by Jana DeLeon
As she rounded a sharp left turn, a loud ping rang out.
It took a second bullet whizzing only inches from her face before Jadyn realized someone was shooting at her.
She dropped to the bottom of the boat and pulled out her nine. Helena looked completely shocked and confused, but hesitated only a second before leaping onto the bottom of the boat beside her.
“Someone’s shooting at me,” Jadyn whispered.
Helena’s eyes widened. “Where is he?”
“That bank,” Jadyn said and pointed to the left side of the boat. Taking a deep breath, she peered over the edge of the boat, but couldn’t see any sign of movement in the dense foliage.
“I can’t die again, right?” Helena asked.
“How the heck should I know? I’m a little more worried about me dying the first time than the possibility that you can die twice.”
“Then I’ll go look,” Helena said.
“You’re going to swim to the bank?”
Helena grinned. “I can walk on water. Didn’t they tell you?”
Jadyn couldn’t even formulate a thought, much less a response before Helena popped up from the bottom of the boat. Despite her attempt to sound confident, Jadyn could tell she was nervous. She froze for several seconds, staring at the bank, as if waiting to see if the shooter would fire at her. She must have decided she was invisible because she climbed over the side of the boat and onto the bayou.
Jadyn’s jaw dropped as Helena did exactly as she’d claimed and started walking across the bayou. Unfortunately, the tide was coming in and it swept her too far upstream. She changed to a jog and worked at a diagonal until she reached the bank, then climbed up the bank and disappeared into the trees.
Every second ticked away like an eternity as Jadyn kept her gaze locked on the bank. Finally, she saw Helena emerge from the swamp and scamper back down to the bayou. When she got to the water level, she gripped a tree root with one hand and waved the other at Jadyn.
“Come pick me up!” she yelled. “I’m exhausted.”
“Is it clear?”
“I walked along the bank a good half mile each way. No one’s there.”
Jadyn inched across the boat and crouched behind the driver’s column. She started the engine and directed the boat toward the bank, trying to keep as low as possible behind the column. When she got to the bank, Helena climbed over the side and collapsed in the bottom of the boat.
“Are you all right?” Jadyn asked. This was the second time in one morning that Helena had made a mad dash, and Jadyn was starting to wonder if all that exercise couldn’t be detrimental to the ghost. It seemed a ridiculous thought, but then nothing about Helena was logical.
“I’ll be fine when I get my breath back—you know, in a year or two.” She pushed herself off the bottom of the boat and sat on the bench. “I didn’t see a sign of anyone. Maybe he left.”
Jadyn frowned. “Maybe,” she said, but it didn’t make sense. Why would he leave without finishing the job?
“Do you think it was a hunter who made a bad shot?” Helena asked. “He might not have been shooting at you.”
“Did you hear a gunshot?”
Helena scrunched her brow. “Now that you mention it…”
“Exactly. I didn’t either. Do most hunters in Mudbug use a silencer?”
“Oh, I get it. Damn.”
Exactly that. Damn.
“Let’s get out of here,” Jadyn said. She pushed the boat away from the bank and reached for the accelerator, but before her hand could grip the control, a bullet tore right through the dashboard.
Jadyn dove to the front of the boat and tucked herself in front of the driver’s column.
“Drive!” she yelled at Helena, who was staring at her as if she’d lost her mind. “He’s shooting at me. Get the hell out of here!”
Helena bolted up from the bench and ran to the driver’s seat. “How do I make it go?”
“The throttle is that lever on the right. Push it down.”
The boat leaped away from the bank and Jadyn heard Helena scream, then crash to the bottom. The ninety-degree turn was straight ahead and the boat barreled toward it, complete out of control.
“Helena, the bank!”
Jadyn’s pulse spiked so high her head ached. She braced herself against the bench in front of her and watched in horror as they flew toward the bank of cypress roots.
This is it. I’m going to die.
She clenched her eyes shut, not wanting to see the impact, but instead of the expected crash, she found herself flung across the boat as it made a hard right turn. She opened her eyes and saw Helena clutching the steering wheel with both hands, looking as panicked as Jadyn felt.
“Slow down—what the hell!”
Jadyn heard someone yell from a boat as they sped by at top speed and could only imagine what the fisherman thought. From his point of view, it looked like an empty boat was careering down the bayou.
One look at Helena’s face and Jadyn knew the ghost had completely checked out.
She checked behind them, trying to gauge the amount of distance they’d covered and was pleased with the progress. Unless the shooter could run like a cheetah, she should be in the clear. Before she could change her mind, she crawled around the driver’s column and yelled at Helena to move.
Helena remained frozen at the steering wheel, so Jadyn finally reached through her and pulled the throttle up until the boat slowed to a manageable pace. A chill ran up Jadyn’s arm and she yanked it back from the throttle, more than a little creeped out.
“Helena, move out of the way.”
The ghost didn’t even flinch.
“If we stay here, people might start shooting again.”
She released the steering wheel as if it were on fire and bolted from the driver’s seat. “I’ve never driven a boat,” she said.
“You don’t say?”
“You don’t have to be so pissy about it. I saved your butt, didn’t I?”
Because that statement was reasonably accurate, Jadyn decided to let the whole thing drop. “Fine, but you and I are going to have a boat training session at first opportunity—just in case I need you to drive again.”
Helena plopped down on the bench at the front of the boat. “Being dead is exhausting.”
“Oh yeah? Try staying alive.”
“Hmppffff.” Helena crossed her arms and stared at the bottom of the boat, apparently out of valid comments.
“Are you all right?” A man’s voice sounded behind Jadyn and she whirled around to see a boat coasting beside her.
The man in the boat was Bart, the guy who’d started the fight with Junior in the bar the night before.
“I’m fine,” Jadyn replied, forcing her voice to normal.
Bart frowned. “I saw your boat tearing down the bayou, but I didn’t see you in it. I thought it was a runaway.”
“It was,” Jadyn said, latching onto a potential explanation. “The throttle was stuck and no matter how far up I pulled it, it hung at top speed. I was crouched down trying to fix it. That’s probably why you couldn’t see me.”
Bart shook his head. “You came awful close to nailing that bank head-on. It probably would have been smarter to bail.”
“Yes, I suppose it would have been, but I thought I could fix it.”
“Did you?”
“It seems to be working fine now, but I’ll have a mechanic give it a once-over before I take it out again. Was that you who yelled when I went by?”
“No. That was Old Man Broussard. He’s a real grouch about this sort of thing. Don’t be surprised if he asks the sheriff to arrest you.” Bart grinned.
She forced a smile. “Something to look forward to. Hey, I was out this way because I got a report that someone was poaching alligators on this bayou. Did you see anything like that?”
Bart shook his head. “You’d have to be pretty stupid to poach on Johnson’s Bayou in the broad daylight. Besides Mudbug Bayou, this is the busiest c
hannel in the swamp. Maybe your call-in gave you the wrong channel.”
Jadyn nodded. “Dispatch said the reception wasn’t good. She may have misunderstood. Well, I need to get back to the office. Thanks for stopping and for the information.”
“Anytime. If you’re ever interested in finishing that beer, let me know. I’d be happy to buy you another.” He flashed a smile at her and backed his boat away.
“Looks like you’ve got a boyfriend,” Helena said.
“Not hardly. A man is the last thing I need. I’ve already got enough trouble. Speaking of which, I thought you said no one was on that bank—so who the hell was shooting at me?”
Helena shook her head. “I swear, I didn’t see anyone. I looked all up and down the bank. No one was there.”
“Clearly, you’re wrong, unless you’re not the only ghost in Mudbug and the other one carries a gun and wants to kill me.”
“I guess it’s more likely that I didn’t see him, huh?”
Jadyn sighed. This whole ghostly bodyguard thing wasn’t working out as well as Maryse and Mildred had hoped.
“I think we have a problem,” Helena said.
“You’re just now cluing in to that?”
Helena rolled her eyes. “The boat is sinking.”
Jadyn looked down and realized she was standing in two inches of water. What the hell?
“Grab a seat behind me,” Jadyn said as she reached for the throttle. “I need to get this boat on top of the water if we’re going to have any chance of making it all the way back to the dock.”
Helena plopped down on the bench across the back of the boat.
“Do you see that plug at the bottom of the bench?” Jadyn pointed. “When I take off, the water is going to come rushing back toward you. As soon as you feel the boat settle on top of the water, pull that plug so that it will drain.”
“Hey, wait a minute—what do you mean the water will come rushing back toward me?”
“Hold on tight!” Jadyn yelled, no time to humor Helena and her fifty questions.
She paused only long enough to see Helena’s eyes widen as she grabbed the edge of the bench before she shoved the throttle down, forcing the waterlogged boat to jump forward.
It lagged for a couple of seconds, then the momentum got the better of the additional weight and it popped up on top of the bayou. The water, which had increased to several inches by that time, came rushing from the front of the boat to the rear, crashing into Helena like a tidal wave. Helena responded, of course, by screaming as if someone was killing her.
“Pull the plug!” Jadyn yelled. With the speed she had to maintain to keep the boat on top of the water in the curvy bayou, she couldn’t even afford a backward glance or she may clip the bank, a stump, or even worse, a fisherman.
“It’s stuck,” Helena cried.
Jadyn felt the boat slow and checked the gauges. The additional water weight was straining the engine. “Unstick it or we’re going to sink.”
She turned onto a long straight stretch and was just about to tell Helena to take the wheel while she removed the plug when the boat’s speed increased. She glanced back to see a drenched Helena holding the plug and glaring at her.
Her tiny gray pigtails were plastered flat on her head, which oddly enough, was almost an improvement. Unfortunately, her soaked vest and skirt now clung to every bulge on her body and that was an awful lot of bulging.
Jadyn couldn’t begin to fathom the reasons the ghost would be soaked, and she didn’t even try. She’d stood in a shower for a good twenty minutes that morning and come out completely dry. The entire thing boggled the mind.
But the bottom of the boat was now empty of water, and that was all that mattered. “Put the plug back in,” she said and slowed the speed to a more manageable level while still maintaining the hydroplane.
“Pull the plug out. Put the plug in,” Helena complained. “I didn’t sign up for this kind of abuse. This outfit is ruined.”
Jadyn looked back at Helena. “I didn’t sign up for being shot at, and according to Maryse, that wouldn’t be happening if you weren’t here.”
Helena crossed her arms and stuck out her lip, like a petulant child.
Jadyn whipped around before Helena could see the smile that forced its way through. Maryse definitely had Helena’s number with that guilt thing. She just hoped it was enough to keep her in line. She really didn’t want to play the exorcism card unless things were dire.
It took about ten minutes to get back to the dock, and she made a wide swing out before directing the boat straight at the muddy bank just to the side of the concrete launch.
“Hold on,” she told Helena as she increased speed and ran the boat straight up the sloping bank.
The boat hit the bank at a good clip, and Jadyn almost lost her grip on the steering wheel. She heard Helena scream followed by a splash. The boat lurched to a halt and she looked back to see a bedraggled Helena pulling herself up from the bayou behind the boat. She glared at Jadyn, then stomped up the bank, trampling the marsh grass as she went, her shoes squeaking.
“You could have let me off at the pier,” Helena complained.
“The boat would have sunk before I could get the trailer and get it out. I need to figure out what happened.”
Helena threw her arms in the air. “Someone shot at you. How much more explanation do you need?”
“We can start with why the boat was sinking.”
“The Mudbug city councilmen are the cheapest bastards in the world. Do you know I gave this city millions’ worth of real estate and all they did was have some horrible sculptor make a statue of me that they erected in town square? To add insult to injury, the sculptor made me fat. I am not fat.”
“What does any of that have to do with the boat?” Jadyn wasn’t about to touch the issue of the statue. She’d seen the artwork, and now that she’d seen the real thing, she knew the artist had been kind with the trim work.
“I’m just saying they wouldn’t pay for the best equipment, not even for their own law enforcement, and they probably don’t contribute enough money to keep things properly maintained. The light at the end of Main Street was out for two months—two months, I tell you, before they finally got it changed, and they’re all too dim.”
“Maybe they were busy with more important things.”
“Not even. They said it cost too much to bring a truck out with an extension bucket that could reach the light. I said one of them should shimmy up the damned thing if they were that worried about money, because the rest of us were more worried about being mugged.”
Helena’s tirade only half registered with Jadyn as she scanned the bottom of the boat, trying to locate the source of the leak. It didn’t take her long to discover the hole in the bottom of the boat, but the location was a surprise. She’d suspected the bullet had traveled through the aluminum somewhere on the side, allowing the water to seep in, but the clear round hole was directly in the bottom of the boat.
“This doesn’t make sense,” she said.
“Tell me about it. I told them that if they didn’t want to pay for lightbulb changes, they should have bought shorter light poles—”
“Not that.” Jadyn waved a hand in dismissal. “The bullet hole. It’s in the bottom of the boat.”
Helena stomped over to the edge of the boat and stared down at the hole. “Makes sense to me—they shot a hole in the boat and we were sinking. Even a six-year-old could figure that one out.”
“They couldn’t shoot a hole in the center of the boat from the elevation of the bank. They weren’t high enough.” She sucked in a breath. “He was in a tree. That’s why you couldn’t see him, and why he could get a bullet down into the boat.”
Helena’s eyes widened. “Then why didn’t he pick you off when you pulled up to the bank? Wouldn’t that have been even easier?”
“He must have been farther up the bank and didn’t have a clear shot through the trees. Think about it—he didn’t fire another shot
until I pushed away from the bank.”
“Holy shit. You’re right.”
“I suspected this already, but the tree thing confirms it.” Jadyn looked at Helena. “You know what this means, right?”
Helena shook her head.
“That call to dispatch was to lure me into the bayou. Unless you think someone who wants me dead just happened to be sitting in a tree with a rifle and a silencer hoping I would pass by.”
“Who made the call?”
Jadyn glanced back at the sheriff’s department and frowned. “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”
Chapter Thirteen
Colt left the morgue and headed to the elevators. Leroy was in a room on the second floor, and Colt had just received a call from the nurse that the man was out of shock and rambling on to anyone who’d listen. Colt figured after what Leroy had seen that day, there were only a handful of people who had the stomach to hear what Leroy had to say, and he was one of them.
The coroner had still been passed out cold when Colt had returned to the cabin from the chase in the swamp. It had taken a cup of cold water dumped square in his face to jolt the man back into consciousness. He’d bolted upright, sputtering and scattering the water everywhere, then taken one look at Duke and probably would have passed out again if Colt hadn’t grabbed his shoulders and shaken him.
It wasn’t the nicest thing he could have done, but the paramedics hadn’t arrived and Colt was out of patience. They all had a job to do, and he figured if the new game warden managed to not only stomach the scene but process it from an investigative standpoint, then the least James could do was stay awake and do his job, especially as he’d already pointed out to Colt how competent he was.
He could hear Leroy ranting as soon as he stepped off the elevator. A harried nurse came from the direction of Leroy’s room and hurried over.
“Sheriff Bertrand?”
“Yes.”
“Thank God. He’s disturbing the other patients, but we can’t get him to quiet down. Dr. Henning said we couldn’t sedate him until you spoke to him, so we’ve been trying to manage, but I have to tell you, it’s not working out well.”
