Bayou Corruption

by Robin Caroll

  Jackson Devereaux bolted upright on the couch, popping his knuckles as he blinked away the grogginess. He’d forgotten the box was on. Seldom did anything come over the airwaves. No one could ever call Lagniappe a hoppin’ town.

  His jaw dropped as he listened to Missy, the dispatcher, call out a frantic plea. Bubba? Needing an ambulance? He jumped to his feet and snatched his keys and BlackBerry from the kitchen table, hovering by the scanner. An address—he needed the location.

  Missy provided the details in a shaky voice, not at all her normal upbeat self. In her early thirties and having done the dispatching job for over a decade, Missy shouldn’t be rattled. That she sounded frantic…well, Bubba must be in serious need. Jackson raced from the house, leaped into the truck and gunned the engine.

  She’d given sketchy information at best. Bubba, injured badly enough to need an ambulance, out in the middle of nowhere. Jackson went over the directions again as he sped into the pelting rain.

  Something smelled foul in the bayou, and it wasn’t the gar washing up on the banks.

  His friend’s troubles were linked to the case they were working on—Jackson sensed it strongly. He jerked the car onto a side road, choosing not to slice through the town square. He used the term loosely—coming from New Orleans, he’d laughed when Bubba had proudly taken him around the downtown area. Small towns didn’t exactly have the excitement he’d become accustomed to. Then again, if what Bubba suspected were true, there’d be a lot of unrest hitting Lagniappe.

  Hazard lights blinked just off the main road. He eased up on the gas, letting the weight of the truck carry him forward. A woman staggered to her feet just past a ditched car. The rain plastered her short hair to her head, making her eyes seem to jump off her face.

  After parking the truck on the side of the road, he turned on his own hazards and flipped on his high beams. He approached the minute woman. She took a defensive stance, as if she could fight him off with the flashlight she held if he’d intended her harm. Shorter than him by almost a foot, she couldn’t be more than a hundred pounds, soaking wet.

  “Wh-who are you?” The pixie lifted a yellow, square DeWALT flashlight and shined the beam into his eyes.

  Jackson strode toward her. “I’m a friend of Bubba’s. Who’re you?”

  She cocked her head to the side, as if sizing him up, and stumbled backward a step. “How do you know about him?” Her clipped tone, full of suspicion, drifted to him over the rain. She hadn’t answered his question.

  No time for proper introductions. “I’m his houseguest. Police scanner. Bubba keeps it turned on all the time.” He knelt beside his friend.

  Bubba’s face looked as if it’d been used as a punching bag. Jackson clenched his jaw. Hard. “Pard, what happened to you?” he mumbled.

  His response must’ve convinced her that he wasn’t a mass murderer as she knelt beside him. “He hasn’t moved since he tried to talk to me.”

  Jackson laid two fingers on Bubba’s neck. Slow pulse, and not at all steady. His friend’s eyes were swollen to the point where he couldn’t open them if he’d tried. “What happened? What’d he say?”

  The woman’s round brown eyes looked too large for her face. Or maybe they only appeared that way as she spoke with such animation. “I was heading ho—uh, to my sister’s house and actually slid into the ditch.” She nodded toward the car a couple hundred yards away with the yellow lights blinking. “A car pulled out of nowhere. I ran over, thinking I’d ask for help. But I heard men’s voices, and something about them told me to stop.”

  He could sense her tension even as Bubba’s skin turned cold and clammy. Why hadn’t he thought to grab his windbreaker?

  “I saw brake lights. Two figures took something from the backseat and tossed it in the road. One told the other to hurry, and the other complained that the bag was heavy.” She lowered her gaze to settle on Bubba’s face. “I thought they dumped trash.”

  His friend, tossed in a bag and thrown onto the road like garbage? He glanced at Bubba’s broken form. Beaten and left for dead. What if this woman hadn’t found him?

  “I tried to move the bag to the side of the road, so no one would round the curve and hit it.” Tears mixed with the rain on her cheeks. “I couldn’t. Then I heard him moan.” A shudder coursed over her.

  She’d most likely saved Bubba’s life. Jackson laid his other hand over hers and squeezed. “What’d he say?”

  Sirens lashed out against the silence. Blue flashing lights strobed against the moonless night.

  She jerked her hand free of his grasp and pushed to her feet. “About time they got here. I’ve been praying they wouldn’t be too late.”

  Jackson didn’t have time to comment before the police cruiser, trailed by a parish ambulance, sloshed to a stop. A deputy pulled him and the woman away from Bubba to talk while the paramedics made record time getting his friend into the ambulance. They sped off before Jackson could even ask the paramedics about the extent of Bubba’s injuries.

  The interior of the police car reeked of stale cigarette smoke. Jackson glanced at the woman crammed into the backseat beside him. Her gaze lit on his face, revealing something so sweet…so pure. He smiled, although the little voice in his mind wondered when had a pretty, helpless woman not turned his head.

  The deputy, introduced as Gary Anderson, shifted in the front seat to stare at the two of them. “Now, let’s start at the beginning.” He nodded to the woman. “You are?”

  “Alyssa LeBlanc. I’m a—”

  “Wait a minute. Alyssa…are you CoCo’s sister?” Gary asked.

  Alyssa. Brought to mind a little fairy. Jackson studied her for a minute. Yeah, the name suited her.

  She nodded. “I live in Shreveport and drove down this afternoon because my grandmother had a heart attack.”

  “Yeah, I heard. Sorry ’bout that. How’s she doing?”

  “Okay.”

  Jackson cleared his throat. “Could we please get on with this so I can go to the hospital and check on Bubba?”

  “Just hold yer horses.” The deputy scrawled on a little notebook. “So, Ms. LeBlanc, tell me what happened.”

  Alyssa repeated what she’d told Jackson.

  “Did you recognize the car?” the deputy asked.

  “No. It was metallic blue, though. At least, that’s how it looked in the light from the brakes. And a Pontiac, I think.”

  She’d never mentioned the make or color of the car before. Jackson looked hard at her.

  “Did you recognize the men?”

  “No, but I haven’t lived here in a long time, and it’s raining pretty hard.” She laced her hands in her lap. “I crouched down near the side of the road so they wouldn’t see me.” She shivered. “They gave me the creeps.”

  “Would you recognize their voices again if you heard them?”

  She shuddered and nodded. “One of them, most definitely.”

  “Tell me what the sheriff whispered to you.”

  Jackson hadn’t gotten an answer to that, either.

  Alyssa pinched her eyes shut. “He said, ‘Don’t let them get away with it, Jacks.’ Then he lost consciousness.”

  Jackson stiffened his shoulders. His gut instinct was right—the investigation Bubba had called him in to help on was directly linked to this attack. Now he had to figure out who was behind everything.

  The deputy kept writing in his notebook. “Any idea what he referred to?”

  “Not a clue.”

  Deputy Anderson nodded before facing Jackson. “Now, sir, you are?”

  “Jackson Devereaux. I’m a friend of Bubba’s. His houseguest.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  Jackson let the question die and explained how he’d heard the news on the police scanner and rushed over.

  “Why’d you do that?”

  “He’s my friend.”

  “Most people don’t listen to police scanners.” The deputy stared at him a moment, disbelief etched into the tiny wrinkles around his eyes
.

  “It’s Bubba’s scanner.”

  The deputy huffed and turned to Alyssa. “Do you listen to police scanners, ma’am?”

  A slow smile crept across her face. “Actually, I do.” She held up a finger. “But I’m a newspaper reporter and that’s what we do.”

  A reporter. His competition.

  “Uh-huh.” The deputy focused back on Jackson. “Does what the sheriff said to Ms. LeBlanc mean anything to you?”

  Jackson fidgeted in the seat. No sense not being upfront—it’d all come out soon enough. “Yeah. Bubba calls me Jacks.”

  TWO

  Yet another reason to detest this horrid bayou—a two-hundred-dollar pair of heels, ruined. She’d scrimped and saved for three months to buy them. As if she didn’t already have enough cause for irritation after tonight.

  Alyssa tossed the shoes onto the floorboard of the passenger side of the car. Maybe the dry cleaners could work some miracle on them when she got back to Shreveport. No, when she got back home.

  Shivers raced up and down her spine while she stared in her rearview window. That scene had rattled her more than she cared to admit. Some seasoned reporter she was turning out to be. Mr. Devereaux hooked his truck’s winch to the back of her car, then slapped her trunk. She slipped the gear into Neutral and gripped the steering wheel, ready to guide the car from the ditch. At least she didn’t have to wait for a tow truck.

  Deputy Anderson kept a careful eye on Mr. Devereaux’s actions, standing alongside him. The police might question Mr. Devereaux’s involvement in the attack because the sheriff had said his name, but her journalist’s instinct screamed a big no. If he’d attacked the sheriff, why’d he come to help? It didn’t make sense. Unless he came back to finish the job. No, that couldn’t be right. Different vehicle, different voice.

  Mr. Devereaux was handsome with his curly, dirty-blond hair and his dark, haunting eyes. The eyes that seemed to see into her soul. Something about the shape of them…She knew she’d seen them before but couldn’t place where. Even his name sounded vaguely familiar. As soon as she got a chance, she’d Google him. She might not recall where she knew him from, but she had a strong feeling she hadn’t liked him. No matter how good-looking.

  The car jerked and slowly rolled backward. Alyssa turned the wheel until her Honda sat in the middle of the road. When the car stopped moving, she set her stocking-clad foot on the brake, dried mud granules digging into the pad. In her side mirror, she watched Mr. Devereaux unhook her car. He wound the cable back onto the winch of the truck he drove, then appeared at her window. She let the glass down a couple of inches.

  “Crank ’er up.” Mr. Devereaux hadn’t even gotten winded coiling the heavy metal cable. Macho man.

  She turned the key. The engine purred. “Thank you so much.”

  “Happy to help.”

  “Well, I’d better get to my sister’s. I bet she’s worried about me.”

  “Do you want me to follow you, just to make sure you arrive okay?”

  “No.” Realizing she’d snapped the word, she forced a smile. Where were her manners? “No, thank you. It’s not that much farther.” She glanced in her side mirror. “Besides, I think the deputy’s waiting on you.”

  “Drive safely, chère.”

  Alyssa closed the window before putting the car in gear. Careful to drive slowly, she kept both hands firmly on the wheel. She glanced in her rearview mirror. Mr. Devereaux’s and the deputy’s brake lights glowed faintly in the distance.

  The rain’s intensity diminished, but an ominous sensation seemed to hover over her. As if someone were watching her. Alyssa shuddered. She stiffened her spine and gripped the steering wheel tighter. Probably just her imagination, her unease at being back in the bayou.

  She stared at the plantation home through the rain-streaked window. The house that had stood since before the War Between the States, her father’s childhood home, the place she’d been banished to when her life flipped upside down and where she suffered her worst humiliations as a teenager. Kudzu wove around the outside of the house, and the drooping branches of the live oaks formed a canopy entrance from the driveway. Alyssa swallowed and reached for the handle of the car door. She couldn’t put this off any longer. She grabbed her overnight case and headed to the veranda.

  Mud oozed up through the nylon between her toes. Disgusting. She grimaced but kept going. A gust of wind swept over the bayou, lurking to the right of the house behind Grandmere’s shed. The bright blue paint from the small lean-to drew attention away from the white of the big house. Steps creaked under her stocking feet as she made her way to the porch. She noticed the random new boards, not yet treated to match the others. At least CoCo attempted to keep up with maintenance.

  She paused at the front door. Should she knock? Technically, she had as much right to the house as her sisters. Yet, she’d turned away—fled, more accurately—from the place almost nine years ago. She’d only returned three times in the past five years, for Christmases, and during the last visit, when she’d run into one of the do-gooders who’d taunted Alyssa in school, she’d vowed not to come back. Alyssa hung her head. Maybe if she’d visited more often she’d have noticed Grandmere’s deterioration.

  The door swung open, and her older sister pulled her into an embrace. “Alyssa! I was getting worried about you.” CoCo’s words warmed Alyssa as much as the hug.

  Alyssa savored the bond. The connection she’d resisted for the past thirteen years felt…well, it felt good.

  “Let me look at you.” CoCo held her at arm’s length. “You cut and colored your hair!”

  Alyssa’s hands automatically reached for the shorter-than-short hair on the back of her neck. “I had it highlighted.”

  “I like it,” CoCo said with a nod. “Get in the house. You’re soaked.” She glanced down. “And why on earth are you barefoot?”

  “Long story.” Alyssa followed her sister into the house, her wet feet padding softly on the wooden floor, tracking mud with her steps. “Please tell me you have a pot of coffee on.”

  “Why don’t you go upstairs and take a hot shower while I brew a fresh pot?”

  “Sounds perfect.” Alyssa paused, glancing around the living room. “Uh, where do you want me?”

  “In your room, of course.”

  Her room. She didn’t want a room to be considered hers. Not here.

  Alyssa rolled her valise toward the staircase, then hefted the strap over her shoulder. She trudged up the stairs—all sixteen of them—and halted at the landing. The door to the right stood ajar. Her younger sister’s room. Alyssa stuck her head inside. Empty. She took a moment to hover in the doorway, drawing in the sweet smell of Tara’s lingering perfume. With a grin, she turned and headed down the hall.

  Frames filled with her mother’s award-winning photos decorated the walls of the hallway. A knot tightened in Alyssa’s stomach. She’d grown up seeing how high her mother had set the bar in journalistic endeavors. Wasn’t that the reason she herself had gone into journalism—to honor her mother? Past CoCo’s room, Alyssa stopped in front of the closed door. Her room.

  Alyssa nudged open the door with her hip, and froze. Time had stood still. The room remained exactly as she’d left it. As if she’d never gone—as if the house waited for her homecoming. The hairs on the back of her neck rose to attention. Her vision dulled and a wave of nausea rose.

  No! No more cauchemars. She’d suffered enough broken dreams in her life and didn’t need them slamming her now.

  She dropped her suitcase with a heavy thunk. Bending over, she retrieved clean clothes and her personal toiletries before marching into the hall to the bathroom. A hot shower would clear the cobwebs this house spun in her mind.

  Fifteen minutes and a lot of vanilla-scented soap later, she bounded down the stairs and into the kitchen. CoCo stood at the stove, stirring a pot of aromatic gravy. She smiled as Alyssa shuffled in. “I thought you could use some biscuits and gravy.”

  “Smells wonderf
ul.” Her stomach rumbled in response. Loudly.

  CoCo laughed. “Coffee’s ready.”

  Alyssa poured herself a large mug of the dark brew and sniffed. The rich aroma with a hint of a woodsy scent…chicory. She mixed in plenty of sugar and stirred in the right amount of cream to make the cup qualify as a café au lait before she plunked into a kitchen chair. “Thanks for this. Where’s Tara?”

  Her sister set a plate of steaming biscuits and gravy in front of her, then sat across the table. “Working.”

  “Really? Where?” Taking a bite, Alyssa closed her eyes. She hadn’t had chocolate gravy, cooked right, since…well, since Christmas morning three years ago. Her taste buds danced as the smooth thickness coated her tongue. A slice of heaven here on earth.

  “Jazz club. She does their books at night.”

  “At least she’s putting her degree to use. Finally.”

  The silence over the table hung as heavy as the rain outside.

  “I didn’t know for sure if you’d make the drive tonight.” CoCo’s eyes said what her words didn’t.

  Her sister had been afraid she wouldn’t come at all. That said a lot about this sisterly bond thing.

  “I told you when you called that I’d come.”

  “I’m just glad you’re here, Boo.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “What?” Her sister had that wide-eyed, innocent look on her unblemished face.

  “Boo.” Alyssa took a quick sip of coffee. “I don’t like it.”

  CoCo jerked back as if she’d been slapped. “Oh. Oui.”

  She wanted to tell CoCo not to talk Cajun at all, but the hurt stomping across her sister’s face made Alyssa hold her tongue.

  “The storm sounds nasty.”

  As if on cue, thunder rumbled so loudly the kitchen window rattled. The sisters locked stares and joined in nervous laughs. The tension of the moment dissipated, if only briefly. Alyssa gazed out the window.

  “Are you okay?”

  She didn’t like sharing her emotions. Never had. Ever since her parents died, she’d locked her pain and guilt inside. Alyssa glanced at her sister, nodded, paused, then shook her head. “Not really. I had an awful experience tonight.”