Broken Bayou

Ermine is behind the counter when Willa walks into Taylor’s Marketplace. She can tell that something is wrong and first seats Willa at a secluded table so that the two can talk, but changes her mind and leads Willa into her own home, an apartment attached to the market. Willa confesses that she is still deeply mired in the grief of Mabry’s passing, and Ermine hugs her while she cries. After the two talk for a while, Willa leaves, texting Travis when she gets into her car. He agrees to meet her at home, where he tells her that he has been put on administrative leave over his role in dumping the convertible. They then argue about her visit to his family’s home. She questions the suspect in the barrels case and asks about Doyle. Travis is angry and tells her that Doyle is not a murderer and to stay away from his family. Willa presses, asking about his sister Emily’s mysterious death. Travis tries to tell her that it wasn’t mysterious and that he’s sick of the town gossiping about it, but Willa thinks that he’s hiding something. The two part on bad terms. Later, Willa finally cancels Mabry’s phone service and drives out to the bayou to toss her phone in. She runs into Raymond St. Clair, who tells her that everyone knows that the police have the wrong guy in custody and that she should be careful.

October 1999

Emily Arceneaux sneaks out of her trailer in the dead of night. Waiting for her, as he always is, is Raymond St. Clair.

Willa wakes up the next morning and immediately takes a hot shower. While she is showering, Willa thinks that she hears someone in the house. Terrified, she gets out and grabs her gun. She is not able to find anyone and thinks that she must have been hearing things. Her phone rings. It is her mother, calling to tell her that Rita stopped by asking questions. Her mother (she thinks) told Rita to march her “fancy ass” right out of there. Pleased, Willa hangs up and texts Rita. The two meet to talk, and it is evident that Rita is becoming increasingly obsessed with the case. She, too, thinks that the police have the wrong man. They discuss the possibility that Doyle is the killer. Later, Willa meets up with Travis and asks him about Raymond St. Clair. Willa has learned that some of the victims were drugged. They realize that Raymond, who was an EMT before he worked for the police, would have had access to sedatives. Travis is incredulous, but he does remember Raymond hanging around Emily. He still questions whether a fellow cop would be able to get away with murder, but he is increasingly suspicious of Raymond. When he learns from Willa that Raymond was in town last night and not away pursuing a lead as he’d claimed, his suspicion becomes alarm.

After Travis leaves, Willa decides that it is time for her to get out of Broken Bayou. While she is preparing to go, she discovers Doyle Arceneaux in the house. He is holding her gun. She had heard something after all. Angry and desperate, he tells her that he needs somewhere to hide: He is not the killer. She tells him that she believes him, but then tries to run. He catches her and hits her with the butt of her gun. She regains consciousness in the Arceneaux trailer, locked in Emily’s room. Willa is able to loosen the ropes that bind her arms, but she cannot pry the window open. Just then, the door to the room opens. Doyle and Eddie are there. Doyle tells her that he’s called the police. She asks if he means his brother, but he clarifies that he called Raymond. Willa panics. She hears a gunshot. She persuades Eddie to open the window for her, and she slips out. She finds Travis, who tells her to wait in a car: Doyle is missing now, and Travis wants to find him. Chagrined to see that he is driving Rita’s vehicle, she nonetheless complies. While she is inside, Eddie comes and breaks the window, dragging her out. He explains that his brother asked him to do so. Willa looks up to see Doyle there. He is obviously terrified. She follows his gaze and sees Travis. Travis surprisingly shoots Doyle. Willa screams that Doyle was only trying to help her. Travis looks at her coldly and says that he is aware of that. That, he adds, was the problem.

Willa realizes that Travis is the serial killer. He was the one who suggested the dumping site, knowing that it was Walter’s land. He must have put the body in the trunk of her car. The body, Willa has learned, belonged to Emily. Although she was buried on her family’s land, Travis had dug her up. He had been her killer all along. He was angry that she’d been seeing Raymond and that she might have an opportunity to escape their family. He worried that interest in her case would pick back up and she’d be exhumed. No cause of death had been established before, but that could have changed. Putting her in the bayou would have degraded any evidence remaining of her murder. Willa looks around and notices several barrels just like the ones that had been pulled out of the bayou. Eddie’s arms are wrapped tightly around her, and after making a chilling statement about providing his sister with another “friend,” Travis places a bag over Willa’s head. She passes out, regaining consciousness sometime later. She realizes that she is inside a barrel. Travis and Eddie transport her to the bayou and dump her in. Having seen a second barrel in Travis’s yard, she is sure that Rita is there with her, also trapped in a barrel. Eddie hasn’t properly secured the lid, and she is able to push it open. She is in the water, but Travis and Eddie can see her. They go after her. A fight ensues in which Travis shoots Eddie. Willa notices her handgun in Eddie’s waist band. She grabs it and, thinking to herself that Travis has the cold, lifeless eyes of a sociopath, shoots him. Her first shot misses, but the next few do not. He goes down, and Willa hears the wailing noise of sirens. Soon, she is being handled by paramedics. She is safe.

Fort Worth, Texas

Six Months Later

Willa is waiting for her interview to begin. Her interviewer is none other than Rita Meade, who was indeed placed by Travis into a barrel but survived. They learned that Travis preferred his victims to go into the water alive. He’d drugged them, but not killed them before dumping them. Things have settled somewhat during the last six months. Willa has been working with a trauma therapist. She arranged for Eddie, who survived Travis’s gunshot wound, to enter a group home for people with developmental disabilities, and he is doing well. Her mother is on a medication that truly helps her, and she lives with Willa. They learned that Travis was likely a sociopath. Liv Arceneaux, who provided the police with a treasure trove of information in the wake of Travis’s death, had seen the early signs, but she had also created the kind of abusive household that, combined with the presence of sociopathy in a child, can lead that child to become a killer. She had indeed been abusive toward Emily, but she’d also realized that Travis had an unhealthy fixation on her. Pulling Emily out of school had been, in part at least, an attempt to keep her safe. Liv admits that she even noticed the barrels on their property but had decided to mind her own business. She was, by that point, afraid of her son. Both Doyle and Raymond had suspected Travis. Doyle gave Willa that license plate in hopes that she would give it to the police. Raymond, who had loved Emily, had been secretly investigating Travis. Willa reflects that sociopaths are both born and made, that genetics combine with early childhood experiences to damage certain individuals beyond repair. She knows that she too had a difficult childhood, and is struck by how similar circumstances produced, in her and Travis, wildly different outcomes. She is upset that she did not see the signs of Travis’s sociopathy, but she realizes that no one did. She decides to do her best to put the past behind her and move forward.