Betrayed

by Sharon Sala

  "Okay then," Josh said. "Thank you, Johnny. Thank you very much, and I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't say anything about this just yet."

  Johnny glanced back at his house to make sure the kids were still inside.

  "Uh, Chief...if Justin didn't go with Faith, then what happened to him?"

  "How do you know Faith went anywhere?" Josh asked, and then got back in his cruiser and drove away.

  Logan rolled over onto her bad shoulder and woke up with a gasp.

  Wade was lying on top of the bedspread beside her, minus his shirt and boots, and sound asleep. She eased out of bed, careful not to wake him, and went to the bathroom, then stopped and made a face at herself. Her hair was a mess.

  She dug her hairbrush out of her toiletry bag and began trying to brush out the tangles, but doing it with one hand wasn't happening. She was muttering to herself about shaving it all off when Wade appeared in the doorway. He took the hairbrush out of her hand, closed the lid on the toilet and pointed.

  "Have a seat and turn around."

  She sat facing the wall with her back to the door, and when he made the first brush stroke through her hair, she winced.

  "There are tangles," she said.

  "Yes, baby, I see them. I am trying not to pull."

  "Okay. Sorry."

  He laid his hand on the crown of her hair. "No apology necessary. Let's talk, maybe that will take your mind off of what I'm doing."

  "Okay. About what?" she asked.

  "What are you missing most about Dallas?" he asked.

  "My pool."

  He chuckled. "Agreed."

  "What are we going to do about supper?" she asked, as he kept brushing.

  "I haven't the faintest idea what choices I have here. I came straight out of a chopper and into the hospital. I’d seen nothing but hospital food until the day Caitie brought doughnuts. Then we ate the chief's doughnuts. Is there anything else good to eat in Bluejacket besides doughnuts?"

  Logan laughed. "Barney's. Best gumbo in Louisiana. Good food all the way around. If you can make me presentable, we could go there to eat."

  "Sure, why not?" Wade said. "I think since it's now a known fact that you did not see your brother's killer, you are safe enough."

  "Good. I've eaten every meal there since I got here, except once when I got a shrimp Po-Boy at the Shrimp Shack drive-thru."

  "How's your shoulder feeling?" Wade asked.

  "It hurts. I need to take some pain pills before we leave."

  Wade laid down the brush and then ran his fingers through the long dark lengths, feeling for tangles.

  "I think you're good to go," he said.

  She got up then paused, looking at him without saying a word.

  "What?" he asked.

  Finally, she shook her head. "Nothing...just admiring the view."

  She saw his eyes flash, then his hands were on her face and his mouth was on her lips, and she was lost.

  Wade was the one who finally stopped because they'd gone as far as she could go.

  "When you're well," he promised, and rubbed his thumb across her lower lip.

  Logan shivered. A promise of things to come.

  "Pain pills," she mumbled. "And shoes. I need shoes."

  He'd never seen her quite like this. A little rattled with a well-loved look on her face. And it was only a kiss.

  Being back in the Hummer, and doing something as ordinary as going out to eat made Logan feel bare to the world, like she’d come out of hiding without any clothes. Before coming back to Bluejacket, safety had meant wearing a hard hat on the job, or wearing eye protective gear when grinding down metal. Here, it had a whole other meaning. She’d known coming back would have a measure of risk, but she’d underestimated the danger. At least she had backup now that Wade was here.

  "Are you okay?" he asked.

  "Yes. It feels good to be out of the hospital."

  "It's even better to know you're alive. The chopper flight to Bluejacket was the worst ride of my life."

  "I never thought of your side," Logan said. "I just remember waking up and hearing your voice, then seeing your face and knowing I was no longer alone."

  "You don't have to be alone, Logan...ever again. But it's your choice."

  Her heart skipped as she met his gaze. "I hear you," she said.

  He glanced at the worried look on her face and then winked, which made her smile. After that, she was fine.

  As they passed the bank, someone she didn’t know waved. She waved back, even though they couldn’t see her through the tinted glass.

  “Barney's is in the next block,” Logan said. "See that building with the yellow sign on top? It used to have the word Barney’s Café on it, but the café part weathered off years before I left.”

  “I see it,” Wade said, and turned in to the parking lot with ease.

  He got out first, then came around to help her.

  "You ready to face an audience?" he asked.

  "I've had one ever since I got here. Now at least they'll know why I came."

  They entered Barney's to the sound of laughter, dishes clinking, and someone yelling, "Hey Junie, bring me some tea."

  Wade grinned. "I like it already."

  But as they paused to look for a place to sit, the laughter faded, the room grew quiet.

  "There’s always a table in the back of the room. For some reason, no one sits there but me," she said.

  Wade put a hand in the middle of her back as they began winding their way through the diners to reach it.

  Someone touched her arm in passing.

  Then a woman whispered, "God bless you."

  Another called out, "Welcome home," which brought tears to her eyes as they kept moving.

  Someone started clapping, and then the whole room broke out in resounding applause.

  Logan turned to face them, trying desperately not to cry.

  "Thank you," she said. "This is my friend, Wade Garrett. Wade, these are my friends from home."

  He smiled and took off his hat.

  Then someone one yelled out. "Bring me their ticket. I'm buying their meal."

  It was George Wakely, the plumber Damon used to work for.

  "Thank you, Mr. Wakely, but I'll warn you ahead of time. This cowboy is hard to fill up."

  Wade grinned, as he hung his Stetson on the corner of the extra chair at their table, and helped her get seated. After that, the room returned to normal chaos, and Charlotte came with menus and two glasses of sweet tea, dripping with condensation.

  Charlotte set the glasses in the general vicinity of where Emily Post long ago decreed drinking glasses should be, and then handed each a menu.

  "We all said a bunch of prayers for you, girl. It is good to see you up and about."

  "It's good to be up and about," Logan said, and then introduced Wade. "Wade, this is Charlotte. Damon and I used to live just up the street from her and her family."

  "Nice to meet you, ma'am," Wade said. "What do you recommend?"

  Charlotte smiled. "If you're a meat eater, which I suspect you are, Barney's makes one fine chicken-fried steak. And as always, the fish on the menu is fried."

  "Got it," he said.

  "Take your time. I'll be back to get your order in a few," she said, and hurried off to deliver some orders to a nearby table.

  "This is a great place," Wade said.

  Logan looked up, trying to see it from his viewpoint, and saw ordinary people doing ordinary things. Safety. Maybe it was still here after all.

  "Yes, it is a great place, but I had to lose it to appreciate it."

  When he reached for her hand, there was no mistaking the look on his face, which ended a few dreams some of the male diners had been having.

  They ordered, and when their food came, they hungrily dug in. But there was no privacy to the meal. Someone who was leaving would stop at their table to tell Logan they were praying for her, while others just arriving quietly apologized for what had happened to her here, and all of
them left their sympathies for the loss of her brother.

  The news of Danny Bales’ murder, coupled with what had happened to her and the reason why she’d come back, had everyone jumpy. Facing the fact that there was a killer in their midst was both shocking and shameful. They'd thought themselves above big city woes, but they'd been wrong.

  Long after Logan and Wade had returned to the motel, and long after the chief had gone home to his wife, Big Boy was celebrating.

  Sugar was giving him a blow job, and in return, he was buying her a diamond ring.

  Tit for tat, and all that.

  It's how Big Boy rolled.

  But if he'd known he was already in the police chief's sights, his sleep might not have been as dreamless.

  The mood at the Bales’ house wasn't jovial.

  Stella and Connie, two women who had loved the same man, had been drawn together in a common rage. Grief had taken a back seat to the anger. Stella wanted to know who, and Connie feared she already did.

  Stella's sons were due in tomorrow from New Orleans. Danny had been a good stand-in for their absentee father, and they were grieving his loss.

  Angela was quiet and weepy. This house and the little town had been the source of much happiness on her visits back every year, and now she didn't know how to feel.

  That night after everyone had gone to sleep, she crawled in bed with her Mama. "I can't sleep," she whispered.

  Connie opened her arms. "Neither can I, baby," she said, and pulled her close.

  "What's going to happen now?" Angela asked.

  "What do you mean?" Connie said.

  "Well, I always come here for Easter and Christmas, and that won't happen again, will it?" Angela asked.

  "No, baby, it won't."

  So, Angela cried, and her Mama cried with her.

  The next morning was another day of the same thing - heat and flies, and people moving about at a slow, lazy pace — except for the chief.

  Josh left for the office right after seven a.m. and started running a search on Justin Baptiste. If he had truly run away with Faith DeChante, then there would be job history connected to their social security numbers on at least one of them, or both. While he was waiting, he left to stake out Barton DeChante's house just to see where he was going. It wasn't long before he saw DeChante come out of the house and head downtown. The chief followed from a distance, watching as he went through the ATM at the bank, then followed him straight to Barney's.

  He waited until Barton was inside, then parked, went in and placed an order to go. He chose a seat close to where Barton was sitting with friends, taking his cup of coffee with him.

  Both Roger Franklin and Tony Warren were sitting at the table with DeChante. Josh thought it somewhat ironic that he had suspected both of those men first, while Barton had never been on his radar.

  "Morning, Chief. We heard about that Bales fellow who lived on the southside. Really a bad thing. Does Sheriff Elway have any suspects?" Roger asked.

  "It was tragic for his family," Josh said. "However, that's not in my jurisdiction, so I couldn't say what's going on with that case."

  "One thing's for sure, this woman who drove in from Dallas has sure stirred up the ghosts in this town," Tony said.

  "She didn't stir up anything that wasn't already here. Besides, she's one of ours, remember? She grew up here until life threw her a big ugly curve."

  Tony cleared his throat and nodded, but it was plain to see that none of the three men at the table had the least bit of compassion for southside rabble. Josh should have been shocked, even disappointed in their rhetoric, but he'd heard it too many times before.

  "So, when is she leaving?" Barton asked.

  Josh had cast the lure by sitting down here, and now he was about to reel him in.

  "As soon as she can locate her brother's body. She said she buried him where he fell, but it was dark and she was scared. It's been ten years, and she's not a hundred percent certain where it is anymore, but we're going to try to help her find him. It's the least that we can do," he said, and watched the pupils dilate in Barton's eyes.

  Barton lowered his voice a bit.

  "This is a delicate subject, Chief, but did you explain to her how fast stuff deteriorates in this climate? Hell, we can't keep a body buried in a coffin around here, let alone a body just tossed in a hole. She has to know there might not be anything there anymore. I mean...he could have floated up, and critters would’ve dragged him off piece at a time."

  Both of the other men nodded in agreement, which prompted one man with a story to relate about a great-uncle whose coffin floated out of a mausoleum after Hurricane Katrina, and never was found.

  Josh let them talk, and then threw out his last cast.

  "I don't know exactly why she's so sure he'll still be there, but she also seems to think the killer left evidence."

  The chief watched the shock come and go on Barton's face.

  "What kind of evidence?" Roger asked.

  "She said he was shot twice, so she's hoping to find the bullets with the body or within the tarp in which she wrapped him. Lead and shell casings don't rot, you know."

  Tony frowned.

  "I don't get it. Even if you find bullets, you don't have anything to compare them to."

  "Maybe we do and maybe we don't," Josh said, and then Junie came to the table with his breakfast order. "Ah...breakfast awaits. Gotta go men. Y'all have a good day."

  "You, too, Chief. You, too," they said.

  Josh got in his car and then backed out of the parking space and drove down the block, then parked again so he could watch where Barton DeChante went next.

  Less than fifteen minutes later, DeChante came wheeling out of the parking lot and headed up the street.

  Josh sat, watching as his car kept going north, past the Bayou Motel and out of town.

  He grinned, put his car in gear, and headed back to the station.

  "Brought you some breakfast," Josh said, and dropped the sack at Arnie's desk.

  Arnie beamed.

  "Thanks, Chief! Seconds at breakfast are always welcome."

  "You’re welcome," Josh said, and went into his office.

  The report he'd run on Larry Owens to verify Peyton Adams’ whereabouts in New Orleans came back with an address and phone number, but he had a feeling he wouldn't need this anymore, so he filed it for future reference.

  Then he checked the report he got back on Justin Baptiste's work history. It was just like the one he'd gotten back on Damon Conway. It all ended in Bluejacket. A chill ran up the back of his neck as he thought about what this meant. Then a few minutes later, he got the same report back on Faith DeChante.

  "Godalmighty! Where did he bury all the bodies?"

  Barton drove like a bat out of hell, flying past houses and billboards, and weaving in and out of traffic until he came to the blacktop leading out to his land.

  He took the turn too fast and almost ran himself into the ditch, which scared him enough to slow down. But when he reached the two-mile mark and saw his fence broken and the four-wire fencing in a tangle, he jumped out on the run, cursing as he went. Then when he saw the ATV tracks in the tall grass, he got pissed all over again.

  "Damn teenagers on those ATVs. I hope whoever hit my fence broke his damn neck," he muttered, and then realized since the fence was down, he could at least drive to the water, rather than walk.

  It was a bit tricky getting a car across the ditch, but he made it, and then was so busy making sure he wasn't followed, that he never saw the ATV tracks going all the way to the inlet.

  He hadn't been back here since the night it had happened, but he had a good idea of where they'd been standing. He walked the whole area with his head down, looking for signs, but all he saw was swamp grass and deadfall.

  Convinced there was nothing here to see, he got back in his car and left, following his tracks back out, then got on the blacktop and headed home. He'd have to call someone to go out and fix that fence. If she di
d happen to make it out this way, there was no need making her search convenient.

  He drove back to Bluejacket at a more sedate speed, and then went by the house, picked up his wife, and headed for New Orleans. It was an hour plus drive, but he'd been promising her a shopping trip for weeks, and today felt like a day to celebrate.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Josh gave the Parish Sheriff a call, filling him in on what was happening with his case, and that he was almost certain the killers they were searching for were one and the same. After watching DeChante make a run north, he wanted to see what, if anything, they might have captured on camera. So, he took Kenny McKay back with him. When they got to the broken fence, he eased his car across the ditch. Then he saw car tracks going in and coming out over the tracks of the ATVs and grinned.

  But Kenny was at a momentary loss.

  "What are we looking for, Chief?"

  "Kenny, we are looking to catch ourselves a rat," Josh said, and drove all the way to the inlet and parked.

  "Follow me," he said, as he got out and headed for the first camera he'd put up. He took it down and went back to the cruiser to see what, if anything, they had caught.

  At first, it was a small assortment of animals barely visible within the grass, and then he moved past the night shots, to the latest views of the day.

  "Hey, there's a car driving up," Kenny said, pointing to the left of the small screen.

  Josh grinned. Not only did he recognize the car, but he knew the driver.

  Kenny moved closer to the screen.

  "Danged if that doesn't look like the mayor. What would he be doing all the way out here?"

  Josh said nothing as he watched the small screen, showing Barton DeChante walking in a circle right where Logan told him her brother's body had fallen.

  He stopped the camera and handed it to Kenny.

  "Put this in the back seat of the cruiser then follow me. I need to pick up the rest of the trail cameras before we leave. And mind where you're putting your feet. You're just as likely to walk up on a gator as step on a snake."