by Linda Ladd
Beside her, Jack was sorting hastily through the photographs, and when he made a strangled sound, she took the picture out of his hands. It showed a beautiful little blond-haired girl, wearing the Rudolph gown, her face waxen and white in death. Another was of her twin, also dead, so little and pale and still. Claire glanced through the rest of them, and then sat down hard on the floor when she found the one she was looking for. She stared down at sweet little Sophie’s face, unconscious, long hair hanging down around her face, eyes shut, her arms outstretched and secured to a chair, the monster’s trademark snakes and stars tattoo inked on her wrist.
“Oh, God, this makes me sick.”
Black took the pictures and studied them, and Zee tossed the jewelry he held back into the locker. “We’ve got to get forensics back here. This stuff is god-awful.”
“It looks like it was Navarro, all right,” Black said.
Claire took a deep breath and pulled out her phone. “I’m putting out a BOLO on Navarro and his truck. You sure it’s a ninety-five?”
While Claire talked to Russ, Zee picked up a boxed battery-operated tattoo gun. “We got him. We got the bastard. Let’s call Rene, too, and have him put NOPD on alert for that truck.”
Claire dialed up Rene’s cell, got his voice mail right off the bat. He was on another call. “Call me, Rene. We got him. It’s Navarro. We’ve got everybody down here looking for him. We need you to do the same in your jurisdiction. Call me back ASAP.”
Then she called the Louisiana State Police and requested an alert and then turned to her silent companions.
Jack shook his head. “This guy lived here with me. We treated him like family, paid him a good salary, for God’s sake. And all along, he was the one who killed everybody in my family.”
Claire thought about Old Nat, how creepy he had been stepping out in the dark with his shotgun that night at Rose Arbor. He had known all along that she was looking for him. Now she wanted him. She wanted to question him, force him to tell her everything. She had a feeling that there was a lot more to these crimes than the evidence in the trunk indicated, a lot more victims, God only knew how many, and she wanted to know all of it.
Her phone rang. “Rene? You get my message?”
“Yeah, but Nat? That old guy? You sure it’s him? I’ve known him forever. I can’t believe he’s some kind of serial killer.”
“We found evidence in his house that incriminates him.”
“What evidence?”
“Pictures of dead children, pictures of Jack’s little sisters. There’s one of Gabe. And Sophie, too.”
“Oh, my God. Don’t let Gabe see them. It’ll kill him.”
“I’m not going to, not yet.”
“Anything else?”
“We found his tattoo gun, and there was a blood trail inside the house, which might mean another victim.”
“Shit. No body, though?”
“Not yet. We haven’t searched the grounds, but we’re going to.”
“Do you know where he might be headed?”
“I’d guess the airport or the Mexican border. How quick can you get your people searching for him? Chances are he’s still in the area.”
“I’ll put out our BOLO right now. I’ll get back to you in a minute. I’d like to see that evidence once you get it catalogued. I can’t believe that old man is capable of this kinda sicko stuff.”
They hung up, and she put all those children’s treasures back into the trunk and tried not to think of the helpless little kids who had last worn them. Souvenirs of murder, items that he’d probably gotten out often to handle as he relived his grotesque crimes with perverted pleasure. He was a monster, all right.
Chapter Twenty-nine
By that evening, the recovery of the skeletal remains was nearing completion. Despite the fact that all Louisiana law enforcement agencies were out looking for Nat Navarro, there had been no sign of him or his truck. And although they attempted at some length to dissuade Jack Holliday from staying the night at Rose Arbor, he refused to leave. So Black decided to spend the night there with him, unwilling to leave Jack alone in the house where his sisters had probably been tortured and murdered. Claire drove Gabe home to the French Quarter and stayed in town with him, as completely exhausted mentally and physically from the day’s events as everybody else. Neither Jack nor Gabe was handling the dark awful truth all that well. Black ordered them both sedatives to help them sleep. Gabe took the pills; Jack would not. Gabe had done way too much, and he was paying for it with headaches and dizziness and renewed pain in his arm and shoulder.
Jack Holliday was simply devastated, emotionally, psychologically, every way. He had suffered enough for one day. Even worse, he still wore that deadly look in his eyes, as if he was looking for any reason to beat somebody senseless. He was going through now what Gabe had had years to come to terms with. It was going to take him a long time to learn to live with what had been done to his sisters. Hopefully, those lethal feelings would eventually fade. Seeing his little sisters lying there in front of him in skeletal form must have been the worst thing possible for a protective big brother to bear, especially since he blamed himself for their abduction. Claire had suffered many heartbreaking things throughout her life, but even she could not imagine watching the remains of a beloved family member being dug out of the dirt. It was a living nightmare, and understandably, Jack was not handling it well. All he wanted was revenge, and that was all he would want for a very long time.
Once back home on Governor Nicholls Street, Claire left a heavily sedated Gabe in Julie’s capable hands and retired to her own bedroom. She was just so weary that she could barely function herself, but she gave Black a call just to make sure everything was still all right at Rose Arbor. The way things were going, it wouldn’t take long for something else horrible to happen. He sounded beat, having been up all night, too, but he told her Jack was sleeping, and that he wished she were there because his bed was big and empty. They hung up, and she showered and put on one of Black’s black-and-gold New Orleans Saints Tshirts and climbed into bed with Jules Verne. She didn’t last long after that, and her last thought before falling asleep was of the sight of that ragged Rudolph nightgown and the tiny little bones nestled inside it.
Much later, she roused blearily to somebody insistently ringing the doorbell and banging on the front door. She raised herself on her elbows, realized that it was still dark outside, and turned to see what time it was, still groggy as all get out. Then she remembered everything that had happened out at Rose Arbor and jumped up in alarm. Dressing quickly in soft black sweats and Nikes, she armed herself, certain something else bad had gone down, just as she had feared it would. Outside in the wide white marble hallway, she looked toward the guest room where Gabe was sleeping. Julie peeked out the door of another room, but Claire didn’t waste time talking to her. She ran to the grand spiral staircase that wound down to the entry hall, hoping they had captured Nat Navarro before he had fled the country.
Juan Christo was already at the front door, barefoot and wearing jeans and a white T-shirt that showed a lot of serious muscles. With a loaded shotgun in his hand, he was gardener no more, security guard mode on and alerted to protect the house and the people inside it. It occurred to her then that maybe Juan was in Black’s little covert club, too. She flung open the French door and then the outside louvered street door and found Zee standing there, looking extremely anxious.
“Did we get him?”
“No, but Rene thinks he knows where he’s holed up. C’mon, no time, we gotta go, right now. I’ve been tryin’ to call. Why didn’t you pick up?”
“I guess I was asleep. I didn’t hear my phone ring. Where’s Rene think he is?”
“Some kind of fishing camp out in the swamp somewhere.”
“I better call Black and tell him where I’m going. Russ, too.”
“No time. Rene says Navarro’s not gonna stay there long so he’s already down at the Bayou Blue readying his boat. He says we c
an get there a lot quicker by water. I already talked to the sheriff. He’s okay with us goin’ out there.”
“Is something wrong?” That was Julie’s voice, upstairs. She was leaning over the polished mahogany balustrade and looking down at them.
“No, we’ve got a lead on the killer and we’re going after him. Don’t tell Gabe, okay? It’ll just upset him. I don’t know when we’ll be back.”
Juan was frowning. “I think Nick’s gonna wanna know you’re headed out there.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ll call him on the way to the boat.”
She headed out the door and got into Zee’s car, where he’d double-parked it out on the street. “Friedewald’s okay with this? You sure?”
“Yeah, I talked to him a minute ago. He said to find you and go out there with Rene. Russ’s goin’ in with Saucier and some guys down in Lafourche from the police-boat dock. Rene told them where to meet up and coordinate before we approach the place. They’re bringin’ us Kevlar vests for the takedown.”
“Sounds like a plan. Let me get my rifle out of the car.”
“Well, hurry it up. Rene said he’s not gonna wait long for us to show up.”
When she got back, rifle in tow, he was already sitting in the Jeep with the motor running. It took two minutes flat to get to the boat with no traffic to fight, and the Bayou Blue stood dark and silent in the night. Rene was waiting for them out front, and they parked and ran after him to where his boat was tied up at the Bayou Blue’s stern. Rene’s boat turned out to be one of those long, sleek racing boats that she’d heard he used in speed competitions out on Lake Pontchartrain, but it looked like it had a shallow enough hull to negotiate the bayous. Clyde had mentioned that he and Rene sometimes took it downriver to the Gulf to fish offshore. It was sleek and fast and powerful and fairly new. It should get them downriver in a big hurry.
Rene stopped under one of the dock’s dusk-to-dawn lampposts. He looked excited but pretty nervous, too. “C’mon, hurry it up and get in and put on your life preservers. If he’s where I think he is, he ain’t gonna stay there long. I just hope to hell I’m right. Friedewald and Saucier and the other guys are comin’ in from the other side. Saucier’s from down there and he knows where to meet us. If Nat sees us comin’, they’re gonna intercept him if he tries to run.”
Rene had already untied the moorings, and he jumped down inside the boat, moving with swift and controlled energy, aware they were very close to capturing a notorious serial killer. Apparently, he liked to catch the bad guys as much as Claire did. And this was the perpetrator who had killed Bobby and Kristen. Rene had a dog in this fight, too, just like the rest of them. She and Zee quickly climbed down and found seats in the stern while he took the controls and expertly maneuvered them away from the dock and out into the dark swirling river. Then he opened it up and they flew downriver toward the bayous at breathtaking speed.
The boat skimmed and bounced over the waves, almost too fast for Claire’s comfort. She held on to a handle mounted on the starboard side. Zee was doing the same thing on the port side, but they were making good time, to be sure. She admired the craft because everything about it was state of the art. If she remembered correctly, Rene had always loved boating and being out on the water. The boat was a beauty, all right, and Black would probably have to buy one for himself, the minute he saw it. She needed to call him, but it was too loud with the roar of such a powerful motor. Rene handled the controls with ease, and he had very sophisticated navigational equipment. There was a GPS system like Black had in his boats at the lake, and there was a satellite phone for when he was out on the ocean. She could see Rene, standing under the canopy, his eyes intent on the river ahead. She hoped he knew the snags and shallows well enough to go that fast. The Mississippi River was a swift and treacherous waterway, even for those trained to navigate with maps and experienced knowledge of the twists and turns and shifting currents. If they hit a sandbar at such high speed, they were all goners.
Claire knew that they would pass Rose Arbor somewhere along the way. She hadn’t seen it yet, but it was very dark. At one point, she pulled her way up to Rene and yelled into his ear. “Where exactly is this place, Rene? You sure you can find it at night?” Her words went whirling off behind them in the wind.
Rene nodded and yelled back, but he kept his eyes on where the boat’s headlights illuminated the water in front of him. “You know how well I know the bayous, cher. I’ve been thinkin’ about where he might go and then I remembered that he took Clyde and me out to this fish camp once. And guess who went with us? Guy by the name of Al Christien. Madonna’s and Rafe’s daddy. Turned out he was a junkie, just like his kids.”
Claire said, “Okay, just so you know how to get us there.”
Rene nodded again, and Claire made her way back to her seat in the stern.
Not long after that, Rene cut the speed and eased the sleek craft off the river and into a narrow bayou, where live oaks dripped with the ever-present spooky gray strands of Spanish moss.
Now that the noise level was down, Zee said, “How far now, Rene?”
“Out pretty deep, but it shouldn’t take us long. He’s out there. I feel it in my gut.”
Zee’s nerves were on edge, too. He kept taking out his gun and checking it over. The two men were beginning to make Claire nervous. “Okay, so where’re we supposed to meet up with Friedewald? A lot of things can go wrong out here in the dark. We’re headed out in the middle of nowhere. I don’t wanna lose this guy again. This could be our only chance to take him alive.”
“If he’s there, we’ll get him,” Rene said, fierce with determination.
He was a lot more certain than Claire was. She propped the rifle across her knees, as they slowly motored out through pitch darkness, the still night pressing down on them like a physical cloud of black. It felt primordial, as if they were the only ones left on earth. Claire moved up to the cockpit and asked Rene if she could use his sat phone. He nodded, and she punched in Black’s number and told him what was going down. He didn’t like it, of course, not one bit, and wanted to know exactly where she was and asked her about a zillion other questions, but she didn’t give him time to start a harangue and told him not to worry, that they had plenty of backup, and that she’d call him as soon as they got Navarro into custody. Then she hung up, but truth be told, she did wish he were there, he and the rest of his cloak-and-dagger little A-Team.
After that, she just sat silently and worried about Rene’s plan. After all, Navarro was a practiced killer and obviously very good at what he did. He would be watching all approaches to the island where he had his camp. The sound of their motor alone would echo a long way over the sluggish water. They should’ve waited till daybreak. It would have been safer, and they could have seen their target better. She was surprised Russ Friedewald hadn’t insisted on that.
The moon suddenly came out of the clouds, dappling dim light through the limbs overhead. This helped Claire get her bearings a bit, but it wouldn’t provide much light once they proceeded deeper into the bayous. There would be cypress trees overhead, obscuring the sky. They were already entering the narrow bayous, where the gray moss draped down almost to the surface, and Rene had to take the boat between trees and stands of willows. But she knew for a fact that Rene had fished these back bayous practically all his life. She’d just have to trust him to get them there and back safely. Black was pissed off, big time, she had no doubt of that, but he couldn’t expect to babysit her night and day. And he couldn’t tag along every time she went out on police business. He’d just have to live with it. Hell, maybe he should join the force. He had the skills.
In the dim yellow lamp up front, she could see the boat’s prow cutting through the thick green algae smothering the surface. It looked like smooth olive-colored icing. Gnats and mosquitos buzzed and darted around the light like square dancers. She watched an alligator slide off a half-submerged log and sink underneath the water, probably to follow their boat in hopes of a midnigh
t snack. She liked the bayous that had running currents, like the one where the houseboat had been moored, but she did not like these deep, stagnant swamps with their deadly inhabitants. It was a scary place at night. It was a scary place in the daytime.
But Rene was handling the boat with skill, very slowly negotiating their course between cypress knots and mossy logs and scummy water, and the clinging coarse fingers of the moss. Both Rene and Zee appeared completely comfortable now, both of them having been born and bred in the bayous. She hadn’t been, and she did not like the way the gators underneath logs and root wads watched them with slitted yellow eyes that reflected and glowed in the boat’s light. She just wished they’d get there, already. She wished again that Black had come along. Then she caught herself and shook her head. Was she growing dependent on the guy, or what? She wasn’t so sure that was a good thing. Besides, all three of them were armed to the absolute hilt. So was their backup team. Navarro’s only chance was to run so they had to be careful not to alert him before they went in.
As they slid through the murky water, she thought of Navarro’s little victims. Had they been taken through this same dark water, on their way to hell on earth and a shallow grave? Had they passed some of these tin-roofed shacks built on stilts that Rene took them alongside now and then? Black had a friend who lived out this way, an old man by the name of Aldus. She’d met him once, several years ago, when she hadn’t trusted Black as far as she could throw him. She had pretended she didn’t know much about the bayous or the swamp at that time to throw him off, just in case he was planning to take her out into the deep bayous and slit her throat or shoot her down. She smiled, thinking how strange all that seemed now, the way they’d met and everything that had happened since they’d been together.
Most of the people who lived this far from the beaten track followed old traditions and spoke with the thick Cajun French patois. Good people for the most part, at least the ones she’d met through Clyde and Rene and Zee and Black—men and women who minded their own business and raised their families, without interference from the crowded outside world. Tonight, so late, nobody was stirring. Not that there were many human beings around. Every shack they passed was dark and silent, as if hiding and waiting for something awful to happen. A sense of foreboding washed over Claire. She took a deep breath and tried to shake it off. She was spooked, all right, and she’d better get over it fast. The fish camp couldn’t be too much farther.
