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He looked at her like she was out of her mind.
“She’s not armed—other than the flip-flops,” Annie pointed out. “We’ll be fine.”
The deputy looked from Annie to Rayanne and back. “Something happens to you, ma’am, Lieutenant Fourcade will cut my liver out and eat it with onions.”
“Nothing’s gonna happen,” Annie assured him, her gaze steady on the woman. “Isn’t that right, Rayanne?”
Rayanne had retreated to the farthest corner of the small room to sulk, her stringy hair falling around her face like a shabby curtain.
“Miss Tillis will be going home shortly,” Annie said.
The deputy shook his head in amazement. “Whatever you say, Detective.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll be right outside the door.”
Annie nodded. “Thank you.”
He threw one last disapproving look at Rayanne. “You mind your manners,” he said as he backed out of the room.
Rayanne gave him the finger—but only after the door had shut.
Annie drew a slow, deep breath and sighed as he closed the door. “You realize I could have him take you back to a cell.”
Rayanne rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you’re a regular Saint Annie of the Bayou.”
“A simple thank-you will do.”
“Oh, please. It’s not like you don’t want something for it. You’rejust like everybody else—give something to get something. Else you wouldn’t give me the time of day.”
“Well, I haven’t gotten anything besides a headache so far,” Annie pointed out, rubbing at the tension in the back of her neck.
Rayanne pursed her lips and batted her eyelashes. “Boo-fucking-hoo. Can we go now?”
Trust was something Rayanne had little of, and she wasn’t going to give it away.
Annie picked up her things and moved toward the door. “I’m gonna step out and make a phone call to Mrs. Fontenot. And if she agrees to drop the charges on the TV, I’ll drive you home. I told you I’d get you out of here, and I will. I keep my word, Rayanne. I hope you’ll remember that in the future.”
—
“You live here alone?” Annie asked as Rayanne preceded her into the shabby little shotgun house—a twin to the one next door. Squalid as it was, she still had a hard time imagining Rayanne Tillis being able to afford the rent on her own. Twenty-dollar blow jobs didn’t add up fast, and drug habits were expensive.
“I had a roommate.” Rayanne shook a cigarette out of the pack Annie had bought her at the Quik Pik, along with a bag of junk food and a thirty-two-ounce vat of Diet Coke. She lit up with a Bic lighter off a chipped, cluttered end table.
“What happened to her?”
She took a deep drag, blew out a long stream of smoke, and shrugged. “She just didn’t come back one day. I don’t know where she went. I don’t care. She was a lying hoebag anyway. I heard she maybe OD’d.”
“What’s her name?” Annie asked.
“What do you care?”
“Someone should.”
“Why?” She looked at Annie, puzzled for a second, then tookanother drag on her cigarette. On the exhale she said, “Beth. Beth Unger.”
People in Rayanne’s life were transient and disposable. She didn’t value herself, no one valued her, she didn’t bother to value anyone else. It surprised her when someone else did.
