Then Ray waited, and they waited for Ray to make a move, careful to remain quiet. Jena texted Warren an update.
A gust of wind almost blew their cover away and even though they’d just gone on daylight saving time and should’ve had an extra hour of light, dark was setting in as another storm approached. It was supposed to be like this all weekend.
Mac touched her arm and pointed as an alligator, a beautiful animal with a nicely shaped head whose size would put it at about eight or nine feet, sprang vertically from the water and chomped down on the chicken.
Ray waited a few minutes until the gator got settled, then slowly began to pull the animal toward the surface using the other end of the line. The man was clearly adept at his job. He slowly hauled the gator up, wrestled with it a few seconds, and then delivered the kill shot in the quarter-sized soft spot at the back of the bony skull.
He pulled it into the boat and consulted the black box again.
But they’d seen enough. If the gator in Ray’s boat had a belly full of Black Diamond, they had him and Martin Patout both. If it didn’t, they at least could get him for poaching, a major offense that carried heavy fines, possible jail time, and suspension of Ray’s nuisance-hunter license.
Plus, it was raining again, in earnest. Visibility was disappearing fast.
Mac pushed their boat away from the bank, and Jena’s adrenaline surged as she stood up and pulled her SIG Sauer, yelling to be heard over the pounding of rain on water. “Stop there, Ray! We want to have a look at that gator you just pulled in. Put down the rifle slowly, and keep your hands where I can see them.”
“Aw, honey, you still mad ’cause I didn’t want to sleep with you?” Ray gave her a grin, and leaned down to set the rifle on the seat of the boat.
At the last second, he whipped it back up and fired. Mac cried out as he crumpled to the deck. There was no time to check on him. Jena returned fire immediately, but Ray had already started his outboard and was churning too much water for her to get a bead on him. All her shots went wide.
Ray was going to get away, damn it, and he’d be twice as hard to catch. Jena climbed over Mac and took over the navigation, circling to follow Ray. “Mac, can you shoot?”
“I think so.” His right side was already soaked with blood, but he reached for the rifle sitting next to the console.
What the hell?
Ray was coming back, his engine on full throttle, heading straight for the smaller LDWF boat. He was going to ram them.
“Mac, get a shot off if you can. Otherwise, hang on!” Jena started firing and, next to her, Mac got off at least two rifle shots. But everything else became a sudden blur of water and chaos and blood at the impact of Ray’s boat. She didn’t know whether or not any of her shots hit home.
The patrol boat had been turned sideways and pushed toward the shore, dragging Jena underneath it. She held her breath and got her bearings with her feet—the water was too choppy and too much mud had been churned up for a visual, but the LDWF life vests inflated upon hitting the water and would pop her to the surface as soon as she pushed clear of the boat. Stay calm. You know how to do this. Find shore first, then find Mac.
Her lungs were on fire by the time she ran into the low bank and was pushed to the surface by her vest. She took in a few lungsful of air and turned enough to see Ray sitting a little ways up the bayou, watching. He raised his rifle, and Jena let go of the grass, loosening her vest so she could sink again toward the bayou’s muddy bottom.
What was he thinking? That killing her and Mac would mean he was in the clear? Would he not realize they’d kept their supervisors informed? Then again, their portable radios and phones would probably be inoperable after being dunked in mud, so maybe he was gambling that they hadn’t reported in yet.
Warren’s words came back to her: Money makes people do desperate things.
She scrambled in the last direction that she’d seen her partner, and tripped over him. He was conscious and trying to reach a spot on the bank that would block them from Ray’s view. He’d loosened his life jacket as well.
They managed to keep their heads above water, and Jena was glad to see a level bank. “You’re hurt, so you’re first,” she gasped. “Move fast.”
Mac belly-crawled over the bank and rolled into the tall marsh grass, disappearing from view. Jena was right behind him. She collapsed next to him in the mud with rain coming down so hard it stung.
Six months ago, Jena had had the option of standing and fighting, or running. That time, she’d chosen to turn and fight. And everyone had suffered for it.
Right now, Ray had the advantage, and she wasn’t risking Mac’s life.
Through the thick strands of marsh grass, she saw Ray Naquin raise his head above the edge of his boat. “Don’t know if you’re still out there, sweet thang,” Ray called. She still couldn’t get a shot at him, so she fired at his boat and heard him curse. “Go ahead and try, bitch. You can’t lay in the grass all night, and the rain won’t hide you forever.”
Jena didn’t plan to hide. She planned to run.
CHAPTER 28
Cole heard gunfire—or a backfiring motor—from the direction of the bayou. He stood on his porch and tried to see through the slanting sheets of cold rain, but everything was murky from where the inlet met the flooded water of his road. There would be no travel by truck anywhere else today.
He’d spent most of the day trying to figure out the cell phone and had finally thrown it out in disgust when it looked like he needed a landline phone in order to activate it. If he already had a phone he wouldn’t need the damned thing. Finally, he picked it up and read the fine print. Reading instructions had never been one of his strong suits.
“Typical guy. Do first, read instructions later,” Rachel used to say. To which he’d usually reply with something resentful like, “Some of us have to work for a living and don’t have time to read the details.”
Her insistence on being a stay-at-home wife had always been a sore point with him because, at least until Alex came along, she’d done little other than lounge by the condo pool and shop. It’s how she’d been brought up, and Cole had spent five years chastising himself for letting resentment build up rather than talking it through.
Once Alex came, things had gotten better. Rachel was an attentive mother, and seeing Alex’s happy little-girl version of himself when he came home from a long shift made it worthwhile.
Meeting Jena Sinclair had made him think a lot about Rachel the last few days. Before, he thought of “the loss” in unison, as if Alex and Rachel and his mom were a single entity. Jena had unknowingly helped him separate the three, and he had to admit something he’d been tamping down. He was angry at Rachel. It might not be reasonable, but it was how he felt.
There. He’d thought it, and on some level Cole waited for lightning to come blazing from the sky to punish him. Rachel had taken Alex out of day care to hit a sale at the mall. They shouldn’t have been there. Alex should have been coloring dinosaurs or playing with her friends.
Part of him realized his anger was unfair, that Rachel would never have intentionally put Alex in harm’s way. But another part of him realized the grief for his daughter had been so all consuming, it had covered up the fact that his grief for Rachel was not as fierce.
Was that true, or was he vilifying Rachel to make it okay for him to want Jena?
Another blast sounded from the direction of the bayou and, again, Cole went onto the porch. Then two more blasts. Damn it; that was no backfiring motor.
He ran to his bedroom, took out the black-hooded poncho he’d made from an old tarp, and slipped it over his head. He stuck a big flashlight in one pocket and his pistol in the other. He picked up his shotgun, then put it back and, instead, moved the pistol inside his shirtfront so it had a chance of staying dry. Even if it didn’t, the pistol’s ammo was more waterproof and a wet shotgun could be unreliable.
He hoped he wouldn’t need either one.
Sloshing thr
ough knee-deep water on the way to his pirogue, which he’d tied to the edge of his porch, Cole paused and ran through different scenarios. This might be nothing, but the itch between his shoulder blades said otherwise. He’d been thinking all morning, after seeing the kid with the gators, that today would be a make-or-break time in this drug case. He couldn’t stand the thought of Jena on the losing end.
If he went paddling out into Bayou-Pointe-aux-Chenes, he could row himself right into a mess, depending on who was shooting at whom. Assuming anybody was shooting at all.
The spit of land next to his house—the one that formed the southern bank of the cut—was marshy and unreliable. It was crossable without a boat, however. He paddled into the blowing rain for what seemed like an hour before making it halfway down the length of the inlet from Bayou Pointe-aux-Chenes. At least the wind would be at his back on the return trip. And it was almost full dark now.
He secured the boat to a spindly, sad excuse for a tree that might have grown to be a thriving oak had too much salt water not been driven inland in the name of Big Oil. It was still sturdy enough to anchor a boat, however.
From there, he cut inland on foot for maybe an eighth of a mile, then turned east, toward the bayou. In places, he sank into cold water above his waist, keeping the pistol as dry as he could. He needed to figure out a way to turn a tarp into pants.
The rain slackened enough for him to gauge where he was—maybe three-quarters of the way to the bayou. It was too dark now to see if there were boats on the water, or even if there was water. Reaching inside his pocket, he pulled out his waterproof flashlight, an overpriced LED purchase he’d thought was a smart possession for someone who lived in an area that flooded so easily.
But it was bright, so he held it in his hand and only flicked it on occasionally to keep his bearings.
A light flashed ahead of him, sending a surge of adrenaline through his system. He slid his own flashlight into his pocket and took out his pistol, a sturdy .45. He made his way quietly toward the bobbing light, being careful not to make any unusual splashes, rounded behind the person, and saw a glint of light off red hair—very wet red hair.
“Jena?” He hissed as loud as he could for her to hear it but, he hoped, no one else would.
“Cole?” He found her then and pulled her into a tight hug.
“I thought I heard gunfire.”
She pulled back and tried to scrub some of the water off her face. “You did. Mac’s been shot, and our boat’s disabled. We’ve gotta go back and get him.”
“Are you hurt?” Cole liked Mac Griffin well enough, but the agent wasn’t his top priority. “Let me get you to the house, then I’ll find him.”
“No, I only left him to get help. He comes first.” She turned around and headed past Cole in the direction from which she had come. “Follow me.”
“No.” Cole grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him. “I’ll go and find him while you go on to the house. You’re headed the right way—just keep going toward the house—you can see the light a little through the rain. Tell me where Mac is.”
She hesitated, then described the spot where she’d left her partner. As soon as she mentioned a tupelo tree, he knew the area. Trees weren’t abundant in the southern parts of the parish. “It’ll be easier if I go with you.”
Jena wasn’t going to change her mind, and Cole got it. He and Mike had been partners, so he understood that kind of bond. She must have been desperate to have left him at all.
“Okay,” he said finally. “Let’s go get your partner.”
Mac was almost in shock by the time they found him, his eyes staring into nothing and his responses slow. Cole immediately hefted him up and made his way toward the house as quickly as he could go, Jena right behind him. Then he ran for the truck, yelling for Jena to take cover in the house. The road was too far gone, however, and the old pickup stalled halfway down the lane. Cole knew from experience that until the rain stopped and the road drained, they’d never get the truck out. He had to get Mac inside and put his rusty paramedic skills to the test.
Two hours later, with the wind and rain beating a steady rhythm on the roof, Cole finally stepped into the shower. He was freezing, and the hot water—well, tepid water was the best he could achieve—felt good after being in cold bayou mud for so long.
Mac had been lucky, although he probably didn’t feel that way right now. The bullet had gone into his side below his body armor but didn’t seem to have nicked any vital organs. The bullet hadn’t gone straight through, though, so it was impossible to tell what kind of internal damage might have been done.
He’d lost a lot of blood, and it was going to be hard to keep the wound dry and uninfected until they could get help. Shock also was a concern.
Getting help anytime soon wouldn’t be easy. Jena had speculated that as soon as this storm finished its way through, later this evening, Ray Naquin would come back to find his missing wildlife agents. Their trail would lead straight to Cole’s house. Jena still had her mobile phone, but its supposedly waterproof case hadn’t done its job. Mac’s phone was somewhere in the bayou.
Cole figured they had two, maybe three, hours before they had to either run or defend themselves.
He’d given both Mac and Jena dry clothes to replace their uniforms and settled them next to his old wood-burning stove to get warm. The electricity had gone down not long after they returned to the house, but that was okay. Lights made the house a more solid target.
When he’d gotten home with Mac, Cole had tied the pirogue to the back rail of his house. If they had to make an escape, the water was probably the least practical because they’d be more exposed. But there it was, anyway, just in case.
After his shower, he tied back his hair, pulled on some warm clothes, and went into the utility area off the back porch. There, with the aid of his flashlight, he found his survival kit—a heavy backpack he kept ready for . . . whatever. The day a hurricane ran him out of his house and into his boat for who knew how long. The day a psycho drug-trafficking gator hunter came looking to kill people he cared about.
This might not be that day, or night, but there was no point in taking chances. Cole stripped off his sweater to keep it from getting soaked, took the emergency pack through knee-deep water to the workhouse, and set it in the back of the cooler, where he had constructed a back door.
It had seemed like paranoia at the time. Now, it seemed smart.
Mac had finally drifted off to sleep and Cole was in the shower, so Jena walked around his living room, trailing her fingers across all the things he’d made himself. Furniture, sturdy and comfortable. Tables, chairs, cabinets.
As much as Cole had thought he was running away from home, he had simply remade himself along with a new home. He’d shown up tonight, out in the marsh, just when she thought her feet couldn’t slog through another inch of mud and water. She expected her partners to have her back, just as she’d always have theirs. But instinctively, she’d known Cole would be there for her even though it put him at risk.
She heard the back door open and close, and reached for her SIG Sauer. It had fired perfectly after its first submersion, and she’d cleaned it using oil and a chamois cloth Cole had given her, while he tended to Mac’s wounds.
Holding the weapon to her side, she quietly eased through the hall and into the small kitchen, which was illuminated by a gas lantern that gave the room an extra warmth. The light of a flashlight bobbed through the windows of the workhouse, and in a few seconds, Cole stepped out and sloshed his way toward the back stoop.
By the time he reached the door, Jena had retrieved a towel from the bathroom and had it waiting for him. “You just got out of the shower—didn’t get wet enough in there?”
He smiled and reached for the towel but took her hand instead, pulling it—and the towel—toward his chest. “Help me?”
She dried off his chest, trying not to pant over the smooth skin over muscle, the lightest dusting of hair. “Turn around,” she
whispered, and he did, pulling his long hair around his shoulder while she dried the taut muscles of his back.
Don’t start what you can’t finish, Sinclair. And you can’t finish this.
When he turned around, Cole cupped long fingers around her face and leaned in to kiss her. “You scared the hell out of me tonight. Don’t do that again.”
“I’m sorry I brought trouble to your door.”
He nodded. “Even if this Naquin guy doesn’t know you and I have . . .” He paused, as unsure of what they had as she was, and they both laughed. “Even if he doesn’t know we’re connected, this is the only occupied house around here. Wouldn’t take a mental giant to figure out where you’d go.”
“Believe me, Ray’s no mental giant,” Jena muttered.
“You sound like you have firsthand knowledge. You’ve been involved with him? I mean, it’s none of my business.”
“No! God, no. Ugh. He has the manners of a gorilla, not to mention the worst pickup line ever.”
Cole grinned, and Jena realized she’d seen him cry but never really laugh. How warped was that? “Okay, you opened the door,” he said, and his laugh was infectious. “What’s the worst pickup line ever?”
Jena’s smile faded.
“Hey.” Cole put a hand on her shoulder and slid it down to wrap his fingers around hers. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No.” Jena shrugged. “Let’s just say he indicated being with me wouldn’t be too bad in the dark. Can’t see scars in the dark, right?”
Cole’s blue eyes blazed. “Any chance you shot that asshole today?”
“I wish.” Maybe she had winged him but there was no way to know.
“I think we need to change the subject.”
Jena looked at him, suddenly aware of the heat coming off his body, of his closeness, of the finger he ran along her jawline before he kissed her. She wanted him so badly, his warmth, his desire, and his ability to make her forget the world.
Black Diamond (Wilds of the Bayou Book 2) Page 19
