Blown Away (3 page)

When he moved, Cari grabbed his wrist, then winced at the pain in her bandaged palms. “No! Don’t!” she cried. “You don’t understand.” She swiped at her tears with the edge of her sheet, then took a breath, trying to calm her thoughts. “Just before the storm hit, I walked up on a neighbor in our woods. He was…he was…oh God…just saying it aloud makes no sense.”

“What was he doing?” Mike persisted.

“Digging a grave to bury the dead man wrapped up in the rug beside him.”

“What the hell? You witnessed a murder?”

“Not the actual murder. Just the disposal of the body. He started running after me. I lost my phone while I was trying to get away. I just needed to get home. The tornado hit just as I reached the house. I lived through it. My family didn’t. It wasn’t until I found Susan’s body…her injuries were mainly to her…” Cari shuddered, then covered her face with her hands. “Oh God, oh God…to her face.” She shivered, then made herself continue. “I knew I had to hide until I figured out what to do, so I put my coat
on Susan’s body, knowing she would be identified as me, and ran.”

Mike swallowed past the knot in his throat. Susan Blackwell had worked for him for seven years. He adored her and depended on her—as a friend and as his personal assistant. To know her life had ended like this was devastating. But his sorrow was obviously not on the same level as Carolina North’s losses.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, and then turned away and walked toward the windows overlooking the parking lot to gather his own emotions.

Cari’s head was pounding. All of a sudden, she knew she was going to be sick—again.

“Mr. Boudreaux… Mike! I think I’m going to throw up,” Cari said.

Mike spun and rushed to her side, grabbing the wastebasket and holding it up at the side of the bed as Cari leaned over. She didn’t feel his hand on her back or see the empathy on his face. All she knew was that by the time she’d finished, her nurse was in the room, waiting with a fresh washcloth to wash her face.

Cari fell back onto the pillow with a groan. “Oh my God, I am so sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for. You’re fortunate to still be alive,” Mike said.

The nurse checked Cari’s IV flow, eyed Mike curiously, then left to get something for Cari’s nausea.

Once again, Cari and Mike were alone. He spooned a couple of ice chips into her mouth, then
waited for her to chew them. When he thought she could handle the questions, he started talking again.

“Why didn’t you go straight to the Bordelaise authorities?”

“And say what? That I saw my neighbor burying a body in the woods?”

“You knew the man?” Mike asked.

“Unfortunately, yes. Lance Morgan. I grew up with him…. His family’s land joins ours on two sides. Lance is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them. There’s no way he buried that body there. Not after I saw him. When I realized he wasn’t still chasing me, I knew he’d gone back to move it. He would have buried it somewhere else. By the time I would have gotten to the authorities, it would be my word against his, and I’ve got a big hole in my head. He’d just claim my story was nothing more than a hallucination from the injury. His parents are dead, but he comes from an old and prominent family. Mine has been around almost as long, but it would just be my word against his. I didn’t recognize the dead man, which means he wasn’t a local, which means no missing person case to back up my claim. In fact, given our history, Lance could laugh it off and lay it all on our past.”

“How so?” Mike asked.

“A couple of years ago we were engaged, until I caught him cheating on me. I called it off. He could claim I was just trying to get back at him for what he did to me.”

“Oh.”

Cari grimaced. “‘Oh’ is right. But it wasn’t until after the tornado when I found Susan that…
this
occurred to me. No one in Bordelaise knew she’d driven down for the night. And her car was the only one that hadn’t been damaged in the tornado. Her face was…” Cari bit her lip, struggling with her composure. “We’re the same size. Same color hair and hairstyle. And we’d both been wearing white T-shirts and jeans. Lance had seen me earlier, so when I put my coat on her body, I did it hoping she’d be identified as me. It might have been the wrong thing to do, but I was hurt and needed time to think. Lance had already killed once. He would have no problem getting rid of the only witness to his crime.”

“What a mess,” Mike muttered.

“You have no idea,” Cari said, then closed her eyes. She didn’t intend to keep them closed, but a combination of meds and exhaustion soon pulled her under.

Mike watched Carolina drifting in and out of consciousness, and was surprised by the strong connection he felt. Maybe it was because she looked so much like Susan. And maybe it was because of the courage and ingenuity she’d shown in such a dangerous situation.

Courage was something he admired.

Over the years, Michael Boudreaux had become a force to be reckoned with in business, but in his youth, he’d been just another kid on the streets of
Baton Rouge. His grandparents had still been alive, clinging to former glory in their old plantation house outside of the city, while his mother and father held regular jobs. His father had worked for a manufacturing company, while his mother had been a pre-school teacher. As the “pretty boy” in his classes, he’d often had to prove his worth with his fists. As a result, he learned the true meaning of courage, and to never be the first one to quit—–at anything.

It was that attitude that made him so formidable in his own career. His parents had died within a year of each other while he was in college. His grandparents had passed a couple of years later. He’d inherited the run-down plantation, as well as the row house in the city where he’d grown up, and now he was completely alone in the world.

When he was twenty-two, he sold the little row house for a tidy sum to a company that needed land to expand, then he invested the money. One thing had led to another, until years passed and he had become known as what some might call a corporate shark. He did what he did without apology, but he did it while maintaining his hometown residency in Baton Rouge.

Mike could have lived an opulent lifestyle in any of the country’s big cities, with limousines and fine dining, and beautiful women at his beck and call, but he’d chosen not to. He was tall and lean, with black hair and green eyes, and a stubborn streak inherited
from his Cajun ancestors. And when he’d made his first million dollars, he’d renovated the old Boudreaux plantation outside of Baton Rouge and had lived there ever since. He traveled all over the world when job and duty called, but his roots ran deep in the Louisiana bayous.

For the past few years, Susan Blackwell had been a large part of his life. Now he had to face that she was gone. Sad for himself, and for the woman before him, he laid a hand on her arm.

Cari stirred as she felt his touch. When she opened her eyes, their gazes locked. Hers was unflinching. And in that moment, Mike made a promise.

“I’ll help you through this. I’ll make sure you stay safe.”

Cari sighed, then bit the inside of her lip to keep from crying. “Then you need to start by calling me Susan.”

“Right,” Mike said, then stepped back and shoved his hands in his pockets. “For now, just know I’ve got your back.”

A huge weight had suddenly been lifted from Cari’s shoulders. “Thank you.”

“It’s the least I can do…for Susan,” Mike said, as his voice broke.

Tears welled again, but Cari blinked them away. “For Susan,” she echoed.

At that point the nurse came back and shot a syringe full of something into Cari’s IV. A few minutes later, Cari was out.

But Mike wasn’t sleeping. He’d made a promise, and he didn’t make those lightly. He was already on a mission to find out all he could about Lance Morgan. Finding Morgan’s weakness would be the first step in learning the identity of the man he’d murdered, which would also be the first step in making sure Carolina North stayed alive.

By the time Lance reached Bordelaise, it was obvious the tornado’s damage was widespread. Houses were missing roofs. Trees were down everywhere, as were a large number of power lines. Even a cell phone tower had been twisted into a tangle of wire and metal, probably the reason he’d been unable to reach 911.

Main Street was a melee of cop cars, ambulances and fire trucks from at least half a dozen neighboring communities. It was obvious that the tornado had been on the ground when it came through town. The courthouse and nearby jail had taken direct hits, as had a grocery store, a lawyer’s office and a beauty shop. He didn’t know where to go to notify rescue services about the Norths.

Finally, when he’d driven as far as he could go, he parked, then started walking. Then someone called his name.

“Hey! Lance!”

He turned around. It was Lee Tullius, one of the parish police officers, standing by a panel van. Lance started toward him at a jog.

“Thank God you’re here!” Lee said. “We need some able-bodied volunteers to help move residents from the nursing home into the hospital.”

“I’ll be glad to help,” Lance said. “But I came into town to report three deaths.”

Lee paused, then put down the cots he’d been unloading. “Who and where?”

“Out at the Norths. Frank, Maggie and Cari are all dead. I drove over there right after the storm and…”

His voice broke. He didn’t have to fake the tears in his voice and eyes.

Lee knew Lance and Cari had once been a couple, and that they’d grown up together.

“Well, damn. I’m really sorry to hear that,” he said, then gritted his teeth. “This might sound cruel, but right now, we’re trying to focus on the living.”

“But they’re just…they’re lying out in the open. Birds…animals…just anything could get them.”

Lee sighed, picturing the pretty, dark-haired girl he’d known who’d grown up to become a famous writer, then palmed his radio. “Tullius here. Over.”

Vera Samuels, the daytime dispatcher at the police department, picked up. “Go ahead, Lee. Over.”

“Got a report of three dead bodies at the Frank North farm southeast of Bordelaise. Need them picked up ASAP. Over.”

Vera started to cry. “All of them? Over.”

“Ten-four,” Lee said. “We need the bodies retrieved before the animals get to them. Over.”

“Oh my God…I went to school with Cari,” Vera said, as she struggled to speak through tears.

“So did I,” Lee responded. “Get some people out there, and get them back as fast as possible. I’m afraid they won’t be the only ones. Over.”

“Ten-four and out,” Vera said.

Lee hooked the handheld back onto his belt loop and then looked at Lance.

“Mission accomplished. Now, about the nursing home…”

“Right,” Lance said, and started down the street at a lope.

By the time the last residents of the nursing home had been moved to the hospital, Lance was muddy and sick to his stomach. One old fellow, a man named Warren, had died in his arms on the way out of the building. Because the man was wheelchair-bound, Lance had been forced to pick him up and carry him through the debris-strewn hallways. He hadn’t known the guy was dead until he went to put him down on a gurney outside to be taken to the hospital.

“This one’s gone,” the EMT said.

Lance’s eyes had widened in disbelief. “That’s impossible,” he said. “He was talking to me when I picked him up.”

“Too much stress and strain,” the EMT said. “Don’t worry about it. No one’s going to blame you.”

Maybe not for this one, Lance thought, and once
again, accepted his unbelievable luck that Cari North had perished only minutes after walking up on him in the act of hiding a crime. He shook off the shock and nervously swiped his hands down the front of his shirt.

“He was the last one on that wing,” Lance said.

The EMT nodded. “Then he’s the last one period,” he said. “Report back to the town square. It’s where emergency services has set up office. I’m sure someone else could use your help. We also have a missing kid.”

“Oh, no, who?” Lance asked.

“J.R. and Katie Earle’s little boy, Bobby.”

Lance tried to remember what the little boy looked like but couldn’t. All he could do was shake his head as he walked away. On the way back downtown, he tried his cell phone again, as he had been doing off and on, checking to see if they’d restored reception. To his relief, the connection bars finally showed up.

After what had happened, he knew his brother, Joe, who lived in Savannah, would be frantic. He wanted to let him know he was okay, and that Morgan’s Reach had survived the storm. But before he could punch in the number, his phone suddenly rang.

He saw the caller ID and then bit his lip as emotion swamped him. It was Joe. His voice was thick with tears as he answered.

“Joe, I was just about to call you. I’m okay. I’m okay.”

“Thank the Lord,” Joe said. “I’ve been trying to call you for hours.”

“The lines have been down all day. I just now was able to get a connection.”

“Where were you when the tornado hit? Is the house okay? What about the livestock?”

Lance could hardly admit he’d been burying a dead body.

“I was out, but on the property. By the time it passed and I could get home, I was afraid the house had taken a hit. However, we were lucky. It has some damage, but nothing serious. A few missing shingles, barn’s missing a corner of the roof, and there are some windows broken. Otherwise, we were fortunate.”

“Thank goodness,” Joe said. “What about Bordelaise?”

Lance hesitated and took a deep breath. Telling Joe the news was going to be as difficult as finding the Norths’ bodies.

“It got hit pretty bad. A lot of the buildings around the town square are gone or damaged beyond repair. The nursing home was also damaged. The back of the jailhouse was hit. And someone just told me there’s a missing child.”

“Lord, Lord,” Joe whispered. “I can’t believe it!”

“That’s not all,” Lance said.

“What?” Joe asked, the sense that something awful had happened clear in his voice.

“The North property took a direct hit. There isn’t a building standing, and… Joe…”