Blown Away (23 page)

“Oh Lord, Cari, don’t ask me that. It could be anywhere,” Joe said. “We played all over those woods.”

“I know.”

“Maybe…maybe the creek bank. It’s soft there. It wouldn’t have taken long to dig down.”

“We’ve been there, and just about everywhere else I could think of during the past three hours.”

“Oh. Well then…I don’t know,” Joe said and changed the subject. “I know I haven’t said it yet, but I’m really glad you’re alive.”

“Thank you,” Cari said. “So am I.”

His voice broke again. “I’m just sorry you were so scared of what my brother might do to you that you had to hide. Chief Porter said he hurt a man who works for Boudreaux today.”

“Yes.”

“God. I just can’t wrap my mind around all this. It’s as if I never really knew him. I don’t know why he’s running. This was obviously not premeditated.
He’s young enough he could serve his time and still get—”

“Joe, stop and think,” Cari said. “Can you imagine Lance in prison?”

There was a long moment of silence. So long that Cari thought he’d hung up. “Joe? Are you still there?”

“I’m here,” he said. “And you’re right. He wouldn’t be able to endure that.”

“We can talk about all this later. Right now, I need you to help me think. We have to figure out where Lance would have gone.”

Mike had been standing back a bit, giving Cari the space she needed to deal with her old friend’s anguish. But he could still hear her side of the conversation, and something she’d said triggered an idea, and he moved closer.

“Cari…excuse me for interrupting…but maybe if you two could remember where you all used to hide. You said you used to play everywhere here…even places you weren’t supposed to, so where did you go when you were hiding from each other?”

Instantly an image popped into Cari’s mind. “Oh my God… Joe. Did you hear what Mike said? I think I might know where he went.”

“Yes. But what does hiding when we were kids have anything to do with—” Then he stopped. “Oh shit.”

“The old pirates’ cave,” they said in unison.

“I’ll call you,” Cari said, disconnected and handed the phone to Mike as she yelled at the chief.
“Hershel! Bring the men. I think I might know where the body is.”

They gathered around her quickly, waiting to hear.

“What did he say?” Hershel asked.

“There’s a cave. It’s a place where we used to hide when we were kids.” She slid her hand in Mike’s. “Mike is the one who triggered the thought. I haven’t been there in years, but it’s not far.”

She kept hold of Mike’s hand, talking excitedly now as she led them away.

“About three hundred years ago, most of this land was either swamp or under water. Time, and some of the levees around Baton Rouge and Bordelaise, changed the water table. Even though we’re on solid land now, in the old days, you would have had to come in here in flat bottom boats. Old-timers used to say that the pirate Jean Lafitte had a stronghold in here somewhere, and that he used it to stash his loot and, when necessary, hide from the law.”

“You found Lafitte’s stronghold?” Mike asked.

“No. At least, I don’t think so. But there
is
a cave, and we pretended it was the pirates’ cave. You know kids.”

“You think he might have hidden the body in there?” Hershel asked.

“I don’t know,” Cari said. “But it’s certainly possible.”

They waded through thick underbrush and downed tree limbs, swatting at the occasional mosquito and
sidestepping anything that looked as if it might harbor snakes. Without warning, they emerged from the trees into a small, oval-shaped clearing.

The grass was about ankle-high, and the underbrush was almost as thick as the trees. The remnants of a couple of old cypress stumps were prominent land-marks—proof of what the water level had once been.

Cari stopped. It didn’t look exactly like it used to. There was so much more growth. But she knew what was back there.

“It’ll be over there,” she said, as they approached a wall of bushes and swamp grass.

“I don’t see a damned thing but solid brush,” Hershel said.

Cari started to push through a thicket when Mike caught her arm, stopping her.

“Let us,
cher.
Aaron…come with me.”

She didn’t argue. She watched as he got a flashlight out of the backpack, then dropped the pack at her feet and started forward.

“You two, go with them,” Hershel said, pointing to a couple of his deputies.

The rest of them stayed back with the chief and Cari, watching as the four men stepped into the thicket, then disappeared almost instantly.

The silence among those waiting was palpable. No one spoke. No one moved. It was as if the world had stopped and was waiting for a signal to take another breath.

Suddenly someone yelled from inside the cave.

“In here!”

Hershel pointed at Cari. “You. Don’t move.”

She didn’t have to be told twice.

She sat down on one of the old cypress stumps, exhausted and heartsick in every pore of her body. She tried to remember the happy times and laughter that had echoed in this place. The picnics they’d had. Susan always insisting on carrying the food, and Joe insisting on being the one to dole it out, while she and Lance had waited to be fed, like hungry puppies waiting for dinner. And always, everyone arguing over who got the biggest piece of watermelon, and who got the last of Maggie North’s famous lemon bars.

Then, all of a sudden, everything hit her. The ache for what she’d lost was so fierce, the enormity of what had happened so great, that she buried her face in her hands and began to sob.

Mike, Aaron and the two deputies walked into the cave, almost without knowing where the bushes ended and the cave began. One moment they’d been in chest-high brush and the next they were in darkness. They reached for their flashlights and quickly swept the area. The first thing they noticed was that the ceiling sloped inward. The men were too tall and had to bend down slightly to move around.

The air was cooler inside, and Mike could understand what a draw this place would have been for
children raised in the heat and humidity of a Louisiana summer. The floor of the cave was littered with leaves and small twigs, and as he moved farther in, they began to find bits and pieces of animal bones.

“Oh hell,” one of the deputies muttered, as he swept his path with his flashlight. “Some panther’s most likely been using this as a den. I hope to hell we don’t walk up on him.”

“We’ve been making so much noise, it would be long gone by now,” Mike said.

“Yeah. I guess you’re right,” the deputy answered.

Mike swung the beam of his flashlight around the area, eyeing the thicket of roots from the greenery above that had grown down through the ceiling of the cave like tattered curtains, then aiming the beam farther back.

“There!” he said suddenly, as the light revealed a large mound of dirt toward the back of the cave.

The men hurried forward and quickly found a shovel that had been left behind, lying between the wall and the pile of dirt.

“This hasn’t been here long,” Aaron said. “Look. The wood on the handle is still smooth and clean.”

“Except for the blood spots,” Mike said, aiming his flashlight at the dark stains near the metal spade.

“Yep, I see them,” Aaron said, and leaned the shovel against the wall as one of the deputies ran back to the mouth of the cave and shouted, “In here!”

Mike stepped aside as the small cave suddenly
filled with men. But Cari was nowhere in sight. When the chief appeared, his first thought was for her.

“Where’s Cari?”

“I made her stay outside.”

Mike nodded, then aimed his flashlight toward the mound as the men began to dig.

Cari was wiping away tears and staring blindly out across the clearing when a raccoon suddenly waddled out from beneath some bushes nearby, then stopped. It took her a few seconds to realize the animal wasn’t looking at her but rather at something behind her.

The hair crawled on the back of her neck. Her heart began to pound. She knew before she heard the quiet sarcasm in the voice that she was no longer alone.

“Carolina. Carolina. What in hell am I going to do with you?”

Cari gasped, then jumped to her feet. Lance was so close she could see a vein pulsing in his neck. Then her gaze moved to the handgun in the waist-band of his jeans.

“Lance! I’m not Carolina. I’m—”

“Can the act, Cari, I know who you are.”

She felt sick. She wanted to call out, but the men were too far away to help her, and Lance had the gun. If she said or did the wrong thing and set him off, she would be dead before they could get out of the cave.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“What do you think?” he countered.

A chill ran through her. This couldn’t be happening. God wouldn’t allow her to live through a tornado just to let her be murdered now.

“How did you know I wasn’t Susan? No one else suspected.”

A sad look came and went in Lance’s eyes so fast that Cari almost missed it.

Then he shrugged.

“Susan isn’t allergic to cinnamon.”

“I know that, but what—” she began, then sighed. That day at the funeral when he’d offered her a cinnamon roll, she’d told him without thinking that she was allergic. “Well, hell.”

Lance’s lips twisted into a wry grimace. “Yeah, I’ve had a lot of those moments myself lately.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

He shrugged again. “I haven’t quite decided. You know it’s going to be my word against yours. And you’re the one with the most recent hole in your head. A good lawyer can put a spin on anything. Then there are the missing prisoners. They could have done this.”

“They wouldn’t have bothered to bury the body. And they wouldn’t ever have found this place. It’s so overgrown, if I hadn’t known the cave was there, we would have walked right past it. And…if the prisoners had come across a car, what are the odds that they would have left it for a tornado to take? I’d be driving it away if I was on the run, wouldn’t you?”

Lance frowned, but he wouldn’t give up. “Like I said. A good lawyer can—”

“There’s more than just my word now,” she said and watched him visibly flinch.

“Like what?”

“You know the car they pulled out of the trees on your property?” she said, playing for time, hoping he would see the pointlessness of shooting her.

“Yeah? What about it?”

“Chief Porter sent it off to the state crime lab. The report came back today that there was blood in it. The DNA was a match to Austin Ball.”

The blood drained from Lance’s face so fast Cari thought he would faint.

Then he began to bluster.

“Well, of course there was blood. He got caught in a tornado, remember?”

“I thought you just said he got caught by the missing prisoners, who buried him in the cave. So why would there be blood in the car?”

“Well…because…because they killed him in it,” Lance muttered.

Cari shook her head. “Right, and then buried his body in a cave. Not. Unfortunately for you, Lance, the blood was in the trunk.
Only
the trunk. And even if they threw his body in the trunk after he was dead, how did his body wind up here and the car in the treetops? Because you and I both know this place is only accessible on foot.”

“Well, hell,” he said, echoing her earlier words.

And as they stood there staring at each other, Cari could see acceptance sweeping over Lance’s face.

He knew it was over.

Cari was afraid to say more for fear of saying the wrong thing. But she could tell her news had taken all the defiance out of him. It was now apparent that his word against hers was no longer a viable defense. She could see him coming undone.

His body began to shake, and his skin was ashen. He kept swallowing and blinking, as if choking back tears, but as unexpectedly sorry as she found herself feeling for what was happening to him, she was even sorrier for the man he’d killed.

Suddenly the bushes at the front of the cave began rustling, and before Cari could shout a warning, Mike emerged.

In seconds Lance had the gun in his hand and a finger to his lips, motioning with the pistol for Mike to come stand beside Cari.

Mike’s heart skipped a frantic beat. All the help they needed was less than ten feet away, and he couldn’t call out for fear of getting Cari killed.

“Damn it, Morgan. You don’t want to do this,” he said, and then pushed Cari slightly behind him so that he was shielding her with his body.

The gesture wasn’t lost on Lance. He grimaced through tears. “Ever the gentleman, right, Boudreaux?”

Mike stepped forward.

Lance swung the gun up toward Mike’s face. His expression had gone from defeated to wild, and Cari knew he was on the verge of losing control.

“Lance! No!” she begged, and dashed out from behind Mike with her hands in the air, as if to shield him instead.

“Oh my God!” Lance cried, as snot began running from his nose. “Both of you are freakin’ pathetic. Who wants to die for love first? How about I just shoot the both of you and get this misery over with?”

“No, Lance. Don’t!” Cari cried.

Mike reached for Cari while talking to Lance. “Easy, Lance, easy. Just let me stand beside Carolina…please.”

A tiny fleck of spit appeared at the corner of Lance’s mouth, but he didn’t speak. It was as if he’d lost the capacity to form words.

“Lance?” Mike asked, still waiting for permission to move.

“Back! Get back…both of you!” Lance yelled.

Cari’s thoughts were in free fall. She had to do something. Say something. Anything that might calm Lance down. Then she remembered.

“Chief Porter said you were the one who found Mom and Dad.”

Lance blinked. It was the even tone of her voice that got through his panic. He shuddered, as if a cold wind had just blown down the back of his neck, then nodded.

“Yes. After I—” He glanced toward the cave, then
shifted mental gears. “After the storm had passed, I headed home. When I realized Morgan’s Reach was safe, I thought of your family.”

Cari knew there was another reason why he’d gone to her home that day, and it had nothing to do with rescuing anyone. Still, this wasn’t the time to say anything about that.