Wild Man's Curse (Wilds of the Bayou #1)

by Susannah Sandlin

  She got ready to deliver the coup de grâce. “Those deputies would never think you’d have the balls to show up again at Whiskey Bayou. They wouldn’t think you were smart enough. They might not even be watching it—then they’ll really feel stupid when you slip in and out right under their noses.”

  Ceelie was betting they wouldn’t leave the cabin unguarded, even if they did send a lot of their resources south toward Cocodrie. And maybe, just maybe, Gentry would recognize the location as being where she and Jena had been heading to see Tomas Assaud. That, and the ax, and the matches, constituted her big plans.

  Because she had no clue where those coins were, if they even existed.

  CHAPTER 28

  Gentry slumped in a chair in the corner of an empty room in Terrebonne General Medical Center, waiting for his partner to be brought in. She had awakened briefly before he arrived, and the medical staff was moving her to a private room—a sign of how quickly she was rebounding. She’d been lucky; the bullets hadn’t gotten any vital organs.

  Gentry had spent an uncomfortable half hour with Jena’s parents and younger brother, who had asked him a lot of hard questions about her shooting. He knew Warren had called them, but he wasn’t sure how much detail the lieutenant had provided. Probably not much, since no one except Ceelie had been present when she’d been injured. They knew their daughter had been shot by her partner’s brother, though, and Gentry didn’t know if their accusatory glares were real or a projection of his own guilt.

  Jena’s mom was as his partner had described her—tall, regal, with a darker version of Jena’s red hair and a haughty attitude. Her father wore a dark suit and tie with an immaculate white shirt. Jena had described them as stuffy uptown New Orleanians, and they looked the part. They had disapproved of her degree in forensics, had fought her choice to join NOPD, and had practically disowned her when she took the LDWF job in Terrebonne.

  Her brother, on the other hand, sported shoulder-length brown hair and full-sleeve tattoos. He didn’t sit next to his parents, but had moved into one of the generic blue chairs next to Gentry after the initial inquisition.

  “You look burned-out, man.” Jackson Sinclair was in his midtwenties; Jena had characterized him as a free-spirited computer genius. “You’ve been trying to find the guy who shot my sister?”

  Gentry knew the elder Sinclairs were listening, so he made no attempt to keep his voice low. “My lieutenant made me take a few hours off. I’d been on duty twenty-four hours straight, since Jena was injured. I wanted to check on her, and I’ll go back on duty as soon as they’ll let me.”

  When a nurse came in to tell them Jena would be moved to a private room and it would be a while before anyone could see her, Mrs. Sinclair and Jackson went to the cafeteria while Mr. Sinclair marched off to the administrative offices, where he intended to order that his daughter be moved to a “real hospital,” preferably in New Orleans. Gentry doubted his attitude would get him far, plus he knew Jena: if given a choice, she wouldn’t go.

  Which left him alone in the small room, waiting for the hospital staff to bring her over from the critical-care unit. The white blinds of the room’s one large window looked out on the roof of the hospital entrance, with the sprawl of downtown Houma beyond. Well, as sprawling as a town of thirty-five thousand could get. Still, it was the only real city in the parish and the largest in the region.

  He’d been furious when he left the operations base, snapping at Mac Griffin’s chatter until the gregarious young officer had stopped talking. He’d slung gravel like a teenager when he left the staging area and headed his truck north toward Houma. The longer he drove, though, the more fatigue had set in and he realized Warren had been right. He was too emotional to be on the water, too likely to make a mistake that could hurt Ceelie rather than save her.

  Yeah, he wanted to be the one to save her. That was macho bullshit pride talking, and when he stopped by his house in Montegut to shower and change, he gave himself a lecture about it. It didn’t matter who saved Ceelie as long as she was saved.

  By the time he ate a sandwich, endured some ankle biting from Hoss, and then loved on his little dog until even Hoss had had enough, he felt human. After three hours of sleep, calm had settled on him like a cloak. He wasn’t less angry at Lang or less worried about Ceelie, but he felt centered. He’d cleaned up Ceelie’s guitar, and on the way to the hospital, he’d stopped at a little music shop in Houma and left the Gibson to be repaired. His version of optimism.

  At a loud bump and commotion in the doorway, Gentry turned to see a woman being wheeled into the room. It wasn’t Sinclair, though. He was on the verge of telling the staff they’d made a mistake until he got a closer look at the woman in the bed. He’d been prepared for pale, but not the swollen mass of cuts and bruises covering Jena Sinclair’s face and hands. Stupid on his part. She’d been hit at close range by an exploding truck window, in addition to the bullets.

  By the time the hospital staff got her IV and bed adjusted and raised the head slightly, the previously silent, antiseptic-scented room was filled with the noise of machines that beeped and whirred as they constantly checked her blood pressure and heart rate.

  “Gentry?”

  He startled, unaware that she was awake, and walked to her bedside. “Hey, Red. How you feeling?”

  He pulled a chair over and, after a moment’s hesitation, took one of her hands gently in his.

  “What happened? The doctor told me I was in Houma, in the hospital.” Her voice was weak and Gentry leaned forward over the bedrail to hear her.

  How much should he tell her? She might be strong enough to be in a private room, but she wasn’t out of the woods.

  “You got injured on duty,” he said. “You were shot.” Twice, by his murderous SOB brother.

  “Shot?” She frowned and stared at the ceiling. With alarm, Gentry saw the pulse rate on the bedside monitor rise into the eighties, then the nineties.

  “Shhh. Calm down. You’re going to be fine. Look at you, already rockin’ a private room and everything. Your family will be back in a few minutes.”

  Jena swallowed with some difficulty, and Gentry reached for the plastic cup of ice chips the nurse had left. “Open your mouth a little,” he said, and slipped one on her tongue. She nodded and tried to smile. Hard to do with her face so bashed up.

  “I remember being with Ceelie, driving down past Chauvin.” Jena’s voice had already grown stronger. “She was playing her guitar. This car was following us and . . . Oh my God.”

  Gentry kept hold of her right hand, but Jena held up her left, looking at the defensive injuries. “I held him off for a long time, but he shot out the window next to Ceelie and turned the gun on me when I stood up to check on her. I got off some shots but don’t know if I hit him. Did I hit him?”

  Gentry gave her hand a light squeeze. “You did, and you at least injured him. You also popped the magazine out of the rifle so he couldn’t fire it.” He wasn’t sure he’d have had the presence of mind to do that, not with a torn-up face and two gunshot wounds.

  She raised her left hand to her face and lightly touched the bruised, butchered skin. “Guess that’s the end of my modeling career.”

  “You’re too good an agent to worry about that shit. Anyway, it’s only been a day—it’ll get better.” What kind of scars it would leave behind, he didn’t know.

  “Is Ceelie okay?” Jena closed her eyes, and Gentry could practically see the brain circuits firing as she tried to remember. “I had her crawl into the backseat as soon as we realized it was Lang in that car, but . . . is she okay? Did he shoot her?”

  “I don’t think . . .” No, more than he wanted to say. “No, he didn’t shoot her.”

  Jena wasn’t as out of it as she’d been a few minutes earlier. She turned her head to frown at him. “You don’t think what? What are you not telling me, Gentry Broussard?”

  Aw, hell. “Lang took Ceelie with him. But we’re closing in on them, and as far as we can tell, she�
�s still okay.” Well, ambulatory didn’t quite mean okay, but he wasn’t about to burden his injured partner with tales of blood, and buttons, and long locks of hair.

  “Oh no.” Jena shut her eyes, and a tear escaped down her cheek. “I should’ve tried to outrun that car instead of stopping. I was—”

  “Don’t.” Gentry’s voice came out sharper than he’d intended, so he softened it. “Don’t second-guess. We didn’t know Lang even had access to a car, much less that he’d be hanging around near my house. I’m pretty sure he followed you all the way. At least you noticed him before you got all the way down near Cocodrie.”

  “Why are you here? Why aren’t you out there looking?” Jena frowned at him again. “What are you not telling me this time?”

  Gentry smiled. “I’d been on duty a long time and wanted to get some sleep and check in on my partner.”

  Jena shook her head, but winced at the pain even that movement caused. “I’m calling bullshit on that one. Try again.”

  They hadn’t been partners long, but Jena read him very well. “Okay, if you have to know, Warren said if I didn’t get out of his way for at least eight hours, he’d fire me and have Sheriff Knight throw me in a cell for interfering with an investigation.”

  Jena tried to laugh, but it set off a cough and a groan. “God, it feels like my whole chest is on fire.”

  “Then shut up for a while, and I’ll fill you in on the case.” He embarked on an account of the past twenty-four hours, leaving out the most disturbing details and playing up the more lighthearted ones. “Oh, and you won’t believe this.”

  “What?” Jena had grown more alert the longer he talked; she seemed to be calm after the initial memory had hit her.

  “My fill-in partner has been Paul Billiot. And he cursed. Twice. In two consecutive sentences. One was the f-bomb.”

  Jena gave a bruised, misshapen version of a grin. “Wish I could’ve heard that. What set him off?”

  For a moment, Gentry saw Paul’s face when he realized Lang had chopped off Ceelie’s hair. “I think it was something the sheriff said.”

  “Good to know there’s a human underneath the robo-agent.” Jena closed her eyes, but popped them open again when Gentry’s cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and almost choked. The screen read: TOMMY MASON.

  It had to be Lang. Mason’s phone had never been recovered. They’d even tried calling it a couple of times but it had been turned off or was out of area.

  “Broussard.”

  “My brother Gentry. Long time, no talk.” Lang sounded like the sociopath he was. Charm fueled by drugs.

  “Where are you? Where is Celestine Savoie?” Gentry was aware of Jena struggling to raise the head of her hospital bed to a more upright position. “You son of a bitch. If you’ve hurt her—”

  “Oh, relax, Gent. Your little bitch is doing just fine, although if she comes at me with that voodoo shit again, I can’t be held responsible. You know how that is.”

  Good for Ceelie. She’d turned on her inner Eva, because she knew that on some level, Lang was afraid of it.

  “So here’s the deal, bro. I’ve gotten in a little deeper in this shit than I’d planned for, you know? I ain’t got the money to make a run to Mexico and this shitheap of a boat is about out of fuel. So I’m willing to talk to the sheriff if he’ll make me a sweet deal. I can give him enough names to wipe out half the crime in Terrebonne Parish. But I ain’t gonna spend the rest of my life in jail, so he’s gotta cut a real deal. Otherwise, you know, I ain’t got no reason to keep this witch alive, and once they find me I got a lot of firepower.”

  “You want the sheriff to call this number?” Because as soon as he hung up, every law-enforcement officer in the parish would have it.

  “No, I want to see his face when he makes the deal. See if he’s lyin’ to me. If he’s lyin’ I ain’t buyin’, and you can tell him that.”

  Gentry paused, torn between getting Lang’s rendezvous point himself or giving him the sheriff’s cell number and staying out of it. But there was no guarantee Lang would follow through and, for now, Gentry had him on the line.

  “Where do you want to meet him?”

  Lang gave a loud, dramatic sigh. “I don’t know exactly where I am, but some little shithole north of Cocodrie, behind a church on Little Caillou Road, maybe a quarter mile east of Bayou Terrebonne.”

  “When?” Gentry had pulled out his pad and written down the info.

  “Tell him I’m waitin’ but I won’t wait forever.”

  “But—”

  But, too late. Lang was gone. When Gentry tried to call the number back, he’d turned the phone off again and the call went to a voice-mail box. Lang was either conserving battery life or playing games. Or both.

  Jena raised her hand to get his attention, her voice little more than a whisper now. She didn’t need to be talking this much.

  “That was Lang. What did he say?”

  “Red, you need to get some rest and let me—”

  “Damn it, what did he say?”

  Gentry gave in and described the place. “Probably another half-rotted fish camp like the last hideout.”

  Jena’s heart rate sped up enough to cause the machine to beep. She glanced at it and forced herself to breathe. “It’s a ruse.”

  Gentry had pulled out his phone to call Warren and the sheriff but paused with his finger poised over the keypad. “What do you mean?”

  “That place. It’s where I was taking Ceelie—where Tomas Assaud lives. I bet Ceelie gave him that location as a sign.”

  Gentry stared at her, thinking. “Why?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s too much coincidence. Ceelie would never tell him that location if there was any chance he’d go there. She wouldn’t put Tomas in danger.”

  Understanding dawned, and Gentry’s heart sped up more than Jena’s. “No, but she might have convinced Lang that sending the manhunt south would open the door for him to move north.”

  Jena nodded with some effort. “To Whiskey Bayou.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Before he’d made his call, Lang had taped up her mouth again, so Ceelie kicked over a bucket in the corner of the tin shed, hoping to make enough noise that Gentry would hear it. Why the hell had Lang called Gentry instead of the sheriff’s department?

  Dumb question, Celestine. Because he could. Because it would hurt his brother. Because it would make sure Gentry was stuck right in the middle.

  Once she’d had a moment to think, however, she realized it was better this way. Gentry would hear the directions firsthand. Would have more time to think about them. Would, she hoped, recognize them as a sign.

  She just had to pray Gentry was as smart as she thought he was. Otherwise, it would be either Plan B—the ax or knife—or Plan Last-Resort: matches.

  “Time to go, sugar-puss.” Lang hefted her up by one arm and shoved her toward the door of the shed. She gauged it was late afternoon, the sky a clear blue and the air thick as molasses from the humidity. The ability to see the setting sun helped her gauge direction; nothing in this landscape looked familiar, however, even as it all looked familiar. It was South Louisiana and that’s as near as she could pinpoint.

  Still, even the hot day with its hot wind felt good against her overexposed skin, after the furnace of the tin shed.

  Once he’d gotten her wedged into the bow of the boat, Lang pulled a worn map out of a small wooden storage area under his seat and studied it, tracing over it with a long, dirty finger. At the sound of an approaching motor, he froze, and Ceelie’s heart sped up. They were deep against the bank, hidden behind the overhanging limbs of a tree, and the boat that passed them was moving fast. No way they’d been seen.

  Lang turned to look at her, and she didn’t like the calculating expression. “An ugly beat-up hag in the boat might draw attention this time of day, so . . .” He opened the bin under his seat again and dragged out a worn blue tarp. “I think you need a blanket.”

  Ceelie squir
med and kicked at him when he walked toward her, almost sending him over the side of the boat. She did not want to be wrapped in a blue plastic shroud.

  “You want me to tape your ankles together? You want me to tape you to the fuckin’ boat?”

  He’d do it, too, Ceelie had no doubt. She willed her limbs to go still as he flapped the folds out of the blue tarp and let it settle over her, cutting off her view. As he tucked it around her body, she kept her head raised so that when he finished, she’d have fresh air and some space in front of her face. Otherwise, claustrophobia would be paying her a quick visit.

  Once her initial panic subsided, Ceelie realized there were a lot of small holes in the tarp, which had definitely seen better days. Not big enough for her to see anything, but at least enough to breathe.

  Once again, she considered flipping herself out of the boat, but again, she decided against it. Lang still might shoot her, and this time he was using his motor rather than trying to move silently. Everyone would think Lang was gator-hunting—the blue tarps were ubiquitous among the hunters, who used ice or cold water and tarps to keep the skin and meat of their big reptilian victims cool until they could reach the buyer.

  Unless a boat got close enough for her to risk exposing her feet and legs. It would be risky, though, because unless they were caught, Lang would follow through on his threat to tape her ankles together. She didn’t want that.

  Having her out of sight and himself on high alert, Lang no longer talked. He navigated the boat at a slow, steady pace, not drawing attention.

  At some point, Ceelie drifted off to sleep and then startled awake, disoriented at the darkness around her, thinking Lang had covered her with something heavier, or buried her.

  The boat still rocked gently, though, so he hadn’t moved her. The motor was no longer running, and she could hear splashes around her, and the swirl of water around an oar or pole. Night must have fallen, which increased Lang’s chances of getting into the cabin unseen. It all depended on what the response had been to the phone call. She hoped Gentry would ride in like a knight on a white horse—or a black oversized pickup—and save her.