The Grace Painter (The Grace Series Book 1)

by Mark Romang

  He took a shaky step toward the logging truck’s hood, but stopped when he felt his stomach convulse. He suddenly doubled over and wretched, purging the watery oatmeal he’d eaten before leaving prison nearly eighteen hours ago.

  As his stomach emptied, Sebastian recalled a moment when he’d heard another con at Angola talking about how he’d became ill right after murdering someone. “After the adrenaline subsides, waves of remorse and guilt make you want to puke.” But I killed Henri in self-defense. It was him or me, he told himself as he wiped his mouth clean with his hand.

  Sebastian grabbed the kudzu vines to steady himself. He took several halting steps over to his moored Wave Runner and retrieved a duffel bag. He then retraced his steps and stopped at the logging truck’s engine compartment. He reopened the hood and began filling the duffel with the cash bundles. Seeing and handling the money invigorated his weakened body. Greed ruled his life like a third-world dictator.

  Dropping the last bundle of cash into his duffel, Sebastian hurried back to the Wave Runner. He secured the duffel onto the Yamaha, and then untied the watercraft from the ash tree.

  Even as he climbed onto the Wave Runner he wrestled with the idea of going back to the shack. His brother and cousins were headaches he could do without. But he needed food and water for the trip to the rendezvous spot with Carlos Zaplata, a journey that might take him an entire day.

  As he raced away from the crime scene, six-foot waves crashed repeatedly over the Wave Runner’s handlebars, hindering his ability to control the machine.

  The weather forced his hand. He couldn’t risk going back to the shack. Time wouldn’t allow him any other recourse.

  He headed due south. He headed for the Gulf.

  Chapter 31

  You’ll have to do better than this, God. I need all my vision restored if I’m to rescue Gabby, Annie prayed.

  Her vision may have improved over the past hour, but only marginally. She could see more and more of the room’s contents now. But the blurriness in her vision made it seem like she viewed objects through a smudged window. Desperate to regain her sight, she turned to God, begging him to restore her vision completely. But despite the modest improvement she remained unconvinced that the Ancient One honored her request.

  Annie didn’t consider herself a religious person by any stretch. She rarely attended church, didn’t own a Bible, and could count on her fingers how many times she’d sat through a church service. Since her initial abduction twenty years ago, her modus operandi called for her to tackle adversity head-on and in her own strength. She despised asking for help. But now as she lay blind and bound on the damp floor, tears streaked her face. She could no longer hold back her emotions. Her pride had been torn in two from top to bottom. She knew she needed help, and needed it fast. Why, God? How could you allow this happen to me again after all these years?

  Although memories from her childhood abduction rarely surfaced anymore, her depressed mental state made her more vulnerable to flashbacks. Annie could feel them coming now, advancing with military precision to the forefront of her thoughts, and she could do nothing to stop her mind’s eye from becoming a theater screen of terrifying images.

  Almost twenty years ago to the day, she had been playing alone with her Barbies in her upstairs bedroom. Outside in the backyard, her father obsessed over his prized rose bushes, unaware anything sinister lurked about the property.

  Likewise, absorbed in dressing up her dolls, Annie didn’t notice the two intruders enter her room and grab her from behind. She tried to scream, but before she could make a sound the intruders shoved rags into her mouth, and then wrapped duct tape across her lips.

  They placed a dark hood over her face and smuggled her out the house to a waiting getaway vehicle. The two kidnappers deposited her into a rusty Dodge pickup truck and took off.

  She rode in back under a camper shell, her hands fettered to a five gallon bucket of joint compound. Unable to see and barely able to breathe, she sobbed continually for her parents the entire trip, especially for her mother who’d died the previous year from an illness her father called ALS.

  Two hours into the traumatizing trip, the pickup truck jerked to a stop at the edge of a swamp in the Atchafalaya Basin. They then transferred her to an airboat and whisked her away to this very shack, this very room and, eventually, the same tiny closet holding Gabby.

  Twenty-three days crept by as Claude Boudreaux haggled stubbornly with FBI negotiators over his list of demands, centered around a three-million-dollar ransom--her father’s entire liquid assets. The feds eventually delivered the cash. But Claude never lived up to his end of the bargain and refused to release her. Further negotiations ground to a standstill. And early in the morning of her twenty-fourth day of captivity, the feds launched a rescue mission. Amidst the breaking glass and exploding gunfire, a sober-faced HRT member unlocked the closet and gently pulled her out of her dark hell.

  Food-deprived, and given just enough water to stay alive, Annie weighed only thirty-nine-pounds when rescued. Incoherent, with matted hair and skin mottled with open sores from laying in her own excrement, her father barely recognized her.

  Incredibly, she spent only ten days recuperating in a hospital, astounding her team of all-star doctors with a rapid physical recovery. Unfortunately, from a mental standpoint, she still hadn’t recovered. Her psychological scars ran as deep as the marrow in her bones. Her gashed soul bled freely now, and there didn’t seem to be anything she could do to staunch the flow. The demons from her past had been yearning for this moment for a long time and couldn’t be denied.

  I give in, God. Please pull me out of this pit. Up until now she’d convinced herself that she didn’t need God to be successful and happy. But now she felt so downcast, so broken and helpless. She’d hit rock-bottom, and it became obvious that she couldn’t save herself.

  I can’t do it alone.

  Annie became so absorbed in her eleventh hour pleading that she didn’t hear the bedroom door open. Only after a shadow crept across her prone form did she realize she wasn’t alone. She looked up and saw a man walking toward the closet, but couldn’t identify him. Her tear-filled eyes still wouldn’t focus properly. Please, Jesus, don’t let it be Jean-Paul!

  “Don’t hurt the girl!” Annie sobbed. “Whatever you feel like you have to do, do it to me instead.” Annie’s heart pulsed in her chest as she waited for a response.

  “Don’t worry, Annie. I won’t hurt her,” The man said, his voice contrite sounding.

  Annie quickly deduced the man wasn’t Sebastian or Jean-Paul. And he definitely wasn’t Henri. He sounded too young. That left Blaine, Henri’s stepson.

  Annie watched Blaine open the closet door, stoop down, and gather Gabby into his arms. The little girl didn’t even stir. The kidnapper then did something totally unexpected. He carried Gabby over and set her gently down by Annie. “My name is Blaine,” he said, as he untied the rope binding Annie’s feet and hands.

  “Why are you helping us?” she asked, unsure her fortune could change so quickly, and equally skeptical that God would use a Boudreaux as his instrument of compassion.

  Blaine tugged at the tightly knotted rope. “I guess I’m trying to appease my guilt. I killed your partner. And it was me who shot Rafter. I was aiming for his shoulder, but I think I missed and hit him in the chest.”

  “You realize you just confessed a murder to an FBI agent?”

  Blaine shrugged his shoulders. “It doesn’t matter, Annie. The eye of the hurricane is coming right through the Basin. We’re all going to die. This old shack is going to wash away at any moment.”

  Annie listened to the shack creak and groan under the wind and rain bombardment. She knew Blaine was right. The structure was not a place of refuge. It was a deathtrap to all inside. “Then you have to let us go.”

  “Sorry, I can’t do that. And if I were you, I wouldn’t try to come through that door. Henri left explicit orders to shoot to kill anyone trying to escape.” Bla
ine Boudreaux finished untying her and tossed the ropes onto the bed. He started to leave, but then stopped. “Keep the kid quiet, ok. You don’t want to arouse suspicions.”

  Annie watched his murky form disappear behind the closing door. She caressed Gabby’s hair, so relieved the child was no longer in the closet. The little girl began to stir at Annie’s caresses. “Mommy?” she gasped, her voice hoarse from crying.

  “No, Gabby, I’m not your mother. But I’m here to help. My name is Annie.”

  “When can I go home?” the girl asked, wrapping her arms tightly around Annie’s neck.

  “Very soon, Gabby. I just need to find a way out of this room.” She looked around the room, scanning the walls and ceiling for potential exit points. But there were no windows that could afford them a way out, and only the one door. They were essentially trapped until the hurricane ripped apart the walls, which would undoubtedly be very soon.

  “I know how we can get out,” Gabby said, her croupy voice barely above a whisper. “It’s easy.”

  “You do? Let’s hear it,” Annie said, enjoying the little girl’s company. What did it hurt to play along?

  “Under the bed is a door.”

  “Really? How do you know that?”

  “The nice man in the closet told me.”

  “He did? What’s his name?”

  “Jesus. He’s very nice. He held my hand when I was scared.”

  “Jesus told you there was a door under the bed?”

  “Yep. Let me show you,” Gabby said, and crawled under the bed.

  Annie shook her head and chuckled. She lifted a comforter flap to see what the little girl was doing. Even with her vision at less than full strength, she did indeed see what looked like a trap door. Perhaps her desperate pleas had been heard. As quietly as she could, she pushed the small bed to the side.

  “See, I told you. Jesus always tells the truth,” Gabby said triumphantly. “My mommy says Jesus can’t lie because he is God.”

  “Your mommy sounds like a very smart lady,” Annie replied as she grabbed the trap door’s handle. She pulled up on the door, expecting it to lift easily. But it didn’t budge. Her heart shuddered as she tried the door again and again.

  Nothing.

  Chapter 32

  The telltale signs were all there: slumped shoulders, short-tempers and plenty of grumbling. Despite Captain Stovall’s best attempts at encouragement, his platoon’s morale had diminished noticeably. He couldn’t really blame them for their sour attitude. They fought against an unconventional foe impervious to modern day weaponry and battlefield stratagems. This one-sided battle pitted man against nature, and heavy caliber ordnance bore no relevance to the outcome.

  For the past five minutes Stovall wrestled with himself over a decision that needed to be made forthwith. How much longer should they continue sandbagging before moving on? The weather conditions deteriorated a little more with each passing second. They were minutes away from annihilation, yet Stovall couldn’t make himself order a withdrawal. Quitting didn’t exist in his vocabulary. At the same time, he owed it to his men to keep them alive long enough to fight another day. He started this mission with three platoons, and wanted to end it with the same amount. Achieving the mission objectives had to come a close second in the pecking order.

  Stovall hoisted another sandbag into position as he contemplated his dilemma. The situation bordered on the ridiculous. He and his men attempted to fend off the biggest hurricane in years with nothing more than forty-pound sandbags. They lost ground faster than they could reclaim it. Worse, they were almost out of sandbags.

  Stovall paused from his labor long enough to look back along the assembly line and toward where the big, ten-ton trucks were parked. There couldn’t be more than a two-dozen sandbags combined on the trucks’ trailers. Hey, that might be just enough to finish the job, Stovall thought. There was a hole about the size of a football player left to be filled along the top of the sandbag wall. Maybe I won’t have to order a retreat after all.

  But then he saw it. Stovall took a fast double take. He rubbed his eyes. It looked like a wall of water? The storm surge! A mammoth wave tracked right at them. The killer wave looked grossly out of place, like it belonged out on a tempest-tossed sea and not in a freshwater swamp.

  Stovall bolted from his position and hurried up to Second Lieutenant Cole. He grabbed Cole’s arm. “Lieutenant, get your men onto the trucks, pronto!” Stovall gestured at the wall of approaching death. “We have only a few seconds!”

  Yes, sir,” Lincoln Cole replied, and immediately went to work, pointing out the approaching freshwater tidal wave to the unsuspecting Guardsmen working nearby.

  Captain Stovall looked around for Staff Sergeant Blanchard. It was difficult to tell who was who. All the Guardsmen wore the same camouflage BDUs--Battle Dress Uniforms--and rain coats. Stovall finally spotted Blanchard halfway down the assembly line. Stovall slogged up the muddy service road and confronted Blanchard. He told Blanchard the same thing he told Second Lieutenant Cole. “Get them loaded up, Sergeant! And they need to wear their life jackets!” Stovall shouted.

  The extraction process went quickly. One glance at the storm surge was all the motivation his men needed to double-time it. Stovall clambered aboard the second LVS ten-ton truck just behind the last soldier. As the 445hp diesel engines of the ten-ton trucks rumbled to life, he afforded himself another look back at the onrushing wave. He gasped, not at the jaw-dropping wave, but at the bizarre sight of a lone soldier lowering himself into the cavity they were unable to sandbag. Stovall swore it looked like Lincoln Cole.

  What’s he doing? Has he flipped out? Stovall hollered for the driver of the truck to hold up. He then jumped off the trailer and sprinted as fast as he could run up to the crazed man. “Lieutenant, have you gone mad?”

  “I’m buying the guys some time, Captain.”

  Stovall shook his head adamantly. “This is suicide, Lieutenant. Now get up! That’s an order!”

  “Sir, I’m not married. I don’t have kids like the rest of the guys. I want to do this, Captain. Now get going before we all die,” Cole shouted.

  Insubordination or not, Stovall could tell he couldn’t dissuade Cole. And Lieutenant Cole was much too big and athletic for him to overpower. Captain Stovall turned and sprinted back to his truck. What got into Cole? He wondered as he jumped safely aboard the back of the truck.

  What Lincoln Cole was attempting to do was either the most courageous act Stovall had ever witnessed, or the most stupid. He couldn’t decide which.

  ****

  As he lay on the sandbags, a gamut of emotions ran through Lincoln Cole’s mind. Everyone fears death to some degree. He was no different. But lately he’d been thinking about dying quite a bit. Actually, it had dominated his thoughts the last four days. Two weeks ago his civilian doctor informed him he had pancreatic cancer, and that he had at best, three months to live.

  The prognosis shook him to his core. Cole had been feeling a little weak and nauseous, but nothing more than that. The body scans, however, revealed the massive inoperable tumor on his pancreas.

  He still hadn’t come to complete grips with his death sentence. He was just about past the denial stage, but still hadn’t informed his civilian employer or the Army about his illness. Only his mother and siblings knew his days were rapidly diminishing. I guess I won’t have to tell anyone else now, Cole thought.

  He knew some people would label him a coward for not fighting the cancer until the bitter end. But he didn’t see the point in wasting away in a bed, wracked by indescribable pain when he could do something that might help others.

  The lieutenant turned his head to the left to gauge the proximity of the wave. The crushing wave heaved and pitched no more than fifty feet away, and tacked toward at him at a rapid clip.

  Cole dug his fingers and toes deeper into the crevices of the sandbags, readying himself for the onslaught. He guessed the wave to be a three stories high and nearly two-hundred yards
wide. Despite the storm surge’s mammoth dimensions, Cole felt unusually calm. He drew comfort from the fact he’d grown up the son of a Baptist minister and had long ago entrusted his soul to the Lord’s keeping.

  The lieutenant prepared himself for the showdown by flexing his arms and legs, heavy with muscle from years of playing football and lifting weights. He filled his lungs with as much oxygen as his lungs could hold, and then said a silent prayer. Dear Lord, I humbly ask for the strength you once gave Samson. Please reinforce this levee and make it hold. Use my broken body to bring you glory. Please grant safety to Captain Stovall and the guys.

  Even as the killer wave pounded the levee with lethal force, Second Lieutenant Lincoln Cole faithfully recited scripture from the fortieth chapter of Isaiah. “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak,” Cole chanted over and over with monkish fervor as the storm surge encapsulated him completely.

  Chapter 33

  Not far away Jon Rafter clung tenuously to the fishing shack’s deck railing. Winds surpassing one-hundred-miles-per-hour drenched him with blowing rain.

  Despite the miserable conditions, he never felt so alive. Adrenaline coursed through his wounded body like electricity through a substation, providing him raw, unfiltered energy. Success at beating impossible odds infused him with bulldog tenacity. And at least for the moment his resolve couldn’t be swayed.

  In a strange way he felt as though everything in his life up to this point had prepared him for this night. All the heartbreak and adversity, all the police training and hostage negotiating skills, had melded together as a proving ground for this one defining moment. Sure, he was still a fugitive, still a coward who failed to save Samantha Delani from her murderous father. But at least he could even the score if he could only rescue Gabby.

  He figured he had less than a minute to snatch Gabby Witherspoon from the shack before the storm surge flattened the structure and carried its splintered pieces to faraway places. There was inherent risk in what he was about to attempt: loss of life for both hostage and himself. But he had no choice. There simply wasn’t enough time to fall back on his past expertise and communicate with the kidnappers inside. Hurricane Vera dictated he initiate a rescue attempt immediately.