Black Diamond (Wilds of the Bayou Book 2)

by Susannah Sandlin

  “What was in it?” Jena’s expression had gone blank and, if possible, her voice became more formal.

  “A black powder. I thought it was black pepper or something like that.” Cole closed his eyes. “Then I saw a picture in the newspaper of that Black Diamond drug. It looked just like it.”

  “Where is it now?”

  “Still buried.”

  Jena got up and paced the room. Cole looked back at the floor to avoid watching her slim, angular figure stride back and forth with her hands crossed over her chest. She was sexy as hell, even with her hair tied back and probable plans to have him arrested. “Anything else?”

  Yeah, the thing Cole had found weirdest of all. “I found something else strange when I was dressing the hide—well, the feet, actually. You know—suppliers buy them to make stuff for tourists. I’d been thinking I needed to call you anyway about the gator, but this on top of the drugs convinced me something weird was going on. Something bad.”

  Jena’s eyes narrowed. “What else did you find?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but it looked like some kind of signal or transmitter. A little orange light, stuck in the webbing between its toes. I didn’t know what to make of it.”

  “Where is it now?”

  “I dug it out of the foot thinking it was a rock. When I realized it wasn’t—and it was still blinking—I put it and the foot in a bag and stuck them in the refrigerator I keep in my workhouse.”

  “Good. I’m glad you kept them.”

  He’d been watching Jena closely as he talked, looking for any change of expression. She didn’t look confused or surprised, which could be her training—or it could mean she wasn’t confused or surprised. “Judging by your expression, I’m guessing my gator wasn’t the first one to show up with that thing in its foot.”

  She didn’t answer but sat on the chair facing him instead of on the sofa. She was widening the distance between them already, whether or not she was conscious of it. Which made him sad.

  “Why’d you call now, all of a sudden? Finding the item in the alligator’s foot?”

  “Like I said, I was already thinking about it, and then, that night, I was reading about that boy who blew his brains out on the drawbridge and saw a photo of Black Diamond and . . .”

  He closed his eyes, and the tumble of words halted as his mind withdrew beneath an onslaught of bloody images. Blood on mannequins, blood pooled in the aisles between racks of formal wear and into the children’s department. The cries of the injured as soon as police had taken in the shooter and let EMS in to search the store for survivors, stalking those aisles of blood with handfuls of triage tags.

  He pulled himself back to the present before the images went to the last one he remembered. The last image before some part of him had shut down.

  He got up and began pacing himself. “Once I read that story and saw the photo of Black Diamond, I knew what it was that I’d buried back there. I knew I had to tell somebody.” He turned to look at her. “I trusted you because I . . . I trusted you.”

  What could he say: Because you made me feel alive again? Because, somehow, you slipped beneath my defenses without even knowing it?

  Jena smiled. “I get it. We connected that first day on some level. But after overlooking everything else, I still don’t understand why the drugs and the boy’s death made a difference. You could’ve just kept quiet and never have gotten involved.”

  This time, he moved closer to her. “I don’t know how much you remember about it. About what happened in Yazoo City.”

  Her voice was soft. “Tell me.”

  “I was the first paramedic on the scene, first in the store. I didn’t know they were there—my wife, my mother, my daught . . .” He swallowed hard. “My four-year-old daughter. I was zeroed in on triage. Moving from one person to the next, not looking at their faces, just at whatever the injury was, tagging them by color as to who could be helped and how serious it was.”

  “Black tags for those already dead?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Black for the dead.” His mom had been in another section of the store; he didn’t find out until later that she’d died as well. By that time, he was too numb to process it. No, not numb—empty. Numb was what he felt when he bypassed a dark-haired woman in a red blouse and jeans, a woman who was clearly dead, to check on the child beside her.

  His child. The one who everyone said was the “spittin’ image” of her daddy, with blond curls and big, long-lashed eyes so blue they could melt your heart. Moments had passed—he didn’t know how many—before he’d realized that her small, bloody hand was clutched in that of the woman beside her. Only then had he recognized Rachel. Between that time and when he drove his “new” used pickup out of town, everything was a blur. He didn’t even remember picking Alex up and taking her to the ambulance, not until he saw that photo everywhere he looked.

  Cole skimmed over most of that for Jena, though, and focused instead on his anger. “I was furious with the scumbag who walked into that store with a gun until I saw him. Jena, he was just a sixteen-year-old kid strung out of his mind on meth. He didn’t have a clue what he was doing. He was being stupid and hotheaded, wanting to have it out with his girlfriend and lashing out in a way the drugs told him was okay. When he came down from his high and realized what he’d done, he killed himself.”

  “Kind of like the kid on the bridge?”

  Cole nodded. “It was all such a fucking waste.”

  Until a teardrop hit his arm, he hadn’t realized he was crying for the first time in five years.

  CHAPTER 21

  To hell with professionalism. Jena moved to sit next to Cole on the sofa and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He leaned on her for the briefest of moments before she could feel him wrapping himself inside his familiar shell. He stiffened his shoulders first, then pulled away from her and took a deep breath. Then another. A third. “Sorry. I don’t know where that came from after all this time.”

  “I do.” Jena pulled her arms away from him but rested her left hand on the knot of his fingers twisted together in his lap. “People stuff hurt and pain away the best way they know how. You did it by trying to make yourself untouchable. Strong. Self-reliant. Invulnerable. But all it did was cover up the hurt—it was still there, hiding and waiting to find a way out. That’s how you dealt with the unthinkable.”

  Cole leaned back and looked at her. His eyes were too perceptive, too probing. “And how did you deal with it, Jena?”

  She moved her hand away from his. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I just spilled my guts and you’re gonna lie to me?”

  But she was a law enforcement officer, and they had to deal with the information he’d shared. Mac would need to hear the facts, but Cole wouldn’t show his raw self to Mac. That had been for her, because he recognized another wounded spirit.

  “Okay.” Jena’s voice was little more than a whisper. Steeling herself for whatever reaction she thought he might have, Jena unbuttoned her left uniform sleeve, pushed it up, and turned her arm wrist side up. “My coworkers don’t know.” Except Gentry and Warren, and they would hold her trust as sacred.

  Cole took her wrist in his hands and traced a finger over the neat row of scars with gentle strokes. “These aren’t that old. Three months, maybe. You said you were injured at work; you did it because of that?”

  She nodded. “Partly, at least. I was shot twice last fall.”

  “Ah.” He stroked her wrist. “You were the agent with the woman who was kidnapped. I heard about that.”

  Jena gave him a weak smile. “You’re awfully well informed for a recluse.”

  “A recluse with Wi-Fi and a tablet.”

  “And no cell phone.” Jena shook her head, and moved to stand up. She needed to get Mac in here so they could decide how to handle this. Cole still held on to her wrist, however, and she either had to sit back down or stand halfway and look like a dork.

  “So why this, Jena?”

&n
bsp; Right, as if she would share the real reason. “It left me scarred, disfigured.” She paused. “Not just my face. I was feeling sorry for myself.”

  Cole reached out and tugged her chin so she couldn’t avoid looking at him. “I’m calling foul on that one. I don’t know you that well, but I do know this: you’re not the type to wallow in self-pity, and surgery can cover most scars these days.” He released her chin and her hand. “You don’t have to tell me. I can tell it’s still raw. If or when you want to, though, I’ll listen.”

  Jena almost blurted out the truth, of the real reason her world had gone black, but she couldn’t.

  Cole sensed it. Somehow, he did know her.

  He let her off the hook. “You want to call your partner in and figure out whether or not you’re gonna arrest me?”

  Right. Black Diamond. Alligators. That little business of the law.

  She wiped away tears on her way to the back door, and wasn’t surprised to find Mac sitting not in a deck chair beside the covered pool but on the step nearest the door. He turned when she cleared her throat and asked, “How much did you hear?”

  “Nothing,” he said, clearly not happy about it. “Not a damned thing. The White Rhino has very thick walls. But if you had screamed I would’ve heard you.” Mac stopped next to her and gave her a last hard look for good measure. “Except he made you cry.”

  “I have allergies.”

  “Liar.”

  For the next hour, Cole repeated his story while both Mac and Jena took notes, and she taped his statement.

  “I need to call our lieutenant.” Jena got up to use the landline in the kitchen so her side of the conversation wouldn’t be overheard. After a terse chat with a pissed-off Warren Doucet, she returned to the living room.

  “Am I under arrest?” Cole stood up, followed by Mac.

  “No, but our lieutenant is not a happy man,” she said. Never mind that Warren hadn’t been a bundle of joy since DEA agent O’Malley came to town and, by all accounts, neither had Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Roscoe Brown. Jena figured one parish, even one as large as Terrebonne, could only stand so much legal testosterone within its borders at one time, especially with the outsider holding the trump card.

  “How’d you swing that?” Mac asked. “I expected Warren to tell us to bring him in.”

  Jena grimaced. “I haven’t swung anything yet. The sheriff’s department will have someone meet us at Cole’s house. Now. They’ll probably get there before we do. They’ll dig up the gator entrails and drugs, examine what you still have in your possession, and make a judgment call. It helped that you volunteered the information.”

  “Woulda probably helped more if you’d volunteered it when you found the gator.” Mac gathered his keys and opened the front door. Cole followed, and they both turned to watch Jena transform back into official mode. She’d had her personal pistol in the drawer of the table next to her chair, within easy reach, but before Cole arrived, she’d removed her duty belt and her SIG Sauer. She’d been afraid too much official gear would scare him off.

  “I guess we’ll take all three vehicles out.” She set the alarm and locked the door of the White Rhino. “It’ll probably be the most traffic Sugarcane Lane has seen in a while.” Like ever, or at least since the cane fields ceased production.

  “There’s plenty of parking,” Cole said. “Doris and her husband moved today, so it’s just me back there now. I was looking for an isolated spot when I moved down here from Mississippi. Guess I have it.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, how do you make a living, Mr. Ryan?” Mac was going to keep this formal and professional, probably because Jena had gone out of her way to make it personal.

  Cole stopped beside the open door to his pickup and gave Mac a steady look. “My mother, wife, and daughter all had life insurance policies and I was the only surviving beneficiary,” he said, his tone abrupt. “I guess you could call it blood money.”

  CHAPTER 22

  If one of those nosy reporters had been around now, holding out their microphones and asking, “How do you feel, Mr. Ryan?” Cole wouldn’t have a clue how to answer. Five years ago, “No comment” had been an easy out.

  Now, he’d have to say, “Confused.” The idea of people—law enforcement officers at that—combing through his home and his workhouse left him petrified. Other than Jena, no one else had set foot in the place for five years. He felt protective of it, maybe in return for the protection it had offered him, the solace and solitude it had given him when he most needed it.

  At the same time, he felt more alive than he had since Rachel and Alex and his mom had been killed. It was like his brain had been an extinguished candle that someone had finally spotted and lit. The wick had sputtered but caught. His mind felt sharp, and he wanted to talk.

  Maybe once this was over, if he didn’t get made into an easy scapegoat, he’d call Mike again and really come clean this time. He wasn’t ready to revisit Yazoo City yet. He might never be. But he’d like to see his old friend and former partner on Ambulance 23.

  Mac Griffin’s truck took the lead in their convoy, Cole settled into the middle because he thought it would make Mac feel better, and Jena was a couple of cars behind him as they left Chauvin, cut over to Montegut, and then headed down the narrow Highway 665.

  Cole could tell Mac didn’t like him, but his admittedly rusty instincts told him it was more personal than professional. If he’d truly been concerned for Jena’s safety, he wouldn’t have left them alone to talk and, had that been the case, Cole wouldn’t have tried to interfere. They had a job to do, no matter what vibe was going on between Jena and him. Even she’d acknowledged the connection.

  He didn’t think it was jealousy either. Before his self-imposed exile from humanity, he’d been a pretty good judge of human behavior. You had to be, to be a good paramedic. People did something stupid or embarrassing, it backfired on them in some way that required a paramedic or EMT to get involved, and their first instinct was to lie, to avoid admitting they’d done something dumb. Every single time. The best paramedics could look past the words and quickly analyze the actions and emotions to get at the truth of a situation.

  He’d been considered an excellent paramedic, at least until the day he found himself unable to save a single member of his own family. He knew now that no one could have saved them other than God, and He had chosen not to. Cole had lost more than his family that day. He had lost his faith.

  No, Cole thought Jena’s partner was being plain-old protective. She’d just come back from a serious injury and was fragile. If she’d been telling the truth about her suicide attempt, she might be more fragile than her partner suspected. Mac didn’t like Cole because Jena did and he wanted to protect her. Cole could respect that.

  They passed the Island Road cutoff that went to Isle de Jean Charles and finally reached the last road that crossed Bayou Pointe-aux-Chenes. The turnoff to Sugarcane Lane came up quickly after that, and from what Cole could see around Mac’s truck, there was already a swarm of uniformed people around his house. Even though he had nothing left to hide, it made him nervous.

  He pulled his truck in behind Mac’s and killed the engine. He’d take his cues from the wildlife agents. Besides, if he’d gone barreling into his driveway, he’d look guilty of . . . something. There were so many options, from alligator poaching to drug trafficking.

  Jena parked across the dirt road, and the three of them walked in silence toward the house with Cole in the middle.

  “How should I play this?” Suddenly aware of his clenched fists, Cole forced his hands to relax and tried to release the tension from his shoulders.

  “Just tell the truth and . . . oh shit.” Jena looked around Cole and directed Mac’s gaze to the end of the lane. “I think the sheriff himself is here.”

  “And Warren too.” Mac pointed at the LDWF truck in front of Doris’s former home. “The big dogs have come out.”

  “Hold up!” They turned and saw two other wildlife ag
ents jogging to catch up with them. Good grief, how many people were going to be here? Cole stifled the urge to run like hell.

  Jena introduced the newcomers as senior agents Gentry Broussard and Paul Billiot. Great. The more the merrier.

  Both agents greeted Cole respectfully—more so than he deserved, given the circumstances. So he knew there was a pity factor at work. Jena had probably gone to the kitchen to call her lieutenant so she could explain who he was. He was being given professional courtesy that might not be extended to any other long-haired guy living so far off the grid.

  He didn’t know whether to be grateful for that or annoyed. Maybe a little of both. For now, he’d keep his mouth shut unless spoken to.

  His greeting by the sheriff and the Wildlife and Fisheries lieutenant wasn’t quite as warm. Both had the look of career, no-nonsense law enforcement officers, even if the lieutenant wore a dark-green uniform and was probably outranked by the sheriff, an imposing man, tall and broad and serious as a myocardial infarction.

  Cole unlocked the doors to both his house and his workhouse, giving permission for the deputies and forensics teams to go wherever they wanted.

  It wasn’t quite dark, but it would be soon, so he suggested they first make a trip to exhume the nastiest part of the job. “There are lights in the workhouse so you’ll be able to see everything in there, but we’ll lose daylight fast.”

  A sheriff’s patrol boat sat at the end of the outlet, and Cole agreed to ride with the officers to show them where he’d buried the gator’s contents. He’d almost barfed the day he buried them, so he didn’t want to imagine the odors that would be coming from that plastic bin when they opened it.

  He borrowed a heavy-duty flashlight from one of the officers—the guy named Billiot, he thought—and found his burial spot with sure-footed ease. The marine patrol deputy handed him a shovel, and Cole and Agent Billiot did the work of digging up what he’d done way too good a job at burying. They were both sweaty by the time they pulled the plastic bin out of the muddy soil with a wet, sucking sound.