Page 12 of As the Rain Falls (Sainte Madeleine #1)

DON'T SIGN THE PAPERS

Beckett

Point-Mort is the largest beach in the area, not to be confused with the most accessible one.

Every year is the same story: I watch clueless tourists get hauled into bright yellow buses, heading for the city center, not knowing that they’re being scammed.

Tourism agencies like to brag about the possibility of swimming with the dolphins if you buy their traditional visiting package, but they always conveniently leave out how brutal the waves are. Locals know better, but then again, this is our home.

I don’t know what it is about Le Port compared to other Caribbean islands, but the ocean feels too unforgiving whenever they come around. Maybe the real deal is, the ocean is rejecting them.

Tourists are stupid, sometimes even downright disrespectful in their ignorance. No one wants to deal with them.

What pisses me off the most is how they’re also the number one reason why Le Port’s traffic is a massive, never-ending nightmare.

I release the clutch and lower the gear to second, allowing pedestrians to cross the street.Right then, my phone starts to ring somewhere in the backseat. It’s a struggle to find it, and an even bigger one to manage to answer the call when the cracked screen keeps slicing up my thumb.

A monotone voice hums on the other end of the line.

“Mr. Evans?”

I try to answer, but the words won’t come out.There’s noise everywhere: the sound of the waves crashing, people’s chatter coming from the opened window to my left, and a flea market blaring across the street.

Some kind of Drake song is humming steadily in the background, the lyrics constantly talking about dancing and Hennessy, and…

Oh my God.

Will it ever stop?

I’m exhausted, and the quality of my speech is getting weaker by the second.Fridays are, without a doubt, my longest and hardest days at the farm. Since I don’t go in on the weekends, I have to drive back home knowing everything is set for the next day, just in case an emergency comes up.

“Mr. Evans, can you hear me?”

“Wait a second,” I press my forehead against the steering wheel, working to get the words out. “It’s me. Hi.”

“Hi. Good evening, sir.” He pauses. “You need to come to the station, and—”

“Right now?” I cut the officer off, switching the phone from my right to my left hand. “But I’m, uh,” I can’t say driving . “I’m almost home.”

“I understand, but it’s an urgent matter, Mr. Evans.”

I scoff derisively.

Everything is an urgent matter with these guys.

Every-fucking-little-thing.

It’s getting ridiculous.They once made me drive up to the station at seven in the morning just to confirm that Lucia’s car was really hers. It’s baffling how incompetent they can be.

Whose else’s car would it be if not Lucia’s?

She was the one to crash it!

“What… What is it about?” I press, my jaw clenching.

The more I start to overthink this, the worse it is going to get. If I try too hard to control it, I start to get nervous, which is never a good thing. I just have to let it go and say the words.

Just let it go and say the words.

“I can’t really say, sir,” he explains. “You’d have to talk to the detective to really know.”

“Alright,” I sigh deeply, trying to keep myself from snapping at him. “I’ll be, argh, I’ll be there in twenty.”

“Thomas is telling you to be here in the next ten minutes.”

“Thomas needs to stop being an idi—” I roll my eyes, trying to remember that the poor man has done nothing to deserve my rudeness yet. Ah, his time will come eventually. “All I’m saying is, there… there might be traffic on the way.”

“That’s okay, Beckett. Take your time.” The officer takes a sharp breath. “Just don’t take too long, you know?”

I’m actually impressed that he feels comfortable enough to use my name when I can’t even recognize the sound of this voice. Then again, I’m kind of a celebrity around town these days. It’s hard to go to the grocery store without getting weird glances thrown at me.

“Yeah.” I turn the car back around, and the engines make a loud noise in protest. “I do.”

Thomas Leblanc is some big city dude with a fancy diploma who somehow became a detective shortly after moving to Le Port a couple of months ago. Read: He probably screwed something up overseas, and this gig was his last available option.

This whole situation irks me. I find it hard to respect someone who didn’t grow up here getting so much power in so little time.

I know his father had everything lined up for him upon arrival; after all, he’s the chief.

I’ve seen things like this happen far too often around here, especially when it comes to prissy guys like him.

Major Leblanc once showed me how to shoot a gun back when I was a kid because he thought it’d be funny to scare me.

I haven’t tried talking to the guy since, but he’s been on my ass about Lucia’s drunk driving, and like, not to sound like a complete asshole about it, but what the hell am I supposed to do about that?

Last time I checked, she’s already dead.

The only reason why I’m not telling him to fuck off is because his son is taking the time to dig into what happened before the crash.

Thomas might be the only person who can give me the truth—which is far more than anyone else has done for us so far—and honestly, at the end of the day, I just want to shake this gnawing sense of wrongness away.

My sister is gone.

Nothing’s worse than that.

Not in my books, anyway.

***

Thomas waits for me by the door, and somehow, his face—God, his face alone—annoys me to no end. He doesn’t even have to try that hard to make me want to scream: existing seems to be enough.

I roll my eyes, watching him sneak glances at his wrist like he is timing down the seconds to see just how late I can be. His knockoff Rolex catches the streetlights, flashing like it’s something worth showing off, making him seem more important than he actually is.

I can’t help but laugh internally.

Like, it’s so funny seeing such a prideful man wear a fake. I know the public paychecks aren’t all that rewarding, but I didn’t think things were that bad.

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Evans.”

He reaches out, going for a handshake.I raise my hand up with a tight smile on my lips. My sweaty hand doesn’t need to be touching his sweaty hand.

Thomas drops his arm to the side, pretending not to mind, but I know he does. People who don’t struggle with the same things I do think I’m condescending, and maybe I am.

Still not touching his hand, though.

“I didn’t have much of a choice, sir,” I snort as I follow him inside. “You need to stop doing this. I have a life, you know?”

The next shift has yet to come in, and the station feels emptier than usual. The room smells of paper ink and cold, stale coffee, with a kind of underlying scent of smoke added to the mixture.

Some drunk guys are dozing off behind the bars, their snores echoing just a bit louder than the sound of the old fan attached to the ceiling. I snort when one of them lets out a particularly loud noise, reminding me a bit of Well napping while I work.

“I know it’s inconvenient, but keeping in touch is important,” Thomas explains. “Especially with a case like yours. It takes time, but we need to follow procedure.”

“Listen, Mr. Detective,” I clear my throat. “I don’t care about procedure. Let’s get this done quickly, okay? I had to come here straight from work, so I hope you don’t mind me dirtying your carpet. But I really need to go home and…”

Take a shower, for starters.

Thomas eyes my pants and boots, his face twisting with disgust. My jeans seem to have been dyed some strange red color from all the stains. A strange feeling of deep satisfaction washes over me. I love it when I become an inconvenience to people like him.

“It’s fine,” he says and opens the door to his office, inviting me to come inside.

Now, I’m usually not one to mind other people’s business, but the air feels heavier as soon as I step in. It absolutely reeks in here, and I wonder how the hell a guy like him manages to stay inside these four walls all the time, alone.

A few papers are plastered all over the surface of his desk. There’s a half-empty beer or two next to his computer and a pack of cigarettes poorly shoved behind a stack of files. Really, Leblanc’s office looks more like a dump for cases nobody seems to want.

I’m guessing he still has to pay his dues.Maybe taking care of my family’s case is just another way for him to get accepted on this new team.

“Please, close the door. There’s something I need to discuss with you.”

“Is it about Lucia?” I ask, getting more serious. “Did you find any leads?”

“Well…” Thomas trails off. “No.”

I push the chair and sit down, checking to see if there are any traces of mud on the ground. He hands me some papers. I read the first few sentences and try to fight the urge to flip my middle finger at him like a ten-year-old.

“Man.” I promptly slide the papers back to him. “I’m not… I’m not signing any of this.”

“Good thing we’re not asking you to.” Thomas slides the papers back to me again. “Your parents are the ones who have to come in to sign them.”

Son of a…

“Then, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for them to come in and sign them off, sir.” I slide the papers back to him one last time. “I find it hard to believe they will, at least not when you haven’t done your job.”

Thomas sighs, staring at the walls. When I don’t relent, he turns his attention to a stack of files sitting over his desk, showing me his side profile. His jaw works like he’s grinding his teeth, a vein popping near his temple.

I cross my arms over my chest, not looking away from him. He turns his back to me and starts organizing the files behind him. I recognize it as a self-soothing habit.My presence makes him deeply uncomfortable.

It’s almost too funny.

“You’re making this more difficult than it needs to be, Beckett. I’m sure your parents will answer if you’re the one contacting them instead of me.”