by K. C. Sivils
“You need to eat something.”
“Mom, I’m not a child,” was Anna’s snippy response. “Don’t treat me like one.”
"If you would take care of yourself, I wouldn't bother you," Sharon fired back with equal venom. "You're worried about Becca and Katie, and you should be. So am I. I'm also worried about my daughter, you!"
Having reached a standoff of sorts, the two women stared at each other. The buzz of a cell phone broke the silence, jarring Anna into action. She retrieved her phone from her purse and frantically unlocked the screen while Sharon watched in anticipation. Anna's hand shook as she examined the phone. Then, she turned the phone around without a word and pushed it across the table to her mother.
Displayed on the screen was a picture with no words and no number. A freshly washed Becca and her friend Katie sat on a bench with what appeared to be the trunk of an oak tree behind them. Neither girl was smiling, and only Katie was looking at the camera. Beneath the image was a text reminding Anna what would happen if she went to the police.
Relieved the girls appeared to be okay, Sharon reached across the table and took Anna’s hand in her own. “Becca looks okay. So does Katie.”
Anna nodded, her lips quivering as the actress fought to keep her composure.
“Mom, would you call Paula, let her know Katie’s okay. Then send the picture. I just can’t do it.”
---
Halfway across the New Mississippi Bridge, just before the bridge peaked, Heat’s phone buzzed. Boucher grabbed the device from its resting place in the cupholder between the seats, receiving a nasty look from Heat in the process.
“You focus on not getting us killed,” Boucher warned as he typed in Heat’s password.
“What is it?”
“Message from Anna.”
“Let me see,” Heat demanded, reaching for the phone. Boucher pulled it out of Heat’s reach, holding it over the front right corner of the dash.
"Drive," Boucher ordered. "I'll deal with this. When we get to Port Allen, you can take the first exit, and then I'll give you the phone."
Boucher listened to Heat swear beneath his breath while he looked at the phone. The text included a picture of the two girls, both in different clothes and with wet hair. Their expressions were somber, but the girls looked clean and basically no worse for wear. Included with the image was a text from Sharon, Anna's mother, stating the picture had arrived with a message about not going to the police, and the number had been blocked.
While he was still examining the picture, Boucher felt the Pilot swerve to the right as Heat cut off an 18-wheeler to take the Port Allen exit.
With both eyes clamped shut, Boucher shouted. “Easy, dude!”
“You said take the first Port Allen exit.”
“I didn’t say get us killed by cutting off an 18-wheeler!”
Maintaining a running diatribe regarding his friend’s lack of driving ability, Boucher cut loose, venting all of his frustration from the past few weeks. His frustration at being suspended, Heat’s constant barbs about his womanizing, his worries about Heat’s mental state, and not getting to drive. Ever.
Pulling to a stop in the parking lot of a truck stop, Heat put the Pilot into park and killed the engine.
“You finished?”
Boucher took a deep breath and tossed the phone to Heat. “For now.”
He opened the passenger door and climbed out, slamming the door behind him. Without looking back, Boucher walked towards the truck stop, using language that would make a sailor blush and his mother smack him up the side of his head.
---
Jim Johnson counted silently in his mind as he held on to his wife, Paula. Little in life frustrated him, like the feeling of being helpless. He was angry with the girls for being irresponsible and sneaking out of the house. He was even more furious with Nick Devereaux for creating the entire situation that had placed his own children at risk, and in the process, put Katie and Billy in danger as well.
“It will be okay,” he promised Paula, knowing full well there was no way to be sure everything would be all right.
“Katie looked okay,” Paula whispered, clinging on to the lone positive she could find in the picture Sharon had texted.
“She looked fine,” Jim answered. “Better than Becca did in that picture, that’s for sure.”
Paula was silent for a moment and then spoke. “You don’t think they did something to Becca?”
"I'm sure," Jim lied. "She's just in a bit of shock. That would be my guess. You can't blame her for looking out of sorts."
Jim closed his eyes and hugged his wife close. Try as he might, Jim couldn't get the picture of the two girls out of his mind. Katie had looked okay, but Becca was somewhere else mentally, and the possible reasons that could have caused her to look that way were too numerous to count and too ugly to consider. Becca might have been Nick and Anna Devereaux's child, but Jim and Paula loved Becca and Adam like they were their own. More often than not in the last few years, Becca and Adam spent more time at the Johnson home than they did in their own.
Downstairs the sound of the front door opening and slamming shut announced the arrival of Billy and Adam, who had been brought home by the bodyguard Anna hired on occasion. "Mom, dad, we're home," Bill shouted. But boys being boys, despite their sister's abduction, there was little doubt the pair had headed for the kitchen to eat whatever they could find.
Jim and Paula had decided it would be best for the two boys to attend school despite their sister’s abduction. Normalcy being a good thing given the situation and the chaos that seemed to fill the Devereaux’s children’s lives of late.
“You okay?” Jim asked. “I want to go have a talk with the boys and show them the picture before we decide what to do.”
Paula nodded and sat up, wiping her eyes.
“The boys will be hungry.”
“I think they can feed themselves,” Jim pointed out. “You don’t need to do anything. In fact, I think it would be a good idea if we all went out for pizza tonight and tried to relax a little. Sitting around the house waiting just seems to make things worse.”
“I don’t know, Jim,” Paula protested.
"I do. We can either be victims, or we can make the best of this. When the girls come home, it's going to take a while for them to bounce back. It's important we take control of what we can, that we set an example for the girls and the boys, show them how not to be victims." Jim stood up to go downstairs. Paula recognized from the look on her husband's face and the tone of his voice that it was pointless to argue. His mind was made up.
“When we get home and get the boys settled, you and I are going to have a talk about how to deal with Anna when it comes to Nick. I don’t want that man anywhere near the kids ever again. What's more, I don't want him near Anna either, for that matter."
Paula stared at her husband's back as he left their bedroom. There would be no talking him out of any of this, particularly the subject of Nick Devereaux. For once, Paula was inclined to agree with her husband when it came to this particular topic. Anna had to do something about her toxic relationship with Nick. If not for her own good, then for that of her children.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Boucher sipped his coffee from his seat at the counter and kept an eye on Heat, who sat in a booth, staring absentmindedly into the distance. It had been years since his friend had spaced out in that precise manner, and it worried Boucher.
"Your friend, okay?"
His own reverie was broken by the waitress's question; Boucher displayed his white teeth using his trademark smile. "I'm so sorry. What did you say?"
“Your friend, is he okay?”
Boucher's smile vanished, and he let out a heavy sigh before sipping his coffee. "I don't know. I haven't seen him like this in years." Turning his head to glance at Heat again, Boucher shook his head before turning back to the waitress. "You don't need to worry, though. Heat isn't going to go psycho and start shooting the place up or
anything."
Frowning, the waitress turned to serve another customer. "I wasn't implying anything like that," she snapped, leaving in a huff. Shrugging off the woman's verbal reproach, he trained his attention on the truck stop's menu, displayed above the pass-through from the kitchen. A growl from his stomach confirmed Boucher needed to eat something and that something was going to be a crawfish pie followed by a slice of lemon icebox pie, all of which was going to be washed down by a large diet coke.
Having served the truckers on the far end of the counter, the waitress returned, coffee pot in hand. "Want me to freshen that up?"
“No, thank you. I think I’d like a crawfish pie and a slice of lemon icebox pie to go with it." He smiled, examining the waitress as was his habit. In her late thirties, life had not been kind. Streaks of grey peaked through her now bottle-blonde hair. Crow's feet drew attention to her blue eyes, bloodshot from lack of sleep, and her hands were covered with patches of thickened, red skin, discolored from the constant use of hot water and strong cleaners. Her waist had thickened, no doubt from childbearing, and she walked with a tired limp, the result of long days on her feet.
“You want something to drink with that?”
“Diet coke would be great.”
Boucher resumed his watching of Heat until the sound of plates being set on the countertop drew his attention back to the waitress.
“Female trouble?”
Usually ready with a quick response to any question, Boucher paused to consider his answer. “Yes and no.”
Warming up to Boucher's handsome face and well-groomed appearance, the waitress, shook her head and laughed. "Which is it? It can't be both."
Pausing a second time, Boucher decided it couldn’t hurt telling the waitress a bit of the truth. “We’re private investigators. The client is an old girlfriend.”
"Let me guess, she broke your partner's heart, and he never got over her. Now she has the gall to come and hire y’all for a case, and it's putting him through the wringer again."
Boucher took a bite of his crawfish pie and chewed it quickly before replying. “Something like that. It’s got me worried, too.” Looking over his shoulder, Boucher mumbled, “Heat never goes off the deep end, but when he does, he pulls out all the stops.”
“He’s lucky then.”
“Why do you say that?”
Slipping the check over to Boucher, the waitress smiled sweetly at Boucher, the effect of which was to allow him to see the pretty face she’d once had.
“Not many people have a friend to worry about them when life happens.”
---
Two sugar cane trucks drove past the truck stop, sticks of freshly cut cane protruding from the trailers. Bits of paper fluttered along the grass on the roadside as the trucks passed. In the distance, Heat could see the smoke of the fires in the cane fields, a surefire sign the cane harvest has started. As soon as the leaves of the cane stalks were burned off, the workers would begin the process of cutting the cane and loading it on the cane trucks for shipment to the mills. His mind drifted back to his childhood and the times he and his friends would pick up stalks of cane from the road and splitting them in order to be able to suck the sweet raw sugar out.
Heat remembered the Saturday he'd taken Anna across the river with him and drove down the river road, pointing out the cane fields and the sugar mills. They'd stopped on a side road, and he'd shown Anna how to notch the cane in order to be able to draw the sugar out. It had been a good day, one of the best he'd ever spent with Anna. They had laughed at her inability at first to get sugar from a stalk of cane.
They'd picnicked in the same spot, and one thing had led to another. He'd dozed in the cool fall air, taking comfort in the fact Anna was safe and secure in his protective, loving arms. A shift in the wind had turned the fire towards their little safe haven, the roar of which had awakened them both, allowing them to flee the dangerous flames.
To make the day more memorable, at least in Heat's mind, it had been the day he'd finally told Anna the secret he'd long held in his heart. It was the day he'd told Anna he loved her. Relieved to have unburdened himself of his burning secret, Heat was delighted by Anna's response. Her face had beamed upon hearing his declaration, and she'd responded with an embrace, kissing Heat with passion before repeating the exact words back to him.
Anna wasn't just a pretty girl to Heat. She was so much more. He admired her intelligence which made it easy for him to talk to her, something Heat found challenging to do with most females. A gifted dancer, singer, and actress, Heat was in awe of her talents. He was even more in awe of the fact his childhood friend felt the same stirrings for him that he'd felt for years.
They'd known each other since grade school. For Heat, it had been love at first sight. He smiled at the memory of Anna's reaction when he'd thrown a rock at her during recess when they were mere third graders. It had been his first attempt to let Anna know of his crush. She'd stuck her tongue out at him and then run away as fast as her legs would carry her.
It wasn’t until a school dance in seventh grade that Heat had worked up the nerve to ask Anna for a date. She’d agreed with the result being the most awkward evening of both their young lives. Heat managed to step on Anna’s toes every sixth or seventh step while they danced, and she'd graciously not complained for the first half-hour after which she sat with her friends, forcing Heat to retreat to the gym wall where the other boys stood in vain, trying to work up the nerve to ask a girl to dance with them. Later, when they were in high school and laughing at the memories of that awkward evening, Heat learned the quick kiss he'd stolen on Anna's doorstep wasn't just his first kiss, but hers as well.
The loud bark of an eighteen-wheeler's engine brake ended Heat's trip down memory lane. He watched as the cane truck stopped at the intersection before turning on to the highway to head south for the sugar mill.
It had been a long time since Heat had last allowed himself to think of his memories of Anna. He reminded himself it served no purpose to think of such things. Sooner or later, the good memories would do nothing more than dredge up the painful memories that cut so deep. The unexplained betrayal that left a wound that never truly healed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Blondie had never considered patience to be a virtue, making the lack of it something of a character flaw. Having to wait to find out what was going on with Heat, and the cute Elijah Boucher was starting to make her get antsy. Enough, so she was beginning to bother her roommate.
"Sit down, please. I'm trying to study."
“Sorry, I’m just getting worried.”
Amy looked up, bit the end of her pencil, and thought for a moment. Blondie was being herself, nothing more, and a tongue lashing wasn't called for though it would make Amy feel better.
“I know, but it sort of goes with the job. If you’re going to work for Heat, you have to get used to the fact he disappears from time to time.”
Blondie stopped pacing and frowned at her friend. “It’s rude, you know? Not checking in, so we know what's going on."
A sly smile spread across Amy’s face. “Now you know how our parents felt.”
“Really? You had to go there, didn’t you?”
Still agitated, Blondie resumed pacing, shaking her hands and flexing her fingers in the process. Realizing nothing was going to get done until she calmed her roommate, Amy let out a sigh of exasperation and closed her laptop.
“Let’s go get lunch. My treat.”
Blondie stopped in her tracks and smiled at Amy. “Well, so long as you’re paying.”
Stressed and needing a distraction, both young women collected their purses and hurried out the office door, with Amy pausing just long enough to lock the entrance door and set the alarm.
Neither female took note of the office phone on Amy’s desk ringing.
---
“It’s the next exit.”
Heat raised his eyebrows as he glanced at Boucher, who had removed his shoes and socks and recli
ned the passenger seat back.
“You sure?”
Boucher glanced at Heat, his expression similar to that of having taken a bite of a lemon.
“I’m sure. I used this boat landing more times than I can count.”
“You can’t even see the road signs the way you’re sitting.”
Boucher responded by putting his hands behind his head and getting comfortable. "I can read the billboards. We just went past the one advertising Landry's. The next exit is the boat landing, I'm telling you."
Squinting, Heat could see the start of the miles-long bridge that was the Atchafalaya Causeway. A hot flush ran through his cheeks, a result of being irritated that Boucher was right. The next exit would indeed take them to the boat landing that allowed fisherman and hunters access to the waters of the Atchafalaya Basin. Heat removed his foot from the accelerator, allowing the Pilot to slow on its own as he eased it off the freeway and onto the two-lane road that would lead down to the boat landing.
Heat aimed the right front wheel at a pothole filled with dirty water for nothing more than spite. The resulting jolt tossed Boucher up in the air, bouncing him around in the passenger seat. It was Boucher's turn to fire a nasty glare at Heat as he raised the seat. The scowl disappeared as rapidly as it appeared as Boucher pointed.
"There's my contact in Wildlife and Fisheries. Pete Lejeune is his name."
Waiting next to a Wildlife and Fisheries truck was a short man of roughly the same age as Heat and Boucher. His face and hands had the tanned, leathery look of a man who spent his days in the outdoors. Lejeune's uniform was wet from the knees down and sported liberal applications of dried mud on the rest of his clothing. Squinting as he removed his cap, Lejeune revealed a headful of long, greasy, unkempt hair.
Lejeune waved at the Pilot upon recognizing Boucher in the passenger seat. Heat pulled up next to the agent’s truck and put the SUV in park before killing the engine.
