Blown Away (15 page)

She took a sip of the tea, savoring the cold, sweet taste and the clink of ice cubes against fine crystal, then set the glass aside as she leaned back and closed her eyes. The sun was beginning to set behind the trees, sending the dying warmth from the lengthening rays up the steps, then across the veranda to where she was sitting. A trio of butterflies flitted about the deep purple blooms of the wisteria hanging from the eaves of the porch, and
in the live oaks, a blue jay was loudly objecting to the squirrel above its nest. These were sounds and scents that Cari knew, and they soothed her saddened soul.

Then, suddenly, there was a touch on the back of her hand.

She opened her eyes, then looked down and smiled. It was Daniel, Mike’s little redheaded friend, which meant that must have been his father she’d heard in the office earlier. She couldn’t help but notice that not only was Daniel barefoot, but he was wearing striped bib overalls without a shirt—perfect three-year-old attire for a warm Louisiana evening.

“Well, hello, Daniel. It’s nice to see you again. Would you like some iced tea?”

He nodded solemnly, then crawled up into the other wicker chair and waited to be served.

Cari poured the glass only half-full, so it wouldn’t be too heavy for him to hold, then handed it to him. He took a sip, then set the glass between his legs, eyeing the cookies.

“How about a cookie to go with that tea?” she asked.

“Yes, pwease,” he said.

Cari handed him a cookie rich with chocolate chips and coconut, then licked the chocolate off her fingertips.

He ate the entire cookie without talking, savoring every bite as only a child could do. When he was finished, he wiped his hands on the napkin but forgot
to wipe his mouth, leaving a tiny smudge of chocolate at the corner of his upper lip.

Although he was very quiet, he seemed at peace with their silence.

“What have you been doing today?” Cari asked.

“Oh. I’s been pwaying with Woger.”

Cari stifled a grin, remembering that Roger was the tomcat who couldn’t make babies. Poor Roger.

“I’ll bet Roger likes playing with you,” she added.

He nodded. Then his brow knitted, and he fixed her with a curious look.

“My daddy says you is sad today.”

Cari sighed. Out of the mouths of babes…

“Yes, I am,” she said.

“He says yous mama and daddy went to heaven today.”

Cari nodded. “Yes, they did.”

“Can you go and visit?” he asked.

“No, I’m afraid not.”

She could see the shock on his face, and imagined him trying to put himself in her place.

His voice suddenly shook. “You doesn’t gets to see ’em no moah?”

Cari’s heart hurt just thinking about it, but she was very conscious of the fact that if she answered wrong, she might not only confuse but frighten him.

“Oh…I’ll see them again. I just have to get older first.”

His mouth went slack, as if he couldn’t quite grasp
the concept, but she could tell he was somewhat relieved that the parting wasn’t permanent.

“Would you wike to see my fwend Mr. Toad?” Daniel asked.

Cari’s vision blurred. “I would love to see Mr. Toad. Where does he live?” she asked.

“Him wives out yonder unner Uncle Mike’s gahden shed.”

Cari stood up and held out her hand. “Show me.”

Daniel set his tea aside, then scrambled out of his chair and, with all the style of a true Southern gentleman in the making, took her by the hand and led her down the steps, as if she were too frail to walk by herself.

They were halfway across the lawn when Mike and Dan came out.

“There he is,” Mike said, pointing toward the south end of the lawn. “Looks like he’s taking Cari to see Mr. Toad.”

Dan frowned. “I told him not to bother her today.”

“I think he’s just what the doctor ordered,” Mike said, as he watched them walking hand in hand. “Give him a few more minutes, will you?”

Dan shrugged. “Sure. Nora’s not going to be home for another hour anyway.” Then he switched the subject. “How did today go, with the funerals and all?”

“It was rough on her,” Mike said.

“She’s pretty darn strong, isn’t she?”

“Oh, yeah,” Mike said, thinking of their plan to go back to Bordelaise to find a dead man.

“I can’t imagine losing every member of my family at once and being the one to find them,” Dan added.

Mike nodded, remembering how Cari’s poise had finally shattered at the funeral home.

Then Dan chuckled and pointed. “Would you look at that? They’re both down on their knees, looking under the shed.”

Mike couldn’t help but wish he was down there with them, nose level with the grass and eye to eye with Mr. Toad—and Carolina.

“He’s all boy, isn’t he, Dan? I envy you, you know. You’ve got the perfect life… Nora and Daniel and a tomcat who can’t procreate.”

Dan grinned. “Yeah, thanks to my college roommate for introducing me to Nora, and to the vet who recommended neutering.” Then he glanced toward the shed again. “Hey, look! It appears Mr. Toad is feeling sociable today. If I’m not mistaken, Daniel just set him in Carolina’s lap.”

“Oh hell, I hope he doesn’t pee on her,” Mike said.

Suddenly they heard the sound of Cari’s laughter and saw her holding the toad out in front of her while Daniel was pointing and backing up fast.

Mike chuckled. “Oops…too late. Mr. Toad has his own way of saying hello.”

They were still smiling as Cari wisely put the toad back down. At that moment she happened to look
toward the house. Mike waved. She waved back, then said something to Daniel before they started back.

It appeared that Daniel wasn’t through trying to change Cari’s mood, because he turned somersaults and cartwheels all the way. And as they reached the steps, he was still talking.

“I can whissel weally good…wissen to this.” Then he puckered up his lips and blew.

As whistles went, it wasn’t the best. There was a bit of sound and a lot of spit, but Cari seemed sufficiently impressed.

“That’s amazing,” she said, and then sat down on the steps and hugged him. “Thank you for showing me so many good things, Daniel.”

He beamed, then looked up at the men. “Hi, guys,” he said brightly.

Mike grinned. Dan beamed proudly.

“Hi yourself, little man,” Dan said, and then held out his hand. “Tell everyone goodbye. We need to get home.”

“Bye, evewyone,” Daniel echoed.

“See you soon,” Mike said. They shared a high five; then Dan and his son were gone.

Cari watched until they’d driven away. She was smiling as she turned to Mike.

“I met Mr. Toad, and now I need to wash my hands.”

Mike grinned. “Yeah, I saw. So…how long do you think it’s been since a toad peed on you?”

Cari smiled. “I’d be guessing, but I’d say…at least
twenty years.” Then her smile slid sideways. “Who knew that a little redheaded boy and toad pee would be the pick-me-up I needed?”

Mike opened his arms.

She walked into them and buried her face against his chest. She could feel his heartbeat against her cheek and smell the musky scent of aftershave on his shirt. But it was the way he held her that let her know she was in the right place, as if she might break and as if he never wanted to let her go.

H
ershel Porter walked into his office and closed the door behind him. He was worn-out in so many ways he couldn’t count and figured he’d aged a good ten years in the past week. Bordelaise was still in cleanup mode. Utility crews were close to having power restored in all the storm-stricken areas, but the only businesses booming right now were the ones that replaced roofs and windows. Two days ago they’d buried Mr. Warren from the nursing home, who’d died during the evacuation. Today they’d buried the Norths. He was heartsick about their deaths, but there was nothing he could have done to prevent them.

It was the stuff still undone that was weighing on his mind. This morning he’d gotten word from the state police that they were reclassifying the case of seven-year-old Bobby Earle as an abduction.

With regard to the four missing prisoners, he
didn’t have one shred of evidence as to what had happened to them. There had been no sightings, no unidentified bodies found. He wanted to think the tornado had blown them to kingdom come, but until he had physical proof, he couldn’t mark them off the list of concerns.

And, as if all that wasn’t enough, there was that fellow from Chicago who’d gone missing. After finding his rental car in the trees today, it was a sure bet what had happened to him. It was just a matter of finding the body. Following procedure, Hershel had ordered the car to be sent to the state police lab for processing. Beyond that, all he could do was try to tamp down the level of chaos until order was completely returned to Bordelaise.

He glanced down at his desk and the paperwork that continued to pile up, hung his hat on a hook and reached for his coffee cup.

The telephone rang.

He frowned. Hadn’t he just told Vera to hold his calls for a while? Irked, he answered more gruffly than normal.

“Chief Porter.”

“Porter…Stewart Babcock. DEA. Out of Washington, D.C.”

Hershel ignored the man’s staccato manner of speaking and shifted mental gears. “What can I do for you?”

“I’ve been out of the country. Returned to the
office this morning. Found a report stating you’d arrested a Nick Aroya.”

Hershel frowned. “Yes, along with three other men. What’s your interest in him?”

“He’s mine,” Babcock said.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s one of my best agents. Been undercover for months. What’s it going to take to get him out? Drop the charges on all four men?”

Hershel sighed. It seemed this was his day for imparting bad news.

“Well, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but in a manner of speaking, they’re already out.”

“Good news.”

“No, sir, it’s not, because I didn’t let them go. Last Sunday morning, our town was hit by a tornado. Among other things, it took the back off the jail. Those four prisoners are still among the missing.”

Hershel waited for a comment. And waited.

“Uh…Babcock…you still there?”

Hershel heard a sigh, then a muffled curse.

“Yes, I’m here,” Babcock said. “Are you saying they’re dead?”

“No, sir. I’m saying we don’t know what happened to them or where they are. So far, we’ve buried four people this week, and on top of those prisoners, I still have two missing—a seven-year-old boy, and an attorney from Chicago who had the misfortune of picking that day to come to Bordelaise on business.
The city and the surrounding area were hit hard. We’ve been limping along as best we can, but as you can imagine, our resources have been stretched pretty thin.”

“I’ll have a team there tomorrow,” Babcock said.

“All right. Help from anywhere is appreciated.”

“Do I need to tell you to keep what you’ve heard to yourself?”

Hershel bristled. “Hell no. I might be small-town stuff compared to you, but I’m not stupid, mister. Send down your big dogs. We’ll do our best not to hurt their feelings.”

Babcock sighed. “That came out wrong. But if by the grace of God we find them alive, I don’t want Nick’s cover blown.”

“Yeah, well…you’d better be saying some big prayers up there, because if you do find them alive…it will damn sure
be
by the grace of God.”

There was a click in his ear.

Hershel slammed the phone back on the cradle. “Damn Yankee,” he muttered, then grabbed his hat and stomped out of the office, too pissed to tackle the paperwork piling up on his desk.

For Lance, sunrise came with a hangover. He woke up in the library on his father’s leather sofa, confused as to why he was naked, and with the stopper to the bourbon decanter stuck in his mouth like a pacifier. If there’d been a naked woman next to him, it
wouldn’t have been quite so humiliating. But to know that he’d wasted a good drunk alone… That was something he hadn’t done since high school.

Groaning beneath his breath, he spit out the stopper, then tried to sit up. But the room wouldn’t stop spinning, and before he knew it, he was flat on his face on the floor and staring at what looked like a small piece of chicken meat stuck to the underside of the coffee table.

He wasted a couple of minutes trying to figure out how food could have gotten under the table when it hit him. This was where he’d beaten Austin Ball to a pulp with his high school baseball bat, and what he was looking at was most likely a piece of the man’s flesh.

Panic hit, but vomit was faster. He threw up the entire contents of his stomach, including last night’s supper and a quart and a half of bourbon. His belly was still in revolt as he tried to get up. He paused to retch, slipped in the mess, stood, then fell back in it again. By the time he got to his feet, he was bawling. He grabbed the nearest thing at hand, which happened to be the cut glass decanter, and threw it against the mantel of the fireplace, where it shattered into thousands of tiny shards. Then he began flinging everything within reach—books, pillow cushions, an antique writing pen from his father’s desk—until the library looked like a tornado had hit it.

Gagging from the stench of his own vomit, he stumbled from the room and up the stairs to his
bedroom, then into the shower. A short while later, he emerged—nearly sober, but with his rage still intact.

It was daunting to know that he was going to have to clean up the mess he’d made, but he had no money to pay someone else to do it—and no choice, either. He couldn’t let anyone know he wasn’t himself.

He began by brewing a pot of coffee. After he’d downed a couple of cups, he grabbed a broom, a mop and a bucket full of soapy water, and headed for the library. When he was finished inside, he went outside to do the morning chores. He’d already decided he was heading to Baton Rouge. Carolina North might think she’d pulled a fast one, but she had another think coming. Before he was through with her, she was going to wish she
had
died in that twister. Murdering for a second time wasn’t a thing he looked forward to, but he didn’t really have a choice. He had too much to lose to leave her alive.

Cari woke to the squawking of a pair of cockatoos in the trees outside her bedroom window. From the sounds, it appeared one of them was seriously ticked. She rolled out of bed and headed for the bathroom in a similar mood.

She’d been thinking about her next steps. After seeing a rep from her publishing company at the funerals, she’d made a risky decision. She was going to contact her agent and tell her what was going on. She trusted her completely and knew she would do
whatever it took to make sure Cari’s interests with her publisher would be protected.

She desperately wanted to get back to her home and see if there were any keepsakes to be salvaged. She also wanted to bury her dog. The thought of scavenging animals tearing at his faithful little body made her sad.

She needed a map of the parish, especially the area around Bordelaise, in the hopes it would trigger an idea as to where Lance could have moved the body. She could probably get one off the Internet. The tornado had hit within minutes of their encounter, so he couldn’t have gone far from where she’d first seen him. He definitely would not have had time to get to the swampland to dump the body with the intent of turning it into gator food, because it wasn’t possible to get there by car from where he’d been digging the grave.

And, it wasn’t like he would have had time to dig a whole new grave with the storm that close, although he could have hidden the body and reburied it later. She sighed. He would have had all the time in the world to make
that
happen—assuming the tornado hadn’t just picked up the body and carried it away to God knew where.

At any rate, she desperately wanted evidence before she went to the police, although there was no question that she
would
go to them eventually. The only positive notes in the whole mess were the
missing person’s report on the Chicago attorney and his car being found on Morgan’s Reach. It would definitely lend credence to her claim, although, after her purposeful deception in letting the citizens of Bordelaise believe she was dead, she might have to fight public opinion falling on Lance’s side. But she was ready to tilt at that windmill, whatever the cost.

After her shower, she’d opted for comfort, and dressed in jeans and a yellow knit shirt before going downstairs. As she neared the dining room, she could hear Songee’s soft Southern drawl and Mike’s sexy Cajun accent. When Mike suddenly burst into laughter, Cari stopped, letting the sound flow through her, remembering the feel of his mouth on her lips and—his hands on her shoulders, then cupping her backside as he pulled her to him.

There was every reason to believe they would make love. She knew she wanted to. She knew he returned the feeling. She didn’t know what it might mean in the long run, or if that was even something she should consider. But she’d just been handed a very painful reminder of how short life could really be, and her heart was telling her to go for it. Now all she had to do was make time for sex between her continuing charade and finding a murder victim.

For a mystery writer? Piece of cake.

She ran a shaky hand through her hair, checking to see if the shaved part with the staples was concealed. There was a definite gap, which couldn’t be
helped, but her hair style was as good as it would get for quite a while. Then she tugged at the hem of her shirt, picked a piece of lint off her jeans and stepped into the dining room.

“Hey! Good morning,” Mike said, as he jumped to his feet and quickly pulled out a chair for her. “Songee made waffles and some mean raspberry butter to go with them.”

Cari’s mouth actually watered. It was the first time she’d thought positively of putting food in her mouth in days, and she chalked it up to the relief of having the trauma of the funerals behind her.

“Sounds good,” she said, smiling at Songee. “I would love to have one…with the raspberry butter.”

“I will make a special one, just for you,” Songee said, as she poured coffee in Cari’s cup.

Mike watched the intent expression on Cari’s face as she stirred sugar and cream into her cup, making a mental note that she liked two sugars and a buttload of cream, which he found oddly charming. He sighed. If he got turned on just watching Carolina fix a cup of coffee, he was a goner.

She looked at him over the rim of her cup and smiled.

The impact was like a fist to the gut. He hoped he was smiling back, but he couldn’t be sure. His face felt funny, as if he’d suddenly lost tactile response. Damn. This was worse than he’d thought. He took a deep breath, then shifted mental gears.

“Did you rest well?”

A slight frown dipped between her brows. “Oddly enough, I did. I thought I would have nightmares about…about everything. I was sad, but that’s to be expected, right?” Then she sighed. “I think I’m going to feel that way for a very long time.”

“I think you’re right,” Mike said, then qualified his statement. “I was lost for a long time after my parents died. In fact, there are still times when the thought of never talking to them again makes me sad, but not for long. Time does help. But the bottom line was, I kept thinking of how upset they would have been to know I wasn’t living my life to the fullest. After that, I began to realize that, by living the best I could, I was actually honoring them. I’m all that’s left of them. It helped me cope.”

Cari looked at him in quiet amazement. A gentleman and a philosopher? Yet another reason why he was so difficult to resist.

“That is probably the kindest, most sensible thing anyone has said to me since this whole nightmare began,” she said.

Mike grinned ruefully. “That’s me. Kind and sensible to the core.”

“Shut up,” she said. “You know what I mean.”

Before he could answer, Songee was back with Cari’s waffle.

“Eat it while it’s hot,” Songee said.

“Yes, ma’am.” Cari eyed the sprinkling of
powdered sugar on the top, and the handful of fresh raspberries on the side, then scooped out a dollop of the raspberry butter from the bowl Mike pushed toward her.

Songee beamed, then arched an eyebrow at Mike. “Now why can’t you be as agreeable?”

Mike grinned. “But I am. Ask Cari. I am kind and sensible…to the core. Right?”

Cari just shook her head as she spread butter across the waffle. “I know better than to take sides against the cook in the house.”

Songee chuckled softly, then patted Cari’s shoulder before exiting the room.

At that point, the phone began to ring.

“I’ll get it. I’m expecting a call from Aaron,” Mike said, as he jumped up from the table. “Excuse me. Back in a few.”

Cari continued to eat and finished most of her waffle before pushing it aside. Then, since she was still on her own, she took her coffee outside and claimed what was becoming her favorite seat, one of the white wicker chairs with the green cushions.

Within minutes, Mike came out to join her, but instead of sitting in the other chair, he began to pace, and Cari realized this was probably how he did all his business: literally—thinking on his feet.

“I was right. The call was from Aaron. I don’t know if you remember me mentioning him earlier. He’s the head of security for Red Stick, Inc.”

“Red Stick?”