Frankie had leased the top floor of a two-story home in midtown Memphis with its New Orleans–style garden, a sweeping staircase for her use alone, and sunlight that flooded the place through floor-to-ceiling windows. The giant pin oaks in the front yard grew so close to the windows, she felt like a forest creature living inside their branches.
She’d kept the furnishings spare with a few antiques, a couple of good paintings from her father’s house, comfortable chairs, and good reading light. At first she’d thought the place was too big for her, then one night she’d danced from room to room, swaying to classic jazz on 91.7 FM. After that she’d danced through the rooms every day.
Back from Ramos’s house, she boiled the herbs for the ewe and strained the liquid into the tub. After the soak, she wanted to do some research on Ramos, followed by a few hours of sleep before her final night shift. Exhausted, she removed her clothes, folding each piece to lay on the bedroom chair until she stood naked. She caught a glimpse of herself in the shadowed mirror—her splotched cheek and puffy eyelids, her body looking awkward and vulnerable. Her arms automatically wrapped around her stomach to stave off that feeling of being overwhelmed.
Shake it off, she reprimanded herself. Emotions accomplish nothing.
She applied the salve to her cheek, which smelled of menthol and flowers, then placed her hands on either side of the claw-foot tub and eased her body into the water. Lying back, she let the purifying warmth lap over her thighs and breasts. It was her nature to overthink things, rip down the walls of a problem and restack the boards. Once you’ve torn the romance out of something and replaced it with logic, there was no way to go back. Her eyes closed. Her shoulders dropped. She listened as the buzz of the cicada died off in the evening light. She wanted to search for comfort, but her mind wouldn’t allow it. It constantly played the scene from the day she’d lost control.
It had been her day off. She stood in the parking lot of a Days Inn next to I-40 where tractor-trailer rigs rattled by twenty-four hours a day—a real classy setting for her first time with Brad. She’d been nervous. Brad pulled in and took his time getting out of the SUV, leaving her waiting and exposed to the truckers and other couples who were there for the same reason. What a club she was about to join. Cheaters on the Cheap.
Brad finally opened his door and set one foot on the pavement, half in and half out of the SUV, talking on the phone. That’s when it hit her. There would be nothing romantic about what would happen in the next hour. Brad was working her into his schedule, a quick fuck on the side. She didn’t like that word, but nothing else so completely described the situation she’d put herself in.
He slammed his car door and walked toward her with the phone pressed to his ear.
“Yes, sweetie. I know,” she heard him say. “You’re daddy’s girl. Love you. See you tonight.”
A daughter. Frankie had known Brad was married, but he said they were about to separate. She hadn’t asked about kids. She’d justified their relationship by telling herself she was in love. Love, hell. This was sexual hunger. It’s hard to think straight when you’re hungry.
Brad strode toward her smiling, already loosening his tie. He reached into his pants pocket and flashed a package of condoms for her to see. What a good boy. He’d remembered her request.
She could tell by his grin he was about to say something lewd. She cut him off by announcing that she’d changed her mind, offering her hand for a let’s-call-it-a-draw handshake. He stopped a foot in front of her and began to rant about the risk he was taking to be there—his family, his job. Everything he loved. What he might lose.
She knocked the condoms out of his hand. His face turned red. He looked away. Then he backhanded her, putting a lot of force behind it, his heavy class ring smashing into her cheekbone. No man had ever dared hit Frankie.
In the bathtub she bounced the flat of her palms on the surface to break the water’s tension and to inhale the ewe’s fragrance. She drifted back to her childhood with her Jamaican nanny, Amitee, who used to drag a zinc basin into the backyard under the hibiscus trees. Amitee would pour in the ewe. Frankie would get in and lie back under hibiscus blossoms that smelled like honey. Amitee sat beside her and recited the names of the orishas. She would tell the stories about their passions and the blood of the animals each orisha preferred to drink. The stories were like African Grimms’ fairy tales, not told to frighten her but to prepare her for life. There was no one else around to do it. Her mother was gone. Her father preferred losing himself in his work to avoid spending time with a daughter who was the spitting image of his cheating wife.
Amitee would say, “A problem confronts you, bathe in the ewe. When the Evils sit on your shoulder, drink the ewe. Clean your house, clean your body with the ewe.”
Frankie rose from the tub now, water sliding off her compact body with its muscled biceps and strong legs. Durable. Not given to breakdowns.
She pulled the plug in the bath and got out. She needed focus. She had to control her thoughts. Toweled off, she put on yoga pants and a tank, reviewing in her mind the message Billy had left. He’d found something interesting in the jacket. He didn’t say what. He’d left her wondering on purpose.
Still keyed up despite the ewe, she rummaged through the medicine cabinet for another bottle of tranquilizers. She took one pill, started to put the bottle back, then slipped it into her purse. She e-mailed Billy the notes from her interview with Ramos and included the doctor’s credentials, published articles, awards from international peer groups, and his charity work.
She poured club soda in a wineglass and studied an Internet photograph of Ramos lecturing at a podium in a large auditorium. Her intuition did a war dance with her logic. She couldn’t believe this educated man, apparently a compassionate man, had been complicit in a plot to terrify Red and Little Man. The conjure bag wasn’t proof he’d been involved, but that photo in the hallway put him at the top of her suspects list. Ramos had the knowledge and the means. Did he have the malice?
His card listed a site where she could book online. His scheduling calendar showed a one P.M. appointment in two days. She had three days off after tonight’s shift.
She went back to his photo—the intelligent gaze, the pleasant mouth. He didn’t have a murderer’s eyes. But she knew from experience that, despite appearances, doctors can be crazier than most people when they put their minds to it.
She booked the appointment.