by Elle James
“What? Sandy’s back? Here?” Shocked, he glanced in the direction of the house. Then one of the many things Boudreau had told him during the past few weeks came into his mind.
He recalled his friend telling him that Murray Cho had gotten into the house without setting off the alarm and had come out a few moments later with what looked like Sandy’s laptop computer.
Tristan had been surprised—he’d never imagined Murray Cho as a thief.
“She can’t be back,” he cried. “Murray could come back. He thinks she’s gone, and if she surprises him—”
“There you go again, making a surefire mountain out of a piece of ground where there might be a molehill one day. Slow down, son. Let things happen as they will. Just be ready when they do.” Boudreau assessed him. “Meanwhile, how come you think she’s not safe? You left her alone when you worked on the rigs.”
He thought of Sandy, waiting for him week after week, never having a full-time husband, and he never having a full-time wife. Now she was less than a mile away.
He wanted to run to her and grab her up and kiss her until they both were panting with desire. He wanted to see how much her tiny baby bump had grown. And he wanted to put his hands on it and feel the child they had created, the child he already thought of as his son.
But he was afraid. Not only did he not want to show his face, he didn’t want to chance her telling someone—her best friend, or his.
“I had no choice. Besides, I didn’t know they were going to kill me. If they find out I’m alive, what’s to stop them from doing it right this time?”
“Who’s them? That captain’s dead. Everybody’s gone from the oil rig now.”
“Come on, Boudreau. The captain was never the man in charge. The boss is still out there. He’s some big muckety-muck in the company that owned the oil rig, Lee Drilling. And that man knows I can potentially identify him.”
“Yeah?” Boudreau said. “Who is he?”
“I said potentially. I don’t know who he is. The first time I heard the captain talking about a plan to smuggle illegal weapons into the US and give them out to kids on the streets, it was a complete accident. I realized I was listening to terrorists, and that was only one side of the conversation. I put together a program to capture and save every conversation that took place on that satellite phone.”
“And that captain never said a name?”
“I don’t know. I never had a chance to listen to all the recordings. Too afraid I’d get caught. I stored them on a flash drive, hoping I could get it to Homeland Security. They can use voice recognition technology to identify the man, and that will implicate him in the smuggling operation.
“Something went wrong with my program and the captain caught me fooling with his satellite phone. He kicked me out of his office and never said anything, but I know that’s why they tried to have me killed.”
“So where’s that flash drive? You for sure didn’t have nothing on you when I fished you out of the Gulf.”
“That’s just it. I hid it in the house the last time I was home. My plan was to get it to Homeland Security on my next week off. But I never got that week off. Now I don’t know if Murray found it when he got the laptop.”
“That’s why you don’t want Sandy back here.”
Tristan nodded grimly. “I’d like to get Homeland Security to put a guard on her, but to do that, I’d have to let them know I’m alive. And as soon as they hear from me, they’ll pull me in to DC for debriefing. Oh, they’d honor my request to guard her, but I can’t be sure she’s safe if I’m not the one protecting her. I mean look at how many good soldiers who have the protection of the government have been killed. How many innocent civilians.”
“I get you wanting to protect her yourself, but, son, you ain’t capable right now.”
Tristan pinched the bridge of his nose. “So what are you saying? That my only choice is to notify Homeland Security? I’d be signing her death warrant. Somebody as high up as the captain’s boss would know as soon as I surfaced. He’d have plenty of time to kidnap her before Homeland Security could react. She might end up being tortured for information she doesn’t even have. And I wouldn’t be here to rescue her.”
* * *
SANDY FELT AS THOUGH she hadn’t slept at all and therefore the little bean had been restless, too. She hadn’t been able to shut her brain off. Every time she’d go to sleep, her dreams had been filled with images of Tristan sinking into the cold, dark water as hungry sharks circled around him. It was like a slideshow that wouldn’t stop. Click—murdered. Click—murdered. Click—murdered.
Then she would wake up with her heart racing and tears wetting her cheeks and pillow.
Finally, around seven o’clock, she got up and bathed and dressed and headed into the kitchen. For a second, she stared at the coffeepot in longing. But she’d sworn off coffee for the pregnancy, not wanting to have a baby who was hooked on caffeine.
She yawned. “You have no idea how much I would enjoy a cup of coffee this morning. And there might be some decaf in the freezer. But my tummy has let me know in no uncertain terms that it likes grape juice and only grape juice.” She patted her belly. “So grape juice it is, right?”
As she sat at the kitchen table and drank the juice, she looked at her phone, recalling Maddy’s warning from the night before. She wanted to blow off the Homeland Security agent who had become her friend, but she knew Maddy would bug her until she called the sheriff. If she refused, Maddy would call him herself.
“No choice but to do it,” she muttered as she got up and went into the nursery. It was the only place in or out of the house where she could get a reliable cell signal. She dialed the sheriff’s office.
“Baylor,” she said when Sheriff Baylor Nehigh answered. “It’s Sandy.”
“Well, hello. I didn’t know you were back in town,” he said. “How’re you doing? How’s the baby?”
“Fine. We’re fine,” she said. “The baby’s fine. Baylor—”
“Now how far along are you? I’m trying to remember.”
Sandy closed her eyes and prayed for patience. If she couldn’t get her question in, Baylor would be off on Tristan’s death and she’d have to listen to his theories for at least twenty minutes before she could get another word in edgewise.
“Five and a half months, Baylor. I think someone got into the house while I was gone. My laptop computer is gone.”
“Now, what? You say a computer is missing? Well, now, we can’t be responsible for that. You’d have to talk to the crime scene unit, although my guess is that oil rig captain took it when he broke in to kidnap Agent Tierney,” he said. “If it was him you’ll never get any money for it.”
“Baylor! That’s not why I’m calling. The laptop went missing while I was gone. I thought if you or the crime lab had it then I don’t need to worry that someone got into my house while I was away.”
“I’ll be glad to check on that for you, but do understand, my budget is too small to replace your laptop.”
“I’m not asking you to. I’ll buy a new one.” She paused. “You don’t want to take fingerprints or anything, do you?”
“I can send my deputy out there when he gets back. It’ll probably be after dark. He’s gone to Houma to deliver some paperwork. I need a courier, but like I said—my budget won’t handle it.”
“No, no,” Sandy said, feeling relieved. She didn’t want anyone coming into her house right now. She’d come back to be alone with her baby and try to come to peace with Tristan’s death. “I’m sure you’re right about how it happened.”
“Anything else I can do for you, Sandy?”
“No, Baylor. Thanks.”
Sandy hung up while he was telling her to take care of herself. She rinsed her glass, then headed out to walk to Boudreau’s cabin. She took a deep breath of cl
ean morning air and yawned again. “I’m sorry about last night, bean. I couldn’t get what Maddy said out of my head.”
She wondered if talking to her unborn baby about things that upset her was bad for him. She hoped not, because talking to Tristan’s child soothed her, and according to the latest baby books, it was good to let the baby become used to the mother’s voice.
“Did you know your daddy was an undercover agent? Wait. What am I thinking? You were there when Zach told me. Naturally I had to hear it from his oldest friend, because Tristan apparently thought I didn’t need to know that little tidbit.” She heard the bitterness in her voice. She didn’t want to sound like that when she talked about Tristan. Certainly not to her baby.
With an effort, she made her voice light and soft, the way she talked when she told him a fairy tale or quoted a poem. “He was a real-life spy, I guess. He worked for Homeland Security, catching bad guys. Until one day, one of the bad guys killed him.”
She stopped talking because she had to. She was breathing hard, mostly from trying not to cry, and she’d arrived at the dock. It was a beautiful morning. The sun glared and glistened off the water. “I should have gotten up earlier and watched the sunrise,” she said wistfully. “Although without Tristan...” Her voice trailed off and she smiled sadly at the memories of sunrises and making love and being happy.
“Okay,” she said briskly. “Let’s go. I want to talk to Boudreau.”
As she turned toward the path to Boudreau’s cabin, she noticed slide marks in the mud. Stepping closer to the wooden pier, she studied the markings. Someone had pulled a boat up there since the last rain. She shook her head. It was probably Boudreau. He used the dock all the time.
“I’ve got to be careful,” she murmured. “I’m seeing terrorists and bad guys everywhere.”
The sun was already yellow and hot when she stepped out of the tangle of vines and branches into Boudreau’s front yard. Boudreau was sitting on an old, rough-hewn bench, mending a tear in a fishing net.
“Well, now, you are moving much faster this—” he said, looking up. “What the hell you doing here?” he snapped, glaring at her.
“Boudreau, it’s Sandy. Tristan’s wife.” He’d known her for years, and the last time she’d been here was on that awful night, when she’d come to tell him Tristan was missing and feared dead. But when he talked nonsense, like just now, she wasn’t sure he remembered her.
Boudreau stood, dropping the fishing net and stalking toward her, the darning needle in one hand and his knife in the other. “I ask you a question. What you doing here? You go on now. Get out of here.” He stopped, pointing the tip of the knife back the way she’d come. “Go!”
“But I need to talk to you. I want to close the dock—”
“Get out of here, Mrs. DuChaud. Get!” Boudreau shooed her as if he were shooing a chicken, with a sweeping motion of his hands. “Get!” he yelled again.
Sandy stared at him in openmouthed disbelief. This wasn’t confusion. It was hostility. Did he think Tristan’s death was her fault?
“Boudreau, please, listen to me. This is important.”
He eyed her suspiciously. “I come down to your house one day soon. We talk then. Now you get out of here and back to your house tout de suite or I’ll sic my dog on you, I guarantee.”
She didn’t know a lot about Boudreau except what Tristan had told her and he’d never mentioned the man being violent. But he had shot that oil rig captain in cold blood, so maybe the best thing to do was to leave.
“Please, come talk to me,” she called out over her shoulder as she turned and headed back down the path she’d walked up to his shack.
“You just get gone and stay gone,” she heard him say.
By the time she got to the dock she was breathing hard again, so she stopped for a few moments. She stood on the dock and looked out over the dark, greenish-gray waters of the Gulf of Mexico. And there, diving and surfacing as the sun glared off the water with such intensity it was difficult to see anything but the splashes and waves, was the creature that she’d seen the day before yesterday, frolicking in the water. She squinted and shaded her eyes, wishing she’d brought her sunglasses with her.
Nothing helped her see any better, though. The sun was higher now and the glare was too bright. And all at once, it seemed that whatever the creature was, it had sensed that she was watching, because the splashing stopped. Sandy blinked and put both hands up to deflect the sun, but the water was glassy and smooth and the sun reflected off it like a mirror.
Whatever—or whoever—had been playing in the water just beyond the shallows was gone now.
“I’m going to have to get up early one morning, bean, and get out here so I can catch whoever or whatever that is. Maybe it’s a mermaid.” She smiled and rubbed the side of her belly. “Or a merman.”
Back at the house, she made herself some breakfast. By the time she’d finished eating, she’d convinced herself that Boudreau had shooed her away for her own protection. Maybe he knew there was a fox or a bobcat or an alligator running around that might do her harm. And he had promised to come see her. She knew from Tristan that if Boudreau said he would do something, he would.
“I guess we’ve got to wait for him, bean. He could have been nicer, though. He didn’t have to yell like that. Kind of hurt my feelings.” She drank the last of her juice and rinsed her glass and plate and set them on the drain board.
A glance at the clock told her it was just now eleven o’clock. “I still need to talk to him, though. He may have a better idea of how to keep people away from the dock,” she told the baby. “He may already be guarding it. Maybe that was him I heard last night, checking to be sure no one was using the dock.”
She yawned again. She’d been tired before she went to Boudreau’s. “We’ve got to take a nap, bean. I’m about to fall asleep standing up. Then we’ve got to drive into Houma and get some groceries and buy me a new, smaller computer. A notebook. That’ll be our big, exciting adventure for the day.” As she said the words, a faint echo of a chill ran down her spine. “I hope,” she added.
Chapter Three
It was almost dark when Sandy got back from shopping in Houma, which was twenty-five miles north of Bonne Chance, and if she’d been tired before, she was about to collapse from exhaustion now. She had stopped and bought a chocolate milk shake on the way. It was melted now, but she could put some ice in it and rejuvenate it a bit. Even melted, it sounded better than any of the food she’d bought at the grocery store. She was too tired to cook anything. Swallowing the melted shake would probably take the last of her strength.
She parked on the driveway just beyond the patio and grabbed her groceries and the new computer box in one hand and her house keys in the other. She was almost all the way across the patio to the door when she saw the footprints.
She nearly dropped the groceries. Automatically, she glanced around, but there was nothing to see. She stepped around the muddy tracks and tried the French doors. They were still locked.
She looked at the threshold, but there was no mud there. Relieved, she went inside and locked the doors behind her. Then she stood there and studied the muddy prints through the glass panes.
It was hard to tell how big or small the shoes were because the prints were smeared and the concrete was wet from an earlier rain. It looked as though they had no tread, though. So either the shoes were worn-out or they were soled in smooth leather.
Boudreau wore old, cracked leather boots. Maybe he’d walked over here while she was gone.
Of course, she thought with a sigh of relief. It was Boudreau who’d made the prints. It made her feel better that he’d come. Tristan had always told her that when he was away, Boudreau would watch over her.
She glanced at the clock on her phone. Eight o’clock. She stretched and yawned. “What do you think, bean? To
o early to go to bed?”
She walked to the alarm box and set the door and window alarms, grabbed a glass of water and her milk shake, which she’d cooled with a couple of ice cubes, then headed into the master bedroom.
She’d already climbed into bed before she realized she’d left the curtains open. She didn’t want to get up, but she certainly didn’t want to sleep with the curtains like that, not after what had happened the last time she was here, when Murray Cho’s son had spied on her.
She closed the curtains and climbed back under the covers. She picked up a book she’d begun at her mother-in-law’s house, but it didn’t take long for her to recall why she hadn’t finished it before. She tossed it onto the floor and pulled an old fashion magazine from the shelf of the nightstand. It took practically zero concentration to glance through the ads and the fashion spreads.
She was nodding off over an ad for Bulgari earrings when the bean decided he was restless. “Ow!” she said. “Wow, bean. That was a good one.”
She rubbed the place where he’d planted his tiny foot, not that it helped much. It was like scratching your thumb because your nose itched. The place that hurt was on the inside, so rubbing the outside, while it seemed like a good idea, didn’t help much.
“Settle down. You’re going to make me go to the bathroom again. Please don’t kick my bladder.” She grunted. “And there you go. That was my bladder. I’m so glad you mind well.”
She stepped into the bathroom and saw that the curtains in there were open, too. She closed them, used the bathroom, then looked at herself in the mirror as she washed her hands. Her eyes were wide and dark.
“Come on, Sandy,” she muttered. She looked like a pitiful heroine in a horror movie, although there was no reason to feel afraid in this house.
“This house is very safe,” she said to the baby. “It’s your daddy’s house. It was his daddy’s and his granddaddy’s house. He promised me he would always keep me safe here. Me and you now.” She felt tears starting up in her eyes and dashed them away angrily.
