Black Diamond (Wilds of the Bayou Book 2)

by Susannah Sandlin

  Jena refused to get in her own head; she had to stay inside Ray’s. “He’s not worth as much. He’s a loner. Nobody’s gonna pay to get him back, except that cops never like to see civilians hurt. So maybe I shoot Ryan, just injure him enough to put him out of commission, and take both of them with me as hostages.”

  “Where do you go?” Paul was driving faster now.

  “I don’t go home because that’ll be the first place everybody looks. Patout’s is iffy because they’re looking for Marty now too. But nobody knows Marty’s mama is involved, and she’ll hide them out or give them enough money to disappear.”

  “I agree,” Paul said. “We continue to Patout’s.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Cold. Blood is everywhere. It coats the floor. It coats his arms. The blood, vibrant and red, should be warm and still pulsing out of her body, but it isn’t and everything’s cold and she’s dead. They’re all dead.

  Ryan! Cole! Wake up!

  He brushed the nagging, faint voice away, and saw red again. But he had been wrong; the red wasn’t blood. It was red hair, so dark and rich it was almost burgundy. It flashed in the sunlight, and flames reflected over it in the dark. It fell in a silky sweep against a long, graceful neck.

  She wasn’t dead. Jena was alive. Jena was safe.

  Ryan! Damn it, you big, antisocial, agent-seducing, long-haired son of a bitch, wake up!

  Cole opened his eyes with a jolt as something sharp jabbed in his back. He blinked a couple of times trying to figure out where he was, but he had no clue, nor any idea of how he got there.

  “Ryan, I know you’re awake. I saw your shoulders tense. Roll onto your back. It’s Mac. Can you hear me?”

  Lord, that man never shuts up. And now he was poking Cole in the back again.

  Cole was lying on his right side on a tile floor that reeked of fish. That, more than anything, got his face moving, and he tried rolling to his back. His right arm wouldn’t work, though.

  “Can’t,” he finally said.

  A hand grabbed Cole’s left shoulder and pulled him to his back. Now he had a view of stained acoustical ceiling tiles.

  “Where are we?” Damn, but he was cold. Had a front moved in?

  “We’re in a goddamned freezer, that’s where we are. You got shot in the arm. We’ve gotta find a way to stay awake and keep from freezing to death before somebody cuts us into fillets and sells us to a tourist for dinner.”

  Slowly, it all came back. Maybe twenty minutes after Jena had left, Ray and Marty had come toward the cabin from the rear in Ray’s bass boat. Hiding in the tall marsh grass west of the cabin, Cole hadn’t been able to get a clean shot at Ray and didn’t want to shoot Marty cold. It was too hard for him to not think of Marty as a screwed-up kid surrounded by bad role models.

  But then Marty began preparing his specialty, the Molotov cocktail—so simple. A bottle, some gasoline, a rag, and a match.

  Cole didn’t have a choice. He’d been so damned smart and nailed the front door too tightly to bust open. He had to run for the back door and hope he could dodge a bullet. If he could get inside, he might be able to get Mac out a window before the whole place burned down on their heads. Or get a clear shot at Ray.

  But he didn’t make it. Ray had shot him in the right arm as he made the race for the stairs with Jena’s gun in his hand.

  The force of it spun him counterclockwise, and he instinctively raised Jena’s SIG Sauer and fired at Ray as he turned. Cole had stumbled into the house and slammed the door behind him, but not before he saw the front of Ray’s T-shirt bloom red. He’d hit his target.

  The rest got fuzzy, though.

  He tried to sit up, and gasped at the sharp pain that shot through his gut. He had no choice but to flop to his back again. The gunshot wound was a gnat bite compared to the pain in his gut.

  “What happened after I was shot? It’s a blur. No, it’s not even a blur.”

  “Marty Patout happened. We didn’t give him enough credit for the number of mean-bastard lessons he learned from Ray, I guess. You were out of it, so he came in and knifed you. If we weren’t hurt and in a freezer I’d fry your balls for dinner. Why didn’t you shoot him?”

  He remembered then. “I hesitated. I thought with Ray gone we could talk him down. He’s just a—”

  Mac grunted. “Cole, he’s eighteen, and kids do a lot of bad shit. Plus, he had a knife. Maybe a gun, for all I know. Now he has my gun. It would’ve been self-defense.”

  “I couldn’t do it.” He didn’t know why, exactly. Maybe because he’d done such dumb stuff when he was a teenager—nothing criminal, but dumb. Stuff that probably should’ve gotten him killed. And then there was the kid on the drawbridge. The broken neck on the kid who’d shot up the mall and hanged himself in his jail cell. “I just couldn’t do it.”

  “I know, man. Ignore me. You’re so good at this stuff I forget sometimes that you’re not one of our agents.”

  “No way. The work’s too dangerous.”

  “Tell me about it. Hey, are you cold?”

  “Not as much as I was. Sleepy.” He just wanted to doze off, and it would all go away. Mac needed to shut the hell up. First the man was unconscious forever and now he kept running his mouth.

  “That’s it. We’ve gotta get moving.”

  Cole was dreaming of the soft fall of red hair again when a whack to the face woke him up. Mac leaned over him and had his hand raised for another slap.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Cole raised his good arm and batted the agent’s hand away.

  “Waking you up. If you think I’m going to tell Jena I let her man freeze to death without a fight, you’re nuts. She’d eat me alive, and I don’t mean that in a good way.”

  The slap had reengaged his brain, at least. “I know we’re in a freezer, but where? How’d that scrawny kid handle both of us?” He sort of remembered being thrown in a van or truck of some kind, but it was so vague he might’ve imagined it.

  Okay, he’d been shot in the right arm. The stab wound, he needed to see since he didn’t remember it.

  Mac had managed to sit up, and his wound actually looked better. The cold of the freezer would help the swelling if it didn’t kill him from hypothermia.

  “Can you help raise my left shoulder? I’m going to try and prop on that arm long enough to look at the stab wound.”

  Mac grabbed his shoulder and lifted as Cole maneuvered his left hand underneath him and straightened his arm. Blowing out a breath of pain, he gasped, “Pull up the sweater.”

  Once Mac had uncovered the wound, Cole studied the knife’s entry point—a surprisingly smooth thoracic slice right between his ribs. He couldn’t tell what internal damage had been done, only that he’d lost a lot of blood given how long he’d been out of it and how bloody he was. It hurt like hell. The stab wound was like a more benign version of Mac’s gunshot wound, almost in the same spot.

  Except, wait. “What kind of blade did he have?”

  Mac eyed him. “You really want to ask that question, given we’re in the freezer of a fish processor?”

  Oh hell. He’d be lucky if he didn’t end up with a nasty infection; he doubted that Sterilize fillet knife before stabbing human with it had been on Marty Patout’s to-do list. Ironically, the cold of the freezer would also help ward that off and stanch the bleeding. If he, also, didn’t freeze to death.

  “Okay, you’re right. We’ve gotta move.”

  “That’s more like it.”

  By sliding to a counter and pulling himself up, Mac was able to get to his feet before Cole. He found a mop and broom in the corner and, turned upside down, found both worked as makeshift crutches.

  He hobbled his way over to Cole and leaned down, extending his arm. “It’s going to hurt, but you’ve gotta get up.”

  Cole gritted his teeth and took hold of Mac’s arm. He used as much leg muscle as he could, but the pain took his breath away. It probably hurt Mac worse.

  With the agent’s he
lp—and the mop’s—he made his way to a big aluminum cutting table and began easing his way around it, following Mac’s example. Every step was excruciating.

  “So what did you mean by me being Jena’s man? Am I Jena’s man?”

  Mac’s breath came out in short, sharp puffs of condensation. He was getting winded too. “I dunno. You kissed. More than once. Never heard of her kissing anybody else.”

  Cole seriously doubted a woman that striking had gone her entire life without kissing anyone but, still, it was good to know she was as unattached as he’d assumed. He liked the idea of being her man, although it still kind of freaked him out.

  Before, he’d been a self-reliant man living off the grid. Now, he was going to be involved as a witness in a criminal case, for sure. He was going to have hospital bills—maybe a lot of them—for which he had no insurance. Even the money from his family’s life insurance policies wouldn’t cover it all. And he was homeless but for some literally scorched earth.

  Jena should run like hell from being involved with him, and probably would.

  CHAPTER 34

  The drive from lower Pointe-aux-Chenes to the western side of Houma was never fast, but Jena didn’t think it had ever been this slow, even with speed demon Paul Billiot behind the wheel.

  Since Paul wasn’t a big conversationalist—he was the anti-Mac, in other words, and today had been the longest she’d ever heard him speak in consecutive sentences—Jena watched the scenery for a while. Then she decided to study the inside of Paul’s truck to see what she could learn about him and take her mind off Mac and Cole.

  Technically, it was exactly like hers and Gentry’s. It had a black exterior with a blue light bar across the top and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Enforcement Division logo on the doors.

  It was tech heavy on the front dash, just like theirs, with LDWF, Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office, and Louisiana State Police Troop C radios, a laptop, a GPS unit, and a weather unit.

  In her truck and in Gentry’s, the cords and wires were a colorful tangle of plastic and metal, usually with extra plugs dangling around like vines. Paul’s cords were all black, and he had them woven in pairs and tucked underneath the dash, where they neatly disappeared.

  She leaned over to see how he’d achieved such a thing, and noticed identical zip ties holding them in place.

  “Sinclair, I hate to ask, but what are you doing?”

  He sounded more bemused than annoyed, so she said, “I’m psychoanalyzing you based on the interior of your truck.”

  He almost ran off the road. “Why?”

  “Your scintillating conversation was putting me to sleep.”

  His dark brows knit together but he seemed to have no answer to that.

  She turned around in her seat, as much as the seat belt allowed, and continued her study. Paul had a 12-gauge shotgun and a .223 carbine mounted right behind the driver’s seat, same as in her own truck. The mounts had hidden release buttons so the agents could get the guns out one-handed and quickly.

  But where her truck had a catch-all supply of stuff, from paper towels to zip ties to evidence bags to fast-food wrappers stuffed in the back, Paul’s backseat was empty but for a zippered storage container normal people used for shoes. Each space held different stuff, all neatly arranged. Jena spotted evidence bags in one. Zip ties in another. Notebooks. Citation books. Paperwork. A spare uniform hung over one window, with a dry-cleaner’s tag dangling from the shirt’s top button.

  Good Lord. She turned back around.

  “What did you learn?” Paul finally asked.

  “You’re an obsessive-compulsive neat freak,” she said. “Accent on freak.”

  He shrugged. “And this surprises you?”

  “Not at all. Only that you didn’t alphabetize the items in your storage bag.”

  “That’s a great idea.”

  Before she could tell whether or not he was joking—the man did have a sly sense of humor—his phone rang again. “It’s Warren,” he said, putting it on speaker.

  Jena’s tension rose. She’d hoped it was Gentry, saying they’d found Cole and Mac.

  Instead, Warren’s voice was terse. “This might be good news. A fisherman on Bayou Pointe-aux-Chenes called in a body found about a quarter mile from that little inlet that leads to the back of the old Connor place. It was Ray Naquin, dead from what looks like a .45 to the chest.”

  Jena closed her eyes in relief, then felt ashamed that she was glad for anyone’s death, even a snake like Ray. But it told her that maybe Mac or Cole had shot him, which increased their chances of still being alive.

  But where were they?

  “Sinclair’s got a theory about who’s really behind this whole thing and you need to hear it,” Paul said. “I think she’s right.”

  His words reminded Jena of her moment of clarity in the marsh on the way to the bayou that morning. She was a leader. She was smart and strong. Other people saw her that way, so it was time she believed it.

  “Okay, let’s hear it, Sinclair. Who’s the mastermind?”

  “Amelia Patout,” she said, shooing away a gnat of self-doubt. It was ingrained.

  There was a long pause, until Warren said, “Damn. I hate to think it was her, but it sure as hell makes sense. She needs the money and she and Ray have worked together legitimately for years. He and her husband were good friends. You’re still on your way to Houma? What’s your ETA?”

  “Maybe fifteen minutes,” Paul said. “We’re caught in rush hour.”

  “Go in with lights and sirens and see if you can move the traffic out of your way. I’ll call Houma PD and the sheriff. And maybe Agent O’Malley.” Jena thought maybe the last was added a little grudgingly.

  Adrenaline coursed through her when Paul flipped on the siren, and startled drivers began the chaos of trying to move out of the way.

  A few minutes later, with Patout’s in sight, Jena leaned forward to get a better look out the window. The white boat with “Gypsy” visible under the bad paint job sat in the back lot, hitched to the pickup.

  The van, however, was crossing the lot and heading for the exit.

  “We need to stop the van!” Jena shouted.

  Paul cursed at a driver and, at the last second, was able to angle across two lanes and block the exit, forcing the van to lurch to a stop.

  Paul was out of the truck with his gun drawn before Jena had finished unbuckling her seat belt, but she caught up with him.

  Amelia Patout rolled down her window. “What’s the trouble, agents?”

  Jena spotted Marty, hoodie raised, slouched in the passenger seat. She didn’t see Slade, and hoped he wasn’t here to witness this. She looked at Amelia just as the woman’s gaze slid to the left. Jena realized Amelia was going to try going around Paul’s truck and jumping the curb.

  Well, she’d have to run over Jena to do it. Jena ran to block the middle of the front parking lot just as Amelia stomped on the gas and turned in her direction. As soon as she saw Jena, she slammed on the brakes again.

  With Paul’s spare SIG Sauer drawn, Jena crossed to Amelia’s side of the van as soon as it stopped. “Show me your hands!” she shouted. “Show me your hands! I want to see them!”

  Houma PD came in a few seconds later. Within a few minutes, law enforcement of every stripe had descended on Patout’s Seafood, along with a TV news crew. Great. Cole and Mac weren’t in the back of the van, but officers were combing the building.

  Paul had finished reading Amelia her rights and was leading her away in handcuffs when Jena stopped them. “I want to talk to her for a minute.”

  “Okay with me,” Paul said. “Maybe she’ll tell you where Mac and Cole are. Hasn’t said anything yet.”

  Warren and Paul stepped back to talk to the Houma officers, leaving Jena with Amelia. Jena patted the woman on the shoulder. Amelia had done all the wrong things, really bad things, but Jena thought it had to be from an honest worry for her children.

  “Is Slade in a
safe place?” she asked. “Do we need to send anyone to take care of him?”

  “He’s at home by himself.” The woman began to cry. “This was for him. Doesn’t that make it okay? It was all for Slade.”

  Jena sympathized with the woman’s plight, but too many people had been killed or injured. It was all such a waste. “Where are the others? The agent and the other man?”

  At Amelia’s hesitation, Jena added, “Please. Don’t let anyone else die.”

  “They’re in the back freezer,” Amelia whispered, the fight gone out of her as she watched her older son being stuck in the back of a Houma PD cruiser. “The key is hanging by the cash register. I’m sorry; they’ve been in there a long time.”

  Paul, who’d been listening more closely than Jena thought, was already halfway to the building before Amelia finished her sentence, but Jena and Warren weren’t far behind as a couple of Houma PD officers led Amelia toward a squad car.

  Paul snatched a key chain off the wall behind the counter and ran into the back.

  They waited, Jena almost jumping out of her skin each time he tried a key and failed. Finally, the lock clicked and Paul opened the heavy doors.

  Cold air and condensation spilled out, and the first thing Jena saw was a broom and a mop in the middle of the floor, then a lot of blood.

  “Here they are,” Paul called from the back. “We need paramedics and two stretchers.”

  Jena slid around the corner. Oh God. Mac looked still and cold, but he didn’t have more injuries that she could see. Cole was covered in blood. Neither of them was moving. “Are they . . .” She couldn’t say the words.

  Paul had two fingers pressed against Cole’s carotid; he’d already checked Mac. “Their body temps are really low, but they’re both still alive.”

  Jena stayed to watch the paramedics, promising Warren she’d come in to give a statement as soon as she knew they were okay.

  An ambulance had been pulled into the back lot, so it was a short walk to roll the men into a more controlled environment, first Mac and then Cole. Jena flashed a badge at the head paramedic. “These are our guys. I’m riding with you.”