The Last Breath

She glances over, and I see a flash of my sister. The real Lexi. The unguarded and devastated Lexi. “Because it’s a whole hell of a lot easier than praying he’s innocent.”

And then she flicks her perfect hair over a perfect shoulder and real Lexi’s gone.

5

WHEN THE KITCHEN door swings wide a few minutes later revealing Jake coming at us with two plates piled high with tonight’s special, I realize I’m ravenous. Outta-my-way-and-let-me-at-it ravenous. He slides our dinners onto the bar, and I scoop up a bite and shove it in my mouth before he’s pulled back his hand.

“Omigod,” I mumble around the food, slicing off an even bigger bite of duck, stuffing it in with the half-chewed hash. I say more, but judging by the confused look on Jake’s face, none of it very intelligibly.

He blinks at Lexi. “What did your sister just say?”

She watches me take another monster bite, and her pretty nose wrinkles. “I don’t know, but you better back up.”

When you live in an area mired in chronic famine, it’s easy to forget how food is supposed to taste. Meals are freeze-dried and carried down dusty roads to distribution sites where nobody cares if they please the palate, as long as they nourish the body. After a while, you stop missing the tangy sweetness of a juicy plum, the prick of sea salt just before it explodes on your tongue, the way one bite of something delicious can be as satisfying as a sweaty romp between the sheets. Jake’s food makes me remember all those things now.

I swallow, swipe a napkin across my lips. “I said, this is an orgasm on a plate.”

A smile slides up Jake’s face and settles in. It’s a magnetic, no-holds-barred smile, a smile that’s fierce and undeniably sexy, a smile that tugs and tingles somewhere deep and low in my belly.

Jake Foster would make a mighty fine distraction.

He refills our glasses and points to the far end of the bar. “I’ll be down there if you need me.”

After he leaves, Lexi and I don’t return to our discussion of Dad. Not of the Emory professor, either. Skirting around the reason for our reunion is only a temporary respite, I know, but neither of us seems willing to risk another outburst. We scarf down our Thursday-night specials and tiptoe around each other, chatting and catching up on jobs and boys and Bo, who is about to put his name on yet another patent for Eastman Chemical Company, this time for a new and revolutionary mascara.

It takes a couple beats for her message to muddle through my jet-lagged brain. “Hold up. Bo hasn’t called me back because he’s working on a stupid mascara?”

“Excuse me, but just because you got all the dark lashes in the family—” she leans in, giving me a pointed look “—mascara is not stupid. Especially Bo’s. His is about to change the way women put on makeup in the mornings.”

“Again, we’re talking about a cosmetic.” My level tone abandons me now, as does my inside voice. “Not a cure for cancer. Not the key to world peace. A freaking cosmetic.”

Lexi sniffs. “One that women all over the world are going to pay a lot of money for. Good thing Bo promised me a lifetime supply.”

I resist rolling my eyes, but just barely. “But not one that’s more important than calling back his sister, who he hasn’t talked to in forever. And I know I don’t have to remind you what’s happening tomorrow. I swear to God, if he ditches Dad’s homecoming for a tube of face paint—”

She stops me with a manicured hand in the air. “Calm down. He’s going to call you back.”

“How do you know? When did you last talk to him?”

A frown tries to push up her forehead—a frown aimed at me, and not our errant brother. “Not for a few days, but Cal has. He told me Bo knows about tomorrow.”

“Good.” Though I may have been willing to back off—temporarily, at least—on the subject of Jeffrey Levine and his allegations, I bite down now. Dad’s homecoming is a party I don’t plan to host all by myself. “Because Dad’s supposed to arrive at noon.”

Her next words come at the tail end of a sigh. “So I hear.”

“Lexi.” My tone is weighed down with enough warning to sink a ship. “Don’t even think about bailing.”

She shoves away her empty plate with an elbow, opening her mouth for a response when she’s distracted by Jake charging by, a sheet of paper half crumpled in a fist. Something about the way he comes around the bar, mouth set, shoulders determined, eyes not so much as glancing our way, silences her before the first syllable. She clamps her mouth shut and follows him across the room with her gaze.

I, however, have had enough of my sister’s distraction maneuvers. “Just so we’re clear, Lex, tomorrow is nonnegotiable.”

But I’m talking to her back. Lexi is twisted around on her stool, watching Jake approach a woman with a droopy stack of flyers fanning over her arm like an accordion. The Light of Deliverance frump, judging from her outfit: a turtleneck sweater and pleated skirt that would give even Heidi Klum a fat ass.

The woman doesn’t resist when he clamps a palm around her biceps and pulls her aside, parking her next to the cigarette machine by the bathroom hallway. She doesn’t speak, either, mostly because Jake doesn’t give her a chance. Not with his expression, which practically dares her to try. Not with his body language, which puffs his chest and makes him stand a few inches taller in his boots. And not with his scolding—for Jake is surely giving her a scolding—which continues unbroken for a good sixty seconds.

“Who’s he talking to?” I say. “I feel like I should know her.”

“You should. That’s Tanya Crawford, formerly McNeal.”

It takes me a minute to connect the long-forgotten dots. “The same Tanya McNeal who got suspended for selling hand jobs in the school parking lot?”

“That’s her. Married one of those loony Pentecostals a few years ago, so I suppose it was inevitable she’d follow him over the hot coals.”

Whatever Jake’s message, Tanya doesn’t like it. She scrunches her mouth and pushes past him without a word, barely pausing to snatch her coat from a hook on her way out the door.

Lexi returns to her wine, draining her glass and then reaching for mine.

“What do you think that was all about?” I say.

“Not about snake handling, that’s for damn sure.”

The back of my neck tingles at her ominous words, at whatever’s written on Tanya’s paper, now stuffed into the back pocket of Jake’s jeans. And the undeniable hunch the episode has something to do with our father.

I steal another glance at Jake, but now he’s swapping greetings with a man in head-to-toe Harley-Davidson gear, and I’d be hard-pressed to find any indication of his former aggravation without a blood pressure cuff. He slaps the biker on the back, sweeps up two empty plates from the table to his right and heads back to the bar as if nothing happened, as if he didn’t just tell Tanya McNeal she was no longer welcome.

“Jakey.” Lexi’s voice is high and honey sweet, stopping him before he can slip into the kitchen. “Did you or did you not just toss that woman out of your restaurant?”

“Absolutely not.” He shifts the plates onto a forearm, not quite meeting Lexi’s eyes. Mine, either. “The choice to leave was hers entirely.”

Lexi and I share a look, and then she reaches a hand, palm to the sky, across the bar. “All right. Hand it over.”

He pauses a beat too long. “Hand what over?”

“Jake Foster, don’t you play coy with me. Either give me that paper in your back pocket or I’ll go over there and get a copy from Andy Jamison. Your call.”

A faint furrow dips between his brows, but Jake slides the paper from his pocket with his free hand. He goes to pass it to her, then reconsiders. He pulls back his hand, and the wadded-up paper, just out of her reach. “Maybe you should wait till you get home to read it.”

Lexi molds her lips into one of her beauty-pageant smiles. “Sweetheart, I wasn’t born yesterday. By the way your eyes get all pointy just looking at me, I already have a good idea what this is about. But don’t you worry. If that paper has something to do with that man, then it has nothing to do with me.” She holds up her palm. “Now give it.”

“What man?” I ask Lexi. “You have nothing to do with what man?”

Lexi doesn’t answer, doesn’t take her eyes off Jake, and he drops the wad into her hand. She uncrumples the paper, flattening it onto the bar with both palms. Her red-dipped fingertips swipe along the first three words: Guilty as Sin.

She thrusts the paper away like it’s garbage.

“That hardly seems very Christian,” I say.

“That’s exactly what I told Tanya.” Jake slides the dishes with a loud clatter onto the bar, his gaze hardwired to my sister.

Lexi ignores both of us. She reaches into her purse for a tube and a silver compact and sets about applying a fresh coat of pink gloss.

I slide the page closer with the tip of a finger and read further. My stomach twists at the image of my father, looking almost dashing in his trial suit, like he’s on his way to the Barter Theatre rather than playing center stage in his own nightmare. But I can see why Tanya chose to feature this shot of him. His mouth is set in a crooked grin, his expression confident and cocky, as if daring the jury to find him guilty, which of course they did.

And now, according to the flyer, Tanya McNeal and her Pentecostal cronies plan to gather tomorrow morning at ten o’clock sharp on the street in front of the house. They will be armed with posters and banners and righteous indignation. And I predict they will be louder than a monster truck jam.

“Awesome.” I throw up my hands. “Just awesome.”

Jake tucks the flyer out of sight under a stack of menus, picks up the dirty plates and disappears into the kitchen. Later, I will thank him for not tolerating Tanya’s propaganda in his restaurant, but for now, I’m too busy making plans. My training has kicked in, and I’m making plans.

Because if ever there was a disaster, then surely this is it.

I twist on my bar stool to face Lexi. “Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do. First thing tomorrow morning, I’ll call Cal. I don’t think we can stop them from protesting, but maybe we can come up with a technicality. A noise ordinance or loitering violation or something like that. And as soon as I get home, I’ll look up the name for our contact at the police department. Maybe you can work some of your magic on him, get him to help us out somehow.”

Lexi snaps the compact shut and glances over at me. “Why me?”

“Because he’s a man, and you’re Sexy Lexi.”

“So?”

“So this is crisis mode. We are in crisis mode. A bunch of angry Bible beaters are about to take up residence on our driveway.”

Her gaze fishes over my shoulder to the dining room behind me, and I know what she’s doing: damage control. Mentally counting the number of tables Tanya managed to reach with her call to arms, checking expressions for pity or displeasure or hostility, taking a moral temperature of the room. And I can tell by the way she’s folding her napkin, smoothing it over and over until it’s a fat but small square, that the damage has already been done.

“That Cal has somehow guilted you into helping is your business,” she says, her gaze returning to mine, her eyes narrower, sharper, “but I don’t want any part of it. I never gave either of you any indication I’d help. In fact, I think I’ve made it pretty clear to everyone involved I washed my hands of that man long ago. I don’t plan on getting them dirty again.”

“Our father is coming home to die. To die, Lexi, and from what I understand, a pretty painful death.”

“Oh, stop acting like such a goddamn martyr. Because I can assure you nobody in this town is going to feel a lick of sympathy for the murderer’s daughter.”

“Which is exactly what you are.”

Lexi bristles like a cornered porcupine. “Not anymore, I’m not. The very second that man wrapped saran wrap around Ella Mae’s mouth and nose until she suffocated, I stopped being his daughter, and he gave up any rights to call himself my father. And if there’s any justice in the world, they’ll call me when it comes time to pull the plug.”

Her words zap me like a Taser, temporarily paralyzing my heart, my lungs, my conviction Lexi would do the right thing. No matter what Ray Andrews did or didn’t do, he’ll always be her father.

“You can’t possibly mean that,” I say.

Lexi holds my gaze with unperturbed eyes.

But bravado can be a real bitch. In order for it to work, you have to be able to sustain it long enough to make your audience swallow it. Lexi’s wavers. She snatches her bag and bolts for the door, and I don’t follow. I don’t even turn my head to watch her go. Better to let Lexi wind herself down and try again later, in a less public venue.

I slump against the bar, staring with undisguised longing at the bottles lining the back wall. So this is my first night back. Cal deserted me, Bo ignored me, Lexi ditched me. My evening ends alone, in a bar filled with people I don’t know or don’t care to remember. I shrug off a surge of self-pity that threatens to knock me off my bar stool. My life is such a fucking fairy tale.

A figure steps up across from me with a slice of cake the size of a double-wide. Jake, of course. He wags two forks in the air. “Chocolate always helps.”

My stomach lurches at the thought of more food, and I wave his offer away. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

He slides the dessert three seats down, offering it to a bearded man in flannel and denim. “Knock yourself out, Wade. On the house.” And then he turns back to me, leaning across the bar on both forearms. “Bartenders are notoriously good listeners, you know.”

I know he means well, but right now talking about my problems is the last thing on my mind. The very last thing. Not when a mighty fine distraction is standing right here.

“How about drinkers? Are y’all good drinkers, too?”

“I can’t speak for all bartenders,” he says, “but I’ve been known to tie one on when necessary.”

One corner of his mouth lifts, and I watch for the other to catch up. Here it comes.

“Oh, it’s necessary. Because I hate to drink alone, and I’m sure as hell not going back to that house sober.”

And there it is. I free fall into Jake’s extraordinary smile.

6

I WAKE UP the next morning in my bed, my tongue superglued to the roof of my mouth and my head clanging.

No. Not my head. Cal’s iPhone, on the pillow next to me.

I crack open an eye and squint at the screen. Both eyes fly open at the image of me and Jake, his arm swung over my shoulder, my head thrown back in laughter. I have no idea how it got on my phone. Hell, I have no idea how I got in my bed. On the fourth ring, I pick up.

“Good morning, sunshine.” Jake’s booming voice sets off a string of explosions in my head.

“Jesus.” I jerk the phone away from my ear. “What time is it?”

“Seven-thirty. You made me promise to give you a wake-up call at seven-thirty and not a millisecond later, remember?”

I trawl through my memories of last night, but things start to get fuzzy after the second cocktail. “Not really.”

“That bad, huh?”

I put a finger to my temple and groan. “A responsible bartender would’ve cut me off.”

He laughs. “I tried. Honestly, I tried. Has anyone ever told you you’re more stubborn than Curtis Cooper’s old mule? But I drew the line when you reached for your car keys.”

I would wince, but my face hurts. “Probably a good thing.”

“I thought so, especially after you challenged Sheriff Briggs to a game of quarters. But just for the record, you took off your jeans all by yourself. I had nothing to do with undressing you. And I didn’t peek, I swear.”

Now, if I was any kind of good girl, I’d be embarrassed and horrified by what Jake just told me. I’d be worried about the wanton impression the drunken me made. But the truth is, I’m not exactly a good girl, and last night wouldn’t be the first time I’ve tossed back one too many cocktails and shucked my jeans for a cute guy. At the risk of sounding like an oversexed trollop, I’ve kind of lost count.

Still. I really would’ve preferred remembering the experience. A quick check under the covers doesn’t solve the mystery. I’m dressed, but just barely, in last night’s panties and a white tank top. I chew my lip and wonder whether I should be relieved or disappointed I’m not naked.

Jake’s voice drops an octave. “You just looked under the covers, didn’t you?”

“Of course not.”

“Uh-huh.” I feel his smile clear through the line. “Nice tattoo, by the way.”

His words scorch a trail of heat from my cheeks down to my tattoo, tucked away under the lace of my panties on my right butt cheek. A spot Jake wouldn’t have seen, unless he’d been peeking.

“It looked like some kind of flowery tribal symbol,” he continues. “What is it?”

“A flowery tribal symbol.”

“No. I meant, what does it mean?”

“It means you were lying when you said you didn’t peek.”

He laughs, but he doesn’t deny it. “Your keys are under the welcome mat,” he says, right before he disconnects.

I throw back the covers, and the cool air in my bedroom practically hisses when it hits my skin. Jake neglected to mention where, exactly, he spent last night, and contemplating that answer makes me hot enough to fry an egg on my bare belly. Downstairs on the couch? Next to me in my bed? Almost certainly somewhere in this house. Town is exactly a two-point-seven-mile hike, mostly uphill, and Jake would be crazy to have walked back in the freezing dark.

I slither across the bed to the window and spot my car parked neatly in the driveway, its windows buried under a light dusting of snow, as is the driveway. No tire tracks either, which means my car has been there a good while. By the looks of things, most of the night.

At the end of the driveway, a red Jeep Cherokee slows to a crawl. The driver, a middle-aged woman with hair the color of traffic cones, stops to check the number on the mailbox against a piece of paper in her hand. She does a sloppy three-point turn and careens into the driveway, thrusting the gearshift into Park right before her bumper slams into mine.

I hop out of bed, scrounge around in my open suitcase for a pair of sweats and last night’s sweater and pull them on. By the time I make it to the front door, she’s standing on the welcome mat with a crate of medical supplies and a hurry-up-and-let-me-in grin.

“Lordy me,” she says, “it’s colder than a witch’s tit in a brass bra out here.”

“You must be the hospice nurse.”

She doesn’t wait for an invitation, just barrels past. “In the flesh.”

And there’s plenty of it. Her curves have been stuffed into clothes that almost fit her, and her permed and pigmented hair has been teased to unnatural heights and sprayed into submission. Add to that shiny blue eye shadow, watermelon lips and eyebrows that look as though they’ve been drawn on with a brown magic marker. The woman is pure Appalachia in yellow-and-lilac nurse’s scrubs.

She thunks the crate onto the floor by the living room and takes a good look around. Her gaze lands on me, and she grins. “You must have had one wild night.”

“Oh! Um, no, I...I mean, we...”

Her laugh is more like a cackle. “Honey, it may have been a good spell ago, but I remember that look. Wild hair, even wilder eyes. Plus, your tank top’s on backward.”

Yeesh. I wrap the sweater tight across my chest and thrust out a hand. “Gia Andrews.”

“Fannie Miles.” She waddles off as if the house is her own. “Sweet holy Jesus, I need a cup of coffee.”

In the kitchen, Fannie gets the pot going with practiced efficiency. She digs around in the cabinets until she finds two mugs, then motions for me to follow her back into the living room.

“I’m gonna have to do some rearranging in here,” she says, taking in the hospital bed pushed to the corner. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Not at all.” This is clearly the Fannie Miles show, and I’m happy to let her lead.

“Great.” She settles her ample behind onto the couch, casting an expectant glance around the room. “So where is everybody?”

“You’re looking at them.” I try not to feel sorry for myself as I say the words, or think about the knife of resentment I feel jutting out of my back, somewhere in the vicinity of right between my shoulder blades.

Fannie lifts a crayon brow. “I thought Cal said there would be three of you.”

I nod. “There goddamn better be. But for now I guess it’s just me.”

She wraps a warm palm over my arm and gives me a kind smile. “Then right now, sugar pie, you’re the only one who matters.” Fannie pulls back her hand, sits up a little straighter. “Okeydokey, then. How much did Cal tell you?”

“He filled me in on the basics. That you’re responsible for my father’s care and comfort, that you’ll manage his pain without prolonging his life, that you’ll stay until the end.”

The end. A growing ball of nausea takes root in my belly, one that has nothing to do with last night’s liquor.

“But more important,” I continue, “how much did Cal tell you?”

“I assume you’re talking about your father’s legal issues?”

I shake my head. “You’d have to be dead to not know about those. I’m wondering more what he could have possibly said to make you agree to take this job.”

Fannie shrugs. “That’s easy. He’s paying me two dollars more an hour plus a whopper of a bonus if I stay until the funeral.”

I don’t respond. In my job, I’ve met plenty of people for whom money is a legitimate reason to do just about anything—dig a community well, disappear without a trace, murder a business partner. Tending to a dying man is as good a job as any, I suppose. And depending on the size of the bonus and how long Dad lasts, the amount could be substantial. Fannie doesn’t look particularly hard up for cash, but who am I to judge?

“You’re worried that money ain’t proper motivation, aren’t you?”

“I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting into. We aren’t the most stable of families, as I’m sure you can imagine. Quite honestly, though, our dysfunctionality is the least of your problems.”

Fannie catches my meaning instantly, making me think she’s already considered the consequences of taking this job. “You mean my being here isn’t going to get me elected the next Miss Rogersville.”

I nod.

She barks out a laugh, slaps a palm to a meaty thigh. “I hate to tell you, honey, but that train left the station ’bout twenty years ago.” When she sees I’m not ready to join in her hilarity, her expression sobers to half-serious. “You must be the one living way off in Australia.”

“Africa.”

“Africa. I coulda sworn it was Australia...anyway, my point is you weren’t here, so you couldn’t have known folks are already blabbering about me on account of my rat bastard ex-husband. I swear, how I stayed married to Lester Miles for fifteen years without catching a venereal disease is one of God’s great mysteries.”

I can’t help but smile, but there’s a warning buried in the gesture. “This job is going to take gossip to a whole new level.”

“Sugar, if I’da cared what people thought of me, I never woulda married that no-good snake back in ’95, and I sure as hell never woulda told everybody he spent our retirement fund on cocaine and hookers after I left his sorry ass.” She lifts her entire upper body in a shrug. “Not only do I need this paycheck, I also don’t give a flying pile of pig shit what people think about my being here.”

I sit for a long moment, trying to process what Fannie just told me. A lying, cheating, thieving spouse would certainly feed the Rogersville gossip mill. Not on the scale of a father who may or may not be a murderer, but still. She must be well-acquainted with how it feels to walk into a room and be greeted with silence, even though every person in there has plenty to say about you behind your back.

The bigger question is, how can she stand it?