by Sharon Sala
Big Boy had followed her from a distance as she drove, and was still on her tail all the way to the motel. He watched until the lights went out, thinking how easy it would be to just knock on her door, and when she opened it, put a gun to her head and pull the trigger.
End of her.
End of his worries.
Never one to waste time over-thinking, he drove home to get both his handgun and the silencer, made sure it was loaded, then drove back. He pulled up into the parking lot and was about to park and get out when he saw a shadowy figure moving between the cars in the lot, trying each one to see if any were unlocked.
"Sorry bastard," Big Boy muttered.
This was a delay he had not planned for. He was still in the midst of rethinking his options when all hell broke loose.
One second Big Boy saw the man reaching for the door of the Hummer, and then a car alarm went off in a high-pitched screech that was so startling, the sneak thief froze. Before the thief could gather his senses enough to move, Damon's sister flew out of her room with a gun.
Big Boy grunted.
He wouldn't have taken her by surprise after all, so he quietly put his car in gear and eased out the back way of the parking lot. He rethought his options as he drove home while wondering who would have gotten off the first shot, him or her?
Unaware of the danger she'd been in, Logan was focused on the thief.
"Get down! Get down or I'll drop you where you stand!" she shouted, and when the thief turned to run, she fired off a shot into the air.
He dropped belly first with his hands above his head screaming, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!"
Logan kicked the bottom of his shoe.
"Don't fucking move."
The night clerk came running out of the office and saw the woman from 4A holding a gun on some man on the ground.
"Call the police!" she shouted.
He turned and rushed back inside as people began emerging from rooms around her. Having strangers at her back made her nervous, but she was too deep into this to back out.
Now that the shock was passing, the thief's thoughts were spinning, trying to come up with an explanation for what had happened besides the fact that he'd intended to rob her.
"Look lady, I—"
"Shut up," Logan said.
The tone of her voice made his skin crawl. He went silent.
Logan kept staring at him, wondering if she knew him, but in the dark, it was hard to tell. Hearing the sound of approaching sirens was a relief, and then all of a sudden, two police cruisers were in the parking lot.
Josh Evans had been the chief of police in Bluejacket for nine years. He'd seen a lot of things during his years of service, but nothing quite as memorable as the tall, half-naked woman standing in the parking lot with a gun trained on the man at her feet.
Both Evans and his officer, Kenny McKay, came out of their cruisers armed.
"Drop your weapon!" Josh shouted.
Logan backed up and laid it on the ground, then raised her hands. The alarm in her car was still going off.
Josh picked up her weapon, then pointed to the Hummer.
"Ma'am, please silence this alarm."
"I have to get my keys," she said.
He nodded.
She went inside, and moments later, the alarm ceased. She came back out and pointed to the man still on the ground.
"The alarm went off when he tried to break into my car. He tried to run. I fired a shot in the air and he dropped."
McKay already had cuffs on the thief before he dragged him to his feet. Then the thief saw the woman's face, ducked his head and cursed.
"Ah shit...the bitch with the baseball bat. Where did you come from?"
Logan eyed him in disbelief.
"Paul Robicheau...the boy voted most likely to wind up in jail. How nice to see you living up to your fame."
Josh frowned. This woman was driving a Hummer with a Texas tag, and yet the two obviously knew each other.
"So, talk to me now, lady. What's your name, and what's going on here?"
Logan's anger was quick and hot and directed at the cop speaking to her.
"You ask me what's going on? I already told you. You should be asking your poster boy here that question. He's the one who got caught committing a crime. I'm just the one who stopped him."
"I know who she is, Chief. Her name is Logan Conway," Robicheau muttered.
"Ten years changes a lot of things," she said, and looked straight at the chief. "My name is Logan Talman. I used to live here. So, Chief... which one of us are you taking to jail?"
Josh ignored the challenge.
"Kenny, take Robicheau in and book him for attempted robbery. I'll be there shortly," he said.
"Yes, sir," Kenny said, loaded up the prisoner, and left.
Josh shifted his stance.
"Ma'am, I'm Chief Evans and I'll need to see some identification, but if you'd like to put on some more clothes, I'll be—"
"I'll get my wallet," she said, strode back into her room for her wallet and room key, and came out, this time shutting the door behind her to keep the cool air in and the bugs out.
Josh was taken aback by both her forthright manner and her lack of modesty, guessing she might have had way more to worry about in life than bare legs.
"Driver's license, contractor's license, license to carry a handgun," she said, and handed them over.
"You're a contractor? As in building houses?
"Yes," she said, and slapped at a mosquito on her leg.
He eyed her bare legs again, then laid her ID on the hood of his cruiser and used his cell phone to take pictures before handing them back.
"What are you doing here in Bluejacket?" he asked.
"Visiting friends," she said.
She was lying, but he already knew it was the only answer he was going to get.
"Plan to stay long?" he asked.
"Is there a time limit on hospitality now?"
Josh frowned.
"I don't appreciate a smart ass," he said, then watched her give him a look of such disdain it was embarrassing.
"Well, Chief, I didn't expect to be treated with suspicion after being the victim of a crime my first night here, either."
He gave her handgun back.
"Don't fire that in the city limits again."
"Then keep your blue-ribbon citizens away from me and mine," she said, reset the car alarm, and went back to her room, slamming the door behind her.
Josh frowned, then got back in his cruiser and headed to the station.
Paul Robicheau was already in a cell when he arrived. He gave him a cursory glance as he walked in through the back and then headed for his office to write up the report. Normally he would have been home in bed asleep beside his wife, Lorene, but his Deputy Chief was on his honeymoon, and two officers were out sick, which left him pulling double shifts and sleeping in his office.
He sat down at the computer and opened up a new report, then sat there thinking about Logan Talman instead. She was full of secrets, and she'd brought them to Bluejacket along with that Colt 45, which made it his business. Tomorrow he was going to run a thorough background check on her so he'd know what he was working with, but tonight was all about adding to Paul Robicheau's rap sheet.
Logan couldn't go back to sleep. Her routine was off. She missed her nightly toast with Andrew and missed that dip in the pool. Coming back to Bluejacket had also resurrected buried nightmares, and now that she was here, she was cognizant of what her presence would mean to the killer. When word got around that Damon Conway's sister was back in town, he would likely suspect she had come for him.
She opened her laptop and logged onto the Bayou Weekly website. With the list of names from Blue Sky beside her, she clicked on Archives, then began with the January 1issue of 2008 and started reading. She fell asleep around two a.m. with her finger on the mouse pad, reading about the Fourth of July shrimp boil in the Town Square, and woke up to the sound of someone slammin
g the trunk of a car outside her door. The sun was shining and her laptop had long since gone dark.
Time to put away the past for now and deal with today. She threw back the covers and headed for the shower. As always, the first thing she saw when she looked in a full-length mirror were the two tattoos above her navel.
7-29-2008
1/4 - 2 - 9
The first was the date Damon died. The second one was the directions she'd taken from his grave back to town.
A quarter mile from the grave to the blacktop—two miles of blacktop to the highway, and nine miles back into Bluejacket.
Andrew had asked her what they meant once, and when he'd seen her reaction, quickly told her it didn't matter, that it changed nothing about how much he loved her. And for that, she'd loved him even more.
She showered quickly, dressing for the heat and exploration. Until she relocated where she'd buried his body, she had nothing but her say-so that he'd been murdered. She would need that location before she could go to the law, and after the unfortunate meeting with the police chief last night, she didn't know if she could trust him.
Confident that she had a plan, she made up her own bed and left the Do Not Disturb sign on her doorknob as she went back to Barney's for breakfast.
Junie saw her come in and waved.
Logan smiled as she headed for the table she'd had last night and scored a different waitress, a woman who had lived a few houses down from where she and Damon had lived. Charlotte obviously didn't recognize Logan, because she took the time to introduce herself when she came to take her order.
"Hi, I'm Charlotte. Y'all want coffee this mornin'?"
"Is it chicory?" Logan asked.
Charlotte grinned.
"Yes, ma'am, it sure is."
"Then yes, please," Logan said, and quickly scanned the menu as Charlotte poured coffee into the cup already on the table. Logan stirred in two sugars, which made her think of Wade. He'd spoiled her by bringing her fresh coffee already sweetened to the job every morning.
She thought about calling in, then decided against it. She didn't want him to think she didn't trust him.
"Know what you want to eat?" Charlotte asked.
"Biscuits and gravy with a side of bacon."
"Comin' up," Charlotte said, and left to turn in the order.
Logan was waiting for her coffee to cool when her phone signaled a text. It was Wade. She read the text and sighed.
Are you okay? Did you reach your destination? I'm not snooping. Just need to know you're alive somewhere.
* * *
Her fingers flew as she sent one back
I'm here. I'm fine. Thank you.
And that ended their conversation.
She leaned back in the chair and looked up at the diners around her, catching some of them staring. Some faces seemed familiar, but most did not. She wondered if any of the men in Barney's were on her list, but couldn't ask without explaining why she wanted to know.
Charlotte came back with her food.
Logan settled in to eat, savoring the peppery bite in the sausage gravy and the melt-in-her mouth biscuits. The hickory-smoked bacon was just like she liked it, bordering on a crunch, but not quite there. Andrew would have loved this.
She ate until there was nothing left on her plate but gravy smears and biscuit crumbs, then washed the last bite down with the sweetened chicory coffee.
She picked up her check again, left a hefty tip for Charlotte, and paid on her way out. She drove up Main, then stopped at a gas station across the street from Friendly's Grocery to fill up before she went exploring. Just to be safe, she grabbed a couple of water bottles and a snack bar, and then drove north out of town. Once she passed the city limits sign, she began marking the mileage.
She drove for nine miles before turning west onto the blacktop to her left, marked the mileage again on the speedometer, and accelerated, but the closer she got to two miles, the more confused she became. The whole south side of the blacktop was fenced now, and the turnoffs she remembered were gone.
"What the hell?"
She kept on driving, thinking she could have made a mistake about the distance. Maybe it was more than two miles. Anything was possible. She'd been so tired and nearly blind with grief.
She drove two miles farther until she ran out of blacktop, then turned around and retraced her trip to the highway thinking to herself that maybe it wasn't nine miles - maybe it had been ten. So, she drove back to the highway and went a mile farther north before she turned west onto another blacktop road.
The first thing she noticed was no fences. Ah, this had to be it. She began marking distance to two miles, but there were no little side roads along that blacktop on which to turn. She drove a little farther, past the two-mile mark and finally found a narrow path on the south side leading into the swamp.
"This is more like it," Logan said, as she took the turnoff.
Now she was straddling swamp grass and little bushes that had grown up between the tracks as she went, attributing all of that to the ten years she'd been gone.
But when she finally reached water, the inlet was nothing like she remembered. She kept telling herself ten years was a long time for a swamp to evolve, but the old growth trees that should have been there were missing.
She grabbed her Colt and got out anyway, looking through the trees that were there, searching for that X she'd dug into a tree trunk so long ago. She was just walking through a small grove of trees when a snake dropped right in front of her from an overhead limb.
She screamed, her heart pounding, as it slithered into the underbrush.
"What the hell? What the hell? Nothing looks right," she moaned, as she began backing away.
She circled the trees from another direction, but there were no marks of any kind on these either. Disappointed, she was on her way back to the Hummer when she walked up on a six-foot gator hiding out on the swamp grass.
Her hand was on her gun as the gator opened his sizeable jaws and made a hissing noise that sent her running.
By the time she got back to the Hummer, she was sweating profusely. Locking herself in, she jacked up the air conditioner then paused to take a drink. Once she'd calmed herself down, she turned around and drove out, her heart still pounding.
She was on her way back to Bluejacket and feeling defeated. Fear was mingling with frustration as she drove up on the same blacktop at the nine-mile mark she'd taken the first time. It still felt right, even though nothing was the same.
She was scared. She must have been out of her mind after burying her brother. What if everything she'd believed for all these years was wrong?
"Oh, Damon... I don't understand. I didn't lose you. I couldn't lose you."
Making a knee-jerk decision, she made a quick turn west on the blacktop again. This time she ignored the fencing and drove straight to the two-mile mark, then stopped and got out.
"My gut says this is it. I don't know why this changed, but this is it. Now how the hell can I prove it without tearing down a fence?"
She was seriously thinking about jumping the fence and walking in when she heard a car engine. She started to drive away, and then it was too late. An old man in a run-down truck was coming toward her.
Ask him, dammit.
The voice in her head was startling, and she found herself lifting an arm to flag him down.
He slowed down as he neared her, then braked.
"Havin' car trouble, ma'am?" he asked.
She eyed the dip of Skoal bulging in his lower lip, the years weathered into his sun-burned face, and then noticed the fishing poles hanging over his tailgate.
"No sir, just revisiting the past a little. I lived in Bluejacket when I was a kid, and I'm trying to find a place where my brother used to take me fishing. I thought it was down this road, but I don't remember any fences. Is this new fencing, or am I likely on the wrong road?"
He leaned out to spit, then wiped his mouth before he spoke.
"I can't say
that you're on the right or wrong road, lady. But I can tell you this fence here hasn't been up more than seven or eight years. Before that it was all open land."
Logan breathed a sigh of relief.
"Thank you! I thought I was losing my mind."
He grinned.
"Happy to help. I'm going to do a spot of fishin' myself."
"Well, good luck to you," Logan said, and waved as he drove away.
Even though she was nervous about abandoning the Hummer here and walking a quarter of a mile back into the swamp on foot, she had no other choice. She buckled on her holster and gun and paused to look around.
The sun was a ball of fire in the sky that had already turned the air to steam. The assortment of insects, both flying and crawling, would have been an entomologist's dream, but she wanted no part of them. So she pulled out a can of bug spray from the console and sprayed herself all over, then put on a ball cap to shade her eyes and set the alarm.
Once she was over the fence, she found a clear-cut in the trees where a road had once been and started walking. She was a good hundred yards in before she found the road.
"Please God, let this be it," she said, and lengthened her stride.
She moved carefully through the overgrowth, dodging the occasional snake with an eye for gators, grateful for the high-top cowboy boots she was wearing and wishing she'd thought to wear long sleeves. She was out of sight from the road when she heard another car engine somewhere on the road she'd just left. She stopped, torn between where she was and the vehicle she'd left behind. But when the car drove past without slowing down, she relaxed. It was, however, a reminder to hustle.
She lengthened her stride and was drenched in sweat by the time she reached water. Ten years had done a number on underbrush as well as the knobby-knees of the cypress trees wading in the edges. The Spanish moss hanging from the limbs looked like old men's beards—long, gray, and untrimmed, but the place felt familiar.
Her heart was pounding so fast now that it was hard to breathe. She'd never seen it in the daylight, but the horror of what she'd witnessed still lingered. While there were breaks in the canopy letting the sunshine come through, the place where Damon had died was in shadow. Now, she just had to find where she'd buried him.
