by BJ Bourg
“Wait, is that legal?”
“Absolutely. Now, spill it.”
“I guess I just don’t want to be tied down.”
Dawn’s brow furrowed. “I’m thinking it’s more than that. Come on, you took the dare.”
Sighing, I told her I didn’t want to be that close to anyone again. “If you love someone that much, it makes you weak. Folks can use them against you.” I was quiet for a moment, and then said, “Plus, it sucks when you lose them.”
“What happened to your family? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“No, it’s okay. I was competing in an amateur boxing match in Texas. I rode up with my coach and some of the other fighters. My dad was following us. My mom, sister, and brother were with him. It was late on a Friday night and we were driving through this little town west of the Louisiana-Texas line when a car ran a red light. It just missed my coach’s car, but it sideswiped them. The car was so messed up. There was blood—”
“Hey, London, how are you?”
I cringed when I heard the voice behind me. I detected a look of amusement on Dawn’s face as I turned toward Sally, who was hanging on Staff Sergeant Eric Boyd. Sally’s blouse was open wide, exposing a healthy dose of pale cleavage. Eric’s eyes were glassy and he seemed a bit tipsy as he stood there swaying and enjoying the attention he was receiving from such a beautiful woman. Sally was swaying, too, and her voice was a little slurred.
“I’m great.” I smiled up at them, relieved she had found someone else to sink her claws into. Sally was a nice woman, but she and I wanted different things from each other. She envisioned a house with a white picket fence in a crowded neighborhood and three screaming kids, while I envisioned something quite different. I wasn’t sure what I wanted in the long term, but there was nothing about her future plans that appealed to me—and she hated it when someone told her no.
“Did you know Eric here trained Dean’s son, Roger?”
“That’s what I hear.” Roger and a young girl with short black hair stood beside Eric and Sally. I introduced Dawn to Roger and then smiled at the young girl. While Dean had brought Roger around the range a few times, I’d only seen his daughter a handful of times. “Hey, you were about six inches tall the last time I saw you. What’s your name again?”
She blushed at the sudden and unexpected attention. “Um, I’m Lily.”
“That’s my favorite sister,” Roger said. “She’s a senior at South Magnolia High this year—the big girl on campus now.”
Lily smiled and her face turned even redder.
“What’re you going to do after high school?” Dawn asked. “Do you want to join the military like your brother or will you get into law enforcement like your dad?”
“Oh, God, no,” Lily said, shaking her head. “None of that stuff for me. I’m going to be a biologist and I plan to supervise the reintroduction of wolves into the Smoky Mountains. They tried it a few years ago and failed, but I’m going to succeed.”
“That’s very interesting,” Dawn said. “I like your spunk and your vision.”
Lily smiled and nodded her thanks, but Sally’s giggling caused the smile to quickly fade from her face. She turned toward her brother and mouthed the words, “Let’s get away from them.”
Roger waved her off and she crossed her arms in anger, obviously not impressed by Sally and her new fling.
Sally rubbed her hand on Eric’s chest and whispered something in his ear. It was his turn to blush and Sally smiled wickedly in my direction. Lily rolled her eyes as Eric and Sally stumbled off, both obviously drunk.
“Why are we even hanging around them, Roger?” Lily’s bottom chin was jutting out. “They’re drunk and they’re acting stupid.”
“Oh, stop, Lils,” Roger said. “He’s the whole reason I got into to military.”
“Then I hate him already,” Lily said as she and Roger walked off to catch up with Eric and Sally. “I don’t want you to leave. I’m going to miss you.”
Dawn frowned. “That’s sad.”
“What is?” I asked.
“Lily doesn’t want Roger to go away.”
I just nodded as I stared after them, thinking back to my own siblings.
After we were seated around the table again, Dawn looked over at me. “You know she was trying to make you jealous.”
“Who?” I scowled. “Sally?”
“Yep.”
“Well, it had the opposite effect. I’m relieved she moved on to someone else, but I do feel sorry for Eric.”
“Isn’t the man married?”
I nodded.
“Then I feel sorry for her.” Dawn waved her hand in the air. “Someone should send his wife a picture of Sally hanging all over him…see how long he survives in his sleep.”
I laughed and then changed the subject. We sat there talking late into the night, and the conversation never turned back to work. I couldn’t remember having that much fun in a long time. It must’ve been around midnight when I looked up and noticed we were virtually alone. What had once been a party buzzing with activity now looked like a scene right out of the Walking Dead. The only evidence there had even been a party was the empty beer cans, paper plates, and other random trash strewn about the yard.
“Where’d everybody go?” I asked. “It looks like we shut down the party.”
Dawn turned her head and gawked. “Did people seriously leave their trash scattered around the yard?”
There was movement across the way and I saw Dean trudging around with a trash bag. After helping him clean up the mess, we thanked him for inviting us and I turned to Dawn. “Ready to go?”
“Wait, have y’all seen Sergeant Boyd?” Dean asked, looking around. “Roger was looking for him earlier. He thinks he left without saying goodbye.”
Dawn raised her eyebrows and pointed to a dark corner of the property, where a white swing was hanging from a low-lying oak tree branch.
When Dean looked where she pointed and saw Eric making out with a blonde-haired woman, he gasped. “Is that Sally Piatkowski?”
I grinned and slapped Dean’s shoulder. “She’s his problem now.”
“But…he’s married!”
We left Dean standing there in shock and I walked Dawn to her car. She hit the unlock button on her keyless remote and didn’t protest when I opened the door for her. She seemed to hesitate in the doorway, inches from me, but then quickly turned away and slipped into the driver’s seat. She was sitting with one leg in the car and the other out of it, and her position caused her skirt to ride up a little on her tanned thighs and expose her well-defined leg.
“Want to meet at the substation in the morning?” she asked.
Keeping my eyes focused on her face, I nodded. “Does Norm work on Saturdays?”
“He would if I asked him to. Why? Do you want to go back out to the scene?”
“I want to visit with Mr. Simoneaux again and I want to go back to the sniper’s hide—see if we missed anything.”
“Sounds great. I’ll call Norm and set it up.”
“See you in the morning then.” Once Dawn put her leg in the car, I closed the door and watched her drive away.
“Get that shit out of your head right now, boy,” I said to myself as I began to wonder what it would be like to be with her. I walked to my truck and muttered out loud that I needed a cold shower.
CHAPTER 17
Saturday, September 1
Clayton Boudreaux stared at the girl sitting across from him in the boat. She wore tight jean shorts and a white T-shirt. Her dark hair was straight and long, just how he liked them. A surge of excitement coursing through him, he grabbed onto a nearby branch and pulled the boat deeper into the shadows of the trees that lined Bayou Magnolia. The early morning breeze rustled the leaves overhead. Clayton slowly studied his surroundings. He hadn’t seen a boat or heard a motor in about ten minutes. Plenty of time to have some fun, he thought. He turned to Joyce Cole and nodded. “All’s clear.”
With a wicked
grin, she bent over and slowly began untying her sneakers. Once the strings were loose and dangling, she pulled one shoe off and then the other, tossing them to the side. After taking a quick glance around, she smiled and pulled off her T-shirt, exposing a bright pink bikini top that popped against her bronze complexion. Her stomach was lean and her breasts stretched the fabric of the skimpy top to the point of ripping.
“Wow,” Clayton said, feeling the excitement build in the pit of his stomach. “You’re so hot.”
Although she had been painted brown by long hours in the artificial sun of one of Seasville’s few tanning salons, Clayton could see a bit of red bleeding through Joyce’s cheeks as she blushed. “Thank you,” she said, her voice a nervous whisper. “I’ve never done it in a boat before. Are you sure we’re alone out here?”
“Just us and the gators.”
Joyce kicked off her shorts next and Clayton sucked in his breath. She was wearing one of those low-riding bikini bottoms that always made him weak in the knees. He’d met Joyce at the marina restaurant where she worked and it had taken him about a month to convince her to take a boat ride with him. He’d heard from some of his buddies that she was easy, but he didn’t care. I don’t plan on marrying you, he thought. I just want to—
“I heard something!” Joyce squatted low in the boat and turned to look over her shoulder toward the opposite side of the bayou.
Clayton steadied himself by holding onto some of the surrounding branches and peered through the leaves. He saw the remnants of a ripple of water near the far bank. “It’s a redfish,” he said. “Nothing to worry about.”
Joyce sighed and stood. “Where was I?” she asked with that devilish grin, reaching behind her back to untie the bikini top.
Clayton felt like a kid at Christmas unwrapping the best present ever. He rubbed his hands together and licked his lips as Joyce pulled the string from the bikini top and allowed it to fall to the floor of the boat. She smiled as she stood there topless, her perky breasts exposed for the world to see.
Clayton’s mouth was dry and his hands shook. He could see she was excited—or cold—and he knew she could see his excitement. While he talked a good game, truth was he’d only been with one girl, and he’d had to drink a pint of vodka to work up the courage to make a move. He smiled at the thought of Lauren. She had been his first—and his last—girlfriend. They’d dated all through high school and into her first year of college before she dumped him for some soft kid from the city. He had cursed himself for wasting so many years of his youth on one girl. He should’ve been more adventurous, sowed more oats—run up a tally on the local talent. Maybe then he wouldn’t be so nervous around the opposite sex. No matter. That was then, and this is now. He’d decided to jump in with both feet and, although his buddies confirmed that Joyce was a sure thing, his newfound confidence was already paying off.
Well, maybe confidence isn’t the right word, he thought. More like desperate not to be a one-hit wonder.
Clayton wanted to say something, but was afraid his voice would shake, so he just stood there watching as Joyce pushed her bikini bottom down her slender legs and stepped out of it. As though sensing his lack of experience, she stepped forward to take charge. She reached for the bottom of his shirt and pushed it upward toward his head. Her cold fingers brushed against his stomach as she removed his shirt, and he quivered.
Once his shirt had joined her bikini at their feet, she pushed her tight breasts against his chest. He couldn’t believe how firm they felt. He placed his hands on her smooth hips and worked them around to the small of her back, and then slid them lower and lower.
Joyce pulled back a little to give herself room to work on the front of his cargo shorts. While she struggled with the button, he continued to stare down at her nudity as though he were seeing a naked girl for the first time. Well, I guess it is my first time up close and personal, he thought. After all, it had been dark when he’d slept with Lauren.
When the button was finally unfastened, Joyce tilted her head upward and wrapped one hand behind his neck, kissing him full on the mouth. Her other hand snaked down the front of his shorts and into his underwear.
He groaned as her hand crept lower and her tongue darted in and out of his mouth, circling his own tongue. She was an aggressive kisser and it intimidated him. Can she tell I’m not experienced? The thought might’ve been enough to make him lose his concentration, but she was too damned perfect and he found himself not caring what she thought anymore. All he cared about was what she was doing, and he was feeling things he’d never felt before.
Joyce was moaning as she kissed him and he could feel the vibrations against his mouth. She tasted like spearmint and smelled like—
Joyce suddenly stopped in mid-moan—her tongue going completely limp in his mouth—and she fell through his arms as though her knees just gave out.
“What the hell?” Clayton said in shock as Joyce crumbled in a heap at his feet and rolled against the side of the boat, dangling halfway over the edge. He gasped and threw himself backward when he saw the blank look on her face and the hole through and through her head. Blood drained from one of the holes and into the bayou, clouding up the green water. He’d never seen a dead body before, but there was no doubt in his mind she was gone. He stared about in confusion. What the hell’s going on?
He suddenly remembered the sniper murder. What if the bastard had struck again? What if I’m next?
Propelled by fear, Clayton threw himself toward the operator’s seat to fire up the engine. The boat wobbled roughly as he moved and Joyce slipped over the edge and disappeared into the darkness below.
“No!” He started to reach for her, but decided against it. The sniper could be aiming at him at that very moment. Thinking only of getting the hell out of there, he revved up the engine and held on while the boat lurched forward. He glanced back once to look for Joyce, but she was nowhere to be seen. When he turned to face the front of the boat he screeched as a low-lying branch caught him across the chest and knocked him backward. He flipped over the seat and landed roughly on the outboard motor. He tried to grasp onto the slick surface of the motor, but it was no use. He hit the water on his back and sank like an anvil, narrowly escaping the blades of the propeller.
CHAPTER 18
Dawn and I arrived at the Seasville Boat Launch at ten o’clock on Saturday morning. A cool breeze was blowing in from the water, but it was far from cold. It was just enough to keep the gnats at bay and that was fine with me. I was accustomed to mentally blocking out all elements to get my work done, but if I didn’t have to deal with the pesky bugs, then that was a plus.
We met Norm by the ramp at the far end of the dock. He had already launched the Boston Whaler and was driving across the lot to park his truck. I placed my drag bag and rucksack in the boat and then looked toward the northern end of the parking lot. I didn’t see any of the protestors hanging out near the pier. There was an old van parked in the northeastern corner of the lot amongst some tall grass, but I wasn’t sure if it belonged to any of the activists. Even the news reporters were gone, and I figured that could account for the disappearance of Shannon and his group. After all, most protestors thrive on exposure, and if there aren’t any cameras to record them, they don’t feel it’s worth the time. That whole “if a tree falls in the forest” thing.
“You think they all pulled up and left?” Dawn asked, pointing to where the tents had been lined up yesterday. The only signs that a mob had been there were a few black marks in the gravel where the campfires had scarred the surface.
“I didn’t peg Shannon as the type to just give up on a cause,” I said, “but you never know. He might’ve been called away to save some centipede out west or a rare butterfly up north.”
“Maybe he didn’t give up after all,” Dawn said idly, pointing toward the water.
I turned and saw a boat racing north along Bayou Magnolia…and it was approaching us at a high rate of speed. I squinted. As it drew nearer, I r
ecognized Shannon behind the steering wheel. There were at least three people in the boat with him, two of them women. “What the hell is he doing?”
Movement farther south caught my eye and I turned to see a half dozen other boats speeding after Shannon.
Dawn looked puzzled. “I think they’re chasing him.”
As the half dozen boats passed our location, one of the men waved wildly into the air and screamed at us, pointing frantically in Shannon’s direction. It sounded like he was accusing Shannon of cutting his lines. I quickly turned toward Norm. Completely unaware of what was taking place on the water, he was just getting out of his truck and had stopped to hitch up his sagging pants.
“Can you drive this boat?” I asked Dawn.
“Like a car.” Without waiting for me to say another word, Dawn jumped in the boat and fired it up. Sliding in beside her, I held on as she gunned the twin engines. The propellers churned the water angrily as the boat lurched forward. We quickly pulled away from the pier, leaving Norm to scream at us from the parking lot.
Dawn headed north and we were soon gaining on the flatboats that were chasing Shannon. The wake from the boats in front of us made the ride rough. The front of the Boston Whaler shot high into the air and crashed down hard, sending rivulets of water raining down on us. We rocked forward with each crash and it was a wonder one of us didn’t fly out of the boat.
The rough ride did nothing to slow us down. Dawn maneuvered the boat like she was born to it and we were soon overtaking the fishing vessels chasing Shannon. I checked out the console and found the switch for the siren and lights. I activated them.
The men in the last boat began cheering as we sped by them. One by one we passed up the other boats and began closing in on Shannon and his crew.
Dawn steered the boat into the waves from Shannon’s boat and we shot over the cusp line, settling roughly into the turbulent wake directly behind his vessel. The siren screamed loudly and it looked like they could feel us breathing down their necks. One of the women glanced over her shoulder and screamed at Shannon to go faster, but it was no use.
