through the darkness. His deputy had called shortly before eleven. And while Russ Melancon was a rookie, not yet twenty-five, the kid had the composure of a veteran.
    But for the second time that day, he’d sounded…shaken.
    From the oaks surrounding the house, the cicadas kept a steady rhythm. They would let him know when Russ drew close. They let him know everything.
    Susan had hated the cicadas.
    Within minutes their rhythm intensified, and like clockwork, the glow of headlights cut into the darkness.
    All the while, inside, Camille slept.
    Jack pushed the thought aside, didn’t want to think of her curled between the sheets of his guest bed in that oversize T-shirt he’d found her wearing that morning.
    Instead he waited while Russ parked his squad car then strode toward the house.
    “Got it, Sheriff,” he said, hurrying up the three steps that led to the porch. “I got the laptop.”
    Through the yellow glow of the light, Jack noted the black briefcase, sleek. Stylish. It alone would set someone back a nice penny. “Camille’s?”
    “Found a hotel receipt in Hebert’s wallet,” Russ said. “Down in Lafourche Parish. I went over and talked to the manager…found this in the Dumpster out back.”
    Something quick and potent licked through Jack. The man who’d broken into the savings and loan had ditched the computer. That either meant there was nothing else of value on the hard drive…or he’d found what he wanted and didn’t want to get caught with the evidence.
    Camille had been unwilling to confirm either theory.
    Jack took the satchel and flipped it open, pulled out the laptop. New, he noted, sliding his index finger to the power button. Small, state-of-the-art.
    “Um…how well do you know this Fontenot woman, Sheriff?”
    The question stopped Jack cold. He looked up from the computer language flashing across the screen, to find his deputy watching him with the same hesitation that had weakened his voice. “Better than she knows herself.”
    That was the problem.
    Camille Fontenot tore through life with the same reckless disregard as her namesake. He’d hoped with time she’d find peace, closure.
    But if anything, the years away from Bayou d’Espere had pushed her closer to the edge.
    “Oh,” Russ said. “Then you already know.”
    Jack felt a small muscle in the hollow of his cheek thump.