Authors: Jana DeLeon
I frowned. “I suppose you’re right. But it still feels like we’re missing something.”
“You haven’t seen the creeper since Floyd was murdered,” Gertie pointed out.
“Yeah. That’s true.” All the facts lined up and pointed to Floyd. It made as much sense as anything else, but with Floyd dead, we’d never know for certain, and that bothered me. “Wait a minute. Floyd can’t be the creeper because the first night the creeper came to my house, Floyd was in jail.”
Gertie’s face fell. “That’s right.”
“Maybe it was Billy after all,” Ida Belle said. “Once he realized he set fire to the wrong house, he may have followed Ally to your house to try to get information for Floyd. Or even to make sure she was all right. He’s silly enough to do something like that.”
“I suppose it’s possible,” I agreed. “He could have come lurking around my house after the fire to see if he could overhear Ally and me talking about it. Maybe that first night it
was
Billy and after that it was Floyd.”
“The simplest explanation is usually the right one,” Ida Belle said.
“I don’t know that it’s simple,” Carter said, “but it’s the closest we can get to logical. I think I need to have another conversation with Billy.”
I nodded. The explanation covered all the bases, but my mind still hadn’t committed to our conclusion.
The bells above the café door jangled and a woman about Ida Belle and Gertie’s age walked in and looked around. Ida Belle poked Gertie and nodded toward the door before lifting her hand to wave. “Cora,” Ida Belle called out.
The woman looked around until she locked onto Ida Belle, then smiled. She crossed the café to our table, where both Ida Belle and Gertie rose to give her a hug and they made quick introductions. Carter jumped up.
“Let me get you a chair,” he said.
“No, that’s fine,” Cora said. “I’m meeting a friend for lunch.”
“I thought you’d moved to Virginia to be near your daughter,” Gertie said.
Cora nodded. “About ten years ago, but Stanley is at that awful fishing tournament in New Orleans. He comes back for it as many years as I let him get away with it. Anyway, this year, I figured I’d make the trip with him and visit a few people.”
Ida Belle nodded. “Are you still in touch with Edith Leger?”
“I talked to her cousin sometime last year. She’s in a nursing home in Houston, but her dementia is so bad, she can’t remember anyone.”
“That’s too bad,” Ida Belle said.
“It’s awful,” Cora said. “I hope the Lord sees fit to take me before I get in such condition.”
“Her grandson is living here now,” Gertie said. “I bet Edith would have liked that.”
Cora frowned. “You mean David?”
“Yes,” Gertie said. “She only had the one grandson, right?”
“Far as I know, but I’m afraid you’re confused. David is in the military. He lives in the Philippines.”
Ida Belle frowned. “Maybe he finished his time. He hasn’t been here very long.”
Cora looked even more confused. “That’s simply not possible. He just got married last week. My grandniece was in the wedding. David only had enough leave to come back to the States for the wedding. They were leaving the next morning to go back to the base.”
“He knew all her favorite things.” I felt the blood rush out of my head and I jumped up from the table. “David, or whoever he really is, is the creeper.”
I grabbed Ida Belle’s arm. “He knew her favorite restaurant and bakery. He brought her tulips.”
“Oh my God,” Ida Belle said.
Gertie paled. “Oh no! Ally turned him down for another date.”
“And she’s with him now,” I said. “That dead battery was a setup, and I’ll bet anything the phone call wasn’t from her insurance agent.”
Carter jumped up from his chair and called dispatch to put out an APB for David and Ally. Cora stood frozen in place, the horror of what we were talking about apparently sinking in.
“Do you have any idea where he would take her?” Carter asked.
I tried to focus on every single word I’d exchanged with the fake David. “He said he was renting an apartment above the preacher’s garage.”
Carter shook his head. “He knows that would be the first place we’d look. I’ll send Deputy Breaux over there to check it out, but I don’t think that’s our answer.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to force my mind to think like a stalker. “We have to consider what his plan is for her.”
“Men who kidnap women usually only have one plan,” Ida Belle said, her voice grim.
“Wouldn’t he just leave town?” Gertie asked.
“Maybe,” Ida Belle said, “but it’s a long stretch of highway between Sinful and New Orleans, and not a lot of places to hide in between.”
“Unless you go into the marsh,” Carter pointed out.
“But if he’s not the real David,” I said, “that means he might not know much about Sinful or its surroundings.”
Gertie nodded. “Then he’d take her somewhere he knew.”
“Like her house,” I said. “With Floyd dead, no one is around to see anything unusual.”
“And with the insurance story,” Ida Belle said, “no one would go looking for her for hours.”
I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Ally, but it went straight to voice mail. I looked at Carter. “We have to get to Ally’s house, and don’t even try to leave us behind or we’ll just follow you.”
“Let’s go,” Carter said and we all dashed out of the café, leaving a stunned Cora behind.
Chapter Twenty-One
Carter pulled out of Main Street and raced into Ally’s neighborhood. “I can’t pull up to her house,” he said. “He’ll be on watch and he might kill her if he sees me.”
“Park down the block past Floyd’s house,” I said. “The road bends toward the swamp and he won’t be able to see your truck from any of the windows.”
Carter eased around the block and parked at the curb just in front of a huge hedge. He looked at us. “I allowed you this far, but I have to ask you to stay here. I can’t be responsible for anything happening to you.”
“But we can help,” Gertie argued.
Carter shook his head. “You’d only be in my way. Please, stay here and if you see or hear anything, call for backup.”
He jumped out of the truck and hurried behind the hedge that bordered Floyd’s yard and the swamp. As he disappeared into the hedge, I turned around. “I don’t have my gun on me.”
Ida Belle stared. “You’re kidding.”
“I was running this morning and didn’t think I’d need it. I haven’t been home since.”
“It’s a flimsy excuse,” Gertie said, “but I suppose I can loan you one of mine.” She reached into the enormous handbag she was never without and pulled out a 1911 .45 ACP.
“Good Lord,” I said as I took the pistol from her. “That’s serious firepower.”
She reached back into the bag and brought out a Glock. “I’ll take the lighter one if you don’t mind.”
“Do you have any more guns in there?”
Gertie shook her head. “Just some Mace, a hunting knife, and a bag of prunes.”
It was no wonder her back was always killing her. “Ida Belle?”
Ida Belle pulled her nine-millimeter from her waistband and chambered the first round. “I think we should head through the swamp and approach from the back,” she said.
I nodded and we jumped out of the truck and dashed into the swamp.
“I wonder if that bobcat is around,” Gertie said.
I’d been thinking the same thing. “Let’s hope he sleeps during the day.”
It took us only a couple of minutes to make it to Ally’s back fence line. “What do we do now?” Gertie asked. “There’s only the shed and a couple of bushes.”
Ida Belle shook her head. “It’s not enough cover. Anyone looking out a back window will see you.”
I scanned the backyard, knowing that they were right, but searching for an alternative. Then I zeroed in on the row of trees on the side of Ally’s house opposite Floyd’s. “I have an idea,” I said and pointed to the trees. I could use one of the trees to get over the fence and access the rigged window on the side of the kitchen.
“What do you want us to do?” Ida Belle asked.
“Break into Floyd’s house and go upstairs. See if you can see into Ally’s house. If you get a lock on their position, text it to me. And be careful that he doesn’t see you.”
They nodded and hurried off. I moved farther into the swamp and skirted the wrought iron fence, using a set of bushes for coverage. I ran down the side of the wooden fence, then shoved the pistol into my sports bra before leaping up into the cypress tree. I climbed quickly, careful to remain on the back side of the tree until I was higher than the windows.
My phone vibrated and I clung to the tree with one arm while checking the message.
Shadows moving through curtains in Ally’s room.
I stuck the phone back in my pocket and as I started to swing around the tree, I heard movement below me. I looked down and saw Carter slide over the top of the fence from Ally’s front yard and hurry down the side of the house, ducking below the windows. When he got to the rigged kitchen window, he pushed it up and eased himself over and into the house with barely any sound.
Impressive.
But I didn’t have time to wax poetic on Carter’s skills. And following him through the window put two of us in the same position downstairs. What we needed was coverage from another angle. I pulled out my phone and sent Ida Belle a text.
Stay put with sight line to bedroom. If you get a shot at David, take it.
A couple seconds later, the reply came.
Damn straight.
I moved up a couple more branches, then swung around the tree trunk and ran across a large branch that hovered over Ally’s roof. I swung myself down below the branch until my feet connected with the roof, then dropped onto the roof without a sound and slipped across it to the corner over the master bathroom at the end of the hallway from Ally’s room.
I leaned over the side of the house and pulled on the drainpipe. It felt sturdy, so I swung over the edge of the roof and shinnied down it until I was next to the bathroom window. I tapped the glass with my finger and smiled. It was that frosted plastic stuff. I pulled out my keys and dug into the frame of the plastic, sliding my key along the edge until I loosened one side of it. Then I slipped my fingers beneath and pulled the entire piece out of the flimsy metal frame.
I dropped it into the bushes below me and swung my legs around and into the window. I clutched the top of the frame to slow my drop, then slid silently into the bathtub. As I crept into the master bedroom, my phone vibrated.
Nice. Still two shadows in Ally’s bedroom.
I texted back.
Carter is somewhere in house. Careful if you shoot.
I peeked into the hallway and saw a shadow move at the bottom of the stairs. Carter. If I took the hallway, we’d intersect, and then I’d have to explain how I got into the house. I was pretty sure I’d claimed to have studied gymnastics at some point, but somehow I didn’t think it would cover what I’d just done.
Then I remembered Gertie and Ally’s conversation about the weird closet. I hurried over to the closet and eased the door open. No light entered from the other side, so I knew it was closed. I slipped into the closet and pulled the handgun from my sports bra. I inched through the closet, praying that the hardwood wouldn’t creak.
When I reached the door, I put my ear against it, hoping to gauge the situation.
“This is all your fault,” the stalker said. “All you had to do was like me, but you turned me down. You think you’re too good for me, don’t you?”
“No,” Ally said. Her voice cracked and my pulse shot through the roof. If I got my hands on that guy, he would never breathe again.
“Then why wouldn’t you go out with me again? I did everything right. I got the right flowers, took you to the right restaurant. Why wasn’t that good enough?”
“I already told you. I have a lot on my mind. I can’t focus on a relationship right now.”
“That’s what they all say. All you bitches are alike. A guy gives up everything to follow you and do you appreciate it? No. You push him away as if he doesn’t matter. Well I matter!”
“Of course you matter,” Ally said.
“Don’t lie to me. You were carrying on with that trash that lived next door.”
“No. I swear.”
“Liar! Why would he be in your backyard late at night if he wasn’t coming to see you? But I showed him. I cracked him good with that two-by-four. Cracked him so good he died.”
The rest of the pieces of the puzzle fell into place, completing the picture. When Gertie had knocked Floyd’s fence down, he’d yelled at us that he was tired of us lurking around his property. He must have seen David lurking around before. It was David who broke into Ally’s house and rigged the window. Floyd must have seen him and went to Ally’s house to get rid of his lurker once and for all. David thought he’d taken Floyd out, but all he’d done was make it easier for Marco to finish the job.