The Vanishing

by Jana DeLeon

  He parked in front of the gas station and Colette climbed out of the Jeep. She’d taken only one step toward the gas station when bony fingers grabbed her shoulder. She spun around to find an old Creole woman looking at her.

  The woman’s hair was silver with only a few streaks of black remaining. It fell to her waist, like a wiry shawl. Her skin showed the years spent on the bayou with no protection from the sun. Black eyes stared at Colette as if they could see inside of her.

  “Don’t go into the swamp,” the woman said, her voice low and raspy. “Only death awaits you.”

  A wave of panic spiked through Colette’s body. Her chest tightened and her pulse leaped. Before she could formulate a response, Tom rushed out of the café and placed his arm around the old woman, pulling her away from Colette.

  “Now, Marie,” he said, “you shouldn’t try to scare people with your nonsense.”

  The woman pushed his arm off her shoulder and pointed one bony finger at Colette. Her dead eyes stared. “Mark my words, if you enter the swamp, you’ll kill us all. The curse will descend on this swamp and all its inhabitants.”

  She began to back away as if she were afraid to turn her back to them. “He’s one of them. He knows,” she said and cast her gaze at Tom.

  Then with more speed than Colette would have imagined she was capable of, the old woman hurried down the embankment and into the line of cypress trees that marked the edge of the swamp.

  Max stepped beside her as Tom gave her an apologetic look.

  “I’m sorry about Marie,” Tom said. “She’s not all there anymore.”

  “She said something about a curse?” Colette asked.

  Tom shrugged. “Marie’s always talking about curses and omens and such. She was raised in the swamp with the old ways. Everyone around here knows not to pay her ramblings any mind.” He gave them a nod and walked back across the street and into the café.

  “Well,” Colette said and looked at Max, who stared at the line of trees where Marie had entered the swamp. “What do you make of that?”

  Max shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe nothing.”

  “But maybe something.”

  “If she lives in the swamp, she may have an idea what’s going on out there. I wish she hadn’t run off so quickly.”

  “Do you think she would have talked to us?”

  “Probably not. At least, not in front of other people. But if I knew where to find her…”

  Colette gazed into the swamp where Marie had disappeared. She wasn’t sure finding Marie was something she wanted to do. The conviction in the woman’s voice had unnerved her, as had her black eyes.

  “Well,” she said, trying to shake off the feeling of doom surrounding her, “daylight’s wasting. We best get going.”

  Max studied her, and she knew he didn’t buy her attempt to brush off the incident. For a moment, he looked as if he was going to say something, but he only nodded and motioned to the gas station.

  Danny was stocking cigarettes behind the counter and looked over as the bells above the front door jangled when they entered the store. He brightened when he saw them and walked around the counter.

  “I was just wondering about that girl, but didn’t know any way to contact you. Is she all right?”

  “Her condition is stable, but she’s still unconscious,” Colette said.

  Danny frowned. “That’s rough. Do the doctors think she’ll be all right?”

  “They can’t know for sure, but the medical trauma appears minimal. They’ll know more as the swelling leaves her brain.”

  Danny nodded. “You know, when you showed me the picture of her the other day, I didn’t recognize her. But when I saw her in the bottom of the boat, without being all fixed up, she looked familiar.”

  “You’ve seen her before yesterday?” Colette asked.

  “Not her, but a picture of her. Took me half the night to place it.” He pulled off his ball cap and scratched the top of his head. “There was a guy in here a couple of weeks ago looking for her. Showed me a photo that looked like it came from a security camera.”

  “You’re sure it was a security photo?” Max asked.

  “Not positive, but it was taken from above and it was black-and-white. Real grainy, like what they show on the news when they’re looking for someone.”

  Max nodded. “Did the man say what he wanted with her?”

  “He was some kind of antiques collector. Said the girl had something he wanted to buy.”

  The coins.

  Colette sucked in a breath.

  “Did he give you his name?” Max asked.

  “No, but he did ask for directions to Cache, just like you. Don’t get me wrong. We get high-school kids and the occasional reporter here looking to find Cache, but we usually don’t get anything outside of that. First that guy and now you…well, it’s just odd, ya know?”

  “Yeah,” Max agreed. “What did he look like?”

  “Maybe fifty, tall but stocky. Had black-and-silver hair and wore a suit. Sorry, but I wasn’t looking all that close.”

  Max nodded. “Did he talk to anyone else?”

  Danny shrugged. “Maybe. People usually either stop here or the café or both. Tom’s almost always at the café. You may want to ask him.”

  “Thanks. I will. Hey, do you mind if we use your dock?”

  Danny’s eyes widened. “You going back into the swamp? I thought with the girl found and all…”

  “We need to find her mother,” Colette said.

  Danny looked back and forth from Max to Colette. “Oh, I get it. In case things go bad for her. Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. Of course you can use my dock.”

  “Thanks,” Colette said, not bothering to correct Danny’s take on the matter. Better that the locals thought they were looking for Anna’s mother because of her medical condition.

  “Should we talk to Tom first?” Colette asked.

  Max shook his head. “No. We’ve already lost too much daylight, and the news said a storm’s moving in this evening.”

  Colette glanced out the window at the clear sky that could go from blue to black in a minute’s time.

  Danny nodded. “You don’t want to get caught out there in a storm.”

  “We’ll talk to him when we get back,” Max said. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes,” Colette said, hoping her voice sounded steady. She didn’t want Max to know how uneasy she was about going back into the swamp. The whole drive from New Orleans, she’d thought she was okay with it, but now that they were about to launch the boat, she could no longer ignore the feeling of foreboding deep inside of her.

  She could pretend that the old woman had caused her current unease, but she’d be lying to herself. The old woman had only reinforced a feeling that was already there and had been growing with each mile they drew closer to Pirate’s Cove.

  Chapter Nine

  Max jumped into the boat after Colette and started the outboard motor. The engine purred to life, and he slowly backed away from the dock, lifting a hand to wave at Danny, who’d helped them launch.

  This entire day was disintegrating rapidly, creating more questions faster than they had found a single answer. His frustration with the case was growing, as was the overwhelming feeling that he was being led around by his nose. Something was moving below the surface. Something that had been in motion long before Anna Huval went missing. He could feel it, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  He was certain the answers were out in the swamp.

  Colette glanced back at him as he increased speed and directed the boat down the bayou. She had put on a brave face, but he knew the old woman’s words were weighing on her. Max was certain it was the old woman who’d left the gris-gris on his Jeep the day they’d pulled Anna out of the swamp, but she’d left before he could question her.

  Now he sat there wrestling with whether or not he should tell Colette about the gris-gris. He’d thought finding Anna was the end of it and was quite happy to let th
e entire subject go unmentioned, but apparently finding Anna was only the beginning. The reality of the situation was that he’d promised Colette he wouldn’t lie to her and he was doing just that—lying by omission.

  After they rounded the corner of the bayou away from the view of Pirate’s Cove, he slowed the boat to a crawl. Colette turned to look at him.

  “I need to tell you something,” he said and told her about finding the gris-gris on his Jeep.

  Colette’s eyes grew wide and she sucked in a breath. “You think the old woman put it there?”

  “That’s my first guess.”

  “But why? What does it mean?”

  “In Mystere Parish, it’s usually seen as a warning.”

  The apprehension was clear in Colette’s expression. “Like today. She doesn’t want us to go into the swamp.”

  Max nodded. “It seems that way. I wish I could have talked to her, without any of the townspeople around, but she shot out of there so quickly…”

  “Do you think she’s from Cache?”

  “No. Tom knew her by name, and I doubt the Cache villagers would be that well-known in town. If they really have been hiding in the swamp for almost two hundred years, they’re good at it. They wouldn’t make strong connections with outsiders.”

  “She said Tom was ‘one of them.’ What do you think she meant?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe just the rambling of an old woman who’s not that clear on reality any longer. Maybe she meant he’s one who doesn’t believe in curses. It’s impossible to say.”

  Colette’s jaw flexed. “Some creepy old woman is not going to keep me from finding Anna’s mother.”

  “Then we better get a move on.”

  He increased the speed on the boat as much as possible in the narrow channel and headed back to the area where they’d found Anna the day before. It was the most logical place to start the search. Unfortunately, Max figured Anna had traveled quite a ways before her collapse; otherwise, her attacker would have caught her. But with no other option presenting itself, the search would start there.

  The light dimmed as he moved deeper into the swamp. He glanced overhead and frowned when he saw gray clouds already beginning to form. The storm was still a ways off, but it was coming. And when it did, any tracks that Anna left would be erased. The window of opportunity was quickly closing.

  It only took thirty minutes to reach the bank where he’d found Anna. He’d probably progressed more quickly than was safe, but the sense of urgency he felt kept driving him to twist the handle on the engine just a bit more. It took him a minute to locate the place where he’d climbed the bank, then he eased the boat alongside the cypress roots and tied it off.

  “So what’s the plan?” Colette asked, casting an uneasy glance into the dense foliage above the cypress roots.

  “I want to go back to the place where I found Anna and see if I can figure out which direction she came from. Track her steps backward.”

  She nodded.

  “I would suggest you wait here for me, but if the trail leads me deeper into the swamp, I think you’re safer with me than in the boat.”

  She glanced back down the bayou and then scanned the swamp surrounding them. “Yeah. I want to come with you.”

  He heard the words, but he also heard the sliver of fear that she was trying to hide. He could hardly blame her. Revisiting the swamps of Mystere Parish was the second-to-last thing he wanted to do. The first was protecting a woman he was attracted to. So far, he was batting a thousand with his return to Vodoun.

  “Let me make sure it’s clear,” he said and peered over the bank of cypress roots and into the swamp. Nothing dangerous was immediately visible, so he motioned for Colette to climb up.

  She hesitated only a moment before grabbing the thick cypress roots and pulling herself up and onto the embankment above the boat. Max lifted his backpack of supplies up to her and she pulled it over the ledge. Then he climbed up beside her and pulled on the pack.

  “She wasn’t very far from here. This way.” He pointed south of where they stood. “Follow closely behind me and keep an eye above us, same as last time.”

  Colette nodded and he started through the brush, the damaged foliage indicating his path from the day before. It took only a minute to reach the location where he’d found Anna. He scoured the surrounding area, looking for any sign of the path she’d traveled before collapsing here, but aside from the damage he’d caused, he saw no entry or exit from the location.

  He’d thought as much the day before but knew he needed a more thorough look when he wasn’t pressed for time. Unfortunately, a closer look hadn’t revealed anything new. He ran one hand through his hair and blew out a breath.

  “What’s wrong?” Colette asked.

  “There’s no indication of her path to this location.”

  “How can that be? She couldn’t have dropped here from the sky.”

  “No, but I think she may have done what we did—entered this area of the swamp from the water.”

  Her eyes widened. “But if she was running from her attacker, she was on foot. Why in the world would she get in the water, knowing full well all the dangers that presented?”

  “It might have been the best choice at the time. Assuming her attacker was tracking her, the only way to lose him would be to travel some ways in the water. The cypress roots are the perfect place to get back on land.”

  “Because there wouldn’t be tracks,” Colette said. “That makes sense, but it leaves us with nothing to go on.”

  “Not necessarily. When I found Anna, her clothes were dry, so she’d been out of the water for a couple of hours, at least. The tide was just starting to come in when we found her, so assuming she arrived here hours before, the tide would have been going out when she entered the bayou. It would be smarter to get into the water and float downstream rather than swim, which might attract the attention of her attacker and any number of other predators.”

  “You think she floated from somewhere upstream.”

  “Yes. I think we should head up the bayou, keeping a close look out for the location where she entered the water.”

  “So you think she came up at the same place we did?”

  “It certainly looks that way.”

  Colette turned and headed back down the trail to the embankment. Max followed closely behind, hoping they could find the needle in the haystack, or in this case, a footprint in the swamp. Given the shifting of the tide and the water level, it was a real long shot that any evidence of her passage remained close enough to the bank for them to see. At the moment, it was the only chance they had.

  Once they were back in the boat, Max checked the tide. It was going out, which meant he might be able to make an educated guess at the floating path Anna would have taken in the current. He looked upstream about a half mile until the bayou curved out of sight, watching the swirling water as it pushed its way back out toward the Gulf of Mexico, concentrating on the most likely flow of a large object.

  “If she entered the bayou anywhere in the stretch that we can see,” he said, “I think it was from the opposite bank. That would have allowed her to drift right by the cypress roots with minimal swimming involved.”

  “At least that’s a place to start,” Colette said and sat on the bench in the middle of the boat.

  He started the engine and eased across the bayou to the other side. The bank was lower there and the foliage less dense right near the bank. As he drew the boat up alongside the bank, he cut the engine and lifted a long pole from the bottom of the boat. They both stood balanced in the center of the boat as he used the pole to push them slowly up the bayou.

  Although the incoming tide would likely have washed footprints away, he scanned the muddy bank for any, then turned his attention to the brush at the edge of the muddy bank. If Anna had walked through the brush, he’d be able to see signs of her passage.

  He moved the boat at an agonizingly slow pace, but a glance was not enough to catch a single
broken leaf or a partial imprint of a shoe on the worn ground. Colette concentrated on the bank, her brow wrinkled as she squinted into the brush. It almost made him smile. She probably couldn’t track an elephant through the swamp but darn if she wasn’t going to give it a hundred percent effort. He had to admire her dedication.

  They’d progressed almost to the end of the channel when he caught sight of a single broken branch on a bush near the bank. The bayou tide was halfway up the bank now and had likely covered the dirt completely when the tide was in, erasing any footprints.

  He dug the pole into the thick bayou mud to stop the boat. Colette looked over at him, her expression hopeful.

  “Do you see something?”

  “A broken branch. It may be nothing,” he warned.

  She nodded as he stepped out of the boat and onto the bank. His boots sank into the soft black mud that made a sucking noise each time he lifted his foot out of it. When he reached the broken branch, he knelt down to get a closer look. The ground was littered with weeds and marsh grass so no prints were visible, but it was clear to Max that something had passed this way recently.

  “Did you find something?” Colette asked.

  “Something came through here and into the bayou, but I can’t be certain it was human. I’m only certain it wasn’t an alligator.”

  “Ha, well, good. Um, exactly how do you know it wasn’t an alligator?”

  “Something walked through the marsh grass. It’s pretty hardy, so it mostly recovered, which is why I can’t tell you the size or shape of the print, but if an alligator had passed through here, all of the grass would have been pressed down by his body. There would be no evidence of individual steps.”

  Colette looked anxiously into the brush. “I’m going to store that information just in case I ever have an alligator in my yard. When I buy a house, of course. Or if I ever go into the swamp again, which after today is looking like less and less of a possibility.”

  “I can’t say that I blame you.” Max looked past the line of marsh grass and into the trees. “The trail leads into the trees. I think we ought to check it out.”

  Colette nodded and he stepped back down the bank to extend a hand to her.