The Vanishing

by Jana DeLeon

  He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her again, then released her so that he could undress her. As he slipped her shirt over her head and tossed it onto the floor, she unfastened her jeans and pushed them over her curvy hips and to the floor. As she removed her lacy pink bra and underwear, he took in every inch of her and decided he was the luckiest man in the world.

  He kicked off his shoes and removed the rest of his clothes, tossing them on the floor. Unable to wait another second without having his hands on her, he lay on the bed and pulled her down beside him. He explored every inch of her with his hands, his mouth, and she moaned until his own need could wait no longer.

  He moved over her and entered her in one fluid motion. For a moment, he was perfectly still, relishing the way her body felt wrapped around him. Then he began to move. She matched his rhythm, and in no time they both fell over the edge.

  Chapter Seventeen

  He pulled her close to him, and she rested her head on his chest. She was sated as she’d never been before, as if every ounce of flesh on her body had been given the most relaxing and satisfying massage in the world. If required to stand and walk, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to manage it.

  As she ran one hand up his bare chest, she felt the scar tissue from the injury she’d seen when he’d undressed. It was small and so perfectly round, and she would bet anything a bullet had made it. So close to his lungs, but in a place on the body where a millimeter could be the difference between life and death.

  She felt him stiffen slightly as she ran her fingers across the scar, and she wondered how he’d gotten it. Was he scared when it happened? Was this scar part of the reason he’d left police work?

  “I got shot two years ago,” he said quietly.

  “How bad was it?” she asked, surprised that he’d said anything when she could tell it made him uncomfortable.

  “It missed everything that keeps me alive, but my shoulder aches a bit from time to time.”

  “You were lucky.”

  “That’s what they say.”

  “How did it happen?”

  He was silent for a long time, and she was afraid he’d throw the wall around him back in place. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I imagine it’s hard remembering such a frightening event. I know I wouldn’t want to talk about the things that have happened to me this week at length. Not yet.”

  You’re rambling.

  She clamped her mouth shut, frustrated at herself for ruining such a pure moment between them.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s only normal that you’d ask, and maybe it’s time I told someone.”

  She leaned up on her elbow so that she could see his face. “Only if you want to.”

  “It’s time to let certain things go,” he said.

  He ran one hand across his head and blew out a breath. “I guess I’ll start at the beginning. I was guarding a woman who was being stalked. The stalker had already attempted to kill her by running her car off the road into a drainage ditch.”

  “That’s horrible. That poor woman.”

  “I was impressed with how tough she was with her refusal to let the situation ruin her life or her son’s. Her husband had died in Iraq when her son was still a baby, so she was facing all of it alone with an eight-year-old to care for.”

  “But she faced it all head-on. That’s admirable.”

  “I thought so at the time, but as the days passed and we got no closer to catching her stalker, she grew impatient. She was an attorney with a big firm in Baton Rouge and was competing for a partner position. Every day she spent out of the office and the courtroom was one step further away from everything she’d been working for.”

  “But surely the partners understood, and even if they didn’t, there would be other opportunities.”

  “Everyone told her that, but she was obsessed, determined not to let one man ruin her obtaining her goal.”

  “So what happened?”

  “She got careless, then reckless. There was a case she’d been handling before all that happened, the case she thought was going to get her the partnership. The partners were about to reassign it to the other attorney vying for the position. So she sent me upstairs in her home on a wild-goose chase to investigate a noise and then snuck out.”

  “But her son?”

  “I guess she figured he was safe in the house with me. She knew I wouldn’t leave him there alone, not even to chase after her.”

  “That’s awful, using her child to manipulate the situation.”

  “The whole thing backfired in the worst way possible. Her son saw her leaving the house and yelled up the stairs to me. When she started pulling down the driveway, he ran outside to stop her. I tore down the stairs and outside, but the stalker had already gotten off two rounds.”

  She gasped. “Oh, no!”

  “The first shot took out one of her front tires. The second went through the radiator. The car rolled to a stop and she was a sitting duck in the middle of the driveway. She knew her only chance was to get back to the house, so she jumped out of the car and started running for the front door at the same time I ran outside.”

  He stopped for a couple of seconds and Colette could see how much it hurt to revisit it all. “The stalker fired again. I tried to gauge the direction of the shot and fired off a couple of rounds as I ran. I was almost to her when I saw the glint of metal in the hedges near the road. The barrel was leveled directly at her. I tackled her but it was too late. He’d already gotten off the shot.”

  She stared in surprise. She’d assumed he’d been shot in the chest, but his story didn’t support that theory. “It went through your back and out your chest?”

  “Yeah.” He closed his eyes for a moment and then looked back at her. The anger and pain were so visible, and that’s when it hit her.

  “The bullet went through you and into her,” she said.

  “Directly into her heart. She was dead before I could even call the paramedics.”

  A tear ran down her cheek. “That poor little boy. He saw it all, didn’t he?”

  He nodded. “From the living-room window. The nanny had dragged him inside but he broke away from her and ran to the front window. Everything was over before she reached him.”

  She wiped the tears from her cheeks with her fingers. “That is the most awful story I’ve ever heard. I can’t believe she took such a risk. How could something as stupid as a job promotion possibly have outweighed the safety of her and her son?”

  “It was all such a waste. She was so impatient. So hardheaded. And in trying to have it all, she lost it all, even her own life. And her son has to live with her choice the rest of his life.”

  As he delivered those words, his expression was a mixture of sadness and anger and something else. Regret? Probably, but deep down, she knew it wasn’t that simple. Then a thought sparked in the back of her mind, and the more she contemplated it, the more it made sense.

  “Were you involved with her?” she asked. “I mean, on a personal level?”

  He sighed and nodded. “She was beautiful, intelligent and driven. I crossed a line I never should have, especially when I was on the job. I invested part of myself in a woman who was just like my mother.”

  He gave her a rueful smile. “I bet Alex could make a lot out of that one.”

  She laid her hand on the side of his cheek. “Maybe you should let her try.”

  “Maybe I will,” he said. “It feels good telling you everything. It’s hard and sad, but I also feel almost relieved that someone else knows. That someone else understands.”

  “I’m so sorry you went through that. Sorry for you and her and most of all, for her son. You’re right, it was a waste. Anytime you think talking will make you feel better, I’d be happy to listen.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and gave her a squeeze. “Who listens to you?”

  “Oh, well…I don’t have things that difficult to deal with.”
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  “Hmm. Well, that offer runs both ways.”

  She closed her eyes and drank in his masculine scent as his words warmed her even more than the heat from his body had. If only this night could last forever.

  Tomorrow would come too soon, and all their problems would be right back in front of them. And once those problems were solved, where did that leave them?

  It was a question she wasn’t ready to ask.

  * * *

  MAX AWAKENED BEFORE DAWN. Colette was still curled in a ball next to him, sleeping soundly. She was beautiful even when she was worried, but at rest and completely peaceful, she was even more gorgeous. Last night, when he’d been on top of her, inside her, she’d reached the heights of angelic.

  He’d thought he was taking a big risk last night, letting down his guard, exposing his darkest secrets, but he felt better than he had in years. Even with his future completely up in the air and even if Colette wasn’t part of it, he would never regret last night. It was a reawakening of his heart and soul. He was more energized, more determined, and his first priority was gaining the safety of Anna’s mother and the other villagers.

  He slipped quietly from the bed, not wanting to disturb Colette. An idea burned at the back of his mind. It was indecently early, but the woman at the museum he needed to talk to was an early bird. She’d probably already put in an hour of work. If anyone could offer a viable solution for the villagers, it would be her.

  * * *

  COLETTE CLUTCHED THE PIECE of paper with the notes she’d taken from Anna during their visit to the hospital that morning as they sped down the highway to Pirate’s Cove. They’d had a hard time convincing Anna to give them directions to the place she thought the villagers were hiding, but she’d finally agreed that Max’s idea was sound and a permanent solution to the problem of the coins.

  Unfortunately, they were pushed to act on it immediately.

  Max had received a phone call early that morning from his buddy who was watching Lambert. He’d tailed the man from his house to the highway that led to Pirate’s Cove. Apparently, they’d spooked him with their visit the day before, and he was probably desperate to obtain the coins before they did. That desperation combined with his likely already unstable mind made him a complete wild card.

  Colette was still asleep when Max awakened her and filled her in on the situation. She hadn’t stopped worrying since, afraid of what the man might do to the villagers if he found them before they did.

  Max tried to get her to stay behind at the hospital with Anna, but she’d refused. No way was he going into the swamp alone. She may not be trained for combat, but she was an extra set of eyes and an extra finger on a trigger. Two against one sounded like much better odds to her.

  His agreement had been reluctant, and she wondered if he was afraid she’d strike out after him, especially given the horrible story he’d told her the night before. She wasn’t that brave or foolish, but saw no reason to elaborate on that as it might change his mind on taking her with him.

  “Do you think Lambert is going to Cache?” she asked.

  “I think he’s going to try to find the villagers.”

  “But how? If he knew where to find them, he would have been there already.”

  “I know. I’m afraid he may try to force someone to talk.”

  “Oh!” Her back tensed up. “Like who?”

  “Someone in Pirate’s Cove. Someone he thinks knows where their hiding place is.”

  “And what if they don’t know?”

  He stared down the highway, a grim expression on his face. “I don’t think that would be good.”

  Colette said a silent prayer that Lambert hadn’t gone to extremes. From what she’d seen in his house the day before, he had the weapons to back himself up.

  As Max pulled into Pirate’s Cove, Danny ran out of the gas station and flagged them down. He hurried up to the Jeep as Max slammed on the brakes.

  “I tried to call you a while ago but it went straight to voice mail. That dude, the collector dude, was here and he was all agitated. Kept insisting I tell him where Cache had disappeared to. I told him I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about and he finally left.”

  “Did you see where he went?”

  “Hell, yeah, I saw! He went right out back and stole my rental boat.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Twenty minutes, maybe more.”

  “Can I use your dock?”

  “Yeah, man! You going after him?”

  “That’s the plan.” He threw the Jeep in Reverse and backed the boat trailer down the dock behind the gas station.

  “There’s something else, man!” Danny yelled as Max jumped in the boat. “Tom found the voodoo woman passed out behind his café. It looks like someone worked her over a bit. She’s alive, but the waitress is taking her to the hospital in New Orleans.”

  “Thanks!” Max yelled and gunned the engine on the boat.

  The boat barely skimmed the top of the water as they flew down the bayou. Colette gripped the front of the bench every time the boat twisted around a corner or bounced up and down on the choppy water. A north wind ripped across the bayou, the first signs of a front due to hit the parish that evening. The farther they traveled, the stronger the wind blew and the bigger the waves became.

  Finally, he was forced to cut his speed down to half in order to keep them safely afloat. Her joints were happy at the reprieve of banging, even though she could see the stress on Max’s face. It took another forty-five minutes of pounding before they reached the bank where they’d tied off the day they found Cache.

  They were not the only boat there.

  Danny’s rental boat was pulled up on the bank, and even Colette could see the tracks leading up the bank and into the swamp.

  “Do you think the voodoo woman told him where their hiding place is?”

  “I hope not.”

  Max checked his pistol and the shotgun, then handed the shotgun to her. “Take this.” He placed his hands over hers as she gripped the gun. “Do not hesitate to use this. If Lambert attacked that woman, he’s desperate.”

  She nodded, the full weight of the situation crashing down upon her. She might be forced to kill another human being, which was in direct opposition to what she did every single day in the emergency room.

  “Can you do that?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, momentarily surprised at how easily the word had left her lips and how much she meant it.

  “I’m going to move as quickly as possible with as little noise as can be managed. Stick close to me and keep watch. If you see or hear anything, tug on my shirt, but don’t speak. I want to keep any advantages we may have.”

  Max jumped out of the boat onto the bank and reached back to extend his hand to her. She climbed out next to him and followed him into the brush.

  He seemed to be in stealth mode as he moved through the thick foliage, deliberately choosing avenues that provided them the most silent entry to Cache. She followed closely behind in silent admiration for his ability to instantly determine the best path without slowing.

  When they drew close to Cache, he stopped and put one finger to his lips. He listened for several seconds, but she didn’t hear a thing in the gloomy silence of the swamp. Finally, he motioned to her and continued another twenty yards until they reached the edge of the clearing that contained Cache.

  He stopped once more and scanned the village. She peered around him, looking down the rows of shacks, but didn’t see anyone stirring.

  “Looks empty,” he whispered, “but I don’t want to take any chances. We’ll skirt the edge of the village in the brush until we get to the north side, where Anna’s map starts.”

  She nodded. It was a good plan. That way if anyone was lurking in the village, they wouldn’t see them pass through. The last thing they wanted was for someone to follow them to where the villagers were hiding. Max was good at tracking, but he couldn’t match the villagers for passing without leavi
ng a trace, nor did they have the time for him to even attempt it.

  They made a wide circle around the village, staying about ten yards from the clearing. As the brush allowed, Colette checked the village for any sign of movement and noticed that Max did the same, but it was as still as the swamp surrounding it.

  Despite her sweatshirt and the hunting jacket that she’d borrowed from Alex, Colette felt a chill. Something was wrong in this swamp. Something besides the man-eating alligators and rumors of voodoo curses.

  Something evil.

  She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, saying a silent prayer that they found the villagers and brought an end to Lambert’s reign of terror. Otherwise, she, Anna and the villagers would never be safe again.

  * * *

  MAX PAUSED FOR A MOMENT, listening to the swamp surrounding them. The silence was almost unbearable, making him want to whistle just to cut the tomblike feeling. It was almost as if the swamp needed reminding that living things existed. But such fanciful ideas weren’t an option. He could hardly afford to announce their presence.

  Checking Anna’s map, he gauged their position and started walking again. He hadn’t heard anything when he stopped, the same as all the other times, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching. If the eyes upon them were human, he hoped it was a villager watching their progress and not Lambert.

  More than anything, he wanted the opportunity to take Lambert down, but not with Colette exposed. No matter how overwhelming the urge to pummel the guy for what he’d done to Colette and Anna, once the villagers were safe, he fully intended to expose Lambert and take him in with the support and backup of the sheriff’s department.

  Max traversed the swamp as quickly as he could while being careful not to misread Anna’s directions. It would be easy to get turned around and lost in the swamp. Anna had estimated it would take them an hour to reach the remote location, but a quick glance at his watch let him know they were already fifteen minutes beyond that mark.

  It was too soon to get concerned, but he paid very close attention to the next marker, a pair of twisted cypress trees next to a stump. Praying that he’d found the right marker and that things in the swamp hadn’t changed since Anna was last there, he pointed to the right and they changed direction.